Such are the nature and consequences of the vow of perpetual seclusion. Such is a portion of the "doctrinal definition already made by the general councils and former pontiffs," which, according to Bishop Kendrick, "are landmarks which no man can remove." (Primacy, p. 356). Such are some of the Catholic dogmas, which, "in regard to every subject whatever," according to Brownson "have been always the same from the beginning, remain always unchangeably the same, and will always continue in every part of the world immutable." (Review, January, 1850). Such is in part "what the church has done, what she has tacitly or expressly approved in the past," and according to the same authority "is exactly what she will tacitly or expressly approve in the future, if the same circumstances occur." (Review, January, 1854). "The same circumstances" is the universal church, which Jesuit Hecker, in his recent speech in Chicago, thinks the United States needs, and which the people (Catholics) will at no distant day proclaim.
CHAPTER IV. THE MONASTIC VOW OF PERPETUAL SILENCE
A vow of perpetual silence was assumed by several religious orders; but it was observed with different degrees of austerity. Some monks passed their whole lives in profound silence; others spoke on certain days of the week; and others at particular hours of specified days. The modern penitentiary regulations respecting the conversation of prisoners seem to have been derived from the singular customs of the dumb brotherhood.
The members of the mute orders, perpetually concealing their features with their cowls, and their thoughts by their silence, appear to have concluded that secrecy was the substance of religion. He who could conceal the best, and preserve silence the longest, obtained among the devout the useful credit of possessing the most grace. The effusion of the Holy Ghost, which, by a prodigal distribution of tongues, and their clashing jargon, had set the primitive ecclesiastical council in an uproar, and which, by its powerfully stimulating qualities had turned so many cities upside down, had a very different effect on the silent orders of the Catholic Church. While to the former it communicated intuitive knowledge of all languages, to the latter it interdicted as profane the use of any. To pass an entire life without uttering a word, was considered by the dumb friars, as an unquestionable evidence of their having received the unutterable fulness of the Holy Ghost. Whether the primitive church and the Catholic orders were blest with the influence of the same Holy Ghost, or whether the divine spirit politely accommodates the nature of his unction to the demands of particular ecclesiastical exigencies, seems to require some proof, before it can be rationally admitted that profound silence and distracting discord are effects of the same cause.