Chapter VI: The Ultramontane Way of Thinking (2)

A young brood of goldfinches, who had taken possession of the arbor, now cleared off. They flew up on the dwarf trees, or hid among the roses, which of all colors and kinds grew in the garden. The hungry young ones cried incessantly, and tested severely the parental duty of support. But the old ones were not ashamed of this duty. Here and there they caught flies and other insects, and carried them to the young ones, who stood with outstretched wings and flabby bills wide open. Then the old ones would fly away again, light on the branches--mostly on bean-stalks--make quick dodges, wave their tails, smack their tongues, and seize as quick as lightning a harmless passing fly. The sparrows did not behave so harmlessly. They pecked at the bright shining cherries that hung in full clusters on the swaying branches. Others of this sharp-billed gentry hopped about on the strawberry-beds, and disfigured the large berries as they tore off great pieces of the soft meat. One of them had even the boldness to hop about on the decorated table that stood at the upper end of the arbor, to strike his sharp bill into the buttered bread, make an examination of the preserves, ogle the slices of ham, and admire the black bottles that stood on the ground. He also took to flight as the company arrived. The vine-blossoms seemed to send forth a sweeter fragrance as Angela, bright and beaming, approached, leaning on the arm of her mother.

"Do you have this edifying reading every Sunday?" asked Richard.

"Regularly," answered the proprietor. "It is an old custom of our family, and I find it has such good results that I will not have it abolished. The servants are not obliged to be present. They are free after vespers, each one to employ himself as best suits him. But it seldom happens that a servant or a maid is absent. They like to hear the legends, and you may have remarked that they listen with great attention to the reading."

"I have observed it," said Frank. "Miss Angela is also such an excellent reader that only deaf people would not attend."

She smiled and blushed a little at this praise.

"I consider it a strict obligation of employers to have a supervision over the conduct of the servants," said Madame Siegwart. "Many, perhaps most, servants are treated like the slaves in old heathen times. They work for their masters, are paid for it, and there the relation between master and servant ends. This is why they neglect divine service on Sundays and feast-days; their moral wants are not satisfied, their natural inclinations are not purified by restraints of a higher order. The servants sit in the taverns, where they squander their wages, and the maids rove about and gossip. This is a great injustice to the servants, and full of bad consequences. It cannot be questioned that masters should shield their servants from error and keep them under moral discipline."

"Precisely my opinion," returned Frank. "If servants are frequently spoiled and general complaint is made of it, the masters are greatly in fault. I have long since admired the conduct of your servants. I looked upon Herr Siegwart as a kind of sorcerer, who conjured every thing under his charge according to his will. Now a part of the sorcery is clear to me."

"Well, you were favorable in your judgment," said the proprietor, laughing. "So you considered me a magician; others consider me an ultramontanist, and that is something still worse."

Richard smiled and blushed slightly.

"You no doubt have heard this honorable title applied to me, Herr Frank?"

"Yes, I have heard of it."

"And I scarcely deceive myself in supposing," continued Siegwart good-humoredly, "that your father has spoken to you of his neighbor, the ultramontane."

"You do not deceive yourself at all," answered Frank. "I consider it a great honor to have become better acquainted with the ultramontane."

"I have often wished to speak to you," continued the proprietor, "of the reason which called forth your father's displeasure with me. I suppose, however, that you have heard it."

"My father never spoke of it, and I am eager to know the unfortunate cause."

"It is as follows. About ten years ago your father, with some other gentlemen, wished to establish a great factory in this neighborhood. The land on which it was to stand is a marsh lying near a pond, the water of which was to be made of use to the factory. I tried with all my power to prevent this design, and even for social and religious reasons. Our neighborhood needed no factory. There are but few very poor people, and these support themselves sufficiently well among the farmers. Experience proves that factories have a bad effect on the people in their neighborhood. Our people are firm believers. The peasants keep conscientiously the Sundays and festivals. In all their cares for the earthly they do not forget the eternal life. This religious sentiment spreads happiness and peace over our quiet neighborhood. The factory, which knows no Sunday, and the operatives, who are sometimes very bad men, would have brought a harsh discordance into the quiet harmony of the neighborhood. I considered these and other injurious influences, and offered a higher price for the swamp than your father and his friends. As there was no other convenient place about, the enterprise had to be given up. Since that time your father is offended with me because I made his favorite project impossible. This is the way it stands. That it is painful to me, I need not assure you. But according to my principles and views I could not do otherwise. Now judge how far I am to be condemned."

"I speak freely," said Frank. "You have acted from principles that one must respect, and which my father would have respected if he had known them."

The proprietor could have observed that he had, in a long letter, justified himself to Herr Frank. But he suppressed the observation, as he felt it would be painful to his son.

"Father," said Henry, "hunger and thirst are appeased. Can I ride out for an hour?"

"Yes, my son; but not longer. Be back by supper-time."

The young man promised, and, after a friendly bow to Frank, hastened from the garden. The little circle continued some time in friendly chat. The servants under the lindens became noisy and sang merry songs. The maids sat around the tea-table in the kitchen and praised St. Zitta.

The cook appeared in the arbor and announced that Herr von Hamm was in the house, and wished to speak on important business to Herr and Madame Siegwart.

"What can he want?" said the proprietor in surprise. "Excuse me, Herr Frank; the business will soon be over. I beg you to remain till we return. Angela, prevent him from going."

Angela, smiling, looked after her retiring parents and then at Richard.

"I must keep you, Herr Frank. How shall I begin?"

"That is very easy, Fräulein. Your presence is sufficient to realize your father's wish. A weak child of human nature cannot resist one who can conquer steers."

"Now you make a steer-catcher of me. Such a thing never happened in Spain; for there the steers are not so cultivated and docile as they are with us."

She took out her knitting.

"This is Sunday, Miss Angela!"

"Do you consider knitting unlawful after one has fulfilled one's religious duties?"

"The case is not clear to me," said Frank, smiling secretly at the earnestness of the questioner. "My casuistic knowledge is not sufficient to solve such a question reasonably."

"The church only forbids servile work," said she. "I consider knitting and sewing as something better than doing nothing."

"I am rejoiced that you are not narrow-minded, Fräulein. But this little stocking does not fit your feet?"

"It is for little bare feet in Salingen," she replied, laying the finished stocking on the table and stroking it with both hands as a work of love.

"I have heard of your beneficence," said Frank. "You knit, sew, and cook for the poor people. You are a refuge for all the needy and distressed. How good in you!"

"You exaggerate, Herr Frank. I do a little sometimes, but not more than I can do with the housework, which is scarcely worth mentioning. I make no sacrifice in doing it; on the contrary, the poor give me more than I give them; for giving is to every one more pleasant than receiving."

"To every one, Fräulein?"

"To every one who can give without denying herself."

"But you are accustomed also to visit the sick, and the hovels of poverty are certainly not attractive."

"Indeed, Herr Frank, very attractive," she answered quickly. "The thanks of the poor sick are so affecting and elevating that one is paid a thousand times for a little trouble."

Frank let the subject drop. Angela did not give charities from pride or the gratification of vanity, as he had been prepared to assume, but from natural goodness and inclination of the heart. He looked at the beautiful girl who sat before him industriously sewing, and was almost angry at his failure to detect a fault in her pure nature.

"Do you always adorn the statue of the Virgin on the mountain?" said he after a pause.

"No; not now. The month of our dear Lady is over. I always think with pleasure of the happy hours when in the convent we adorned her altar with beautiful flowers."

"You must have a great reverence for Mary, or you would not ascend the mountain daily."

"I admire the exalted virtues of Mary, and think with sorrow of her painful life on earth; and then, a weak creature needs much her powerful protection."

"Do you expect, Miss Angela, by such attention as you show the statue to obtain protection of the saint?"

"No, I do not believe that. The adorning of the pictures of saints would be idle trifling if the heart wandered far from the spirit of the saints. Our church teaches, as you know, that the real, true veneration of the saints consists in imitating their virtues."

Frank sat reflecting. The examination and probation were thoroughly disgusting to him. Siegwart appeared in the garden, and came with quick steps to the arbor. His countenance was agitated and his eyes glowed with indignation. Without speaking a word, he drank off a glass of wine. Frank saw how he endeavored not to exhibit his anger.

"Has Herr von Hamm departed?" asked Richard.

"Yes, he is off again," said the proprietor. "Angela, your mother has something to say to you."

"Now guess what the assessor wanted?" said Siegwart, after his daughter had left the arbor.

"Perhaps he wanted the Peter-pence collection," said Frank, smiling.

"No. Herr von Hamm wanted nothing more or less than to marry my daughter!"

Frank was astonished. Although he long since saw through Hamm's designs, he did not expect so sudden and hasty a step.

"And in what manner did he demand her?"

"It is revolting," said the proprietor, much offended. "Herr von Hamm graciously condescends to us peasants. He showed that it would be a great good fortune for us to give our daughter to the noble, the official with brilliant prospects."

"Herr von Hamm does not think little of himself," said Richard drily.

"How did the man ever come to ask my daughter? He and Angela! What opposites!"

"Which, of course, you made clear to him."

"I reminded the gentleman that identity of moral and religious principles alone could render matrimonial happiness possible. I reminded him that Angela was an ultramontane, whose opinions would daily annoy him, while his modern opinions must deeply offend Angela. This I set before him briefly. Then I told him frankly and freely that I did not wish to make either him or Angela unhappy, and at this he went away angrily."

"You have done your duty," said Frank. "I am also of opinion that similar convictions in the great principles of life alone insure the happiness of married life."

When Richard came home, he wrote in his diary:

"June 4.--Unconditional surrender. What I supposed only to exist
in the ideal world is realized in the daughter of an ultramontane.
Angela, compared to our crinolines, our flirts, our insipid
coquettes--how brilliant the light, how deep the shadow!

"My visits to that family have no longer a purpose. I feel they
must be discontinued for the sake of my peace. I dare not dream of
a happiness of which I am unworthy. But my future life will feel
painfully the want of a happiness the possibility of which I did
not dream. This is a punishment for presuming to penetrate the
pure, glorious character of the Angel of Salingen."

He buried his face in his hands and leaned on the table. He remained thus a long time; when he raised his head, his face was pale, and his eyes were moist with tears.

TO BE CONTINUED.

DR. HARWOOD'S PRICE LECTURE.

A certain Mr. Price, of Boston, left a sum of money for a course of annual lectures, one of which is to be against "Romanism," and Dr. Harwood, the rector of Trinity church, New-Haven, having been selected as the lecturer for the current year, has favored us with the publication of his lecture on "Romanism," in the pages of the _New-Englander_, as well as in the form of a separate pamphlet. The dignified place which is held by the author of this lecture, as well as his personal character and influence, give a considerable weight to whatever he may publicly say on such a topic, in addition to the intrinsic claim it may have on the attention of both his partisans and opponents. On this account, and moreover on account of the tangible, well-exposed issue which distinguishes the production of the reverend doctor from most of the _brochures_ of his polemical associates, we have thought it worth while to devote a little time to the discussion of its contents.

Dr. Harwood does not attempt a formal argument against the claims of the Roman Church to supremacy over all Christendom. He is addressing an audience with whom, as with himself, it is a foregone conclusion that these claims are baseless, and Romanism a fearful, dangerous superstition. There is a tone of dislike and fear running through the lecture with which the audience is expected to sympathize fully, as when something is spoken of whose very mention is sufficient to awaken the aversion of all the moral sensibilities without any need of showing reasons. Just as the mere mention of the words polytheism, Mohammedanism, Mormonism, call up those sentiments of the falsehood and evil of the things they represent, which are interwoven with the intellectual and moral constitution inherited from our ancestors, nurtured by education, and governing our judgments like a second nature, so the mere pronunciation of the terms Rome, pope, sacrifice of the mass, with their derivatives and the other phrases associated with them, are quite sufficient to carry away an average New-England audience in a tide of sympathy with any anti-Roman orator. It was not necessary, therefore, for Dr. Harwood to argue with an audience already convinced, in proof of the position that the Roman Church must be resisted and opposed. The question to be considered was how best to do it? What are the points to be attacked? is one division of the question; by what road, with what weapons are these points to be attacked? is the other. With a singular and very honorable manliness and directness, the lecturer puts aside all secondary issues and places himself openly in front of the fundamental dogmatic basis of the Roman Church, with the avowal that it is necessary to the victory of his cause to attack and subvert this central stronghold. He seeks to ascertain, like a topographical engineer who is laying out positions for a bombardment, the precise situation and extent of this central work, and the exact spot on which the heavy guns which are to play upon it must be planted. It remains yet to be seen whether his report will be accepted by the leaders of his side, and an attempt made to carry out the bold, perhaps somewhat hazardous, strategy which he recommends.

Aside from all preliminaries and accompaniments which serve to give rhetorical finish and effect to the lecture as a popular oration, its gist and pith consist in the statement that the two dogmas of the sacrifice of the mass and the papal supremacy form the constitutive principle of the Roman Church, which the masters of heavy polemics are recommended to step up and overthrow. We have no objection to this issue, and are perfectly willing to fight the whole campaign through on that line. If the doctor intends, however, to define precisely and scientifically that these two dogmas together constitute the _differentia_ of the doctrine of the Roman Church, his definition is open to criticism. The dogma of the sacrifice of the mass is no part of the _differentia_ which distinguishes the Roman Church from the Eastern Christians, or from a respectable party in the author's own communion. The true _differentia_ marking the Catholic Church in the communion and under the headship of the Bishop of Rome, as a sole and singular organization without its like among all the corporate religious societies of the world, is what is called in theological language the _juge magisterium ecclesiæ_, the living, perpetual, infallible, supreme authority in spirituals exercised in constant and uninterrupted continuity, and keeping the body of the church in indefectible unity. This magistracy is focussed and capitalized in the headship of the primatial see of the world, the Roman Church, and the supremacy of its bishop. A Greek or an Anglo-Catholic may hold theoretically that this _magisterium_ belongs rightfully to the church, and could be exercised in case the church were assembled in what each of them respectively would acknowledge to be an oecumenical council. Neither of them, however, can acknowledge the continuous and present exercise of this plenary authority, because both are obliged to maintain that the church is in a disunited, disorganized state. It is precisely because both refuse to acknowledge the papal supremacy, that they deny the church in communion with Rome to be the complete church in organized unity and its general councils to be oecumenical. It is precisely this supremacy which makes this church an organized unit, and places it in the condition to act with full and complete power. The supremacy of the pope may, therefore, stand for the _differentia_, and we are willing to accept it as such, with the explanation above given, that it includes also the unbroken unity, together with the plenary judicial and legislative power of the Catholic episcopate as a whole, including both the pope as supreme head, and the bishops as _conjudices cum papa_, or fellow-judges and rulers, with and under the pope, of the universal church.

This simplifies the issue, and reduces the controversy, as between the Roman Church on one side, and all professed Christians refusing to acknowledge her supremacy as "mother and mistress of churches" on the other, to one question only. A victory on this one question is for us complete and decisive, for it enables us to sweep the whole battle-field. If the supremacy we claim for the pope is established, the obligatory force of all the doctrines and laws proclaimed by him as head of the universal church is established also, without need of further argument, or possibility of appeal to any other tribunal on the earth or in heaven. If our antagonists could vanquish us, our cause would be a lost one; we should be brought down to a common level with the Greeks as a mere branch of the church, and the way would be open for those negotiations in view of the "reunion of Christendom" which to certain persons seem so desirable. There would still remain, however, a vast field of controversy before one holding what we understand to be Dr. Harwood's views could make his position good. The entire hierarchical system of the Eastern churches, maintained also in theory by such a powerful party in the doctor's own church, would remain to be refuted and overthrown. Suppose this to be done, and we will readily concede that the system of what is called the broad-church school, represented by Stanley, Robertson, the author of the book called _Liber Librorum_; to whom we think might be added the New-Haven divines, and the higher school of Unitarians, such as Dr. Bellows, Dr. Osgood, Mr. Ellis, Mr. Alger, and others; is the most rational and sensible of all the _soi-disant_ Christian systems which would be left on the ground. Perhaps Dr. Harwood, looking on Greek Christianity and the amateur catholicity of his own brethren as without real significance, intended to find some doctrine which might stand for the entire hierarchical, sacramental system, and which, joined with the doctrine of papal supremacy, might with that make up the _differentia_ of the Roman Church in respect to Protestantism. In this point of view, he has well chosen the doctrine of the sacrifice of the mass. Our preceding strictures are merely critical, and we are willing to meet Dr. Harwood on the precise ground he has chosen for himself, the wager of battle being this: that our Lord Jesus Christ established the papal supremacy and the sacrifice of the mass, as essential parts of his religion. Since the doctor has only appeared, however, in the character of a scout, to clear the way for more heavily-armed combatants, and merely skirmishes a little in advance, we will skirmish in the same manner, without engaging more deeply in the controversy than simply to repel his attacks. If the champions he has called on come up, which we very much doubt, we hope they will go to work in earnest, and undertake to meet and answer in detail all the proofs and arguments adduced by our able writers, at least in English, in support of the papal supremacy and the eucharistic sacrifice. Unless they do this, they will not be entitled to any notice at our hands.

So far as Dr. Harwood merely describes the doctrine we hold respecting the papal supremacy, he is almost entirely correct, and so eloquent that the effect produced in his mind by its grandeur, in spite of his inward reluctance, is visible. Of argument against it there is hardly the semblance, a point we note not to the author's disadvantage, but merely as a reason for not arguing in its favor. One passing objection he does throw, as he goes by, at the title supreme pontiff or _pontifex maximus_. This word appears to alarm him, and no doubt alarmed all the excellent ladies and other worthy persons in his audience, who are easily alarmed by words. "He is regarded as the _pontifex maximus_ of the whole church of Christ. _Pontifex maximus!_ The very word brings up memories of the imperial city before it became Christian. Julius Cæsar was _pontifex maximus_--the office was held by all the Cæsars--it was held while the disciples of Jesus Christ, worshipping their Lord in the catacombs, or dying in the amphitheatre 'to make a Roman holiday,' associated the office with all cruelty and impiety." If this passage is any thing more than a rhetorical flourish, it means that the name and office of supreme pontiff are bad, unchristian things, because the heathen had them. We ought, then, to carry this principle out to its fullest extent. The heathen had an order of men specially devoted to religion, public prayers, holy days, temples, religious hymns, etc., therefore we should have none of these. The surplice which Dr. Harwood wears is derived through the Jews, from the ancient Egyptian priests; his prayer-book is full of observances derived from the Roman Church. He preaches sermons and observes a fast of forty days, like the Mohammedans, all of which is very wrong, and reminds us painfully of Pharaoh, and the fires of Smithfield, and the cruel persecutions of the Turks against the Christians. The Jews had a high priest appointed by Almighty God. Our Lord is a high-priest, _pontifex maximus_. Heathen perversions or travesties of divine things make no argument against the things themselves. Neither is there any reason why names, forms, observances, used by heathen, if they are good and suitable, should not be adopted by Christians, just as we appropriate heathen architecture, take possession of heathen temples, and employ heathen philosophy in the service of religion. We have no doubt that Moses imitated the civil and religious customs of the Egyptians to a very great extent in the prescriptions of his law. Parallelisms between the Catholic religion and various false religions may easily enough be pointed out. We laugh at such an argument as not worthy of being seriously refuted. The greater the number of analogies that can be pointed out, the stronger is the proof that the principles of our religion are derived from the origin of the race, universal, and in accordance with human nature. Rome was not all bad before it was converted. Whatever in it was good did not need to be abolished, but only sanctified. Our Lord drove out Jupiter, the angels and saints supplanted the imaginary divinities of Olympus, the successor of Peter took the place of the successor of Cæsar. The glorious temples of the gods became Christian churches, and Roman polity became an organizing power over all Christendom. In this was only fulfilled the prophecy of St. Paul, "_The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly_."[60] This kind of play upon words with _pontifex maximus_ will, therefore, help Dr. Harwood very little unless he can disprove the existence of the thing they represent--a human priesthood with a supreme head over it, possessing power delegated by Jesus Christ.

The lecturer is not precisely accurate in what he says of the definition of the immaculate conception. The judgment of the Catholic bishops and doctors had been for ages manifested, and was taken anew in the most formal manner, before Pius IX. proclaimed his definition. Those few persons among the prelates and theologians who were opposed to the definition, did not merely submit outwardly by keeping silence, but inwardly by an interior submission of the mind, precisely as a good Christian would have submitted to St. Peter himself in a similar case. If Dr. Harwood admits the doctrinal infallibility of the New Testament, he can easily understand that, if the meaning of any passage in it about which he had previously doubted should be made clear to him, he would have to give his interior assent to it, even though he must change an opinion he had held all his life long. Precisely so with us. An infallible judgment makes known to us with the certainty of faith the true sense of the divine revelation, which we receive accordingly as equally certain and obligatory on the conscience with every other revealed truth. Whoever does not give this inward assent becomes a heretic, and therefore Pius IX., in his Bull _Ineffabilis_, pronounces that every one who does not believe the immaculate conception as a revealed truth has suffered shipwreck of the faith.

In his account of the Catholic doctrine of the sacrifice of the mass the author of the lecture is less successful, and misrepresents it seriously; not intentionally, or through wilful carelessness, but through a misunderstanding of Catholic phraseology. Because the church calls it the _same sacrifice_ with the sacrifice of the cross, he appears to think that our Lord is believed to have redeemed the world by the oblation of himself at the institution of the eucharist, and to be continually repeating this act of redemption in the sacrifice offered daily on our altars. Dr. Seabury, the first Protestant bishop of Connecticut, did actually teach that our Lord offered himself in the eucharist as a sacrifice, and not on the cross. This strange notion of the founder of his own diocese, Dr. Harwood incorrectly ascribes to the Catholic Church.

"The _sacrifice_ was made or instituted in the night in which
he was betrayed; and, in the system of Romanism, this sacrifice
is every thing. I do not see that the cross is necessary; for
the stress falls upon the sacrifice of the altar, and the
worshipper is directed to that sacrifice as vested with objective
propitiatory virtue."

The church teaches that our Lord redeemed the world by his death and the shedding of his blood upon the cross. He did not redeem it by the oblation of himself in the Last Supper, nor does he do so by the sacrifice of the altar; the sacrifice of redemption having been offered once for all upon the cross, and not needing to be repeated. The church does not mean by "same sacrifice" that the oblation in the eucharist is a similar act of redemption, propitiatory in the divided sense, or merely as containing the body and blood of Christ, and presenting them before God. The sacrifice is the same, because the victim is the same, the priest is the same, and all the value or merit contained and applied in the sacrifice of the altar is derived from the bloody sacrifice of the cross. There is thus a moral unity binding together the innumerable acts of consecration and oblation which take place on the Christian altars with each other and with the sacrifice of the cross, in one whole, just as the innumerable acts of obedience performed by our Lord during his earthly life make one integral act of obedience with the final and consummating act of his oblation on Mount Calvary. No doubt the intrinsic excellence of the sacrifice of the eucharist is infinite, and therefore sufficient for the redemption of this world or a thousand others, if there were others needing redemption. The merit of the circumcision, the fasting, the prayer, the preaching, the poverty and humiliation, the labors and tears of our Blessed Lord was infinite, and fully adequate to the redemption of mankind, without the sacrifice of the cross. Every act of love to God the Father proceeding from the sacred heart of Jesus Christ in heaven is simply infinite in its intrinsic value. Yet no Catholic theologian maintains that the meritorious acts of our Lord performed while he was a wayfarer on the earth redeemed mankind apart from his death, or that he has merited any additional grace for men since his sacrifice was completed. The sacrifice which our Lord offered in the Last Supper did not, therefore, constitute that act of expiation to which, in the divine decree, the remission of original and actual sin was annexed; and much less is there any such distinct, expiatory merit in the sacrifice which he perpetually makes of himself in the eucharist, since his meritorious work has been consummated. He offered himself once for all as a bloody sacrifice upon the cross, meriting thereby an eternal redemption. At the Last Supper he offered up himself to the Father as the Lamb who was to be slain the next day, presenting by anticipation the merit which he would gain by his cruel and ignominious death, as an act of adoration, thanksgiving, expiation, and impetration in behalf of all those who were included either generally or specially in his intention. Doubtless, he frequently in prayer had presented these same merits to his Father; and from the time of Adam's sin these same merits had constituted the only ground on which pardon or grace had been conferred, thus verifying the appellation applied to our Lord in the Scripture of "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." In the sacrifice now offered by the priests of the new law, Christ is presented before the Eternal Father as the Lamb who has been slain. And although, as a sacrifice, the eucharist is equally an oblation of the body and blood of the Lamb of God with the sacrifice of the cross, differing only in the manner of offering, yet as this manner of offering upon the cross by pain, blood-shedding, and death constituted the precise act which expiated sin and redeemed the world, the sacrificial nature of the eucharistic action which it has in common with the crucifixion does not derogate from the exclusive attribute belonging to the latter as the redemptive expiation or the sacrifice of ransom, blotting out the curse of the fall, and reopening the gates of heaven to our lost race. A sacrifice of expiation including all ages, all men, and all sins having been once offered, there is no need and no place for another, which is precisely what St. Paul proves in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Dr. Harwood fancies that we have a dread of that epistle. It is not long since we went through that epistle carefully with a theological class without being aware of any sentiments of repugnance to its doctrine arising in our minds. It is very true that the unlearned and unstable may wrest this, as they do the other epistles of St. Paul and the Scriptures generally, to a sense in contradiction to the Catholic faith. To one, however, who is sufficiently learned to understand the real scope and intent of the apostle, or sufficiently docile to receive the instruction of competent interpreters, it presents no difficulty. St. Paul is not speaking of the eucharist or of the Christian priesthood at all, but is confronting the priesthood and sacrifices of Jesus Christ in the work of redemption with the priesthood and sacrifices of the old law, as these were understood by unbelieving or heterodox Jews. The point to be established was, that Jesus Christ would never give up his priesthood to a successor, or offer up another sacrifice similar to the one offered on the cross. It needs no reasoning to show that Catholic priests do not pretend to be in the place of Jesus Christ, but simply his instruments. The perpetuity of his priesthood is therefore not in the slightest degree incompatible with ours, which is in a different line, but rather requires it. Neither is it necessary to prove that we do not pretend to offer a sacrifice which expiates sins or atones for persons not included in the sacrifice of the cross. The doctor misunderstands the phrase "propitiatory sacrifice." The church does not mean that a new sacrifice is offered for persons whose sins were unatoned for on the cross, or who have fallen a second time under the curse and need a new ransom. The word "propitiatory" merely denotes that in the sacrifice of the altar an application is made of the merits of Christ's death to individuals for the remission of temporal penalties due to the justice of God. The redemption was made on the cross; the application of the grace of remission is made in the sacrament of penance; the remission of temporal penalties, both for the living and the dead, is obtained through the sacrifice of the altar. All the efficacy of the divine eucharist, whether as a sacrifice or a sacrament, is derived from the merits of Jesus Christ, which were consummated in his death. It is, therefore, by the application of the merit of the sacrifice of the cross that the sacrifice of the mass becomes efficacious to salvation. The Lamb of God is presented before the Father with the merit acquired by his death upon Mount Calvary, and this presentation is an act of supreme adoration, of thanksgiving, of impetration, and of satisfaction for the debt due to the divine justice, made in a sensible, visible manner, with mystic rites and ceremonies; which is enough to constitute a sacrifice in the strict and proper sense, whatever difference of opinion there may be concerning the essence of the sacrificial act in the eucharist. Although, therefore, there are many priests and many sacrifices numerically, it is one act performed by one person which is exhibited and applied in all, so that there is truly but one sacrifice and one priest. The reverend doctor might have seen this for himself if he had reflected more carefully on the words of the Council of Trent which he has himself quoted, _Cujus quidem oblationis cruentæ, inquam, fructus per hanc uberrime percipiuntur_--"The fruits of which bloody oblation, indeed, are by this most abundantly partaken of."

The words of the lecturer following his exposition of the doctrine are not at first sight intelligible. "We may be pardoned, then, if we ask what then is our Lord to us personally?" It is very difficult to see how the hidden presence of our Lord under the sacramental veils is any obstruction to our personal relation to him as our Saviour. How does this presence derogate from the fact that he died for each of us on the cross, and is ever living in heaven to make intercession for us? Our adoration of his sacred body and precious blood under the forms of bread and wine does not hinder our meditating upon his passion and death upon the cross, or raising our mental eye to his glorious form at the right hand of God. The author appears to imagine that his sacramental presence must destroy his natural mode of existence and reduce him to a passive, helpless state of being in the host. But this is only because he fails to conceive the Catholic doctrine that our Lord is present both in heaven and also in the host at the same time, though in two different modes. He says, "He is present with us, we adore that presence, but he is passive and lifeless in the hands of a priesthood. No sign or word comes from the pix. When the church is in travail over a new doctrine, recluse and learned men busy themselves in vast libraries in order to catch the _consensus_ of Catholic tradition. A believer may be excused, if, like Mary, he cries out, 'They have taken away the Lord, and I know not where they have laid him!'" Strange language this from a member of the communion of Andrewes, Hooker, Taylor, Pusey, and Hobart! Has the author ever read their glowing words respecting this same theme? Is he familiar with the doctrinal books of his own church? Taken away the Lord, when he remains perpetually in our tabernacles awaiting the visits of those true believers who pass hours in sweet communion at the foot of the altar, conversing with him as with the friend and spouse of their souls? When he is given to them in communion and his sacred body rests in their bosoms, kindling there the flames of a sacred love often equal to that which glows in the seraphim? Let the reverend doctor read the lives of the saints, and ask them if the Lord is silent when they converse with him in the blessed sacrament, or let him even ask the ordinary pious Catholic that question. He does not indeed break the silence of his hidden state by words audible to the bodily ear, but he speaks far more efficaciously to the heart in a way which is unintelligible to cold rationalism, but perfectly well known to faith inflamed by love. The divine eucharist was not instituted as a medium for communicating light to the church concerning revealed truths. Christ teaches and rules the church by the Holy Spirit, and not by his human voice. It is his will that study, meditation, and counsel should be the means by which the prelates and doctors of the church obtain the light and assistance of this divine Spirit. Dr. Harwood is not pleased with this arrangement; but as the Lord appears to have determined definitely that it must be so, we are afraid that his suggestions will not be attended to. At all events, he may console himself with the reflection that he has discovered an entirely new objection to the Catholic doctrine.

We have unwittingly passed over one other objection, namely, that the doctrine of the eucharistic sacrifice destroys the idea of communion. The eucharist does not cease to be a sacrament by being a sacrifice. If there is communion among Episcopalians through a reception of bread and wine, it would seem that there might be also communion among Catholics in receiving the true body and blood of Christ. If the Protestant Episcopal liturgy is a common prayer, certainly the Catholic liturgy is equally one, though it is also a sacrifice. Moreover, there is, in the strictest sense, communion in the very act of offering the sacrifice. The priest, though consecrated by a heavenly grace and commissioned by the divine authority of our Lord, is consecrated to minister for the people, in their name and as their representative. He offers up the sacrifice for the people, and they offer sacrifice to God through him, which is signified in the mass by the action of the deacon, who, as the representative of the laity, holds the pixis in his hand at the offertory, and placing his right hand on the foot of the chalice, recites with the priest the prayer, _Offerimus tibi, Domine, calicem_, etc. We will not attempt to prove the truth of the Catholic doctrine of the mass, since the author does not directly attempt to disprove it, but will drop the subject here, and proceed to notice what method he proposes to follow in refuting the two grand Catholic doctrines of the papacy and the mass.

The reverend doctor takes a review of the condition of Protestantism as in contrast with that of the Catholic Church, in which we are happy to be able to concur with him as well as to commend the graphic power of his description. He then briefly indicates three ways of proceeding: one by tradition, one by tradition and Scripture together, and one by Scripture alone, which he selects, reserving the right to appeal to tradition when it is convenient. We will let his language speak for itself:

"As searchers after truth, we must acknowledge some standard and
appeal to some recognized authority. Without this we must follow
either our own mental bias, or else become the prey of every man
who shall be bold enough to declare that he has and holds the
truth of God. I fear very much we have lost sight of this need
of appeal to a recognized standard of truth and duty. We are, in
this new age, building apparently on the sand; or it would seem
that what we had supposed to be rock, on which many were building,
has become pulverized, and as the sands shift under the power of
the stream, multitudes believe to-day what they did not believe
yesterday, and to-morrow they may believe nothing at all.

"I touch here a serious evil which is doing more harm to our
Protestantism than any direct assaults of Romanism. We seem to be
under some spell. Our spiritual ideas are resolving themselves
into a series of dissolving views; and all because the mind
has not the proper nutriment to impart health and vigor to our
religious feelings and convictions. Upon every account it becomes
us to recognize the fact that in religion we must have an actual,
definite standard of appeal. This we must find either in sacred
Scripture or in tradition, or in both combined. If we accept the
tradition of the church as law, we might as well abandon the
contest with Rome, because the traditions gradually, as they
gather force and headway in time, revolve around the papacy. The
traditions in the long run have made the papacy; they are its
chief support to-day. To accept them bodily, in mass, is to appeal
to actual Christendom--to the historic church--as to a standard
and law, and not as to a _witness_ of truth. It is to acknowledge
the identity of Christian truth and the Christian Church visible.
This brings us again to Romanism, or this is the postulate of the
Roman Catholic apologist.

"If to-day I ask _what is truth?_ and if I allow every church or
sect to answer, I am stunned by a confused and unintelligible
noise. If I allow one church to answer, and only one, in the midst
of the crowd of churches, by my procedure I submit myself, in
advance, to that one church. But if I allow none to answer for
me, and I recognize, nevertheless, a divine historic revelation,
I am compelled to go to sacred Scripture in order to learn what
God requires me to believe. Shall we take the sacred Scripture
fashioned by Italian workmen? or by Greek, or by Anglican, or by
German, or by American workmen? No; but the text in its purity
and simplicity. Here we must take our stand whensoever we come to
the question of what it is necessary to believe in order to be a
Christian; whensoever, in a word, loyalty and the obedience of
faith are required or even considered.

"I do not mean, however, to deny and repudiate utterly the
traditional principle. Christianity is historic. As a social
interest, as an organized spiritual fact, it comes to us from
the past. We cannot dismiss this past of Christian life and
history, any more than we can dismiss the past of our civil life
and institutions. The new generation, as it succeeds the old,
does not build again from the foundations. A. U. C. represented a
fact to the Roman citizen which he never could forget. We measure
time in the world's history by the letters A. D. We date our
public documents in the United States from the declaration of
our independence. We do not create the state anew; we administer
it as an existing fact. So in religion. Many things, many words,
institutions, and the like have come to us from the past, which
we accept and use as a matter of course. We baptize infants, we
observe the first day of the week, we use the imposition of hands
in ordination and confirmation, we employ the words sacrament,
trinity, incarnation, etc., in theology. This is an illustration
of the recognition of a traditional principle which is inevitable.
We do not, therefore, maintain that we must have a sure and
certain warrant of Scripture for all that we may observe and do
as Christians, because it is impossible to be confined to the
written word under all circumstances, and during all ages. Much is
left the conscience and judgment of individuals and of particular
churches; but when we come to faith, to what it is necessary to
believe as Christians, we must adhere firmly to the Bible, and
never for a moment allow any one to impose upon the conscience any
thing, as requisite to a true reception of the Gospel, which is
not contained therein, nor may be proved thereby.

"This, then, is our standard of appeal. Logically and morally
it is the right and only standard of appeal in the discussion,
especially of the claims and teachings of any and of every church
whatsoever. If this be not the tribunal to which we must go, then
we must have recourse to the dictum of a church, and then, as we
have seen, we allow a church to be its own standard of appeal.
Consequently, when Rome proclaims her infallibility, we must allow
her claim. When the Church of England disowns infallibility, we
may or may not accept her disclaimer. If we do _not_ accept it,
then we prove her to be _fallible_, to be mistaken articulately
in respect of her own quality and prerogative. We are reduced to
absurdity.

"We are forced back to sacred Scripture, and in the interests of
Christian truth we are compelled to take our stand here. And I
declare in all completeness of conviction, that with the Bible in
our hands we are triumphant against the doctrine of the supremacy
of the pope, and of the sacrifice of the mass. This is to be
triumphant against Romanism."

Dr. Harwood is sagacious enough not to follow the example of the generality of his Episcopalian associates, which the Presbyterians have been lately seduced by their evil genius into following, that is, to appeal to the first six councils. He probably agrees with the author of _Liber Librorum_ and Dr. Stanley, that in A.D. 200 we find the thing he is opposing and anxious to escape from, existing. "How, then, came such an institution into existence? For nothing can be plainer than that about a hundred years after the death of John _it appears_, although in any thing but apostolic garb. All is altered." "No other change," says Dean Stanley, "equally momentous has ever since affected its fortunes; yet none has ever been so silent and secret. The church has now become history, the history not of an isolated community or of isolated individuals, but of an organized society, incorporated with the political systems of the world."... "Hard is it to see in such a church any thing but a profound mystery of God, a mystery of spiritual evil, a mystery of iniquity."[61] Dr. Harwood feels it to be necessary to take refuge in the obscure period between the year 100 and the year 200 as in a chasm separating historical from scriptural Christianity. It is very easy to make a theory concerning the silent, sudden change which took place during this century, and then, clearing history by a bound, to land in the New Testament. Once there, with full liberty of private interpretation, which means freedom to interpret it by the light of any philosophical theory or preconceived opinions one may choose to adopt, Dr. Harwood thinks he is safe, and able to defend himself to the end against Romanism. He imagines that we are unwilling and unable to follow him there, and meet him--or rather the champions of his cause--on their own chosen ground. "In conclusion, we will ask you to remember that the Roman Catholics have never liked our appeal to Scripture. They do not like it to-day any better than they liked it three hundred years ago." If the doctor thinks we are afraid of the Scriptures, or in any way distrustful of our ability to prove our doctrines from it, he is extremely mistaken. We have always been ready to enter into that part of the argument, and we maintain specifically respecting the two grand doctrines of the papacy and the mass that they can be fully and satisfactorily proved from Scripture, as in point of fact they have been proved, to mention no others, by Mr. Allies and Cardinal Wiseman. We object to the demand that Scripture should be the only source of appeal, not because we are afraid that we shall be defeated by scriptural arguments; but because the demand is unjust, and the assumption on which it is founded is baseless. We demand that the subject shall be discussed in all its bearings, on all its grounds, by the light of all the knowledge that is attained from every source. We deny the ability of our adversaries to establish the authority of Scripture without first assuming Catholic principles, and we deny their logical and moral right after using these principles in establishing Scripture, to throw away or burn their ladder by denying or ignoring these same principles when it is a question of establishing the sense of the Scripture, explaining or integrating its statements. If we are to shut out of our minds all the ideas of Christianity which are extraneous to the literal statements of the New Testament, to take the attitude of learners searching after truth, and to get from the naked text without other interpreter than itself the sense that is in it, we have a difficult task of doubtful issue before us. John Locke, who was probably as capable of doing this impartially as any Englishman can be, tried it, and proclaimed as the result of his studies that only one idea is demonstrably revealed in the New Testament, namely, that Jesus Christ is the prophet of God to whose teaching and precepts obedience is due. As to his actual teaching and precepts, he could only find probability, concluding, therefore, very justly, that there is no system of doctrine or code of precepts clearly binding upon all alike, each one being left to the guidance of a probable conscience only.