Chapter V: An Outside Glimpse (4)

These three systems--of course more or less commingled in their sources--have been extended to every portion of the civilized world. The German system has passed into Denmark, Holland, and Sweden; the French into Italy, Spain, and Portugal, and in some measure through them into Southern America. In the United States, we have been comparatively free from them. We owe it, probably, to the fact that with us all men are so busy trying to amass fortunes that they have little time and less taste for such abstruse speculations. True, through the vast German immigration, we have received some portion of the German system. But so far it has scarcely spread among our citizens of other nationalities. The English system, strange to say, scarcely exists except in its vaguer influences. The French system, introduced years ago, has struck deeper roots, and has a wider influence. But, on the whole, the mass of our people has a firm unshaken belief in the real truth of Christianity as a revealed religion. Although very often men are exceedingly puzzled to know what are the specific doctrines, still they have not lost the traditions of their fathers, and have not fallen into positive unbelief. How long these words will remain true, who can tell? Luxury and the general demoralization becoming so familiar, and the systematic godless education of our youth, will soon perhaps place us in the van of those nations who seem to have been given up to the foolishness of their hearts.

Meanwhile the church knows that she is debtor to all--that her mission is to preach the Gospel of Christ to all nations. Seeing in what manner so many are going astray, so far as even to deny the God that made them and redeemed them, and knowing that he has sent her as a messenger from him to them, she raises her voice, and, in clear, steady, clarion tones that will ring through the world, she proclaims again that he is the one true God, eternal and almighty, the Creator whom all men must know and must serve, and unto whom they will all have to render a strict account. This assembled council is itself evidence, clear as the noon-day light, of her existence, and her office in the world. Men may not shut their eyes to the fact. Her words are clear: "He whom ye deny exists, and speaks to you through me. He whom ye scoff at is your Creator and Lord, from whom ye have received all that ye have. He whom ye deride is long-suffering, and wills not your death, but that ye repent and come to him. Through me he admonishes, he invites, he warns you." Will these men hearken to her voice, or rather, the voice of God through her? Does not the God they would deny give, as it were, sensible testimony of his existence, his power, and his authority, evidence which they cannot ignore or overlook save by a wilful and deliberate effort on their part? They cannot fail to see the church claiming to be his. Her unbroken existence through eighteen centuries and her continued growth and advance despite opposition, and, still more, despite the quiet natural force of all human agency, external and internal, which under the ordinary laws of human things would have sufficed to disrupt and to destroy her a hundred times, an existence and a growth which could have proceeded only from a supernatural power, and which constitute a standing miracle in the history of the world, demand their attention and their respect. Her claim to be divinely founded and divinely supported, they must not scout with flippancy. They must at least receive it with respect, and examine its grounds. The most solemn assembly of that church, the most imposing assembly the world has looked on, an assembly authorized by the organization which he gave to that church, and therefore authorized by him, speaks to them in his name and by his authority. Will they receive the message, or will they turn away? Some there are who would not believe, if one rose from the dead. But we may hope and pray that others will hearken to the words of the Lord, and learn that to know and fear the Lord is the beginning of true wisdom. Above all, we may hope that many who have not yet advanced too far on the dangerous road may become aware of their danger and their folly, and return to the paths of true and salutary doctrine.

Next to those who, following the systems we have indicated, or on any other grounds pretend to do away with the existence of God, come those who admit his existence, but do not admit that he has given a revealed religion to mankind. It is unnecessary to go over the various groups into which they may be divided. There always have been and will be men who will try by one huge effort to throw off the yoke of religion. And what is there for doing which men will not try to assign some reason? In the last century, and the early portion of the present one, men sought such reasons in the alleged contradictions of the Scriptures, in the mysteriousness of Christian doctrine and the inability of the human intellect to comprehend them, in the procrustean systems of ancient history which they invented, or in alleged defects of the evidences of Christianity, or, finally, in their pet theories of metaphysics. At present the tendency is to base the rejection of revealed religion on its alleged incompatibility with the discoveries of natural sciences in these modern days. Geology, anthropology, in fact, the natural sciences with scarcely an exception, have been in turn laid under contribution or forced to do service against the cause of revelation. We have men appealing to this or that principle or fact as an irrefragable evidence by modern science of the false pretensions of Christianity.

To all such the church, the pillar and ground of truth, the organ of Christ our Lord on earth, will speak. It is not her office to enter into the detailed discussion of scientific studies, and to make manifest the errors of fact into which these men have fallen, or the fallacy of their deductions. This she leaves to scholars who, in their pursuit of earthly knowledge, do not cast away the knowledge they have received of divine truth. Such Christian scholars have replied to the sneers, and gibes, and sarcasms of the last century, and have shown the utter worthlessness and absurdity of the arguments then brought forward against Christianity by men who claimed to speak on the part of science; and there are now others answering with equal fulness the more modern objections. The church might, indeed, have left it to time and the progress of learning and science to vindicate her course and to refute the objections raised against her teaching. For, as a matter of fact, the grand difficulties brought forward half a century ago excite but a smile now, as we see on what an unsubstantial foundation they rested. And a very few years to come will, we may be sure, suffice to overturn many a pet theory of to-day, with their vaunted arguments against revelation. New discoveries will lead to new theories, that may or may not give rise to a new crop, a new set of difficulties, for man's mind is limited and cannot reach the truth on all sides, but they will consign the present difficulties to the tomb of the Capulets. To that tomb generation after generation of these so-called scientific objections are passing. The church does not undertake to teach astronomy, geology, chemistry, or physics. Natural sciences are to be studied by man, in the use of his own reason and the exercise of his natural faculties. These things God has left to the disputations of men. The church does not despise these discussions and researches. She does not repress them nor oppose them. Quite the contrary. She has ever protected and fostered science. One of the most beautiful and instructive chapters in her earthly history would be that which tells how, from the school of Alexandria, in the days of persecution, down the entire course of ages, she has ever sought to promote and foster science. She may with pride point to her canons and laws enacted for this purpose in every century. She may recount the long catalogue of schools, colleges, and universities established by her in every civilized land of Europe, and wherever she planted her foot; and to the religious houses of her clergy, throughout the stormy middle ages the chief, almost the only safe homes of learning. Many of the universities which she founded have in the course of ages been destroyed by kings and nobles, who filled their own purses, or repaired their wasted fortunes, by the seizure of endowments given for the free education of all that might come to drink of these fountains of learning; even as this very month the progressive, liberal government of the kingdom of Italy is discussing the propriety of suppressing one half of the older universities they found existing in the portion of the Papal States, and in other parts of Italy, which ten years ago they annexed to the kingdom of Sardinia. When did the church ever do such an act? Never. What university was ever suppressed by any act of hers? None. She encourages science. But at the same time she says, "God has given to man reason and understanding to seek after and to attain knowledge. It is a great and noble gift, to be prized and used rightly, and not turned to an evil purpose. If a father place in the hands of his son, as a gift, a weapon keen and bright, shall that son, with parricidal hand turn the blade against his father? Beware not to turn these gifts of God against God himself. Use them not as pretexts to deny his existence, or shake off his authority, or to impugn his truth when he speaks."

In giving this admonition, the church is acting in her full right. She is in the certain possession of that higher divine truth which her heavenly Founder has placed in her charge, to be carefully guarded and preserved until the end of time, and to be ever faithfully preached. Who ever denies it, she must oppose him. Whatever teaching would make it out to be false, she must condemn. The church, holding with certainty this divine deposit of the revealed truth, must not be compared, either in theory or in practice, with any private individual or society of individuals, who hold and profess religious doctrines on the authority of their own reason and judgment, or of their private interpretation of the Scriptures. In such a case as this, these doctrines are simply beliefs, opinions of men avowedly liable to error in this very matter. They therefore stand on the same level, as to certainty or uncertainty of being true, with the other human judgments in the fields of natural science or human knowledge which may rise up in opposition to them. The two sides are fairly matched, and either may ultimately prevail.

But, on the contrary, the church claims not merely to hold opinions, but, under the guiding light of the Holy Ghost, to have certain and infallible knowledge of the truths of divine revelation. Nothing that contradicts these established and known truths can she admit to be any thing else than error. In the contest between them, the truth must prevail. This is the theory on which the Catholic Church stands, and in which, in reality, all Christianity is involved. The experience of eighteen centuries confirms it fully in practice. Never once in all that period has the church of Christ had to revoke a single doctrinal decision, on the ground that what was believed to be true when uttered has since been proved to be false as the progress of science has thrown fuller light on the subject. In the early days of her existence, Celsus and the other philosophers of that classical period raised manifold objections from reason and such knowledge of nature as they possessed. Their objections accorded well with the public opinion of the time, and were hailed with applause. But the time came when they were felt to be of no force, and now they are entirely forgotten; and the truth they impugned, and were intended to overthrow, stands stronger than ever. The Gnostics, with their varied and fanciful systems of conciliating the power and goodness of God with the presence of evil in the world, and guided, if we listen to their boasts, by the highest light of man's reason, brought forward many objections, then deemed specious. They and their arguments too have passed away, and the Catholic truth stands. So it has been in every age until the present time. One only instance in all history has been alleged, seemingly, to the contrary--the condemnation of Galileo for holding and maintaining the Copernican theory. But there is no real ground of objection here. The facts of the case are misunderstood or misstated. The trial of Galileo, which was in truth more of a personal than a doctrinal issue, was simply before the congregation, or committee, of the Holy Office in Rome, and the sentence was by that congregation and not by the church. The difference between the sentence of such a tribunal and a decision of the church is world-wide. And, as if to mark that difference the more distinctly, that sentence, which, according to the usual course, and at least as a matter of form, should have been countersigned by the reigning pontiff, that it might be put into execution, _never was so signed_. Why, in that case, the formality was omitted, whether it was not deemed necessary, which, considering the usage, would be very strange, or whether, which we think much more probable, it was in due course of procedure presented to the pontiff for his signature, and he abstained from signing it for reasons in his own mind, cannot now be known. But the original official manuscript copy of the sentence is extant, and there is no signature of the pontiff to it. Even had he signed it, that would not have made the document a doctrinal decision of the church. It would have remained simply the regular sentence of a special tribunal; but the absence of the pope's signature, perhaps its studied absence, entirely and unequivocally removes the objection usually brought forward.[139] Here, as in every other case, Christ has protected his church, so that she shall make no false decision as to faith. It is only in virtue of that protection that she claims the paramount authority to speak. Under it she had been appointed to speak, and must speak, if she would not be recreant to her duty. She does not repress science; she saves it. She does not shackle reason; she preserves it from error and ruin. How often is the way of science a narrow ridge, with deep gulfs on either side! Feeble man walks along the narrow crest with trembling limbs, or crawls on, dubiously and slowly, in the dark. The church of Christ cheers him on. She does not bear him over the perilous path; but holds aloft the torch of revealed truth to guide him as he advances, and warns him to proceed by its light, and not to rush heedlessly on, lest he fall into the abyss. And yet should we not expect that the same spirit of insubordinate pride which leads reason to deny the existence of God, or his Divine Providence, or the fact of divine revelations, or emboldens feeble, ignorant man to measure, as it were, his feeble intelligence against the infinite wisdom of God, should also not refrain from charging the Catholic Church with being an incubus on the human mind, with narrowing the intellect and fettering the reason, with restricting our liberty of thought, narrowing the field of science, and dwarfing the whole intellectual man?

But time does her justice. She can point to Origen, Clement of Alexandria, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, St. Thomas of Aquin, St. Anselm, Duns Scotus, Suarez, Vasquez, and the mighty minds of the past. She may point to her children, clergymen and laymen, now standing in the front ranks of every branch of science. What the past ages gave, what the present gives too, the future will as surely not fail to give.

We add to the communication of our Roman correspondent the report of the peroration of an eloquent speech by Signor d'Ondes-Reggio, in the Italian Parliament, as given by M. Chantrel, in his "Chronique du Concile," published in the _Revue du Monde Catholique_ for April 10th.

"The Council of the Vatican comes to save the imperilled
civilization of the world, as the preceding councils, from the
one of Nice to that of Trent, have saved it.

"Do you know how the Council of Nice saved the civilization
of the world, when it condemned Arius? It prevented the human
race from returning to idolatry; for, if the founder of
Christianity was not God, but a mere man, the adoration of that
man would have been an idolatry like all those of the pagans.
The human race would have remained in barbarism, deprived of
Christian civilization, of the true civilization, which is the
civilization given to men by God himself.

"The Council of Trent saved the civilization of the world;
because, when the church condemned Luther, Calvin, and their
followers, who denied free-will and confounded good with bad
actions, even giving the preference to the bad ones, she
prevented the human race from returning to the _fate_ of the
pagans and to the domination of evil over good. The church
saved the civilization of the world.

"When a council condemned schisms, it condemned the breaking up
of the human race into factions and protected the unity of the
race; it condemned that paganism which divided the nations from
each other and made them mutual enemies, whereas all men are
brothers, as the children of the same God.

"When a council roused all Europe to follow the cross into
Asia, to rescue the sepulchre of Christ, it saved the
civilization of Europe, and guaranteed the civilization of the
world against Mussulman barbarism.

"When a council condemned the furious iconoclasts, do you know
what it did? It prevented the banishment of the beautiful from
the world--the beautiful, which is the complement of the true
and the good. If this new race of barbarians had not been
repelled by the Second Council of Nice, we should not have had
either the 'David,' or the 'Moses,' or the 'Transfiguration,'
or the 'Assumption.' Italy would not be the queen of the fine
arts in the world.

"When the councils smote and deposed corrupt Cæsars, the
oppressors of their peoples, it was human reason, enlightened
by faith, which conquered error, sustained by brute force;
it was charity which beat down tyranny, and civilization
triumphing over barbarism.

"The Council of the Vatican, composed of the venerable fathers
of the Catholic Church, extended throughout the whole world,
differing in customs, habits, complexion, language, but united
in the same faith, the same hope and charity--the Council of
the Vatican comes to save, by the bishops, a civilization
in peril. Errors the most impious, the most deadly, the
most pernicious to the human race, which have been spread
abroad during the course of ages, and which have sufficed,
taken singly, to turn civil society upside down, are now all
assembled together, and united with each other to batter and
destroy it. Every thing which is the most true, the most
sacred, the most venerated, is attacked; and some persons even
go so far as to say that it is lawful to kill, to rob, and
to calumniate, in order to attain certain ends. The Council
of the Vatican has come, yes, it has come! to condemn these
blasphemies and iniquities, to awaken sleeping consciences, to
confirm consciences which are wavering; it has come to save
civilization in peril.

"O venerable fathers! you who have hastened to Rome from the
extremities of the world, at the summons of the successor of
Peter, and who are at this moment gathered together in the name
of God, at the Vatican, all men of good-will have their eyes
fixed upon you; and from you they await with confidence the
salvation of the world. You, successors of the apostles, will
fulfil the commandment given by Jesus Christ to the apostles
and to you, to teach the nations the infallible truths;
the commandment given, not to kings, emperors, or secular
assemblies, but to the apostles and to you--you will teach the
nations these infallible truths, and the nations will be saved."

FOOTNOTE:

[139] See CATHOLIC WORLD, Nos. 45 and 46.

FOREIGN LITERARY NOTES.

_The Gospel in the Law._ A Critical Examination of the Citations from the Old Testament in the New. By Charles Taylor. Cambridge and London: Bell & Daldy. 1869. The relative positions of the Mosaic law and the new law may be studied from a great many points of view. That chosen by Mr. Taylor, in the volume before us, adds additional interest to his very remarkable work.

The selection and study of citations from the Old Testament found in the New give rise to many questions which, properly elucidated, throw much light on the connection which exists between Judaism and Christianity. Mr. Taylor does not so much occupy himself with that question as with the manner in which the Bible is connected with the Testament. Not that he undertakes to demonstrate that the germ of the new law may be found in the Old; for that no one denies, and the title he has selected shows the object of his work, "the Gospel in the law." Not every thing in the work is new; but the previously accumulated erudition of the subject is admirably _résuméd_, and several chapters are marked by originality--the thirteenth, for instance, on Jewish and Christian morality.

* * * * *

_Varieties of Irish History._ From Ancient and Modern Sources and Original Documents. By James J. Gaskin, Dublin. A handsome volume, illustrated with four chromo-lithographs, and an excellent map of the environs of Dublin. The work appears to be made up of a series of lectures delivered at Dalkey, a well-known charming suburb of Dublin, and of articles published at various times in the Irish newspapers concerning the history of the principal environs of Dublin--Howth, Kingston, Dalkey, Bray, and Killing. The beautiful bay of Dublin and its picturesque shores, of course, come in for their share of notice, and as the author gives himself the amplest verge, he manages, in his numberless digressions, to throw into his pages a reflex of the intellectual history of Dublin during the last century.

* * * * *

One of the most remarkable and eventful missionary fields of the Catholic Church was, unquestionably, Japan. There are few more admirable pages in its history than those which recount the constancy and faith of its first martyrs under one of the most bloody persecutions the world ever saw. M. Léon Pages has just published a work giving the history of Catholicity in Japan from 1598 to 1651: _Histoire de la Religion Chrétienne au Japon, depuis 1598 jusqu'à 1651, comprenant les faits relatifs aux deux cent cinq martyrs beatifiés le 7 Juillet 1867_, par Léon Pages. This volume, published separately, will form the third volume of a large work in four octavo volumes, to be entitled, _L'Empire du Japon, ses origines, son église chrétienne, ses relations avec l'Europe_.

* * * * *

The so-called _Truce of God_ of the middle ages, under which a suspension of arms and hostilities was so often obtained, has too frequently been so imperfectly understood and treated by historians and writers as to be confounded by them with the _Peace of God_--two things essentially different in origin and in application. In 1857, a work on the subject was published at Paris by M. Ernest Semichon, who by his judicious research threw an entirely new light on this question. M. Semichon has just presented the literary world with a new edition of the work of 1857, largely augmented in fresh matter and in historical documents, in which he clearly establishes the distinction between these two institutions, and fixes the origin of the Peace of God at about A.D. 988, and that of the Truce of God at 1027. He follows their development step by step through the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, examining them from the judicial and political stand-points, until the period when Louis le Gros took hold of the movement. After this period, the "Truce of God" becomes the _Quarantaine le Roi_. In treating his subject, M. Semichon presents most interesting views of the great institutions of the middle ages, its associations and customs, and also of the chevaliers, the arts, and the Crusades. His work is entitled _La Paix et la Trève de Dieu_.

* * * * *

Until within a few years there were known to be in existence but three Biblical manuscripts of high antiquity. These were, _First_, the celebrated Vatican manuscript; _second_, that of London, called the Alexandrine; _third_, that of Paris, known under the designation of the Palimpsest of Ephrem the Syrian. The first dates from the fourth century, the other two from the fifth. None of them are complete, however. In that of Paris the greater part of the New Testament is wanting. That of London is deficient in nearly the whole of the first gospel, two chapters of the fourth, and the greater part of the second Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians. From the Vatican manuscript, the oldest of all, are missing four epistles, the last chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Apocalypse. M. Constantine Tischendorf, a distinguished Russian scholar, known in the scientific world for his superior Hellenic and paleographic acquirements, has the glory of having given to the Christian world, by his discoveries, numerous sacred manuscripts of the highest antiquity, and, above all, the famous _Codex Sinaiticus_, which has over the three MSS. we have enumerated the great advantage of being complete. It dates from the same epoch with that of the Vatican. M. Tischendorf has told the story of its discovery, and of the long and difficult negotiations required for its acquisition, in a work just published, _Terre Sainte_, an octavo volume of 307 pages. The volume also contains an interesting account of his oriental travel in company with the Duke Constantine, and his visit to Smyrna, Patmos, and Constantinople. A fac-simile edition of the new Codex is in preparation in Russia, and a German translation of that portion of it which contains the New Testament will shortly be made.

* * * * *

A noteworthy work is _Le Juif, le Judaisme, et Judaisation des peuples chrétiens_, par M. le Chevalier Gougeuot des Mousseaux. Paris, 8vo, 568 pp. The career of Judaism is here historically traced from the early ages of the church, when it spread through Egypt, Alexandria, and Rome the Gnostic theories of Simon the Magician, down to the present day. The author presents successively all the traditions upon which the belief of the modern Jew is founded. Their Bible is the Talmud, a tissue of absurdities and immoralities. There exists a gulf between the ancient law of Moses and the Talmudic reveries so great, indeed, that the Jew can hardly call his law a religious law without flying in the face of the history and the faith of his fathers. Following these researches comes a keen analysis of the Pharisaical spirit. Concerning the synagogue, the Sanhedrim, the Talmudic rites, and system of education, the work gives the fullest details, with copious extracts from writers all favorable to Judaism, such as Prideaux, Basnage, and Salvador. The result of the author's revelations is to show that the Jewish belief of to-day is absolutely different from that of which Moses was the legislator. Modern Jews are divided into three classes--orthodox, reformers, and free-thinkers. The reformers are the Protestants of the Mosaic law. Nowadays, for the majority of Jews, the coming of the Messiah is no longer understood in its ordinary acceptation. For them the "desired of nations" is merely an abstraction. The author dwells at some length on the spreading influence of Judaism in worldly matters, and sounds a note of alarm that gives his work something of a pessimist tone.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

DR. NEWMAN'S ESSAY IN AID OF A GRAMMAR OF ASSENT. By John
Henry Newman, D.D., of the Oratory. 1 vol. 12mo. New York: The
Catholic Publication Society, 9 Warren street. 1870.

SECOND NOTICE.

We have not yet given to this book, destined to become so celebrated and the theme of so much controversy, the careful examination it deserves, and we will not, therefore, pay the poor compliment to the illustrious author of pronouncing a superficial judgment upon it. We have given an analysis of its contents in our last number, which may aid the reader to understand and master its scope and course of argument for himself. At present, we will merely take note of one or two salient points bearing on some questions of lively controversial interest at the present moment. The great subject of controversy in regard to the philosophy of the work has already proved to be what we anticipated at the first glance upon its pages--whether it is, or is not, in contradiction to the scholastic doctrine of the reality of universals. We give merely our impression, and not our judgment upon this point, when we say that it appears to us that Dr. Newman rather leaves aside the pure metaphysics of the question, than either contradicts or affirms any scholastic doctrine of this higher sphere of science. He appears to take the common English axioms of reasoning as they are assumed in every-day life and made the basis of those inductions and illations which make up the opinions of intelligent persons on all sorts of subjects, and the conclusions of practical, scientific men in regard to the inductive sciences. He appeals to the common sense of those who are not sophisticated by any false, sceptical maxims in relation to common things, but who are simply puzzled by an apparent want of the same certitude in religion which they hold as unquestioned in lower branches of knowledge. He undertakes to show that the principles of assent which all men act on in the affairs of this life lead logically to the same certitude of the infallibility of the Catholic Church, and the truth of every thing she proposes to belief, that a man has that Great Britain is an island. If any one thinks there is a break or a weak spot in his chain of reasoning, let him pull it apart and throw the fragments aside, and he will have accomplished a considerable feat in logic. We think that, on account of this manner of approaching the subject, this book is likely to prove extremely useful in convincing sincere, well-intentioned doubters, whose minds have been educated under the same circumstances and in the same intellectual atmosphere with those of the author. As for the analysis of certitude itself, and the metaphysics of the ultimate question how we know, and what is that which we know first, the author may be criticised; but we think, as we have said, that he did not have it in view to propose a theory. We do perceive and know; we do exist, and we know that other things exist, and we are certain of these things, and no pretended sceptic really doubts. We may start from this, therefore, as a fixed base of operation, without waiting for a metaphysical theory. If the theory which we hold is incorrect, we can change it without hurting our argument, just as a person who lives in a regular and sensible manner, and is in good health, can change a physiological doctrine which he finds to be erroneous without changing his practical rules of living. Whether Dr. Newman's statement respecting real and notional assents be correct or not, every candid and honest man will acknowledge that he does assent with certitude to the truth of those things which the author calls notions. We suspect, moreover, that the illustrious author in his affirmation that nothing really exists except individuals, means that there are no other spiritual or material _substances_; or, in other words, that every substance is a simple monad existing in itself and separate from every other. We do not apprehend that, in denying that time, space, relation, etc., are real, he intends to affirm that they are mere subjective affections of our minds without any foundation in objective reality, but only that they are not either spirits or bodies, and would be nothing if there were no spirit or body in existence. We suspect that the nominalism attributed to Dr. Newman is merely in the phrase, and that his difference from the realism of St. Thomas is only in the terminology.

The other point we desire to notice is theological. Our Episcopalian neighbors, and some others also, are accustomed to refer to Dr. Newman as an instance in proof of their frequent assertion that men of genius and learning in our communion chafe under the yoke of Rome, and, if they are converts, feel themselves disappointed in the expectations with which they entered the church. The recent letter of Dr. Newman to Dr. Ullathorne is, of course, a lucky windfall for them, and is interpreted as a proof that they were not mistaken. The volume we are noticing will, for every candid and sensible reader, completely scatter to the winds any false and calumnious attempts to class Dr. Newman with Mr. Ffoulkes, Mr. Renouf, the translator of _Janus_, and the rest of that clique in England, or to impeach the integrity of his faith and loyalty as a Catholic priest and theologian. The letter itself shows that Dr. Newman holds what his writings show he has always held, as the more probable doctrine, that the judgments of the pope in matters of faith are infallible. The utmost extent of his expressions of repugnance to a definition of this doctrine is, that he considers the weakness of faith, the lack of knowledge, and the deficiency of the reasoning faculty in a number of Catholics to be so great, and the bewilderment of mind so extreme in persons outside the church who are seeking the truth, that they cannot bear to have the light too suddenly and brightly flashed into their eyes. The great and holy Oratorian father pities these souls, and wishes to have them cautiously and gently led into the truth; and he is afraid that the pope, sitting in the effulgence of the divine Shekinah in the temple of God, does not appreciate the state of those who are living in the fainter light or the clouded climates of a remoter region. The chapter of the volume under notice entitled, "Belief in Dogmatic Theology," will show beyond a question what we have asserted of Dr. Newman's theological soundness, and we quote one passage as a specimen.

The church "makes it imperative on every one, priest and layman, to profess as revealed truth all the canons of councils, _and innumerable decisions of popes_, propositions so various, so notional, that but few can know them, and fewer can understand them." (P. 142, Eng. ed.)

In the chapter on the "Indefectibility of Certitude" occurs this passage: "A man is converted to the Catholic Church from his admiration of its religious system, and his disgust with Protestantism. That admiration remains; but, after a time, he leaves his new faith; perhaps returns to his old. The reason, if we may conjecture, may sometimes be this: he has never believed in the church's infallibility; in her doctrinal truth he has believed, but in her infallibility, no. He was asked, before he was received, whether he held all that the church taught; he replied he did; but he understood the question to mean, whether he held those particular doctrines 'which at that time the church in matter of fact formally taught,' whereas it really meant 'whatever the church then or at any future time should teach.' Thus, he never had the indispensable and elementary faith of a Catholic, and was simply no subject for reception into the fold of the church. This being the case, when the immaculate conception is defined, he feels that it is something more than he bargained for when he became a Catholic, and accordingly he gives up his religious profession. The world will say that he has lost his certitude of the divinity of the Catholic faith; but he never had it." (P. 240.)

We do not desire to have a party tolerated in the church whose principles are precisely those here condemned by Dr. Newman, or to have the way open for converts to be received who lack the "indispensable and elementary faith of a Catholic." We look with dismay upon the audacious and heretical attitude of that fallen angel F. Hyacinthe, the scandalous position assumed by Huber, Döllinger, and Gratry, and we anticipate greater impediment to the progress of the faith from a miserable counterfeit and pseudo-catholicity, which is nothing else than the base metal coined by Photius, than from the difficulties hanging about the history of the popes, which are no greater than those that beset councils, tradition, or the holy Scripture itself. Whatever definitions are promulgated by the Council of the Vatican, no one pretending to be a Catholic can hesitate to receive them because they are "more than he bargained for." Those who have chafed under the doctrinal authority of the popes have been crying out for a council for two centuries. Those who are _bona fide_ in any doubt or uncertainty respecting questions not yet defined have the way open for their doubts to be settled. If there are persons in the communion of the church who have not the principle of faith in them by which they are prepared without hesitation to believe whatever the Council of the Vatican proposes, we desire that they should leave their external connection with the Catholic Church, which they have already inwardly abandoned. And we think it most necessary that the duty of unreserved submission to the infallible authority of the church, and to the Roman pontiff, as her supreme teacher and judge as well as ruler, should be most distinctly placed before those who seek admission into her fold. We are grateful to Dr. Newman for the clear and unmistakable tones in which he has spoken on the obligation of believing whatever the church commands us to believe through the mouth of the sovereign pontiff; and as for the question what definitions are necessary and opportune for the present time, we confide absolutely in the divinely assisted judgment of Pius IX. and the Catholic episcopate.

Since writing the above, we are glad to see that Dr. Newman has written another letter, in which the following passage occurs: "I have not had a moment's wavering of trust in the Catholic Church ever since I was received into her fold. I hold, and ever have held, that her sovereign pontiff is the centre of unity and the vicar of Christ. And I ever have had, and have still, an unclouded faith in her creed in all its articles; a supreme satisfaction in her worship, discipline, and teaching; and an eager longing, and a hope against hope, that the many dear friends whom I have left in Protestantism may be partakers in my happiness." (_Tablet_, April 16th.) We are glad, we say, to see this, not on our own account, for we have the honor of a personal acquaintance with the illustrious Oratorian, and know him too well to have the need of any such assurance of his firm and ardent Catholic faith and piety; but in order that the mouths of cavillers may be stopped, and those weak brethren who tremble like aspen-leaves in every light breeze be reassured.

* * * * *

THE ORIGIN, PERSECUTIONS, AND DOCTRINES OF THE WALDENSES; FROM
DOCUMENTS, MANY NOW FOR THE FIRST TIME COLLECTED AND EDITED. By
Pius Melia, D.D. London: James Toovey, 177 Piccadilly. 1870.
For sale by the Catholic Publication Society, 9 Warren street,
New York.

In the year 1868, a London daily newspaper produced editorially one of those statements so frequently made concerning the Waldenses, and which, by dint of repetition, end by passing for recognized facts. It was as follows:

"For sixteen hundred years, at least, the Waldenses have
guarded the pure and primitive Christianity of the apostles....
No one knows when or how the faith was first delivered to these
mountaineers. Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons, in the second century
found them a church.

"These gallant hill-men have kept the tradition of the Gospel
committed to them as pure and inviolate as the snow upon
their own Alps. They have maintained an evangelical form of
Christianity from the very first, rejecting image-worship,
invocation of saints, auricular confession, celibacy, papal
supremacy or infallibility, and the dogma of purgatory; taking
the Scripture as the rule of life, and admitting no sacraments
but baptism and the Lord's Supper.... No bloodier cruelty
disgraces the records of the papacy than the persecutions
endured by the ancestors of the twenty thousand Waldenses now
surviving.... Never did men suffer more for their belief."

As the author mildly presents it, these statements not being in accordance with his knowledge of the subject, he was moved to undertake a thorough investigation of the history of the Waldenses. To this end, in addition to the perusal of a long and formidable list of works given in the preface, and which is valuable as presenting the bibliography of the subject, he made thorough investigation in the great libraries of England, Rome, and Turin, which last collection was found very rich in MSS. referring to the Waldensian period. Fresh stimulus and efficient aid were given to his efforts by the appearance of a very important work by Professor James Henthorn Todd, Senior Fellow of Trinity Church, Dublin, entitled, _The Book of the Vaudois; The Waldensian Manuscripts_, which gives a notice of the long-lost Morland manuscripts lately discovered by Mr. Henry Bradshaw, M.A., Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and librarian of that university. These MSS. are undoubtedly "the oldest extant relics of the Vaudois literature," and the most important documents relating to their history.

The author forcibly presents _in extenso_, and in separate chapters, the testimony of Richard, Monk of Cluny, Moneta, De Bellavilla, Abbot Bernard, Reinerius Sacco, Archbishop Seyssell, Eneas Sylvius Piccolomini, Casini, and many others, and in the fifteenth section addresses himself to prove that the dates which Leger and Morland have assigned to the Waldensian MSS. are counterfeit. Leger assigns A.D. 1100 as the date of the _Nobla Leyçon_ and the _Catechism_ of the MSS. Our author shows that these writings are of the fifteenth, not the twelfth century, and that the date assigned by Leger involves the contradiction of proving that the Waldenses existed as a sect before the period of its founder, Peter Waldo.

One long chapter is devoted to the supposed cruel Waldensian massacre of the year 1655, as related in the often-quoted _Histoire Véritable des Vaudois_, and to the particular murders described by Leger. These are confronted with the legal testimony touching the same facts.

The work closes with an exposition of the Waldensian theological tenets, each one being presented separately with a statement of the Catholic doctrine on that tenet upon the same page.

The book is a beautiful specimen of typography, and is illustrated with several photographs of pages of the Morland manuscripts.

* * * * *

THE CHARLESTOWN CONVENT; ITS DESTRUCTION BY A MOB, ETC.
Compiled from authentic sources. Boston: P. Donahoe. 1870.

We remember distinctly the Ursuline Convent at Charlestown, as it appeared forty years ago, crowning a gentle summit with its grave and dignified buildings, and attractive grounds laid out and cultivated with taste; a retreat of piety and a school of religious and solid education. We have often enough since that time looked upon its ruins, a perpetual monument of disgrace to Boston and Massachusetts, a token of shame in close proximity to that other monument, a monument of imperishable glory, which crowns the site of the battle of Bunker Hill. This pamphlet describing the atrocious and barbarian outrage perpetrated on the night of August 11th, 1834, with the train of preceding and succeeding events connected with it, presents a page in our history which many persons would do well to ponder attentively. The outrage was occasioned by the publication of _Six Months in a Convent_, one of a class of vile publications which, for a time, were widely circulated and swallowed with credulity, but afterward universally scouted with that scorn and loathing which the American people always feels when it discovers that it has been duped by the wicked and designing. There would be no need of reviving the memory of these things, if the same style of attack upon Catholics had not been renewed at intervals, and were not adopted at the present moment by restless fanatics, who, knowing that they are incapable of coping with us in fair argument, are fain to resort to these criminal methods of appealing to prejudice, bigotry, ignorance, and passion, hoping to stir up the populace to a crusade against the Catholic religion. The abettors of Rebecca Reed and Maria Monk in the pulpit and the press have had successors to the present time. The Massachusetts Legislature has had its "smelling committee;" Missouri has passed its outrageous laws; other legislatures have attempted to lay their hands upon the property of the Catholic Church; the most infamous laws are even now in consideration before the Legislature of Pennsylvania; we have had the archangel Gabriel, and Judson, and Gavazzi, and Leahy, and we have now Bishop Coxe, Bellows, Hepworth, and Muller. The same firm of publishers which formerly was so active and conspicuous in putting forth the most vulgar and violent attacks upon the Catholic religion, although in one instance it found it expedient to hide itself under an _alias_, continues its work under the guise of a more pretentious literature, embellished by offensive caricatures of the most venerable and sacred objects of the religious veneration of Catholics. The spirit of falsification, the intention to stir up popular passion, the intolerance disguised under the name of liberalism, the determination to treat the Catholic clergy as the heads of a faction with ulterior treasonable and revolutionary designs, and the Catholic religion as a nuisance which ought to be extirpated by violence, are the same in the modern agitators that they were in their predecessors, and are in their English compeers, the Newdegates and Whalleys of the British Parliament. They tend to similar results with those which similar agitators have heretofore produced. The same train is laid, the same spark applied, and the chance of a similar explosion depends on the fact of the existence or non-existence of a similar magazine of slumbering popular prejudice and inflammable passion. We say, therefore, that it is well for considerate persons who desire the peace of the community to read and reflect upon this pamphlet. It is necessary that some very important questions should arise, where Catholics and non-Catholics form important elements in the same political community, with equal rights. It is impossible that peace and good order should be preserved, unless these matters can be discussed and arranged calmly and amicably. Therefore we say that the agitators who appeal to a violent solution, in case Catholics are not content with a simple toleration under a Protestant domination, are enemies of the public peace, and ought to be regarded as such by all good citizens. The Catholic clergy will never be agitators. If the effort is made by demagogues to pervert the Catholic or Irish sentiment into an impetus of illegal, revolutionary movements, like the riot of 1863 and the Fenian plot against Canada, the whole authority of the church and all the influence of the clergy will be put forth against it. It is for the present and future advantage and interest of this country that the influence of the Catholic clergy over their people should be as great as possible, and that of clerical agitators and demagogues reduced to nothing.

* * * * *

LIFE OF ST. CHARLES BORROMEO. Edited by Edward Healy Thompson,
A.M. Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham. 1870.

St. Charles Borromeo was one of the greatest of the true reformers of the sixteenth century. During the lifetime of his Uncle, Pius IV., he held many of the highest offices in the Roman court, possessed the pope's entire confidence, and exerted a powerful influence in favor of whatever was for the good of the church. To his exertions were due, in no small degree, the reassembling of the Council of Trent, and the successful completion of its labors eighteen years after its opening.

At the death of Pius IV., St. Charles returned to his diocese, and straightway entered upon the work of its reformation, in accordance with the decrees of Trent. He succeeded in effecting a complete reform, and the example which he thus gave had a most salutary effect.

The _Life_ before us is well written; it gives not only the facts, but likewise in some degree the philosophy of history; and it is free from that religious mannerism, so to speak, which is not unfrequently met with in books of this class. The typography and binding are in keeping with the contents. There are, however, a great many very serious errors of the press defacing this otherwise well printed volume.

* * * * *

FIRST BOOK OF BOTANY. By Eliza A. Youmans. New York: D.
Appleton & Co. 1870.

This elementary treatise upon botany is arranged in an entirely new manner. The book is intended to cultivate the child's natural powers of observation. In ordinary text-books, the beginner is expected to master a great number of definitions and distinctions before he ventures to go into the fields and study for himself. We have always considered this method irksome, and we know it to be fruitless of result. We therefore very heartily welcome Miss Youmans's little work. We hope that she has inaugurated a reform in the teaching of the natural sciences. We confidently recommend the book to all Catholic schools where botany, or any of the natural sciences, form a portion of the course of studies.

* * * * *

THE WISE MEN: WHO THEY WERE, ETC. By Francis W. Upham, LL.D.
New York: Sheldon & Co. 1869.

A book written with sound and solid learning, and originality of thought; pervaded also by a spirit in harmony with Catholic teaching, so far as the topics are concerned upon which it treats.

* * * * *

THE MONKS BEFORE CHRIST; Their Spirit and their History. By
John Edgar Johnson. Boston: A. Williams & Co. 1870.

This is one of the most shallow and stupid productions we have met with in a long time. The author met with some rather poor specimens of the monastic order in Europe, and breaks out into the exclamation, "Great heavens! and these are the men who had the exclusive manipulation of our Scriptures for several hundred years!" (Page 18.) One who is so extremely weak in the reasoning faculty as this passage indicates has no business to write a book on serious topics, and is unworthy of refutation. The author informs us that monasticism is based on the Manichæan doctrine of an evil principle in matter. This shows an _inconceivable_ ignorance which we cannot think is _invincible_ or excusable, since the author resided several months at the University of Munich, and was well acquainted with the learned Benedictines of that capital, over whom the celebrated Haneberg is abbot.

* * * * *

THE FLEMMINGS; OR, TRUTH TRIUMPHANT. By Mrs. Anna H. Dorsay.
New York: P. O'Shea. 1870.

The author of this volume has given us a pleasant story, interesting both to Catholics and Protestants, as tales of conversions to the true faith cannot fail to be when founded, as this appears to be, on fact. The pictures of natural scenery are fresh and life-like, and the moral and religious teaching unexceptionable. It is carelessly written, which will prevent the book from taking rank as a first-class story, though it will interest and profit certain minds, who would not prize it more highly if it were thoroughly cultivated and refined.

A moment's thought would have prevented mistakes in local customs, such as introducing a hay-tedder into farming operations forty years ago, and making our Puritan forefathers _go up_ to their communion, whereas they had not reverence enough for the _symbols_ to rise or kneel at their reception, but remained seated in their pews, even as their descendants do to this day.

The blunders in spelling which mar many pages of the book would disgrace a third-rate proof-reader, and we are certain the author never saw the proofs. Both paper and type are of inferior quality. These faults are the more inexcusable, as the beautiful covering, with the choice gilded medallion and precious motto, led us to look for something very nice in the way of print and paper.

* * * * *

WONDERS OF ITALIAN ART. By Louis Viardot. Illustrated. New
York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1870.