Chapter XXXII: Part VII: I (2)

Such was the letter from Mgr. Laurence to M. Rouland. It was clear and decisive, and left nothing to be said by either party. The Minister of Public Worship did not reply. He re-entered his former silence. This was very wise. Perhaps, however, it would have been wiser for him never to have come out of it.

IX.

At the very moment when Mgr. Laurence, in the name of religion, ordered an inquiry into the unwonted events which the civil authority had condemned and persecuted and wished to reject _à priori_, without condescending even to examine; on the very same day on which the bishop's letter was mailed for the minister, M. Filhol, the illustrious professor of the faculty of Toulouse, delivered the final verdict of science on the water from the grotto of Lourdes. The conscientious and perfectly thorough labor of the great chemist reduced to nothing the official analysis of M. Latour de Trie, the expert of the prefecture, about which Baron Massy had made such a noise. M. Filhol testifies as follows:

"I, the undersigned, Professor of Chemistry to the Scientific Faculty of Toulouse, Professor of Pharmacy and Toxicology to the School of Medicine of the same city, and Knight of the Legion of Honor, certify that I have analyzed the water from a spring in the neighborhood of Lourdes. From this analysis it appears that the water of the grotto of Lourdes is of such composition that it may be considered good for drinking purposes, and of a character similar to that which is generally met with among those mountains whose soil is rich in calcareous matter.

"_The extraordinary effects which are said to have been produced by the use of this water cannot, at least in the present state of science, be explained by the nature of the salts whose existence in it is detected by analysis._[102]

"_This water contains no active substance capable of giving it marked therapeutic qualities._ It can be drunk without inconvenience.

"TOULOUSE, August 7, 1858.

"(Signed) FILHOL."[103]

Thus, all the pseudo-scientific scaffolding, on which the free-thinkers and wise counsellors of the prefect had painfully built their theory of the extraordinary cures, on the examination of this celebrated chemist toppled and fell. According to true science, the water of the grotto was by no means mineral water, and had no healing property. Nevertheless, it did heal. Nothing was now left for those who had so rashly put forward imaginary explanations, but the confusion of their attempt and the impossibility of withdrawing their public acknowledgment that cures had been effected. Falsehood and error were taken in their own net.

TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTES:

[100] We find in a letter of Dr. Dozous, who had followed closely the course of events, a list of the various chronic maladies of which he testifies the extraordinary cure by the water of the grotto.

"Continual headache; weakness of sight; amaurosis; chronic neuralgia; partial and general paralysis; chronic rheumatism; partial or general debility of the system; debility of early childhood. In these cases the healing action was so sudden, that many who had not previously believed in the reality of such cures were forced to accept them as real and incontestable.

"Diseases of the spine; leucorrhea, and other diseases of women; chronic maladies of the digestive organs; obstructions of the liver, and bile.

"Sore-throat; deafness from feebleness of the auricular nerves," etc., etc.

[101] Every one will understand the reserve which prevents the bishop from mentioning the universal suspicion at Lourdes, Cauterets, Barèges, and Tarbes, of the secret action of the police in the affair of the visionaries.

It would have been somewhat difficult for the prelate to say to the minister: "The pretended scandal, which you lament and magnify out of all natural proportion to the point of making it a pure romance, is nothing more nor less than yourself in the persons of your agents."

[102] Letter from M. Filhol to the Mayor of Lourdes, transmitting his analysis.

[103] We give complete details of the analysis contained in the report of M. Filhol. The eminent chemist continues:

I certify to having obtained the following results:

PHYSICAL AND ORGANOLEPTIC PROPERTIES OF THIS WATER.

It is clear, colorless, odorless: it has no decided
taste. Its density is scarcely greater than that of
distilled water.

CHEMICAL PROPERTIES.

The water of the grotto of Lourdes acts as follows,
with reagents:

With _Red Tincture of Turnsol_.--It becomes blue.

_Lime-water._--The mixture becomes milky; an excess of
the water of grotto redissolves the precipitate first
formed.

_Soapsuds._--It becomes very cloudy.

_Chloride of Barium._--No apparent action.

_Nitrate of Silver._--Slight white precipitate, which
partly dissolves in nitric acid.

_Oxalate of Ammonia._--Scarcely any sensible action.

Submitted to the action of heat in a glass retort
communicating with a receiver, the water yielded a
gas partly absorbed by potassa. The portion thus left
undissolved was partly absorbed by phosphorus; finally,
there remained a gaseous residuum possessing all the
properties of nitrogen. At the same time that this gas
was disengaged, the water was slightly clouded and
precipitated a white deposit, slightly tinged with
red. Treated with hydrochloric acid, this deposit was
dissolved, producing a lively effervescence.

I saturated the acid solution with an excess of
ammonia; this reagent caused the precipitation of
several light flakes of a reddish color, which I
carefully separated. These flakes washed with distilled
water I treated with caustic potash, which took nothing
from them. I washed the flakes again, and dissolved
them in chlorhydric acid; then I further diluted the
solution with water, and submitted it to the action
of several reagents, whose effects I will proceed to
indicate:

_Yellow Cyanide of Potassium and Iron._--Blue
precipitate.

_Ammonia._--Reddish brown precipitate.

_Tannin._--Principally black.

_Sulpho-Cyanide of Potassium._--Blood-red color.

The liquid, separated from the flaky deposit, gave
with oxalate of ammonia an abundant white precipitate.
Having separated this precipitate by a filter, I
threw phosphate of ammonia into the clear liquid;
this reagent determined the formation of a new white
precipitate.

I evaporated to dryness five litres of the water,
and treated the dry residuum with a small quantity
of distilled water in order to dissolve the soluble
salts. The solution thus obtained was turned blue
by red tincture of turnsol. I again evaporated the
solution thus obtained, and poured alcohol over the dry
residuum; this being set on fire, gave a pale yellow
flame, such as is produced by salts of soda. I again
dissolved the residuum in a few drops of distilled
water, and mixed the solution with chloride of platina;
a slight canary-colored precipitate was formed in the
mixture.

Having acidulated two _litres_ of the water of the
grotto of Lourdes with chlorhydric acid, I evaporated
it to dryness, and found the residuum taken by the
acidulated water to be but partly dissolved. The
insoluble part presented all the appearance of silica.

I submitted to evaporation ten _litres_ of the water
of the grotto of Lourdes, in which I found a very pure
carbonate of potassa had been previously dissolved. The
result of the evaporation was moistened with boiling
alcohol, and, again evaporated to dryness, the residuum
was heated to a dull red.

The product of this operation was dissolved, after
cooling, in a few drops of distilled water, and mixed
with a little starch paste. Carefully treating this
mixture with weakly chlorated water, I saw the liquid
take a blue tint.

Submitted to distillation, the water of the grotto of
Lourdes gives a slightly alkaline distilled product.

From these facts it follows that the water of the
grotto of Lourdes holds in solution:

1. Oxygen.

2. Nitrogen.

3. Carbonic acid.

4. Carbonates of lime, of magnesia, and a trace of
carbonate of iron.

5. An alkaline carbonate or silicate, chlorides of
potassium and sodium.

6. Traces of sulphates of potassa and soda.

7. Traces of ammonia.

8. Traces of iodine.

The quantitative analysis of this water, made according
to the ordinary methods, gives the following results:

Water, 1 kilogramme.

Centig.
Carbonic acid 8
Oxygen 5
Nitrogen 17
Ammonia traces.

Gr. millig.
Carbonate of Lime .096
" Magnesia 0.012
" Iron traces.
" Soda "
Chloride of Sodium 0.008
" Potassium traces.
Silicate of Soda, and traces of Silicate
of Potassa 0.018
Sulphates of Potassa and Soda, traces.
Iodine "
-----
0.134

KING CORMAC'S CHOICE.[104]

A LEGEND OF THE BOYNE.

Beside the banks of Boyne, where late
The dire Dutch trumpets blared and rang,
'Mid wounded kernes the harper sate,
And thus the river's legend sang:

Who shall forbid a king to lie
Where lie he will, when life is o'er?
King Cormac laid him down to die;
But first he raised his hand, and swore:

"At Brugh ye shall not lay my bones:
Those pagan kings I scorn to join
Beside the trembling Druid stones,
And on the north bank of the Boyne.

"A grassy grave of poor degree
Upon its southern bank be mine
At Rossnaree, where of things to be
I saw in vision the pledge and sign.

"Thou happier Faith, that from the East
Slow travellest, set my people free!
I sleep, thy Prophet and thy Priest,
By southern Boyne, at Rossnaree."

He died: anon from hill and wood
Down flocked the black-robed Druid race,
And round the darkened palace stood,
And cursed the dead king to his face.

Uptowering round his bed, with lips
Denouncing doom, and cheeks death-pale,
As when at noontide strange eclipse
Invests gray cliffs and shadowed vale;

And proved with cymball'd anthems dread
The gods he spurned had bade him die:
Then spake the pagan chiefs, and said,
"Where lie our kings, this king must lie."

In royal robes the corse they dressed,
And spread the bier with boughs of yew;
And chose twelve men, their first and best,
To bear him through the Boyne to Brugh.

But on his bier the great dead king
Forgot not so his kingly oath;
And from sea-marge to mountain spring,
Boyne heard their coming, and was wroth.

He frowned far off, 'mid gorse and fern,
As those ill-omened steps made way;
He muttered 'neath the flying hern;
He foamed by cairn and cromlech gray;

And rose, and drowned with one black wave
Those twelve on-wading; and with glee
Bore down King Cormac to his grave
By southern Boyne, at Rossnaree!

Close by that grave, three centuries past,
Columba reared his saintly cell;
And Boyne's rough voice was changed at last
To music by the Christian bell.

So Christ's true Faith made Erin free,
And blessed her women and her men;
And that which was again shall be,
And that which died shall rise again.

He ceased: the wondering clansmen roared
Accordance to the quivering strings,
And praised King Cormac, Erin's Lord,
And Prophet of the King of kings.

AUBREY DE VERE.

FOOTNOTE:

[104] According to the old Irish chronicles, Cormac, King of all Ireland, renounced the worship of idols about two centuries before the arrival of St. Patrick, having received in a vision the promise of the true faith.

THE APOSTASY OF DR. DÖLLINGER.

The formal and public act of renunciation of the Catholic faith by Dr. Döllinger which has been looked for as a probable event for many months past, has at length been made. In itself, such an act cannot be regarded by any sound Catholic as of any moment whatever to religion or the church. It is only one suicide more, which destroys an individual, but does not hurt the stability of the church, whose life is in God, and, therefore, immortal. It may have more or less of accidental importance, however, on account of its effect upon certain persons who are weak or ill-instructed in the faith, and the use which may be made of it by the enemies of the church. We think it proper, therefore, to make some explanations concerning the past and present acts and opinions by which Dr. Döllinger has gradually but surely approached and finally reached his present position of open, declared rebellion against the infallible authority of the Catholic Church.

Dr. Döllinger has been living, until a recent period, upon the reputation which he had acquired during his earlier career as a professor and an author, supported by his high rank in the church as a mitred prelate, and in the state as a member of the Bavarian House of Peers. His great intellectual gifts and extensive learning in the department of history have never been questioned, and he was deservedly honored through a long course of years as one of the chief ornaments and ablest advocates of the Catholic religion in Germany. The relative superiority very commonly assigned to him, however, we are inclined to think, is only imaginary. Even in history he has met with some very severe defeats from antagonists more powerful than himself, and in philosophy and theology he has never shown himself to be a master. He is now an old man, seventy-three years of age, having spent above forty years of this period in his professorial chair at the University of Munich. During the earlier part of his life, as is proved by unimpeachable testimony, he was a strict Ultramontane in his theology. The gradual progress by which he went slowly down the declivity towards his present position we cannot pretend to trace accurately. It is certain, however, that no public expression of opinions having a heterodox tendency, on his part, excited any general notice before the year 1861. Even then, although the murmur of dissatisfaction which has been growing louder ever since began to be heard, and the sure Catholic instinct began to make its wounded susceptibilities known, the substantial orthodoxy and loyalty of Dr. Döllinger were not questioned or even doubted. This is proved by the language used by the editor of _Der Katholik_ at that time, in which he says that the book which had given offence, namely, the celebrated "Church and Churches," "is imbued with the genuine color of sincere Catholic faith and immovable fidelity to the church _and her supreme head_."[105] From that date to the present time, these first indistinct intimations of what now appears as a full-blown heresy can be seen in their successive stages of clearer manifestation in the writings and acts of Dr. Döllinger. The language used by him is ambiguous, and generally capable of being understood in a good sense, and his steps are cautious. There is nothing to compromise him seriously, before the time of the intrigues which went on under his direction for the purpose of defeating the Vatican Council. Looking back, however, upon the dark ways in which he has been walking, and the dark sayings which he has been uttering, in the light which his present open declaration of rebellion casts behind him, everything becomes clear and apparent to the day. There is a continuity and a logical sequence manifest in those ambiguous utterances, when explained in a schismatical and heretical sense, which they otherwise could not have. The acts and expressions of Dr. Döllinger's disciples in Germany, France, and England appear in their coherence and in their relation to the instruction which they received from their master. Moreover, a series of historical facts, in connection with the University of Munich and with Dr. Döllinger himself, show themselves in their proper bearing; and among other things of this kind, the secret end and object of the famous scientific congress of Munich become perfectly manifest. In a word, Dr. Döllinger has had an idea which has gradually supplanted the Catholic idea in his mind, and for the sake of which he has at last sacrificed the last lingering remnant of honor, conscience, loyalty, and divine grace in his soul, and stooped so low as to write his name at the bottom of that long and infamous list of traitors and heretics against whom none have ever pronounced sterner sentence of condemnation than himself. This great idea has been nothing less than the reunion of Christendom on a basis of compromise between the Catholic Church and the Eastern and Western sects, excluding the supremacy of the Roman Church and Pontiff. This is no new idea of Döllinger's. The only thing which was new and original in it was the particular scheme or plan of operation for carrying it into effect. Even this was not originated by Döllinger himself, but first planted in the mind of Maximilian II., King of Bavaria, during his youth, by Schelling. When this able and enterprising prince ascended the throne, he undertook the extraordinary task of effecting a universal intellectual and moral unification of Germany, of which Munich should be the radiating centre. The union of the different religious confessions formed a principal part of this plan. Moreover, Germany was to become the mighty power, after being united in herself, to bring all the rest of Christendom into unity in a perfect Christian civilization, which would then extend itself triumphantly through the rest of the world. The great lever by which this mighty work was to be accomplished was to be a society of learned men and able statesmen, directed by the sovereign authority of the king himself. The gathering point for these learned men was naturally the University of Munich, and from the chairs of this university would proceed that teaching and influence which should train up a body of disciples ready to sustain and carry out in their various professions and posts of influence the grand project conceived in the philosophic brain of Schelling and eagerly adopted by his royal pupil. As a matter of course, those professors of the university who were thoroughly loyal to Rome must either submit to the royal dictation or be removed. Phillipps and several other distinguished professors sacrificed their places to their conscience. Döllinger submitted. This was the fatal rock on which he split, the one which has caused injury or total shipwreck in every age of the church to so many eminent ecclesiastics. It was necessary to choose between unconditional loyalty to the spiritual sovereignty of the Pope, or subserviency to the usurpation of the temporal prince. This was the real question from the outset, and hence Dr. Döllinger's utter abjuration of the Papal supremacy is but the last logical consequence of this weak yielding at the beginning. Bossuet yielded to Louis XIV. in a similar manner. But Bossuet was a thoroughgoing theologian, priest, and bishop. He yielded against the grain, and his heart was always Roman and on the side of the Pope. Therefore Bossuet only marred but did not destroy his character and work as a great bishop and a great writer. His Gallicanism is only a single flaw in a majestic statue. But in the case of Döllinger, the German, the ambitious scholar, the courtier has predominated over and finally cast out entirely the Catholic, the theologian, and the priest. He has not been a passive tool, but a most active and energetic master-workman in carrying out the plan of Schelling and Maximilian. Nevertheless, he has been cautious, secret, and indirect in his method of working, not attacking openly, but artfully undermining the citadel of the faith, throwing out hints and scattering seeds which he left to germinate in other minds, in his published works, and chiefly intent upon privately initiating certain chosen persons into his doctrines. In this way, a subtle and deadly poison has long been spreading its baleful influence among a certain class of intellectual Catholic young men not only in Germany, but also in France and England. Thank God! this secret poisoning by concealed heresy has been stopped. The poison is now openly exposed to view, and advertised as a pleasant refrigerant or gentle purgative medicine, but is likely to deceive no one who is in good faith, for its color, taste, and smell betray it; and whoever has made his head dizzy for awhile by hastily swallowing a few drops by mistake is likely to be trebly cautious for the future.

We have already described in general terms the Munich heresy, but we will make a more precise and analytical statement of its principal component elements. As we have already said, it proposes certain principles and methods for the reconstruction of Christendom. First, the Catholic Church must be reformed in doctrine and discipline. The Œcumenical Councils as far back as the Seventh are to be set aside. The authority of any Œcumenical Council is only final in so far as it is a witness of the traditional belief of the whole body of the faithful. The authority of the decisions of the Holy See must be set aside, and the supremacy of the Sovereign Pontiff be reduced to a mere patriarchal primacy. The state is completely supreme and independent. Sacred and secular science are exempt from all control except that of the dogmas of faith. When the Catholic Church is purified in doctrine and discipline, the other portions of Christendom are to be united with it in one grand whole, combining all that is good in each one of them, and itself more perfect than any. The supreme and ultimate judgment in regard to religious dogmas is in the universal Christian sentiment or consciousness, enlightened and directed by men of science and learning.

To certain minds, there is something specious and high-sounding about this theory. It is, however, a mere Russian ice palace, which melts when the direct rays of the sun fall upon it. It is essentially no better than the doctrine of Huss and Luther. It is very nearly identical with that of Dr. Pusey. It is old Protestantism revamped, and varnished with a mixture of rationalism and orientalism. The supreme authority of the Holy See being set aside, and the decrees of general councils submitted to the judgment of the great body of the clergy and people, where is the rule of faith? Pure Protestantism gives us, in lieu of the infallible teaching authority of the living church, the Bible, interpreted by the private judgment of each individual. The Munich theory gives us the Bible and apostolic tradition, interpreted by the public judgment of the aggregate mass of the faithful. But how is the individual to determine what that judgment is? The historical and other documents by which the common and universal tradition of all ages can be ascertained are voluminous. Moreover, it is a matter of controversy how these documents are to be understood. Only the learned can fully master and understand them. The common people must, therefore, be instructed by the learned. But the learned do not agree among themselves. What, then, is left for the individual, except a choice among these learned doctors or among several schools of doctors which one he will follow? This choice must be made by his private judgment, and, if not a blind following of a leader or a party, it must be made by a careful examination of the evidences proving that this or that man, Dr. Döllinger, for example, thoroughly understands the Scripture, the Fathers, and ecclesiastical history, and truly interprets them. Is there any hope of unity by such a method? Is there any hope of any individual, even, arriving at certainty by it? It is a return at last to the old Protestant principle of private judgment, with a substitution of something far more difficult than the Bible in place of the Bible which Luther substituted for the church.

Practically it amounts to this: Dr. Döllinger is the greatest and wisest of men; he knows all things. Take his word that so much and no more is the sound orthodox doctrine handed down from the apostles and believed in all ages, and you are right. Let the Pope and the bishops and the whole world believe and obey Dr. Döllinger. It is Luther's old saying repeated by a man of less strength and audacity, but equally absurd and insupportable pride. _Sic voleo, sic jubeo: stet pro ratione voluntas._[106] Pius IX. and the bishops in the Vatican Council, so far from complying with the modest desires of Dr. Döllinger, have condemned the very radical idea of his heresy, and all other heresies cognate with it, have crushed his conspiracy, and blown away into thin air the painted bubble of a reformed Catholic Church, and a reunion of Christendom on a basis of compromise. There was no alternative for Dr. Döllinger and his partisans except submission to the decrees of the council, or to the anathema by which they were fortified. Ample time for reflection and deliberation was allowed him, and now, seven months after the solemn promulgation of the decrees of the Council of the Vatican, he has deliberately and coolly refused submission, thereby openly and manifestly cutting himself off from the communion of the Catholic Church. His manner of doing it is a signal illustration of the ridiculous attitude which a man of sense is often driven to assume when he has given himself up to the sway of pride. He desires the Archbishop of Munich to permit him to be heard in his own defence before a council of German bishops, or a court formed from the Cathedral Chapter. If this is to be considered as an appeal from the Council of the Vatican to another tribunal, whose decision he is willing to submit to as final, nothing can be more absurd. An appeal from the supreme tribunal to an inferior court is certainly something unheard of either in civil or canon law. The dogmas denied and rejected by Dr. Döllinger have been thoroughly examined and discussed in a general council. Judgment has been pronounced, and the case is closed for ever. The Archbishop of Munich and the German prelates are bound by this judgment, have assented to it, and have proclaimed it to their subjects. They have no authority to bring it under a new examination, or reverse it, in a judicial capacity. If they sit in judgment on Dr. Döllinger, or any other individual impeached of heresy, that judgment is their paramount law, according to which they must decide. The only questions which can come before them in such a case are, whether the person who is a defendant before their court has contravened the decisions of the Vatican Council by word or writing, and whether he is contumacious in his error. It can scarcely be supposed that a man who refuses submission to a general council and the Holy See could have any intention or disposition to submit to a national council or an episcopal court. The only alternative supposition is that he desired to prolong the controversy, to gain time, to inflame the minds of men, to create a party and inaugurate a schism. Really and truly, his demand amounts to this: "The majority of the bishops of the Catholic Church, having been misled by their theological instruction, have made an erroneous decision in a matter of dogma. I therefore request the bishops of Germany to permit me to give them better instruction, and persuade them to recall their adhesion to that decision. If that cannot be done, I request the Archbishop of Munich to do me that favor." The silliness of such a demand is only equalled by its effrontery. Dr. Döllinger must be very far gone indeed in pride to fancy that the Archbishop of Munich or the German prelates could think for an instant of making themselves his docile disciples, or entertain the thought of following him into schism and heresy. It is an act of parting defiance, the impotent gesture of a desperate man, whose last stronghold is crumbling under his feet, but who prefers to be buried under its ruins rather than to repent and return to his allegiance.

The appeal to German national sympathy and prejudice is worthy of a man whose worldly and selfish ambition has extinguished the last spark of genuine Catholic feeling in his bosom. It is a cry for sympathy to the bad Catholics, the Protestants, and the infidels of Germany. It is a repetition of that old saying of Caiphas against Jesus Christ, "The Romans will come and take away our place and nation." Nothing can be more unhistorical than the assertion that Papal supremacy wrought division in the past German Empire, or more contrary to sound political wisdom than the assertion that the same threatens division in the German Empire of the present. Martin Luther sowed the dragon's teeth from which sprang civil war, disastrous foreign war, internal dissension, and all the direful miseries which have come upon Germany since his inauspicious rebellion against the Holy See. The so-called Reformation turned the Protestant princes against the Emperor, stirred up the revolt of the peasants, inspired the treachery which opened the gates to Gustavus Vasa, and instigated that alliance with Louis XIV. which lost Lorraine and Alsace to Germany. That infidel liberalism which is the legitimate offspring of the revolt against Rome is the most dangerous internal enemy which the present empire has to fear. It is summed up in the list of errors condemned by Pius IX. in his Encyclical and Syllabus. On the contrary, the complete restoration of Catholic unity and Papal supremacy in Germany would bring back more than the glories of the former empire, and renew the epoch of Charlemagne.

As for the vain and feeble effort of two or three cabinets to prohibit the promulgation of the decrees of the Vatican Council, it is too absurd to argue about, and too harmless to excite any alarm or indignation. Neither is there any danger that Dr. Döllinger's apostasy will cause any serious defection among the Catholic people of Germany. The professors of the University of Munich have been appointed by the king. Some are Protestants, others are infidels, and others have been hitherto Catholics in profession, but followers of the heresy of Janus in their heart. There are many laymen and some clergymen of the same sort among the professors of Germany, and a certain number of persons in other walks of life, whose faith has been undermined and corrupted. We have always expected that the Council of the Vatican would cause a considerable number of defections from the communion of the church. But we have no expectation that this defection of individuals will consolidate into a new concrete heresy. John Huss and Martin Luther have exhausted the probabilities of pseudo-orthodox reformation. Its race is run. The time for heresy is past. Organized opposition to the Catholic Church in these days must take a more consistently anti-Christian form. Pius IX. and Garibaldi represent the only two real parties. Döllinger is nobody, and has no place. That a great many baptized Catholics have totally renounced the faith is undoubtedly true. But the Catholic people who still retain the principles and the spirit of their traditional faith are with Pius IX. This is true of the Bavarian and other German popular masses, as well as of the people of other nations. The German prelates, the clergy, the nobility, are strong and enthusiastic in their allegiance to the Holy See. The orthodox theologians and _savants_ can wield the ponderous hammer of science with as much strength of aim as any of the scholars who have been fostered in the sunshine of royal favor. The boast made by Dr. Döllinger at the Congress of Munich of the pre-eminence which Germany will gain in Catholic theology and sacred science will probably be in part fulfilled, though not in the sense which he had in his mind. It will be fulfilled, not by men who bid a haughty defiance to the saints and doctors of the church, who utter scornful words against the scholars of other nations, who are governed by narrow-minded national prejudice and unreasoning obstinacy, and who are faithless in their allegiance to their spiritual sovereign, while they are servilely obsequious to a temporal monarch. It will be done by true, genuine Catholics, the legitimate offspring of the great men who founded, governed, taught, and made illustrious the old church and empire of Germany in past ages.

The gist of the entire quarrel of Dr. Döllinger with the Archbishop of Munich consists in an appeal from the supreme authority in the church to the principle of private judgment. In form, it is an appeal to the Holy Scriptures and the Fathers, but this is only an appeal to Dr. Döllinger's own private interpretation of the true sense of Scripture and the Fathers. It is the same appeal which heretics and schismatics have made in all ages: Arius, Nestorius, Pelagius, Huss, Luther, Cranmer, Photius, Mark of Ephesus, the Armenian schismatics of Constantinople, and all others who have rebelled against the Holy See. It is the essence of Protestantism, and in the end transforms itself into rationalism and infidelity. The ancient heretics, the Oriental schismatics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Calvinists, Unitarians, all have a common principle, all are Protestants. That principle is the right of private judgment to resist the supreme authority of the Catholic Church. So long as private judgment is supposed to be directed by a supernatural light of the Holy Spirit, and to possess in Scripture and tradition, or in Scripture alone, a positive revelation, Protestantism is a kind of Christianity. When the natural reason is made the arbiter, and the absolute authority of the doctrine of Jesus Christ as taught by the apostles is denied, it is a rationalistic philosophy, which remains Christian in a modified and general sense until it descends so low as to become simply unchristian and infidel. The Catholic principle which is constitutive of the Catholic Church as a body, and of each individual Catholic as a member of it, is the principle of authority. There is no logical alternative between the two. One or the other must be final and supreme, the authority of the church or the authority of the individual judgment. If the authority of the church is supreme, no individual or aggregate of individuals can reject or even question its decisions. It is the Catholic doctrine that authority is supreme. The church is constituted by the organic unity of bishops, clergy, and people, with their Head, the Bishop of Rome, the successor of St. Peter. He is the Vicar of Christ, and possesses the plenitude of apostolic and episcopal authority. His judgment is final and supreme, whether he pronounces it with or without the judicial concurrence of an œcumenical council. This has always been the recognized doctrine and practice of the church. It is nothing more or less than Papal supremacy as existing and everywhere believed, as much before as after the Council of the Vatican. The word "infallibility," like the words "consubstantial" and "transubstantiation," is only the precise and definite expression of that which has long been a dogma defined under other terms, and always been contained in the universal faith of the church based on Scripture and apostolic tradition. The first Christians were taught to obey implicitly the teachings of St. Peter and the apostles, because they had received authority from Jesus Christ. There was nothing said about infallibility, because the idea was sufficiently impressed upon their minds in a more simple and concrete form. Their descendants, in like manner, believed in the teaching of the successors of the apostles because they had inherited their divine authority. Whoever separated from the Roman Church and was condemned by the Roman Pontiff was at once known to have lost all authority to teach. The teaching of the bishops in communion with the Roman Church, and approved by the Roman Pontiff, was always known to be the immediate and practical rule of faith. Whoever taught anything contrary to that was manifestly in error, and, if contumacious, a heretic, who must be cast out of the church, however high his rank might be. Moreover, the Roman Pontiff decided all controversies, and issued his dogmatic decrees to all bishops, who were required to receive and promulgate them under pain of excommunication. This unconditional obedience to an external authority evidently presupposes that the authority obeyed is rendered infallible by the supernatural assistance of the Holy Ghost. Hence, the express and explicit profession of the infallibility of the church as a dogma of faith has been universal ever since it has been made a distinct object of thought and exposition. It is nothing more than a distinct expression of one part of the idea that the church has divine and supreme authority to teach, with a corresponding obligation on the faithful to believe her teaching. In like manner, the divine and supreme authority of the Pope to teach includes and implies infallibility, as the vast majority of bishops and theologians have always held and taught. The erroneous opinion that the express or tacit acquiescence of the bishops is necessary to the finality of pontifical decrees in matters pertaining to faith and doctrine, was tolerated by the Holy See until the definitions of the Council of the Vatican were promulgated. The infallibility of the church itself produces this agreement of the episcopate with its head. In fact, therefore, and practically, the pontifical decrees were always submitted to by good Catholics, and the Holy See did not formally and expressly exact any more than this as a term of Catholic communion. Dr. Döllinger and others of the same stamp took advantage of this toleration of an illogical and erroneous opinion to undermine the doctrine of Papal supremacy and the authority of œcumenical councils. The Pope cannot possess the supreme power of teaching and judging, they argued, without infallibility. He is not infallible, therefore, he is not supreme. Moreover, the only certain criterion by which we know that a council is œcumenical is the sanction of the Pope. If he is not infallible, he may err in giving this sanction. Thus, the way was opened to dispute the authority of the Councils of Trent, Lateran, Florence, etc., and to rip up the whole texture of Catholic doctrine, just so far as suited the notions of these audacious innovators. The event has proved how opportune and necessary was that distinct and precise definition of the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff which has for ever shut out the possibility of sheltering a fundamental heresy like that of Döllinger behind an ambiguous expression. There is now no more chance for evading the law and remaining ostensibly a Catholic. The law is clear and plain. All dogmatic decrees of the Pope, made with or without his general council, are infallible and irreformable. Once made, no pope or council can reverse them. There is no choice left to the prelates about enforcing them on their clergy and people. No clergyman holds his position, and no one of the faithful is entitled to the sacraments, on any other terms than entire submission and obedience. This is the Catholic principle, that the church cannot err in faith. She has declared it to be an article of faith that the Roman Pontiff, speaking _ex cathedrâ_ as the supreme doctor of the church, is infallible. It is therefore a contradiction in terms for a person who denies or doubts this doctrine to call himself a Catholic. We cannot too constantly or earnestly impress this truth on the minds of the Catholic people, that the rule of faith is the present, concrete, living, and perpetual teaching of that supreme authority which Christ has established in the church. We believe, on the veracity of God, by a supernatural faith which is given by the Holy Ghost in baptism, those truths which the holy church proposes to our belief. The church can never change, never reform her faith, never retract her decisions, never dispense her children from an obligation she has once imposed on them of receiving a definition as the true expression of a dogma contained in the divine revelation. To do so, would be to destroy herself, and fall down to the level of the sects. The idle talk of writers for the secular press, whether they pretend to call themselves Catholics or not, about the church conforming herself to liberal principles and the spirit of the age is simply worthy of laughter and derision. No Catholic who has a grain of sense will pay any heed to opinions or monitions coming from such an incompetent source. The church is the only judge of the nature and extent of her own powers, and of the proper mode of exercising them. The pontiffs, prelates, pastors, priests, and theologians of the church, are her authorized expositors and interpreters, her advocates and defenders. Those who desire to be her worthy members, and those who wish to learn what she really is, will seek from them, and from them only, or from authors and writings which they have sanctioned, instruction in the true Catholic doctrine. The unhappy man whose defection has called forth these remarks has lost his place in the Catholic hierarchy, and henceforth he is of no more account than any other sectarian of past times or of the present. The ecclesiastical historian will record his name in the list of the heretics of the nineteenth century, and his peculiar ideas will pass into oblivion, except as a matter of curious research to the scholar.

FOOTNOTES:

[105] See the second volume of this periodical for 1861, and also the number for March, 1870.

[106] Thus I will, thus I command: let my will stand for a reason.

FALSE VIEWS OF SAINTSHIP.

We often hear the saints spoken of as men of another race and stature than ourselves, splendid masterpieces of perfection meant to be admired from a distance, but certainly not to be copied with loving and minute care.

Now, this is a mistake--the most fatal mistake for ourselves; for we thus tie down our faculties to commonplace life, and refuse to give them the wider scope that nature herself meant for their exercise; the most unfortunate mistake for religion, because in making her heroes inaccessible and almost unnatural, we deter others from laudable efforts, and attach to our faith the stigma of present sterility.

Not only can each one of us become a saint, and that by a simple and ordinary course of life, but the canonized saints themselves bear witness that they reached heaven in no other way, and attained their crowns by no other means. The saint, be assured of it, is the truest gentleman, the pleasantest companion, and most faithful friend.

He is no morose misanthrope, no disenchanted cynic; he is a man with all the natural feelings of humanity, all the amiable traits of good-fellowship, all the nameless graces of good society. There is no pleasing, amenity of human intercourse, no rational exchange of human sentiments, no harmless relaxation of a refined mind, that need be foreign to his nature, and a stranger to his heart.

All men prize honor and straight-forwardness; they welcome cheerfulness and vivacity; they admire a strong will; love of nature and art, sympathy with suffering and with poverty, zealousness in the cause of learning, are all passports to their favor, and incline them to seek the friendship and trust the advice of those in whom these qualities shine.

Now, if we show them that canonized saints and great men well known in the annals of the church have always been distinguished by these traits, will they refuse to admit that the more a man loves his God, the fitter he is to win human sympathy and command human imitation?

The saints have not seldom been unfairly treated, and chiefly by their overzealous biographers; for their holiness has been distilled into such ethereal and miraculous abstractions that we no more dream of grasping it as a means of encouragement than we do of seizing for nourishment upon the summer clouds whose lovely shapes entrance our eyes in the western heavens.

Every one of the saints had an individual character, touching weaknesses of disposition and innocent partialities of nature. Every one of them went to heaven by a separate road, and his specialty of human and natural character alone determined that road. Some were kings and emperors, princes and popes, and great men of the earth; they had to wear soft garments and ermine robes, and spend much time in the display their state required. Now, many sanctimonious persons would have us believe that such display is absolutely and in itself wrong, and can under no circumstances be allowable. The church thinks otherwise, and more generously, and has canonized these men.

Some were beggars or servants, mechanics or husbandmen; passed their days in menial pursuits, and apparently had their minds occupied only by the sordid necessities of their humble degree. Many presumptuous people like to tell us that servile work deteriorates the mind, that beggary is invariably a criminal state, that poverty dwarfs the understanding and hardens the heart. The church thinks otherwise, and more charitably, and these too she has canonized.

Again, some were statesmen and scholars, and the wranglings of courts, the tumult of embassies, the disputes of universities, were the daily atmosphere they breathed. Some officious persons tell us plainly that solitude is the only nurse of holiness, and that, with these surroundings, it is impossible to live unbewildered by the world's noise and untainted by the world's corruption. The church thinks otherwise, and more liberally, and has canonized these men also.

No station in life is too low or too high for God to look upon, and therefore not too low nor too high for God's saints to thrive in.

The secret of saintship lies in the power of a man to fashion his surroundings, and mould the circumstances attendant on his lot in life, till he makes them into a ladder wherewith to climb to heaven.

Suppose a man is born to high destinies, and a great fortune: they are ready-made instruments in his hand for the glory of God and the good of his neighbor. Let him recollect that Jesus was of a royal race, and was visited by Eastern kings.

Suppose, on the contrary, he is born poor, and sees no means of future advancement all his life: there again are his weapons chosen for him to fight the good fight. Let him remember that Jesus was born in a stable, and lived in a carpenter's shop.

If a man is clever, intellectual, talented, his road to heaven lies in the good use he makes of these gifts of mind; if he is cheerful, good-humored, well-bred, his road to heaven lies in the charitable use he makes of his natural attractiveness; if he is placed in circumstances that grievously try his temper and his patience, long-suffering, resignation, and gentleness will be the evident path for him; if surrounded by difficulties and occupying a responsible position, discretion and delicacy will be his appointed road.

There is no forcing the spiritual life; it grows out of the natural life, and is only the natural life, shorn of self and self-love, supernaturalized.

Life is a battle; we all have to fight it, but even in a material combat, what general would arm all his soldiers alike? Are there not cavalry and infantry, lancers and riflemen? Do not some wield the sword, others man the guns? So in the combat whose promised land is paradise; we fight each with diverse weapons, and our one thought should be, not to envy others their arms, but do effectual service with our own. Men fight one way, women another. Both can fight as well; but only by using their own weapons.

There is an old French fable that speaks of the frog who sought to swell himself to the size of the ox, forgetting that he could be as happy and as useful in his small fish-pond as the larger animal in his spacious meadow. He _would_ not be a frog, but of course he _could_ not become an ox, so he died of his effort, and the world counted one worker less. Just so do some of us act when we sigh over the life of some great saint of old, and, putting down the book in sentimental admiration as barren as it is useless, cry out, "If only _I_ could be an Augustine, a Theresa, a Thomas Aquinas!" To such might we answer: "Do you know why they were saints? Because they acted up to the lights they had. If _you_ act up to your inferior but no less true lights, you too will be a saint." If Augustine, and Theresa, and Thomas Aquinas had spent their lives in sterile sentimentality, calling upon the dead saints before them, where would _they_ have been, and who would have heard of their names? At that rate, there would have been no saints at all after the twelve apostles, and even they would have sat down in profitless discouragement because their holiness could not equal that of the Son of God!

Did not the Creator say to all things living, vegetable or animal, "Increase and multiply," and "Let the earth bring forth the green herb, and such as may seed, and the fruit-tree bearing fruit _after its kind_"? In that one commandment lies the secret spring of the energy and fruitfulness of every created thing, spiritual no less than temporal. Let each one of us bear fruit _according to his kind_, and God will be satisfied. Augustine and Gregory, Thomas and Bonaventure, Francis of Assisium and Francis of Sales, Charles Borromeo and Vincent of Paul, Philip Neri and Ignatius Loyola, were men, very _men_, and, had they not been men, they could not have been saints. We mean, their sanctity would have been other than it actually was; it would have been even as the holiness of the angels, the untempted steadfastness of pure spirits. Had they been born as the Blessed Virgin, immaculate in the very initial moment of existence, they would not have been the saints they are, the imitable, human, weakling beings we yearn over and love with a natural and sympathetic love.

Nature, whatever people may say of her, is not contrary to grace: not in this sense at least, that she is the field, and grace the plough. The plough does not alter the earth it furrows; it only prepares it, stirs it, turns its better surface uppermost, and displays its richest loam to receive the grain. As neither rain, nor dew, nor manure can turn one soil into another, so can no efforts of overstrained piety, no devices of ambitious perseverance, re-create the soul and portion it anew. As God made us, so we stand: by taking thought, we cannot add to our stature one cubit, neither can we force a foreign growth to bloom on the low-lying lands of our soul. One sort of grain grows best in one sort of earth. Would any husbandman dream of planting the wrong grain in it? God is a husbandman, and shall he do less well than mortal man, and shall he endeavor to force one soil to bear the crop it cannot nourish? No, no! God gave us one nature as well as the graces he plants therein, and we may trust to him to see the harvest reaped. It is men, it is ourselves, who interfere with our sowing and reaping time; it is ourselves, who ambitiously seek to grow grain we can never rear, or it is others who maliciously sow tares in a soil they too quickly overrun. Then the world will see in us her saints, men going simply through the round of their daily duties, very unostentatiously, very quietly, never boasting, because to have time to boast they must needs leave off their work; never lamenting, because to lament they would have to leave off their prayer; but letting their nature fill itself to the brim with God, and, when it is full, letting it quietly overflow to their neighbor.

That sounds very simple, does it not? Yes, because everything that belongs to God is simplicity itself, and the more simple a man is, the nearer God he is.

All the great men and women whose names stud the calendar of the church owed their greatness to their simplicity, and the words of the greatest saint that ever lived, the words of her, were they not the simplest ever found on record: "Be it done unto me according to thy word"?

Saints of our timid generation, saints of our half-hearted century, saints of our hitherto barren civilization, start up, and fill the plains and the valleys of all lands, fill the offices of the city and the homes of the citizens, fill the church, the courts, the universities, fill the lowly serried ranks of the poor, fill the more burdened and more responsible phalanx of the noble and the rich!

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE LIFE OF ST. THOMAS OF AQUIN. By Father Vaughan,
O.S.B. London: Longmans, Brown, Green & Co. Vol. I. For
sale by The Catholic Publication Society, New York.