Chapter XXIX: Part II: Sonnet--Rydal with Wordsworth (6)

They ranged themselves around, and escorted him through long valleys and subterranean forests. But--a very singular thing--all the trees of these forests were of lead.

At last the cortége reached a magnificent prairie or meadow; in the midst of this meadow was a château of gold studded with diamonds. “This,” said the King of Metals, “is your domain.” Flora was much fatigued and very hungry. The dwarfs prepared dinner, and her husband led her to a table of gold. But all the meats and all the food presented to her were of this metal. Flora, not being able to partake of this food, was reduced to ask humbly for a piece of bread. The waiters brought her bread of copper, of silver, and of gold. She could not bite either of them. “I cannot give you,” her husband said, “the bread that you wish; here we have no other kind of bread.”

The young woman wept, and the king said to her:

“Your tears cannot change your fate. This is the destiny you have yourself chosen.”

The miserable Flora was compelled to remain in this subterranean abode, suffering with hunger, through her passion for wealth. Only once a year, at Easter, she is allowed to ascend for three days to the upper earth, and then she goes from village to village, begging from door to door a morsel of bread.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

AN EXPOSITION OF THE CHURCH IN VIEW OF RECENT DIFFICULTIES AND
CONTROVERSIES, AND THE PRESENT NEEDS OF THE AGE. London: Basil
Montagu Pickering, 196 Piccadilly. 1875. New York: THE CATHOLIC
WORLD, April, 1875.

(From _Le Contemporain_.)

I. _Renewed Working of the Holy Spirit in the World._--We are, in a religious, social, and political point of view, in times of transition which we are not able to understand, for the same reason that no one can follow the movements of the battle-field who is in the midst of the engagement.

To judge from appearances, especially those which are nearest at hand, we are on the brink of an abyss. The Catholic religion, openly persecuted in Germany, prostrated now for several years in Italy and Spain by the suppression of the religious congregations, attacked in all countries, abandoned by all sovereigns, appears, humanly speaking, to be on the brink of destruction. There are not wanting prophets who predict the collapse of Christianity and the end of the world. There are, however, manly souls who do not allow themselves to be discouraged, and who see grounds for hope in the very events which fill ordinary hearts with terror and consternation.

Of this number is an American religious, Father Hecker, who has just issued a pamphlet in English, wherein, without concealing the difficulties of the present, he avows his expectation of the approaching triumph of religion.

His motives are drawn from the deep faith he professes in the action of the Holy Spirit in the church, outside of which he does not see any real Christianity. It is the Holy Spirit whom we must first invoke; it is the Holy Spirit of whom we have need, and who will cure all our ills by sending us his gifts.

“The age,” he says, “is superficial; it needs the gift of wisdom, which enables the soul to contemplate truth in its ultimate causes. The age is materialistic; it needs the gift of intelligence, by the light of which the intellect penetrates into the essence of things. The age is captured by a false and one-sided science; it needs the gift of science, by the light of which is seen each order of truth in its true relations to other orders and in a divine unity. The age is in disorder, and is ignorant of the ways to true progress; it needs the gift of counsel, which teaches how to choose the proper means to attain an object. The age is impious; it needs the gift of piety, which leads the soul to look up to God as the heavenly Father, and to adore him with feelings of filial affection and love. The age is sensual and effeminate; it needs the gift of force, which imparts to the will the strength to endure the greatest burdens, and to prosecute the greatest enterprises with ease and heroism. The age has lost and almost forgotten God; it needs the gift of fear to bring the soul again to God, and make it feel conscious of its great responsibility and of its destiny.”

The men to whom these gifts have been accorded are those of whose services our age has need. A single man with these gifts could do more than ten thousand who possessed them not. It is to such men, if they correspond with the graces which have been heaped upon them, that our age will owe its universal restoration and its universal progress. This being admitted, since, on the other hand, it is of faith that the Holy Spirit does not allow the church to err, ought we not now to expect that he will direct her on to a new path?

Since the XVIth century, the errors of Protestantism, and the attacks upon the Catholic religion of which it gave the signal, have compelled the church to change, to a certain extent, the normal orbit of her movement. Now that she has completed in this direction her line of defence,[171] it is to be expected that she will resume her primitive career, and enter on a new phase, by devoting herself to more vigorous action. It is impossible to dispute the fresh strength which the definition lately promulgated by the Council of the Vatican has bestowed upon the church. It is the axis on which now revolves the church’s career--the renewal of religion in souls, and the entire restoration of society.

Do we not see an extraordinary divine working in those numerous pilgrimages to authorized sanctuaries, in those multiplied novenas, and those new associations of prayer? And do they not give evidence of the increasing influence of the Holy Spirit on souls?

What matter persecutions? It is they which purify what remains of the too human in the church. It is by the cross we come to the light--_Per crucem ad lucem_.

A little farther on the author explains in what the twofold action of the Holy Spirit consists.

He acts at one and the same time in an intimate manner upon hearts, and in a manner quite external on the church herself.

An indefinite field of action conceded to the sentiments of the heart, without a sufficient knowledge of the end and object of the church, would open the way for illusions, for heresies of every kind, and would invite an individual mysticism which would be merely one of the forms of Protestantism.

On the other hand, the exclusive point of view of the external authority of the church, without a corresponding comprehension of the nature of the operations of the Holy Spirit within the heart of every one of the faithful, would make the practice of religion a pure formalism, and would render obedience servile, and the action of the church sterile.

Moreover, the action of the Holy Spirit made visible in the authority of the church, and of the Holy Spirit dwelling invisibly in the heart, form an inseparable synthesis; and he who has not a clear conception of this double action of the Holy Spirit runs the risk of losing himself in one or other of the extremes which would involve the destruction and end of the church.

In the external authority of the church the Holy Spirit acts as the infallible interpreter and the criterion of the divine revelation. He acts in the heart as giving divine life and sanctification.

The Holy Spirit, who, by means of the teachings of the church, communicates divine truth, is the same Spirit which teaches the heart to receive rightly the divine truth which he deigns to teach. The measure of our love for the Holy Spirit is the measure of our obedience to the authority of the church; and the measure of our obedience to the authority of the church is the measure of our love for the Holy Spirit. Whence the saying of S. Augustine: _Quantum quisque amat ecclesiam Dei, tantum habet Spiritum Sanctum_.

It is remarkable that no pope has done so much for the despised rights of human reason as Pope Pius IX.; that no council has done better service to science than that of the Vatican, none has better regulated its relations to the faith; that none has better defined in their fundamental principles the relations of the natural and the supernatural; and the work of the pontiff and of the council is not yet finished.

Every apology for Christianity must henceforth make great account of the intrinsic proofs of religion, without which people of the world would be more and more drawn to see the church only on her human side.

The Holy Spirit, by means of the sacraments, consummates the union of the soul of the believer with God. It is this end which true religion should pursue. The placing in relief the internal life, and the constitution of the church, and the intelligible side of the mysteries of the church--in short, the intrinsic reasons of the truths of the divine revelation combined with the external motive of credibility--will complete the demonstration of Christianity. Such an exposition of Christianity, founded on the union of these two categories of proofs, will have the effect of producing a more enlightened and intense conviction of religion in the souls of the faithful, and of stimulating them to more energetic action; and it will have, as its last result, the opening of the door to their wandering brethren, and gathering them back into the bosom of the church. With the vigorous co-operation of the faithful, the ever-augmenting action of the Holy Spirit will raise the human personality to such an intensity of strength and greatness that there will result from it a new era for the church and for society--an admirable era, which it would be difficult to describe in human expressions, without having recourse to the prophetic language of the inspired Scriptures.

II. _The Mission of Races._--In pursuing his study upon the action of the Holy Spirit in the world, the author says that a wider and more explicit exposition of the dogmatic and moral verities of the church, with a view to the characteristic gifts of every race, is the means to employ in order to realize the hopes he has conceived.

God is the author of the different races of men. For known reasons of his providence, he has impressed on them certain characteristic traits, and has assigned to them from the beginning the places which they should occupy in his church.

In a matter in which delicate susceptibilities have to be carefully handled, it is important not to exaggerate the special gifts of every race, and, on the other hand, not to depreciate them or exaggerate their vices.

It would, however, be a serious error, in speaking of the providential mission of the races, to suppose that they were destined to mark with their imprint religion, Christianity, or the church. It is, on the contrary, God who makes the gifts and qualities with which he has endowed them co-operate in the expression and development of the truths which he created for them.

Nevertheless, no one can deny the mission of the Latin and Celtic races throughout the greater part of the history of Christianity. The first fact which manifested their mission and established the influence they were to exercise was the establishment of the chair of S. Peter at Rome, the centre of the Latin race. To Rome appertained the idea of the administrative and governmental organization of the whole world. Rome was regarded as the geographical centre of the world.

The Greeks having abandoned the church for schism, and the Saxons having revolted against her by heresy in the XVIth century, the predominance which the Latin race, united later on to the Celtic race, assumed in her bosom, became more and more marked.

This absence of the Greeks and of a considerable part of the Saxons--nations whose prejudices and tendencies are in many respects similar--left the ground more free for the church to complete her action, whether by her ordinary or normal development, or by the way of councils, as that of Trent and that of the Vatican.

That which characterizes the Latin and Celtic races, according to our author, is their hierarchical, traditional, and emotional tendencies.

He means, doubtless, by this latter expression, that those races are very susceptible to sensible impressions--to those which come from without.

As to the hierarchical sentiment of the Celtic and Latin races, it appears to us that for upwards of a century it has been much weakened, if it be not completely extinct.

In the following passage the author is not afraid to say of the Saxon race:

“It is precisely the importance given to the external
constitution and to the accessories of the church which
excited the antipathies of the Saxons, which culminated in
the so-called Reformation. For the Saxon races and the mixed
Saxons, the English and their descendants, predominate in the
rational element, in an energetic individuality, and in great
practical activity in the material order.”

One might have feared, perhaps, a kind of hardihood arising from a certain national partiality in regard to which the author would find it difficult to defend himself against his _half-brethren_ of Germany, if he had not added:

“One of the chief defects of the Saxon mind lay in not fully
understanding the constitution of the church, or sufficiently
appreciating the essential necessity of her external
organization. Hence their misinterpretation of the providential
action of the Latin-Celts, and their charges against the
church of formalism, superstition, and popery. They wrongfully
identified the excesses of those races with the church of God.
They failed to take into sufficient consideration the great
and constant efforts the church had made in her national and
general councils to correct the abuses and extirpate the vices
which formed the staple of their complaints.

“Conscious, also, of a certain feeling of repression of their
natural instincts, while this work of the Latin-Celts was
being perfected, they at the same time felt a great aversion
to the increase of externals in outward worship, and to the
minute regulations in discipline, as well as to the growth of
papal authority and the outward grandeur of the papal court.
The Saxon leaders in heresy of the XVIth century, as well as
those of our own day, cunningly taking advantage of those
antipathies, united with selfish political considerations,
succeeded in making a large number believe that the question
in controversy was not what it really was--a question; namely,
between Christianity and infidelity--but a question between
Romanism and Germanism!

“It is easy to foresee the result of such a false issue; for it
is impossible, humanly speaking, that a religion can maintain
itself among a people when once they are led to believe it
wrongs their natural instincts, is hostile to their national
development, or is unsympathetic with their genius.

“With misunderstandings, weaknesses, and jealousies on both
sides, these, with various other causes, led thousands and
millions of Saxons and Anglo-Saxons to resistance, hatred,
and, finally, open revolt against the authority of the church.

“The same causes which mainly produced the religious rebellion
of the XVIth century are still at work among the Saxons, and
are the exciting motives of their present persecutions against
the church.

“Looking through the distorted medium of their Saxon
prejudices, grown stronger with time, and freshly stimulated by
the recent definition of Papal Infallibility, they have worked
themselves into the belief--seeing the church only on the
outside, as they do--that she is purely a human institution,
grown slowly, by the controlling action of the Latin-Celtic
instincts, through centuries, to the present formidable
proportions. The doctrines, the sacraments, the devotions,
the worship of the Catholic Church, are, for the most part,
from their stand-point, corruptions of Christianity, having
their source in the characteristics of the Latin-Celtic races.
The papal authority, to their sight, is nothing else than the
concentration of the sacerdotal tendencies of these races,
carried to their culminating point by the recent Vatican
definition, which was due, in the main, to the efforts and the
influence exerted by the Jesuits. This despotic ecclesiastical
authority, which commands a superstitious reverence and servile
submission to all its decrees, teaches doctrines inimical to
the autonomy of the German Empire, and has fourteen millions
or more of its subjects under its sway, ready at any moment
to obey, at all hazards, its decisions. What is to hinder
this Ultramontane power from issuing a decree, in a critical
moment, which will disturb the peace and involve, perhaps, the
overthrow of that empire, the fruit of so great sacrifices,
and the realization of the ardent aspirations of the Germanic
races? Is it not a dictate of self-preservation and political
prudence to remove so dangerous an element, and that at all
costs, from the state? Is it not a duty to free so many
millions of our German brethren from this superstitious yoke
and slavish subjection? Has not divine Providence bestowed the
empire of Europe upon the Saxons, and placed us Prussians at
its head, in order to accomplish, with all the means at our
disposal, this great work? Is not this a duty which we owe to
ourselves, to our brother Germans, and, above all, to God? This
supreme effort is our divine mission!”

It would be impossible to enter into the idea of the Bismarckian policy in a manner more ingenious, more exact, and more striking.

It is by presenting to Germany this monstrous counterfeit of the church that they have succeeded in provoking its hatred of her, and the new empire proposes to be itself the resolution of a problem which can be only formulated thus: “Either adapt Latin Christianity, the Romish Church, to the Germanic type of character and to the exigences of the empire, or we will employ all the forces and all the means at our disposal to stamp out Catholicity within our dominions, and to exterminate its existence as far as our authority and influence extend.”

This war against the Catholic religion is formidable, and ought not to leave us without alarm and without terror.

Truth is powerful, it is said, and it will prevail. But truth has no power of itself, in so far as it is an abstraction. It has none, except on the condition of coming forth and showing itself living in minds and hearts.

What is to be done, then?

No thought can be entertained for a moment of modifying Catholic dogmas, of altering the constitution of the church, or of entering, to ever so small an extent, on the path of concessions. What is needed is to present religious truth to minds in such a manner as that they shall be able to see that it is divine. It is to prove to them that our religion alone is in harmony with the profoundest instincts of their hearts, and can alone realize their secret aspirations, which Protestantism has no power to satisfy. For that, the Holy Spirit must be invoked in order that he may develop the interior life of the church, and that this development may be rendered visible to the persecutors themselves, who hitherto see nothing in her but what is terrestrial and human. Already a certain ideal conception of Christianity exists amongst non-Catholics of England and of the United States, and puts them in the way of a more complete conversion. As to the Saxons, who, in these days, precipitate themselves upon an opposite course, we should try to enlighten their blindness. Already we have seen the persecutors, whether Roman or German, become themselves Christian in their turn. We shall see the Germans of our days exhibiting the same spectacle. It is a great race, that German race. Now, “the church is a divine queen, and her aim has always been to win to her bosom the imperial races. She has never failed to do it, too.”

Already we can perceive a very marked return movement amongst the demi-Saxons, or Anglo-Saxons. It is a great sign of the times.

At different epochs there have been movements of this kind in England. But none exhibited features so serious as that of which we are witnesses in these days. Conversions to the church multiply without number, above all amongst the most intelligent and influential classes of the nation; and that in spite of the violent cry of alarm raised by Lord John Russell, and in spite of the attacks of the ex-minister Gladstone, who has the reputation of being the most eloquent man in England.

The gravitation towards the Catholic Church exhibits itself in a manner still more general and more clear in the bosom of the United States.

The Catholics in that country amounted to scarcely a few hundreds at the commencement of this century. They form now a sixth of the population of the United States. They number about 7,000,000. And the Catholic is the only religion which makes any real progress.

It is, then, true “that the Catholic religion flourishes and prospers wherever human nature has its due liberty. Let them but give to the church rights only equal to those of other confessions, and freedom of action, and we should see her regain Europe, and, with Europe, the world.”

Now, might we not conclude that these two demi-Saxon nations, England and the United States, are predestined by Providence to lead the Saxons themselves in a vast movement of return towards the Catholic Church?

Before concluding, the author returns to the Latin and Celtic nations, and directs towards them a sorrowful glance.

As for France, he regrets that a violent reaction against the abuses of the ancient régime, of which he gives a somewhat exaggerated picture, has brought about an irreligious revolution and a political situation which oscillates ceaselessly between anarchy and despotism, and despotism and anarchy. He deplores still more that the progressive movement has been diverted from its course in Spain and in Italy by the evil principles imported from France.

“At this moment,” says the author, “Christianity is in danger, on the one hand, of being exterminated by the persecution of the Saxon races; on the other, of being betrayed by the apostasy of the Celto-Latins. This is the great tribulation of the church at the present time. Between these two perils she labors painfully.”

According to human probabilities, the divine bark should be on the point of perishing. But perish it cannot. God cannot abandon the earth to the spirit of evil. “Jesus Christ came to establish the kingdom of God on the earth, as a means of conducting men to the kingdom of God in heaven.”

It is thus, in his last chapter, our author surveys the future:

“During the last three centuries, from the nature of the work
the church had to do, the weight of her influence had to be
mainly exerted on the side of restraining human activity.
Her present and future influence, due to the completion
of her external organization, will be exerted on the side
of soliciting increased action. The first was necessarily
repressive and unpopular; the second will be, on the contrary,
expansive and popular. The one excited antagonism; the other
will attract sympathy and cheerful co-operation. The former
restraint was exercised, not against human activity, but
against the exaggeration of that activity. The future will be
the solicitation of the same activity towards its elevation and
divine expansion, enhancing its fruitfulness and glory.

“These different races of Europe and the United States,
constituting the body of the most civilized nations of the
world, united in an intelligent appreciation of the divine
character of the church, with their varied capacities and the
great agencies at their disposal, would be the providential
means of rapidly spreading the light of faith over the whole
world, and of constituting a more Christian state of society.

“In this way would be reached a more perfect realization of
the prediction of the prophets, of the promises and prayers of
Christ, and of the true aspiration of all noble souls.

“This is what the age is calling for, if rightly understood, in
its countless theories and projects of reform.”

The zealous religious who is the author of this important manifesto traversed the seas in order to submit it to the Holy Father. [A mistake. Father Hecker went to Europe for other reasons, and took advantage of the opportunity to submit his pamphlet to the examination of the Roman censors and other eminent theologians.] If we are well informed, the Roman Curia found in it neither error nor rashness.[172] It is a complete plan of action proposed to the apostolate of the church for the future. The old era would close, a new one would open.

On this ground all ancient differences should disappear. Bitter and useless recriminations would be laid aside. All would be moving towards the same future, in accord not only as to the end, but as to the means.

(From _Le Monde_.)

The _Culturkampf_ advances daily. Its war-cry in precipitating itself upon the church, bent upon her destruction, is: “The doctrine of infallibility has made spiritual slaves of Catholics, who are thus a hindrance to civilization.” In presence of so furious an attack, every voice which suggests means of safety deserves our best attention.

Of this kind is a pamphlet published lately in London, and which has been already translated into French, German, and Italian, and of which the journals of different countries, of the most opposite views, have given very favorable opinions.

The lamented M. Ravelet would, had he been spared, have introduced it to the readers of the _Monde_; for he had met its author at Rome, and knew how to appreciate the breadth of his views. Father Hecker, its author, the founder of the Paulists of New York, is celebrated in his country for a style of polemics admirably adapted to the genius of his fellow-countrymen. Does he understand Europe, to which he has made prolonged visits, equally well? On that point our readers will soon be able to judge.

How is it that the Catholic religion, which reckons more adherents than any other Christian religion, does not succeed in making itself respected? Evidently because many Catholics are not on a level with the faith which they profess. “We want heroes,” said J. de Maistre at the beginning of our century. At this moment is not the demand the same? There is no lack of religious practices; a number of exterior acts of exterior piety are performed; but the interior life of souls is not exalted; they seem to be afflicted with a kind of spiritual dyspepsia. The crises which threaten terrify them, instead of inflaming beforehand their courage and their confidence in God. It is in the sources of religion itself we shall find energy; it is to them we must betake ourselves to reinvigorate our strength, in the direct action of God upon our consciences, and in the operation of the Holy Spirit upon our souls. From this source issues the true religious life, and our external practices are availing only so far as they are inspired by this internal principle, itself inspired by the Spirit of God. Herein are the primal verities of Christianity. At every epoch of decadence the voices of saints remind the world of them; the spirit of the church inclines us to them; but, distracted by external agitations, we forget to correspond with its suggestions. We do not possess enough of God! Here is our weakness. A little more of divinity within us! Lo, the remedy!

Father Hecker has well written upon the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and upon the men our age wants. Intelligences illuminated from on high, wills divinely strengthened--is not that what is wanted to maintain the struggle? Is he not right when he asserts that one soul adorned with these gifts would do more to promote the kingdom of God than a thousand deprived of them?

This urgent call to a more intensely spiritual life will touch Christian hearts. But the pamphlet foresees an objection. Does not this development of our faculties and of our initiative under the divine influence expose us to some of the dangers of Protestantism? Do we not run the risk of the appearance of strong individualities who, filled with their own ideas, will think themselves more enlightened than the church, and so be seduced into disobeying her authority?

This eternal question of the relation of liberty to authority! Catholics say to Protestants: “Liberty without the control of the divine authority of the church leads insensibly to the destruction of Christianity.” Protestants reply: “Authority amongst you has stifled liberty. You have preserved the letter of the dogmas; but spiritual life perishes under your formalism.” We are not estimating the weight of these reproaches; we merely state the danger. The solution of the religious problem consists in avoiding either extreme.

No Catholic is at liberty to doubt that the Holy Spirit acts directly in the soul of every Christian, and at the same time acts in another way, indirect, but no less precious, by means of the authority of the church. Cardinal Manning has written two treatises on this subject, one on the external, the other on the internal, working of the Holy Spirit. It is these two workings which Father Hecker endeavors to connect in a lofty synthesis, and this is the main object of his work.

The first step of the synthesis is the statement that it is one and the same spirit which works, whether by external authority or by the interior impulse of the soul, and that these two workings, issuing from a common principle, must agree in their exercise and blend in their final result. The liberty of the soul should not dispute the authority of the church, because that authority is divine; the church, on the other hand, cannot oppress the liberty of the soul, because that liberty is also divine. The second step is to prove that the interior action of the Holy Spirit in the soul alone accomplishes our inward sanctification and our union with God. The authority of the church, and, generally, the external observances of religion, having only for their aim to second this interior action, authority and external practices occupy only a secondary and subordinate place in the Catholic system, contrary to the notion of Protestants, who accuse us of sacrificing Jesus Christ to the church, and of limiting Christianity to her external action. The completion of the synthesis is in the following: The individual has not received for his interior life the promise of infallibility; it is to Peter and his successors--that is to say, to the church--that Jesus Christ has conceded this privilege. The Christian thus cannot be sure of possessing the Holy Spirit, excepting in so far as he is in union with the infallible church, and that union is the certain sign that the union of the two workings of the Holy Spirit is realized in him.

We have no doubt that this theory is one of the most remarkable theological and philosophical conceptions of our age. Father Hecker is no innovator, but he seizes scattered ideas and gathers them into a sheaf of luminous rays; and this operation, which seems so simple, is the result of thirty years’ laborious meditation. One must read the pamphlet itself to appreciate its worth. The more we are versed in the problems which agitate contemporary religious thought, the better we shall understand the importance of what it inculcates.

We shall briefly dispose of the application the author makes of his synthesis. One most ingenious one is that Protestantism, by denying the authority of the church, obliges her to put forth all her strength in its defence.

If Luther had attacked liberty, the church would have taken another attitude, and would have defended with no less energy the free and direct action of the Holy Spirit in souls. It is this necessary defence of divine authority which gave birth to the Jesuit order, and which explains the special spirit which animates that society. If, however, the defence of assailed authority has been, for three centuries, the principal preoccupation of the church, she has not on that account neglected the interior life of souls. It is sufficient to name the spirituality, so deep and so intense, of S. Philip Neri, S. Francis of Sales, S. John of the Cross, and S. Teresa. Moreover, does not the support of authority contribute to the free life of souls by maintaining the infallible criterion for testing, in cases of doubt, the true inspirations of the Holy Spirit?

The church, in these days, resembles a nation which marches to its frontiers to repel the invasion of the foreigner and protect its national life; its victory secured, it recalls its forces to the centre, to continue with security and ardor the development of that same life.

According to Father Hecker, the church was in the last extremity of peril. He sees in the proclamation of the infallibility of the Pope the completion of the development of authority provoked by the Reformation, and believes that nothing now remains but its application.

If, since the XVIth century, external action has predominated in the church, without, however, ever becoming exclusive, so now the internal working will predominate, always leaving to the external its legitimate share. Only, this new phase will be, in a way, more normal than the preceding, because, in religion as in man, the internal infinitely surpasses the external, without, however, annihilating it, as does Protestantism. This internal is the essence of Christianity; it is the kingdom of heaven within us, and whose frontiers it is our duty to extend. It is the treasure, the hidden pearl, the grain of mustard-seed, of the Gospel. It is to this interior of the soul that our Lord addressed the beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount. The external church--the priesthood, the worship, the sacraments--are only means divinely instituted to help the weakness of man to rise to the worship in spirit and in truth announced by our Saviour to the Samaritan woman. And the time has come for a fuller expansion of this internal life, for the more general development of the spirit of S. Francis of Sales and of the other saints of whom we spoke above.

As to those outside the church, they will never believe in this evolution, because they suppose that the doctrine of infallibility has condemned us to a kind of petrifaction. But if they study the actual situation, events will undeceive them from this present moment.

The persecutions which deprive the church of her temporalities, of her exterior worship, of her religious edifices, which go the length even of depriving the faithful of their priests and bishops, which suppress as far as they can the external part of Catholicity, do they not reveal the power of its interior?

In the parts of Switzerland and Germany where the populations are robbed of their clergy and worship, do we not see faith developing in sacrifice, and piety becoming more serious and fervent in the privation of all external aid? This example is an additional proof of the opportuneness of Father Hecker’s pamphlet. If God wills that the persecution should increase, we must be prepared to do without the external means which he himself has instituted, and which he accords to us in ordinary times. For we must not forget that no human power can separate us from God, and that so long as this union exists religion remains entire as to its substance.

The merit of the Christian is in the intention which inspires his acts. Religion exists only in the idea which clothes its rites; the sacraments, the channels of grace, are only effective in us as they are preceded by the dispositions of our soul. For a religion not to degenerate, it must perpetually renew the internal life, in order to resist the encroachments of routine.

Here the author asks what is the polemic best suited to help the people of these times to escape from their unbelief, which often proceeds from regarding the church as having fallen into formalism and into a debasing authoritativism. He believes they might be undeceived by disclosing to them the inner life of religion and the internal proofs of her divinity--an idea he shares with the most illustrious writers of our age. Lacordaire wrote to Mme. Swetchine that he had reversed the point of view of the controversy in scrutinizing matters from within, which manifested truth under a new aspect.

Father Hecker quotes in this sense the striking words of Schlegel: “We shall soon see, I think, an exposition of Christianity appear which will bring about union among all Christians, and convert the unbelieving themselves.” Ranke said with no less decision: “This reconciliation of faith and science will be more important, as regards its spiritual results, than was the discovery, three centuries ago, of a new hemisphere, than that of the true system of the universe, or than that of any other discovery of science, be it what it may.”

The pamphlet ends with a philosophy of race. And here the author, whilst acknowledging his fear of wounding susceptibilities, expresses the hope that none of his views will be exaggerated. He inquires what natural elements the several races have offered to the church in the successive phases of her history; and, starting from the principle that God has endowed the races with different aptitudes, he examines in what way those aptitudes may co-operate in the terrestrial execution of the designs of Providence. The Latin-Celtic races, who almost alone remained faithful to the church in the XVIth century, have for authority and external observances tastes which coincide with the more special development of the church since that epoch.

On the contrary, the Anglo-Saxon races have subjective and metaphysical instincts which, in a natural point of view, should attract them to the church in the new phase on which she is entering. Father Hecker has been accused with some asperity of predicting that the direction of the church and of the world will pass into the hands of the Saxon races, whose conversion, sooner or later, he anticipates. But he does not in any sense condemn the Latin races to inferiority. He merely gives it as his opinion that the Latin races can only issue from the present crisis by the development of that interior life of independent reason and deliberate volition which constitutes the force of the Saxon races. God has not given the church to the Latin races. He has not created for nothing the Saxon, Sclavonic, and other races which cover the surface of the globe. They have their predestined place in the assembly of all the children of God, and are called to serve the church according to their providential aptitudes.

Father Hecker and Dr. Newman are not the only ones who think that the absence of the Saxon races has been, for some centuries, very prejudicial to the church. J. de Maistre, whose bias cannot be suspected, expressed himself even more explicitly to that effect. The Latin genius, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, has been and will continue to be of the utmost value to the church. Under the divine influence, the Saxon genius will, in its way, effect equally precious conquests.

In conclusion, we summarize thus the ideas of Father Hecker:

1. We have need of a spiritual awakening.

2. The definition of infallibility has lent such strength to the church that henceforth personality may become as powerful as possible without the risk, as in the XVIth century, of injuring unity.

3. This definition having completed the external system of Catholicity, the initiative of the church proceeds logically to concentrate itself on the aggrandizement of the interior life, which is the essence of religion.

4. This is proved by the persecutions, which augment and strengthen the religious life of Catholics.

5. The result of these persecutions will be to unveil to Protestants and unbelievers the interior view of Catholicity, and to prepare the way for religious unity.

6. This unity will be effected when Protestants and unbelievers see that Catholicity, far from being opposed to the aspirations of their nature, understands them and satisfies them better than Protestantism and free-thinking.

7. This expansion of Catholicity advances slowly, because it meets few souls great enough to admit of the full development of its working, and of showing what it is capable of producing in them.

8. The way to multiply these souls is to place ourselves more and more under the influence of the Holy Spirit.

Whatever opinion may be formed of certain details, on the whole, this work manifests a high grade of philosophical thought and theological insight. But to appreciate it fully it must be read and studied.

Exceptions have been taken to it, on the ground that one meets nothing in it but theories, without any practical conclusion. Yet what can be more practical than the exhortation which confronts us on every page, to seek in all our religious acts, in sacraments, worship, and discipline, the divine intention involved therein? What more practical than to urge us to develop all the forces of our nature under the divine influence, and to tell us that the more conscientious, reasonable, and manly we are, the more completely men we are, so much the more favorable ground will the church find within us for her working?

Far from urging any abrupt change, Father Hecker recommends that everything should be done with prudence, consideration being had for the manners of every country. He is persuaded that, by placing more confidence in the divine work in souls, they will become insensibly stronger, and will increase thus indefinitely the force and energy of the whole body of the church. Such a future will present us with the spectacle of the conversion of peoples who at present are bitterly hostile to her--a future which we shall purchase at the cost of many sacrifices. But our trials will be full of consolations if we feel that they are preparing a more general and abundant effusion of divine illumination upon the earth. _Per crucem ad lucem._

PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF LAMB, HAZLITT, AND OTHERS. The
Bric-à-Brac Series. Edited by R. H. Stoddard. New York:
Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1875.

This volume is a compendium of one of those books of memoirs or personal recollections bequeathed to us by the survivors of the English Renaissance of the beginning of the century--_My Friends and Acquaintances_, by P. G. Patmore. This the editor has supplemented, in the case of Hazlitt, by some letters and reminiscences culled from the _Memoirs_ published by his grandson, W. Carew Hazlitt. These works, it might be fairly supposed, would be of themselves light enough for the most jaded and flippant appetite. However, the aid of the “editor” is called in--heaven forgive the man who first applied that title, honored by a Scaliger and a Bentley, to the modern compiler of scandal!--the most entertaining and doubtfully moral tidbits are picked out; and the result is the class of books before us, which is doing for the national intellect what pastry has done for its stomach. The mutual courtesies--honorable enough when rightly understood--existing between publishers and the periodical press make honest criticism seem ungracious; and thus the public judgment is left uninstructed by silence, or its frivolous tastes are confirmed by careless approval.

The motives impelling the awful scissors of the “editor” not only deprive the original works which fall under them of the modicum of value they may possess, but affirmatively they do worse. They give an absolutely false impression of the persons represented. Thus, in the case before us the character and genius of Lamb are as ridiculously overrated as his true merits are obscured; and the same may be said with even more justice of the portrait given of Hazlitt. Singularly enough, though the editor derives all he knows, or at least all he presents to the reader, from Mr. Patmore and Mr. Carew Hazlitt, he speaks in the most contemptuous terms of both. One he pronounces “not a man of note,” and the other he terms, with a delightful unconsciousness of self-irony, “a bumptious bookmaker, profusely addicted to scissors and paste”; and both he bids, at parting, to “make room for their betters.” If such be the character of Mr. Patmore and Mr. Hazlitt, what opinion, we may ask, is the reader called upon to entertain of the “editor” who is an accident of their existence? Nor is it in relation only to the authors after whom he gleans that the “editor” shows bad taste and self-sufficiency. The immortal author of the _Dunciad_, speaking of a kindred race of authors, tells us,

“Glory and gain the industrious tribe provoke,
And gentle Dulness ever loves a joke.”

“The ricketty little papist, Pope,” is the witticism the editor levels at the brightest and most graceful poet of his age--a master and maker of our English tongue, and a scourge of just such dunces as himself.

Of the writers whose habits and personal characteristics are treated of in this volume we have little or no room to speak, nor does the work before us afford any sufficient basis to go upon. Lamb occupies a niche in the popular pantheon, as an essayist, higher than posterity will adjudge him. His essays are pleasing and witty, and the style is marvellously pure; but they want solidity; they are idealistic, humorous, subjective; they fail to present that faithful transcript of manners, or to teach in sober tones those lessons of morality, which make the older essayists enduring. Lamb’s other works are already forgotten. He was an amiable man in the midst of unhappy surroundings, and his unassuming manners have enshrined his name with affection in the works of his contemporaries.

Hazlitt’s was not a character to be admired, nor in many ways even to be respected. He was devoured with vanity and grosser passions. His work was task-work, and therefore not high. ’Tis true Horace tells us,

“… paupertas impulit audar
Ut versus facerem.”

--poverty has often been the sting which urged genius to its grandest efforts. But Hazlitt, though undoubtedly a man of genius, was not gifted with that genius of the first order, which abstracts itself wholly from the miserable circumstances about it. The great body of his work is criticism, brilliant, entertaining, even instructive at the moment in which it was produced, but substantially only the fashion of a day.

Of the poet Campbell and Lady Blessington it would be an impertinence to say anything on the slight foundation this volume gives us.

The editor of the “Bric-à-Brac” Series has placed on the cover of each volume this motto:

“Infinite riches in a little room.”

We will suggest one that will take up even less room:

“Stultitiam patiuntur opes.”

THE CIVIL GOVERNMENT OF THE STATES, AND THE CONSTITUTIONAL
HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. By P. Cudmore, Esq.,
Counsellor-at-Law, Author of the _Irish Republic_, etc., etc.
New York: P. Cudmore. 1875.

The author of this work informs us in the preface that his object has been to condense into one volume the colonial, general, and constitutional history of the United States. This volume professes to be a digest of the writings and speeches of the fathers of the Constitution of the United States, the statutes of the several States, the statutes of the United States, of the writings and speeches of eminent American and foreign jurists, the journals and annals of Congress, the _Congressional Globe_, the general history of the United States, the decisions of the Supreme Courts of the several States, the opinions of the attorneys-general of the United States, and the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States; of extracts from De Tocqueville, the Madison Papers, the _Federalist_, Elliott’s _Debates_, the writings of Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton, and Vattel, and of extracts from Jefferson and other eminent authors on parliamentary law. The platforms of political parties are also given. This list is copied _verbatim_ from the author. It will be seen, therefore, that Mr. Cudmore has set himself no contemptible task to accomplish, and, as he has executed it in a thin octavo of 254 pages, it may reasonably be conjectured that he possesses a talent for condensation that Montesquieu might have envied. Mr. Vallandigham finds a powerful advocate in this author, and his philippics against Mr. Stanton are proportionately severe. Mr. Cudmore has a fondness for notes of exclamation; and such is the ardor of constitutionalism with which he pursues this latter-day “tyrant of the blackest dye” (we quote Mr. Cudmore) that it often takes three notes of admiration to express his just abhorrence of his measures. The bulk of the work is taken up by a civil and military history of the late conflict, and the disputes that preceded it. If we might venture a hint to Mr. Cudmore, we would say that his tone is a little too warm for this miserably phlegmatic age, which affects a fondness for impartiality in great constitutional writers. The fact is, the questions which the author discusses with the greatest spirit are dead issues. They still preserve a faint vitality for the philosopher and speculative statesman, but they have sunk out of sight for the practical politician and man of to-day. The _vis major_ has decided them. We might as usefully begin to agitate for a re-enactment of the Agrarian Laws. Mr. Cudmore’s Chapters IV. and V., containing a digest of State and Federal law, show much meritorious industry. The history of land-grants, the homestead law, and the laws pertaining to aliens and naturalization, will be found useful.

THE YOUNG CATHOLIC’S ILLUSTRATED TABLE-BOOK AND FIRST LESSONS
IN NUMBERS. New York: The Catholic Publication Society, 9
Warren St. 1875.

This is a very simple and attractive little book, designed to make the beginning of arithmetic, which certainly is rather a dry study in itself, interesting and capable of fixing the attention of the very young children for whose use the work is intended. We do not remember having seen any prettier or more practical little text-book for beginners, and cannot recommend it too highly. It is also very nicely illustrated.

SADLIER’S EXCELSIOR GEOGRAPHY, Nos. 1, 2, 3. New York: Wm. H.
Sadlier. 1875.

As a first attempt in this country to prepare a series of geographies adapted to Catholic schools this is deserving of great praise. The type is clear, the maps and illustrations, and the mechanical execution generally, are excellent. It is based, to some extent, on a geographical course originally known as Monteith’s, and adapted by the insertion of additional matter interesting to Catholics. What we should have preferred, and hope eventually to see, is a series of geographies and histories entirely original, and written from the Catholic point of view, and pervaded by the Catholic tone which we find in this.

SEVENOAKS: A Story of To-day. By J. G. Holland, author of
_Arthur Bonnicastle_. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1875.

It gives us great pleasure to express, with slight qualifications, our entire approval of this work, so far as its moral purport is concerned. Its plot and incidents are all within the range of ordinary life and experience, and therefore not calculated to foster in the youthful reader extravagant anticipations in regard to his own future. There are many good hits at the weaknesses and inconsistencies of human nature, and faithful pictures of the vices and miseries to which an unscrupulous ambition leads. Selfishness and injustice prosper for a time, but eventually reap their reward; while integrity and true manliness, even in the rude and uncultivated, are recognized and appreciated.

THE ILLUSTRATED CATHOLIC FAMILY ALMANAC FOR 1876. New York: The
Catholic Publication Society.

“Almanac,” when applied to this publication, seems to us a misnomer. The popular notion of an almanac is a thin, badly-printed pamphlet, containing incomprehensible astrological tables, delusive prophecies as to the weather, tradesmen’s advertisements, and a padding of stale jokes or impracticable recipes gathered from country newspapers; whereas the _Illustrated Catholic Family Almanac_ is an annual of 144 pages, containing each year enough solid, well-digested information to furnish forth an ordinary volume of three hundred pages, to say nothing of the many fine engravings--and this, too, at a price which should extend its circulation to equal that of the once-famous _Moore’s Almanac_ (published in England about the beginning of the XVIIIth century), which is said at one time to have sold annually more than four hundred thousand copies.

The several volumes of the _Family Almanac_ form a valuable manual for Catholics, containing, as they do, articles of great interest to the literary student, the antiquarian, and the archæologist. Much of the information could be gathered only from exceedingly well-furnished libraries; some of it appears here for the first time in print.