Chapter III: The Rivals (9)

Mr. Lindsay, who is a Scottish convert of some ten years’ standing, and was formerly one of the principal lay-leaders in the ritualistic party, has already won a high reputation by a valuable work on St. Peter’s Primacy. The present one is original in its conception and different from any other on the same subject in its method of treating the topics indicated by the title. The grand principles and laws of the church and the Papacy are considered in their universal character as forming the ground-plan of the government of divine Providence over the human race from the beginning. It has a wide historical sweep, and embodies a great mass of solid learning and sound reasoning. The author is sometimes fanciful in his theories and occasionally deficient in theological accuracy of expression, as well as in his style and construction of sentences. These are but faults of minor importance, however, not seriously detracting from the great merits of his most interesting and instructive work. It is quite in the same line of argument with the articles on Historical Christianity we have lately published, and those who are interested in that important and very attractive aspect of religion will find the greatest profit and pleasure in perusing it. One most valuable and quite novel portion of the author’s exposition of the apostolic and divine institution of the Papal Supremacy, is his application of the principle of reserve contained in the discipline of the secret to the particular doctrine in question, as explaining the guarded and reticent manner in which the sacred writers and the early Fathers speak of those high prerogatives of the Christian hierarchy and its chief, which would give umbrage to the Jewish priesthood and the Roman emperors. Full justice could not be done to Mr. Lindsay’s comprehensive and elaborate production without making a long and careful analysis and review of his positions and his manner of supporting them. We trust many of our readers will gain a much better knowledge of its contents than we could possibly give them in this way, by making a careful study of the work itself. It contains a complete historical demonstration of that which we think will soon be as universally admitted as any other great fact of undisputed history—that Catholicity and Christianity are identical and convertible terms, and that ancient and modern Catholicity are one and the same identity in respect to all which pertains to their essence and integrity as the one, universal religion, whose continuity has remained unbroken since the creation, and is destined to be coeval with the world.

THE NABOB. From the French of Alphonse Daudet, author of _Sidonie,
Jack_, etc. By Lucy H. Hooper. Author’s edition. Boston: Estes &
Lauriat. 1878.

_Sidonie_ and _Jack_ have been briefly noticed in these columns. _The Nabob_ is a large advance upon either. Possessing all the characteristics that individualized those stories, it is larger in scope, firmer in touch, fuller in character, more vigorous and finished in execution. As far as writing, plot, and development go, it is a very remarkable book. We must say of it, however, as we said of its predecessors, it is not a pleasant story. There is a kind of hot-house effect about it, a forced process, so to say, that, while fascinating for the moment, is not natural and healthy. We breathe in an overcharged atmosphere. There is any quantity of intoxicating odors, of lights and flowers, and soft music and rich costumes and beautiful faces. But the light is not the blessed sunlight; the odors and flowers oppress us with their heaviness like those around a bier; the beautiful faces are painted, and we sigh for something fresh and free, even if it be not half so elegant or well “made up.” There is from the beginning a brooding sense of a storm coming, and the storm comes with awful and repulsive vehemence.

Doubtless the author meant to produce just such an effect and to achieve just such a result. If this were his chief intention he is to be congratulated on his success. He has given a highly dramatic story—melodramatic, in fact. There is wit enough and humor enough throughout; but even the wit is biting and the humor sour. The laughter has the sardonic tone of Mephistopheles, and an honest man shivers a little even while he joins in it. Every scene fits with niceness; the curtain always falls on a strong situation; there is not a dull incident throughout; and if nearly everybody in whom you have been interested gets murdered, or destroyed, or run away with, or debauched at the end, what will you have? A melodrama is a melodrama, and Paris is its paradise.

_The Nabob_ is a story of Parisian life, as Parisian life is popularly supposed to have been when Napoleon III. was the arbiter of Europe and Paris Europe’s capital—a capital, if the novelists are to be believed, of political, social, literary, scientific, and moral charlatanism. Doubtless this is true to a great extent; for the leader of it all had, unfortunately for France and himself, much of the charlatan in his disposition. There is everything there but honesty and purity; or if honesty and purity there be, they are kept severely in the background. Their garb is too homely, their faces are too fresh, for this garish light and exotic atmosphere. They are out of place in this fashionable dance of death, as we say here the scholar and the gentleman are out of politics. There is a wonderful duke and statesman—De Mora—whose habit is to give a bored half-glance to the affairs of France, and the rest of his time to dilettanteism and _amours_, looking all the while to a quack doctor’s globules to keep his eyes bright, his step elastic, and his nerves steady enough for an evening party. There is a sculptor—Felicia Ruys—full of the noblest aspirations, but whose bringing up has been bad. She has been among Bohemians from her infancy, and she is left alone among them, under the care of an old aunt, a famous dancer in her day, whose wonderful toes had turned the crowned heads of Europe. Felicia’s noble nature finds itself bound in by an iron barrier of wickedness. She is surrounded always by a vicious circle from which she sees no outlet or escape. Is it so wonderful that she mistakes her narrow circle for the universe, and sees nothing but wickedness in all the world? How many do this in real life!

There is the wonderful Nabob himself, risen from nowhere, to whom one of the strange turns of Fortune’s wheel sent a fabulous fortune gathered by his own hard and not too scrupulous hands in Algeria. He is ignorant, vulgar, low, without any very strong moral sense, but with a really kind and good heart: he goes to Paris with his millions, and his millions conquer Paris—as long as they last. All the charlatans circle around him. He is a rich man; he wants now to be a great and a distinguished man; and it is truly wonderful to see how many kind friends spring up to make this rich man great and distinguished in a day. Even the Duke de Mora condescends to sell him his cast-off pictures at ducal prices; the illustrious and philanthropic Dr. Jenkins—Jenkins the great—feeds him on his globules at fees that are fortunes; Felicia Ruys makes a bust of him, and would have married him only that he is stupid enough to have been burdened with a wife; Moessard, one of the vampires of the press, writes the Nabob up, and, when the Nabob at last closes his pocket, writes the Nabob down. And so they go on all of them, in a whirl of gold-dust and pearl-powder and moral filth that is their world until they are swept out, each in his or her way, on the strong eddy that is for ever noiselessly, silently, relentlessly sweeping off human lives into the vast and eternal hereafter.

Alphonse Daudet has all the gifts that a powerful novelist needs, and has cultivated them to the highest degree. He writes with that passionless tone of an intense but calm observer who sees things as they are, and sees deeper and farther than other men, and paints his picture with pitiless truth. He misses nothing that can add even incidental effect to the firm yet delicate stroke of his pencil. He writes with that apparent effortless ease which is really the result of the strongest effort in a man who is perfectly master of his work. He has even, we believe, that highest quality—a moral purpose in what he writes. But though he sees virtue and the possibilities of virtue even in his Paris, vice seems too strong for it and always to get the best of the bargain, even if in the end it goes out in darkness, disaster, and despair. This undertone of despair of the good is principally what imparts so unhealthy and morbid an air to his stories. Thackeray pictured bad enough people, and with an awful accuracy. But the devil never had it all his own way in Thackeray’s stories, as he has not in real life. He invariably came out of the fight with his tail between his legs, very limp and woe-begone, and in a disgraceful condition generally. There was rude health and pure blood in all Thackeray’s stories strongly set off against the other side. If M. Daudet could only muster moral pluck enough to make his virtuous people a little more robust and aggressive—and there are plenty of such virtuous people in Paris—his stories would gain rather than lose in tone and make much more pleasant reading than they do at present. After all, we tire of a crowd of “awfully wicked” people, going through all their wickedness for our special edification and instruction.

Miss Hooper’s translation is excellent.

THE CHURCH AND THE GENTILE WORLD AT THE FIRST PROMULGATION OF THE
GOSPEL. Considerations on the Catholicity of the Church soon after
her Birth. By the Rev. Aug. J. Thébaud, S.J. Vol. I. New York: Peter
F. Collier. 1878.

We can do no more now than acknowledge the receipt of advance sheets of this first volume of a work that promises to be one of great value and importance. Father Thébaud needs no introduction to our readers. He is known to them as a man of wide and accurate knowledge, keen observation, and deep thought. These qualities are not conceded to him idly and for the sake of saying something graceful. They are too rare in these days, and are still more rarely found united in one person. Nothing, then, that comes from the pen of this learned Jesuit can be thought unworthy of careful attention by an intelligent Catholic reader. The title of the present volume gives some indication of the scope and aim of the work. These are still further set forth in the following words, which we quote from the preface:

“Her (the church’s) expansion took place instantaneously, as soon as the apostles began to preach. Thenceforth her universal sway on earth began, never to end until the last day, when she will be transferred to heaven. The whole world at the time was comprised in the three old continents. It is doubtful if there were already on this western hemisphere any of the nations which were found in it when it was discovered by Europeans at the end of the fifteenth century.... The church, therefore, became at once universal if she filled the greatest part of the old world, and subdued the chief nations that inhabited it. It can be proved at this time that her conquests in Asia went much further than was for a long time believed, and that she was rapidly spreading toward the Eastern ocean when Moslem fanaticism arrested her in her career. A like result follows an attentive study of her early progress in the interior of Africa. Of Europe all concede that she rapidly attained the leadership, and that she was afterwards mainly instrumental in giving birth to European civilization.

“But what renders more attractive the detail of all these considerations is the enumeration of the obstacles she had to surmount in so arduous a task as this. The main one was not only the natural opposition between the leanings of corrupt human nature and the doctrines of the Gospel, but in particular the extreme dissimilarities existing between the various races of man—dissimilarities in aptitudes, in thoughts and ideas, in language and manners, but especially in religion and worship. For the Gospel of Christ was preached not only at a time of a high civilization, but also of great corruption and religious disintegration. The primitive traditions of mankind were then nearly all forgotten; the pure religion and morality which existed at first had given place to the most degrading polytheism; and, worse yet, this polytheism had lost all the homogeneity it may have possessed formerly in many countries, and had become a mere jumble of absurd superstitions.

“This is, in a few words, the portraiture of humanity which met the apostles at every step, and which must be examined in detail to understand the difficulty of their task.”

We defer to a later number the criticism which a work of this kind demands.

THE VATICAN LIBRARY. New York: Hickey & Co. 1878.

The “Vatican Library” has been started by Mr. P. V. Hickey, the active and enterprising editor of the _Catholic Review_, with the aim of supplying the general Catholic public with the best Catholic works in the cheapest possible form. Such an object is on the face of it its own best recommendation. Two volumes from the “Library” have already reached us: a twenty-five-cent edition of Cardinal Wiseman’s beautiful story of _Fabiola_, one of those stories that is destined never to grow old, and an original story (price ten cents) entitled _The Australian Duke_. The latter we have not yet had an opportunity of examining. Both volumes are handsomely produced—very much more so, indeed, than many far more costly books. Quite a series is promised of “cheap, amusing, entertaining, and instructive Catholic literature.”

An attempt of this kind, seriously undertaken, and not in a haphazard fashion, cannot be too highly commended. Whatever tends to cheapen Catholic books—books, that is, that are really Catholic—and spread them abroad among the people is a good and noble work. More harm is probably done by cheap literature in these days than by any other means. The readiest and most effectual antidote to this universal literary poison is undoubtedly a literature such as the projectors of the “Vatican Library” aim at supplying. But they cannot work alone. Generous and earnest Catholics must help them generously and earnestly. It goes without saying that the attempt must prove a failure unless it is seconded on all sides. The purchase of a single copy of a ten cent book will not help the publishers very materially. The books are chiefly intended for those who have the will to read but not the means to purchase. In such a case it is for those who have the means to come forward and help their poorer brethren all they can by placing in their hands books that cost next to nothing, yet are in themselves a long delight and unceasing source of sound instruction.

LEO XIII. AND HIS PROBABLE POLICY. By Rev. Bernard O’Reilly, D. D.
New York: Peter F. Collier. 1878.

This little biographical sketch of ninety-six pages has for title on the cover, “Who is the new Pope? and What is He Likely to Do?” As to who the new Pope is, Dr. O’Reilly gives a pleasing and picturesque sketch of him whom it has pleased Providence to call to the highest dignity in the church and on earth. The personal familiarity of the author with the scenes where the present Pontiff passed his early youth and strong and vigorous manhood add value to the charm of a brisk and stirring narrative. Those who wish to know the character of Leo XIII., what manner of man he is, and how he passed his life previous to being summoned to sit in the chair of Peter, will find Dr. O’Reilly’s sketch by far the best of any that we have thus far seen. Speculations as to the future policy of the Pontiff can hardly prove very satisfactory just yet. It may be as well for impatient men to wait a little, and not attempt to forestall the Holy Father. What his future policy may be can only be made plain by his own words and acts. He has thus far spoken very little and done very little. Indeed, he has scarcely had time to do either one or the other. His position is one where the most extreme caution and circumspection are needed, and it augurs well for his future “policy” that he is so very slow to declare any policy at all. The present state of Europe hardly admits of a hard-and-fast line of “policy” to be drawn by any one. It is enough for us to know that the church is safe in whatever hands it falls, so far as regards the deposit of faith. For the rest, the march of circumstance must greatly influence the actions of the supreme head of the church. Prayer is rather needed at this crisis than advice. These observations are not at all intended disparagingly of Dr. O’Reilly’s interesting _brochure_, but of a well-meant tendency manifesting itself, among our non-Catholic friends chiefly, to map out beforehand a convenient little policy for Leo XIII. which shall make everybody happy here and hereafter.

A FEW OF THE SAYINGS AND PRAYERS OF THE FOUNDRESS OF THE SISTERS OF
MERCY. Edited by a member of the order, authoress of _Catherine
McAuley, Venerable Hofoauer_, etc. New York: The Catholic
Publication Society Co. 1878.

A beautiful little book made up of beautiful maxims and prayers. Such a gem will, we are sure, meet with a welcome reception by religious of all orders. Its reading will also benefit those who are not religious.

“GHOSTS.” Father Walworth’s Reply to Robert G. Ingersoll. A Lecture
delivered at St. Mary’s Church, Albany, Jan. 20, 1878. Albany:
_Times_ Company Print.

THE HISTORY OF JOHN TOBY’S CONVERSION. With his Views on Temperance,
the Liquor Trade, and the Excise Law. A Lecture by the Rev. C. A.
Walworth. Albany News Company. 1878.

These are two excellent lectures, deserving of a wide circulation. The first is a plain, common-sense yet effectual and eloquent reply to a lecture by Mr. Ingersoll, who has recently gained some notoriety as a preacher of a very “cheap” and very “nasty” form of infidelity. Father Walworth’s is just the kind of argument to apply to men of average intelligence who are as open to the teachings of truth, when plainly presented to them, as they are apt to be carried away by a bold assault of scoffing infidelity. The lecture is a straightforward, manly, matter-of-fact defence of religion as against no-religion, none the less effective and thorough because the lecturer has contrived to conceal under the guise of a popular form of address the wide knowledge and learning which give its inherent force to what he says. Mr. Ingersoll ought to feel peculiarly flattered at being answered by a gentleman and a man of real power and culture.

The second lecture is the story, very tenderly and charmingly told, of a drunkard’s conversion. It brims over with real humor and flashes with “palpable hits”; while there is a touch here and there of pathos that brings tears to the eyes, and that could only be the outcome of a tender heart that loves its fellows and sorrows over the woes for which their vice and folly are chiefly answerable.

ST. JOSEPH’S MANUAL: Containing a selection of Prayers for Public
and Private Devotion. With Epistles and Gospels for Sundays and
Holydays. Compiled from approved sources. By Rev. James Fitton.
Boston: Thomas B. Noonan & Co. 1877.

This is an old friend with a new and very pleasing face. The _St. Joseph’s Manual_, compiled by the skilful hand of Father Fitton, has long been, and is likely to continue long to be, a favorite prayer-book with Catholics. It is formed on an intelligent plan. It is a book of wise instruction as well as devotion. The first seventy pages are devoted to a clear and sound exposition of Catholic doctrine and practice. With regard to this valuable portion of the book we would offer two suggestions for future editions: 1. The English here and there would be better for a little trimming; 2. A special chapter on the dogma of Papal Infallibility, which might be made brief and concise as the rest, would do no harm. For the rest, the volume is everything that could be desired. It contains over eight hundred pages, printed in a large, clear type very grateful to the eye. The illustrations are, without exception, excellent. Indeed, the whole work reflects real credit on the publishers.

CANTUS ECCLESIASTICUS PASSIONIS D. N. JESU CHRISTI, secundum
Matthæum, Marcum, Lucam et Joannem, editus sub auspiciis Sanctissimi
Domini nostri Pii Papæ IX., curante Sacrorum Rituum Congregatione.
Fasciculi III. Chronista, Christus, Synagoga. MDCCCLXXVII.
Ratisbonæ, Neo Eboraci et Cincinnatii sumptibus, chartis et typis
Frederici Pustet, S. Sedis Apost. et Sacr. Rit. Cong. Typographi.

These three superb volumes exhibit the same elegance and taste in composition that mark all the ritual and choral works edited by Mr. Pustet, and for which his house has earned a so deservedly high reputation. Besides the chant of the Passion as appointed for Palm Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Good Friday of the Holy Week, the second volume contains a form of chant for the _Lamentations_, and the third volume the chant of the _Exultet_.

THE WAY OF THE CROSS. Drawn by N. H. J. Westlake, F.S.A. With a
letter of approbation by His Eminence Cardinal Manning. Devotions by
St. Alphonsus Liguori. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1878.

A very beautiful little volume, whose title explains itself. It is brought out in a tasteful and convenient form, and is admirably adapted for the Lenten season. The name of Mr. Westlake is sufficient guarantee for the superiority of the drawings.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. XXVII., No. 158.—MAY, 1878.

THE DESTINY OF MAN IN A FUTURE LIFE.

Doctrine and speculation concerning the destiny of man in that future which follows the termination of his earthly life, have always held a most important place in all religions and systems of philosophy. Nothing interests the human mind so much, when it escapes in any degree from the spell of present, sensible preoccupations, and is awakened to the sentiment of its own perennial nature and duration. The recent agitation of the public mind in England and the United States concerning retribution in a future life has shown how universal and deeply seated is the anxiety to know what lies beyond the veil which separates the period of existence on this side, from the endless duration on the other side, of the common grave into which all human generations descend. The question of eternal punishment has occupied the pulpits and the press, as the one most deeply disturbing the general mind of that great mass of men whose traditions and beliefs are derived from Christianity, although they are themselves actually separated from the great Christian body, the Catholic Church. That which strikes the mind of an instructed Catholic most forcibly in all this discussion is the want of clear and settled principles in philosophy and theology, the lack of the requisite premises and data, the absence of any sure criterion for deducing certain conclusions, testing and determining doctrines and opinions. The controversy seems to be interminable, for all those who have no lawful and unerring external criterion in authority. And it really is so. For this reason, we regard it as the only practicable way for a Catholic to take in treating of this subject, that he should present the doctrine of revelation as defined and declared by the church; and resort to reason and the Holy Scripture, only to refute objections to the Catholic doctrine from these sources, and to present corroborative proofs and explanations, in so far as these can be found and their validity as certain or probable established.

We do not propose to discuss directly the subject of the reality and the nature of eternal punishment. There is a previous question respecting the destiny for which man was originally created, upon which depends the whole solution of the subsequent one concerning the necessity or contingency of its attainment. We must know what this destiny is, and what are the means ordained by the Creator for securing its fulfilment, before we can know whether there is a danger of final and irretrievable failure on the part of those who are placed in the way of attaining their end, involved in the very nature of these means.

In plain words, is there a heaven for man hereafter, and what is the way to obtain it? The doctrine of hell is the shadow of the doctrine of heaven, and follows it necessarily, when it is rightly presented.

The idea of heaven is that of a state of endless and perfect beatitude, in the possession of the sovereign good, and of every kind of inferior good suited to the nature of man. This idea is absolutely incompatible with every form of atheism, which does not acknowledge the existence of the sovereign good. It is entirely above the scope of philosophy and natural theology. For, although God, the sovereign and infinite good, is manifested by the light of reason, as the first and final cause of all things, the light of reason does not disclose the possibility of a light intrinsically superior to the natural light, by which the created spirit can see God in his essence, and thus obtain the sovereign good as its own proper possession. Much less can it discover any reason why man should be regarded as destined to such an elevation above his own natural mode of knowledge. The utmost that can be proved by pure philosophy is the possibility of a perfect and permanent state, in which the ideal of humanity only partially realized in this life is brought into complete and actual existence. It is certainly most consonant with the dictates of sound reason to expect that God will bring all reasonable creatures to a state of permanent felicity, unless they voluntarily thwart his benevolent purposes. But it does not seem possible to determine with certainty whether this benevolent will of God determines him to put an end to all moral and physical evil in the universe or not, from arguments of pure reason. The whole subject of the existence of evil must remain covered with obscurity, so long as it is considered in the light of mere rational philosophy. It is only by the light of divine revelation that the dealings of God with the human race become intelligible, and we are able even to reason about the future destiny of man in a satisfactory manner. Even those who profess to be guided by this light, if they follow the rule of private judgment, fail to obtain clear and consistent ideas. The proper idea of the heaven for which men were created, if not lost, is obscured in the minds of the greater part of those who profess to be Christian believers and yet reject the authority of the Catholic Church. All other doctrines connected with this fundamental one are similarly obscured and perverted, rendering the theology which rests on them absurd or inadequate.

It is supernatural beatitude which the revelation of God proposed by the Catholic Church discloses to faith as the end for which man was created. By its very essence and definition it is infinitely beyond and above the end which human nature spontaneously aspires to attain, in which it finds the perfection and scope corresponding to its essence and its capabilities. To attain this end it needs grace, or a supernatural mode of being and acting, elevation above every nature excepting only the divine, transformation, and, in a sense, deification. Such a destiny for a mere creature, especially one which is lowest in the intellectual order, would be inconceivable, and incredible, unless explicitly revealed by God. Even when it is made known by revelation, its intrinsic possibility cannot be apprehended or proved by reason. It is one of the mysteries which is above reason, and the utmost we can do by a rational argument is to prove that it has been revealed by God, and therefore rationally demands our assent to its truth because of the divine veracity. We can, however, by a rational argument, prove that such an elevation of a created nature must necessarily be supernatural and cannot be effected by any evolution of a natural capacity, or expansion of the intrinsic being even of a pure spirit, although it were to increase in intelligence by an indefinite progress for ever.

Cognition is a vital act, immanent in the intelligent spirit, determined in perfection by the essence of the spirit itself, and incapable of transcending its limits as a created and finite being. By this act other beings are received into and united with the intelligent being, according to the mode of the recipient; that is, ideally, by a representation through which they are perceived and known as objects in their own proper reality outside of the subject. This representation cannot exceed the capacity of the intelligence which is its active recipient. The idea by which a created spirit receives God into itself and unites itself to him, cannot represent his essence and produce immediate cognition, because the essence of God absolutely and infinitely transcends all genera and species of created beings. The highest angel can perceive no essence which intrinsically transcends his own, and must therefore represent God to himself by and through himself, that is, analogically and by abstractive not intuitive cognition. His intellectual vision is as utterly incompetent to perceive the essence of God, as the sensible vision of man is to see a pure spirit, or his finger to touch the points of an argument. The indefinite increase of the power of sensible vision will never bring it any nearer to spiritual vision, and, in like manner, the indefinite increase of intelligence will never bring it any nearer to divine intuition. The essence of a created spirit is finite and its intellectual light is finite. Its immediate intelligible object is within the limits of its created nature. As the mind of man cannot rise to any natural knowledge of God except by discursive reasoning from first principles on the works of God, that is, by the argument from effects to the first cause, so the purely spiritual being cannot rise above his own intellectual cognition of God as the cause and first principle of his own intelligent nature. It is vain, therefore, to think that it is the grossness of the body, or the body itself, which hinders the human spirit from seeing God. Separated from the body, and elevated to an equality with the highest angel, it could never possess itself of an intelligible object outside of its own supreme genus as a created spirit, outside the limit of created and finite being.

It is evident that all the perfection and felicity of an intelligent being is measured and determined by its intelligence. It possesses the object in which it voluntarily rests as its chief good by cognition, and according to the mode of its cognition. No creature, therefore, by its nature, can rise to that state of immediate communion with God which is properly called friendship, which demands as its basis a similitude and equality resulting from a real filiation, such as the creative act cannot impart to a being brought into existence out of nothingness. The possession of the sovereign good belongs exclusively to the nature of God. To the created nature is due only a participation and imitation of that sovereign good within its own specific and finite limits of being. The heaven in which God eternally dwells in his own infinite beatitude is not therefore the natural term and end of man’s future destiny, nor of the natural destiny of any higher order of creatures. The distance dividing the most perfect beatitude of created nature from that of the uncreated and creative nature is equally infinite with the distance between the essence of God and created essences. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit alone have natural society, each person of the Blessed Trinity with the other persons, in unity of intelligence and volition, in the possession of the divine essence, the sovereign good, the absolute beatitude.

A created spirit cannot be raised to this divine level, unless God so unites his divine essence with the essence of his creature, in an interior and vital union penetrating to its very centre and the seat of its intelligent and vital action, that in the essence of God present to it as immediately as it is present to itself, it sees as through a divine medium that same divine essence as its immediate object, without losing its own proper act and distinct individuality.

That God can and does thus elevate created nature we know by divine revelation. Jesus Christ is true God and true man in two distinct natures and one person for ever. All the blessed in heaven are affiliated to God after his likeness, in an inferior degree which leaves them in their distinct personalities. This state of glory is properly speaking what is called the kingdom of heaven. Annexed to it, as the proper inheritance of those who share in the royalty of the Son of God, is every kind of the most perfect natural beatitude, in the possession and enjoyment of everything which the universe contains, according to the different natures of men and angels.

It is evident, without any reasoning on the subject, that in proposing this supernatural and purely gratuitous beatitude to created beings, God might select whom he pleased as the recipients of so great a grace, and prescribe any conditions which are possible and reasonable for securing its permanent possession. It is perfectly consonant with justice and goodness, that it should be made a prize and reward of merit, and that a state of trial and probation should be appointed for those who were permitted to aspire to this reward. Divine revelation, whose teachings are confirmed by universal experience, makes known to us, that in fact God did place the angels, and afterwards mankind, in a state of probation for this supernatural destiny. A probation must be real and not illusory. It involves the possibility and danger of failure. It must have a prescribed period for each individual and for the whole number. When this period is finished, those who have failed are by the very terms of the probation finally excluded from the hope of retrieving their loss. Divine revelation informs us that the probation of the angels was terminated long ago, and resulted in the winning of eternal beatitude by a certain number and the loss of it by the others. One among the chiefs of the angelic hierarchy rebelled against God and drew after him many other spirits, and with these fallen angels for his ministers and associates, he has continued and will continue on the earth the revolt he began in another sphere, until the day appointed for the final judgment. He has continued it on this earth, by seducing men to join in his rebellion, and making war against Jesus Christ and his kingdom, the universal church. The conditions of human probation are of a very special and peculiar nature, in accordance with the specific nature of mankind, which is extremely different from that of the angels. The angels, as pure spirits and having a simple, intellectual essence, were created singly, and in the actual possession from the first instant of existence of their complete being. Man was made a rational animal, by the law of his nature increasing numerically by generation, and progressing from an inchoate state to his perfection through gradual and successive stages of growth. The first progenitors of the race alone, were immediately created, in full maturity of perfection, and endowed with all the natural and supernatural gifts suitable for their high destination, to be transmitted to their offspring. Their disobedience and fall entailed on themselves and their descendants the loss of the supernatural destiny and of all the gifts and privileges connected with it. Nevertheless, the human race was restored again by another dispensation, which is that of the Redeemer Jesus Christ. All those who receive from him the grace which he merited by his atonement, and do not wilfully and finally reject this grace, obtain in the end a complete resurrection to the glory and beatitude of heaven. The rest of mankind are for ever excluded from the kingdom of heaven. This is a summary of first principles and fundamental truths pertaining to the very essence of Christianity. In so far as the destiny of mankind is concerned, the first constitution of human nature in the person of the common progenitor of the race in the state of grace and integrity, with a right to the kingdom of heaven; the ruin of the whole human race by the sin of Adam; the redemption of the race through Jesus Christ; are the sum of the teaching of the Old and New Testaments, of the traditional doctrine concurrent with it, and of the common belief of all generations of men who have professed to make this doctrine their rule of faith, especially those who have lived in the full light of Christianity. It is idle to pretend to call any doctrine different from this by the name of Christianity, for the whole world knows that this is of the very essence of the genuine, historical religion which acknowledges Jesus Christ as its founder. Those who reject it, and yet call themselves Christians, are only philosophers, professing a merely natural religion, partly constructed from materials borrowed from Christianity and altered to suit their own private notions, but really in its fundamental principles and distinctive character nothing more than a system of rationalism. The traditional and orthodox Christianity has invariably taught that all men naturally descending from Adam and Eve need salvation, and can receive it only through an act of gratuitous mercy on account of the merits of the divine Redeemer. No man is entitled by the rights of his natural birth to heaven, or capable of obtaining a right to it by any exertion of his natural powers. All are under a doom of exclusion from the kingdom of heaven. That future state, with all its circumstances of locality and other adjuncts and environments, to which all are destined by virtue of this doom, is called in the authorized language of the Catholic Church _Infernum_, in the English language, _Hell_. The doctrine of hell as an eternal state is therefore necessarily the shadow which must accompany the doctrine of heaven. It is impossible for any one to believe in salvation by grace through Jesus Christ, without implicitly at least acknowledging that all men might have been left under the doom of destination to the infernal state, without any prejudice to the justice or the goodness of God. The case is not one whit altered, if one supposes that all men are actually saved because Christ died for all. If the mercy of God were universal, it would still remain evident that mercy is not identical with justice. It could not be argued that any man has a natural right to salvation, because salvation is bestowed as a boon upon all men. It is vain, therefore, to argue on _à priori_ grounds, that all men must eventually be saved. In truth, it has never been a doctrine of traditional and orthodox Christianity, that the simple fact of redemption placed every one of the human race in the possession of an inalienable right to final salvation. That many never recover the lost right to heaven, and that many who have obtained it lose it again irretrievably and for ever, is the common and universal doctrine of Christians. The efforts made to twist the language of Christ and the apostles into a contrary sense are so futile, that only a fixed determination to force the Holy Scripture into agreement with one’s own private opinions and feelings can account for them. The doctrine of the Catholic Church is unalterably determined. The fallen angels were not redeemed by Jesus Christ, and for them there is no restoration to the place which they have forfeited. Of men, all, be their number greater or smaller, who have been regenerated by the grace of Christ, and have passed out of this life in the state of grace, will obtain the kingdom of heaven, and the remainder will be forever excluded. The notion of an ἀποκατάστασις or future restitution of all angels and men, proposed as a mere theory by Origen, and alluded to by one or two other Catholic Fathers of the early ages as a possible conjecture, was universally reprobated and condemned by the church as soon as it attracted general attention. There is no doubt as to the Catholic faith on this matter.

The recent discussion has turned chiefly on the question of moral probation, the cause and reason of the mutability and liability to error in the intellect and perversion in the will of rational beings, and the manner and extent of their passing through the state of mutability to a state of permanent stability in good or evil. The errors of Origen were derived from the Platonic philosophy. So far as the _Periarchon_ really presents his fanciful conjectures, we must consider them as vagaries of a man who, although richly endowed with intellectual gifts and moral virtues, was destitute of a truly rational and Christian philosophy, and therefore unable to think consistently, when he ventured beyond those primary doctrines of the faith which were clearly known to him. We perceive the same cause of aberration and incoherence in most of the current statements and expositions of theological opinion which appear in our modern publications. It would seem that Origen considered it to be a necessary law of creation, that God must create all souls alike, and in an elementary state, with a most capricious and uncontrollable liberty to choose good or evil, so that they were for ever liable to indefinite mutations of character and condition, and could never become stable in one fixed position. His state of restitution was no more permanent and eternal than the previous one of degradation. There is no eternal heaven possible, according to his hypothesis, or rather that of the _Periarchon_, any more than an eternal hell. Our modern Protestant religious writings are affected by a similar tendency to a chaotic confusion of ideas. It would be an endless task to attempt to follow them through the maze of conflicting and incoherent reasonings with which they contend mutually, and strive to construct some sort of rational and credible eschatology. It is only in Catholic theology based on dogmas of faith, and a philosophy in harmony with this theology derived from the ancient masters of intellectual science, that a remedy for this chaotic state of things can be found. We cannot do more at present than merely state a few sound and certain principles, without attempting to reproduce the arguments by which they have been often and fully demonstrated.

The first principle we lay down is, that God can impart his own immutability of intelligence and will to intelligent beings. It is because his intelligence is infinite that God is immutable, that is, can never change his mind. His will necessarily conforms to his intelligence, and he therefore is, and is in full possession of, the sovereign good, by his self-existing essence.

The intelligent creature participates in this intelligence, in that degree of being which God gives him. The object of the spontaneous and natural act of intelligence is the real verity of being, and by his intelligent nature he can never be deceived. The object perceived by the intelligence contains in it the good, toward which the will moves by a spontaneous and natural act. It is only necessary that the object be so placed before the intellect that it compels assent, to make all error, voluntary or involuntary, impossible. The good which is thus perfectly presented necessarily draws the will to itself, and thus immutability in good is produced. Error in the intellect is an accident and a defect in nature, and all perversion of will or evil choice is a consequence of error. The liability of sinning is therefore no necessary adjunct of the spontaneity or liberty of will which is an attribute of intelligent beings. It is removed by making the intelligence perfect. It is easy, therefore, for God to make any intelligent being immutably good, even from the beginning of his existence, since it is easy for him to give to nature any degree of perfection, within the purely natural order.

In the supernatural order, the gift of the intuitive vision of the divine essence imparts to the recipient the knowledge and possession of the sovereign good, with which it is immovably united by a spontaneous and necessary act. It can no more lose its beatitude than it can lose its essence. It is as impossible for one of the blessed to be changed into a sinner, as for an angel to become an ape.

Liability to error and sin belongs, therefore, not to any necessary order of things, resulting from natural and necessary laws which God is obliged to follow in creation and providence, but it is a condition of defectibility pertaining to a law of probation which God has established by his sovereign will.

This defectibility supposes an equilibrium or indetermination of the will in respect to contraries which is overcome by a self-determining power. Such an equilibrium can only exist, when opposite objects, in which some good corresponding to the spontaneous tendency of the will is contained, are presented to the intellect as desirable and worthy of choice; in such a way that the motives for choice balance each other. The will must follow the intellect, and therefore an error in the choice must be preceded by an erroneous judgment, which is possible only when the object presented to it does not compel assent. Moral probation requires that there should be an obligation, arising from the eternal law of God or a positive command, to choose one of the opposite objects and reject the other. It is this which makes these objects contrary to each other in a moral respect, and is the reason why liberty of choice between them is called the liberty of contrariety, and the determination to the one is a virtuous, while that to the other is a vicious act. It is easy to understand this liberty of contrariety and the moral discipline which is requisite for its due control and direction, in respect to human nature. From its complex constitution, the sensible good is often opposed to the rational good, and reason, which ought to govern, is easily deceived by the imagination. In the case of pure spirits, it is more difficult to see how they can be subject to any illusion, or capable of undergoing any moral probation. In the natural order, they are perfect, and cannot err in the apprehension of that which is truly desirable as their chief good. They are not, therefore, capable of probation in the moral order of pure nature. But in the supernatural order, the object proposed to them being presented in an obscure, supernatural light, which does not compel assent, there is room for a suspension of the act of consent, and a power of rejecting the sovereign good by a voluntary self-determination, in adhering to the inferior object which they naturally comprehend and love. In fact, it was in this way that the fallen angels sinned and rebelled against God. In like manner, Adam, who was elevated to a perfect state like that of the angels, and enjoyed absolute dominion over all sensible concupiscence, underwent a supernatural probation, in which he fell through the seduction of Eve, who was the instrument of the demon, who had previously made her the victim of his diabolical sophistry.

The only moral order which is known to exist as an order of probation, in reference to an ultimate destination and end of intelligent creatures, is the one which is supernatural. If we conjecture that the universe is filled with intelligent beings who are neither angels nor human beings, we have no need and no reason to imagine that they are subject to a moral probation with the trials and pains connected with the order under which angels and men were constituted. The great problem of the reason of probation is one which is restricted within the sphere of those beings who have been constituted by the Creator in the order of a supernatural destiny. The difficulty of the problem arises exclusively from the moral and physical evil which is an incident of probation. In itself, the sufficient reason for probation is obvious and evident. The origin and nature of evil really present no insoluble difficulty, when the principles of sound theology and philosophy are understood. The difficulty consists in accounting for the permission of sin and misery in view of the known attributes of infinite goodness and almighty power in God. If the final conclusion of the vicissitudes and temporary evils of the state of probation were a universal ἀποκατάστασις, including the eternal abolition of evil in the universe and the attainment in general and in each individual of a permanent good of the highest order, to which the temporary conflict of good and evil was a necessary means, the human reason might be completely satisfied. But, although in general, and in a multitude of individuals, this is really the predestined and certain result, it is not the case with another multitude, the whole number, namely, of those who finally forfeit the sublime destiny to which they had an original right, but which they have lost irrecoverably. There is a repugnance in the human mind to the contemplation of permanent and eternal evil in the universe, and this is much increased by the human sensibilities, and natural sympathy with those of our own kind who suffer even the consequences of their own violation of the eternal law. This repugnance causes the effort to find a way of escape, or at least of mitigating the severe integrity of the truth by resorting to some kind of fatalism. These efforts are all futile and foolish. It is absurd to question the infinite goodness or the infinite power of God. The fact that moral and physical evil exists, is only too well known by experience. There is but one way to account for it, which is that God permits it as incident to the law of moral probation. We can have no knowledge of the finality of evil except from the divine revelation. And, that revelation having made known to us that the decision of destiny for each individual at the term of his probation is irreversible, it is reasonable, as well as imperative in respect to faith, to assent to the judgment of God because of his own knowledge and veracity, whether we can or cannot understand how and why that judgment is consistent with his goodness.

There is no prohibition placed on the exercise of intellect and reason in seeking to understand these revealed doctrines, provided we respect the authority which God has established as our extrinsic rule and criterion of truth. Under this regulation, reason can go very far toward solving the problem of the origin, nature, and reason of evil.