If this be true of God’s direct revelations of himself, and of his

moral law as given from time to time to mankind, according as, in

their fallen state, they could receive it--if, in short, it be true of

his direct volitions--it is also true of his permissions. If it hold

good of the revelations of his antecedent will, it holds good of the

instances (so far as we may trace them in the history of the world) of

his consequent will; that is, of his will which takes into consideration

the facts induced by man in the exercise of his own free will, which is

so constantly running counter to the antecedent will of God. The divine

permissions form the negative side of the revelation of God. They are

his permissive government of the world, not his direct government. The

direct government is the stream of revelation given to our first parents,

to the patriarchs and lawgivers of Israel, and now, in a more direct

and immediate way, through our Blessed Lord in his birth, death, and

resurrection, by the church in the sacraments, and through her temporal

head, the vicar of Christ.

Even now, when he has consummated his union with his church, and that she

is the true organ of the Holy Ghost, and thus the one true and infallible

medium and interpreter of God’s direct government of the world, he also

governs it by the indirect way of his overruling providence. The events

which occur in history have ever a double character. They have their

mere human aspect, often apparently for evil alone; and they have their

ultimate result for good, which is simply the undercurrent of God’s will

working upwards, and through the actions of mankind. Events which, on

the face of them, bear the character of unmitigated evils, like war,

have a thousand ultimate beneficial results. War is the rude, cruel

pioneer of the armies of the Lord; for where the soldier has been the

priest will follow. Persecutions kindle new faith and awake fresh ardor.

Pestilence quickens charity and leads to improvements in the condition of

the poor. Nor do we believe that it is only in this large and general,

unsympathetic, and sweeping manner that God allows good to be worked out

of evil. We have faith in the intercession of the Mother of Mercy; and

as ultimate good may arise to whole races of mankind out of terrible

calamities, so, we are persuaded, there is a more intimate, minute, and

loving interference to individual souls wherever there is huge public

calamity. The field of battle, the burning city, the flood, and the

pestilence are Mary’s harvest fields, whither she sends her angels, over

whom she is queen, with special and extraordinary graces, to gather and

collect those who might otherwise have perished, and, in the supreme

moment which is doubtless so often God’s hour, to win trophies of mercy

to the honor and glory of the Precious Blood.

Unless we believe in God’s essential, actual, and unintermittent

government of the world, we cannot solve the riddle of the Sphinx, and

her cruel, stony stare will freeze our blood as we traverse the deserts

of life. If we believe only in his direct government, we shall find it

chiefly, if not solely, in his church; and the area is sadly limited! If

we acknowledge his essential providence in his permissions, if we make

sure of his presence in what appears its very negation, then alone do

we arrive at the solution of life’s problems; and even this, not as an

obvious thing, but as a constant and ever-renewed act of faith in the

under-flowing gulf-stream of divine love, which melts the ice and softens

the rigor of the wintry epochs in the world’s history. If we admit of

this theory, which is new to none of us, though dim to some, we let in a

flood of light upon many of the incidents described in the Old Testament,

and specially spoken of as done by the will of God, but which, to our

farther-advanced revelation of God, read to us as unlike himself. The

light of the later interpretation has been thrown over the earlier fact;

but in the harmony of eternity, when we are freed from the broken chord

of time, there will be no dissonant notes.

There can be no more wonderful proof of God’s unutterable love than the

way in which he has condescended to make the very sins of mankind work to

his own glory and to the farther revelation of himself. From the first

“_felix culpa_” of our first parents, as the church does not hesitate to

call it, down to the present hour--down even to the secret depths of our

own souls, where we are conscious of the harvests of grace sprung from

repentant tears--it is still the great alchemist turning base metal in

the crucible of divine love into pure gold.

It is one of the most irrefragable proofs of the working of a perpetual

providence that can be adduced.

Granted that there are no new creations, but that creation is one act,

evolving itself by its innate force into all the phenomena which we

see, and into countless possible others which future generations of

beings will see, nothing of this can prevent the fact that the moral

development of the status of mankind, the revelations of divine truth,

and consequently of the Deity, through the flow of ages, has ever

been a bringing of good out of evil which no blind, irresponsible law

could produce. There is no sort of reason why evil should work into

its contrary good, except the reason that God is the supreme good,

and directs all apparent evil into increments of his glory, thereby

converting it into an ultimate good. We must remember, however, that

this does not diminish our culpability, because it does not affect our

free-will. It does not make evil another form of good. It is no pact with

the devil. It is war and victory, opposition and conquest. It is justice

and retribution, and it behooves us to see whether we are among those

who are keeping ourselves in harmony with the eternal God in his direct

government of the world; in harmony (so far as we know it) with his

antecedent will; or whether we are allowing ourselves to drift away into

channels of our own, working out only the things that he permits, but

which he also condemns, and laying up for ourselves that swift devouring

flame which will “try every man’s work of what sort it is.”

* * * * *

We have thus arrived at two different views of God’s government of the

world--his direct government and his indirect or permissive government.

We now come to what we may call his inductive teaching of the world--the

way in which truths are partially revealed to us, and come to us

percolating through the sands of time, as mankind needs them and can

receive them.

Our Lord himself gives us an example of this inductive process when he

speaks of “the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob” as being “not the

God of the dead, but of the living,” thus showing that the Jews held, and

were bound to hold, the doctrine of immortality by an inductive process.

The teaching of the old law was symbolic and inductive. The histories of

the Old Testament are of the same character. They are written with no

apparent design. They are the simple account of such incidents as the

historian thought himself bound to record; acting, as he did, under the

divine impulse, which underlay his statements without fettering his pen.

He was not himself half conscious of the unspeakable importance of his

work. Consequently, there is no effort, hardly even common precaution and

foresight, in his mode of chronicling events. He glances at incidents

without explaining them, because while he wrote they were present to his

own experience, and would be to that of his readers. A writer in our day

would allude to a person having performed a journey of fifty miles in an

hour’s time without thinking it necessary to explain that people travel

by steam. In another part he would advert to railroads, and the rapidity

of locomotion as their result, equally without a direct reference to

the individual who effected fifty miles in an hour. To the reader of

three thousand years hence the one incidental allusion will explain

and corroborate the other, and thus, by internal evidence, prove the

authenticity and consistency of the history. Unintentional coincidences

crop up as the pages grow beneath his hand, and to the careful student of

Scripture throw light unlooked for on the exactitude and veracity of the

narrative. And the substratum of the whole of the Old Testament history

is the gradual growth of one family out of all the families of mankind,

into which, as into a carefully prepared soil, the seed of divine truth

was to be sown. Through all the variety of the Old Testament writers

the same underlying design exists; and though this was a special stream

of revelation unlike any that now exists or that is now required (for

reasons which are obvious to every Catholic who knows what the church

is), yet they form an indication of the way in which the divine Creator

is for ever governing the world and preparing it with a divine foresight

for his ultimate purpose. The Holy Ghost speaks now through a direct

organ, which organ is the church. Formerly God spoke through historic

events and multitudinous incidents in connection with one race of people.

But this very fact authorizes us to believe that the same _character_

of government exists throughout the whole universe in a greater or less

degree, and that God is preparing the way for the ultimate triumph of

the sacred Humanity and of his spouse the Church, on the far-off shores

of sultry Africa, in the inner recesses of silent China, among the huge

forests which skirt the Blue Mountains, or amid the glittering glories of

the kingdoms of ice.

There is nothing more depressingly sad, more deeply to be regretted, and

more difficult to explain than the almost hopeless narrowness of most

people in their appreciation of divinely-ordained facts. We live like

moles. We throw up a mound of dusky earth above and around us, within

which we grope and are content. The treasures of sacred lore, the depths

of spiritual science, the infinite variety of Scriptural information,

with the divinely-pointed moral of every tale, are things which most

of us are content to know exist, and to think no more about. The very

lavishness with which God has given us all that we want for the salvation

of our souls seems to have stifled in our ungenerous natures the

longing to know and to do more. When the Evangelist said that the world

would not hold the books that might be written on the sacred Humanity

alone, he must have had an intuition, not so much of the material world

and material volumes, as of the world of narrowed minds and crippled

hearts who would be found stranded on the shores of our much-vaunted

civilization and progress.

Few things are more remarkable in the tone and character of modern

Catholic writers than the small amount of use they make of Scripture:

so strangely in contrast with the old writers, and with even the great

French spiritual authors of a century and a half ago. Their pages are

rich with Scriptural lore. Their style is a constant recognition of the

government and designs of God as shown to us in our past and present, and

as we are bound to anticipate them in the future. In our time this has

given place to emotional devotion; a most excellent thing in its way, but

only likely to have much influence over our lives when it is grounded on

solid theology and directed by real knowledge. No doubt it is so in the

minds of the authors themselves; but we fear it is rare in those of their

ordinary readers, who thus drink the froth off the wine, but are not

benefited by the strengthening properties of the generous liquid itself.

Nor will they be until they have made up their minds to believe and

understand that conversion is not an isolated fact in their lives, but a

progressive act involving all the intellect, all the faculties, be they

great or small (for each one must be full up to his capacity), and all

the heart, mind, and soul. The whole man must work and be worked upon in

harmony; and we must remember that it _is_ work, and not merely feeling,

consolation, emotion, prettiness, and ornament, but an intellectual

growth, going on _pari passu_ with a spiritual growth, until the whole

vessel is fitted and prepared for the glory of God.

We think we may venture to say that few things will conduce more to this

than the study of the divine Scriptures under the light and teaching

of the Catholic Church. In them we find a profound revelation of the

character of God. We are, as we read them interpreted to us by the lamp

of the sanctuary, let down into awful depths of the divine Eternal Mind.

We watch the whole world and all creation working up for the supreme

moment of the birth of Jesus; while in the life of our Blessed Lord

himself we find, condensed into those wonderful thirty-three years,

the whole system of the church--the spiritual fabric which is to fill

eternity, the one God-revealing system which is finally to supersede all

others.

Unhappily many persons are under the delusion that narrowness and

ignorance are the same as Christian simplicity, and that innocence means

ignorance of everything else, as well as of evil. These are the people

who are afraid to look facts in the face, and to read them off as part

of the God-directed history of the world. These are they to whom science

is a bugbear. They hug their ignorance as being their great safeguard,

and wear blinkers lest they should be startled by the events which cross

their path. Grown men and women do it for themselves and attempt it for

their children, and meanwhile those to whom we ought to be superior are

rushing on with headlong daring, carrying intellectual eminence, and

originality, and investigation of science, all before them; while we, who

should be clad in the panoply of the faith, and afraid of nothing, are

putting out the candles and shading the lamps, that we may idly enjoy a

shadow too dense for real work.

And yet is not the earth ours? Is not all that exists our heritage? To

whom does anything belong if not to us, the sons of the church, the

sole possessors of infallible truth, the only invulnerable ones, the

only ever-enduring and ever-increasing children of the light? The past

is ours; the present should be ours; the future is all our own. Our

triumph may be slow (and it is slower because we are cowards), but it

is certain. Are we not tenfold the children of the covenant, the sons

of the Father’s house, the heirs of all? We alone are in possession of

what all science and art must ultimately fall back upon and harmonize

with. There is no success possible but what is obtained, and shall in the

future be obtained, in union with the church of God. Have we forgotten,

are we ever for a moment permitted to forget, that the church of God

is not an accident, nor a cunningly-devised, tolerably able, partially

infirm organization, but that she is the spouse of the God-Man, the one

revelation of God, perfect and entire, though but gradually given forth;

that all the harmonies of science are fragments of the harmony of God

himself, of his pure being, of the _Qui Est_; and that the harmony of the

arts is simply the human expression of the harmony of the _Logos_, the

human utterances of the articulations of the divine Word, as they come to

us in our far-off life-like echoes from eternity?

Even the great false religions of the past, and of the present in the

remote East, are but man’s discord breaking the harmony of truth while

retaining the key-note: the immortality of the soul and the perfection

of a future state in the deep thoughts of Egypt, the universality of

God’s providential government of the world in Greek mythology, the union

of the soul with God in Brahminism, and the One God of Mahometanism.

Each has its kernel of truth, its ideal nucleus of supernatural belief,

which it had caught from the great harmony of God in broken fragments,

and enshrined in mystic signs. Even now, as we look back upon them all,

we are bound to confess that they stand on a totally different ground

from the multitudinous sects of our day, which break off from the one

body of the church and drift off into negation or Protestantism. Far be

it from us to insinuate that any, the lowest form of Christianity, the

weakest utterance of the dear name of Jesus, is not ten thousand fold

better than the most abstruse of the old Indian or Egyptian religions.

Wherever the name of Jesus is uttered, no matter how imperfectly, there

is more hope of light and of salvation than in the deepest symbols of

heathen or pagan creeds. It may be but one ray of light, but still it is

light--the real warming, invigorating light of the sun, and not the cold

and deleterious light of the beautiful moon, who has poisoned what she

has borrowed.[281] Nevertheless, and maintaining this with all the energy

of which we are capable, it is still true that each one of the great

false religions, which at various times and in divers places have swayed

mankind, was rather the overgrowth of error on a substantial truth than

the breaking up of truth into fragmentary and illogical negation, which

is the characteristic of all forms of secession from the Catholic unity

of the church. The modern aberrations from the faith are a mere jangle

of sounds, while the old creeds were the petrifaction of truth. The

modern forms of faith outside the church are a negation of truth rather

than a distortion. Consequently, they are for ever drifting and taking

Protean shapes that defy classification.

They have broken up into a hundred forms; they will break up into a

thousand more, till the whole fabric has crumbled into dust. They have

none of the strong hold on human nature which the old religions had,

because they are not the embodiment of a sacred mystery, but rather the

explaining away of all mystery. They are a perpetual drifting detritus,

without coherence as without consistency; and as they slip down the slant

of time, they fall into the abyss of oblivion, and will leave not a trace

behind, only in so far that, vanishing from sight, they make way for the

fuller establishment of the truth--the eternal, the divine, spherical

truth, absolute in its cohesion and perfect in all its parts.

The hold which heathen and pagan creeds have had upon mankind conveys a

lesson to ourselves which superficial thinkers are apt to overlook. It is

certain they could not have held whole nations beneath their influence

had not each in its turn been an embodiment of some essential truth

which, though expressed through error, remains in itself essentially

a part of truth. They snatched at fragments of the natural law which

governs the universe, or they embodied in present expression the

inalienable hopes of mankind. They took the world of nature as the

utterance neither of a passing nor of an inexorable law, but of an

inscrutable Being, and believed that the mystical underlies the natural.

Untaught by the sweet revelations of Christianity, their religion could

assume no aspect but one of terror, silent dread, and deep horror. Their

only escape from this result was in the deterioration that necessarily

follows the popularization of all abstract ideas, unless protected by

a system at once consistent and elastic, like that which is exhibited

in the discipline of the Catholic Church. They wearied of the rarefied

atmosphere of unexplained mystery. They wanted the tangible and evident

in its place. Like the Israelites, they lusted after the flesh-pots of

Egypt; and their lower nature and evil passions rebelled against the

moral loftiness of abstract truth. The multitude could not be kept up

to the mark, and needed coarser food. The result was inevitable. But as

all religion involves mystery, instead of working upward through the

natural law to the spiritual and divine law, they inverted the process,

and grovelled down below the natural law, with its sacramentalistic

character, to the preternatural and diabolic. Mystery was retained, but

only in the profanation of themselves and of natural laws, until they had

passed outside all nature, and, making a hideous travesty of humanity,

had become more vile and hateful than the devils they served.

Thus the Romans vulgarized the Greek mythology; and that which had

remained during a long period as a beautiful though purely human

expression of a divine mystery, among a people whose religion consisted

mainly in the worship of the beautiful, and who themselves transcended

all that humanity has ever since beheld in their own personal perfection

of beauty, became, when it passed through the coarser hands of the

Romans, a degenerate vulgarity, which infected their whole existence, in

art and in manners, quite as effectually as in religion. Then Rome flung

open her gates to all the creeds of all the world, and the time-honored

embodiments of fragmentary but intrinsic truth met together, and were all

equally tolerated and equally degenerated. All!--except the one whole and

perfect truth: the Gospel of Salvation. That was never tolerated. That

alone could not be endured, because the instinct of evil foresaw its own

impending ruin in the Gospel of peace.

It was a new thing for mankind to be told that a part of the essence

of religion was elevated morality and the destruction of sin in the

individual. Whatever comparative purity of life had co-existed with the

old religions was hardly due to their influence among the multitude,

though it might be so with those whose educated superiority enabled them

to reason out the morality of creeds. While the rare philosopher was

reading the inmost secret of the abstract idea on which the religion

of his country was based, and the common pagan was practising the most

degraded sorcery and peering into obscene mysteries, without a single

elevation of thought, suddenly the life of the God-Man was put before the

world, and the whole face of creation was gradually changed.

But as the shadows of the past in the old religions led up to the light,

so shall the light of the present lead up to the “perfect day.”

TO BE CONTINUED.

SEARCH FOR OLD LACE IN VENICE.

One is almost ashamed to mention Venice now, or any other of those

thousand-and-one bournes of hackneyed travel and staples of hackneyed

books. There is probably no one claiming a place in a civilized community

who does not know Venice almost as well as do her own children, and

who could not discourse intelligently of the Bridge of Sighs, the

Doge’s Palace, and the Rialto Bridge, of St. Mark’s and the brazen

horses. Still, when one has read multitudinous poems about gondolas and

gondoliers, and any amount of descriptions of the Grand Canal, with its

palaces of various styles of architecture, and some few dramas about the

grand and gloomy, the secret and awful, doings of ancient Venetian life,

even then there are nooks in the place and incidents in the doings which

escape notice. A traveller arriving at Venice is hardly surprised at the

water-street, with which pictures have already made him familiar, but the

mode of entering a covered gondola--crab-fashion--is not so familiar, and

he generally butts his head against the low ceiling, eliciting a laugh

from his gondolier and the good-humored bystanders, before he learns the

native and proper way of backing into his seat. So, too, in rowing slowly

and dreamily about from church to church, full of artistic marvels or

wonderful historical monuments, he feels to a certain degree at home. He

has seen all this before; the present is but a dream realized. But there

are now and then unexpected sights--though, it must be confessed, not

many--and of course such are the most interesting, even if they are by

no means on a level with those more famous and more beautiful.

From Venice to Vicenza is but a short distance by rail, and Vicenza

boasts of Roman ruins, and mediæval churches, and a Palladian theatre;

but on our day’s trip there, in early spring, we certainly dwelt more on

the aspect of the woods and plains, with their faint veil of yellow green

already beginning to appear, the few flowers in the _osteria_ garden, and

the box hedges and aloes in the cemetery. The beauty of the Venetian and

Lombard plains lies more in their mere freshness than in their diversity;

it is entirely a beauty of detail, a beauty fit for the minuteness of

Preraphaelite art rather than for the sweeping brush of the great masters

of conventional landscape painting. But coming from Venice every trace

of verdure was grateful to the eye, and we felt as one who, having been

confined in a beautiful, spacious room, filled with treasures and scented

with subtle perfume, might feel on coming suddenly into the fresh air of

a prairie. By contrast, the suggestion of fresh air and open space draws

us at once to our subject--a search after old lace in one of the cities

known to possess many treasures in that line.

Like all other industries in Venice, the sale of lace thrives chiefly on

the fancy of the foreign visitors. The natives are generally too poor to

buy much of it, and, indeed, much of what is in the market is the product

of forced sacrifices made by noble but impoverished families of Venetian

origin. It is a sad thing to see the spoils of Italy still scattered

over the world, as if the same fate had pursued her, with a few glorious

intervals of triumph and possession, ever since the barbarian ancestors

of her _forestieri_ rifled her treasure-houses under the banners of

Celtic, Cimbrian, and Gothic chieftains. What Brennus, Alaric, and

Genseric began the Constable of Bourbon and the great Napoleon continued

by force; but what is still sadder is to see the daily disintegration

of other treasure-houses whose contents are unwillingly but necessarily

bartered away to rich Englishmen, Americans, and Russians. Pictures,

jewelry, lace, goldsmith’s work, artistic trifles--precious through

their material and history, but more so through the family associations

which have made them heirlooms--too often pass from the sleepy, denuded,

dilapidated, but still beautiful Italian palace to the cabinet or gallery

or museum of the lucky foreign connoisseur, or even--a worse fate--into

the hands of men to whom possession is much, but appreciation very little.

While at Venice we were so lazy as never to go sight-seeing, which

accounts for the fact that we missed many a thing which visitors of a few

days see and talk learnedly about; and if the business activity of an old

lace-seller had not brought her to the hotel, our search after lace might

never have been made. She brought fine specimens with her, but her prices

were rather high, and, after admiring the lace, she was dismissed without

getting any orders. But she came again, and this time left her address.

We wanted some lace for a present, and fancied that the proverbial

facility for taking anything rather than nothing, which distinguishes

the Italian seller of curiosities, would induce her to strike some more

favorable bargain in her own house, where no other customer would be at

hand to treasure up her weakness as a precedent.

It was not easy to find the house. Many intricate little canals had to be

traversed (for on foot we should probably have lost our way over and over

again); and as we passed, many a quaint court, many a delicate window,

many a sombre archway, and as often the objects which we, perhaps too

conventionally, call picturesque--such as the tattered clothes drying

on long lines stretched from window to window; heaps of refuse piled up

against princely gateways; rotten posts standing up out of the water,

with the remnants of the last coat of paint they ever had, a hundred

years ago; gaudy little shrines calculated to make a Venetian _popolana_

feel very pious and an “unregenerate” artist well-nigh frantic--met our

sight. At last the house was reached, or at least the narrow quay from

which a _calle_, or tiny, dark street, plunged away into regions unknown

but inviting. Our gondolier was wise in the street-labyrinth lore of

his old city, and up some curious outside stairs, and then again by

innumerable inside ones, we reached the old woman’s rooms. Of these there

were two--at least, we saw no more. Both were poor and bare, and the old

lace seller was wrinkled, unclean, good-humored, and eager. She talked

volubly, not being obliged to use a foreign tongue to help herself out,

but going on with her soft, gliding, but quick Venetian tones. Travelling

in Italy and coming in contact with all classes of the people is apt

sadly to take down one’s scholarly conceit in knowing the language of

Dante and Petrarch; for all the classicism of one’s school-days goes for

very little in bargaining for lace, giving orders in a shop or market,

or trying not to let boat-and-donkey-men cheat you to your face. There

is this comfort: that if you often cannot understand the people, they

can almost invariably understand you (unless your accent be altogether

outrageous), which saves John Bull and his American cousin the ignominy

of being brought an umbrella when they have asked for mushrooms, and

actually taken the trouble to give a diagram of that vegetable.

The prices were kept so obstinately above our means that all purchase of

lace was impossible; but the old woman was untiring in displaying her

stores of antique treasures, and we felt sufficiently rewarded for our

expedition. She herself was worth a visit; for, like many ancient Italian

matrons, and not a few nearer home, she was one of that generation of

models whom you would have sworn has endured from the days of Titian

and Vandyke, immortally old and unchangeably wrinkled. You see such

faces in the galleries, with the simple title “Head of an old man”--or

old woman, as the case may be--attributed to some famous painter; and

these weird portraits attract you far more than the youth, and beauty,

and health, and prosperity of the Duchess of Este, the baker’s handsome

daughter, or the gorgeous Eastern sibyl. Again, you do not care to have

any allegorical meaning tacked on to that intensely human face; you would

be disgusted if you found it set down in the catalogue as “a Parca,”

a magician, or a witch. You seem to know it, to remember one which

was like it, to connect it with many human vicissitudes and common,

though not the less pathetic, troubles. She is probably poor and has

been hard-working; wifehood and motherhood have been stern realities

to her, instead of poems lived in luxurious houses and earthly plenty;

her youth’s romance was probably short, fervid, passionate, but soon

lapsed into the dreary struggle of the poor for bare life. Chance and old

age have made her look hard, though in truth her heart would melt at a

tender love-tale like that of a girl of fifteen, and her brave, bright

nature belies the lines on her face. Just as women live this kind of life

nowadays, so they did three and five hundred years ago; so did probably

those very models immortalized by great painters; so did others long

before art had reached the possibility of truthful portraiture.

Our old friend the lace-seller, though she has given occasion for this

rambling digression, did not, however, at the time, suggest all these

things to our mind.

If she herself was a type of certain models of the old masters, her wares

were also a reminder of famous people, scenes, and places of Venice.

They were all of one kind, all of native manufacture, and, of course,

all made by hand. In a certain degenerate fashion this industry is still

continued, but the specimens of modern work which we saw were coarse

and valueless in comparison with those of the old. There were collars

and cuffs in abundance, such as both men and women wore--large, broad,

Vandyked collars like those one sees in Venetian pictures; flounces,

or rather straight bands of divers widths, from five to twenty inches,

which had more probably belonged to albs and cottas. They suggested

rich churches and gorgeous ceremonial in a time when nobles and people

were equally devoted to splendid shows, prosperity and loftiness, and a

picturesque blending of the religious and the imperial. Chasubles stiff

with gems and altars of precious stones seem to harmonize well with

these priceless veils, woven over with strange, hieroglyphic-looking,

conventional, yet beautiful forms; intricate with tracery which, put into

stone, would immortalize a sculptor; full of knots, each of which is a

miniature masterpiece of embroidery; and the whole the evident product

of an artist’s brain. This lace has not the gossamer-like beauty of

Brussels. It is thick and close in its texture, and is of that kind

which looks best on dark velvets and heavy, dusky cloths--just what one

would fancy the grave Venetian signiors wearing on state occasions. It

matches somehow with the antique XVth and XVIth century jewelry--the

magnificent, artistic, heavy collars of the great orders of chivalry; it

has something solid, substantial, and splendid about it. Such lace used

to be sold to kings and senators, not by a paltry yard measure, but by at

least twice its weight in gold; for the price was “as many gold pieces as

would cover the quantity of lace required.” Now, although this princely

mode of barter is out of fashion, old Venetian “point” is still one of

the costliest luxuries in the world, and the rich foreigners who visit

Venice usually carry away at least as much as will border a handkerchief

or trim a cap, as a memento of the beautiful and once imperial city of

the Adriatic. The modern lace--one can scarcely call it _imitation_,

any more than Salviati’s modern Venetian glass and mosaic can be so

called--seems to be deficient in the beauty and intricacy of design of

the old specimens; it is so little sought after that the industry stands

a chance of dying out, at least until after the old stock is exhausted

and necessity drives the lace-makers to ply their art more delicately.

Some modern lace, the English Honiton and some of the Irish lace, is

quite as perfect and beautiful, and very nearly as costly, as the

undoubted specimens the history of which can be traced back for two or

three hundred years. But from what we saw of Venetian point, the new

has sadly degenerated from the old, and exact copying of a few antique

models would be no detriment to the modern productions. To the unlearned

eye there is no difference between Venetian glass three or four hundred

years old, carefully preserved in a national museum, and the manufactures

of last month, sold in Salviati’s warerooms in Venice and his shop in

London. Connoisseurs say they _do_ detect some inferiority in the modern

work; but as to the lace, even the veriest tyro in such lore can see the

rough, tasteless, coarse appearance of the new when contrasted with the

old.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

SUPPOSED MIRACLES: AN ARGUMENT FOR THE HONOR OF CHRISTIANITY

AGAINST SUPERSTITION, AND FOR ITS TRUTH AGAINST UNBELIEF. By

Rev. J. M. Buckley. New York: Hurd & Houghton. 1875.

Mr. Buckley is a Methodist minister, who seems to be a sensible,

honest, and straightforward person, strong in his convictions, ardently

religious, and yet abhorring the excesses of credulity and irrational

enthusiasm. The substance of his pamphlet was delivered by him as an

address before a meeting of Methodist ministers, and is principally

directed against some pretences to miraculous powers and wonderful

cure-working within his own denomination. So far as this goes, his

effort is quite successful, particularly in regard to a certain Rev. Mr.

Platt, who professes to have been cured of an obstinate infirmity by the

prayers, accompanied by the imposition of hands, of a lady by the name

of Miss Mossman. His particular object led him, however, to advance some

general propositions respecting real and supposititious miracles, and

to sustain these by arguments and appeals to so-called facts, real or

assumed, having a much wider range and application than is embraced by

his special and immediate purpose. As an _argumentum ad hominem_, his

plea may have been quite sufficient and convincing to his particular

audience; but as addressed to a wider circle in the form of a published

pamphlet, it appears to be somewhat deficient in the quality and quantity

of the proofs alleged in support of its great amplitude and confidence of

assertion. It is also defective in respect to the definition and division

of the subject-matter. To begin with his definition of miracle: “A true

miracle is an event which involves the setting aside or contradiction of

the established and uniform relations of antecedents and consequents;

such event being produced at the will of an agent not working in the

way of physical cause and effect, for the purpose of demonstration,

or punishment, or deliverance.” This definition errs by excess and

defect--by excess, in including the scope or end as a part of the

essence; by defect, in excluding effects produced by an act of divine

power which is above all established and uniform relations of antecedents

and consequents. This last fault is not of much practical importance in

respect to the question of the miracles by which a divine revelation is

proved, or of ecclesiastical miracles; because those which are simply

above nature, called by S. Thomas miracles of the first order--as the

Incarnation and the glorification of the body of Christ--are very few in

number, and are more objects than evidences of faith. The first error,

however, confuses the subject, and opens the way to a summary rejection

of evidence for particular miracles on the _à priori_ ground that they

have not that scope which has been defined by the author as necessary to

a true miracle. It is evident that God cannot give supernatural power

to perform works whose end is bad or which are simply useless. But we

cannot determine precisely what end is sufficient, in the view of God,

for enabling a person to work a miracle, except so far as we learn this

by induction and the evidence of facts which are proved. Mr. Buckley

affirms positively that the end of miracles was solely the authentication

of the divine legation of Christ and his forerunners in the mission of

making known the divine revelation. Consequently from this assumption, he

asserts that miracles ceased very early in the history of Christianity.

He also professes to have “shown, by the proof of facts, that miracles

have ceased. If the great Reformation in Germany, Switzerland, and

Scotland, if Methodism, had no miracles; if the missionaries of the

Cross [_i.e._, Protestant] are powerless to work them; and if the best

men and women of all branches of the [Protestant] church are without

this power, then indeed must they have ceased.” No one will dispute

the logical sequence or material truth of this conclusion, so far as

it does not extend beyond its own premises. He has made it, however,

a general conclusion, and promises to prove it by “conclusive and

irresistible proof.” He is therefore bound to prove that miracles had

ceased from an early epoch in the universal church, including the whole

period before the XVIth century, and in respect to all Christian bodies

except Protestants from that time to the present. In respect to the

former period, his whole proof consists in a statement that no person of

candor and judgment who has read the ante-Nicene fathers will conclude

it probable that miracles continued much beyond the beginning of the IId

century, and in the assertion “that they have ceased we have proved to a

demonstration.” In respect to supposed miracles during the latter period

in the Catholic Church, the proof that none of them are true miracles is

contained in the statement that “the opinion of the Protestant world is

settled” on that head. Very good, Mr. Buckley! Such logical accuracy,

united with the intuitive insight of genius, is a conclusive proof that

the “assistances which our age enjoys” have amazingly shortened and

simplified the tedious processes by which “that indigested heap and

fry of authors which they call antiquity” were obliged to investigate

truth and acquire knowledge. The reverend gentleman tells us that “I

have for some years past been reading, as I have found leisure, that

magnificent translation of the ante-Nicene fathers published by T. & T.

Clark, of Edinburgh, in about twenty five volumes. To say that I have

been astonished is to speak feebly.” Probably the astonishment of Origen,

Justin Martyr, and Irenæus would be no less, and would be more forcibly

expressed, if they could resume their earthly life and peruse the

remarkable address before us. If its author will read the account of the

miracles of SS. Gervasius and Protasius given by S. Ambrose, the _City

of God_ of S. Augustine, the _Ecclesiastical History_ of Ven. Bede, and

Dr. Newman’s _Essay on Ecclesiastical Miracles_, we can promise him that

he will experience a still greater degree of astonishment than he did

on the perusal of the ante-Nicene fathers. Mr. Buckley appears to be in

_bona fide_, and is probably a much better man than many whose knowledge

is more extensive. The hallucination of mind which produces in him the

belief that he stands on a higher intellectual plane than Clement of

Alexandria and Cyprian in ancient times, or Petavius, Kleutgen, Bayma,

and “Jesuits” in general, is so simply astounding, and the credulity

requisite to a firm assent to his own statements as “demonstrations” is

so much beyond that which was, in the olden time, shown by believing

in the “phœnix,” that he must be sincere, though very much in need of

information. We cannot help feeling that he is worthy of knowing better,

and would be convinced of the truth if it were set before him fairly.

It is plain that he has no knowledge of the evidence which exists of

a series of miracles wrought in the Catholic Church continuously from

the times of the apostles to our own day, and which cannot be rejected

without subverting the evidence on which the truth of all miracles

whatsoever is based. The number of these which are considered by prudent

Catholic writers to be quite certain or probable is beyond reckoning,

though still very small in comparison with ordinary events and the

experiences of the whole number of Catholics in all ages. Those of the

most extraordinary magnitude are relatively much fewer in number than

those which are less wonderful, as, for instance, the raising of the

dead to life. Nevertheless, there are instances of this kind--_e.g._,

those related of S. Dominic, S. Bernard, S. Teresa, and S. Francis

Xavier--which, to say the least, have a _primâ facie_ probability. One

of another kind is the perpetually-recurring miracle of the liquefaction

of the blood of S. Januarius. The miraculous and complete cure of Mrs.

Mattingly, of Washington, is an instance which occurred in our own

country, and which, among many other intelligent Protestants, John C.

Calhoun considered as most undoubtedly effected by miraculous agency. We

mention one more only--the restoration of the destroyed vision of one eye

by the application of the water of Lourdes, in the case of Bourriette,

as related by M. Lasserre. We are rather more cautious in professing to

have demonstrated the continuance of miracles than our reverend friend

has been in respect to the contrary. We profess merely to show that his

demonstration requires a serious refutation of the arguments in favor of

the proposition he denies, and to bring forward some considerations in

proof of the title which these arguments have to a respectful and candid

examination. Moreover, though we cannot pretend to prove anything, _hic

et nunc_, by conclusive evidence and reasoning, we refer to the articles

on the miracle of S. Januarius, and to the translation of M. Lasserre’s

book, in our own pages, as containing evidence for two of the instances

alluded to, and to the works of Bishop England for the evidence in Mrs.

Mattingly’s case.

Besides those supernatural effects or events which can only be produced

by a divine power acting immediately on the subject, there are other

marvellous effects which in themselves require only a supermundane

power, and are merely preternatural, using nature in the sense which

excludes all beyond our own world and our human nature. Other unusual

events, again, may appear to be preternatural, but may be proved, or

reasonably conjectured, to proceed from a merely natural cause. Here is

a debatable land, where the truth is attainable with more difficulty,

generally with less certainty, and where there is abundant chance for

unreasonable credulity and equally unreasonable scepticism to lose their

way in opposite directions. Mr. Buckley summarily refers all the strange

phenomena to be found among pagan religions to jugglery and fanaticism.

Spiritism he dismisses without a word of comment, implying that he

considers it to be in no sense preternatural. We differ from him in

opinion in respect to this point also. We have no doubt that many alleged

instances of preternatural events are to be explained by natural causes,

and many others by jugglery and imposture. We cannot, for ourselves,

find a reasonable explanation of a certain number of well-proved facts

in regard to both paganism and spiritism, except on the hypothesis of

preternatural agency. The nature of that agency cannot be determined

without recurring to theological science. Catholic theology determines

such cases by referring them to the agency of demons. Mr. Buckley is

afraid to admit that the alleged “miracles were real and wrought by

devils.” “If so,” he continues, “we may ask, in the language of Job,

Where and what is God?” We answer to this that God does not permit demons

to deceive men to such an extent as to cause the ruin of their souls,

except through their own wilful and culpable submission to these deceits.

It makes no difference whether the delusion produced is referred to

jugglery or demonology in respect to this particular question.

THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOM. Part Third. By T. W. Allies.

London: Longmans & Co. 1875.

Mr. Allies dedicates this volume, in very beautiful and appropriate

terms, to Dr. Newman, who, he says in classic and graceful phrase,

having once been “the Hector of a doomed Troy,” is now “the Achilles

of the city of God.” The particular topic of the book is the relation

of Greek philosophy to the Christian church. A remarkable chapter on

the foundation of the Roman Church, in which great use is made of the

discoveries of archæologists, precedes the treatment of the Neostoic,

Neopythagorean, and Neoplatonic schools, with cognate topics. One of

the most interesting and novel chapters is that on Apollonius of Tyana,

whose wonderful life, as related by Philostratus, the author regards as

a philosophic and anti-Christian myth invented by the above-mentioned

pagan writer, with only a slight basis of historical truth. Mr. Allies

has studied the deep, thoughtful works of those German authors who

give a truly intelligent and connected history of philosophy, and his

work is a valuable contribution to that branch of science, as well as

to the history of Christianity. One of the most irresistible proofs of

the divine mission and divine personality of Jesus Christ lies in the

blending of the elements of Hellenic genius and culture, Jewish faith,

and Roman law into a new composite, by a new form, when he founded his

universal kingdom. A mere man, by his own natural power, and under the

circumstances in which he lived, could not have conceived such an idea,

much less have carried it into execution. The most ineffably stupid, as

well as atrociously wicked, of all impostors and philosophical charlatans

are those apostate Christians who strive to drag Christianity down to

the level of the pagan systems of religion and philosophy, and reduce

it to a mere natural phenomenon. Mr. Allies shows this in a work which

combines erudition with a grace of style formed on classic models, and

an enlightened, fervent Catholic spirit, imbibed from the fathers and

doctors of the church. At a time when the popular philosophy is decked

in false hair and mock-jewels, as a stage-queen, it is cheering to find

here and there a votary of that genuine philosophy whose beauty is native

and real, and who willingly proclaims her own subjection and inferiority

by humbly saying, _Ecce ancilla Domini_.

THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC QUARTERLY REVIEW. Vol. I. No. 1. January,

1876. Philadelphia: Hardy & Mahony.

A very large number of the most highly gifted and learned Catholics

throughout Christendom, both clergymen and laymen, are at present

employed in writing for the reviews of various classes which have existed

for a greater or lesser period of time within the present century. Much

of the very best literature of the age is to be found in their articles,

and a very considerable part of this is of permanent value. In solid

merit of matter and style, and in adaptation to the wants of the time,

the best of these periodicals have improved steadily, and we may say

of some of them that they hardly admit of any farther progress. The

advantage of such periodicals is not only very great for their readers,

but almost equally so for those who are engaged in contributing to their

contents. The effort and practice of writing constantly for the public

react upon the writers. Each one is encouraged and instructed in the

most useful and effective method of directing his studies and giving

verbal expression to their results, so as to attain the practical end

he has in view--that of disseminating and diffusing knowledge over as

wide an extent as possible. The combination of various writers, each

having one or more specialties, under a competent editorial direction

secures variety and versatility without prejudice to unity, and corrects

the excesses or defects of individuality without checking originality,

thus giving to the resulting work in some respects a superiority over

that which is the product of one single mind, unless that mind possesses

the gifts and acquisitions in _modo eminenti_ which are usually found

divided among a number of different persons. To conduct a review alone

is a herculean task, and Dr. Brownson has accomplished a work which is

really astonishing in maintaining, almost by unaided effort, through so

many years, a periodical of the high rank accorded by common consent to

the one which bore his name and will be his perpetual monument. That, at

the present juncture, a new review is necessary and has a fine field open

before it; that in its management ecclesiastical direction and episcopal

control are requisite for adequate security and weight with the Catholic

public; and that full opportunity for efficient co-operation on the part

of laymen of talent and education is most desirable, cannot admit of a

moment’s doubt. It is therefore a matter of heart-felt congratulation

that the favorable moment has been so promptly seized and the vacant

place so quickly occupied by the gentlemen who have undertaken the

editing and the publishing of the _American Catholic Quarterly_. It is

probably known to most, if not all, of our readers that the editors are

Dr. Corcoran, professor in the Ecclesiastical Seminary of Philadelphia;

Dr. O’Connor, the rector of that institution; and Mr. Wolff, who has

long and ably edited the Philadelphia _Catholic Standard_. It would be

difficult to find in the United States an equally competent triad. The

publishers, who have already the experience acquired by the management

of a literary magazine and a newspaper, will, we may reasonably hope,

be able to sustain the financial burden of this greater undertaking

in a successful manner, if they receive the support which they have a

right to expect, by means of their subscription list. The first number

of the new review presents a typographical face which is quite peculiar

to itself and decidedly attractive. Its contents, besides articles from

each of the editors, are composed of contributions from three clergymen

and two laymen, embracing a considerable variety of topics. The clerical

contributors are the Right Reverend Bishops Lynch and Becker, and the

Rev. Drs. Corcoran, O’Connor, and McGlynn. The lay contributors are Dr.

Brownson, John Gilmary Shea, and Mr. Wolff. The names of F. Thébaud,

Dr. Marshall, and General Gibbon are among those announced for the

next number. We extend a cordial greeting with our best wishes to the

_American Catholic Quarterly Review_.

MANUAL OF CATHOLIC INDIAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATIONS.

The Indian question continues to be one of the most troublesome in our

national politics. Its only real solution--and we believe this to be

President Grant’s opinion--is to Christianize the Indians. The task is

undoubtedly a hard one, but it would be far less so if wolves in sheep’s

clothing had not been sent among them. The only successful attempt at

civilizing the Indians has been made by Catholic missionaries. But under

the administration of the Indian Bureau, the utter rottenness of which

has been so recently exposed, missions and reservations have been thrown

to this religious agency and that without the slightest regard for the

wishes of those who, it is to be supposed, were most to be benefited by

the operation--the Indians themselves. In this way flourishing Catholic

missions were turned over to the Methodist or other denominations, and

the representations of the missionaries, as well as of the chiefs and

tribes themselves, were of no avail whatever to alter so iniquitous

a proceeding. This little manual gives a brief sketch of the status

of Catholic Indians and working of the Bureau of Indian Missions. It

contains also an earnest appeal to the Catholic ladies of the United

States from the “Ladies’ Catholic Indian Missionary Association of

Washington, D. C.,” urging contributions and the formation of similar

associations throughout the country to aid in sustaining the Catholic

Indian missions.

A CORRECTION.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE CATHOLIC WORLD:

I have just received, through the Catholic Publication Society, the

following card from Mr. Gladstone:

“Mr. Gladstone desires to send with his compliments his thanks

to the Society for a copy, which he has received, of Dr.

Clarke’s interesting paper on _Maryland Toleration_. Having

simply cited his authorities, and used them, as he thinks,

fairly, he will be glad to learn, if he can, the manner in

which they meet the challenge conveyed in the latter portion of

this paper. Mr. Gladstone’s present object is to say he would

be greatly obliged by a _reference_ to enable him to trace the

“irreverent words” imputed to him on page 6, as his _Vatican

Decrees_ have no page 83, and he is not aware of having penned

such a passage.

“4 CARLTON GARDENS, LONDON, Jan. 24, 1856.”

Mr. Gladstone is right in disclaiming the words imputed to him in this

instance. They are, on investigation, found to be the words of the

Rev. Dr. Schaff. The Messrs. Harper, the American publishers of Mr.

Gladstone’s tracts, are largely responsible for the mistake, by having

inserted in their publication a tract of Dr. Schaff, paged in common, and

all covered by the outside title of “_Rome and the Newest Fashions in

Religion. Gladstone_,” and by the title-page giving the authorship “By

the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone.” To a writer making selections as needed

from different portions of this book the mistake was easy and natural;

and though the authorship of Dr. Schaff’s _History of the Vatican

Decrees_ containing the passage in question is given, it is not so given

as easily to reach the eye, and is obscured by the introduction of Dr.

Schaff’s tract into a volume under Mr. Gladstone’s name, and by paging

Dr. Schaff’s _History_ in common with Mr. Gladstone’s _Vaticanism_. On

page 83 of _this_ publication of the Messrs. Harper the “irreverent

words” are found. I am only too much gratified at Mr. Gladstone’s

disowning them, and hasten, on my part, to make this correction through

your columns, in which my reply to Mr. Gladstone on _Maryland Toleration_

first appeared, and to beg his acceptance of this _amende honorable_.

RICH. H. CLARKE

51 CHAMBERS STREET, NEW YORK, February 10, 1876.

* * * * *

In a notice, which appeared in last month’s CATHOLIC WORLD, of certain

works published by Herder, Freiburg, it was stated that the publications

of that house are imported by the firm of Benziger Bros. Mr. Herder has

a branch house in St. Louis, Missouri, where all his publications may be

procured.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

The First Annual Report of the New York Society for the

Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

Landreth’s Rural Register and Almanac, 1876.

FOOTNOTES

[1] _Queen Mary_: A Drama. By Alfred Tennyson, D.C.L. Boston: J. R.

Osgood & Co. 1875.

[2] It is proper to state that the present criticism is not by the writer

of the article on Mr. Tennyson in THE CATHOLIC WORLD for May, 1868.

[3] The preceding article was ready for the printers before a copy fell

into our hands of _Mary Stuart_--a drama by Sir Aubrey de Vere--a poem

which it had not been our good fortune to have read before. The public

would seem to have exhibited an appreciation of this work we should

scarcely have expected from them, for it is, we believe, out of print.

For ourselves, we must say that for poetical conception, appreciation and

development of the several personages of the drama, it appears to us to

be very much superior to _Queen Mary_.

[4] The title of captal (from _capitalis_) was formerly a common one

among Aquitaine lords, but was gradually laid aside. The Captals de Buch

and Trente were the last to bear it.

[5] In the Journal of the Sisters of Charity of that time we read:

“Jan. 22.--M. Vincent arrived at eleven o’clock in the evening, bringing

us two children; one perhaps six days old, the other older. Both were

crying.…”

“Jan. 25.--The streets are full of snow. We are expecting M. Vincent.”

“Jan. 26.--Poor M. Vincent is chilled through. He has brought us an

infant.…”

“Feb. 1.--The archbishop came to see us. We are in great need of public

charity! M. Vincent places no limit to his ardent love for poor children.”

And when their resources are exhausted, the saint makes the following

pathetic appeal to the patronesses: “Compassion has led you to adopt

these little creatures as your own children. You are their mothers

according to grace, as their mothers by nature have abandoned them.

Will you also abandon them in your turn? Their life and death are in

your hands. I am going to take your vote on the point. The charity you

give or refuse is a terrible decision in your hands. It is time to

pronounce their sentence, and learn if you will no longer have pity on

them.”--_Sermon of S. Vincent to the Ladies of Charity_ in 1648.

[6] _The Earl of Castlehaven’s Review_; or, His Memoirs of His Engagement

and Carriage in the Irish Wars. Enlarged and corrected. With an Appendix

and Postscript. London: Printed for Charles Brome at the Gun in St.

Paul’s Churchyard. 1684.

[7] This was the title given at one time by the French courtiers to

Frederick I.

[8] Their first condition for a suspension of arms was a payment to

them of £25,000 per month. These were in large part the same forces who

afterwards sold their fugitive king for so many pounds sterling to the

Parliament, violating the rights of sanctuary and hospitality, held

sacred by the most barbarous races. It is curious to observe the supreme

boldness with which Macaulay and the popular writers of the radical

school essay to gloss over the dishonorable transactions affecting the

parliamentary side in this contest between the King and Commons. The

veriest dastards become heroes; and the first canting cut-throat is safe

to be made a martyr of in their pages for conscience’ sake and the rights

of man.

[9] _Apol. vii._

[10] _Fundam. Phil._ lib. vii. c. 7.

[11] _Phil. Fundam._ lib. vii. c. 7.

[12] Italian proverb: “If not true, it deserves to be true.”

[13] Written during the Pope’s exile, 1848

[14] _The Secret Warfare of Freemasonry against the Church and State._

Translated from the German, with an Introduction. London: Burns, Oates &

Co. 1875. (New York: The Catholic Publication Society.)

[15] S. Mark xiii. 22.

[16] “Vos ergo videte; ecce, prædixi vobis omnia.”--Ib. 23.

[17] “Videte, vigilate, et orate: nescitis enim, quando tempus sit.”--Ib.

33.

[18] “Vigilate ergo … ne, cum venerit repente, inveniat vos

dormientes.”--Ib. 35, 36.

[19] “Quod autem vobis dico, omnibus dico: Vigilate!”--Ib. 37.

[20] “Sine parabola autem non loquebatur eis; seorsum autem discipulis

suis disserebat omnia.”--S. Mark iv. 34.

[21] “Vobis datum est nosse mysterium regni Dei: illis autem, qui foris

sunt, in parabolis omnia fiunt.”--Ib. 11.

[22] “Nescitis parabolam hanc; et quomodo omnes parabolas

cognoscetis.”--Ib. 13.

[23] “Nisi venerit discessio primum, et revelatus fuerit homo peccati,

filius perditionis, qui adversatur et extollitur supra omne, quod

dicitur Deus, aut quod colitur ita ut in templo Dei sedeat, ostendens

se, tamquam sit Deus.… Et nunc quid detineat, scitis, ut reveletur in

suo tempore. Nam mysterium jam operatur iniquitatis, tantum ut qui tenet

nunc, teneat, donec de medio fiat. Et tunc revelabitur ille iniquus (ὁ

άνομος), quem Dominus Jesus interficiet spiritu oris sui, et destruet

illustratione adventus sui cum; cujus est adventus secundum operationem

Satanæ in omni virtute, et signis et prodigiis mendacibus, et in omni

seductione iniquitatis iis, qui pereunt; eo quod caritatem veritatis non

receperunt, ut salvi fierent. Ideo mittet illis Deus operationem erroris,

ut credant mendacio, ut judicentur omnes, qui non crediderunt veritati,

sed consenserunt iniquitati.”--2 Thess. ii. 3-11.

[24] “Spiritus autem manifeste dicit, quia in novissimis temporibus

discedent quidam a fide, attendentes spiritibus erroris et doctrinis

dæmoniorum; in hypocrisi loquentium mendacium, et cauteriatam habentium

suam conscientiam.”--1 Tim. iv. 1, 2.

[25] “Hoc autem scito, quod in novissimis diebus instabunt tempora

periculosa: erunt homines seipsos amantes, cupidi, elati, superbi,

blasphemi, parentibus non obedientes, ingrati, scelesti, sine affectione,

sine pace, criminatores, incontinentes, immites sine benignitate,

proditores, protervi, timidi, et voluptatum amatores magis quam Dei,

habentes speciem quidem pietatis, virtutem autem ejus abnegantes.”--2

Tim. iii. 1-5.

[26] “Venient in novissimis diebus in deceptione illusores, juxta

proprias concupiscentias ambulantes.”--2 Peter iii. 3.

[27] “In novissimo tempore venient illusores, secundum, desideria sua

ambulantes in impietatibus. Hi sunt, qui segregant semetipsos, animales,

Spiritum non habentes.”--S. Jud. 18, 19.

[28] “Filioli, novissima hora est, et sicut audistis, quia Antichristus

venit, et nunc Antichristi multi facti sunt: unde scimus, quia novissima

hora est.… Hic est Antichristus qui negat Patrem et Filium.”--1 S. John

ii. 18, 22.

[29] “Et omnis spiritus qui solvit Jesum, ex Deo non est; et hic est

Antichristus, de quo audistis, quoniam venit, et nunc jam in mundo

est.”--Ib. iv. 3.

[30] “Si quis habet aurem, audiat.”--Apoc. xiii. 9.

[31] “Hic sapientia est. Qui habet intellectum computet numerum

bestiæ.”--Ib. 18

[32] _Histoire de la Révolution Française_, v. ii. c. 3.

[33] _The Secret Warfare of Freemasonry_, p. 123.

[34] Ibid. 124.

[35] Those in this country who respect religion, law, and the peace of

society should not be imposed upon by the aspect of Freemasonry here.

The principles and modes of acting of the society are those we have

described. The application of them depends wholly on time, place, and

circumstances. The ordinary observer sees nothing in the members of

the craft here but a number of inoffensive individuals, who belong to

a _soi-disant_ benevolent association which, by means of secret signs,

enables them to get out of the clutches of the law, procure employment

and office, and obtain other advantages not possessed by the rest of

their fellow-citizens. But then the innocent rank and file are the dead

weight which the society employs, on occasion, to aid in compassing its

ulterior designs. Here there are no civil or religious institutions

which stand in their way, and their mode of action is to sap and mine

the morals of the community, on which society rests, and with which it

must perish. Of what it is capable, if it seems needful to compassing its

ends, any one may understand by the fiendish murder of William Morgan.

This murder was decided on at a lodge-meeting directed by Freemason

officials, _in pursuance of the rules of the craft_, and was perpetrated

by Freemasons bearing a respectable character, who had never before been

guilty of a criminal action, who were known, yet were never punished

nor even tried, but died a natural death, and who do not appear to have

experienced any loss of reputation for their foul deed. (See Mr. Thurlow

Weed’s recent letter to the New York _Herald_.)

[36] Before we proceed to expose the even yet more hideous loathsomeness

of this vile association, a few words of explanation are necessary.

In all we write we have in view an organization--its constitution and

motives--and that only. The individual responsibility of its several

members is a matter for their own conscience; it is no affair of ours.

We believe that the bulk of the association, all up to the thirtieth

degree, or “Knights of the White Eagle,” or “Kadosch,” are in complete

ignorance of the hellish criminality of its objects. Even the Rosicrucian

has something to learn; although to have become that he must have

stamped himself with the mark of Antichrist by the abandonment of his

belief in Christ and in all revealed religion. But the vast majority,

whose numbers, influence, and respectability the dark leaders use for

the furtherance of their monstrous designs, live and die in complete

ignorance of the real objects and principles of the craft. We ourselves

know an instance of an individual, now reconciled to the church, who was

once a Master Mason, and who to this moment is in utter ignorance of

them. They are sedulously concealed from all who have not dispossessed

themselves of the “prejudices of religion and morality.” The author

of the work to which we are indebted for almost all our documentary

evidence mentions the case of one who had advanced to the high grade

of Rosicrucian, but who, not until he was initiated into the grade

of Kadosch, was completely stunned and horrified by the demoniacal

disclosures poured into his ears. Most of the Freemasons, however, have

joined the body as a mere philanthropic institution, or on the lower

motive of self-interest. Nor is it possible to convince these people of

the fearful consequences to which they are contributing. Of course, but

few of these, it is to be hoped, are involved in the full guilt of the

“craft.” Every Catholic who belongs to it is in mortal sin. For the rest,

we cannot but hope and believe that an overwhelming majority are innocent

of any sinister motives. But it is impossible to exonerate them entirely.

For, first, the “craft” is now pursuing its operations with such

unblushing effrontery that it is difficult for any but illiterate people

to plead entire ignorance; and next, no one can, without moral guilt,

bind himself by terrible oaths, for the breaking of which he consents to

be assassinated, to keep inviolable secrets with the nature of which he

is previously unacquainted. It cannot but be to his everlasting peril

that any one permits himself to be branded with this “mark of the beast.”

[37] _Secret Warfare of Freemasonry_, pp. 51, 52.

[38] Ib. p. 65.

[39] Ib. 207.

[40] Ib. pp. 196-8.

[41] This journal, at the time of the first initiation of the Prince of

Wales into the “craft,” in an article on that event, heaped contempt

and ridicule on the whole affair. A recent article on the young man’s

initiation as Master may satisfy the most exacting Mason.

[42] The writer refers to the highest grades.

[43] _Secret Warfare of Freemasonry_, pp. 232, 233.

[44] _Utopia._ By Sir Thomas More.

[45] A sort of divan, not unusual in the East at the present day. The

sultan, when receiving a visit of ceremony, sits on a sort of sofa or

post-bed. Traces of it were also found in the “palaces” of Ashantec.

[46] “The new spirit made its appearance in the world about the XVIth

century. Its end is to substitute a new society for that of the Middle

Ages. Hence the necessity that the first modern revolution should be a

religious one.… It was Germany and Luther that produced it.”--Cousin,

_Cours d’hist. de la philos._, p. 7, Paris, 1841.

[47] “Non a prætoris edicto, ut plerique nunc, neque a duo decim Tabulis,

ut superiores, sed penitus ex intima philosophia haurienda est juris

disciplina.”--Cic., _De legib._ lib. i.

[48] Cic., _de fin. bon. et malor._ i. 11.

[49] Plato, _Des lois_, liv. i.

[50] “Illud stultissimum (est), existimare omnia justa esse, quæ scripta

sint in populorum institutis et legibus.”--_De legibus._

[51] “Neque opinione sed natura constitutum esse jus.”--Ibid.

[52] “Sæculis omnibus ante nata est, (ante) quam scripta lex ulla, aut

quam omnino civitas constituta.”--Ibid.

[53] “Quidam corum quædam magna, _quantum divinitus adjuti sunt_,

invenerunt.”--S. Aug., _Civit. Dei_, i. ii. c. 7.

“Has scientias dederunt philosophi et illustrati sunt; Deus enim illis

_revelavit_.”--S. Bonavent., _Lum. Eccl._, Serm. 5.

[54] The two following paragraphs are taken freely from the treatise _De

legibus_, passim.

[55] The following paragraph is also taken from Cicero.

[56] “Erat lux vera quæ illuminat omnem hominem venientem in hunc

mundum.”--S. Joan., i. 9.

[57] “Et vita erat lux hominum … in tenebris lucet, et tenebræ eam non

comprehenderunt.”--Id.

[58] _Cont. gent._ iv. 13.

[59] V. Lassalle, _Das System der erworbenen Rechte_, i. 2, not. à la

pag. 70.

[60] _Considerat. sur la France._

[61] _Arbeiter Programm._, v. Ferd. Lassalle.

[62] _Du suffrage universel et de la manière de voter._ Par H. Taine.

Paris: Hachette, 1872.

[63] Bergier, after Tertullian.

[64] De Maistre, _Princip. générat._

[65] _Reflections on the Revolution in France._

[66] _Corresp. entre le Comte de Mirabeau et le Comte de la Marck._

Paris: Le Normant. 1851.

[67] _Politique._ l. i. c.

[68] _De civit. Dei._ 19.

[69] _De rebus publ. et princip. institut._, l. iii. c. 9.

[70] _Reflections on the French Revolution._

[71] “Universa propter semetipsum operatus est Dominus.”--Proverbs xvi. 4.

[72] _Polit._, vii. 2.

[73] Id. ibid. c. 1.

[74] Aristotle knew no other state than the city.

[75] Isaias xxxiii. See also the words of Jesus to Pilate: “Tu dicis quia

Rex ego sum.”

[76] “Dabo legem in visceribus eorum.”--Jer. xxxi.

[77] _Viri protestantici ad summum Pontificem appellatio._--Londini,

Wyman et fil, 1869.

[78] M. Em. Montaigut, in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_.

[79] M. Le Play.

[80] De Maistre, _Considerat. sur la France_.

[81] _Fundam. Phil._, book vii. ch. 6.

[82] Sicut punctum se habet ad lineam, ita se habet nunc ad tempus.

Si imaginemur punctum quiescere, non poterimus imaginari ipsum esse

causam lineæ: si vero imaginemur ipsum moveri, licet in ipso nulla sit

dimensio, nec aliqua divisio per consequens, per naturam tamen motus sui

relinquitur aliquid divisibile.… Illud tamen punctum non est de lineæ

essentia; quia nihil unum et idem realiter omnimodis indivisibile potest

simul in diversis partibus ejusdem continui permanentis esse.… Punctum

ergo mathematice imaginatum, quod motu suo causat lineam, necessario

nihil lineæ erit: sed erit unum secundum rem, et diversum secundum

rationem; et hæc diversitas, quæ consistit in motu suo, realiter est in

linea, non identitas sua secundum rem.… Eodem vero modo instans, quod est

mensura mobilis sequens ipsum, est unum secundum rem, quum nihil pereat

de substantia ipsius mobilis, cuius instans est mensura inseparabilis,

sed diversum et diversum secundum rationem. Et hæc ejus diversitas est

tempus essentialiter.

[83] Quia motus primus unus est, tempus est unum, mensurans omnes motus

simul actos.--Opusc. 44, _De tempore_, c. 2.

[84] Stans et movens se non videntur differre secundum substantiam,

sed solum secundum rationem. Nunc autem æternitatis est stans, et nunc

temporis fluens; quare non videntur differre nisi ratione sola--_De

tempore_, c. 4.

[85] Ista non possunt habere veritatem secundum ea, quæ determinata sunt.

Visum est enim, quod æternitas et tempus essentialiter differunt. Item

quæcumque se habent ut causa et causatum, essentialiter differunt; nunc

autem æternitatis, quum non differat ab æternitate nisi sola ratione,

est causa temporis, et nunc ipsius, ut dictum est. Quare nunc temporis

et nunc æternitatis essentialiter differunt. Præterea nunc temporis

est continuativum præteriti cum futuro; nunc autem æternitatis non est

continuativum præteriti cum futuro, quia in æternitate non est prius

nec posterius, nec præteritum, nec futurum, sed tota æternitas est tota

simul. Nec valet ratio in oppositum, quum dicitur quod stans et fluens

non differunt per essentiam. Verum est in omni eo quod contingit stare

et fluens esse; tamen stans quod nullo modo contingit fluere, et fluens,

quod nullo modo contingit stare, differunt per essentiam. Talia autem

sunt nunc æternitatis, et nunc temporis.--Ibid.

[86] _Summa Theol._, p. 1, q. 46, a. 2.

[87] Novitas mundi non potest demonstrationem recipere ex parte ipsius

mundi. Demonstrationis enim principium est quod quid est. Unumquodque

autem secundum rationem suæ speciei abstrahit ab hic et nunc; propter

quod dicitur quod universalia sunt ubique et semper. Unde demonstrari non

potest quod homo, aut cœlum, aut lapis non semper fuit.--Ibid.

[88] Sicut enim si pes ab æternitate semper fuisset in pulvere, semper

subesset vestigium, quod a calcante factum nemo dubitaret, sic et mundus

semper fuit, semper existente qui fecit.--Ibid.

[89] Et hoc utile est ut consideretur, ne forte aliquis quod fidei est

demonstrare præsumens rationes non necessarias inducat, quæ præbeant

materiam irridendi infidelibus existimantibus nos propter eiusmodi

rationes credere quæ fidei sunt.--Ibid.

[90] Uno modo dicitur æternitas mensura durationis rei semper similiter

se habentis, nihil acquirentis in futuro et nihil amittentis in præterito

et sic propriissime sumitur æternitas. Secundo modo dicitur æternitas

mensura durationis rei habentis esse fixum et stabile, recipientis

tamen vices in operationibus suis; et æternitas sic accepta propria

dicitur ævum: ævum enim est mensura eorum, quorum esse est stabile,

quæ tamen habent successionem in operibus suis, sicut intelligentiæ.

Tertio modo dicitur æternitas mensura durationis successivæ habentis

prius et posterius, carentis tamen principio et fine, vel carentis fine

et tamen habentis principium; et utroque modo ponitur mundus æternus,

licet secundum veritatem sit temporalis: et ista impropriissime dicitur

æternitas; rationi enim æternitatis repugnat prius et posterius.--Opusc.,

_De tempore_, c. 4.

[91] See THE CATHOLIC WORLD, May, 1875, page 234 et seq.

[92] Deus aut prior est mundo natura tantum, aut et duratione. Si natura

tantum; ergo quum Deus sit ab æterno, et mundus est ab æterno. Si autem

est prior duratione, prius autem et posterius in duratione constituunt

tempus; ergo ante mundum fuit tempus: quod est impossibile.--_Summa

Theol._, p. 1, q. 46, a. 1.

[93] Deus est prior mundo duratione: sed per prius non designat

prioritatem temporis, sed æternitatis. Vel dicendum, quod designat

prioritatem temporis imaginati, et non realiter existentis; sicut quum

dicitur: supra cœlum nihil est, per _supra_ designat locum imaginarium

tantum, secundum quod possibile est imaginari dimensionibus cælestis

corporis dimensiones alias superaddi.--Ibid.

[94] _Fundam. Philos._, book vii. ch. 10.

[95] See THE CATHOLIC WORLD, November, 1874, p. 272, and January, 1875,

p. 487.

[96] A new interest attaches to this church, in the eyes of American

Catholics, since it has been made the Title of the Cardinal-Archbishop of

New York.

[97] There is a vague tradition among the Penobscot Indians in Maine

that a Jesuit father crossed from the head-waters of the Kennebec to the

valley of the Passumpsic, east of the Green Mountains, at an earlier date.

[98] _Hist. Maryland_, vol. ii. p. 352.

[99] _History United States_, vol. i. p. 238.

[100] Id. p. 241.

[101] Id. p. 244.

[102] Id. p. 247.

[103] _History United States_, vol. i. p. 248.

[104] Chalmers’ _Annals_, vol. i. pp. 207, 208.

[105] Story, _Com. on the Constitution_, sec. 107.

[106] _Sketches of the Early History of Maryland_ by Thomas W. Griffith,

pp. 3, 4.

[107] Bancroft, _Hist. U. S._, vol. i. p. 238.

[108] _The Brit. Emp. in America_, vol. i. pp. 4, 5.

[109] _Hist. Md._, p. 232.

[110] Father Andrew White’s _Narrative_, Md. Hist. Soc., 1874, p. 32.

[111] _Sketches_, etc., p. 5.

[112] Davis’ _Day-Star of Am. Freedom_, p. 149.

[113] _History of Maryland_, p. 24.

[114] Bozman’s _History of Maryland_, p. 109.

[115] _History of United States_, vol. i. p. 241.

[116] _History of Maryland_, p. 24.

[117] _Maryland Toleration_, p. 36.

[118] _History of Maryland_, p. 33.

[119] _History of United States_, p. 257.

[120] _Maryland Toleration_, p. 40.

[121] _Day-Star of American Freedom_, p. 36.

[122] _Day-Star of American Freedom_, p. 38.

[123] _History of Maryland_, vol. ii. p. 85.

[124] _History of the United States_, p. 252.

[125] _Day-Star of American Freedom_, p. 138.

[126] Rev. Ethan Allen says this continued until 1649, when Kent was

erected into a county.--_Maryland Toleration_, p. 36.

[127] _Day-Star of American Freedom_, p. 143.

[128] Id. p. 160.

[129] The document at length, with the signatures, is given in numerous

histories of Maryland, and will be found in Davis’s _Day-Star of American

Freedom_, p. 71.

[130] Kent’s _Commentaries on Am. Law_, vol. ii. pp. 36, 37.

[131] Reprinted from advance sheets of _The Prose Works of William

Wordsworth_. Edited, with preface, notes, and illustrations, by the Rev.

Alex. B. Grosart; now for the first time published, by Moxon, Son & Co.,

London. These works will fill three volumes, embracing respectively the

political and ethical, æsthetical and literary, critical and ethical,

writings of the author, and, what will interest American readers

especially, his Republican Defence.

[132] Afterwards Father Faber of the Oratory. His “Sir Launcelot” abounds

in admirable descriptions.

[133] “For us the stream of fiction ceased to flow,” (dedicatory stanzas

to “The White Doe of Rylstone”).

[134] See his sonnet on the seat of Dante, close to the Duomo at Florence

(_Poems of Early and Late Years_).

[135] “Evening Voluntary.”

[136] _A Song of Faith, Devout Exercises, and Sonnets_ (Pickering). The

dedication closed thus: “I may at least hope to be named hereafter among

the friends of Wordsworth.”

[137] It may be well to remark here that in this century the word

_domestic_ was familiarly used to designate one who was attached to the

house and fortunes of another.

[138] Mme. Louise, Duchess of Angoulême, and mother of Francis I.

[139] By the statutes of præmunire, all persons were forbidden to hold

from Rome any _provision_ or power to exercise any authority without

permission from the king, under penalty of placing themselves beyond his

protection and being severely punished.

[140] Wolsey’s customary designation of Anne Boleyn.

[141] This corresponded to the court of marshalsea in England.

[142] During the memorable conclave at which Pius IX. was elected, this

office was held by Monsignor Pallavicino, who caused to be struck,

according to his right, a number of bronze and silver medals with

his family arms quartering those of Gregory XVI. Above his prelate’s

hat on the obverse were the words _Sede Vacante_, and on the reverse

the inscription _Alerames ex marchionibus Pallavicino sacri palatii

apostolici præfectus et conclavis gubernator_ 1846.

[143] It dates from the year 1535, when Paul III. permitted his majordomo

Boccaferri to assume on his coat-of-arms, as an additament of honor (in

the language of blazonry), one of the lilies or _fleurs-de-lis_ of the

Farnese family. If the subject prefer to do so, he may bear the Pope’s

arms on a canton, carry them on an inescutcheon, or impale instead of

quartering them.

[144] While writing this, we hear of the elevation to the purple of the

majordomo Monsignor Pacca, whom we have had the honor, when a private

chamberlain to the Pope, of knowing and of serving under. He was one of

the most popular prelates at the Vatican for his urbanity and attention

to business. He is a patrician of the bluest blood of Beneventum and

nephew to the celebrated Cardinal Pacca, so well known for his services

to Pope Pius VII. and for his interesting _Memoirs_.

[145] The grated prison for such offenders was a chamber deep down among

the vaults of the Cellarium Majus of the Lateran.

[146] This office still exists, and is one of the important charges at

the papal court which is always held by a layman. It was hereditary in

the famous Conti family until its extinction in the last century, when it

passed, after a considerable interval, on the same condition into that of

Ruspoli as the nearest representative of that ancient race.

[147] Ambassadors and foreign ministers accredited to the Holy See claim

the right of presentation or of access through the Cardinal Secretary of

State.

[148] It is well to observe that briefs are not sealed with the

_original_ ring, which does not go out of the keeper’s custody except

the Pope demand it, but with a fac-simile preserved in the _Secreteria

de Brevi_. Since June, 1842, red sealing-wax, because too brittle and

effaceable, is no longer used; but in its stead a thick red ink, or

rather pigment, is employed.

[149] In England, by a similar fiction, the king (or queen) is imagined

to preside in the Court of King’s Bench.

[150] The first convent of the Dominicans in Rome, at Santa Sabina on the

Aventine, was in part composed of a portion of the Savelli palace, in

which Honorius, who belonged to this family, generally resided, so that

their founder could not help remarking the misbehavior of the loungers

about the court. He did not go out of his way to find fault.

[151] There was a somewhat similar office of very ancient institution

at the imperial court of Constantinople, the holder of which was called

_Epistomonarcha_.

[152] Peter Filargo was a Greek from the island of Candia, which may

account for his love of what at a pontiff’s table corresponded to the

symposium of the ancients--a species of after-dinner enjoyment, when,

wine being introduced, philosophical or other agreeable subjects were

discussed.

[153] The special significance of this title given to Cardinal McCloskey

is that his predecessor in the see of New York and its first bishop, Luke

Concanen, who was consecrated in Rome on April 24, 1808, was a Dominican,

and had been for a long time officially attached to the convent and

church of the _Minerva_, which was the headquarters of his order.

[154] See THE CATHOLIC WORLD, August, 1875, p. 625.

[155] See THE CATHOLIC WORLD, September, 1874, p. 729.

[156] THE CATHOLIC WORLD, March, 1874, p. 766.

[157] See the two articles on “Substantial Generations” in THE CATHOLIC

WORLD, April and May, 1875.

[158] See THE CATHOLIC WORLD for February, 1874, pp, 584. 585.

[159] See THE CATHOLIC WORLD, May, 1874, p. 178.

[160] In the Aristotelic theory, a third kind of movement, _ratione

termini_, was admitted--that is, movement towards dimensive quantity,

as when an animal or a tree grows in bulk. But bodies acquire greater

bulk by accession of new particles, and this accession is carried on by

_local_ movement. Hence it seems to us that the _motus ad quantitatem_ is

not a new kind of movement.

[161] S. Thomas explains this point in the following words: Quum

magnitudo sit divisibilis in infinitum, et puncta sint etiam infinita

in potentia in qualibet magnitudine, sequitur quod inter quælibet duo

loca sint infinita loca media. Mobile autem infinitatem mediorum locorum

non consumit nisi per continuitatem motus; quia sicut loca media sunt

infinita in potentia, ita et in motu continuo est accipere infinita

quædam in potentia.--_Sum. Theol._, p. 1, q. 53, a. 2. This explanation

is identical with our own, though S. Thomas does not explicitly mention

the infinitesimals of time.

[162] _Music of Nature._

[163] This was an anachronism in costume which in our day would not be

pardonable, but it was common enough until within half a century ago.

The queen of James I., Anne of Denmark, insisted upon playing the part

of Thetis, goddess of the ocean, in a “monstrous farthingale” (in modern

speech, a very exaggerated crinoline.)

[164] Puttenham, _Art of Poesie_, pub. in 1589, quoted in Ritson.

[165] Probably some coarse lace or net

[166] _The Complete Angler, or the Contemplative Man’s Recreation._

[167] Harmless

[168] Agnes Strickland’s _Lives of the Queens of England_.

[169] _Penny Magazine_, 1834.

[170] This word has no English equivalent; it means the casting out of

the heart--a hyperbolical manner of expressing the most excessive nausea.

[171] The Council of Trent decreed nothing on the subject of the

authority of the church: that of the Vatican had to supply the omission.

The struggle with Protestantism on this subject reached its last stage in

the definition of the dogma of Papal Infallibility decreed by the church

assembled at the Council of the Vatican.

[172] In its numbers of April 22 and May 16 last the _Unità Cattolica_

passed a high eulogium on the work of Father Hecker. “There is in this

work,” says the Abbé Margotti, “a great boldness of thought, but always

governed by the faith, and by the great principle of the infallible

authority of the Pope.”

[173] “A Song of Faith.” 1842. Besides that poem, my father published

two dramatic works, viz. _Julian the Apostate_ (1823) and _The Duke of

Mercia_, 1823. In 1847, his last drama, _Mary Tudor_, was published. He

was born at Curragh Chase, Ireland, on the 28th of August, 1788, and died

there on the 28th of July, 1846.--A. DE VERE.

[174] Dr. Schenck said: “It had been a maxim that the fool of the family

should go into the ministry, and he was sorry to say that there were many

of those who had groped their way into it. It had been stated that a

minister would often pay twice before he would be sued.… Rev. Dr. Newton

said that he would stand a suit before he would pay twice. The speaker

replied that he was glad there was some pluck in these matters” (_Report

in the Philadelphia Press_).

[175] Short for Frederika.

[176] From the German.

[177] Father Faber’s _Bethlehem_.

[178] London: Pickering, 1875. This pamphlet has been already translated

into German under the title _Anglicanismus, Altkatholicismus und die

Vereinigung der christlichen Episcopal-Kirchen_. Mainz: Kirchheim. 1875.

[179] Father Schouvaloff (Barnabite), April 2, 1859.

[180] Gladstone, _Vaticanism_, p. 110.

[181] Second Edition, with a Letter of Mgr. Mermillod, a Special Preface,

and an Appendix. London: Washbourne.

[182] Gladstone, _Vaticanism_, p. 94.

[183] We are authorized by Father Tondini to remark that, for the purpose

of his argument, he has confined himself to speaking of the non-popular

election of _bishops_; but in case any one should say that Mr. Gladstone

referred not to bishops only, but also, and very largely, to clergy,

besides that Mr. Gladstone’s expressions do not naturally lead the reader

to make any exception for himself, Father Tondini is able to show that

even with respect to the inferior clergy Mr. Gladstone’s statement is

inaccurate.

[184] In the appendix to the second edition of _The Pope of Rome_, etc.,

will be found a prayer composed of texts taken from the Greco-Sclavonian

Liturgy, where are quoted some of the titles given by the Greco-Russian

Church to S. Peter, and, in the person of the great S. Leo, even to the

Pope. This appendix is also to be had separately, under the title of

_Some Documents Concerning the Association of Prayers_, etc., London,

Washbourne, 1875.

[185] See “Future of the Russian Church” in THE CATHOLIC WORLD, 1875

(amongst others).

[186] _Expostulation_, p. 30.

[187] “More than once,” says Father Tondini in a note on this

subject--“more than once, in reading defences of the Catholic Church,

written with the best intentions, we could not resist a desire that in

the ‘Litanies of the Saints,’ or other prayers of the church, there might

be inserted some such invocation as this: _A malis advocatis libera

nos, Domine_.’--‘From mischievous advocates, O Lord! deliver us.’ We

say this most earnestly, the more so that it applies also to ourselves.

Many a time, when preparing our writings, we have experienced a feeling

not unlike that of an advocate fully convinced of the innocence of the

accused, but dreading lest, by want of clearness or other defect in

putting forth his arguments, he might not only fail to carry conviction

to the mind of the judges, but also prejudice the cause he wishes to

defend. Never, perhaps, is the necessity of prayer more deeply felt.”

[188] With regard to the powers of the sovereign over the episcopate we

quote the following from the London _Tablet_ for March 27, 1875: “Among

other tremendous stumbling-blocks against the claims for the Church (of

England) by the High Church party a candid writer in the _Church Herald_

is ‘sorely staggered by the oath of allegiance, according to which we

have the chief pastors of the church declaring in the most solemn manner

that they receive the spiritualities of their office _only_ from the

queen, and are bishops by her grace only.’”

In connection with the foregoing we cannot refrain from citing a passage

from Marshall, which is as follows: “Any bishops can only obtain

spiritual jurisdiction in one of two ways--either by receiving it from

those who already possess it, in which case their (the English bishops’)

search must extend beyond their own communion, or by imitating the two

lay travellers in China of whom we have somewhere read, who fancied they

should like to be missionaries, whereupon the one ordained the other, and

was then in turn ordained by _him_, to the great satisfaction of both.”

[189] See _Contemporary Review_ for July.

[190] Since writing the above we happened to see the following case in

point, in the _Church Times_ of September 10, 1875, in which a clergyman,

signing himself “a priest, _not_ of the Diocese of Exeter,” writes a

letter of remonstrance against the violent abuse heaped by “a priest

of the Diocese of Exeter” against the late learned and venerable Vicar

of Morwenstow, Mr. Hawker, who, on the day before his death, made his

submission to the Catholic Church. From this letter, which contains many

candid and interesting admissions, we quote the following: “In these

days, when we have among us so many dignitaries and popular preachers

of the Established Church who in their teaching deny all sacramental

truth, while others cannot repeat the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds

without a gloss, and others again boldly assert that ‘the old religious

ideas expressed in the Apostles’ Creed must be thrown into afresh form,

if they are to retain their hold on the educated minds of the present

generation, it appears monstrous that a clergyman whose faithful adhesion

to the Prayer Book during a ministry of forty years was notorious should

be denounced as a ‘blasphemous rogue and a scoundrel’ _because_ he held

opinions which are considered by some individual members of either church

as denoting ‘a Roman at heart,’ or, in the exercise of a liberty granted

to everyone, thought fit to correspond with influential members of the

Church of Rome.”

[191] _Expostulation_, page 21; iv. “The third proposition.”

[192] “Cooks and controversialists seem to have this in common: that they

nicely appreciate the standard of knowledge in those whose appetites they

supply. The cook is tempted to send up ill-dressed dishes to masters who

have slight skill in, or care for, cookery; and the controversialist

occasionally shows his contempt for the intelligence of his readers by

the quality of the arguments or statements which he presents for their

acceptance. But this, if it is to be done with safety, should be done in

measure.”--Gladstone, _Vaticanism_, pp. 82, 83.

[193] In the German edition of Father Tondini’s pamphlet, the abstract of

this document is given in the original German, as it is to be seen in the

_Bonner Zeitung_ of June 15, 1871.

[194] S. Cyprian (so confidently appealed to by the Old Catholics),

speaking of Novatian, and, as it were, of Dr. Reinkens’ consecration,

says: “He who holds neither the unity of spirit nor the communion

of peace, but separates himself from the bonds of the church and

the hierarchical body, cannot have either the power or the honor of

a bishop--he who would keep neither the unity nor the peace of the

episcopate.”--S. Cyprian, _Ep. 52_. Compare also _Ep. 76_, _Ad magnum de

baptizandis Novationis_, etc., sect. 3.

[195] “Je suis entré dans une de ces lignées ininterrompues par

l’ordination que j’ai reçue des mains de Mgr. Heykamp, _évêque des vieux

Catholiques de Deventer_.”--_Lettre Pastorale de Mgr. l’Evêque Joseph

Hubert Reinkens, Docteur en Théologie._ Paris: Sandoz et Fischbacher,

1874, p. 11.

[196] _Programma of Old-Catholic Literature_, libr. Sandoz et

Fischbacher. Paris.

[197] “Pastoral Letter” (_Programma_, etc.), p. 7.

[198] Silbernagl (Dr. Isidor), _Verfassung und gegenwärtiger Bestand

sämmtlicher Kirchen des Orients_. Landshut, 1865, pp. 10, 11.

[199] See THE CATHOLIC WORLD, January-April, 1875.

[200] See _The Pope of Rome and the Popes of the Orthodox Church_, 2d

ed., pp. 97, 98. Washbourne, London.

[201] King, _The Rites_, etc., p. 295. Quoted in _The Pope of Rome_,

etc., p. 98. See also for what concerns the election of the Russian

bishops the _Règlement ecclésiastique de Pierre le Grand_, avec

introduction, notes, etc., par le R. P. Cæsarius Tondini. Paris: Libr. de

la Soc. bibliographique.

[202] “The idea,” says Polevoi, “that spiritual matters do not appertain

to the authority of the sovereign was still so deeply rooted in men’s

minds that, in the very first session of the Spiritual College, some

members _dared_ (osmelilis) to ask the emperor: ‘Is then the Patriarchal

dignity suppressed, although nothing has been said about it?’ ‘I am your

Patriarch!’ (_Ya Vash Patriarkh!_) angrily (_gnevno_) exclaimed Peter,

striking his breast. The questioners were dumb.”

“This account of Peter’s _coup d’état_,” adds Father Tondini, “was

printed at St. Petersburg in the year 1843, and, be it observed, not

without the approbation of the censors.” See _Pope of Rome_, etc., p. 107.

[203] “These principles have, by the constant aggression of curialism,

been in the main effaced, or, where not effaced, reduced to the last

stage of practical inanition. We see before us the pope, the bishops, the

priesthood, and the people. The priests are _absolute_ over the people;

the bishops over both; the pope over all.…”--_Vaticanism_, p. 24.

[204] See French manifesto.

[205] See London _Tablet_, August 21.

[206] See _Annales Catholiques_, September 25.

[207] See London _Tablet_, Aug. 21.

[208] We wonder that it does not occur to Dr. von Döllinger’s disciples

to make some calculation, from the number of changes his views have

undergone during the last five years, as to how many they had better be

prepared for, according to the ordinary _rule of proportion_, for the

remaining term of his probable existence--_e.g._, four changes in five

years should prepare them for eight in ten, and for a dozen should the

venerable professor live fifteen years more. They should, further, not

forget to ascertain, if possible, for how long _they themselves_ are

_afterwards_ to continue subject to similar variations in their opinions;

for one would suppose they hope to stop somewhere, some time.

[209] _Echo Universel._

[210] See _Annales Catholiques_, 23 Septembre, 1873. Paris: Allard.

[211] Ernest Naville (a Protestant), _Priesthood of the Christian Church_.

[212] The bell of S. Louis’ Church, Buffalo, N. Y.

[213] Among the Spanish subjects in the colonies, there was a class

corresponding to the Loyalists of the American Revolution. One of these

was Don Miguel Moreno, a magistrate belonging to a most respectable

colonial family, and the honored father of His Eminence the present

Archbishop of Valladolid, who was born in Guatemala on Nov. 24, 1817, and

is therefore, in a strict sense of the word, the first American who has

been made a cardinal.

[214] Message of December 2, 1823.

[215] It is curious to contrast the tedious trials that Rome endured

before being able to appoint bishops to independent Spanish America,

with her ease in establishing the hierarchy in the United States.

Yet the Spaniards and Loyalists, who sometimes forgot that political

differences should never interfere with religious unity, might have found

a precedent for this aversion in the case of their northern brethren.

In a sketch of the church in the United States, written by Bishop

Carroll in 1790, it is said that “during the whole war there was not the

least communication between the Catholics of America and their bishop,

who was the vicar-apostolic of the London district. To his spiritual

jurisdiction were subject the United States; but whether he would hold no

correspondence with a country which he, perhaps, considered in a state

of rebellion, or whether a natural indolence and irresolution restrained

him, the fact is he held no kind of intercourse with priest or layman in

this part of his charge.”--B. U. Campbell “Memoirs, etc. of the Most Rev.

John Carroll,” in the _U. S. Catholic Magazine_, 1845.

[216] He was translated by Leo XII. in 1825 to the residential see of

Città di Castello.

[217] Cardinal Wiseman has made a slip in saying (_Last Four Popes_,

p. 308) that the refusal to receive Mgr. Tiberi gave rise to “a little

episode in the life of the present pontiff.” Tiberi went as nuncio to

Madrid in 1827, consequently long after Canon Mastai had returned from

Chili. It was in the case of the previous nuncio, Giustiniani that a

“passing coolness,” occasioned the apostolic mission to South America.

[218] Artand (_Vie de Léon XII._) indicates in a note to p. 129, vol. i.,

the sources whence he obtained these views of the late Prime Minister,

which are given in full.

[219] In 1836 Mgr.--afterwards Cardinal--Gaetano Baluffi, Bishop of

Bagnorea, was sent to this country as first internuncio and apostolic

delegate. He published an interesting work on his return to Italy, giving

an account of religion in South America from its colonization to his own

time: _L’America un tempo spagnuola riguardata sotto l’aspetto religioso

dall’ epoca del suo discoprimento, sino al 1843_. (Ancona, 1844.)

[220] _Dublin Review_, vol. xxiv., June, 1848. The full title of this

rare work (of which there is no copy even in the Astor Library) is as

follows: _Storia delle Missioni Apostoliche dello stato del Chile, colla

descrizione del viaggio dal vecchio al nuovo monde fatto dall’ autore_.

Opera di Giuseppe Sallusti. Roma, 1827, pel Mauri.

[221] This was Gen. Bernard O’Higgins, a gentleman of one of the

distinguished Irish families which took refuge in Spain from the

persecutions of the English government. He was born in Chili of a

Chilian mother. His father had been captain-general of what was called

the kingdom of Chili, and was afterwards Viceroy of Peru. The younger

O’Higgins was a very superior man, taking a principal part in asserting

the independence of his native land, of which he became the first

president; but unfortunately he died in 1823, a few months before the

arrival of the apostolic mission.

[222] Palma boasts of its ancient title of _Muy insigne y leal ciudad_,

and that its habitants have been distinguished “_en todos tiempos por su

filantropia con los naufragos_”--a specimen of which we give.

[223] In the southern hemisphere _January_ comes in summer.

[224] Cordova was formerly the second city in the viceroyalty. It

had an university, erected by the Jesuits, which was once famous. An

ex-professor of this university wrote a book which has been called

“most erudite,” but which is extremely rare. There is no copy in the

Astor Library, although it is an important work for the information it

gives about religion in South America under Spanish rule. The title is

_Fasti Novi Orbis et ordinationum Apostolicarum ad Indias pertinentium

breviarium cum adnotationibus_. Opera D. Cyriaci Morelli presbyteri, olim

in universitate Neo-Cordubensi in Tucumania professoris. Venetiis, 1776.

[225] _Pio IX._ Por D. Jaime Balmes, Presbitero, Madrid, 1847.

[226] The _Annuario Pontificio_ of 1861 called it Americano

Ispano-Portoghese, but the name was since changed to the present one.

[227] This clergyman came to the notice of the Pope from the fact that

an uncle of his, a very worthy man, had been one of Canon Mastai’s great

friends in Chili, and was named and confirmed Archbishop of Santiago,

but resigned the bulls. His nephew was made an apostolic prothonotary in

1859. It was reported that Mgr. Eyzaguirre gave eighty thousand scudi to

the South American College out of his own patrimony. We have enjoyed the

pleasure of a personal acquaintance with him.

[228] _Protestantism and Catholicism in their bearing upon the Liberty

and Prosperity of Nations._ A study of social economy. By Emile de

Laveleye. With an introductory letter by the Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone,

M.P. London: 1875.

[229] _The Old Faith and the New_, p. 86.

[230] _Liberty, Equality, Fraternity_, p. 220.

[231] _Minas_ in _Evangeline_, probably as a guide to the pronunciation.

Haliburton also gives this spelling, but it is now abandoned for the old

Acadian French form.

[232] They even went so far as to deliberate whether these people could

be considered human beings or not; but the church, always the true and

faithful guardian of the rights of humanity, immediately raised her voice

in their favor, and was first to render, by the mouth of Pope Paul III.,

a decision which conferred on them, or rather secured them, all their

rights.

[233] Campeggio, before he became cardinal, had been married to

Françoise Vastavillani, by whom he had several children. We are more

than astonished at the ignorance or bad faith of Dr. Burnet, who takes

advantage of this fact to accuse the cardinal of licentiousness.

[234] This young man carried also the letters from Henry VIII. to

Anne Boleyn, which had been referred to the cardinal during the

course of the trial. They are still to be seen in the library of the

Vatican.--Lingard’s _History of England_.

[235] _Gentilism: Religion previous to Christianity._ By Rev. Aug. J.

Thébaud, S.J. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1876.

[236] It is, however, something more than a hypothesis. The confirmation

it receives from the fact that since the prevalence amongst so large

a portion of mankind of an uniformity of rite and dogma, and the

universality of brotherhood occasioned thereby, what seemed to be

obstacles have become means of intercommunion, to such an extent that the

whole World has become, as it were, one vast city, gives it the force of

a demonstration.

[237] _Gentilism_, p. 67.

[238] _Gentilism_, p. 65.

[239] _Gentilism_, p. 110.

[240] _Gentilism_, p. 124.

[241] Ib. pp. 152, 153.

[242] S. Matthew xvi. 4.

[243] 3 Kings xix. 11, 12.

[244] Deuteronomy xxxiii. 27.

[245] In the _Cité Mystique_ of the Blessed Marie d’Agreda there are

one or two passages which indicate a belief that the Blessed Virgin was

more than once admitted to the Beatific Vision before her Assumption. Of

course the assertion is not of faith. Possibly it may admit of a more

modified explanation. On the other hand, Our Lady being equally free from

original as from actual sin, it is more rash to attempt to limit her

privileges than to suppose them absolutely exceptional.

[246] Romans xi. 34.

[247] In other words, theirs is a more imperfect being than ours; though

whether its imperfection is to exclude all idea of their having a fuller

development whereby and in which they will be indemnified for their

sinless share in fallen man’s punishment is still an open question.

[248] We say liberalism, but we might say Freemasonry; for, as we all

know, Masonry is merely organized liberalism.

[249] _The Idea of a University_, p. 469.

[250] _Notes of a Traveller_, pp. 402, 403.

[251] _Lay Sermons_, p. 61.

[252] _The Social Condition_, etc., vol. i. p. 420.

[253] The following language amply sustains our assertion: “Des Teufels

Braut, Ratio die schöne Metze, eine verfluchte Hure, eine schäbige

aussätzige Hure, die höchste Hure des Teufels, die man mit ihrer Weisheit

mit Füszen treten, die man todtschlagen, der man, auf dass sie hässlich

werde einen Dreck in’s Angesicht werfen solle, auf das heimliche Gemach

solle sie sich trollen, die verfluchte Hure, mit ihrem Dünkel, etc, etc.”

[254] “Aber die Wiedertaufer machen aus der Vernunft ein Licht des

Glaubens, dass die Vernunft dem Glauben leuchten soll. Ja, ich meine, sie

leuchtet gleich wie ein Dreck in einer Laterne.”

[255] _Der Culturkampf in Preussen und seine Bedenken_--“Considerations

on the Culture-Struggle in Prussia”--von J. H. von Kirchmann. Leipzig,

1875.

[256] _Culturkampf_, pp. 5-7. For an account of the Falk Laws and

persecution of the church in Germany, see CATHOLIC WORLD for Dec., 1874,

and Jan., 1875.

[257] Page 9.

[258] Tacit. _Annal._, xv. 44.

[259] _Culturkampf_, pp. 16-19.

[260] The above article is a translation of one which appeared in the

_Revue Générale_ of Brussels, December, 1875, and was written by Dr.

Dosfel. In THE CATHOLIC WORLD, November, 1871, a complete analysis of Dr.

Lefebvre’s work on Louise Lateau, quoted so largely in the discussion

before the Academy, was given. The article now presented to our readers

gives a calm, impartial statement of the case of Louise Lateau as it

stands to-day before the scientific investigation of the Academy.--ED.

CATH. WORLD.

[261] _Louise Lateau._ Etude médicale. Par Lefebvre. Louvain: Peeters.

[262] Dr. Imbert-Gourbeyre, in his work, _Les Stigmatisées_.

[263] _Bulletin of the Academy_ for the year 1875. Third series, Book

ix., No. 2, p. 145.

[264] _Maladies et facultés diverses des mystiques._ Par le Dr.

Charbonnier, p. 10, et suiv.

[265] The same work.

[266] Report of M. Warlomont, _Mémoires de l’Académie de Médecine_, p.

212.

[267] Professor Lefebvre had himself declared that, to invest the matter

with a rigorously scientific character, the question of abstinence ought

to be the object of an inquiry analogous to that which has established

the reality of the ecstasy and of the stigmatization.

[268] Vascular tumors.

[269] White blood corpuscles.

[270] Acts xvii. 23.

[271] 1 Cor. xii. 31.

[272] Gal. iii. 19.

[273] 3 Kings vi. 7.

[274] Genesis iii. 8.

[275] Malachias iv. 2.

[276] Isaias xxii. 24; or, as it may be translated: “The vessels of small

quality, from vessels of basins even to all vessels of flagons.”

[277] Suarez holds that grace is not always perceptible. There are

moments when we are conscious of the distinct action of grace, by the

direct perception of its effects in our soul. These are the exceptions,

which are multiplied with increasing holiness, until they become the

rule, and heroic sanctity is perfected in all its parts.

[278] S. Matthew xix. 8.

[279] S. Matthew xi. 14.

[280] “Tantum ut qui tenet nunc, teneat, donec de medic fiat.”--2

Thessalonians ii. 7.

[281] It is injurious to sleep in the light of the moon; and it produces

rapid putrefaction in dead fish, etc.