"It is necessary also that this cause should be intelligent,

because the world which exists now, being contingent, and an

infinity of other worlds being equally possible, and equally

claiming existence, so to speak, it is necessary that the cause

of this world should have looked into all such possible worlds

to determine upon one.

{556}

This look or relation of an existing substance to simple

possibilities can only be the intelligence which possesses

their ideas; and to determine upon one, can only be the act of

a will which chooses. The power of such substance renders its

will efficacious. Power has relation to being; intelligence,

to truth; the will, to good. This cause, moreover, must be

infinite in every possible manner, and absolutely perfect in

power, in wisdom, in goodness; because it reaches all

possibility. And as all this goes together, we can only admit

one such substance. Its intelligence is the source of

metaphysical essences; its will, the origin of existences.

Behold, in a few words, the proof of one God with all his

perfections, and of the origin of things by him!

"Now, this supreme wisdom, allied to a goodness no less

infinite, could not fail to choose the best. For as a lesser

evil is a kind of good, so a lesser good is a kind of evil; and

there would be something to correct in the action of God, if

there were a means to do better. And as in mathematics when

there is neither a maximum nor a minimum--in fact, no

difference at all--all is done equally, or, when this is

impossible, nothing is done, [Footnote 163] so we may say the

same in respect to perfect wisdom, which is no less regulated

than mathematics, that if there had not been a best one among

all possible worlds God would not have created any. I call

world the whole series and collection of all existing things,

that none may say that several worlds might exist in different

times and places. For in that case they would be counted

together as one world, or, if you prefer, universe. And

although one might fill all time and space, it would always be

true that they could be filled in an infinity of manners, and

that there is an infinity of worlds possible; among which it is

necessary that God should have selected the best, because he

does nothing without acting according to supreme reason."

[Footnote 164]

[Footnote 163: If it is required, for instance, to draw the

shortest possible line from the centre to the circumference

of a circle, you may draw a line to every point of the

circumference, and there is no reason why a line should be

drawn to any one point rather than to another. Or, if an

object at the centre is attracted equally to every point in

the circumference, it cannot move in any direction, but

remains at rest.--ED.]

[Footnote 164: Leibnitz. Theod. P. I., par 8.]

Malebranche, in his ninth metaphysical conversation, after

having laid down the principle that the end of creation is the

glory of God, concludes that God must choose the best possible

cosmos, because thereby he would gain greater glory than if he

chose any of the series. "That which God wishes solely,

directly, and absolutely in his designs, is to act in the most

divine manner possible; it is to impress upon his conduct, as

well as upon his work, the character of his attributes; it is

to act exactly according to what, and to all he is. God has

seen from all eternity all possible works, and all possible

ways of producing them; and as he does not act but for his own

glory and according to what he is, he has determined to will

that work which could be effected and maintained by ways which

must honor him more than any other work produced in a

different manner."

The principles of this theory are two. One is to admit a

necessity on the part of God to choose the best possible world in

the series; the other is to suppose from reason that there is a

best possible cosmos, as Leibnitz does; in other words, it is to

limit the question only to the creative moment, and not to the

whole external action of God. Now, we think that both

propositions are false. As regards the first, why should God

choose the best? For three reasons, according to the German

philosopher.

{557}

The first is as follows: A lesser good is a kind of evil, if it

be opposed to a greater good. But if God chose any world of the

series in preference to the best, he would prefer a lesser good

to a greater; hence, he would prefer a kind of evil to good, and

the world chosen would be a kind of evil. The major of the

syllogism might be granted, though not perfectly correct, if a

lesser good were opposed to a greater which must necessarily be

effected, but not otherwise. Suppose, among a number of actions,

one more perfect than the other, of which I am not bound to

perform any, I choose to perform any of the series, rejecting all

others; how would the action which I choose to perform be a kind

of evil? If I was bound to perform the best, and preferred one

which is less so, in a certain sense we might grant that the one

I select is a kind of evil. But when I am not bound to perform

any, the one I choose, though not the most perfect, cannot change

its nature of good because I might, if I preferred, perform a

more perfect one. The argument, therefore, of Leibnitz, supposes

what is to be proved, that God _was_ bound to effect the

best possible cosmos; for only in that case it might be said that

he preferred a certain kind of evil to good. His second reason is

not more solid than the first: If God did not choose the best, we

might find something to correct in his action, because there

would be a means to do better. We might find something to correct

in the action of God, if, in the world he chose in preference to

the best, there was something wanting in the attributes and

properties required by its nature. But if the world that God

chooses is endowed with all its essential attributes and proper

elements, certainly there would be nothing at all to correct in

it. When that great Italian artist drew a fly upon the picture of

his master, so true to nature that the master on coming home went

right up to the canvas to chase it away, if any one holding the

opinion of Leibnitz had told him, "There is something to correct

in your fly, because you could have painted a madonna or a

saint," the painter would certainly have been astonished, and his

answer would have been, "I might do a greater and better work;

but you cannot discover any defect in my fly, because you cannot

deny that, though a fly, it is a masterpiece of art." The same

reason holds good with regard to the subject in question. God

might certainly do better; but if he prefers not to create the

best possible cosmos, and selects any of the series, if the one

selected is endowed with all the elements its nature requires, it

is perfect in its own order; and no one could discover any flaw

or defect in it, but every one would be obliged to call it a

masterpiece. The last reason of Leibnitz has much less

foundation, and savors very strongly of pantheism: If there had

not been a best possible world in the series of all the possible

ones, God would not have created any. This means neither more nor

less than that the world, or the aggregate of all contingent

beings, unless it had a kind of absolute perfection, would be

impossible. It is tantamount to denying the very possibility of

creation. Because a best possible world cannot be had; for the

nature of all contingent beings is like number, which progresses

indefinitely, without ever reaching to a number beyond which you

cannot go. Consequently, the nature of contingent things, though

capable of indefinite progress, is altogether incapable,

ontologically speaking, of absolute perfection; a perfection

which would be required to effect a world truly the best.

{558}

If, therefore, such ultimate perfection is required in order that

God may create, it is evident that creation is impossible, and

that optimism runs into pantheism. The argument drawn from the

sufficient reason also fails. If God were to choose a cosmos less

perfect in preference to one more perfect, he would have no

sufficient reason for the preference. This argument fails, first,

because a cosmos, the very best and most perfect, cannot be had,

as we have hinted just now. Therefore, there is no necessity for

any sufficient reason for choice. Suppose a series of worlds, one

more perfect than the other, arrayed in the mind of God according

to numerical order. If God were to choose the tenth in the

series, there would be no sufficient reason for his preferring it

to the eleventh; and if he were to select this last, there would

be no sufficient reason for his preferring it to the twelfth, and

so on indefinitely; and as we cannot reach to a cosmos which

would be the last and the highest in perfection, so there never

could be a sufficient reason for the preference of any.

Consequently; there being no sufficient reason for preferring any

cosmos of the series, God is free to choose any.

In the second place, even if there could be a best possible

cosmos, the reason alleged by Leibnitz would not, on that

account, oblige God to choose it. For a reason may be objectively

or subjectively sufficient; that is, its sufficiency may emerge

from the object to be created, or from the agent. Now, granting

the principle of the German philosopher, God might have a

subjective reason to make him act according to the requirements

of wisdom, even in preferring any cosmos of the series and

rejecting the best. This subjective reason might be to show and

to put beyond any possibility of doubt his absolute freedom and

independence in the creative act. No optimist can deny that this

may have been a sufficient reason for the creative act.

Consequently, even granting the possibility of a best possible

world, God was not bound to create it.

The reason of Malebranche is not more conclusive than those we

have just refuted. God must prefer the best possible cosmos,

because this alone would manifest his glory in the best possible

manner. The argument would be conclusive if it were proven that

God does wish to, or must manifest his glory in the best possible

manner. But this the French philosopher does not and cannot

prove. Because the best possible manner for God to manifest his

infinite excellence is, to cause an infinite effect. Now, this is

a contradiction in terms.

The second position of the optimists to which we object is, to

assume the possibility of a best possible cosmos, as Leibnitz

does, from _reason_. Now, we contend that reason alone,

unaided by revelation, proves decidedly the contrary; it proves

that, ontologically speaking, a best possible cosmos cannot

exist, and that if there be a way by which to raise the cosmos to

a certain ultimate perfection, or perfection beyond which it

could not be supposed to go, this is altogether outside and

beyond the province of reason alone, and must be determined by

revelation. We have already alluded to this in the examination of

the third argument of Leibnitz. The best possible cosmos implies

a certain ultimate and absolute perfection. Now, ontologically

speaking, this is impossible in finite beings. For the question

here is between two extremes, the finite and the infinite.

Between the two lies the indefinite.

{559}

The first extreme, or the finite, may be supposed to ascend the

ladder of perfection, or quantity of being, indefinitely, without

ever reaching the infinite; because its nature is essentially

immutable, as every other essence. Hence, suppose it as great in

perfection as you can, it will be always finite, and consequently

you may always suppose a greater still. Hence, admitting a series

of numberless worlds one ontologically more perfect than the

other, and you can never arrive at one of which you may say this

is the best, because you can always suppose a better still.

St. Thomas with his eagle glance saw, centuries before, the birth

of optimism, and refuted it triumphantly, in the following

argument, similar to that which we have just given. Asking the

question, whether the divine intellect is limited to certain

determinate effects, he denies it thus: "We have proved," he

says, "the infinity of the divine essence. Now, however you may

multiply the number of finite beings, they can never approximate

the infinite, the latter surpassing any number of finite beings,

even if it be supposed infinite. On the other hand, it is clear

that, besides God, no being is infinite, because every being

comes under some category of genus or species. Therefore, no

matter of what quality the divine effects are supposed to be, or

what quantity of perfections they may contain, it is in the

nature of the divine essence infinitely to excel them, and hence

the possibility of an indefinite number of them. Consequently,

the divine intellect cannot be limited to this or that effect."

This argument might be abridged thus: The nature of the infinite

and of the finite being immutable, the infinite must always

surpass, infinitely, the finite. Hence there can be no definite

term assigned to the perfection of the finite, and consequently

there cannot be a cosmos ultimate and absolute in perfection. Our

reason, therefore, does not support the optimists in supposing a

most perfect cosmos; on the contrary, it shows that, as to

essence and nature, there cannot be a cosmos the perfection of

which can be supposed to be ultimate, and in a certain manner

absolute; in other words, limiting the question to the creative

moment which effects ontological perfection only, a best possible

cosmos cannot be had. Moreover, if there be a way by which to

raise the cosmos to a certain ultimate and absolute perfection,

reason can tell us also that it must be altogether supernatural,

and to it superintelligible. In other words, this way must be a

moment or moments of the action of God, distinct from the

creative moment, and causing effects above and beyond the nature

and essential attributes of every possible cosmos, ontologically

considered.

For if this way of raising the cosmos to an ultimate perfection

were the same moment of the action of God which creates essences

and proper attributes, it could not correspond to the effect

desired--that of raising the cosmos to a certain absolute

perfection. Because, when we speak of a creative moment effecting

essences and attributes, we consider the cosmos ontologically;

and ontologically the cosmos cannot have an absolute and ultimate

perfection. The creative moment creates substances and essential

attributes; hence if the moment of raising the cosmos to an

ultimate perfection were identified with the creative moment, it

would always effect substances and essential attributes--that is,

a cosmos indefinitely progressive--and could not give us a cosmos

absolute in perfection. Therefore the moment or moments of the

action of God raising the cosmos to a certain absolute perfection

must be distinct from the creative moment, and must produce

effects above and beyond every possible cosmos, ontologically

considered.

{560}

Now, that which implies a moment of the action of God, distinct

from the creative moment and causing effects above and beyond

every possible cosmos, is called supernatural, because beyond and

above nature or essence. Therefore, the way of raising the cosmos

to a certain absolute perfection must be supernatural in its

cause and in its effects.

If supernatural in its cause and in its effects, it is evident

that this way is superintelligible to reason. Because reason,

being an effect of the creative moment, cannot understand that

which is above and beyond it in its cause and in its effects.

Hence, reason cannot determine whether there is such a way, or

what this way is; and must necessarily leave these two questions

to be determined by revelation.

Another problem, closely connected with the one which we have

just discussed, presents itself here. It is as follows: In the

supposition that God could find a way by which to raise the

cosmos to a certain ultimate perfection, it is asked whether the

divine goodness, which is the end of the exterior action of God,

contains in itself a principle of fitness and agreeableness to

incline it to effect this best possible cosmos. This question, as

the reader is aware, is altogether different from optimism. This

opinion contends that God _must_ create the best possible

cosmos. The question we propose now asks whether divine goodness,

which is the end of the external action of God, may be inclined

to effect it in force of reason of fitness and agreeableness

between divine goodness and the best possible production of it, a

reason of fitness which implies no manner of obligation or

necessity whatever.

We answer it affirmatively; it having the support of all Catholic

tradition, and the proof of it is to be found in the very force

of the terms--God is infinite goodness; in acting outside

himself, he effects finite goodness. Now, finite goodness and

infinite goodness are agreeable to each other; therefore, if

there be a way of raising finite goodness to a certain absolute

goodness, it will be most agreeable to infinite goodness.

[Footnote 165]

[Footnote 165: S. Th. S. T. p. 3. q. I.]

Before we enter upon the explanation of the whole plan of the

exterior works of God, it is necessary to notice another point

altogether within the reach and province of reason; this is, to

assign some general laws which must govern the exterior action of

God.

Reason, as we have seen, cannot of itself tell whether there may

be a way of exalting the cosmos to a certain ultimate perfection,

and thus rendering it the best possible cosmos; again, reason

cannot tell whether God has or has not chosen to effect it. But,

admitting the supposition that there is such a way, and that God

has preferred it, reason can assign some laws, which it conceives

must necessarily govern his exterior action, if he chooses to

effect the best possible cosmos. Nor is this going beyond the

sphere or province of reason, or infringing upon the rights of

revelation. Because, although the premises are superintelligible,

and to be declared by revelation, yet the premises once given,

reason may lawfully and safely deduce some consequences,

evidently flowing from those premises. In this case, the premises

would be superintelligible; the consequences springing from them

altogether intelligible.

{561}

Reason, therefore, affirms that if God chooses to make the best

possible cosmos, the effectuation of such cosmos must be governed

by the laws of _variety_, of _unity_, of

_hierarchy_, of _continuity_, of _communion_, of

_secondary agency_. The first imports that, if God intends

to effect the best possible manifestations of himself, to which

the best possible cosmos would correspond, he must effect a

_variety_ of moments, a _variety_ of species, of

individuals under each species, except when the nature and the

object of the moment admits no variety or multiplicity. St.

Thomas proves the necessity of such a law by the following

argument: "Every agent," he says, "intends to stamp his own

likeness on the effect he produces, as far as the nature of the

effect will permit, and the more perfect the agent, the stronger

is the likeness he impresses upon his effect."

God is a most perfect agent; it was fitting therefore that he

should impress his own likeness on his exterior works as

perfectly as their nature would allow. Now, a perfect likeness of

God cannot be expressed by one moment or species of effects;

because it is a principle of ontology that, when the effect is

necessarily inferior in nature to the cause, as in the present

case of the cosmos with regard to God, the perfections, which in

the cause are united and, as it were, gathered together into one

intense perfection, cannot be expressed in one effect, but ask

for a variety and multiplicity of effects. The truth of this

principle may be seen in the following example. What is the

reason that we must frequently make use of a variety of words to

express one idea? The reason lies in the objective and

ontological difference of the nature of the two terms. The idea

is simple, spiritual, intelligible; words are a material sound.

The one in its nature is far superior to the other; the idea is

possessed of more being, more perfection than words. Hence the

one cannot be expressed and rendered by the other, except through

a variety and multiplicity of terms. Consequently this example

illustrates the principle that, when an effect is inferior in

nature to its cause, whatever perfections are found in the cause,

as united and simplified in one perfection, cannot be rendered or

expressed except by a multiplicity and variety of effects. What

we have said of language may be affirmed of every fine art, as

painting, sculpture, music, etc. The type which creates them is

always one and simple; it cannot be expressed except in a variety

and multiplicity of forms.

The best manifestations, therefore, of God's transcendental

excellence cannot be rendered and mirrored except through a

variety of moments, of species, and of individuals.

The law of variety asks for the law of _hierarchy_. For

variety cannot exist except by supposing a greater or less amount

of perfection in the terms composing the series, one being

varying from the other by possessing a greater amount of

ontological perfections. Now, by admitting a greater or less

amount of being, we admit a superiority on the part of that which

is endowed with more ontological perfection, and an inferiority

on the part of that which is endowed with less; and each being

composing the cosmos, keeping its own place according to the

general order, and in relation to other beings, it follows that

this superiority on the part of one, and inferiority on the part

of the other, founded on the intrinsic worth of their respective

essences, establishes and explains the law of hierarchy.

{562}

The third law is that of unity, which implies that the variety of

the different moments composing the cosmos must be brought

together so as to form a perfect whole. For, first, if the

variety of moments, of species and individuals, is requisite in

order to express the intensity of the ontological perfection and

excellence of the type of the universe, which is the infinite

grandeur of God, unity, also, is required, in order to express

the simplicity and entirety of the type. In the second place,

what would be the cosmos without unity but a numberless and

confused assemblage of beings? Hence, whatever may be the variety

of the moments and species of the cosmos, they must necessarily

be brought together as parts and components of one harmonic

whole. The nature of this unity will be gathered from the

explanation of the other laws. And first, it begins to be

sketched out by the law of continuity. This implies that there

should be a certain proportion between each moment of the cosmos,

between one species and another, and between the degrees and

gradations within the species, all as far as the nature of the

terms will permit. Hence, the law embraces two parts:

1st. The necessity of the greatest number of moments and of

species, as much as possible alike to each other, without ever

being confounded.

2d. The greatest possible number of gradations within the same

species, in proportion as individuals partake more or less fully

of the species.

To give an instance: the first part of this law explains why

substantial creation is composed of, 1st, atoms which do not give

any signs of sensitive life; 2d, of brute animals; 3d, of

intelligent animals; 4th, of pure spirits. The second part of

this law explains why each of the four species just mentioned is

developed in gradations almost infinite--minerals composed and

recomposed in all possible ways, manifesting forms, properties,

and acts altogether different, and some so constantly as to defy

any change from the force of nature so far known to man; hence,

in force of that immutable type, they are taken by naturalists as

so many scientific species, and the fifty-nine or sixty elements

which chemistry so far enumerates; animals also, extending so

gradually that the ladder of fixed marks, taken by natural

philosophers as so many species, begins where the signs of life

are almost insensible and dubious, and ends with man; nor is

there wanting, as far as it may be known, any of the intermediate

steps.

The pure spirits, as we know from revelation, are divided into

choirs and legions innumerable, whose successive gradations in

quality and number, to us unknown but certain, are unfathomable;

and it is most probable that the ladder of pure spirits is

higher, beyond measure, than that which we observe in the

sensible universe, and that one spirit is far more superior and

distant from another spirit than one star from another.

The necessity of this law springs from that of unity. For, if the

type of the cosmos be one, each moment and species representing,

as it were, a side of that type, there must be as much affinity

and proportion between each moment and each species as to pave

the way for the law of unity to represent and mirror the entirety

and oneness of the type. We say as much affinity as it is

possible to produce, because between each moment and each species

there is necessarily a chasm which no continuity or affinity can

fill up. For instance, between pure animality and pure

intelligence there is necessarily a chasm. Man, placed between

the two, draws them together as much as possible; yet the

necessary distance marking the two distinct natures cannot by any

proportion be eliminated, else the natures would be confounded

and destroyed.

{563}

But variety, brought together by the law of continuity, cannot

sufficiently exhibit unity. Hence the necessity of a fourth law,

that of _communion_.

This law implies, 1st, that the terms of the cosmos should be so

united together as to act one upon the other, and serve each

other for sustenance and development; 2d, that, founded on the

law of hierarchy, inferior beings should be so united to superior

ones as to be, in a certain sense, transformed into them, the

distinctive marks of their respective natures being kept

inviolate.

This law, in both its aspects, we see actuated in the visible

universe. Thus man has need of food, which is administered to him

by brutes and the vegetable kingdom; he has need of air, to

breathe; of light, to see; of his kind, to multiply and to form

society. All other animals have need of beings different from

themselves to maintain their own existence; and of their like, to

multiply their species. The vegetable kingdom needs minerals,

earth, water, and the different saps by which it lives. If

vegetables did not expel oxygen and absorb carbonic acid, air

would become unfit for the respiration of animals; and these

sending back, by respiration, carbonic acid, supply that

substance of which plants stand in need. Everything, moreover, in

the world serves for the development and perfection of man, both

as to his body and as to his intellectual, moral, and social

life. Every inferior creature is transformed into man. The same

animal and vegetable kingdom which, transformed into his blood,

sustains his life, helps him for the development of his ideas and

his will. The reason of this law, which may be called the law of

life, is, that the unity of the cosmos should not be only

apparent and fictitious, but real. Now, a real union is

impossible if the terms united exercise no real action upon each

other, and do not serve for the maintenance and development of

each other.

Finally, the law of communion calls for the law of secondary

agency; that is, the effects resulting from the moments of the

exterior action of God should be real agents. For no real union

and communion could exist among the terms of the external action

unless they really acted one upon another; any other union or

communion being simply fictitious and imaginary. Hence

Malebranche, in his system of occasional causes, where he

deprives finite beings of real agency, has not only undermined

the liberty of man, but destroyed the real communion among

creatures, and marred the beauty and harmony of the cosmos. To

represent the cosmos as a numberless series of beings united

together by no other tie than juxtaposition, and by no means

really acting upon each other, is to break its connection, its

real and living unity; is to do away with the whole beauty and

harmony of that hymn and canticle which God has composed to his

own honor and glory.

We come now to the last question: What is the whole plan of the

exterior action of God? We have seen that if there be a way by

which to effect a cosmos endowed with a certain absolute

perfection, that it would be most agreeable to infinite goodness,

the end of the exterior action of God. We have seen, moreover,

that whether there be such a way, and what this way is, must be

determined by revelation. The Catholic Church, therefore, the

living embodiment of revelation, must answer these two problems.

It answers both affirmatively. The most perfect cosmos is

possible. God has effected it, because most agreeable to his

infinite goodness.

What is this cosmos? We shall give it in the following synoptic

table.

{564}

God's exterior action divided into:

The hypostatic moment;

The beatific, or palingenesiacal moment;

The sublimative moment;

The creative moment.

The terms corresponding to each moment of the action of God are:

The Theanthropos, or Jesus Christ, God and man, centre of the

whole plan;

Beatific cosmos;

Sublimative cosmos;

Substantial cosmos.

Individual terms of each cosmos:

1. Beatified angels and men;

2. Regenerated men on the earth;

3. Angels, or pure spirits;

Men, or incarnate spirits;

Sensitive beings;

Organic beings;

Inorganic beings.

As each moment of the action of God, as the creative, implies two

subordinate moments, preservation and concurrence, it follows

that each moment of the action of God implies its immanence and

concurrence, though in the Theanthropos it takes place according

to special laws. Hence,

Hypostatic immanence and concurrence;

Beatific immanence and concurrence;

Creative immanence and concurrence.

----------

To A Favorite Madonna.

Lady Mary, throne of grace,

Imaged with thy Child before me!

Softly beams the perfect face,

Fragrant breathes its pureness o'er me.

I but gaze, and all my soul

Thrills as with a taste of heaven.

Passion owns the sweet control;

Peace assures of sin forgiven.

Oh! then, what thy loveliness

Where it shines divinely real,

If its strength has such excess

Feebly shadowed in ideal!

From thy arms thy Royal Son

Waits to fill us past our needing:

Hears for all, denied to none,

Thy resistless whisper pleading.

Dream, say they, for poet's eye?

_Thou_ a dream! Then truth is seeming.

Only let me live and die

Safely lost in such a dreaming!

B. D. H.

-------

{565}

Translated From The French.

To Those Who Tell Us What Time It Is.

Before introducing our subject, my dear reader, let me give a

moment to a little person whose caprices equal those of any woman

living.

Brilliant as the most fashionable beauty, she never goes without

her diamonds and rubies in their golden setting, and of which she

is equally proud.

Her little babbling is heard continually; and while she boasts

her independent movements, like any prisoner or slave she always

wears her chain.

I call her a little person, because she accompanies me

everywhere; though sometimes she stops while I walk, and goes

again when I am inclined to stop.

This delicate, fantastical organization, so difficult to

discipline, and as subject to the influences of cold and heat as

any nervous lady or chilly invalid, is Mademoiselle--my watch.

You have nearly all, my dear readers, a watch of silver or gold

in your vest-pocket, and you can have them of wood or

mother-of-pearl, with one great advantage: they cannot be pawned.

Ladies wear watches whose cases shine with their diamonds like

the decorations of a great officer of the Legion of Honor. And

they can have them inserted in bracelets, in bon-bon boxes, and

in buckles for sashes and belts.

But I must tell you, the first accurate instruments, after the

sun-dial and hour-glass of the ancients, were huge clocks; and

these clocks, so immense, led artists insensibly to construct

smaller ones for apartments, in form of pendulums, and which were

in the beginning very imperfect.

Then others still more skilful conceived the idea of portable

clocks, to which they gave the name of _montres_, (watches,

in English,) from _montrer_, to show.

But at first these ornaments were very awkward, and of

inconvenient size for the pocket to which they were destined.

Finally, however, they were lessened to such a point that they

graced the heads of canes, the handles of fans, and even the

setting of rings, and were about the size of a five-cent silver

piece.

It is to Hook, a physician and English philosopher, born in 1635,

died in 1702, that we owe the invention of pocket watches.

In 1577, the first watches were brought from Germany to England.

They had been made at Nuremberg for the first time in the year

1500, and were called the eggs of Nuremberg, on account of their

oval form.

At last a man appeared who, not content to enchain time,

endeavored to force matter to represent with greater accuracy the

flight of years. This was Julien le Roy, the most skilful

practical philosopher that France ever had. Always on the _qui

vive_ for everything useful and curious, as soon as he heard

of the watches of the celebrated Graham, he imported the first

one seen in Paris, and not until he had proved it would he

relinquish it to M. Maupertuis. Graham, in turn, procured all he

could from Julien le Roy.

{566}

One day my Lord Hamilton was showing one of these wonderful

repeaters to several persons. "I wish I were younger," said

Graham, "to be able to make one after this model."

This illustrious Maupertuis, who accompanied the king of Prussia

to the battle-field, was made prisoner at Molwitz and conducted

to Vienna. The grand-duke of Tuscany--since emperor--wished to

see a man with so great a reputation.

He treated him with respect, and asked him if he had not

regretted much of the baggage stolen from him by the hussars.

Maupertuis, after being urged a long time, confessed he would

gladly have saved an old watch of Graham's, which he used for his

astronomical observations.

The grand-duke, who owned one by the same maker, but enriched

with diamonds, said to the French mathematician, "Ah! the hussars

have wished to play you a trick; they have brought me back your

watch. Here it is; I restore it to you."

To-day, as formerly, the handling of watches is an art. It is

much more difficult to measure time than wine or cider.

Therefore, among the members of the Bureau of Longitudes, by the

side of the senator Leverrier, the marshal of France, (M.

Vaillant,) the Admiral Matthieu, is placed the simple

clock-maker, M. Bregnet.

And for these artists who give us the means of knowing the hour

it is, there is a publication as serious as the _Journal of

Debates_, called the _Chronometrical Review_. It

certainly should be regularly sent to its subscribers. If the

carrier is late, it cannot be for want of knowing if he has

to-day's or yesterday's paper; and the subscribers are never

exposed to _chercher midi à quatorze heures_.

M. Claudius Saurrier, the chief editor of this _Chronometrical

Review_, has also a clock-maker's annual almanac for 1869.

This appears very abstruse at the first glance; but if we examine

the little volume with the same nicety as a watchmaker his

mainspring--that is to say, with a powerful magnifying glass--we

will find some things to greatly interest us. For example, a

sketch of different attainable speed:

Miles per hour.

The soldier in ordinary step makes, 2¾

The soldier in a charge 4

The soldier in gymnastic exercise, 7

The horse walking, 3

The horse on the trot, 7

The horse on the gallop, 14

The horse on the race-course, 30

The locomotive at ordinary speed, 30

The locomotive going rapidly, 60

The current of the Seine, 3

Steamboats, 4 to 14

A railroad train making thirty miles the hour would consume

about three hundred and fifty years in the journey from the

earth to the sun. More than a dozen successive generations

would have time to appear and disappear during the transit.

But nothing can more surely measure speed than the man who says

to his watch, "Thou givest me sixty seconds a minute, and thou

canst go no farther."

The little book which has so worthily occupied my attention is

not contented with simply describing professional instruments. It

plunges into old curiosity shops, and brings out the watch of

Marat!

Evidently it does not tell us if this watch was hung in the

bathing saloon where the _friend of the people_ was struck

by the poignard of Charlotte Corday. But it gives us an exact

description of the jewel, or rather of the _onion_ of the

celebrated and redoubtable tribune.

It was, indeed, a curious watch that Marat possessed; and, if we

cannot imagine the fashion of the epoch, which gave to every one

an immense gewgaw, requiring a counter-weight to support it, it

will be impossible to explain the oddity of its form.

{567}

It was a massive silver pear, opening into two equal parts. In

the lower part of the fruit was found the dial; the upper

contained engraved designs of foliage. The case of the pear

reproduced the same model; the artist evidently had but one idea.

Its size was that of an English pear of medium dimensions, and,

thanks to its density, this jewel has been able to pass without

any deterioration through the most stormy periods of the world.

The almanac for clock-makers also contains its good stories. It

relates that a thief introduced himself into a watch-store as a

workman seeking employment, but with the design of abstracting

the pocket-book of the proprietor. The scene is dialogued as the

two parts of a clock containing the chimes of the north, the

solemn stillness of the night broken by question and response,

until they mingled in a _naïve contre-point_.

"Thy purse," said the thief.

"I have forgotten it."

"Thy chain."

"I only wear a ribbon."

"Pshaw! no more ceremony. Look at thy watch. What hour is it?"

"The hour of thy death!" replied the young man in a thundering

voice, presenting at the same time a double-barrelled pistol at

his head.

"Oh! oh!" said the thief, "I was only joking."

"So much the worse. Come, thy purse."

The thief handed it to him.

"Thy chain."

And the chain followed the purse.

"Thy watch."

The thief, trembling from head to foot, drew out a package of

watches, entangled one in the other.

"Oh! oh! I have you now. Get out, file to the left, turn thy

dial, and go."

And the pickpocket withdrew.

The young watch-maker, perfectly astonished, went immediately to

the mayor. They counted twenty-two watches; and the grateful

proprietors handsomely indemnified him for his trouble, while at

the same time he found himself, by this one stroke, with

twenty-two good jobs and a patronage.

Had I time, I could extract many more interesting things from

this little work.

For example, a description of a watch made by the grandfather of

the present Bregnet--the perpetual watch, so called because it

winds itself through some simple movement inserted by the maker.

And I could give, also, good advice to wearers of watches.

Where to put them at night.

The manner and time to wind them, and the management of the

little needle that makes them go slower and faster.

Then, again, the injury done watches by trotting horsemen,

especially physicians, who thereby lose an accurate guide for the

pulse of their patients.

Then I should like to consider how Abraham Bregnet made the

sympathetic clock, upon which it is only necessary to place

before midday or midnight a pocket repeating-watch, advancing or

retarding it a little to allow for the time consumed, and by

simple contact it regulates the pendulum.

If M. Claudius Saurrier wants something curious for his almanac

of the coming year, he has only to take the chapter on

clock-making from _The Arts of the Middle Ages_, by Paul

Lacroix. There he will see the three primitive methods of

measuring time, namely, the sun-dial or gnomon that Anximandre

imported from Greece; the clepsydra, where the flowing water

indicated the flying minutes; and the hour-glass, where the sand

took the place of the water.

{568}

He will find there a watch of the house of Valois placed in the

centre of a Latin cross, and moving with it symbolical figures,

Time, Apollo, Diana, etc.; or, again, the Virgin, the apostles

and saints.

Time has not always been lost through the instruments that

indicate its flight. Ages have changed even palaces; and the

Palais Royal, whose cannon gives us still the exact hour of

mid-day, once knew no hours for its _habitués_, and vice and

immorality consumed the time that virtue now gives to better

purposes. The poet of 1830 said:

"The palace lives in better days,

And virtue holds its court supreme;

The sun that lent to vice its rays

Now gives to time its potent beam."

But now that I have rendered every tribute to M. Claudius

Saurrier that his special science can demand, may I not be

equally frank with him?

I don't like to know what time it is; I am seized with profound

melancholy when the clock strikes and as the hands of my watch

indicate the rapidity with which my life is passing.

If there had never been an hourglass, a clepsydra, a clock, a

regulator, a Swiss cuckoo, or a French chronometer, what with the

variations of the seasons which are no longer regular--the trees

leafing in January, and the house-tops iced in April--we might

never be sure of anything, and lead the existence of those who

frequented the balls of the tenor Roger. With shutters closed and

curtains drawn, the sun excluded for four days, his guests could

have doubted whether time had anything to do with their

existence.

Then we could so long believe ourselves young! The dreaded

question _How old are you?_ could be answered in all

sincerity, _I do not know_.

One word more, however, for our pretty watch. How often has it

been the symbol of gallantry.

A lady asked a poet why he used two watches. He replied

immediately:

"Dear madam, shall I tell you why?

One goes too fast, and one too slow;

When near you I would fondly fly,

I use the first; the other, when I go."

----------

New Publications.

The Catholic Doctrine Of The Atonement.

An Historical Inquiry into its Development in the Church. With

an Introduction on the Principle of Theological Development.

By Henry Nutcombe Oxenham, M.A., formerly Scholar of Balliol

College, Oxford.

Second Edition. London: Allen & Co. 1869.

This is a very scholarly treatise on an important subject. It is

not a dogmatic work, but a work on the history of dogma. The

author possesses a remarkable insight into the deep and sublime

mysteries of faith, especially that of the Incarnation, and

writes like one whose whole mind and soul have become imbued with

the spirit of scriptural and patristic theology. His manner is

remarkably calm, impartial, and dignified; his method of

statement, clear and succinct; and his style is that of an

accomplished English and classical scholar, often rising to

passages of high poetic fervor and beauty.

{569}

So far as the exhibition of the true doctrine of the atonement is

concerned, beyond the critical statement of different schools of

opinion, its chief value consists in the refutation of the

Calvinistic doctrine, and its discrimination of the modern

prevalent Catholic opinion derived from St. Anselm from the dogma

properly so called. The essay on development is one of the ablest

portions of the book. Möhler, in his _Athanasius_, has

accused Petavius of overstating or pressing too far, in his

controversial zeal, the well-known points of his thesis

respecting the doctrine of the anti-Nicene fathers against Bishop

Bull. It appears to us that Mr. Oxenham has overstepped the mark

in the same way in regard to development in general, or at least

has used language liable to misapprehension. We think, also, that

the character of his mind, which is not adapted to metaphysical

or speculative inquiries, and the influence under which his

opinions have been formed, lead him to undervalue scholastic

theology. There are here and there, also, indications of a bias

toward the opinions of a certain class of French writers of the

last century, which appears to us to be out of harmony with the

genuine spirit of docility to the teaching of the church, and the

_pietas fidei_ with which the author is certainly animated.

We will specify one instance of this, where Mr. Oxenham has

exposed a most vulnerable spot in his defensive armor. It is on

page 11 of the introductory essay, where he is rebutting the

famous statement of Chillingworth, that there are "Popes against

popes, councils against councils," etc. In reply to this, he

says, "On this I have to observe, as to popes against popes,

waiving the question of fact, their judgments, when resting on

their own authority alone, if maintained by some theologians to

be infallible, are as strenuously denied to be so by others. It

is a purely open question. Councils are held by no one to be

infallible except in matters of doctrine, and there is no case of

doctrinal contradiction between councils universally received in

the church as ecumenical." The author, in this specimen of most

faulty logic, by waiving the question of fact respecting the

dogmatic judgments of the popes, concedes everything which

Chillingworth asserted on that point, and leaves him master of

the field. He confines himself to one point of defence, that

there are no dogmatic decisions of ecumenical councils which are

contradictory to each other. But suppose there are dogmatic

decisions of popes to which obedience is required as a term of

communion and under pain of excommunication, which are contrary

to dogmatic decisions of councils, what then? Suppose one pope

requires submission to a dogmatic decision as a term of

communion, and his successor requires the same to an opposite

decision, what then? Can Mr. Oxenham say _transeat?_ If Mr.

Ffoulkes should write a letter to Mr. Oxenham containing an

argument based on an affirmation that those suppositions are

facts, against the actual position of the holy see and the

Catholic episcopate, as against Constantinople and Canterbury,

could Mr. Oxenham answer it conclusively without defending that

point which he so easily gives up? That the question of the

infallibility of the pope is not entirely closed is, of course,

true; but it is not so wide open as an ordinary reader would

infer it to be from the author's very inconsiderate and

unsatisfactory way of stating the matter; nor has it ever been so

wide open at any time since St. Peter received from our Lord the

charge to confirm his brethren in the faith. Bossuet would never

have exposed his flank in the unguarded manner that our author

has done. The indefectibility of the Roman see in doctrine, and

the duty of obedience to its dogmatic judgments, were always

maintained by that great theologian, and by all orthodox

Gallicans. The doctrine of what may be called passive

infallibility is logically contained in this doctrine of Bossuet

and in that doctrine of Catholic faith, that the pope is always

the supreme head of the church. By passive infallibility, we mean

a security against the separation of the pope and the Roman

Church in doctrine from the universal church, either by apostasy

from dogmas already defined, or by the enforcement of any new and

false dogmas.

{570}

The active power of the pope, as the teacher and defender of the

faith which he perpetually proclaims to the world, and protects

by denouncing and condemning heresy, which no Catholic questions,

is necessarily secured by this indefectibility or passive

infallibility from being perverted to the service of heresy or

immorality. The only question that can be discussed between

Catholics regarding this matter relates to the conditions and

extent of the active infallibility of the pope. The gift of

infallibility must necessarily preserve the dogmatic unity of the

pope and the Catholic episcopate, and must therefore influence

both. They are both factors in the sum of infallibility. What is

precisely the force of each as distinct from the other is not yet

fully and clearly defined as a canon of faith, and we are willing

to await the result of the approaching council which will,

probably, at least consider the question of the propriety of

making such a canon, before applying any theological formula as a

criterion of the orthodoxy of writers, or written statements.

Nevertheless, we have a right to expect that every writer should

so guard his language and statements that they be not open to a

misconception that furnishes a convenient door for the enemy to

enter in by.

Perhaps Mr. Oxenham will not essentially dissent from the view we

have expressed; and we have the best reason to expect that

whatever there may be that is defective or inconsequent in his

theological system will be filled up and harmonized by the result

of riper thought and study. His work, as a whole, is one of the

best and most valuable of those which have been produced by the

sound scholars and devoted sons of the church who have been won

to the ancient faith of England within the classic halls of

Oxford. Every clergyman or scholar addicted to theological

studies will find it well worthy of a place in his library, and

of a careful perusal.

----

Alice Murray; a Tale.

By Mary I. Hoffmnan, authoress of _Agnes Hilton_.

1 vol. 12mo. Pp. 490.

New York: P. O'Shea. 1869.

We like this story for its perfect picture of American country

life. We get but one glimpse, and that a very imperfect one, of

the city. We have plenty of books, good, bad, and indifferent,

describing city life, its manners and customs, its frivolities

and follies, and even its vices. It was, therefore, with a

feeling of relief, that we read this volume; for, even if one can

but seldom visit the country, still one likes to read about its

green fields, rippling brooks, gushing springs and dark, cool

woods, the lowing kine, and bleating sheep, and in this book we

get a goodly dose. Miss Hoffman seems to be a practical farmer,

and is as much at home with the butter-ladle as with the pen, and

has a thorough disgust, as all good farmers must have, for what

city folk often cultivate as flowers--the "pesky white daisy."

The first chapters of the story are a little dull, and the place

in which its scene is laid is not definitely stated; but further

on, we learn that it is in Western New York. There is nothing

extraordinary or intricate in the plot of of the story. Every

scene and incident may have occurred just as it is related. It is

the old story of innocence and virtue being outgeneralled for a

while by craftiness and vice. And while we have such timid girls

as Alice Murray, such acts of wrong are possible. It is very well

to follow the gospel precept, and when struck upon one cheek to

turn the other; but the gospel nowhere requires us to give in

addition our own hand with which to smite our cheek.

Alice Murray was the niece of Mr. Elbray's first wife. Her

parents died while she was quite young, and Mr. Elbray brought

her up as his daughter, as he had no children of his own. He was

rich, a self-made man, and a worldly-minded Catholic, paid little

attention to the duties or requirements of his religion, but made

money his God.

{571}

He became acquainted with a strong-minded, designing widow, who

manages to make him marry her, and from that moment Alice Murray

had actually no home. The ambitious wife had her own daughter to

provide for, and her whole energies were bent on getting rid of

Alice, which she succeeded in accomplishing. From her adopted

home Alice went to her uncle Bradley--her mother's sister's

husband--who procured her a district school. Even here, though

miles away from her, the new Mrs. Elbray, beside intercepting all

letters between Alice and her uncle, got up a charge against her

of having stolen a gold chain presented to her by her _dear_

departed husband. This was done to prevent Alice returning to her

uncle, who was ever regretting her absence. But the crafty woman

succeeded; Alice is discarded, and the result is, that Mrs.

Elbray's daughter makes a brilliant match, and all the Elbray

family move to New York, where old Elbray is ruined by his wife

and her daughter's husband, and has to go to the almshouse, where

he is discovered by a priest who knew him, and Alice is informed

of the poverty of her uncle. She hesitates not a moment, accepts

the hand of the lover she had previously refused, because she

wished to pay back her uncle all the money he had spent on her,

and the new-married couple go straight to New York, rescue the

uncle from the almshouse, and take him home with them, where he

lives in peace.

The picture of the Bradley family is a beautiful one--just what a

good Catholic family should be; in fact, all of Miss Hoffman's

family pen-pictures are good. Her great weakness lies in her

dialogues; they need more animation and sprightliness; and her

very _bad_ characters are better drawn than her very

_good_ ones. For instance, in Mrs. Elbray, an ambitious,

proud, self-willed and worldly woman, we have decidedly the best

depicted character in the book. She labors for a purpose, a bad

purpose it is true, and succeeds, although the success was her

ruin. Had Alice used for a good purpose one half the energy Mrs.

Elbray did for a bad one, a world of suffering would have been

saved her, but then _Alice Murray_ would not have been

written. We wish the writers of our Catholic stories would allow

their good characters to act like living men and women, not mere

machines, throwing the responsibility of all their troubles and

tribulations upon God, and leaving it _all_ in his hands to

see justice done; but teach them to use the means God gave them

to help themselves.

We have said that Miss Hoffman's descriptions of American country

life and scenery are good. There is one pen-picture on page 170

that will remind many of similar scenes. The story is thoroughly

Catholic in tone and sentiment, but is not of the belligerant

class. There are no religious discussions indulged in for the

sake of displaying one's theological knowledge; but the whole

atmosphere of the book--the whole sentiment is Catholic, and the

reader feels it, just as one in reading à Kempis would know and

feel that the writer was a devout, practical Catholic.

The typographical execution of the book might easily be improved

by employing a better proof-reader and the use of better type.

----

Chips From A German Workshop.

By Max Müller, M. A.

2 vols. crown 8vo, pp. 374, 402.

New York: Charles Scribner & Co.

These two volumes consist of various essays, lectures, etc.,

which Professor Müller has published from time to time during the

intervals of his long years of labor on the Rig-Veda. They are

all more or less closely connected with the great work to which

he has devoted his life, and are all illustrations of a

systematic religious philosophy. The first volume is devoted to

essays on "The Science of Religion." The author remarks that in

religion "everything new is old, and everything old is new, and

there has been no entirely new religion since the beginning of

the world." St. Augustine says that "what is now called the

Christian religion has existed among the ancients, and was not

absent from the beginning of the human race until Christ came in

the flesh;" and the design of these essays is to show how the

radical ideas of religion revealed by Almighty God at the

beginning have undergone various changes, corruptions, and

combinations, yet, though frequently distorted, tend again and

again to their perfect form.

{572}

Professor Müller traces these primitive ideas through the ancient

religions of India and Persia, and extracts from the forbidding

obscurity of Sanscrit literature a wealth of illustration, which,

with his charming style and incomparable happiness in selection,

he makes attractive to nearly all classes of readers. He studies

the matter not as a theologian but as a coldly critical man of

science; and his reasoning is, of course, directly in support of

the truths of revelation. The second volume contains an essay on

_Comparative Mythology_, and papers on early traditions and

customs, all bearing upon the subject of the first, and many of

them highly curious. At some future day, if opportunity permits,

we hope to recur to these valuable "Chips," and give our readers

a few specimens of their excellence.

----

Pastoral Letter Of The Most Rev. Archbishop

and Suffragan Prelates of the Province of

Baltimore, at the close of the

Tenth Provincial Council. May, 1869.

Baltimore: J. Murphy & Co.

This letter of the fathers of the council of Baltimore is a

renewed evidence of the paternal affection and ceaseless

vigilance with which the pastors of the church watch over their

flock. On many most important points, they have spoken out with a

clearness that must be gratifying to every Catholic heart. First

among them is Education. We quote a portion:

"Bitter experience convinces us daily more and more that a

purely secular education, to the exclusion of a religious

training, is not only an imperfect system, but is attended with

the most disastrous consequences to the individual and to

society. Among Catholics, there cannot be two opinions about

this subject. And we are happy to see that this practical truth

is beginning to find acceptance also in the minds of reflecting

men among our separated brethren.

"The catechetical instructions given once a week in our

Sunday-schools, though productive of the most beneficial

results, are insufficient to satisfy the religious wants of our

children. They should every day breathe a healthy religious

atmosphere in those schools, where not only their minds are

enlightened, but where the seeds of faith, piety, and sound

morality are nourished and invigorated.

"Children have not only _heads_ to be enlightened, but,

what is more important, _hearts_ to be formed to virtue."

The most reverend archbishop has been from the first one of the

most earnest supporters of the Catholic Publication Society, and,

with the prelates of the council, again commends it to the

patronage of clergy and laity.

"We desire to renew," say they, "our cordial approbation of the

Catholic Publication Society, recently established in New York,

and we earnestly hope it may receive from our clergy and laity

all the patronage it so well deserves.

"This society is laudably engaged in the publication of such

Catholic works as are peculiarly adapted to the wants of our

times, and it serves as a powerful auxiliary in the propagation

of Catholic truth.

"Short religious tracts are also issued under the auspices of

the same society. These tracts are daily growing in popularity

and usefulness. In one year, about six hundred thousand of them

were printed and distributed. Their brevity recommends their

perusal to many who have neither leisure nor disposition to

read books treating of the same subject. Their short but

convincing arguments always make a favorable impression on

sincere minds; while their plain, familiar style renders them

attractive to the lowest capacity. The very moderate price at

which they are sold places them within the reach of all.

"We trust that our zealous missionary clergy will adopt some

effectual and systematic means by which the books, and

especially the tracts of this excellent society may be

regularly circulated throughout their missions, and distributed

among the children attending our schools."

{573}

These words are very encouraging and opportune; for one thing is

sure, and that is, "The Catholic Publication Society," without

this co-operation and sympathy, both on the part of the clergy

and the laity, cannot accomplish the great work that is before it

in our country.

Then follow some timely words of admonition to Catholics lest

they imbibe the loose notions which prevail among many around

them in regard to the crime of infanticide.

Next, are condemned round dances, indecent publications, and the

obscene theatrical performances which are becoming so abundant.

The remainder of the letter contains words of encouragement to

the clergy and laity in the various charitable works in which

they are engaged, as the erecting of protectories and orphan

asylums, the providing churches and schools for our colored

brethren, etc.

----

Fénélon's Conversations With M. De Ramsai On The Truth Of

Religion, With his Letters on the Immortality of the Soul, and

the Freedom of the Will.

Translated from the French by A. E. Silliman. 1869.

Fénélon was a genius and a saint. He had, moreover, the faculty

of expressing his thoughts in a remarkably clear style, and

throwing a peculiar charm about every subject he handled. The

conversations with Chevalier Ramsay form a short treatise,

proving that there is no medium between deism and Catholicism. It

is very admirable, and Mr. Silliman has done a good service in

translating it, with the two other short but excellent treatises

which are appended. The translator's preface, which is perfectly

calm and passionless in its tone, gives a brief but interesting

sketch of Fénélon's character, and of some of the events of his

life, and relates the circumstance which gave occasion to the

conversations with Chevalier Ramsay. As it alludes to the

condemnation of the _Maxims_ by the pope, and states that

this condemnation was given reluctantly and under threats from

the king of France, it may be well to explain this matter in a

few words. It is true that the accusation of Fénélon at Rome was

made through enmity against his person, and in a manner

discreditable to the parties concerned, and very displeasing to

the pope. It is not true, however, that the decision was given in

accordance with the wishes of the king on account of his

entreaties or threats. The pope did not wish to have the matter

brought before him, because he preferred to leave the errors of

Fénélon's book to be corrected by milder methods than a public

condemnation, and desired to spare so great and holy a

prelate--who had erred only through a mistaken judgment of the

true sense of certain statements of the most approved mystic

authors--the mortification of a public censure and a formal

retraction. The action of Fénélon's enemies made the matter so

public and notorious, and brought his erroneous statements into

such a clear light that it was impossible to avoid an examination

and judgment without scandal. The judgment was impartial, and was

necessarily against Fénélon, whose doctrine was clearly

irreconcilable with the teaching of the church. At the same time,

a sharp reproof was given to his accusers for the spirit which

they had shown in pushing matters to extremes, and the personal

respect and esteem of the pope for Fénélon were clearly

manifested.

The translator has added a very judicious note to the treatise on

the immortality of the soul, justly censuring certain statements

of the author on the nature of the connection between soul and

body. Like many other writers of that time, Fénélon was too much

influenced by the philosophy of Descartes whose ridiculous theory

of occasional causes appears in the passages criticised by Mr.

Silliman. On this point, the language of the Protestant

translator is much more in accordance with the Catholic doctrine

that the soul is _forma corporis_ than that of the Catholic

archbishop.

We recommend this most beautiful specimen of reasoning and

persuasive eloquence most heartily to all readers, especially to

those who fancy they can find a halting-place somewhere between

the rejection of all positive revelation and the acceptance, pure

and simple, of Catholicity.

{574}

The translation is well done, and the mechanical execution of the

book, which is a medium between a volume and a pamphlet, is

elegant. If the translator finds sufficient encouragement in the

reception which it meets with to induce him to continue, we

recommend to him the translation of Fénélon's admirable treatise

on the existence and attributes of God, as a work which we should

welcome as a timely and valuable addition to our English

religious literature.

----

La Natura E La Grazia,

(Nature And Grace.)

Discourses on Modern Naturalism delivered in Rome during the

Lent of 1865.

By Father Charles M. Curci, S.J.

2 vols. Rome, Turin, and Venice.

We are greatly indebted to the courtesy of F. Curci in sending us

a copy of this admirable collection of discourses. With the

greatest modesty, the distinguished author apologizes in his

preface for the defects of his work. To his readers, however, his

name will be a sufficient guarantee of its excellence and

ability; nor will a careful examination give them any reason to

change their opinion. These are no ordinary Lent sermons upon the

commonplace themes of exhortation which preachers are wont to

handle during this holy season. They are profound, eloquent, and

classically written discourses upon all the great Catholic

doctrines and practices which are disputed or denied by modern

infidels and rationalists; a specimen of that high, intellectual,

philosophical, and, at the same time, thoroughly spiritual

preaching which is so necessary in our day for the educated

classes. If it were possible, it would be highly desirable and

beneficial to have these volumes translated into English. If we

are not able, at present, to have this done, it is only because

of the very great cost of translating and publishing in this

country a work of such a high class, the circulation of which

would be necessarily limited to the clergy and a small portion of

the most highly educated among the laity.

-----

Italy, Florence, And Venice.

From the French of H. Taine.

By J. Durand.

8vo, pp. 385. New York: Leypoldt & Holt.

This is a companion volume to M. Taine's book on _Rome and

Naples_, which appeared in an English dress about a year ago.

The author visited Italy in 1864, (though the date, by a strange

oversight, is not mentioned in the volume now before us,) and his

observations upon the political situation of the country and such

social peculiarities as arose from political causes, have now

lost much of their value. These observations are fortunately few,

nor were they ever very profound. M. Taine is not a student of

public affairs, nor a keen observer of popular characteristics.

Of Italian life and manners, he learned no more than the mere

guide-book tourist can see in hotels, galleries, and public

conveyances, and what he saw he tells no better than many have

told the same things before him, and not so well as at least one

or two American travellers whom we could mention. It is as a

critic of art that he demands our attention, and in this

particular he far surpasses nine tenths of all the writers on

such topics with whom English readers are familiar. The eloquence

and rapidity of his style, the refinement of his esthetic sense,

and the keenness of his philosophy, invest his pages with an

interest and a brilliancy which must charm every body. Yet there

is something lacking in his appreciation of paintings, there is a

coldness even in the midst of his enthusiasm, which leave the

mind unsatisfied. The fact is, he writes like a man of the world,

to whom the inner religious sentiment of art is only half

revealed. He judges of paintings only with the head; but there

are certain works--above all, for instance, those of Fra

Angelico--which must be judged by the heart.

-----

Love; Or Self Sacrifice:

a Story by Lady Herbert.

Published by D. & J. Sadlier & Co.

Price, 75 cts.

The life of Gwladys, the heroine of Lady Herbert's story, is made

up of three important events; two marriages and the death of her

lovely boy; and it required all of Lady Herbert's experience as a

writer to fill a volume covering the space of eighteen years,

with the joys and sorrows of her monotonous life.

{575}

The book abounds in exquisite descriptive scenes and truthful

narratives of the fatigues and incidents of travel; but there is

a striking resemblance between many of the leading characters,

and the episodes, in general, are unnatural.

These faults can only be accounted for on the supposition that

the overstrained mind of the heroine did not preserve a perfect

picture of each individual; their virtues and faults appearing to

Gwladys in proportion to the amount of kindness they heaped upon

her. Thus Lady Herbert was unable to paint them as they were in

reality and contented herself by coloring them to suit the ideas

of her much-loved friend. The external appearance of the book we

cannot praise. The proofs must have been read by the "printer's

devil," with _malice prepense_, for a more slovenly printed

book it has never been our misfortune, as a reviewer, to have

been compelled to read.

-----

Die Alte Und Neue Welt.

Vols. I. II. III.

New York and Cincinnati: Benziger Bros.

We are indebted to the publishers for the three volumes,

beautifully bound, of this excellent German illustrated magazine.

We have already noticed the admirable character both of the

reading matter and of the illustrations of this periodical, which

is an instructive and at the same time highly entertaining family

magazine, decidedly the best of its class we have ever met with

in any language. For those who can read the German language,

these volumes form as pleasant a companion as one could desire of

a rainy afternoon, or in any leisure hour when one is desirous of

some pleasant and innocent mental relaxation. It is also

profitable as well as pleasant, chiefly on account of the

charming pictures it presents of Catholic life in ancient and

modern Germany. To all who read German, we cordially recommend

the purchase of these volumes, both for the sake of the reading

matter, and also of the excellent illustrations. As for our

German fellow-Catholics, they ought to be proud of possessing in

their own rich and grand mother-tongue a magazine which does them

so much honor, and ought to give it their universal support. For

the clergy, for parish libraries, for the family, and for young

people who have a taste for reading, it is invaluable. We fear

that the children of our German fellow-citizens are too much

disposed to forget the glorious fatherland of their parents,

which is in them a great folly, to be checked and discouraged in

every way. It is not necessary, in order to become good

Americans, to disown and forget the country and the literature of

one's ancestors. If it is worth while for those whose

mother-tongue is English to spend years in acquiring a knowledge

of the language and literature of Germany, it is surely a great

piece of folly for those whose early education has given them the

means of attaining this knowledge without any trouble to throw it

away as of no value.

We think that the American part of the magazine, that is, all

that represents the life of the German population in the United

States, might be much better sustained than it is. We cannot

blame the editors for this defect, which is no doubt entirely due

to a lack of contributors living in this country; but it appears

to us that a more extensive and zealous co-operation of the

clergy here with the European editors would, without difficulty,

supply it, and make the _Alte und Neue Welt_ really, as its

name imports, a magazine of the new as well as of the old world.

We wish the enterprising firm of the Messrs. Benziger abundant

success in their laudable and skilful efforts to promote the

cause of Catholic literature in the German language.

-----

Winifred; Countess Of Nithsdale.

By Lady Dacre.

New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co.

This story has appeared in _The Tablet_, and has nothing

remarkable in it to praise or blame, if we except the numerous

typographical errors, which are the more noticeable on account of

the dulness of the narrative, and the low order of the curious

dialogues.

-----

{576}

Little Women; Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, And Amy.

By Louisa M. Alcott.

Illustrated by May Alcott.

Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1869.

This is a charming story, full of life, full of fun, full of

human nature, and therefore full of interest. The little women

play at being pilgrims when they are children, and resolve to be

true pilgrims as they grow older. Life to them was earnest; it

had its duties, and they did not overlook them or despise them.

Directed by the wise teachings and beautiful example of a good

mother, they became in the end true and noble women. Make their

acquaintance; for Amy will be found delightful, Beth very lovely,

Meg beautiful, and Jo splendid; that there is a real Jo somewhere

we have not the slightest doubt.

-----

Mental Photographs.

An Album for Confessions of Tastes, Habits, and Convictions.

Edited by Robert Saxton.

New York: Leypoldt & Holt.

We have here an ingenious invention for the amusement of the

social circle, and one which is capable of affording a good deal

of merriment and interest, provided smart and sensible people

take part in it. The album contains places for photographs, and

by the side of each a series of forty questions, such as "What is

your favorite book? color? name? occupation?" etc., to which

answers are to be written by the original of the picture. In this

way, the editor says, as complete a portrait as possible is

obtained both of the inner and outer man. Most of the questions

are pertinent and suggestive.

-----

The Phenomena And Laws Of Heat.

By Achille Cuzin, Professor of

Physics in the Lyceum of Versailles.

Translated and edited by Elihu Rich.

1 vol. 12mo. Illustrated. Pp. 265.

New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1869.

This volume belongs to the _Library of Wonders_, and its aim

is to present in a summary the principal phenomena of heat, as

viewed from the standpoint afforded by recent discoveries in

physics. The illustrations are excellent, and give the reader a

complete elucidation of the text.

-----

The Fisher-Maiden. A Norwegian Tale.

By Björnstjerne Björnson.

From the Author's German Edition,

by M. E. Niles.

New York: Leypold & Holt. 1869.

"An artist, not a photographer, Björnson draws souls more than

faces." "In these times of blatant novelists, it is no ordinary

treat to get a story which affects one almost as finely as a

poem."

-----

The Catholic Publication Society will soon publish _The History

of the Catholic Church on the Island of New York_. By the Rt.

Rev. J. R. Bayley, D.D., Bishop of Newark. This work will contain

many important documents relating to the history of the church in

this city, not heretofore published.

-----

Books Received.

From Charles Scribner & Co., New York:

Waterloo; a Sequel to the Conscript of 1813.

Translated from the French of Erckmann-Chatrian.

Illustrated. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 368.

From P. M. Haverty, New York:

Speeches on the Legislative Independence of Ireland.

With introductory notes by Thomas Francis Meagher, and a

memorial oration, by Richard O'Gorman.

1 vol. 12mo, pp.317.

From Lee & Shepard, Boston:

The Gates Wide Open; or,

Scenes in another World.

By George Wood. Pp. 354.

----------

{577}

The Catholic World.

Vol. IX., No. 53.--August, 1869.

-----

"Our Established Church." [Footnote 166]

[Footnote 166: _Putnam's Monthly Magazine_. Our

Established Church. New York. G. P. Putnam & Son. July,

1869.]

The title, Our Established Church, given by _Putnam_ to a

bitterly anti-Catholic article in its number for last July, is

too malicious for pleasantry and too untrue for wit. The writer

knows perfectly well that we have in this State of New York no

established church, and that, of all the so-called churches, the

Catholic Church is the furthest removed from being the state

church. In no city, town, or county of the State are Catholics

the majority of the population; and even in this city, where

their proportion to the whole population is the largest, they

probably constitute not much, if any, over one third of the

whole. Public opinion throughout the State, though less hostile

than it was a few years ago, is still bitterly anti-Catholic. In

this city, the numbers and influence of naturalized, as

distinguished from natural born citizens, is, no doubt, very

great; but these naturalized citizens are by no means all

Catholics, and a large number of those who may have been baptized

Catholics are wholly uninfluenced by their Catholicity in their

public, and, we fear, to a great extent, even in their private

life. It is simply ridiculous, even by way of irony, to speak of

our church as the established church, or as exerting a

controlling influence in the State or city.

Moreover, no church can be the established church, here or

elsewhere, unless it concedes the supremacy of the state, and

consents to be its slave. This the Catholic Church can never do.

The relations of church and state in Catholic countries have for

many centuries been regulated by concordats; but in this country,

since the adoption of the Federal constitution, the civil

authority has recognized its own incompetency in spirituals, and,

as before it, the equal rights of all religions not _contra

bonos mores_, as also its obligation to protect the adherents

of each in the free and full enjoyment of their entire religious

liberty. The state guarantees, thus, all the freedom and

protection the church has ever secured elsewhere by concordats.

She much prefers freedom to slavery, and her full liberty, though

shared with hostile sects, to the gilded bondage of a state

church. She neither is the established church, nor can she

consent to become so; for a state church means a church governed

by the laity, and subordinated to secular interests, as we see in

the case of the Anglican establishment.

{578}

Her steady refusal to become a state establishment is the key to

those fearful struggles in the middle ages between the church and

the empire; and the secret of the success of the Protestant

Reformation is to be found in its ready submission to the secular

prince, or its practical assertion of the supremacy of the civil

power and the subordination of the spiritual.

There is always great difficulty in discussing such questions as

the writer in _Putnam_ raises with our Protestant

fellow-citizens; for we and they start from opposite principles

and aim at different ends. We, as Catholics, assert the entire

freedom and independence of the spiritual order; but they,

consciously or unconsciously, assume that the state is supreme,

and that the spiritual should be under the surveillance and

control of the secular. We understand by religious liberty the

freedom and independence of the church as an organic body; they

understand by it the freedom of the laity from all authority

claimed and exercised by the pope and clergy as ministers of God

or stewards of his kingdom on earth. If each Protestant sect

claims, in its own case, exemption from secular control, every

one insists that the Catholic Church shall be subject to Caesar,

and all unite to deprive her of her spiritual freedom and

independence. Hence, they and we view things from opposite poles.

They regard them from the point of view of the Gentiles, with

whom religion was a civil function, and the state supreme alike

in spirituals and temporals; we, from the point of view of the

Gospel, or the New Law, which asserts the divine sovereignty, and

requires us to obey God rather than men. They would secularize

the church and education, abolish the priesthood, explain away

the sacraments, and reduce the worship of God to the exercise of

preaching, praying, and singing, which can be performed by

laymen, or even women, as well as by consecrated priests. What

they call their religion is a perpetual protest against what we

call religion, or the Christian religion as we understand, hold,

and practise it. It is especially a protest against the

priesthood, priestly functions and authority.

Hence the difficulty of a mutual understanding between them and

us. What they want is not what we want. We are willing to let

them have their own way for themselves, but they are not willing

that we should have our own way for ourselves; and they try all

manner of means in their power to force us to follow their way

and to fashion ourselves after their model. They do not concede

that we have, and are not willing that we should have, equal

rights with themselves in the state. If the state treats us as

citizens standing on a footing of equality with them, they are

indignant, and allege that it treats us as a privileged class,

and to their great wrong. If it does not subordinate us to them,

they pretend that it makes ours the established church, and

places them in the attitude of dissenters from the state

religion. They are not satisfied with equality; they can see no

equality where they are not the masters. They cannot endure that

Mordecai should be allowed to sit in the king's gate. This is the

real sense of _Putnam's_ article, and the meaning of the

clamor of the sectarian and a large portion of the secular press,

against the State and city of New York, for their alleged

liberality to the church.

{579}

The complaint in _Putnam_ is, that the State and city of New

York have granted aid to certain Catholic charitable

institutions, such as hospitals, orphan asylums, reformatories or

protectorates for Catholic boys, etc., out of all proportion to

its grants of aid to similar Protestant institutions. Also, that

the Legislature has authorized the city to appropriate a certain

percentage of the fees received for liquor licenses to the

support of private schools for the poor, some portion, even the

larger portion, of which, it is assumed, will go to the support

of Catholic parochial schools, and therefore, it is pretended, to

the support of _sectarian_ schools; for in the Protestant

mind whatever is Catholic is sectarian. But is it true that the

State or the city does proportionably less for non-Catholic

charitable or educational institutions--not a few of which are

well known to be formed for the very purpose of picking up, we

might say kidnapping, Catholic poor children, and bringing them

up in some form of Protestantism or infidelity--than it does for

Catholic charitable institutions? Most certainly not. It does far

less for Catholic than for non-Catholic institutions; and yet,

because it does a little for institutions, though for the benefit

of the whole community, under the control and management of

Catholics, the State and city are calumniated, and we are

insulted by its being pretended that our church is made the state

church.

In this matter of State grants or city donations, the Protestant

mind proceeds upon a sad fallacy. The divisions of Protestants

among themselves count for nothing in a question between them and

Catholics. Protestants overlook this fact, and while they call

all grants and donations to Catholic institutions sectarian, they

call none sectarian of all that made to Protestant institutions

which are not under the control and management of some particular

denomination of Protestants, as the Episcopalian, the

Presbyterian, the Baptist, or the Methodist; but this is a grave

error, and cannot fail to mislead the public. All grants and

donations made to institutions, charitable or educational, not

under the control and management of Catholics are made to

non-Catholics; and, with the exception of those made to the

Hebrews, to Protestant institutions. There are but two religions

to be counted, Catholic and Protestant. The true rule is to count

on one side whatever is given to institutions under Catholic

control and management, and on the other side all that is given

for similar purposes to all the institutions, whether public or

private, not under Catholic control and management. The question,

then, comes up, Have the State and city given proportionately

greater amounts to Catholic charitable and other institutions

than to Protestant institutions? If not, we have no more than our

share, and the Protestant clamor is unjust and indefensible.

Of the policy of granting subsidies by State or city, to

eleemosynary institutions, whether Catholic or Protestant we say

nothing; for being, even now, at most not more than one fifth of

the whole population of the State, we are in no sense answerable,

as Catholics, for any policy the State may see proper to adopt.

But, if it adopts the policy of granting subsidies, we demand for

our institutions our proportion of the subsidies granted. Have we

received more than our proportion? Nay, have we received anything

like our proportion? We find from the official report made to the

State Convention, that the total of grants made by the State to

charitable and other institutions--including the New York

Institution of the Deaf and Dumb, the New York Institution for

the Blind, the Society for the Reformation of Juvenile

Delinquents of New York, State Agricultural College, State Normal

School, the Western House of Refuge for Juvenile Delinquents,

State Lunatic Asylum, the Asylum for Idiots, the Willard Asylum

for the Insane, academies, orphan asylums, etc., hospitals, etc.,

colleges, universities, etc., and miscellaneous---have amounted,

for twenty-one years, ending with 1867, to $6,920,881.91.

{580}

Of this large amount, Catholics should have received for their

institutions certainly not less than one million of dollars. Yet,

all that we have been able to find that they have received out of

this large sum is a little less than $276,000; that is, not over

one fourth of what they were entitled to; yet _Putnam's

Magazine_ has the effrontery to pretend that our church is

favored at the expense of Protestantism.

So much for the State subsidies. In passing to the city, we find

its donations to charitable institutions, from 1847 to 1867

inclusive, amount to $1,837,593.27; of which, Catholic

institutions, including $45,000 for parochial schools, have

received, as nearly as we can ascertain from the returns, a

little over three hundred thousand dollars. All the rest has gone

to non-Catholic, and a large part to bitterly anti-Catholic

associations and institutions. Of the aggregate grants and

donations of the State and city of $8,754,759.18, Catholic

institutions, as far as we have been able to discover from the

official tables before us, received, prior to 1868, less than

$600,000, not, by any means, a fourth of our proportion. Yet we

are treated as the established church!

But we have not yet stated the whole case. We do not know how

many millions are appropriated annually for the support of public

schools throughout the State; but in this city the tax levy, this

year, for the public schools, is, we are told, $3,000,000 or

over. Catholics pay their proportion of this amount, and they are

a third of the population of the city. The sum appropriated to

the aid of private schools, we are told, is estimated at

$200,000; and if every cent of it is applied in aid of our

schools, as it will not be, it is far less than the tax we pay

for schools which we cannot use. The public schools are

anti-Catholic in their tendency, and none the less sectarian

because established and managed by the public authority of the

State. The State is practically Protestant, and all its

institutions are managed almost exclusively by Protestants. St.

John's College, Fordham, or St. Francis Xavier's, in this city,

is not more exclusively Catholic than Columbia or Union is

exclusively Protestant. These latter are open to Catholics, but

not more than the former are to Protestants. We count in the

grants and donations to Protestant institutions the whole amount

raised by public tax, together with that appropriated from the

school fund of the State for the support of the public schools.

Thus we claim that Catholic charities and schools do not receive,

in grants and donations, a tithe of what is honestly or justly

their share--whether estimated according to their numbers or

according to the amount of public taxes, for sectarian charitable

and educational purposes levied on them by the State and its

municipalities. How false and absurd, then, to pretend that this

State specially favors our religion, and treats us as a

privileged class! The writer in _Putnam_ is obliged to draw

largely on his sectarian imagination for facts to render his

statements at all plausible. His pretended facts are in most

cases no facts at all. We wish his estimate of the value of the

real estate owned by the church were true; but he exaggerates

hugely the amount, and then says it is held, for the most part,

in fee-simple, by one or another of five ecclesiastics, which

shows how ill-informed he is.

{581}

We subjoin the brief but spirited contradiction, by the bishop of

Rochester, of several of his misstatements.

"_To the Editor of the Rochester Democrat:_

"In your paper, of June 16, appears an article with the

caption, Our Established Church.' The article is based on one

with the same title in _Putnam's Magazine_ for July. I do

not wish to review the article in _Putnam_, but claim the

privilege of correcting some of its misstatements.

"I am one of the 'five ecclesiastics' in the State of New York

holding property worth millions. Yet, strange to say, there is

not to my knowledge one foot of land in the wide world in my

name. All the church societies in the diocese of Rochester not

organized as corporate bodies under the laws of the State of

New York, previous to my appointment as Bishop of Rochester,

have organized or are completing their organization under

those laws. So soon as these societies comply with the law of

the State, Bishop Loughlin, of Brooklyn, will transfer to

them, by quit-claim deeds, whatever property of theirs he

inherited from the late Bishop Timon. Had I had ever so little

desire to hold property in my name, I might have held in

fee-simple the lots on which I am building the bishop's house;

but I have placed the title in the name of 'St. Patrick's

Church Society.'

"The other 'ecclesiastics' in the State of New York, who have

not already transferred the property which they held in

fee-simple, are engaged in making such transfer of the 'fifty

millions' said to be held by them.

"The chief trouble, it seems to me, is in the fact that the

Catholic Church is allowed to hold property in any shape or

form. But the Catholic Church does hold property, and she will

continue to hold it to the end of the chapter, and 'What do you

propose to do about it?'

"'The (Catholic) Nursery and Hospital on Fifty-first street and

Lexington avenue,' is a Protestant institution.

"The new St. Patrick's Cathedral stands on ground purchased by

Catholics about sixty years ago, and ever since in their

possession. This fact spoils Parton's compliment to the

Archbishop Hughes's foresight, and a nice bit of irony in

_Putnam's Magazine_.

"The Catholics in New York City, in 1817, opened an orphan

asylum, which they maintained, without assistance from the city

or State, until some time after the year 1840, when they

received on a perpetual lease the block of ground between

Fourth and Fifth avenues and Fifty-first and Fifty-second

streets, at that time of very little value. On these lots they

have erected two vast and magnificent buildings, in which they

support over a thousand children, at an annual cost to them,

and not to the city or State, of from $70,000 to $90,000.

"I make these corrections to show that the writer of the

article in _Putnam_ is far astray in his facts. There are

many other objectionable statements in the article, but a

magazine contribution without a little spice in it would be

tame and unreadable. Thus, the allusion to the church trouble

in Auburn, and the pretty play on the name of the church, would

lose their point if the history of that affair were properly

understood.

"Catholics do not claim to have rights above any one else, but

they know they have equal rights with others. They have no

notion of their church ever becoming the 'Established Church,'

and they are just as certain that no other church shall ever

assume to be the 'Established Church' in the United States.

B. J. McQuaid,

"Bishop of Rochester."

This is conclusive as far as it goes. We do not know the money

value of our churches, the sites and buildings of our schools,

colleges, orphan asylums, hospitals, religious houses, and

academies; but it is possible that in the five dioceses into

which the State is ecclesiastically divided it may be half as

much as the value of the real estate owned by Trinity Church in

this city; but be it more or be it less, the property of the

church has been bought and paid for, so far as paid for at all,

with very slight exceptions, by the voluntary offerings of the

faithful, and none of it has been obtained by the despoiling of

Protestant owners. Very little of it is due to public grants, and

the few lots leased us by the city at a nominal rent for a term

of years, though of great value now, were of little value when

leased.

{582}

Nor have these lots in any case been leased for sites of

churches, but in all cases for purposes in which the city itself

is no less deeply interested than the Catholics themselves. The

grants to the reformatory for Catholic boys, though apparently

large, are measures of economy on the part of the city; for we

can manage reformatories and take care of our juvenile

delinquents far more economically than the city or Protestant

institutions can. The industrial school of the Sisters of Charity

is a public benefit, and the city and the State would save money

were all their hospitals and asylums placed under the charge of

these good sisters, or of the kindred congregation of the Sisters

of Mercy. Our hospitals, again, are as open to Protestants as to

Catholics. It is never a Catholic practice to inquire what is a

man's religion before rendering him assistance. Whoever needs our

help, whatever his religion, is our neighbor.

The city has made donations, as far as we are aware, only to such

Catholic institutions as are established for really public

objects, and which in their operations save the city from what

would otherwise be either a public nuisance or a public charge.

Take the case of Catholic orphan asylums. The orphans they

receive and provide for would otherwise be a charge on the city

treasury. Take the institute of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd.

It has for its object a noble charity, that of rescuing and

reforming fallen women. These victims of vice and propagators of

corruption, received and cared for by the Sisters of the Good

Shepherd, and generally restored to health, virtue, and

usefulness, would, if not taken up by them, fall into the hands

of the correctional police, and the city would have the expense

of arresting, punishing, and providing for them in the house of

correction, the penitentiary, or its hospitals. Catholic charity

not only accomplishes a good object, confers a public benefit,

but saves a heavy expense to the Commissioners of Public

Charities and Correction. It is only such Catholic institutions

as tend directly to promote a public good, and to lighten the

public expense, that the city aids with its grants and donations.

It aids in the same way, and to a far greater extent, similar

Protestant institutions, such as the House of the Friendless, the

House of Mercy, the Society for the Protection of Juvenile

Delinquents, the Christian's Aid Society, the Magdalen Society,

the Nursery and Children's Hospital, etc., for the most part,

institutions founded with an anti-Catholic intent.

The _Magazine_ asserts, the "State paid out, in 1866, for

benefactions under religious control, $129,025.49, ... of which

the trifling sum of $124,174.14 went to the religious purposes"

of the Catholic Church. We have not been able to find a particle

of proof of this, and the mode of reckoning adopted by

_Putnam_ is so false, and its general inaccuracy is so

great, that, in the absence of specific proof, we must presume it

to be untrue, and made only for a sensational effect. The writer

in _Putnam_ seems to count as Catholic such institutions and

associations as the Ladies' Mission Society, The New York

Magdalen Benevolent Society, Ladies' Union Aid Society, Nursery

and Children's Hospital, Ladies' Home Missionary Society, Five

Points Gospel Union Mission, Five Points House of Industry, Young

Men's Christian Association, and we know not how many more, all

Protestant, and not a few of them designed, under pretext of

charity, and by really rendering some physical relief to the poor

and destitute, to detach the Catholic needy, and especially

Catholic children, from the church, and yet all of them are

beneficiaries of the State or city.

{583}

No institution supported, even for proselyting purposes, by a

union of two or more evangelical sects, is reckoned by

_Putnam_ as Protestant or sectarian. We hold them to be

thoroughly Protestant, and rabidly sectarian.

The sensational writer in _Putnam_ complains of the city for

leasing to Catholics valuable real estate, at a nominal rent, for

a long term of years. Only one such lease, that for the House of

Industry for the Sisters of Charity, has been made in this city

since 1847. The site of St. Patrick's Cathedral, which he

pretends is leased by the city, at a rent of one dollar a year,

has been owned by Catholics for over sixty years, and was bought

and paid for by them with their own money, as the venerable

Bishop of Rochester asserts. The only other instance named, that

of the Nursery and Children's Hospital, Fifty-first street and

Lexington avenue, is a Protestant, not a Catholic institution.

The writer should not take grants and donations made to

Protestants as grants and donations made to Catholics. Between

Catholics and Protestants there is a difference!

The writer's statement of the huge endowments the church will

have, at the rate the city and State are endowing her, in 1918,

we must leave to the consideration of the future _Putnams_.

Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. We will only say that

the church has had, thus far, in this country, no endowment, and

has no source of revenue but the unfailing charity of the

faithful. The magnificent revenues of our churches, colleges,

hospitals, asylums, etc., so dazzling to the writer in

_Putnam_, are all in his eye. We have not a single endowed

church, convent, college, school, hospital, or asylum in the

Union! We do great things with small means, and what to

Protestants would seem to be no means at all, because He who is

great is with us, and because we rely on charity, and charity

never faileth.

We have sufficiently disposed of the property question, and

vindicated the State and city from the charge of undue favoritism

to our church. No charge can be more untrue or more unjust. A few

words on the common school question, and we dismiss the article

in _Putnam_, which has already detained us too long.

The writer in _Putnam_ attempts to be so ironical and so

witty, and so readily sacrifices sobriety and truth to point,

that he must excuse us from following him step by step in his

account of our relation to the common schools. We know well the

common school system of this and other States. We--we speak

personally--received our early education in the public schools,

were for five years a common school teacher, and for fifteen

years had charge of the schools in the place of our residence, as

school committee-man. We have not one word to say against them as

schools for the children of those who are willing to secularize

education. We make no war on the system for non-Catholics. If

they wish the system for themselves, we offer them no opposition.

Indeed, for those who hold the supremacy of the secular order,

and believe that every department of life should be secularized,

no better system can be devised. We oppose it not when intended

for them, but only when intended for us and we are taxed to

support it. We hold the spiritual order superior to the secular,

and wish our children to be educated accordingly.

{584}

We hold that education, or the instruction and training of

children and youth, is a function of the church, a function which

she cannot discharge except in schools exclusively under her

management and control. This education and training can be

successfully given only in the Catholic family and the Catholic

school. In this country, for reasons we need not stop to

enumerate, the Catholic school is especially necessary. We do

not, by any means, oppose what is called secular learning, and in

no country where they have not been prevented by a hostile or

anti-Catholic government, have Catholics failed to take the lead

in all branches of secular learning and science. All the great

literary masterpieces of the world, since the downfall of Pagan

Rome, are the productions either of Catholics or of men who have

received a Catholic training. Few as we are, and great as are the

disadvantages under which we labor in this country, Catholics

even here compare more than favorably, at this moment, in secular

learning and science, with non-Catholics. The religious training

they receive from the church, the great catholic principles which

she teaches them in the catechism and in all her services, tend

to quicken and purify the mind, and to fit it to excel even in

secular science and learning. The Catholic has the truth to start

from, and why should he not surpass all others? No! we do not

oppose, we favor secular learning and science; but we oppose

separating secular training from religious training, and can

never consent to the secularization of education. Here is where

we and the present race of Protestants differ. It is because the

common schools secularize, and are intended by their chief

supporters to secularize, education and to make all life secular,

that we oppose them, and refuse to send our children to them

where we can possibly avoid it. Even if religious education is

given elsewhere, in the family or in the Sunday-school, the evil

is only partially neutralized. The separation of the secular from

the religious tends to create a fearful dualism in both

individual and social life, to place the spiritual and the

secular in the relation of antagonism, each to the other, which

renders impracticable that concord between the two orders so

necessary to the harmonious development of the individual life

and the promotion of the well-being and progress of society. We

insist, therefore, on having our children and youth trained in

schools under charge of the church, that in them the spiritual

and the secular may be harmonized as necessary parts of one

dialectic whole.

Such are our views and wishes, and such our conscientious

conviction of duty. Whether we are right or wrong, is no question

for the state or civil authority to settle. The state has no

competency in the matter. It is bound to respect and protect

every citizen in the free and full enjoyment of the freedom of

his conscience. We stand before the state on a footing of perfect

equality with non-Catholics, and have the same right to have our

Catholic conscience respected and protected, that they have to

have their non-Catholic and secularized conscience respected and

protected. We do not ask the state to impose our conscience on

them, or to compel them to adopt and follow our views of

education; but we deny its right to impose theirs on us, or even

to carry out their views of education in any degree at our

expense. The Catholic conscience binds the state itself so far,

but only so far, as Catholics are concerned. Non-Catholics are

the great majority of the population, at least five to our one,

throughout the State, and they have the power, if they choose to

exercise it, to control the State and to deny us our equal

rights; but that does not alter the fact that we have equal

rights, and that the State is bound to respect and cause them to

be respected.

{585}

The State no doubt is equally bound to respect and protect the

equal rights of non-Catholics, but no more than it is bound to

respect and protect ours.

On this question of education, we and non-Catholics no doubt

stand at opposite poles. We cannot accept their views, and they

will not accept ours. Between them and us there is no common

ground on which we and they can meet and act in concert. They

feel it as keenly as we do. Now as the State owes equally respect

and protection to both parties, and has no right to attempt to

force either to conform to the views of the other, its only just

and honest course is to abandon the policy of trying to bring

both together in a system of common schools. Catholic and

non-Catholic education cannot be carried on in common. In purely

secular matters, Catholics and Protestants can act in common, as

one people, one community; but in any question that involves the

spiritual relations and duties of men, we and they are two

communities, and cannot act in concert; and as both are equal

before the State, it can compel neither to give way to the other.

This may or may not be a disadvantage; but it is a fact, and must

by all parties be accepted as such.

The solution of the problem would present no difficulty, were the

non-Catholics as willing to recognize our rights as we are to

recognize theirs. They support secular schools, and wish to

compel us to send our children to them, because they hope thus to

secularize the minds of our children--_enlighten_ them, they

say; darken them, we say--and detach them from the church, or, at

least, so emasculate their Catholicity that it will differ only

in name from Protestantism. They regard common schools, in which

secular learning is diverted from religious instruction and

training, as a most cunningly devised engine for the destruction

of the church; and therefore they insist on it with all the

energy of their souls, and the strength of their hatred of

Catholicity. It gives them the forming of the character of the

children of Catholics, and thus in an indirect way makes the

State an accomplice in their proselyting schemes. Here arises all

the difficulty in the case. But, whether they are right or wrong

in their calculations, the State has no more right to aid them

against us, than it has to aid us against them. If it will, as it

is bound to do, respect and protect the rights of conscience, or

real religious liberty, the only solid basis of civil liberty, it

must do as the continental governments of Europe do, and divide

the public schools into two classes; the one for Catholics, and

the other for non-Catholics; that is, adopt the system of

denominational schools, or, rather, as we would say, Catholic

schools--under the management and control of the church--for

Catholics, and secular schools--under its own management and

control,--for the rest of the community. Let the system stand as

it is for non-Catholics, by whatever name they may be called, and

let the State appropriate to Catholics, for the support of

schools approved by their church, their proportion of the school

fund, and of the money raised by public tax for the support of

public schools, simply reserving to itself the right, through the

courts, to see that the sums received are honestly applied to the

purposes for which they are appropriated.

{586}

The State may, if it insists, fix the minimum of secular

instruction to be given, and withhold all or a portion of the

public moneys from all Catholic schools that do not come up to

it.

This, if the State, for public reasons, insists on universal

education, is the best way of solving the difficulty, without

violence to the equal rights of either Catholics or

non-Catholics. The State would thus respect all consciences, and

at the same time secure the education of all the children of the

land, which is, no doubt, a public desideratum. Another way would

be, to exempt Catholics from the tax levied for the support of

the public schools, and give to the schools they maintain their

proportion of the school fund held in trust by the State, and

leave Catholics to establish and manage schools for their own

children in their own way, under the supervision and control of

the church. Either way of solving the difficulty would answer our

purpose, and we venture to say that one or the other method of

dealing with the public school question will ere long have to be

adopted, whatever the opposition excited.

The American sense of justice already begins to revolt at the

manifest wrong of taxing us to support schools from which our

conscience will not permit us to derive any benefit. At present,

we pay our quota to the support of the public schools, which we

cannot with a good conscience use, and are obliged to support our

own schools in addition. This is grossly unjust, and in direct

violation of the equal rights guaranteed us by the constitution,

and the religious liberty which is the loud boast of the country.

The subsidies granted to some of our parochial schools in this

city are an attempt, and an honorable attempt, to mitigate the

injustice which is done us by the common school system. But the

sums appropriated, as considerable as they may seem, are far

below the sums collected from us, for the support of the public

schools. The principle on which the common school system is

founded is, that the wealth of the State should educate the

children of the State. One third, at least, of the children of

this city, are the children of Catholic parents, and belong to

the Catholic Church. The sum appropriated for the public schools

in this city, the present year, is, if we are correctly informed,

something over three millions of dollars, and Catholics are

entitled to one third of it, or to one million of dollars. They

do not receive for their schools even a third of one

million--even according to the most exaggerated statements of

_Putnam's Magazine_ and the sectarian press--and nothing

like the amount of the public school tax which they are compelled

to pay; yet it is pretended that ours is the established church,

and that Catholics are specially favored by the State and city!

We ask no favors, but we demand justice, and that our equal

rights with non-Catholic citizens be respected, and protected.

There are other points, in _Putnam_, that we should like to

notice--points which are intended, and not unfitted, to tell on

the minds of ignorant anti-Catholic bigots and fanatics; but our

space, as well as our patience, is exhausted. The writer is

worthy of no confidence in any of his statements. He proves

effectually that it is untrue that figures cannot lie; for under

his manipulation they not only lie, but lie hugely. Even the

anti-Catholic _Nation_ has rebuked him for his levity, and

he has even disgusted all fair-minded and moderate Protestants.

He has quite overshot his mark. But be that as it may, we have

confidence in the justice and right sense of the great body of

our countrymen and fellow-citizens, and we do not believe,

however much they dislike the church, that they will persevere in

a course manifestly unjust to Catholics, and repugnant to the

first principles of American liberty, after becoming once aware

of its bad character.

{587}

As to the subsidies granted by the Legislature to Catholic

charitable and educational institutions, they have been far less

than are due--as the Hon. John E. Devlin justly remarked in the

Convention, not ten per cent of the amount granted. And it has

been no crime on our part to accept what has been offered us; for

we have received and accepted them only for purposes of public

utility and common humanity. Nor are we responsible for the

action of the State Legislature; for it is composed chiefly of

non-Catholics, and by a large majority elected by non-Catholics.

Catholics are by no means the majority of electors in the State.

We institute no inquiry into the motives that have influenced the

members of the Legislature; we never assign bad or sinister

motives, when good and proper motives are at hand. We presume the

motive has been a sense of justice toward a large and growing

class of the community, whose rights have for a long time been

trampled on or disregarded. To condemn them, is not at all

creditable to the rabid Protestant press, and, in our judgment,

is very bad policy. However it may be with the Protestant

leaders, the majority of the American people are sincerely and

earnestly attached to the American doctrine of equal rights, and

will no more consent to its manifest violation in the case of

Catholics than of non-Catholics.

----------

Mark IV.

"Why are ye afraid, O ye of little faith?"

As if the storm meant Him;

Or'cause Heaven's face is dim,

His needs a cloud.

Was ever froward wind

That could be so unkind,

Or wave so proud?

The wind had need be angry, and the water black,

That to the mighty Neptune's self dare threaten wrack.

There is no storm but this

Of your own cowardice

That braves you out:

You are the storm that mocks

Yourselves; you are the rocks

Of your own doubt.

Besides this fear of danger there's no danger here,

And he that here fears danger does deserve his fear.

Crashaw.

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{588}

Daybreak.