It is well for us to take warning in time, for, in the headlong race after

money and material enjoyment, we are getting civilized to such a degree

that we seem to be in danger of outrunning all the antiquated notions of

honor and honesty. Our late upheaval of society, the unsettled state of

things, the insecurity of property, the enormous prices of labor and

living, are beginning to make us realize that "all is not gold that

glitters," and we feel confident that many a one will accept Dr. Marcy's

fearless _exposé_ of false civilization with thankfulness, and draw

the logical conclusions.

In this connection is shown also the reason why our own country displays so

much greater advance in material prosperity than either Mexico or the

countries of South America; a reason, we are truly sorry to say,

substantiated by overwhelming testimony. It is this: The native population

of our own country, though a simple, innocent, warm-hearted people, who

received us with open arms, were hunted down and destroyed like wild beasts

in New England, Virginia, and elsewhere. In Mexico and South America they

still live and occupy the country. Here we have made a blank to be filled

by a full-blown European civilization of the growth of centuries; there

millions of the original people have been reclaimed from barbarism, are

living, increasing in number, and steadily progressing toward the mark we

have attained. Dr. Marcy tells truth in eloquent but indignant forms when

he says: "It is quite true that this Mexican Indian race is inferior by

nature to the Anglo Saxon or the Frank. It is quite true that the children

of those who were rude savages a few generations ago have not the

intelligence, or the energy, or the enterprise of the shrewd, money-loving

Puritan. It is quite true that the souls of these simple-minded children of

Montezuma are not wholly absorbed in the love of gain and of worldly pride

and ambition; but, nevertheless, they live, and can look upon the

consecrated graves of their fathers back to the days of Cortez; they

_still live_, and can worship in spirit and truth the God who created

them and gave them their country; they _still live_, and can behold

cities, towns, churches, schools, and cultivated fields, where their

fathers only saw dense forests and savage wildernesses; they _still

live_, and bless the church and the priests who have been their

preservers and benefactors."

Our Lord Jesus Christ came to preach the gospel to the poor, and it is the

glory of the Catholic Church that her great heart has always beat warmly

and tenderly for the souls and bodies of the poor and down-trodden races of

mankind.

{706}

Her history on this continent is a history of a long line of true

imitations of Jesus Christ, and of the peaceful triumphs of his cross.

Wherever Protestantism prevailed, we have, as an unvarying result, the

speedy extermination by fire and sword of the aborigines. Even this is held

up by some writers as conclusive of the superior claims of Protestantism.

Their argument, divested of all ambiguity, would sound thus: "The red man

was in the way of our development, we shot him and cleared the track. What

is the use of making a fuss about shooting Indians or other inferior races?

It is a great deal better to do that than to try to keep the poor devils to

be a burden to themselves and to us. We Protestants understand better than

you weak-minded and superstitious Catholics how to deal with such matters,

and this proves that we, and not you, have the true Christianity." We speak

thus strongly because we feel strongly the impudence with which such

writers attribute to Christianity itself the grossest violations of its

very first principles.

Let us excuse our forefathers as much as we can, but, in the interest of

the religion of Christ, let us not call their crimes virtues. There was

nothing in their religion powerful enough to enlighten their ignorance or

to control their passions; they had no church to lay down the stern,

undeviating principles of morality, and no confessional to apply them to

the individual conscience; and, therefore, as soon as an Indian stole a

horse or a cow, or plundered a hen-roost, his death and the extermination

of his tribe was a necessary and immediate consequence. And for the want of

the same authoritative moral restraint, according to many Protestant

writers who have taken the alarm, we are now on the high road to

exterminate ourselves.

The Rev. J. Todd, D.D., a Congregational divine, all honor to him for his

conscientious candor, says, speaking of the disparity in the natural

increase of our foreign and native-born population, and of the immoral

causes of it: "There is nothing in Protestantism that encourages or

connives at it, but there is a vast ignorance as to the guilt of the thing.

But in the Catholic Church human life is guarded at all stages by the

confessional, by stern denouncement, and by fearful excommunications."

The divine wisdom of the Founder of the sacrament of confession is most

signally vindicated in these few pithy words, which we leave to the

reflection of the reader.

In the concluding portions of his work the author gives some most

interesting statistics of the growth and proportions of infidelity and

scepticism in our country, of the results of Catholic and Protestant

missions among the heathens, and of the state of religion throughout the

world. These make his work more complete, and will be received gladly by

many who have not had their attention called to these facts before. We

think they add very much to the completeness of the work, and it was a

happy idea of the author to put them in. Dr. Marcy's book ought to do a

great deal of good, and we do not doubt that it will. The number of

unpalatable truths told in it, and the direct, incisive way in which they

are told, have provoked and will provoke much unfavorable comment. Every

effort will be made to discredit it. It will be called vituperative, false,

and calumnious. Its truth--and Dr. Marcy has taken good care to back up all

his assertions with the best of evidence--is the best refutation of all

such accusations. We find every day all sorts of false and calumnious

statements, circulated without a particle of proof, in the books, the

periodicals, and newspapers of the land, against the persons and the

doctrines we hold most dear. It is of little use to reply, the lie is

circulated and the reply is left unnoticed. Our opponents take all their

representations of our doctrines and practices, at second hand, from the

writings of our deadliest enemies, and never think it worth while to verify

their statements by looking at the statements of our own councils and

standard writers.

{707}

This treatment is absolutely unfair, and the most respectable are blind to

its meanness, where we are concerned; but let the Catholic writer tell the

outspoken truth and back it up by genuine testimony of their own writers

and partisans, and the cry is at once raised of "calumnious, incendiary,

malicious," etc. etc. It will be easier to raise a cry against this book

than to answer its statements. When Marshall published his history of

Christian Missions, with its thousands of references to the most

unsuspected Protestant witnesses, we looked for a reply which would be

something more than merely throwing dust in the eyes of the public, but we

have looked in vain up to this time; its statements have never been

answered. So we feel sure it will be with this book. It may be called hard

names, but it will not be seriously answered. If it will be thoughtfully

read, we shall feel content. It will then, at least, be answered, as we

prefer to see all honest representations of the truth answered, by the

removal of prejudice, the correction of many false ideas which prevail

concerning our holy faith, and the consequent desire, which we pray may

arise in not a few sincere minds, to examine more fully into its character

and the grounds of its claims to be the true religion of Jesus Christ.

------

From Chambers's Journal.

Thermometers.

An ordinary thermometer consists, as everybody knows, of a glass tube,

fixed to a scale. This tube contains a fine bore, and has a bulb blown at

one extremity. Some liquid, generally mercury or alcohol, is introduced

into the tube, the air is driven out, and the tube is sealed. The quantity

of fluid, say mercury, admitted into the tube is so regulated that at

common temperatures the bulb and a portion of the bore are filled. The

remainder of the bore, which is empty, affords space for the mercury to

rise. This arrangement renders very perceptible the alterations in the

volume of the mercury due to changes of temperature, a very slight increase

or diminution of volume causing the mercury to rise or to fall appreciably

in the fine bore. After sealing, the scale has to be adjusted to the tube,

and the instrument is complete.

Thermometers of the most accurate make are called standard thermometers. In

their manufacture, numerous precautions are necessary from the very outset.

Even in so simple a matter as the choice of the tube of glass much care is

requisite. The bore has to be tested, in order to ensure that it is of

uniform capacity throughout. It is found that tubes, as they come from the

glass-house, contain a bore wider at one extremity than the other. The bore

is, in fact, a portion of a very elongated cone. In a hundredweight of

tubes, not more than half a dozen or so can be picked out in which the bore

is perfectly true. The bore is tested in a very ingenious though simple

manner. A bulb is blown, and a very small quantity of mercury is admitted

into the tube about as much as will fill an inch and a half of the bore. By

alternately cooling and heating the bulb, this delicate thread of mercury

is driven from one end of the tube to the other, and during this process

its length is carefully measured in all parts of the tube.

{708}

Should the length of the mercury alter in various situations, it is evident

that the capacity of the bore is not uniform throughout, and the tube must

be rejected. In blowing the bulb, an elastic ball, containing air, is used.

The ordinary method of blowing glass bulbs by means of the breath is found

to cause the introduction of moisture into the tube.

The size of the bulb has next to be considered. A large bulb renders the

instrument slow in its indications of change, owing to the quantity of

mercury that has to be acted on. On the other hand, if the bulb is too

small, it will not contain sufficient mercury to register high

temperatures, unless the bore is exceedingly fine.

The shape of the bulb is of importance. Spherical bulbs are best adapted to

resist the varying pressure of the atmosphere; while cylindrical bulbs

expose larger surfaces of mercury, and are therefore preferred for more

delicate instruments. Various plans have been suggested in order to obtain

thermometers of extreme sensitiveness for delicate experiments. Some have

been made with very small thin bulbs, to contain a very small quantity of

mercury; but in these the indicating column is generally so fine, that it

can only be read by the aid of a powerful lens. Instruments have been

contrived with spiral or coiled tubular bulbs; but the thickness of glass

required to keep these in shape nullifies the effect sought to be

obtained--namely, instantaneous action. Messrs. Negretti & Zambra, the

well-known meteorological instrument-makers, have recently succeeded in

constructing a thermometer which combines sensitiveness and quickness of

action, and which presents a good visible column. The bulb of this

thermometer is of a gridiron form. The reservoir is made of glass, so thin

that it cannot be blown; it can only be formed by means of a spirit-lamp;

yet its shape gives it such rigidity that its indications are not affected

by altering its position or by standing it on its bulb. The reservoirs of

the most delicate of these instruments contain about nine inches of

excessively thin cylindrical glass, the outer diameter of which is not more

than the twentieth of an inch, and, owing to the large surface thus

presented to the air, the indications are positively instantaneous. This

form of thermometer was constructed expressly to meet the requirements of

scientific balloon ascents, to enable the observer to take thermometric

readings at precise elevations. It was contemplated to procure a metallic

thermometer; but, on the production of this perfect instrument, the idea

was abandoned.

The shape and size of the bulb having been determined, the workman next

proceeds to fill the tube. This is effected by heating the bulb while the

open end of the tube is embedded in mercury. Upon allowing the bulb to

cool, the atmospheric pressure drives some mercury into the tube. The

process is continued until sufficient mercury has entered. The mercury used

in filling should be quite pure, and should have been freed from moisture

and air by recent boiling. It is again boiled in the tube after filling;

and when the expulsion of air and moisture is deemed complete, and while

the mercury fills the tube, the artist dexterously removes it from the

source of heat, and at the same moment closes it with the flame of a

blow-pipe. It sometimes happens that in spite of every care a little air

still remains in the tube. Its presence is detected by inverting the tube,

when, if the mercury falls to the extremity (or nearly so) of the bore,

some air is present, which, of course, must be removed.

The thermometer, after being filled, has to be graduated. Common

thermometers are fixed to a scale on which the degrees are marked; but the

graduation of standards is engraved on the stem itself, in order to insure

the greatest possible accuracy. The first steps in graduating are to

ascertain the exact freezing-point and the exact and to mark on the tube

the height of the mercury at these points.

{709}

The freezing-point can be determined with comparative ease. Melting ice has

always the same temperature in all places and under all circumstances,

provided only that the water from which the ice is congealed is pure. The

bulb and the lower portion of the tube are immersed in melting ice; the

mercury descends; the point where it remains stationary is the

freezing-point, and is marked on the tube.

The determination of the boiling-point is more difficult. The boiling-point

varies with the pressure of the atmosphere. The normal boiling temperature

of water is fixed at a barometric pressure of 29.922 inches of mercury

having the temperature of melting ice, in the latitude of 45, and at the

level of the sea. Of course, these conditions rarely if ever co-exist; and

consequently the boiling-point has to be corrected for errors, and reduced

for latitude. Tables of vapor tension, as they are called, computed from

accurate experiments, are used for this purpose. Regnault's tables, the

most recent, are considered the best.

An approximate boiling-point is first obtained by actual experiment. A

copper boiler is used, which has at its top an open cylinder two or three

inches in diameter, and of sufficient length to allow a thermometer to be

introduced into it, without touching the water in the boiler. The cylinder

is surrounded by a second one, fixed to the top of the boiler, but not

entering it, the two being about an inch apart. The outer cylinder is

intended to protect the inner one from contact with the cold external air.

The thermometer to be graduated is placed in the inner cylinder, and held

there by a thong of India-rubber. As the vapor of the boiling water rises

from the boiler into the cylinder, it envelops the thermometer, and causes

the mercury to ascend. As the mercury rises, the tube is gradually lowered,

so as to keep the top of the mercury just visible above the cylinder. When

the mercury becomes stationary, the position of the top of the column is

marked on the tube; and the boiling-point, subject to corrections for

errors, is obtained.

The freezing and boiling points being determined, the scale is applied by

dividing the length between the two points into a certain number of equal

degrees. This operation is performed by a machine called a dividing-engine,

which engraves degrees of any required width with extreme accuracy.

The scale used in the United Kingdom, in the British colonies, and in North

America, is that known as Fahrenheit's. Fahrenheit was a philosophical

instrument maker of Amsterdam. About the year 1724, he invented the scale

with which his name is associated. The freezing point of his scale is 32

degrees, the boiling-point 212 degrees, and the intermediate space is

composed of 180 degrees. This peculiar division was thus derived. The

lowest cold observed in Iceland was the zero of Fahrenheit. When the

thermometer stood at zero, it was calculated to contain a volume of mercury

represented by the figures 11,124. When plunged into melting snow, the

mercury expanded to a volume represented by 11,156; hence the intermediate

space was divided into thirty-two equal portions or degrees, and thirty-two

was taken as the freezing-point of water. [Footnote 246] Similarly, at the

boiling-point, the quick-silver expanded to 11,336. Fahrenheit's scale is

convenient in some respects. The meteorological observer is seldom troubled

with negative signs, the divisions of the scale are numerous, and tenths of

degrees give all the minuteness usually requisite.

[Footnote 246: Mr. Balfour Stewart has lately concluded a series of

experiments at the Kew Observatory, by which he has accurately

determined the freezing-point of mercury. The experiments, conducted

with great care, have shown that the freezing-point of mercury, like

that of water, is constant, and that it denotes a temperature of -37.93

F. The freezing-point of mercury will now be used as a third point in

graduating thermometers which are intended to register extreme

temperatures.]

{710}

In 1742, Celsius, a Swede, proposed zero for the freezing-point, and 100

degrees for the boiling-point, all temperatures below freezing being

distinguished by the negative sign (-). This scale is known as the

Centigrade. It is in use in France, Sweden, and in the south of Europe; it

has the advantage of decimal notation, with the disadvantage of the

negative sign.

Reaumur's scale is in use in Spain, Switzerland, and Germany. It differs

from the Centigrade in this, that the freezing and boiling points are

separated by 80 degrees instead of 100 degrees.

It would not be difficult to construct a scale which should combine all the

advantages of Fahrenheit's and of the Centigrade. Freezing-point should be

fixed at 100 degrees; and boiling-point should be fixed at as many hundred

divisions or degrees above 100 degrees as might be agreed on by practical

men as most convenient. The advantages of decimal notation would thus

remain as in the Centigrade scale, and the minus sign would be got rid of.

And now, having applied the scale, and having exercised every precaution,

can we congratulate ourselves on possessing a perfect instrument?

Disheartening as it may appear, the standard instrument of to-day may not

be accurate to-morrow. It is more than probable that the freezing point

will become displaced. This curious phenomenon has never been

satisfactorily explained. Messrs. Negretti & Zambra, in their treatise on

Meteorological Instruments, (a work which abounds with information of a

most interesting nature,) say, in reference to displacement of the freezing

point, that "either the prolonged effect of the atmospheric pressure upon

the thin glass of the bulbs of thermometers, or the gradual restoration of

the equilibrium of the particles of the glass after having been greatly

disturbed by the operation of boiling the mercury, seems to be the cause of

the freezing-points of standard thermometers reading from a few tenths to a

degree higher in the course of some years." To obviate this small error, it

is the practice of the makers in question "to place the tubes aside for

about six months before fixing the freezing-point, in order to give time

for the glass to regain its former state of aggregation. The making of

accurate thermometers is a task attended with many difficulties, the

principal one being the liability of the zero or freezing-point varying

constantly; so much so, that a thermometer that is perfectly correct

to-day, if immersed in boiling-water, will be no longer accurate; at least,

it will take some time before it again settles into its normal state. Then,

again, if a thermometer is recently blown, filled, and graduated

immediately, or, at least, before some months have elapsed, though every

care may have been taken with the production of the instrument, it will

require some correction; so that the instrument, however carefully made,

should from time to time be plunged into finely-pounded ice, in order to

verify the freezing-point."

------

From The Month.

The Tuscan Peasants And The Maremna.

The Maremna is, in summer, the word that drives the sleep from many an

Italian woman's pillow as she thinks of the perils that her husband, her

brother, or her betrothed is encountering as he reaps the fertile harvest,

and gains, at the risk of his life, the wages that will enable him and his

to live through the winter. "A me mi pare una Maremna amara" is the burden

of the song with which many a child is rocked to sleep. And with reason.

The Maremna is the Littorale or shores of the Tuscan Sea; and there the

coasts that bound the blue waters of the Mediterranean are lined by tangled

jungles and pestilential marshes, whence at each sunset arises the baleful

fever, which, passing in scorn over the ruined cities that its pernicious

breath has depopulated, creeps along like the sleuth-hound until it finds

the hardy mountaineer returning from his day of labor, and smites him with

the wasting blight which saps his strength.

{711}

Yet year after year do the sons of Italy descend with unwearied energy to

these valleys and deadly plains, to reap the crops that have grown uncared

for but luxuriantly, death and disease stalking behind them, and the fear

of falling victims to the power of the evil air urging them to increased

exertions, in order that they may earlier return and share their scanty

gains with their wives and children. They march gayly, too, often singing

alternately in their rough monotone the songs they have composed

themselves, cheerful in the consciousness that they are fulfilling a duty;

and this although knowing that they have to fight a foe against whom

neither courage nor energy nor strength can avail, but whose damp breath

appears to draw the marrow from their bones and fill them with fever;

sometimes sending them weak and emaciated, useless as workmen, to their

native homes; sometimes in a few hours laying their bodies low, to lie, far

from family and friends, in unconsecrated ground.

When the Italian peasants speak of the Maremna, they mean that district of

Italy which runs along the shores of the Mediterranean from Monte Nebo and

the mountains south of Leghorn over the flat marshes of the Tuscan shores,

and the desolate promontory of Monte Cervino, as far as the sunny shores of

Sorento and Amalfi. To the south of the Tuscan frontier the (to English

ears) more familiar name of Campagna is applied to the whole of that

portion of the Maremna which lies within the ancient Agro Romano; still

further to the south the word Maremna becomes identical with what are

called the Pontine Marshes. The mountaineers of Modena, Parma, and Tuscany

call the country which they periodically visit, whether south or north,

Maremna: the inhabitants frequently give it a local name. Undefined as are

its boundaries, and almost unknown to geography as is its name, its

characteristics are much the same throughout; everywhere we meet the same

wide plains, tangled jungles, ruined cities, wooded hills, ever-recurring

swamps and morasses; throughout the whole district the same terrible ague,

the same desolating fever, the fatal influence of the malaria, rage with

destructive effect. Although often characterized as a swamp or a marsh, yet

the Maremna by no means consists of plains like the fens; on the contrary,

there are several high mountains, which run down even into the sea: the

land near the coast is, however, in general flat.

Part of the Maremna is cultivated, and produces grain; the greater portion,

however, is kept for pasture. As soon as the herbage begins to fail on the

mountains of Tuscany, the peasants drive their flocks down to the pastures

of the Maremna. There they remain six or seven months. The women and

children are left at home, and the men and boys during this time bear all

the privations, hardships, and dangers. An Italian poet exclaims: "Alas,

how often do they return home bowed down by fever! how often do they never

return! for, where they sought to earn the sustenance of their families,

they meet with death." While some descend with their flocks and act as

shepherds, the majority are there for the purpose of cutting wood, making

charcoal and potash; their last work is to reap the hay and corn, and then

those who are left alive return. Part of their wages has already been sent

home; the remainder they bring with them.

Halfway between Leghorn and Pisa stands the old church of St. Pier d'Arena.

It is very large, and built as nearly as possible to resemble the form of a

ship. In old days the sea reached this point, and the name 'Arena' points

to the strand on which the church was built. Tradition states it was here

St. Peter landed on his visit to Italy, and the church was built to

commemorate the event.

{712}

One October, now many years ago, after a visit to this church, I met a

troop of shepherds and their flocks on their march to the Maremna. The

procession must have covered half a mile of ground. Never yet have I looked

on a troop of these sunburnt children of the south as they were wending

their way to a land whence all would not return, without saluting them even

as I would a forlorn hope advancing to attack the breach of a fortress.

Soldiers of duty, "Morituros vos saluto." And higher is the courage and

deeper is the love that impels these brave men, singing as they go, to

encounter the fever and thirst and pestilential air of the Maremna, than

that which animates many even of those soldiers who fight for God and king

and fatherland.

Tears rose to the eyes of my companion as they passed. The flocks and herds

marched first, all "ruddled," that is, marked with red, to show to whom

they belonged. The procession was headed by the bell-wethers, with their

curved horns; in close attendance upon them are tall, handsome,

woolly-haired sheep-dogs, of a larger breed than ours, and with their necks

defended by a collar studded with nails, the projecting points of which

often turn the scale in the case of an encounter with the wolves. Nor are

these the only robbers against which these vigilant watchers defend the

sheep: if a human beast of prey, in shape of a thief, lies lurking in the

ditches that border the roadside, watching an opportunity for seizing a

lamb, they detect him and compel him to show himself. At night, too, they

march round the nets that enclose the little encampment, and give the weary

guardians time to sleep. Before they go to sleep, the peasants light a

fire, and make cheese and ricotti, (a sort of Devonshire cream,) with which

they repay the owner of the soil for leave to encamp on his grounds. As the

milk is far more plentiful on their return in May, a spirit of natural,

even-handed justice makes them generally contrive, both going and

returning, to halt at the same stations. A necessary member of this company

is the poet, or scribe, (_scrivano_.) To him is entrusted the task of

composing, or else writing down and correcting, the "Respects" which each

Tuscan shepherd is bound to send to his sweetheart. Collections of these

rustic poems have lately been made and published. They are full of pathos

and tenderness; the heart of the young exile yearns not only for his

_dama_, (sweetheart,) but for the beauties of the country he has left

behind him. Not his the harp to sing of festive banquets or goblets crowned

with flowers; he loves the streams of fresh water, the flowering grass, the

cultivated terraces, the pure air of his mountain home. Nature herself, and

sorrow, the nurses of beauty, have breathed on him a spirit of truth and

poetry as distinct from the sickly sentimentality and vice so often found

in modern verse, as is the wild rider of the Arabian desert from the puny

jockey who wins our handicaps. Strange, indeed, it would be if these poems,

written in danger, absence, and exile, possessed not a fragrance all their

own--one, however, that seems to escape not only in the most literal

translation, but even when, under a slightly different form, they appear in

the works of their more highly educated countrymen.

Independently of the troops that march almost patriarchally with their

flocks and herds, like Abraham and Jacob, peasants often go down in gangs

of five or six to look for work; sometimes, though rarely, necessity

compels them to take with them their wives, and, if grown up, their

children. In this case they almost invariably travel in one of the long,

narrow, covered cars of the country. The men trudge along in groups of five

or six, with their best clothes in a bundle slung to a stick, and, if by

any possible contrivance it can be managed, with a gun upon their shoulder;

for game of all kinds, roe, deer, wild boars, porcupines, woodcock, and

snipe abound.

{713}

I once saw these groups arriving, one after another, at a seaport town near

the Gulf of Genoa, until they reached the number of 500 or 600: these all

sailed in a steamer to Corsica, to till the rich ground of that island. In

a fortnight the steamer returned, and freighted itself with an equally

large cargo of laborers. Many go to Sardinia, a still more unhealthy

island: their chief occupation there is mostly to fell the forests which

have been bought by speculators. Some find work at the Grand Ducal

Ironworks at Follonica, and at the mines in the interior of the island of

Elba; others help to till the Maremna, the soil of which is so fertile

that, if it lies one year fallow, it requires but to have the seed thrown

broadcast over it in order to yield every alternate year, and without

further tillage, a most magnificent crop. Others help to clear away the

forest and the thicket, and prepare the ground for future years, and thus

aid in the great works for reclaiming this land of jungle and fever that

have been now carried on for so many years; others simply to make charcoal

or potash, and to live by selling game at the neighboring towns. To sing

the songs of their native villages is their chief pleasure. In the daytime

one man will begin to sing at his work, and then another catches the

refrain, and begins in turn. At night, too, round the fire, (which is said

to scare away the fever,) they sing songs and tell their old stories, and

repeat their legends of saints and miracles. Thus it happens that they

return to their native villages, speaking the pure Tuscan language

undefiled by the patois of Corsica or the miserable jargon of the other

islands.

The fever often attacks them, and they have to return home with their work

half done; often a father will have to send back his son, fearful that he

may die on the road, but conscious that, though he seems hardly able to

crawl, the lad's only chance of safety lies in his reaching the pure air of

the mountains before it is too late.

If all goes well, they arrive at home by the 24th of June, the feast of St.

John. As they near their native place, the more active and eager members of

the different parties press on; and as soon as they are descried from the

village, a group is formed to meet them and welcome them back; then, too,

do the wives learn what their husbands have earned and whether they have

had a good year.

We may fancy the inhabitants who have remained at home, assembling at the

old tower that bars the entrance to the village, eagerly asking and hearing

the news of the winter. "Old Giuseppe" has had a good year; Peppe da

Cacciono has had a touch of the maremna, but he got better; Renzo of

Cognocco's dead, died of "la perniciosa." "Poor fellow! God rest his soul!"

is the reply. "He had a bad attack last year; we never thought to see him

again." And then they will visit Renzo's family and condole with them.

Not only do they bring back news to their own, but to all the villages that

they pass through. Before the eve of St. John you may often, as the Abbé

Tigri says, "meet a group of five or six, burnt nearly black with the sun,

in their worst dress, and wearied out by the long journey. _Ben

tornati_, welcome back!" you cry. "Do you come from far? Poor fellows,

how tired you seem!" "It is nothing now, sir," they say, "for we are going

home; but it was a hard time this spring." And, with that smile of singular

brightness which no poverty or suffering seems able to drive from their

face, they pass by.

The maremna is more accessible now than when we last visited and travelled

through it. The works that were originated and so sedulously carried on by

the former government have been continued by the present, and have

fertilized and rendered comparatively healthy large portions of the country

which were formerly desolate and pestilential: a railroad has been made,

which familiarizes many a modern traveller with the country under its

present aspects, but tempts him to hurry by much that is interesting and

would have rewarded a longer sojourn.

{714}

We may endeavor in some future number to describe the impression made upon

us by this portion of Etruria, and to lead the reader

"By lordly Volaterra,

Where scowls the far-famed hold

Piled by the hands of giants

For god-like kings of old;

By sea-girt Populonia,

Whose sentinels descry

Sardinia's snowy mountain-tops

Fringing the southern sky.

"By the drear bank of Ufens,

Where flights of marsh-fowl play,

And buffaloes lie wallowing

Through the hot summer day;

By the gigantic watch-towers,

No work of earthly men,

Whence Cora's sentinels o'erlook

The never-ending fen,

To the Laurentian jungle,

The wild-hog's reedy home."

------

Miscellany.

_Pagan Irish Sepulchral Pillar-Stones_.--That standing stones were

used during pagan times in Ireland as sepulchral monuments appears certain;

for we find in the description of the royal cemetery of Brugh-na-Boinne, as

given in the Dinnsenchus contained in the Book of Ballymote, fol. 190,

translated and published by the late Dr. Petrie, in his treatise on the

Round Towers of Ireland, the following: "The _pillar-stone_ of Buidi

the son of Muiredh, where his head is interred." We also find quoted by the

same eminent antiquary, from the Leabhar-na-h-hide, an account of the death

of Fothadh in the battle of Ollarba, fought, according to the Four Masters,

in A.D. 285, with a description of his grave, in which is recorded, "And

there is a _pillar-stone_ at his carn; and an ogumis on the end of the

_pillar-stone_ which is in the earth." The earliest sepulchral

monuments mentioned in the Annals of the Four Masters are _carns_,

(large heaps of stones,) and _murs_ or _tuiams_, (mounds of

earth,) now more generally known by the name "barrow." However, that

pillar-stones may even then have been in use appears probable; for in the

opening paragraph of those Annals there is, "From Fintan is named Feart

Fintain" (that is, Fintain's grave) "over Loch Deirgdheire." The place is

still called by this name, and is situated on the northern slopes of the

Arra mountains, overlooking Lough Derg, county Tipperary. There is a

_pillar-stone_ at the grave, from which the hill is called

Laghtea.--G. Henry Kinahan, _in Athenoeum_.

_The Monks' Model Farm in Algeria_.--The Mois Agricole contains an

interesting account of the Trappist Model Farm at Cheragas, in Algeria. In

1843, Marshal Bugeaud granted the Trappists one thousand two hundred

hectares of land, on which, two years afterward, three hundred thousand

francs were expended by the order in buildings. The stock of animals on the

farm is now magnificent. The Trappist cows each yield sixteen quarts of

milk a day, in a country where the native cows do not yield more than

goats; and the sheep and pigs are equally fine. A large quantity of honey

is also produced at Cheragas. There are in the establishment one hundred

and eight monks, of whom twenty-two belong to the choir, and ten are

priests. Twenty lay workmen are constantly employed at the convent, and

every poor or sick wayfarer is entitled to claim or receive aid or work

there. When the emperor visited the establishment, he discovered, to his

surprise that upward of a dozen of the monks had been soldiers of the

imperial guard. They explained to him that, after the severe discipline and

simple fare of the French army, the Trappist rule, ascetic as it is, did

not appear harsh to them.

------

{715}

Original.

New Publications.

The Monks Of The West, from St. Benedict to St. Bernard.

By the Count de Montalembert, Member of the French Academy.

Authorized translation. Vols. I., II., III. William Blackwood & Sons,

Edinburgh and London, 1861, 1867. For sale by the Catholic Publication

Society, 126 Nassau street, New York.

These volumes bring down the history of monasticism to the year 633. The

third contains the history of monasticism in England, Ireland, and

Scotland, embracing a very full account of St. Columba and the institute of

Iona. It is very appropriately dedicated to the Earl of Demarara. The ill

health of the author has delayed the completion of his great work. We

understand, however, that two more volumes are published in France, and are

now being translated into English. The writings of Montalembert belong to

the highest class of French literature. The present work treats of a topic

of the greatest importance and interest to all students and educated

persons, but especially to all devout Catholics. English literature has

resounded for three centuries with calumnies, denunciations, and senseless,

ignorant ravings against monastic orders. Of late, we begin to hear a

different story from the most enlightened portion of Protestant writers.

These writers are, however, careful to qualify what they say in praise of

the nunneries of former times by a somewhat wearisome and monotonous

reiteration of the assurance that monastic institutions are worn out,

obsolete, contrary to progress, and unfit for the present age. It is time,

therefore, for the Catholic voice to make itself heard on the subject. The

illustrious and noble author is a believing and devout Catholic as well as

a learned historian and a most eloquent writer. His work is well

translated, and published in a style suitable to its choice excellence. It

should find a place in the library of every clergyman, every religious

house, seminary, and college, and on the table of every educated Catholic

layman. We would recommend it also to our Protestant friends, were we not

aware that most of them are afraid or ashamed to buy a Catholic book. Those

of them at least who pretend to agree with the church of the first six

centuries ought not to be afraid of it, as it comes down no later than A.D.

633.

The Trinity

Control Your Passions

Heroism In The Sick-room

Is The Sacrifice Of The Mass Of Human Or Of Divine Institution?

Why Did God Become Man?

Being Tracts Nos. 20, 21, 22, 23, and 24 of the Catholic Publication

Society's Tracts. New York: The Catholic Publication Society, 126 Nassau

street.

The Catholic Publication Society continues to issue its useful and

instructive tracts. We give above the titles of those last published. Our

readers will find them to be in every respect equal to the former ones.

They will also be pleased to learn that the Society has obtained a House of

Publication, established in a first-class locality, No. 126 Nassau street,

New York, where all its publications can be had, together with all Catholic

books and pamphlets published either in this country or in England and

Ireland. The Society now everywhere meets with approval and encouragement.

Rev. Father Hecker lately visited the cities of Pittsburg, Cincinnati,

Wheeling, and Harrisburg, at which places he lectured in favor of the

Society. The Rt. Rev. Bishops and Rev. clergy gave him the most cordial

receptions, and very generous contributions were made for the object in

Pittsburg, Cincinnati, and Wheeling. Upon his return he lectured also at

St. Peter's church, Brooklyn, with the like success. Depots for the

Society's publications are now established at Mr. Quigley's in Pittsburg,

and at Benziger Bros. in Cincinnati, at which all that is issued by the

Society can be procured for the same price as they are sold in New-York.

Father Hecker also intends visiting Europe this summer, to form relations

with the publishing houses of Dublin, London, and Paris, and will accept

the invitation proffered him to assist at the great Catholic Congress which

is to meet at Malines next September.

{716}

Our readers are already aware, from the article on Catholic Congresses in

our last number, how much has been done by the Belgian Congresses for the

diffusion of cheap Catholic literature. We trust Father Hecker may be able

to derive much useful information from what he will see and hear at

Malines, and turn it to good account for the furtherance of our own efforts

in the same direction. We are much gratified to see that the project of a

Catholic Congress suggested by our article has been warmly applauded on all

sides. Several of our journals, among which we notice the _Freeman's

Journal_, the _Boston Pilot_, the _New York Tablet_, and the

_Catholic Standard_ of Philadelphia, have noticeable editorial

articles on the subject in its favor. It is important, in case a congress

should be convened in our own country, that some one should attend this one

in Belgium, in order to obtain a knowledge of the plan and method of

organizing and conducting these assemblies.

The First Age of Christianity and the Church.

By John Ignatius Döllinger, D.D.,

Professor of Ecclesiastical History

in the University of Munich, etc.

Translated by H. N. Oxenham, M.A. Oxford.

London: Allen & Co., 1860.

2 vols. 12mo. New York: The Catholic

Publication Society.

These two volumes are worthy of the perusal of every scholar. They form the

introductory portion of Döllinger's great work on Ecclesiastical History,

now in course of preparation, and are replete with the results of his vast

learning. At the same time, the reader of ordinary intelligence and

education need not be afraid of them. They are not dry or pedantic, but

written in a style of natural simplicity and freshness which makes them

attractive and entertaining as well as instructive. The translation, by an

excellent scholar and good writer, is extremely well done, and the

mechanical execution is in the best London style. Even the Dublin Review

has condescended to praise this work, and therefore those who might suspect

that it contains any peculiar opinions of what is called the 'Germanizing'

school need not fear anything on that score. Dr. Döllinger is a sound,

orthodox divine, and sincerely loyal to the holy see. The Roman theologians

have controverted some of his opinions very strongly, but they have never

called in question his orthodoxy, and we have good reason to believe that

the Holy Father regards him with esteem and paternal affection as a true

son of the church, who is doing her good service. The organs of that

theological school in Germany which Dr. Döllinger is supposed to sympathize

with the least always speak of him in the most respectful terms, even when

criticising some of his statements very unsparingly. Some of our Catholic

friends in England are not quite so charitable and moderate as the more

thoroughly ripened theologians of Europe. They seem disposed to erect

theological doctrines never defined or imposed by the authority of the holy

see into a standard of orthodoxy, and to question the thorough loyalty of

those who do not fully agree with themselves. Odious terms, such as the

nickname of 'mini-misers,' invented by that very dogmatical publication the

Dublin Review, are applied to them, and, in general, a quarrelsome kind of

domestic polemics seems getting quite the vogue among a portion of the

Catholic writers of England. We agree with F. Perrone, the great Roman

theologian, that this is an evil much to be deprecated, and likely to do

mischief. We do not sympathize with all that Dr. Döllinger has written, but

we feel bound to condemn the disparaging tone in which some of the writers

alluded to are wont to speak of him, and of others like him, who venture to

make use of the liberty allowed by the church respecting questions not

finally decided by authority. Happily, the present work is one about which

there can be no difference of opinion. It is a thoroughly learned, and at

the same time a readable and plain history of the first foundation of

Christianity by Christ and his apostles; and we feel sure that it will

contribute much to the edification of all who read it.

Poems. By Eliza Allen Starr. 12mo, pp.

224. Philadelphia: H. McGrath.

Miss Starr is already favorably known to the readers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD

by various poetical contributions to our pages. She writes with remarkable

grace and tenderness, with a very beautiful simplicity of style, and a

religious elevation of thought which ought to make her volume welcome in

every good Christian family.

{717}

The poetic impulse with her is neither a morbid yearning to sing imaginary

woes, nor a mere fancy for the jingle of sweet words. Her verses express

genuine and healthy feeling, and their tone is most melodious when her harp

is strung to sacred themes. There is at times a mild tinge of melancholy in

the book--a melancholy as of one who has suffered and struggled; but

through it all shines the radiance of religious happiness, as though it

were not all imaginary which the author sings in the character of "The

Sacristan":

"Within thine altar's shade,

Lord, I my nest have made,

No more to roam:

Thine own abiding-place

Is mine for future space,

My rest, my home.

....

"The earth, the air, the sea

Rejoice to serve with me,

With me to wait;

For prostrate nature sighs

To see her Lord disguise

His heavenly state."

The little poem entitled "Espousals" is also full of real, unaffected

piety:

"Haste to thy nuptials sweet

With glowing feet,

Thy inmost chamber fair,

O heart! prepare,

Therein, with joy, to bring

Thy spouse and king.

"I see his coming light

Disperse my night!

O radiant orb of day!

Thou may'st delay

To quench thy feeble rays

In heaven's own blaze.

"Lo! seraph tongues of flame

Announce that name

Whose echoed sweetness clings

Where'er it rings;

And thus informs with sound

Remotest bound.

"O happy ears! attend,

And lowlier bend!

I feel his noiseless pace

Through heaven's blue space;

The stars but strew his floor,

And thus adore.

"Celestial presence dear!

Thou Godhead near!

I yield my soul, my sense;

Omnipotence!

Behold, prepared, thy throne;

Oh! claim thine own!"

In a different strain, but very pretty and delicate, is the following

"Song of Welcome":

"My lonely days grew lonelier,

The shadows spread apace,

When on me, like a morning sun,

Arose thy smiling face:

Sad tears, sad tears, my joyful cheeks,

Keep not of you a trace.

"The summer skies which o'er me bend

In beauty so benign

Are not so blue as the happy eyes

Now beaming into mine!

Heart's love, heart's love, what sun could cheer

If thine should cease to shine!"

We commend Miss Starr's little volume with all heartiness, and we rejoice

that American Catholic literature has received so welcome an addition to

its scanty poetical stores. We ought not to omit a word of compliment to

the publisher for the liberal manner in which he has brought it out. The

rich cream paper, the clear type, and the excellent binding are signs of a

new era in the Catholic book manufacture at which we all must rejoice.

First Historical Transformations of Christianity.

From the French of Athanase Coquerel the Younger,

by E. P. Evans, Ph.D. 12mo. Boston: W. V. Spencer, 1867.

This is a very weak and flippant production from the pen of a French

rationalistic Protestant, who imagines that he is a philosopher of history.

He pretends to show us various forms which pure Christianity has been made

to assume by the different apostles, doctors, or sects who in turn took

upon themselves to be its expositors. Of course, as Monsieur Coquerel the

Younger would think, they each and all made bad work of it, from St. Peter

down to the last publishing medium of spiritism. It is truly deplorable

that the pure Christianity which Monsieur Coquerel the Younger now sees in

all its simplicity should have had the misfortune to be thus Judaized,

Hellenized, Paulized, Peterized, Joannized, Romanized, and diversely

_ized_ by the Fathers of the church and heretics; and may we not also

add, Protestantized and Coquerelized?

{718}

Let us see what is the Christianity of Jesus according to Monsieur

Coquerel's gospel: "In short, the whole instruction of Jesus can be

included in the following formula: the work to be accomplished is the reign

of God in all consciences; the universal motive through which this reign is

to be established, the essential fact of this reign, is love, of which the

twofold manifestation is pardon and new or eternal life; and these two

manifestations presuppose two facts, whose certainty has no need of proof--

sin and immortality. Thus reducing all Christianity to a single formula, it

may be said that Jesus revealed to all sinners the eternal compassion of

the God of holiness, their Father." (P. 65.) This cant about pardon and the

new life in the mouth of one who rejects the divinity of Jesus Christ, who

is unwilling to impose the belief in his miracles upon any sincere

Christian, (_sic_,) and who thinks the doctrine of hell is rank

nonsense, would need explanation, did we not gather from a previous

sentence that Monsieur Coquerel the Younger is as shallow a theologian as

he is a philosopher. Speaking of our Lord, he says: "He has such an

absolute certainty of the power of God, and of the efficacy of the good and

the true; such a full confidence in the perfectibility of guilty man; such

a high esteem for human nature, _wholly sinful_ as it is, that, in his

eyes, the elevation, the healing, the salvation, the enfranchisement of

every soul that is willing to return to God and love him are not an object

of the slightest doubt." (P. 64.) Beside this we place one other quotation,

which we think will suffice: "Liberal Protestants are constantly asked

where they would fix the boundary which separates Christians from those who

are not Christians. _Each man has the right to solve this formidable

problem in the light of his own conscience!_" (P. 75.) And this man

pretends to lecture the world for transforming Christianity to suit its own

notions! We would advise Monsieur Coquerel the Younger to review his logic.

Critical And Social Essays,

reprinted from the New York Nation.

12mo, pp. 230. New York: Leypoldt & Holt.

It is a good deal to say of a newspaper nowadays that it is possible to

collect from its columns in the course of two years a whole volume of

essays passably well worth preserving. And many of the essays in this neat

little book are much better than passable. Of course one does not look for

deep philosophy or strikingly original thought in the ephemeral papers

dashed off for a week's entertainment, and sent flying over the country on

the wings of the periodical press. It is enough if the subject be

attractive, the argument mainly just, the style fluent, and now and then

striking. The essays from _The Nation_ generally fulfil these

conditions, and afford very agreeable recreation for odd intervals of

leisure. The cold and almost cynical spirit of criticism, and the utter

lack of enthusiasm and sympathy, which have done so much to deprive _The

Nation_ of that influence in public affairs to which its literary merit

entitles it, appear in a more favorable light in the pages of a book than

in the columns of a periodical. Book-readers have time to appreciate graces

of style, and to roll sweet morsels of thought and phrase under their

tongues; but the journalist in America must deal with a different public,

and must serve them with coarser materials. His weapon must be not the

scalpel or the lancet, but the axe and the bludgeon.

Fathers And Sons. A Novel.

By Ivan Sergheievitch Turgenef.

Translated from the Russian, with the approval

of the author, by Eugene Schuyler, Ph. D.

12mo, pp. 248. New-York: Leypoldt & Holt.

The object of this novel is to contrast the generation which is just

passing away in Russia with the generation that is taking its place--the

old lords of the soil, still half-bewildered by the inroads of civilization

upon their semi-savage life, and the young party of progress, intoxicated

with the new ideas of emancipation, the new learning, the new habits, and

the new morality which is fast breaking up the old Tartar feudalism. We can

well believe the translator's assertion that a tempest was raised by the

appearance of the book in Russia. The portraits are flattering to neither

generation, and they are so life-like that it is impossible to doubt they

are substantially accurate representations of both. As a work of fiction,

Fathers and Sons is particularly interesting to us. Artistically speaking,

it is a very good novel indeed, and it is moreover almost the first glimpse

we have had of the fictitious literature of a country toward which

Americans are, whether rightly or wrongly, especially attracted. It gives

us a better view of daily life in Russia than any book of travel or

observation with which we are acquainted--better not only because clearer,

but also because it is of necessity perfectly undistorted.

{719}

But the picture is painful enough. For most of the characters in the story

the author evidently has no love; but even the best of them are singularly

unamiable. And we close the volume with the reflection that, if there is no

better life in Russia than the life he paints; if the men and women whom he

brings before us are fair types of the average culture and virtue of the

empire; if the fathers have no intelligence, and the sons neither human

affection nor religion, the future of Russia must be far different from

what modern writers are fond of predicting. The morality of the story is

bad, but its badness is so transparent that it can hurt nobody. There is an

offensive tinge of sensualism in it, too, and this is less apparent, and

therefore more dangerous.

Barbarossa: A Historical Novel of the Seventh Century.

By Conrad Von Bolanden.

1 vol. 12mo, pp. 486. Philadelphia: Eugene Cuminiskey. 1867.

The historical novel is a difficult one to write. To strictly follow the

bare facts of history will make the work dull to most readers of light

literature; and to allow the imagination full play in working out its

scenes and representing them as if they had been actual occurrences will

offend the student of history. The middle ages, however, are full of matter

for the historical novelist. We have too few gleaners in this prolific

field. We can remember only one attempt of the kind in the English language

within the last decade of years. William Bernard McCabe, in his "Bertha,"

has done good service toward making known, in a popular manner, the designs

of the Emperor Frederick to become universal emperor, or _Pontifex

Maximus_, as he hoped to be one day called.

The present work is a translation from the German, and describes the

political workings of Frederick's ambition; his conquests in Italy, and the

capture of Rome; his attempt to set up and install in that city his tool,

the antipope Pascal, in opposition to the lawful successor of St. Peter,

Alexander III.; all these events are well told. The interest of the story

is kept up by introducing two lovers--a knight, the follower of Frederick,

and an Italian lady, who, of course, marry at the conclusion of the tale.

The character of Frederick's prime minister, Dassel, is well portrayed, and

shows that, with all the emperor's strength of mind, he was, after all,

only the puppet of his wily minister.

A little more elegance might have been observed by the translator,

especially in the first part of the story, where carelessness and

incorrectness of expression occur several times. For instance, we are told

in one sentence that "Suddenly Otho of Wittelsbach advanced hurriedly,"

which sounds too much after the fashion of a _Ledger_ story. Again,

news is brought to Frederick of the surrender of Cinola to the Milanese,

when the following dialogue occurs: "What is the strength of the Milanese?"

"About three hundred men." "Have they burned the castle?" "_I am ignorant

of that fact, sire._"

But these are, after all, but slight defects, and do not mar the beauty of

the tale. We can heartily recommend the work to the readers of light

literature, as both instructive and entertaining, two things which are not

always combined in the historical novel.

Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia for 1866.

This volume is an improvement on the preceding one, in one respect at

least, that is, in the summary which it gives of the progress of the

physical sciences. It contains, as usual, a condensed history of the year,

and is ornamented with fine, spirited engravings of three very notorious

public characters: the King of Prussia, Bismarck, and Girabaldi. It is well

worthy of a place in every library, and is, in fact, almost indispensable

as a book of reference.

Notes On Doctrinal And Spiritual Subjects.

By the late Frederick W. Faber, D.D., of the Oratory.

Vol. II. London: Richardson & Son. New York:

The Catholic Publication Society.

With the character of Father Faber's writings most of our readers are well

acquainted, and we have already given a special notice of them in a review

of the first volume of this work. The present volume contains a large

number of his hitherto unpublished writings, among which are sketches of

discourses upon the notes of the church, treatises upon the sacrament,

controversial lectures spiritual conferences, and various miscellaneous

papers.

{720}

They are of especial value to the younger members of our clergy, to whom we

commend them as furnishing ample matter for sermons, instructions, and

lectures.

The Man With the Broken Ear.

Translated from the French of Edmond About,

by Henry Holt. 12mo, pp. 254. New York: Leypoldt & Holt.

The ingenuity and wit of this story cannot make amends for its grossness.

The novels of M. About's previously rendered into English were enough to

show that he cared nothing for the good opinion of Catholics, and in this

grotesque tale he has equally shown his disregard for the tastes of refined

people of every creed. Still, it is fair to say in his praise that the

contrasts of character which form the chief feature of the book are

admirably managed, and the dialogue sparkles with vivacity. Mr. Holt, who

is both publisher and translator, has acquitted himself in his double

function with noteworthy credit.

Cummiskey's Juvenile Library: Florie's Series.

12 vols. 16mo. Translated from the French.

E. Cummiskey, Publisher, 1037 Chestnut street, Philadelphia.

This is a very interesting series of children's stories. They are well

translated and published in good style.

Stories On The Commandments

Caroline; Or, Self Conquest

The Seven Corporal Works Of Mercy and Matie's Troubles.

P. F. Cunningham, Philadelphia.

Those three volumes are an addition to this publisher's well-selected list

of tales for the young. Although they are published in the same style as

The Young Catholic Library, the stock and workmanship is much inferior.

Books for children's use should be published in a more durable form.

Beauties Of Faith; Or, Power Of Mary's Patronage.

Leaves from the Ave Maria. P. O'Shea, New York.

The first part of this volume is taken up with short stories illustrative

of the power of Mary's patronage. The second part contains the beautiful

story of Cobina, by Mrs. Anna H. Dorsey. Altogether it forms a volume of

very interesting matter.

Coaina, The Rose Of The Algonquins.

By Mrs. Anna H. Dorsey. P. O'Shea, New York.

Since writing the above, the story of Coaina comes on our table in another

shape from the same publisher. This is a charming Indian tale. We cannot

see the wisdom of using it to swell the bulk of the volume of selections

mentioned above, after having issued it as a separate volume. If those who

have facilities for publishing would give us translations or reprints of

the many excellent books of this kind published in France, Germany, and

England, they would do us greater service.

Manual of the Lives of the Popes, Etc.

By J. C. Earle. Reprinted from the

English Edition. Baltimore: Murphy & Co.

This neatly printed little book is useful as a catalogue of the popes, and

a record of some of the principal facts in their reigns. It has no critical

value in regard to disputed or doubtful questions, and pretends to none.

Books Received.

From P. O'Shea, New York. The Science of Happiness;

or, Beatitudes in Practice. By Madame Bourdon. 1 vol. 16mo. Price, $1.

From D. Appleton & Co., New York. Appleton's

Hand-Book of American Travel. By E. Hall. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 283.

From Leypoldt & Holt, New York. Co-operative

Stores; their History, Organization, and Management.

Based on the recent German work of Eugene Kichter. pp. 131. Price, 50

cents.

From P. O'Shea, New York. Rosa Immaculata; or,

The Tower of Ivory, or the House of Anna and Joachim.

By Mary Josephine. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 250. Price, $2.

------

{721}

The Catholic World

Vol. V., NO. 29. September, 1867.

"Rome or Reason." [Footnote 247]

[Footnote 247: The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century.

By Francis Parkman. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. 1867. 8vo, pp. 468.

The Professor at the Breakfast-Table; with the Story of Iris. By Oliver

Wendell Holmes. Boston; Ticknor & Fields. 1866. 12mo, pp. 410.

Rationalism and Catholicism. Inquirer, Cincinnati, May 26, 1867.]

Mr. Parkman understands and describes very well the Indian character--a

very simple character, and within the range of his comprehension. There is

nothing deep or impenetrable in the Indian, and his ideas, habits, and

customs are invariable. He is a child in simplicity, but he is cunning,

fierce, treacherous, ferocious, more of a wild beast than a man--a true

savage, nothing more, nothing less. Mr. Parkman has lived with him, studied

his character and ways, and may, as to him, be trusted as a competent and

faithful guide, save when there is a question of superstition, in which the

Indian abounds, or of religion, which he accepts with more docility and

ease than many learned and scientific white men.

Mr. Parkman may also be trusted for the purely material facts of the Jesuit

missions among the Indians in the seventeenth century, and he narrates them

in a style of much artistic grace and beauty; but of the motives which

governed the missionaries, of their faith and charity, as well as of their

whole interior spiritual life, he understands less than did the "untutored

Indian." His judgments, reflections, or speculations on the spiritual

questions involved are singularly crude, marked by a gross ignorance not at

all creditable to a son of "The Hub." He claims to be enlightened, to be a

man of progress, and he has indeed advanced as far as Sadduceeism, which

believes in neither angel nor spirit; but the savage retains more of the

elements of Christian faith than he appears to have attained to. He is

struck, as every one must be, by the self-denial, the disinterestedness,

the patient toil, the unwearying kindness, superiority to danger or death,

and heroic self-sacrifices and martyrdom of the missionaries; but he sees

in them only the workings of a false faith, superstitious missions, and a

fanatic zeal. The Jesuit who left behind all the delights and riches of

civilization, gave up all that men of the world hold most dear, braved all

the dangers of the forest, of the savage, performed fatiguing journeys,

underwent the inclemencies of the climate and the seasons, suffered hunger

and thirst, in want of all things, submitted to captivity, tortures,

mutilations, and death, was, in his judgment, a poor, deluded man; his

faith, which bore him up or bore him onward, was an illusion, and his

charity, which never failed or grew cold, was only an honest but mistaken

zeal! Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles?

{722}

It cannot be said that Mr. Parkman has overrated the marvellous labors and

sacrifices of the Jesuits for the conversion of the North American Indians;

but he is mistaken in supposing that they stand out as anything singular or

extraordinary in the general history of Catholic missions. They did well;

they were brave, indefatigable, self-denying, heroic, and cold must be the

heart that can read their story without emotion; but their high qualities

and virtues are due to their general character as Catholics, not to their

special character as Jesuits. Non-Catholic writers are very apt to consider

that Jesuits are a peculiar sect, in some way distinguishable from the

Catholic Church, and that their merits belong to them not as Catholic

priests and missionaries, but as Jesuits. What Mr. Parkman admires in them

is really admirable; but its glory is due to Catholic faith and charity,

which the Jesuit has in common with all Catholics, and he has toiled no

harder, braved no more dangers, suffered no greater hardships, or a more

cruel and horrid death, or met them with a spirit no more heroic than have

other Catholic missionaries among heretics and infidels, from the apostles

down to the last martyr in China, Anam, or Oceanica. It has been only by

such suffering and such deeds as Mr. Parkman narrates, that the world has

been converted to the Christian faith and retained in the Catholic Church.

At all times, since the descent of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost,

has the Catholic Church nursed in her bosom, and sent into the world to

preach Christ and him crucified, men not at all inferior in faith and love,

in patient endurance, and heroic self sacrifice to the Jesuit missionaries

among the North American Indians. She has never wanted laborers,

confessors, martyrs; and a religion that never fails to create and inspire

them is not, and cannot be, a false religion, a delusion, a fanaticism. It

is only in the Catholic Church you find or have ever found them. Let her

have the credit of them.

The Professor at the Breakfast Table has been for some time before the

public, and every body has read it. Its author has, we believe, a high

reputation in the medical profession, and certainly has attained to

distinction as a poet and as a writer of prose fiction. He has wit and

pathos, a lively imagination, and a keen sense of the ludicrous. The snake

portion of his Elsie Vonner is horrible, but several of the characters in

that remarkable book are admirably drawn--are real New England characters,

drawn as none but a New Englander could draw them, and perhaps, none but a

New Englander can fully appreciate. He is like many of the descendants of

the old Puritans, who, having lost all faith in the Calvinism of their

ancestors, still identify it with Christianity, and float in their feelings

between the memory of it and a vague rationalism and sentimentalism which

is simply no belief at all. He would like to be a Christian, to feel that

he has faith, something on which he can rest his whole weight without fear

of its giving way under him, but he knows not where to look for it. He

finds many attractions in the Catholic Church, but, thinking that she holds

what so offends him in the faith of his ancestors, he dares not trust her.

There is a large class of educated, thinking, and even serious-minded

Americans who turn away from the church and refuse to consider her claims,

not because she differs from the Protestantism in which they have been

reared, but because she does not, in her spirit and teaching, differ enough

from it. Those outside of the church, and who credit not the evangelical

cant against her, identify her teaching with Jansenism, regard Jansenists

as the better class of Catholics, and Jansenism is a form of Calvinism, and

Calvinism is a system of pure supernaturalism, while the active American

mind cannot consent that nature should count in the

religious life for nothing.

{723}

It would, perhaps, relieve them a little if they knew that not only the

Jesuits condemned Jansenism, but the church herself condemns it, and

Jansenists are as much out of the pale of the church as are Calvinists or

Lutherans themselves. So-called orthodox Protestants were formerly in the

habit of charging Catholics with rationalism and Pelagianism, and even now

accuse them of denying the doctrines of grace or salvation through the

merits and grace of Jesus Christ. This fact alone should suffice to teach

such men as the Professor at the Breakfast-Table that the difference

between Catholicity and Puritanism is much greater than they suppose.

The Professor, in defending himself against the change of want of respect

for Puritanism, says, pp. 154-155: "I don't mind the exclamation of any old

stager who drinks Madeira worth from two to six Bibles a bottle, and burns,

according to his own premises, a dozen souls a year in segars, with which

he muddles his brains. But as for the good and true and intelligent men we

see all around us, laborious, self-denying, hopeful, helpful--men who know

that the active mind of the age is tending more and more to the two poles,

Rome and Reason, the sovereign church or the free soul, authority or

personality, God in us or God in our masters, and that, though a man may by

accident _stand_ half-way between these two points, he must

_look_ one way or the other--I don't believe they would take offence

at anything I have reported." From the connection in which this is said,

and the purpose for which it is said, it is clear that the Professor holds

that the active mind of this century is tending either Romeward or

Reasonward, that the doctrines held by his Puritan ancestors and so-called

orthodox Protestants can be sustained only by the authority of a sovereign

church, and that we must accept such authority, or give up all dogmatic

belief, and allow the free, unrestricted use of reason.

The writer in the Cincinnati Inquirer seems to agree with him. A certain

Protestant minister, an Anglican, we presume, had said in a sermon, that

"the church's greatest enemies are now Catholicism and rationalism." The

writer, in commenting on this proposition, says: "Catholicism is the

theology of authority; rationalism, the theology of reason;" and

"Protestantism is Catholicism with a dash of rationalism, or rationalism

with a dash of Catholicism." Both represent Catholicity and reason as

standing opposed each to the other, as two opposite poles, and each makes

as does the age no account of the _via media_ church receiving the

shots of both reason and authority, and discharging its double battery in

return against each.

Now, is it not time that thinking men, and authors who claim intelligence

and mean to be just, should stop this contrasting of Rome or authority and

reason? The cant has become threadbare, and men of reputation and taste

should lay it aside as no longer fit for use. It does not by any means

state the fact as it is, for there is not the least discrepancy between the

church and reason, nor is there, in accepting and believing the revealed

word of God on the authority of the church proposing it, the least

surrender of reason or nature. The Catholic has all of reason that belongs

to human nature, and full opportunity to exercise it; and his soul is as

free as the soul can be, and he is, in fact, the only man that has really a

free soul. If God is in his masters, he is also in him. He has no less

internal light because he has external light, and no less internal freedom

because he has external authority. The Professor is quite mistaken in

presenting the church and reason as two opposite poles. Nay, his

illustration is not happy, for the two poles, if we speak geographically,

belong to one and the same globe, and are equally essential to its form and

completeness, and, if we speak magnetically, and mean positive and negative

poles, they are only the two modes in which one and the same substance or

force operates, and certainly in Catholic faith both authority and reason

are alike active, and mutually concur in producing one and the same result.

{724}

It is only when we borrow our views of Catholicity from the theology of the

Reformation, or suppose that it is substantially the same, that the

authority of the church can be regarded as opposed to reason or repugnant

to nature. He who has read the fathers has discovered in them no abdication

of reason or want of intellectual freedom; and he who is familiar with the

mediaeval doctors knows that no men can use reason more freely or push it

further than they did. Melchior Cano, a theologian of the sixteenth

century, in his Locis Theologicis, a work of great authority with

Catholics, enumerates natural reason as one of the common-places of

theology, whence arguments may be drawn to prove what is or is not of

faith. A school of philosophers have latterly sprung up among Catholics,

called traditionalists, who would seem to deny reason and to found science

on faith; but they have fallen under censure of the Holy See, and been

required to recognize that reason precedes faith, and that faith comes as

the complement of science, not as preceding or superseding it. By far the

larger part of the errors condemned in the syllabus of errors attached to

the Encyclical of the Holy Father, dated at Rome, 8th of December, 1864,

are errors that tend to destroy reason and society. The church has always

been vigilant in vindicating natural reason and the natural law.

But the Reformation was a complete protest against reason and nature, and

the assertion of extreme and exclusive supernaturalism. In Luther's

estimation reason was a stupid ass. The reformers all agreed in asserting

the total depravity of human nature, and in maintaining the complete moral

inability of man. According to the reformed doctrines, man never actively

concurs with grace, but in faith and justification is wholly impotent and

passive. Man can think only evil, and the works he does prior to

regeneration, however honest or benevolent, are not simply imperfect, but

positively sins. This was the reformed theology which the writer of this

article had in his boyhood and youth dinged into him till he well-nigh lost

his reason. The church has never tolerated any such theology, and they who

place her and reason in opposition are really, whether they know it or not,

charging her with the errors of Protestantism, which she has never ceased,

in the most public, formal, and solemn manner, to condemn. There are, no

doubt, large numbers included under the general name of Protestants, who

imagine that the Reformation was a great movement in behalf of intelligence

against ignorance, of reason against authority, mental freedom against

mental bondage, of rational religion against bigotry and superstition; but

whoever has studied the history of that great movement knows that it was no

such thing--the furthest from it possible. It was a retrograde movement,

and designed in its very essence to arrest the intellectual and theological

progress of the race. Its avowed purpose was the restoration of primitive

Christianity, which, whatever plausible terms might be adopted, meant, and

could mean only, to set the race back some fifteen hundred years in its

march through the ages, and to eliminate from Christendom all that

Christianity for fifteen centuries had effected for civilization. The

Protestant party, was by its own avowal, the party of the past, and, if

there are Protestants who are striving to be the party of the future, they

succeed only by leaving their Protestantism behind, or by transforming it.

The church has always been on the side of freedom and progress, and the

normal current of humanity has flowed and never ceased to flow from the

foot of the cross down through her communion; and whatever life-giving

water has flowed into Protestant cisterns, it has been from the

overflowings of that current, always full.

{725}

You who are outside of it, save in the application of the truths of science

to the material arts, have effected no progress. You have worked hard, have

been often on the point of some grand discovery, but only on the point of

making it, and are as far from the goal as you were when Luther burnt the

papal bull, or suffered the devil to convince him of the sin of saying

private masses. You have always found your works after a little while

needing to be recast, and that your systems are giving way. You have been

constantly doing and undoing, and never succeeding. Save in the physical

sciences and some achievements in the material world, you are far below

what you were when you started. Of course, you do not believe it, because

you confound change with progress, and you count getting rid of your

patrimony increasing it. It is idle to tell you this, for you have already

fallen so low that you place the material above the spiritual, and the

knowledge of the uses of of steam above the knowledge and love God.

Rome or reason, Rome or liberty, is not the true formula of the tendencies

of the age; nor is it Catholicism or rationalism, but Catholicity or

naturalism. The extremes opposed to Catholicity are, on the one hand,

exclusive supernaturalism, or a supernaturalism that condemns and excludes

the activity of nature, and, on the other, exclusive naturalism, or a

naturalism that denies and excludes all communion between God and man, save

through natural laws, or laws impressed on nature by its Creator, and held

to bind both him and it. Your evangelicals are exclusive supernaturalists,

as were the great body of the Protestant reformers; Auguste Comte, J.

Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Mr. Parkman, and the Professor are exclusive

naturalists, who deny the reality of all facts or phenomena not explicable

by natural laws or natural causes. All the sciences, since Bacon, are

constructed on naturalistic principles, and theology, philosophy, or

metaphysics, which cannot be constructed without the recognition of the

supernatural, are rejected by our _savans_ as vain speculations or

idle theories without any basis in reality. They belong to the age of

ignorance and superstition, and will never be recognized in an age of light

and science. As the church clings to them, insists upon them, she is behind

the age, and they who adhere to her are to be tolerated and pitied as we

tolerate and pity idiots and the insane, unless, indeed, they are clothed

with more or less power; then, indeed, we must make war on them and

exterminate them.

Few who have studied this age with any care will question the fidelity of

this picture. The active living mind of this age unquestionably tends

either to this exclusive naturalism or to the Catholic Church, which is the

synthesis of the natural and the supernatural, of authority and freedom,

reason and faith, science and revelation. Protestantism, which is exclusive

supernaturalism, it is becoming pretty well understood, cannot be

sustained. It cannot be sustained by reason, for it rejects reason; it

cannot be sustained by authority, for in rejecting the church it has cast

off all authority, but that of the state, which has no competency in

spirituals. It has supported its dogmas, as far as it has supported them at

all, on Catholic tradition, the validity of which it denies. This cannot

last, for, where people are free to think and have the courage to reason

without let or hinderance from the state, they will not long consent to

affirm and deny tradition in one and the same breath. They will either fall

into the naturalistic ranks or be absorbed by the Catholic Church, and it

is useless to trouble ourselves with them as Protestants.

The naturalists or rationalists, by far the most numerous, and in most

Protestant or non-Catholic states already the governing body, are repelled

from the church by their supposition that all the substantial difference

between her and Jansenists or Calvinists is, that in the one case

super-naturalism is taught and explained by a living authority, claiming a

divine commission, and in the other it is not taught at all, but collected

by grammar and lexicon from a book said to have been written by divine

inspiration.

{726}

The Catholic theory is the more logical and more attractive of the two, but

both alike discard reason, and insist on the submission of the

understanding to an external authority, and it matters little whether the

authority is that of the church or of a book written many ages ago. In

either case the faith is proposed on authority, which assumes to command

the reason and to deprive the soul of her natural freedom. I am forbidden

to think and follow my own convictions, and must, on pain of everlasting

perdition, believe what others bid me, whether it accords with my own

reason or not. This, we take it, is the view entertained by the worthy

Professor, and the writer of this many years ago preached it, and counted

the Professor himself among his hearers, if not among his disciples. Now,

we need not, after the explanation we have given, say that this view is

altogether wrong. The Protestant asserts the supernatural in a sense that

excludes or supersedes nature, and, therefore, natural reason; the Catholic

adopts as his maxim, _Gratia supponit naturam_, and asserts the

supernatural as the complement of the natural, or as healing,

strengthening, and elevating it to the plane of the supernatural, or a

destiny far superior to any possible natural beatitude. This is in the

outset a very important difference, for, if grace supposes nature, the

supernatural the natural, the authority on which we are required to believe

the supernatural may aid, may strengthen, or illumine natural reason, but

cannot supersede it or deprive it of any of its natural activity and

freedom. The supernatural adds to the natural, according to Catholic faith,

but takes nothing from it. The prejudice excited by Protestantism against

the supernatural cannot bear against it as asserted by Catholicity.

But we would remind our naturalistic friends that nature does not suffice

for itself. It is impossible by nature alone to explain the origin or

existence of nature. The ancients tried to do it, but they failed. Some

attempted to do it by the fortuitous combination of eternally existing

atoms, others made the universe originate in fire, in water, in air or

earth, as some moderns try to develop it from a primitive rock or gas, or

suppose it originally existed in a liquid or a gaseous state, whence it has

grown into its present form. But whence the primitive rock or the gas?

whence the fire, water, air, or earth? whence the original germ? Naturalism

has no answer. We have a natural tendency, strong in proportion to the

strength and activity of our reason, to seek the origin, the principles,

the causes of things, but this tendency nature can not satisfy, because

nature has not her origin, principle, or cause in herself. For this reason

Mr. Herbert Spencer relegates origin and end, principles and causes, and

whatever pertains to them to the region of the unknowable, and maintains

that we can know only phenomena, and therefore that science consists simply

in observing, collecting, and classifying phenomena, not in the explication

of phenomena by reducing them to their principle and referring them to

their cause or causes.

We can know phenomena, but not noumena, is asserted by the reigning

doctrine among physicists, which is as complete a denial of reason as can

be found in any of the reformers. It reduces our intelligence to a level

with that of the brutes that perish, for what distinguishes our

intelligence from theirs is precisely reason, which is the faculty of

attaining to principles or causes--first causes and final causes--both in

the intellectual and the moral order, while brutes have intelligence only

of phenomena. Hence, philosophers, who define things _per genus et per

differentiam_, define man a rational animal, or animal plus reason.

{727}

To our physicists, like the Lyells and the Huxleys, or to such philosophers

as Mr. Stuart Mill, who knows not whether he is Mr. Stuart Mill or somebody

else, whether he is something or nothing, this amounts to very little; for

they, the physicists, we mean, are specially engaged in collecting facts to

prove that man is only a developed chimpanzee or gorilla, and that the

human intelligence differs only in degree from the brutish. But, then, what

right have they to complain that belief in the supernatural tends to

degrade human nature, to deprive reason of its dignity, and man of his

glory? Moreover, this restriction of our power of knowing to simple

phenomena, never satisfies reason, which would know not only phenomena, but

noumena, and not only noumena, but principles, causes, the principle of

principles and the cause of causes, the origin and end of all things, that

is, God, and God as he is in himself. You cannot, except by brutalizing men

to the last degree, suppress this interior craving of reason to penetrate

all mysteries, to explore all secrets, and to know all things, nor can you

by reason alone appease it. Do you propose to suppress nature, extinguish

reason, and call it promoting science, vindicating the dignity of man?

Reason can never be made to believe that all reality is confined to what

Mr. Herbert Spencer calls the knowable, and we the intelligible. There is

nothing of which reason is better or more firmly persuaded than that there

is more reality than she herself knows or can know. Reason asserts her own

limitations, and will never allow that she can know no more because there

is nothing more to be known. The intelligible does not satisfy her, because

in the intelligible alone she cannot find the explication of the

intelligible, or, in other words, she cannot understand the intelligible

without the superintelligible; for, though she cannot without divine

revelation grasp the superintelligible, she can know this much, that the

superintelligible is, and that in it the intelligible has its root, its

origin, cause, and explication. Here is a grave difficulty that every

exclusive rationalist encounters, and which is and can be removed only by

faith. Nature, reason; science alone never suffices for itself, as all our

savans know, for where their knowledge ends they invent hypotheses. It is

not that reason is a false or deceptive light, but that it is limited, and

we have not the attribute of omniscience any more than we have that of

omnipotence.

So is it with our craving for beatitude. Whether God could or could not

have so constituted man, without changing his nature as man, that he could

rest in a natural beatitude, that is, in a finite good, we shall not

attempt to decide; but this much we may safely assert, as the united

testimony of the sages and moralists of all ages and nations, and confirmed

by every one's own experience, that nothing finite, and whatever is natural

is finite, can satisfy man's innate desire for beatitude. "Man," says Dr.

Channing, "thirsts for an unbounded good." The sum of all experience on the

subject is given us by the wise king of Israel, "_Vanitas vanitatum, et

omnia vanitas_--Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." The eye is not

satisfied with seeing, the ear with hearing, nor the heart with knowing. We

turn away with loathing from the finite good as soon as possessed, and

which the moment before possession we felt would, if we had it, make us

happy. The soul spurns it, and cries out from the depths of her agony for

something that can fill up the void within her, and complete her happiness

by completing her being. We need not multiply words, for the fact is old,

and all the world knows it. Nature cannot satisfy nature, and the soul

looks, and must look beyond it, for her beatitude. So much is certain.

Hence it is that men in all ages and nations have never been able to

satisfy either their reason or their craving for happiness with nature

alone, and have, in some form, recognized a supernatural order, or a

reality of some sort above and beyond nature, whence comes nature herself.

{728}

Neither atheism, or the resolution of God into natural laws or forces, nor

pantheism, or the absorption of natural laws or forces into the Divine

Being itself, has ever been able to satisfy the man of a real philosophic

or scientific genius, because either is sophistical and self-contradictory.

Either is repugnant to the natural logic of the human understanding or the

inherent laws of thought. Even such naturalists as Agassiz and our Dr.

Draper find it necessary to recognize in some sense a Supreme Being or God,

although, for the most part, like the old Epicureans, they leave him idle,

with little or nothing to do. But God, if he exists at all, must be

supernatural, and the author of nature. If God is supernatural and the

creator of nature, he must have created nature for himself, and then nature

must have its origin and end in him, and therefore in the supernatural.

Man, then, has neither his origin nor end in the natural, and neither

without the supernatural is explicable or knowable; without a knowledge of

our origin and end, or an answer to the questions, whence came we? why are

we, and how? and whither go we? we can have no rule of life, cannot

determine the positive or the relative value of any line of conduct, and

must commit ourselves to the mercy of the winds and waves of an unknown

sea, without pilot, chart, rudder, or compass.

Nor is even this enough. Not only is the natural inexplicable without the

supernatural, but even the intelligible, too, is not intelligible without

the superintelligible, as we have already said. We know things, indeed, not

mere phenomena, but we do not know the essences of things, and yet we know

that there is and can be nothing without its essence, and that the ground

and root of what is intelligible in a thing is in its unknown and

superintelligible essence. So in the universe throughout. God, as creator,

as universal, eternal, necessary, immutable, and self-existent being, is

intelligible to us, and the light by which all that is intelligible to us

is intelligible; but we know that what is intelligible to us is not God in

his essence, and that what in him is intelligible to us has its source, its

reality, so to speak, in this very superintelligible essence. Hence it

follows that to real science of anything we need to know the supernatural,

and by faith, or analogical science, at least, the superintelligible. We

cannot satisfy nature without the science and possession of the essences or

substances of things, and therefore not without faith, "for faith is the

substance of things to be hoped for," the evidence of things not seen.

_Fides est rerum substantia sperandarum, argumentum non apparentium_,

according to St. Paul, who, even they who deny his inspiration, must yet

admit was the profoundest philosopher that ever wrote. We think he was so

because divinely inspired, but the fact that he was so no competent judge

can dispute. St. Augustine owes his immense superiority over Plato and

Aristotle chiefly to his assiduous study of the epistles of St. Paul, which

throw so strong a light not only on the whole volume of Scripture, but on

the whole order of creation, and the divine purpose in the creation and the

redemption, regeneration, justification, and glorification of man through

the incarnation of the Word, and the cross and passion of our Lord Jesus

Christ.

But as we can know even by faith the superintelligible, the unknowable of

Mr. Herbert Spencer, which even he dares not assert is unreal or

non-existent, only by divine or supernatural revelation, it follows, that

without such revelation, no science satisfactory to natural reason herself

is possible. There is, then, and can be no antagonism between revelation

and science, faith and reason, or supernatural and natural. The two are but

parts of one whole, each the complement of the other. This dialectic

relation of the two terms asserted by Catholic theology is denied by

Protestant theology either to the exclusion of nature and reason, or to the

exclusion of both the supernatural and the superintelligible, and hence the

dualism which rends in twain the whole non-Catholic world, and presents

revelation and science, reason and faith, authority and liberty, natural

and supernatural, church and state, heaven and earth, time and eternity,

God and man, as mutually hostile terms, forever irreconcilable.

{729}

The non-Catholic world does not know or it forgets that the church presents

the middle term that unites and reconciles them, and that the Catholic

feels nothing of this interior struggle of two mutually destructive forces

which rends the hearts and souls of the wisest of non-Catholics, not

because he does not think or has abdicated reason, as the Professor

imagines, but precisely because he does think, and thinks according to the

truth and reality of things. He has unquestionably his struggles between

the flesh and the spirit, between virtue and vice, between temptations to

sin and inspirations to holiness, but presents in his life none of those

fearful internal tragedies so frequently enacted among serious and earnest

non-Catholics, and which make up so large and so distressing a portion of

the higher and more truthful portion of non-Catholic literature.

Non-Catholic poetry, when not a song to Venus or Bacchus, is either a

fanciful description of external nature, scenes, and events, or a low wail

or a loud lament over the internal tragedies caused by the struggle between

faith and reason, belief and doubt, hope and despair, or vainly to

penetrate the mysteries of life and death, God and the universe. Catholic

poetry, Catholic literature throughout, knows nothing of those tragedies,

is peaceful and serene, and is therefore less interesting to those who are

not Catholics. We have (we speak personally) had some experience of those

interior struggles, and many a tragedy has been enacted in our own soul,

but it is with difficulty we can recall them; in the peace and serenity of

Catholic faith and hope they have almost faded from the memory, and yet the

period of our life since we became a Catholic has been with us the period

of our freest and most active and energetic thought. If we have worn

chains, we have not been conscious of them, and they certainly cannot have

been very heavy, or have eaten very deeply into the flesh. The reason of it

is that we find in Catholic faith and theology the two elements which in

the non-Catholic world are in perpetual war with each other, perfectly

reconciled, and mutually harmonized.

The peace the Catholic finds is not the sort of peace that was said to

reign in Warsaw. The Professor is greatly mistaken if he supposes it is

obtained by the suppression of reason, or that reason is forgotten in the

engrossing nature or artistic perfection of the external services of the

church. The offices of the church are beautiful, grand, and, if you will,

imposing, but they are all provocative of thought, meditation, reflection,

for they all symbolize the greatest of all mysteries--God dying for the

creature's sin, God become man, that man may become God. Take away this

great mystery, and the offices of the church become meaningless,

purposeless, powerless. Without faith in that mystery to which they all

refer, and which they at every instant recall, they would be no more

imposing than the pomp and music of a military review or a concert in

Central Park. From first to last they challenge our faith, and, if there

were any discrepancy between our faith and reason, they would in a

thoughtful mind bring it up in distinct consciousness, instead of

suppressing or making us forget it. A Lord John Russell could call the

sublime services of the church "mummery," and such do the mass of

Protestants regard them. To the profane all things are profane, and the

offices of the church are really edifying only to those who believe the

mystery of the Incarnation. Unbelievers who are not scoffers may admire

their poetry and the music which accompanies them, but would admire equal

poetry and music in the theatre just as much, and perhaps even more.

{730}

No; the peace of the Catholic is a real peace. Neither faith nor reason,

revelation nor science, authority nor liberty is suppressed; but all real

antagonism between them is removed, and they are seen and felt to be but

congruous parts of one dialectic whole. Peace reigns because the mutually

hostile parties are really reconciled, and made one. The Professor, no

doubt, will smile at our assertion, and set it down to our simplicity or

enthusiasm, but we have this advantage of him, that we know both sides, and

taught or might have taught him more than thirty years ago the philosophy

he brings out so racily at the breakfast table.

Our nature was constructed by the supernatural for the supernatural, and it

can no more live its normal life without a supernatural medium than it

could have sprung into existence without a cause above and independent of

itself. Regeneration is, therefore, as necessary to enable it to attain its

destiny or beatitude as generation was to usher it into natural existence.

Hence it is that, when men cast off in their belief and affections the

supernatural, and live as natural men alone, they sink even below their

normal nature, and lose even their natural light and strength, live only a

life which the Scriptures call death, the death which Adam underwent in

consequence of his disobedience to the divine order. When men undertake by

their simple natural reason to construct a system of philosophy, they

construct systems which natural reason herself rejects. Reason disdains her

own work, and hence pure rationalists never construct anything that will

stand, and they build up systems only to be demolished by themselves or

successors. Of the systems in vogue in our youth not one is now standing,

and we have seen them replaced by two or three new generations of systems

that have each in turn gone the way of all the earth; and, unless we

speedily follow them, we may be called to write the epitaphs of those now

revelling in the heyday of their young life. The thing is inevitable,

because our nature was made to act in synthesis with the supernatural, and

is only partially itself when compelled to operate by itself alone.

This fact that man's normal life demands the supernatural, and that his own

reason, though not able to know the superintelligible, or to say what it

is, yet assures him that there is a superintelligible, fits him by nature

to receive the supernatural revelation of the superintelligible; for it

only supplies an indestructible and deeply felt want of his nature. His

reason needs it and his nature craves it, and when receiving it relishes it

as the hungry man does wholesome and appropriate food. As the natural and

supernatural, the intelligible and superintelligible, are not contradictory

or mutually repellant orders, but parts of one complete and indissoluble

whole, only ordinary evidence is required to prove the fact of revelation;

and as God is infinitely true, truth itself, his word, when we know that we

have it, is ample authority, the highest possible, and the best of all

conceivable reasons, for believing the revelation. So faith in a

supernatural revelation, in whatever is proved to be the word of God, is,

so far from being repugnant to reason or requiring an abdication of reason,

the highest and freest act of reason possible.

The Professor objects to believing on the authority of the church, but we

do not believe the revelation on the authority of the church; we take on

her authority only the fact that it is divine revelation; the revelation

itself we believe on the veracity of God. But, if we considered the church

as a mere body, collection, or company of men, however wise, learned, or

honest we might regard them, we should not hold her authority sufficient

for believing that what she proposes as the revelation really is

revelation. Every man taken individually is fallible, and no possible

number, union, or combination of fallibles can make an infallible, and only

an infallible authority is competent to declare what God has or has not

revealed. The church is more than a collection, body, or company of

individuals, as the human race, what our liberals call humanity, is more

than an aggregation of individuals.

{731}

There is, indeed, no humanity without individuals, but it is not itself

individual, or dependent on individuals for its existence. The positivists,

who would call no individual man divine, pretend that humanity is divine,

and worship it as God. What the race is to individual men in the order of

generation, that, in some sense, is the church to them in the order of

regeneration. She lives not without them, but does not live by them. She is

the regenerated race, and bears to Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word, who

was with God and who is God, the relation, in the order of regeneration,

that the human race bears to Adam, its natural progenitor, and therefore

she lives a divine and human life, which she receives not from her members,

but imparts to them. Jesus Christ is the progenitor of regenerated

humanity, and this regenerated humanity is in the largest sense what we

call the church, in which sense it includes all the faithful, the laity as

well as their pastors and teachers.

The church, again, is the body of our Lord, in which dwelleth the Holy

Ghost. Individuals are to her what the particles which the body assimilates

are to the body. There is no body without them, yet they are not,

individually or collectively, the body. The life of the body is not derived

from them, for the body, by a vital process, assimilates them to itself,

not they the body to themselves. The body, when suffering from a fever or

when deprived of food, assimilates them only feebly, and wastes away or

grows thin, and, when dead, assimilates them not at all, which shows that

the vital power which carries on the process of assimilation is in the

body, not in the particles, a fact far better known to the Professor than

to us, and a fact, too, which may help remove the difficulties sciolists

imagine in the way of the resurrection of the body.

The vital power or principle which gives life to the body and enables it to

carry on the process of assimilation and elimination, the church teaches,

is the soul, for she has defined that the soul is the _form_ of the

body, _Anima est forma oorporis_. But this has nothing to do with our

present purpose. The vital principle, the life of the church, is our Lord

Jesus Christ himself. The Holy Ghost dwells in her as the soul in the body,

animates her, guides and directs her, and therefore is she one, holy and

Catholic, as he is one, holy and Catholic, infallible by his perpetual

presence and assistance as he is infallible. The Word incarnate explicates

his life in her as Adam explicates his life in the race. The infallibility

is from the presence and assistance of the Holy Ghost, and is in her very

interior life. The Word is in her, a living Word, and the infallibility

attaches to her, to this interior Word which she lives, but not to

individuals as such in her communion. The pope regarded as a man,

irrespective of his office, is no more infallible than he is impeccable, or

than is any Christian believer.

But the church as a body has her organs, and as a visible body she has

visible organs, through which she teaches the truth she has received and

expresses the life she lives. These organs are the bishops or pastors in

communion with their visible head, the successor in the See of Rome of

Blessed Peter, the Prince of the Apostles. We call them organs of the

church, inasmuch as the faith and love, the truth and life, they express is

her life, which in turn is the life of him who said, "Because I live ye

shall live also," and, "Behold, I am with you all days, even to the

consummation of the world!" and who expressly declares himself "the way,

the truth, and the life." The infallibility of the church comes from the

indwelling Word and the assistance of the Holy Ghost; the infallibility of

the organs comes from the infallibility of the church.

{732}

Now, supposing the church to be what we represent her to be, we presume

even the Professor will acknowledge her to be fully competent to teach

without error the revelation supernaturally made and committed to her, for

the revelation committed to her is deposited externally with her bishops

and pastors, and internally in her living and unfailing faith, in her very

life and interior consciousness. It is both a recorded and a present living

revelation, which she is living and explicating in her continuous activity,

the Word spoken from the beginning, and the Word speaking now. "Say not,"

says St. Paul, (Rom. x. 6-8,) "in thy heart: Who shall ascend into heaven?

that is, to bring Christ down: or who shall descend into the deep? that is,

to bring up Christ again from the dead. But what saith the Scripture? The

word is near thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: this is the word of

faith, which we preach." This was addressed by St. Paul to Christian

believers, "to all that are at Rome, the beloved of God, called to be

saints," and shows that the Christian not only hears the word in his ears,

but has it in his mouth, in his heart, that is, in his very life, and he

lives and breathes it. It is the very element of his soul, and he can have

no higher certainty, not even in case of a mathematical demonstration, than

he has that his faith is true, and that it is the living God he believes.

The Professor, then, in regard to the faithful, has no ground for asserting

as he does an antithesis between "Rome and reason, the sovereign church and

the free soul, God in our masters and God in us;" for Rome is the highest

reason, the sovereign church is both external and internal, and God is both

in us and in our teachers. We have not only the veracity of God as the

ground of our faith, but a divinely constituted and assisted medium of

bringing us to it, and sustaining it in us.

The church undoubtedly teaches the faith or divine revelation which has

been committed to her through her pastors and doctors. But the competency

of these to teach follows from the fact that they can teach only in union

with the church; that she authorizes their teaching, and is ever present to

correct them if they err, and that they are even externally commissioned by

our Lord himself to teach what he has revealed. A mere external commission,

which we know historically was given to the apostles and their successors,

would not of itself give the capacity to teach or ensure infallibility in

teaching; but he who has all power in heaven and in earth, who is God as

well as man, and is himself "the way, the truth, and the life," assuredly

would not, and could not, without belying his essential and immutable

nature, issue a commission to teach and command all nations to hear and

obey them as himself, without taking care that they should have the ability

to teach his word and to teach it infallibly. That he does this is pledged

in the very issue and in the words of the commission itself: "All power is

given to me in heaven and in earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all

nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of

the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have

commanded you; and, behold, _I am with you_ all days, even to the

consummation of the world." (St. Matt xxviii. 18-20.)

This external commission is all that needs to be proved by external

evidence to the world outside of the church, and there is no more intrinsic

difficulty in proving it than there is in proving the commission of George

Washington as general of the American army in the Revolution, of Lord

Raglan as commander-in-chief to the day of his death of the British forces

employed in the Crimean war, or any other historical fact whatever. The

unbroken existence of the church founded by the apostles from their day to

ours, and the uniform testimony she has universally and uninterruptedly

borne to the fact, would suffice to prove it, even had we no other proofs

or evidence. The church, without citing her in her supernatural character,

and taking her simply as an historical witness, is all that is needed, for

she is a standing monument of the fact.

{733}

In her corporate capacity she spans the whole distance of time from the

apostles, and at each intervening moment she has been a present witness of

the fact, testifying to what was present before her. The church as a

corporation, without any appeal to her mystic character, has not been

subject to any succession of time, has known no lapse of years, and is as

present today to the events of the apostolic times as she was when those

events occurred. She is at any moment we choose their contemporary, and, as

a contemporary witness to extraordinary facts, her testimony is as good for

us as was that of the apostles themselves to their personal contemporaries.

Indeed, it is literally and truly the same, for her corporate existence

from the time of the apostles to ours, or her historical identity, is

unquestionable.

We are not now citing the continuous existence of the church for anything

but the simple external fact of the external commission given by our Lord

himself to his apostles. To that fact, whatever you think of her, she is a

competent witness, and, having constantly testified to it from that day to

this, her testimony is conclusive. Assume, then, the fact of the external

commission, to which we who are Catholics need no external testimony, since

we find the highest of all possible testimony in the internal life of the

church, all the rest follows of itself. What the church believes, and

teaches through her pastors and doctors, or what they in unison with her

and her faith teach as the revelation of God committed to her, is his

revelation, and we believe it because we believe him. Then we believe she

is what she professes to be, the living body of our Lord, who lives in her

and is her life, and through whom the Holy Ghost carries on the work of

regeneration and glorification of all souls that do not resist him, but by

his assistance coöperate with him.

Now, where in all this, from the first to the last, find you any

discrepancy between Rome and Reason, the sovereign church and the free

soul, between God in us and God in our masters? There is no discrepancy.

There is more in it than natural reason by her own light knows, but nothing

against reason, or which reason does not feel that she needs for own full

and normal development. There is in it more than there is in nature,

because our destiny, our end, that is, our supreme good, like our origin,

lies in the supernatural order, not the natural, for our nature can be

satisfied with no finite or created good, and it needs no argument to prove

that the natural is not capable of itself of attaining to the supernatural.

To assert the supernatural as the means of elevating nature to the plane of

a supernatural destiny and of enabling it to reach it, assuredly is not to

discard or to depress nature.

The difficulties which exclusive rationalists and naturalists feel in the

case grow out of their supposition that Rome teaches that the intelligible

and superintelligible are identical with the natural and supernatural, and

that the natural and supernatural are two separate worlds, each standing

opposed to the other, or two contradictory plans or systems, with no real

nexus or medium of reconciliation between them, that is, that Rome, saving

her authority to teach and govern, teaches Protestantism. The intelligible

and superintelligible are distinguishable only in relation to our limited

intelligence, but in the real order are identical, one and the same, and

would be seen to be so by an intelligence capable of taking in all reality

at one view. The natural and supernatural are distinguishable, but not

separable, any more than is the effect from the cause. They are simply

distinct parts of one complete system, or one dialectic whole, united as

well as distinguished by the creative act of God. They are expressed, in

the Christian or teleological order, by the terms generation and

regeneration. Man is created by the supernatural, but the race is

explicated in the order of generation by natural laws; in the order of

regeneration, by the election of grace. Generation is initial; regeneration

is teleological, and completes generation, or places man on the plane of

his end, as generation places the individual on the plane of his natural

existence.

{734}

Now, it is clear that without generation there can be no regeneration, as

without regeneration the end is not attainable. The two terms express two

processes, or the two itineraries of creation--the procession of existences

from God as First Cause by way of creation and their explication by natural

laws, and the return of existences by means of supernatural grace to God,

without absorption in him, as their end or Final Cause. The natural order

or generation, the order explicated by natural laws, proceeds from and is

sustained by the supernatural, for God is supernatural, since he is the

author of nature; the end, or the final cause, is supernatural, since it is

in God; the medium of return, then, must be also supernatural, since the

natural is not and cannot be adequate to a supernatural end. Evidently,

then, there is and can be no opposition between the natural and

supernatural but the opposition between the cause and effect, the medium

and the end, the part and the whole. The supernatural is necessary to

originate, sustain, and complete the natural. Hence, the difficulties

created or suggested by Protestant theology have no place in relation to

the teachings of Rome. Protestantism escapes an eternal war only by

supposing either the natural or the supernatural; Rome escapes it by

reconciling the two, or presenting in the real order the medium of their

union.

We may now dispose of the question of miracles and supernatural visions,

etc., which excite the disdain or contempt of Mr. Parkman and his class of

thinkers or no-thinkers. Man exists from, by, and for the supernatural.

Christianity is supernatural, and is the medium, and the necessary medium,

by which man attains his end, or supreme good. It is teleological, and

hence the whole teleological life of man is supernatural. The supernatural

is that which God does immediately by himself; the natural is that which he

does mediately through the action of second causes or so-called natural

laws, as generation, germination, growth, etc., which are in the secondary

order explicable by natural or created causes. Now, as the supernatural is

the origin, medium, and end of man, and as Christianity or the teleological

order unites dialectically--really unites, as God and man are really united

in the Incarnation--the natural and supernatural, there is and can be no

_à priori_ difficulty or antecedent improbability that God, in

preparing the introduction in time of the Christian order, and in carrying

it on to the end for which he creates it, should intervene more or less

frequently by his direct and immediate action--action upon nature, if you

will, but without the agency of natural causes. The whole Christian order,

on its divine side, though included in the original plan or decree of

creation, is an intervention of this sort. Grace is the direct action of

God the Holy Ghost in regenerating the human soul, elevating it to the

plane of its destiny, and enabling it to persevere to the end. The part

assigned to natural agents is ministerial only, or signs through which

grace is signified. The direct and immediate action of God is normal in the

order of Christianity, and, therefore, in no sense repugnant to the order

of nature.

What, then, is a miracle? It is not a violation or suspension of the laws

of nature, but a specific effect in the visible order produced by the

direct and immediate action of God, for some purpose connected with the

teleological order of creation, or the order of regeneration as

distinguished from the order of generation. That he should do so from time

to time, as seems to him good, is only in analogy with the very order he

sustains for the perfection or completion of creation. There are, then, no

_à priori_ objections to miracles. Hume's pretence that no testimony

can prove a miracle, for it is more probable that men will lie than it is

that nature will go out of her course, is of no weight, because nature does

not work a miracle, nor does it in a miracle go out of its course.

{735}

The miracle is worked by God himself, and is in the teleological order of

nature. Being wrought in the visible order, a miracle is as probable and as

provable as any other historical event. The only questions are, is the

event not explicable by natural causes? and are the proofs sufficient to

prove it as an historical fact? No more evidence is needed to prove it than

is required to prove any historical fact in the natural order itself. If a

real miracle, it is as easily proven as a natural event.

No doubt many things pass for miracles which are explicable by natural

causes, and many visions are taken to be supernatural which have nothing

supernatural about them. We do not hold ourselves bound by our Catholic

faith to believe all the marvellous occurrences recorded in the lives of

the saints, or treated as such in popular tradition, were really miracles,

wrought by the direct and immediate action of the Almighty. We are bound to

believe only according to the evidence in each particular case. Credulity

is as little the characteristic of Catholics as is scepticism itself. We

are in relation to alleged particular miracles as free to exercise our

reason and judgment as we are in regard to any other class of alleged

historical facts, and to sift and weigh the testimony in the case. That

miracles are possible, are not improbable, have never ceased in the church,

and are daily wrought among the faithful, we fully believe; but, when it

comes to this or that particular fact or event alleged to be a miracle, we

exercise to the full our critical judgment, and follow what seems to us the

weight of evidence. The alleged appearance of our Lady to the young

shepherds of La Salette is possible and not improbable, but before we can

be required to believe it we must have sufficient evidence of the fact.

Mr. Parkman in his quiet way smiles at the credulity of the good Jesuit

fathers, who seem to believe the stories of Indian magic, witchcraft, or

sorcery which they relate; but has he any evidence that there is no Satan,

and that evil spirits are mere _entia rationis?_ Can he prove that

magic, witchcraft, sorcery, _diablerie_, in any or all its forms, is

impossible or even improbable? All the world from the earliest and in the

most enlightened ages have believed in what the Germans call the Night-side

of Nature, and no man has any right to allege so universal a belief is

unfounded, except on very strong and convincing reasons. Has he such

reasons? Can he disprove the whole series of facts recorded? Can he deny

the facts alleged by our modern necromancers or spiritists, or prove not

that some of them are, but that all of them, are explicable without the

supposition of some superhuman agency? Doubtless there is much illusion,

delusion, cheatery, but is there not also much inexplicable without satanic

influence? Can he say that there is no Satan, that there are no fallen

creatures superior to man in strength and intellect, who harass him, beset

him, possess him, or that tempt him, and perform lying wonders well fitted

to deceive him, and to draw him away from the worship of the true God,

though, of course, unable to harm against the consent of his will? Their

deviltry is superhuman, but not by any means supernatural, and they who

speak of it as supernatural entirely mistake its character. As in the case

of miracles, while we concede the general principle, when we come to

particular facts attributed to satanic agency, we use our critical

judgment, and are, we confess, very slow to believe, and hard to be

convinced.

We think we have said enough to prove that it is time to leave off the cant

about the despotism of Rome, and to desist from placing the church in

contrast with the free soul. The two poles are rationalism and

supernaturalism; Catholicity combines both in their real synthesis, a

synthesis founded in the creative act of God which really connects creator

and creature in one harmonious whole.

{736}

They who do not perceive it are ignorant of the teachings of Rome, and are

mere sciolists. They have taken only superficial views of both reason and

religion, and have far more reason to deplore their lack of light than to

boast of their intelligence. There is infinitely more in this old church

than is dreamed of in their philosophy.

Yet nobody pretends that the church teaches the details of science, and

leaves nothing for the human intellect to observe, to investigate, to

arrange, and classify. The church is Catholic, because she teaches in her

doctrine, whether known by natural reason or only by divine revelation, the

universal ideal, or the Catholic principles of all the real and all the

knowable; but she does not teach all the details of cosmology, history,

chemistry, mechanics, geography, astronomy, geology, zoology, physiology,

pathology, philology, or anthropology. She teaches the ideal or general

principles of all the sciences, and teaches them infallibly, and thus gives

the law to all scientific investigation, which _savans_ in their

inductions and deductions are not at liberty to transgress. Our

philosophers and _savans_ are perfectly free to explore nature in all

possible directions, but they are not free to invent hypotheses and

theories not reconcilable with the universal principles she teaches, or to

oppose their conjectures to the principles she asserts, because all such

conjectures or theories are unscientific and false. The ethnologist is free

to investigate the characteristics of the different races and families of

men, but not free to deny the unity of the human race itself, or the

descent of all men from one and the same primitive pair, who must have been

immediately created and instructed by God himself. But this is saying no

more than that the mathematician is not free to reject his axioms, or the

geometrician his definitions; and we may add that, if our scientific men

would take the principles the church teaches as their guide, they would

find themselves much more successful in their observation and

classification of natural phenomena, and save themselves from the ridicule

which they now incur.