Part 11 — CHAPTER XXIII. (continued 4)

The next attribute is infallibility.

Certainty objectively considered is the impossibility of error in a given case. Infallibility also, considered in itself, is the impossibility of error in every case within the sphere to which that infallibility extends. This attribute is essentially necessary to the church, but before we enter upon gnosis respecting God, the cosmos, and their mutual relations in time and in eternity, was made by the Theanthropos in the beginning. The church carries it in her mind, heart, and life, as she traverses centuries and generations. But as all the particular principles constituting that gnosis are not all distinctly and explicitly formulated and set in human language, so it becomes the office of the church from time to time to formulate one of those principles. In this she is assisted by the Theanthropos in such a manner that she may infallibly express her mind in the new formula she utters. Again, an error may arise against the revealed gnosis she carries in her mind. Then it is her office to proclaim what her mind is upon the subject, and condemn whatever may be contrary to it. Again, she is assisted by the Theanthropos in such a manner as to effect both these things infallibly. Infallibility in the present case, therefore, may be defined a permanent assistance of the Theanthropos preserving the church from falling into error in the exercise of her office.

The object of this attribute is limited to these three:

1. She is infallible in teaching and defining all theoretical doctrines contained in the revelation, be it written or not, but handed down socially from the beginning.

2. In all doctrines having reference to morality.

3. In the choice and determination of the external means of embodying that doctrine, theoretical or practical; whether the external means which embodies the doctrine be used by the church, or, used by others, must be judged by the church.

This last object of infallibility is so absolutely necessary that without it the other two would become nugatory and fictitious. If, in propounding a doctrine, the church could err in fixing upon such objective expressions of language as would infallibly exhibit her mind, men could never be assured whether the church had expressed herself correctly or not, and could never, consequently, be certain of her meaning. Likewise, if the church could err in teaching whether such and such expression of language, intended to embody a doctrine, contains an error or a truth, men would be left in doubt whether to embrace or reject it, and could never, in embracing it, be absolutely certain whether they were holding a revealed doctrine or a falsehood.

From this it follows that: First, the church is not infallible in things belonging exclusively to natural sciences, and in no way connected with revelation; second, she is not infallible in reference to historical facts, and much less in reference to personal facts, unless these are connected with dogma. The subjects in whom this attribute resides are the following:

1. The Supreme Pontiff, the head of the hierarchy, who, independent of the rest, enjoys this attribute, in reference to all the objects above explained. Because, by the interior organism of the church, as we shall see, he is made the source of all authority in teaching and governing.

2. The hierarchy, together with the

We almost blush to have to remark that this, infallibility, centred in the Pope or bishops, does not render them personally impeccable. The two things are as distant as the poles, and can only be brought together and confounded in minds who, according to the expression of Dante, have lost the light of the intellect, and live in a darkness which is little short of death.

The modes of exercising this attribute are three:

She is infallible as teacher, as witness, and as judge.

As teacher: when she proclaims and expounds to the faithful the revelation of the Theanthropos.

As witness: when she affirms what belongs or does not belong to that revelation.

As judge: when she pronounces final judgment on controversies and disputes which arise in relation to revealed doctrines.

Having thus given a brief idea of all that belongs to the subject of infallibility, it seems to us that no one who has understood the nature and essence of the church, and the object for which it was established, can fail to perceive not only the entire reasonableness, but also the absolute necessity of such a doctrine.

We have said that the church in its active element is nothing less than the Theanthropos himself, communicating the term of the supernatural moment, which includes teaching, through the agency of secondary agents, both physical and personal. The church, therefore, under the aspect from which we are now regarding her, is the Theanthropos teaching his revelation, expounding his revelation, affirming and witnessing to his revelation, declaring what agrees with it, and what is contradictory to it, through the agency of the Supreme Pontiff, or of the Pontiff and the rest of the hierarchy. And can anything be more reasonable than the assertion that she is infallible? Protestantism has boasted, and boasts yet, of having emancipated reason, of having brought it to the highest possible degree of culture and development. But when will Protestantism begin to exercise its vaunted reason?

Is it reasonable to suppose that the Theanthropos, the God made man, the infallible wisdom of God, the very intelligibility of the Father, who established the church, that is, united himself, either as to action or substance, with a sacramental element, be it material or personal, in order, among other things, to teach all men in time and space what was absolutely necessary for them to know to attain their ultimate perfection—is it reasonable to suppose, we say, that the Theanthropos should, through his personal agents, teach anything but absolute truth?

Deny the divinity of the Theanthropos, deny that the Theanthropos ever did or could unite his activity with personal agents, deny the essence of the church, and then you would be logical, then you would be consistent, then we could understand you. But to admit that the Theanthropos is God, to admit that he did unite his infinite and divine activity to the sacramental element, to admit that he did so on purpose to teach all men in time and space, and then to affirm that the church is not and cannot be infallible—that is, that the Theanthropos cannot teach infallibly through his personal agents—is such a logic as only the highly cultivated reason of Protestantism can understand. It is above the reach of that reason which is satisfied with a moderate share of culture and refinement,

We beg the reader to reflect for an instant on this single question: Is it the Theanthropos, or is it not, who teaches through the agency of his personal instruments? To this simple question, a simple answer should be given. Say you answer, It is not. Then you deny that the Theanthropos united his infinite energy to a sacramental element. Then you deny the essence of the church, and, in denying that, you must deny every other union between the infinite and the finite, as we have demonstrated. If you say it is the Theanthropos who teaches through the agency of his personal instruments, then what can be more logical or more consistent than to say that he teaches infallibly? What is there more reasonable than to say that a God-man should know what is truth, and should express his mind so, should embody it in an external means so, as to represent that mind infallibly?

Then, why so much opposition against this plainest attribute of the church? Why so much obloquy, so much sneering, except that the so boasted Protestant reason is nothing but a vile, unmanly prejudice, except that those who boast so much of exercising their reason resemble those innocent and unconscious animals of which Dante speaks:

The next attribute of the church is authority. This, like the rest, flows from her very essence. That essence consists in being the sacramental extension of Christ incorporating unto himself all human persons in time and space, communicating to them the term of the supernatural moment in its essence and faculties, and aiding them to develop those faculties, and to bring them to their ultimate completion. The church, therefore, as sacramental—that is, outward and sensible extension of the Theanthropos intended for men—is a visible, outward society of human persons with the Theanthropos. Now, what does a visible society require? That the external relations of the associates should be determined and governed by the authority legitimately constituted in the society. For, if those relations were not determined and directed by proper authority in a visible society, it is evident that no order could be expected, and that all the members could not form one moral body, by a proper external communication. The church, therefore, as a visible society, must have authority to determine all the external relations of the members, and to govern and direct them.

This authority or power of establishing the external polity in the church is, of course, essentially residing in the Theanthropos, who communicates it whole and entire to the Supreme Pontiff, and through him to the whole hierarchy and the rest of the active church.

Having vindicated the essential attributes of the church, we think it necessary to dilate at some length upon the interior constitution, the internal organism of the same, in order to exhibit a fuller and more adequate idea of this masterpiece of the infinite. And in order to do it thoroughly, we must give a cursory glance at its eternal type, the supreme exemplar of everything—the Trinity. The reader will remember that the genesis of God’s life takes place as follows: There is in the infinite essence

From this brief explanation of the genesis of God’s life, it follows:

1st. That the infinite, though one in nature, has three distinct terminations or persons.

2d. That, though these three persons are absolutely equal, because possessed of the same identical nature, we find in them a necessary subjection of order founded on the law of origin and production, the second being originated by the first, and being in this respect subject to him; the third being originated by both, and under this respect being subject to both.

3d. The three persons, possessing the same identical nature and substance, possess, consequently, all the perfections and attributes flowing from the substance in the same identical manner. Hence they possess in common all the metaphysical attributes of the substance, such as infinity, eternity, immensity, immutability; all the intellectual attributes, such as truth, wisdom, etc.; all the moral attributes of the substance, such as goodness, etc.

4th. As nature is the radical principle of action and life, it follows that, as the three persons possess the same nature, they possess one identical action and life. But as the termination is the immediate principle of action, and the three persons have a distinct termination, their one identical action receives the impress of the distinct termination of each.

5th. Finally, the essence being identical in all the three persons, and the second and third being originated by an immanent action, and all being essentially relative to each other, it follows that they all live in each other by a common indwelling.

Now, the interior constitution, the internal organism, of the church must be modelled, both in its active and passive moments, after this supreme type of everything; always granting the necessary distance of proportion intervening between the infinite and the finite. For, if the whole cosmos is and must be fashioned after that supreme pattern, how much more must the church, which is the inchoative and initial perfection of the whole cosmos, the cosmos of personalities! Consequently, we must find in its interior organism all the laws of the genesis of God’s life—laws which in the whole cosmos are reflected in those of unity, variety, hierarchy, communion.

Being, so in the active church we must find one nature and essence, the reflex of the essence of God. And that one nature consists in the fulness of the priesthood of the Theanthropos, communicated to the whole active church in the sacrament of order, and in the fulness of his authority.

As in the infinite the divine nature is possessed in common by a multiplicity of persons, the three terminations constituting the Trinity, so in the active church the priesthood of Christ and his authority must be possessed in common by a multiplicity of persons, some possessing it in its fulness, some partially, because distinction in the finite is by gradation, and cannot be by perfect equality, but all having the same identical priesthood as to its nature.

As in the Trinity, we find the law of hierarchy absolutely necessary in organic and living beings, which hierarchy consists in this, that the three divine persons, though absolutely equal as to nature, are distinct as to personality—a distinction which arises from opposition of origin. Now, this opposition of origin necessarily gives rise to a hierarchical superiority of order; the Father as such being necessarily superior in order to the Son, and the Son as such inferior to him; both as the aspirants of the third person necessarily superior to him, and vice versa.

Now, this hierarchical law must be found also in the church, and we must find a superiority of one over the other, not merely of order, but of gradation; the finite, as we have said, not being distinct except by gradation of being. Hence, we find the Theanthropos to have established three distinct elements constituting the hierarchy, and organically brought together. The first, a primary principle of authority from whom all receive, and he receives from none—the Supreme Pontiff, his own vicar on earth, the visible head of the church. The second, who receive from the first in measure and limit—the episcopate, who receive from the Supreme Pontiff their authority and its extent. The third, also, receive from both in a more limited manner—the priesthood.[161]

As in the Trinity the divine nature, being the radical principle of action and life, and the termination, the proximate principle, there is one common action and life, but the same bearing the impress of the constituent of each person; so in the church the authority being the same as to nature, the Pontiff, the episcopate, and the priesthood have one common life and action radically, but each one displaying it according to the degree resulting from his dignity—the Pontiff in its fulness, the episcopate within the range of their dioceses, the priesthood within the limits appointed by the episcopate—the second as holding it from the first, the third from both.

The reader can see by the theory we have just explained, and which cannot be gainsaid, how the late definition of the infallibility of the Supreme Pontiff is in accordance with and flows from the principles we have laid down. The Pontiff in the church of Christ is the first and primary visible principle of all authority, as in the interior of infinite life the eternal Father is the first primary

From the Pontiff all must receive authority, and he can receive from none, as the Father in the internal organism of the infinite communicates and receives from none. Consequently, the Supreme Pontiff being the first, primary, supreme, visible principle of authority in the church of Christ, is the first, primary, supreme, visible teacher—the office of teaching being essentially included in the fulness of authority communicated to him by Christ.

And as the office of teaching in the church of Christ would be of no avail except it were endowed with the attribute of infallibility, it follows that the Supreme Pontiff is the first, primary, supreme, infallible teacher in the church of Christ. He must teach all, and can be taught by none. He teaches by himself the whole universal church, and none has and can have any authority for disputing, objecting to, and gainsaying his teaching.

We cannot perceive how any persons holding the supremacy and independence of his authority could ever have reconciled with their logic the dependence of his authority with reference to teaching.

We come to the interior organism of the passive church, to which the active church also belongs in different relation, and we find in it also a reflex of the Trinity.

For as in the infinite there is one nature common to all, communicated by the first person to the second, and by both to the third, so in the passive church we find the same nature, the term of the supernatural moment, consisting in a higher similitude of and communication with the Trinity; this term communicated by the active church; primarily by the episcopate, and secondarily by the priesthood.

As in the Trinity, the nature being the same, the three persons partake of all the attributes flowing from the nature, likewise, and with due proportion in the church, the nature of the supernatural moment being the same, all the members partake of the same attributes and faculties flowing from that nature; hence they have one common supernatural intelligence, one common supernatural will.

As the Trinity, the nature being the radical principle of action, and the personality the proximate, all have the same action, but each acts according to the constituent of his personality; so in the church, the term of the supernatural moment, constituting its nature, being the same, all have the same supernatural action and life; but personally, some members belonging to the active church, and some to the passive, it follows that those who belong to the first display that life in that relation, and those who belong to the second display it in the second relation.

As in the Trinity we find an indwelling of all the persons in each other, and a living perpetual communication founded on the identity of nature and on the relation of personalities; so in the church of Christ we find a perpetual communication of its members with each other, founded on the identity of nature, the term of the supernatural moment, and on the relation of personalities, all members of the passive church communicating with and living, as it were, in the active church, because proceeding from it.

We see, therefore, what is the interior organism of the church. As to the active church, the fulness of the priesthood of the Theanthropos is given to the whole active church.

We have only been commenting upon those words of the Theanthropos: “Holy Father, keep these in thy name whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we also are.” Here we have the necessity of the church being modelled after the Trinity, the archetype of everything.

“As thou hast sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.” The common nature of the active church, the mission and authority of the Theanthropos.

“And not for these only do I pray, but for all those who, through their words, shall believe in me.” The continuation of that authority.

“Sanctify them in truth.” The common nature of the passive church, the term of the supernatural moment.

“That they may be one, as thou Father in me and I in thee, that they may be one in us.” The completion of the inchoative society, brought about by the supernatural element of union, and by the incorporation with the Theanthropos.

To complete the theory of the church, we have now to point out the characteristic marks which distinguish it from any counterfeit institution of men. These marks are four: unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity.

Unity. What is the church, viewed in its essence, attributes, and interior organism? It is the Theanthropos annexing his infinite energy and his substantial presence to a sacramental element, both physical and personal, and through them first elevating human persons to a supernatural being, with its essence and faculties of supernatural intelligence and supernatural will in an incipient and inchoative state; secondly, through his sacramental, personal element proposing and expounding his gnosis to their supernatural intelligence; by a second sacramental moment elevating this supernatural essence and faculties to a determinate and definite growth: by the sacramental moment of his presence incorporating all elevated persons unto himself, and thus putting them in immediate contact with himself, and through him with the Trinity on one side and with all the cosmos in nature and personality on the other side, and thus affording their supernatural faculties proper objects on which they may feed, expand, be developed, and arrive at their ultimate perfection. Finally, by the personal sacramental element governing and directing all their exterior relations and communication to one social final end; and all this not in any particular spot or period of time, but in all space and in all time. From this it is evident that the church of Christ is one in force of the unity of the Theanthropos with the sacramental element; one in consequence of the interior one in consequence of the unity of the supernatural being and faculties, the end of the church; one in force of the unity of the object of the supernatural intelligence; one in consequence of the unity of the object of the supernatural will—God and his cosmos, in their relations to each other; one in consequence of the real communion and intercourse between the members of the church; one, finally, in consequence of the oneness of the visible government of the church, all emanating from one invisible and one visible head.

The second distinctive mark of the church must be holiness. For the end of the church is to impart to human persons in time and space the term of the supernatural moment, together with its faculties, and especially the faculty and habit of supernatural intelligence and supernatural will or charity, in which, as we have demonstrated in the tenth article, the very essence of holiness consists. If the church, therefore, were deprived of this distinctive mark, she would fail in that very object for which she was instituted.

But it is to be remarked that not any degree of holiness would be sufficient to constitute a distinctive mark of the church, but a certain fulness of it is required in some of its members, for a twofold reason.

Like every moment of God’s exterior action, she is subject to the law of variety by hierarchy. This involves the necessity of the church ranging between the lowest degree of sanctity to the very pinnacle of sublimest and loftiest exhibition of it; otherwise, those two laws could not be realized.

Secondly, an ordinary degree of holiness can easily be counterfeited. But none could for any length of time or any extension of space assume a sanctity which soars far above the ordinary and common level, and which exhibits itself as such. Nemo personam diu fert could be applied in this case more than in any other.

The next distinctive mark is catholicity or universality. She is such not only because she contains all truth; not only because she embraces all the moments of God’s action, as the finishing stroke of them all; but because she is intended for all time and all space.

Finally, the last mark is apostolicity. The first members of the hierarchy chosen by the Theanthropos to communicate as moral instruments the term of the sublimative moment, with the power and authority to transmit to others that very same dignity of being moral instruments, were the apostles. Therefore, that church alone can be the church of the Theanthropos which to this day and for ever can show that her own hierarchy are the legitimate successors of the apostles, by an uninterrupted communication. For we have said that the essence of the church is to be the Theanthropos acting in time and space, through the agency of the hierarchy and other sacraments. Now, suppose a hierarchy who cannot claim or make good their claim to be the legitimate successors of the first ones who composed it, who could not claim any communication or union with them, how could we suppose them to be those very instruments in whom and through whom the Theanthropos lives and acts?

Before we draw the consequence which follows from all we have said concerning the church, it is necessary to recapitulate in a few words all we have written in these articles.

We set out with the question of the infinite, and after refuting the as far as possible of the dignity and elevation of the nature hypostatically united to the Word. The sublimative moment answered the question. This moment, medium between the Theanthropos and substantial creation, by bestowing upon human persons a higher nature and faculties, enabled them to unite in close contact with the Theanthropos and through him with the Trinity. But what was the medium chosen to transmit the term of the sublimative moment to human persons in time and space? The Theanthropos himself, the essential mediator between God and the cosmos; and to that effect he united his infinite energy and his substantial presence to personal and physical instruments, and through them imparted to human persons in time and space the term of the sublimative moment; and thus the cycle of the procession of the cosmos from the infinite was perfected in its being and faculties, to begin a movement of return to the same infinite as its supreme end. The sacramental extension of the Theanthropos in time and space we have demonstrated to be the Catholic Church, and from its essence we have drawn her essential attributes of visibility, indefectibility, infallibility, and authority, and also its intrinsic marks of unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity.

After this necessarily imperfect sketch of all our articles, we submit to the reader this necessary consequence—the Roman Catholic Church is the only true church of God.

Second, because it is the Roman Catholic Church alone which knows her own essence and attributes. All others are more or less ignorant of the essence and attributes necessary to the church of the Theanthropos.

Thirdly, it is to the Roman Catholic Church alone to which the essence, attributes, and marks which we have shown à priori to belong necessarily to the Church of Christ apply. Consequently, the Roman Catholic Church is the real cosmos of God in its perfection of being and faculties, and men have no possible alternative but to join it, to submit to its authority, under pain of the death of the intelligence, of being a creature out of joint with the whole system of God’s works, of being in the impossibility of attaining their last end in palingenesia. The Roman Catholic Church or pantheism—all truth or no truth—death or life here and hereafter.

THE LAST DAYS OF OISIN, THE BARD.

BY AUBREY DE VERE.

III.

OISIN’S YOUTH.

LETTER OF MONSEIGNEUR DUPANLOUP, BISHOP OF ORLEANS, TO M. GAMBETTA.

FROM L’UNIVERS.

St. Quentin, I waited a few days to see if some one would come forward and do justice to the words you uttered. But since they have been allowed to pass without protest from any one, I will, albeit I have not much taste for it, say what I have to say about them.

Your speech treats both of politics and religion, and you deal with these two great matters as if you were bound very shortly to become their lord and master. I shall not say much about your politics, although their threatening character adds to the already grave anxiety with which our poor country is burdened; but, as a bishop, I have a right to call you to account for the war which you declare against the church and against religion.

For war, indeed, it may be called, and accompanied with such accusations and such outrageous insults, that, if your words were true, we should deserve to be driven not only out of the school-house, as you demand, but out of the church itself.

I must admit to have been at first misled by the apparent moderation of your words. Taking interest, as I do, in conversions when they are sincere, I asked myself, while reading your discourse, in which you appeared to me so calm, so insinuating, and so circumspect, though at the same time so devoid of modesty—I asked myself if the time

In this statement, this programme, this message, the manifesto, or by whatever name it should be called, which you addressed to your assembled guests at St. Quentin, you proceed in this wise:

You call for “a strong and stable government, that will vigilantly protect the interests of all, and be able to regenerate the morals of the French family.” On this point, sir, we certainly all agree. This government, you go on to say, will pacify souls, bring the social classes closer to one another, and will restore to France her rank in Europe. This is also very fine. But let us see further.

To bring about this end, you appeal even to the disabused voters of the plébiscite; even to the legitimists, who, by their wealth and education, are to be the ornament of the state; even to the conservative men, who are to be as a bridle of restraint on a policy which your friends are to urge forward.

And what is to be this policy? The policy of labor, very different from the policy of conquest, the triumph of the idea of justice in the fulfilment of social duties. I cannot forbear remarking here that these expressions, policy of labor, idea of justice, are in daily use by the Internationale, and not in a sense particularly intended to tranquillize society. But let us go on.

But this form of government, this policy, how is its establishment to be brought about? Why, by universal suffrage, that foremost of rights, that sole and sovereign tribunal, that army of peace. And how is universal suffrage to be persuaded and drawn to the desired end? By giving to public opinion, through democratic intermingling, proofs of the morality, the political value, and the adaptation for business of the republican party; by demonstrating that the republican government is the most liberal of all forms of government, etc.

Really, sir, all this must have appeared admirable to your audience, and, if your republic is of that sort, many of our most upright conservatives will tell you: Let us clasp hands, for that is the very republic which the National Assembly, acting with and through M. Thiers, is endeavoring to realize at the cost of so much self-denial, disinterestedness, and honesty.

But let us be frank.

You have no right to claim that your republic answers this description. Your sweetness is purely oratorical and Platonic; for two sentences of your address reveal you and show who you are.

“No one,” you say, “must ever give his opinion except as a means of adding to the general good; and each one must convert his mind into, as it were, a memorandum tablet for himself, in which he puts down, with a view of obtaining them, the institutions which the people have a right to expect from the democratic republic.”

If a priest had uttered these words, which seem more befitting the lips

“What I have done in the past is the true pledge of what I will do in the future, toward definitively establishing the republic.”

It is here, sir, that I must challenge you.

In the first place, I have to express my amazement that, having to account to your country, under so grave a responsibility, and for misdeeds for which you might have been rendered far more seriously liable, you can be so ready to accuse others and to glorify yourself, that you go so far as to dare to say: “What I have done in the past is the true pledge of what I will do in the future.”

What have you done in the past?

You were a young lawyer, and were turned all of a sudden, and in consequence of a tumultuous lawsuit, into a political character. The audacity of your revolutionary opinions enabled you to become a candidate for the Corps Législatif, and in the next place to take your seat as a deputy by the side of your friends Blanqui, Raspail, and Rochefort.

On the 4th September, you seized upon the governing power, and, without consulting with your colleagues, you assigned to yourself the Ministry of the Interior. Did you, as soon as you got into the ministry, extend to all good citizens those arms which you seem now to be opening so widely? Not at all. In the Hôtel de Ville,[162] you installed such men as Etienne Arago, Ferry, and Rochefort; in the mairie, such characters as Delescluze, Mottu, Bonvalet, Clémenceau; in the préfectures, such as Duportal, Engelhard, and Jacobins of all sorts. You filled these places with your friends—your friends only, and these of the most excitable kind. Afterward, when your colleagues, in order to get rid of you, were so signally weak as to give you the entire realm to operate upon, when, through a fortunate contingency, you had suddenly entrusted to you that magnificent part which, to a heroic and truly patriotic heart, would have been unsurpassable, what did you do? You sought rather to force the republic—your republic—on the country than to save France. It is well for you to talk about universal suffrage. You have treated it as naught. By a first decree, you broke up the conseils-généraux, and did not re-establish them. By a second decree, you adjourned the elections. By a third decree, you abridged the legal qualifications for election. What have you, sole ruler everywhere obeyed, done with the treasure, the men, and the blood of her children which the nation lavished upon you? Was it not a republican who called your fatal rule the dictatorship of incompetency?

Though only three months in power, you had become almost a greater burden upon us than the late Imperial Government; and when you assert that the National Assembly

After the dreadful catastrophes in which the Empire sank to ruin, do you know, sir, what proved to be France’s greatest misfortune?

It was that just then, in that so terrible a crisis, you stood the absolute master of France. I make no reference to the two aged men who were at Tours with you. It was from you, a lawyer, that our generals received their orders; it was you who dictated plans for campaigns; it was you who scattered our forces, and blindly hurled our armies right and left, multiplying your lying bulletins, and at the same time and to the same extent as our reverses.—But I must turn away my thoughts from those disasters, as also from the remembrance of those poor soldiers, without clothes, without shoes, without food, without ammunition! How great an organizer, my dear sir, you proved yourself to be! How fortunate you turned out to have been in the selection of your contractors for supplies!

Nevertheless, the nation, ever generous, might have measurably accepted, as an offset to this, your personal activity, and your efforts, although unsuccessful; it had given you credit for having withdrawn yourself momentarily; but you reappeared too quickly, only a short time before the day when the Commune of Paris was putting forward your friends, your lieutenants, your teachers, or your disciples, such as Delescluze and Millière, Rigault and Ranc, Cavalier and Mottu, all those fellows who have made themselves as ignominious and ridiculous as possible, some of whom are still around you; in fine, all that party which you have never, even to the extent of a single word, disavowed, and the members of which you called upon to give evidence of their morality, their political worth, and their aptitude for the business of government! That evidence has been given, and really, sir, you rely too much on the frivolity, the folly, or the credulity of the public. You preach to it about a debonair republic, but that public has not forgotten the grotesque, ruinous republic, accompanied with bloodshed, which during six months was fastened on France.

You have avoided with prudent care to call your republic social as well as democratic; and why? In order to enjoy the happiness of a fleeting hour of dictatorship, I suppose it is worth your while to run the risk of more calamities. Alas! unfortunate land, fated to be thus perpetually the dupe and the victim of most guilty ambition!

No, in spite of all that you may say or leave unsaid, your promises are contradicted by our memories. We need, in order to be persuaded, something else than sonorous words. It is true that, in one point only, you depart from the vague style of your programme. You declare that you seek, above all things, to lay the foundation of the future of democracy on a reform, to wit, in education; and with this idea, you proclaim that you and your friends are alone capable, alone worthy, to bring up youth. You seek to turn out just, free, strong-minded and able men. This is very fine. But how? By means of a national education given after a truly modern and truly democratic manner.

And here you dare to affirm that the church and preceding governments

Allow me to reply that in this matter you are taking advantage of ignorance instead of combating it. For it argues a singular reliance on the ignorance of an audience to attempt to make it swallow at one and the same time, and in the same sentence, calumny and nonsense.

The governments that have ruled France for the past sixty years have in that period established more than 50,000 schools, and have trebled the appropriations for primary instruction.

As to the church, she is founded on two things: a book, the Gospel, and a divine command, to wit: Ite et docete, Go and teach. This sentence, which has become commonplace, “Ignorance is the source of all evils,” was uttered by a pope, and he added besides, “particularly among the working-classes.” These were the words of Benedict XIV., uttered more than a century before you were born.

The calumny is consequently shown to be dull-witted, and the nonsense still more so. It would seem that you also, M. Gambetta, hope, by means of schools, to stamp your effigy on future generations, just as if they were coin. But men versed in the subject know, and experience shows, that such a design is absurd, and may become a horrid tyranny. The instruction, whether primary or secondary, even with as much as you can add to it of the higher sciences, such as algebra, chemistry, etc., will not produce morals; and the parties who flatter the teachers expect, after all, much more from their influence on voters than from their action on their scholars.

Would you like to know what above all things, exerts an influence on the family and on society? It is education, whether it be moral or immoral, religious or atheistic. And do you know why I mistrust your reform? Because it will be neither a moral nor a religious one.

In sober truth, what sort of tuition is a really modern, a really democratic, one? Is there such a thing as modern geometry? a democratic grammar? moral teachings of recent growth, and a geography not yet published? All these big words are but windy oratory, empty and obscure, which affords no meaning to the mind when it attempts to analyze it.

Nevertheless, after having thrown off these sentences to your hearers, you go on and recite the mottoes of the party, the watchword of the day. It is a pity that you left out tithes and forced service under feudal law. You say tuition is to be free of cost—that is equivalent to adding thirty millions to our budget of expenditure; but what does that signify? You have managed to spend a large sum besides. The poor will pay for the rich; but the lower classes will delude themselves with the belief that they are not paying at all, and that they are indebted to you for the benefaction. Tuition is besides to be compulsory. Well, let it be so, if you can devise some adequate sanction for the contemplated enactments, a reliable protection for the liberty of families, and, in particular, a reliable guarantee for the teachers, so that you can feel sure enough of them to venture, without practising the most abominable of all tyranny, to compel parents to entrust to them, what they prize most in this world, their children. But then, minor details do not stop you. To conclude, the laymen—and now the cat is let out of the bag.

It is an easy matter to attack and calumniate absent priests, religious who make no defence. To do so is neither fair nor generous, but much popularity is to be got in that way in your party, and the hard flings at the church will offset the sweetness displayed toward other persons. So let us strike hard on this spot. The church is henceforward to be separated from the state—that is not enough, the church is besides to be separated from the school, and the school from all religion.

You have said, sir, that your republic would be a liberal one. If you accordingly begin by excluding from the common right to teach an entire class of citizens and of women, solely because their religious belief is not the same as yours, do not call yourself liberal, and do not charge the church with being intolerant, or else be logically consistent, and separate the state from the school. For the state, in this connection, means the budget; that is to say, the moneys which are got of all of us by taxation. You cannot, without being tyrannical, compel families to send their children to the school of the state. Lay aside these high-sounding phrases, and call things by their right names. By the church you mean us. By the state you mean yourself. To deprive us and our doctrines of our money, in order to bestow it on yourself and your doctrines—that is what is called separating the church from the state. But I feel pretty easy as to the choice families will make when I learn from you what the programme of this teaching is to be.

The programme is this: “It is an extensive and varied one, so that, instead of mutilated learning, man will have dealt out to him entire truth, so that nothing which the human mind can grasp will be concealed from him.” De omni re scibili! Well, that is wonderful indeed! No doubt you will have the power to create minds capable of taking in this encyclopædia! You are equal to so many undertakings! So that which you have in view, gratuitous, compulsory, lay tuition, integral besides for every one and complete to an impossible degree—this is the formula of socialism, and is also the formula of absurdity.

“In the schools,” you add, “children will be taught scientific truth in its rigor and its majestic simplicity,” and by this process “you will have reared citizens whose principles will rest on the same bases on which our entire society is founded.”

What do you mean by these big words? What are these principles? what are these bases? Whether it be that those principles rest on these bases, or that these bases are fast to those principles, how much of this will you teach to children from the ages of seven to eleven years? I call upon you to give me plainly the text of the programme of science which our worthy village teachers, who are to seek to instil into children of from seven to eleven years the sense of duty and sacrifice, will have to substitute for the Ten Commandments of God, and for the sublime and popular Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

What is it, pray, sir, that renders you so ungrateful towards the voters of Paris or of Lyons, who nearly all have been educated by the Brothers, so severe on the priests, who perhaps have done something for your early education, and so unjust towards the church?

It is my duty to insist on this point, and to protest against your calumnies.

What! though the clergy of

And you direct your calumnies not against us alone, but, besides, against the Pope. Ah! I admit, the horrors, treachery, meanness, and falsehood by which he has been surrounded during the past twenty-five years have not brought him to look with favor on the charms of that sham liberty which you promise him, and he may well fail to admire that Garibaldi for whose sake you, perhaps, sacrificed our army of the East. But in the Encyclical which your hearers have never read, the Pope has not condemned the various forms of government as they exist in the laws of various nations. He has condemned liberty unrestrained, rights without countervailing duties, and societies that know not God. As to the family and property, sir, is it becoming your friends to style themselves their virtuous defenders?

But what is singular in this pell-mell gathering of confused and incoherent ideas, is your alleged motive for denying to French priests the right to teach which belongs to them in common with all their fellow-countrymen: “When you have appealed to the energies of men reared by such teachers, when you seek to arouse in them ideas of sacrifice, of devotedness, of patriotism, you will find that you have to deal with an emasculated, debilitated class of men.” And the reason you assign for the emasculation and debilitation of this class reared under our care is still more singular: it is because we teach them to believe in Providence, and because teachers that believe in Providence are only fit to emasculate and debilitate the human race. At this point, sir, you set “the doctrine which accustoms the mind to the idea of a Providence” in opposition to “revolution, which teaches the authority and responsibility of the will of man and free agency.” But, sir, these things are not incompatible with one another. Both are taught by Christian doctrine, and, by setting them in opposition as you do, you show that you neither understand yourself nor the matters of which you are treating.

But you, who do not believe in Providence, and who are consequently neither emasculated nor debilitated, do you know of any other belief that can better teach mankind to bear with life and brave death? You have this year ordered many men to rush to destruction. Would you have dared to recommend our soldiers to go forth to meet death, mocking God? And do you believe that the souls of the Pontifical Zouaves, and of the Breton francs-tireurs, were enervated by their faith in Providence?

But be cautious. In order that your reasoning be consistent, a belief in Providence appertains not to priests alone, but to whoever professes the Christian faith; consequently, if priests are to be banished from the schools because they teach that emasculating dogma, then all Christians must be kept out as well, and henceforward

Avow, sir, that seldom have calumnies and absurdities been mixed up together with greater facility than you have done in these words of yours.

Nevertheless, you manage to go on still further, and you attempt to create a division between the higher clergy, whom you traduce, and those whom you call the lower clergy, whom you flatter, by endeavoring to excite them to envy. You labor in vain, sir; and, besides, I do not recognize any lower clergy as such. The rank of the priesthood is the highest to which we can attain; no bishop, not even the Pope himself, has a sacerdotal character different from that of the most humble priest. All ecclesiastical dignities are, in one sense, beneath the title of priest, which leads to the highest offices and dignities of the church. So that, in this regard, it may be said that no institution is so democratic as the church. Sprung from the people as we nearly all of us are, educated together and fed together on the words of him who died for the people, we will suffer ourselves to be neither divided nor deceived.

Our fraternity is of the right sort. Our God is the true God, and you are without any. Be sincere, sir: come out of this mere talk, and answer me plainly and without oratorical precaution, whether, yes or no, the free thought in which you are a believer, and human science, which, according to you, has nothing to equal it, recognize the existence of a personal and living God? Candor leaves you no alternative but to reply. Either dare to declare to your friends that you do believe, or dare to proclaim to our land that you do not believe, in God.

If indeed your sham science denies God, I pity you, sir; but you must admit that it hardly becomes you to talk about religion, and to endeavor to beguile and divide priests who have consecrated their lives to him. You assert that, if they dared to disclose their convictions, they would own themselves democrats. Do you know what our village priests would tell you if they were to make disclosures to you? They would inform you that in every hamlet is to be found a handful of petty rhetoricians, tavern orators, fellows who lead municipal councils, who drive away the Christian Brothers and Sisters of Charity, and do their best to deprive the curate of the small pittance without which he cannot subsist, who forbid teachers to take children to Mass, refuse to have churches repaired that need it most, recommend mutual-guarantee-association marriages and burials, and know no better way of serving a republic than by hating priests and by persevering in a low and silly infidelity. Now, in every village these very rhetoricians are your friends.

It is with their assistance that you contemplate establishing that education, “national and truly modern,” in which, in order to teach children “their duties as citizens, to excite in them ideas of sacrifice, of devotion to country, to make out of them an unemasculated race,” you will have not only to avoid speaking to them of God and of Providence, but besides to combat and root out of their minds the idea of Providence, and, in fine, to force upon French youth a teaching without religion, and a moral instruction without God.

Well, would you have me tell you what such education will turn out for you? Instead of rearing men, it will give us monsters, and a learned barbarism, armed with abundant means of destruction, barbarism in the

In my view, this latter fact is an indication of the disorder in which at this very moment we still are. No, the end of France’s afflictions is not yet!

But I have said enough, sir. I have sought, as the only reply to your harangue, to put facts in opposition to words. I have sought, while replying to you, to defend the church; and I think I have at the same time defended public peace. In theory, as against this or that government, neither my faith, my reason, nor my patriotism would raise great objections, were it not that I have seen your party at work, and that my sight is still filled with those sombre scenes, and my memory with the recollection of your deeds. In vain do you try to cover them over with clever words and honeyed insinuations. My knowledge of the preacher spoils the effect of the sermon on me. And my recollection of the whilom dictator puts me on my guard against the impressiveness of the candidate who is aspiring not to establish liberty, as he pretends, but to destroy religion and to get into power. You are not an apostle, you are a pretender. The republic is I!—that is your programme and the sole object of your discourse. Well! depend upon it, France has a republican government now, the need of a change to another, even though accompanied with the advantage of having you for its president, is not at all felt.

Please accept, sir, with the expression of my regret to be compelled to thus combat you, that of the sentiments of respect which, as your colleague, I have the honor to offer you.

✠ Felix, Bishop of Orleans,

Deputy at the National Assembly for the Department of Loiret.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

The Arians of the Fourth Century. By John Henry Newman, formerly Fellow of Oriel College. Third Edition. London: E. Lumley. For sale by The Catholic Publication Society, New York.

This work was written in 1832, and saw the light in the following year. The author had already made his mark in Oxford as a keen and deep thinker, as a scholar of wide and accurate erudition, and as a clear and vigorous writer. He was a prominent leader in the Oxford or Puseyite movement, and was, as we know from his Apologia, a stanch Anglican. The work, looked for at the time with interest, was received as fully equal to the high reputation of the author. Its singularly lucid treatment of a subject involving the most abstruse questions of ancient theological controversy, as well as the intricate and shifting phases of a very eventful period of ecclesiastical history, was a valuable addition to English theological literature. The author had evidently thrown his soul into the work. The history he was treating seemed to him to present many points of parallelism to their own living struggle in the Anglican Church. The Anomœans and kindred Arian sects were representatives of the Socinianism which had reached even the highest dignities, and the rationalism and humanitarianism which were beginning to spread among the clergy and the laity of its fold. The Semiarians with their compromises

A few years sufficed to convince Dr. Newman that such hopes were futile, and that his position was false. He and others sought refuge in the fold of the true church. Meanwhile, within the Anglican Church, the successive decisions in the Gorham case and in several other cases that have since come before the Privy Council, show that the evils he lamented and feared have increased in strength, while the power of opposing them has grown gradually weaker.

The present is a third edition of the work under the care of the author; we can scarcely say, revised by him. German professors, in publishing successive editions of their works on any subject to which they devote continuous study, have no scruple in retracting, cancelling, or directly confuting what they had previously published, as often as they may be led to change their opinions on material points, so much so that you must be sure you have the right edition before you can quote it. We turned to this edition to see if Dr. Newman had followed such a course. He has not. With him, litera scripta manet. The book is the same now as when it first appeared. In a few instances he changes the structure of a sentence, that his thought may stand out more clearly. He has added a few more references in the foot-notes, scrupulously indicating such additions by enclosing them in brackets. He has enlarged the table of contents at the beginning and the chronological table at the end of the volume. No change has been made affecting the opinions, sentiments, or speculations of the original edition. There are expressions which now, of course, displease him as a Catholic; but he lets them hold their place. He has cast out only two sentences, as needlessly put in originally, and even these he has, in signal humility, pilloried, as it were, in a page by themselves at the end of the appendix. This appendix, at the close of the volume, is mostly made up of extracts from

The volume presents an admirable critical, theological, and historical summary of the whole Arian controversy in the fourth century, and was a turning-point in English Protestant literature on the subject. Dr. Newman was the first to establish what has since been generally accepted, that Arianism was connected, historically and intellectually, with the Judaic Aristotelic schools of thought prevailing at Antioch and through Asia Minor, and not, as had been previously held by many, with the Platonic schools of Alexandria.

The work deserves and will amply reward a careful study. The Catholic reader will, of course, find himself in something of a Protestant atmosphere. The authority and action of the Roman Pontiffs is scarcely glanced at. Twice or thrice reference is made to the important support which the Roman See gave to St. Athanasius, and to the determined resistance which honorably distinguishes the primitive Roman Church in its dealing with heresy, and the ground is taken that the acute and sophistical training of the Eastern intellects led them to indulge in abstruse distinctions and discussions which the calmer and more practical minds of the Western Church entered into with difficulty, and could scarcely express in their Latin tongue, so much less pliable than the Greek. Theologically speaking, as well as historically, the controversy in the fourth century was Eastern, rather than Latin. Still, we are sure that, were Dr. Newman to write afresh this history, now that he is a Catholic, the important part acted by the Roman Pontiffs would be more strongly set forth. Writing as a Protestant, he was sufficiently emphatic on the case of Liberius—so much so that he has added a footnote to say that there is a difference among writers which was the Sirmian formula that Liberius subscribed; and the appendix further shows that there is also a discrepancy as to the number and the chronological order of the various formulas, and that in some cases alterations and additions were subsequently made in the original text. It might also be added that there are grave reasons for doubting the fact of any such subscription by Liberius, inasmuch as the charge seems to have been first put forth by heated controversialists long after his death, and is scarcely reconcilable with the undoubted facts of his life after the date of the alleged subscription.

Here and there the Catholic will meet phrases implying or stating some special Anglican view or Protestant principle. To all these Dr. Newman’s present position is a practical and sufficient refutation. In the clear and lucid arrangement of the topics, in accurate and subtile tracing of the various and varying forms of the Arian heresy, and in the vivid portraying of that greatest and most earnest battle in the early life of the church, the work is worthy of Dr. Newman, and claims a place in every theological library.

Memoir of Ulric Dahlgren. By his Father, Rear-Admiral Dahlgren. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1872.

Though war, in whatever light we may view it, cannot but be considered a national calamity, it must be admitted that it has a tendency to generate certain mental and social qualities which are unknown or of slow growth in civil life. Personal courage, disinterested friendship, and patient self-sacrifice, no mean qualities in themselves, are doubly valuable when enlisted in the cause of one’s country on the side of law and justice, and hence we consider the soldier, no matter what may be his rank, who bravely and intelligently risks and loses his life in defence of his nation’s integrity, deserving of a high meed of praise.

The Internationale—Communism. A Lecture by Rev. F. P. Garesche, S.J., of St. Louis University. St. Louis: P. Fox. 1872.

This is a lecture both logical and eloquent. The learned Jesuit traces Communism to Protestantism through materialism and false civilization. He shows its horrid and dangerous nature, and administers a well-merited castigation to that arch-agitator and firebrand of mischief, Wendell Phillips, who has made himself its apologist. All persons ought to read this, and especially those who pretend to call themselves Catholics, and yet, by joining Masonic or other condemned societies, have renounced their allegiance to the church and become accomplices in the conspiracy against religion and society. Every good Catholic who reads it will have his horror deepened against this conspiracy in all its forms, and will learn what estimate is to be placed on those who seek to palliate and extenuate doctrines and acts which have been condemned by the Holy See.

Lenten Sermons. By Paul Segneri, of the Society of Jesus. Vol. I. 12mo, pp. 361. New York: The Catholic Publication House, 9 Warren St.

This is a translation of a portion of the celebrated Quaresimale, or course of forty sermons for Lent, of Father Paul Segneri, S.J., who was one of the most remarkable missionaries that the church has produced, and also a man of great sanctity and austerity of life. These discourses are models of eloquence, and lose but little of their original force by the translation, which is a very good one. They are fourteen in number; but it is intended that the remaining ones shall be published, should the present volume meet with sufficient encouragement. They are admirable examples of what sermons for Lent, or for a mission, should be, and will be of great assistance to clergymen. They are now for the first time made easily accessible to the American public. The volume is of a convenient size, and well printed, and such as we can in every way commend to the attention of our readers.

The Spouse of Christ: Her Privileges and Her Duties. Vol. I. By the author of St. Francis and the Franciscans, etc., etc. Boston: Patrick Donahoe. 1872.

This is a volume of spiritual conferences or reading, specially intended for female religious. The piety and talent of its authoress are well known to the Catholic world. The present work has the imprimatur of the Bishop of Kerry, accompanied by a handsome tribute to the writer.

The Vessels of the Sanctuary: A Tale of Normandy.—The Inheritance. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1872.

Two charming little stories, translated from the French. We can heartily recommend them as affording pleasant and instructive reading for children.

Tract form the Pastoral Letter of the Archbishops and Bishops of Ireland on the School Question. The price of this document is $3 00 per 100 copies. The same Society will also publish in pamphlet form Several Calumnies Refuted, or Executive Document No. 37. This will also be sold at $3 00 per 100. No less than 100 copies of either of these pamphlets will be sold at any one time.

“The Catholic Publication Society” has just issued a list of new books to be published by the Society this spring. It comprises fifteen books altogether. These are: Lenten Lectures, by Father Segneri; The Liquefaction of the Blood of St. Januarius; Sermons on Ecclesiastical Subjects, Vols. II. and III., by Archbishop Manning; French Eggs, in an English Basket; Little Pierre, the Pedlar of Alsace, illustrated by twenty-seven first class woodcuts; Maggie’s Rosary; Constance Sherwood, by Lady Fullerton, illustrated; The House of Yorke, with illustrations; The Eighth Series of Sunday-School Libraries, illustrated; The Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier, by Rev. H. J. Coleridge, S.J.; Madame de Chantal and Her Family; St. Jerome and his Correspondents; Bibliographia Catholica Americana, by Rev. J. M. Finotti—this book is published by subscription; and The Men and Women of the Protestant Reformation in England. All these books, as soon as ready, will be announced in our Literary Bulletin, as well as all other new Catholic books published in this country or in England.

Mr. P. O’shea, New York, announces as in press, Lectures on the Church, by Rev. D. W. Merrick, S.J., of St. Francis Xavier’s Church, New York.

Received: Landreth’s Rural Register and Almanac—1872. Published for gratuitious distribution. David Landreth & Son, 21 South Sixth St., Philadelphia, Pa.