Google
This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project
to make the world's books discoverable online.
It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject
to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books
are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover.
Marks, notations and other maiginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the
publisher to a library and finally to you.
Usage guidelines
Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing tliis resource, we liave taken steps to
prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying.
We also ask that you:
+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for
personal, non-commercial purposes.
+ Refrain fivm automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine
translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the
use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help.
+ Maintain attributionTht GoogXt "watermark" you see on each file is essential for in forming people about this project and helping them find
additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it.
+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just
because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other
countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of
any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner
anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liabili^ can be quite severe.
About Google Book Search
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers
discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web
at|http: //books .google .com/I
THE
'^S'^lth
DUBLIN REYIEW.
VOL XXI. NEW SERIES.
73
JULY— OCTOBER,
MDCCCLXXUI.
LONDON:
BURNS, OATES, & CO., 17 & 18, PORTMAN STREET,
AND 63 PATERNOSTER ROW.
DERBY: RICHARDSON & SONS.
DUBLIN: JAMES DUFFY; W. B. KELLY; McGLASHAN & GILL.
BALTIMORE : KELLY, PIET & CO.
-^fONTREAL, CANADA: D. & J. SADLER & CO.
1873.
4
LOHDOK
WTUAir AND EONP, PriHTXrS, OtZAT QUIFX fTRtrr,
LIKCOLir'S IHH FIELD?, W.C.
CONTENTS.
•*^^
Art. I. — Mr. Mill's Reply to the "Dublin Review."
Prefatory remarks on the late Mr. Mill 1
Purpose of this article 5
Rule and motive of certitude . . " 7
Mr. Mill on the motive of certitude . 12
Mr. Mill on the rule of certitude .21
Mr. Mill's theory on mathematical axioms 26
Argumentative preliminaries on the matter ••.... 27
Direct controversy with Mr. Mill on the matter . . . ' . .32
Mr. Mill's positive thesis 43
Some subordinate issues considered ....... 46
Art. II. — The Progress op the Gordon Riots.
Destruction of the Sai'dinian and Bavarian Chapels .... 50
Narrow escape of the Attorney-General 51
Destruction of Moorfields Chapel 53
Inaction of the authorities 54
The Protestant "Protection" 55
Danger of Lord Sandwich 56
Burning of Lord Mansfield's house .57
Irresolution of the Lord Mayor 59
Burning of Newgate 59
Escape of Bishop Challoner 60
Preparations of the Government to suppress the riot ... 61
Misery of the Catholics 61
Proclamation of martial law 62
The "Thunderer" 64
Severity of the troops 64
Art. III. — Authority and the Anglican Church — Mr. Garbbtt
AND Canon Liddon.
Modem Science and Faith 68
Shallow theories of modem materialists 69
VOL. XXI. NO. XLi. [Netv Series,'] h
ii Contents.
Combination necessaiy for production 328
Credit, or the system of exchange, also necessary .... 329
What is money? . . . 331
Is it a productive, a consumptive, or undetermined commodity ? . . 333
The meaning of usury 334
The legal sense of usury and the ecclesiastical 339
Gratuitous and onerous contracts ..;:... 340
Loans are either commercial or necessitous 342
In the latter case they are more onerous than in the former. . . 343
Usury in general is perfectly lawful : 344
But extortion is always abhorrent 346
Two views on the doctrine of usury . . ' ; . . . . 347
Art. IV. — The Ionatian Epistles.
Two ways in which the history of Catholic doctrine may be tegardfed . 349
Apparent confusion among the early Fathto on the subject of doctrine 350
The doctrine of S. Ignatius the doctrine of the Church generally,
A.D.107 ;..;;. 353
His contest with the Gnostics 355
On the sacrifice of Christ in atonement 358
On Justification by works 359
On the doctrine of the Real Presence 361
On the position of the hierarchy in the visible Church .... 367
The Epistle of S. Ignatius to the Romans ...... 372
His reverence for the Roman Church 373
•
PacfiBUs's Greek edition of twelve Epistles of S. Ignatius . . . 374
Controversy as to the authenticity of the Epistles .... 374
Their vindication by Pearson 375
Cureton's Syriac version of three Epistles 37G
German denial of their authenticity 377
Evidence in favour of the earlier Greek version . . . ; . 379
Objections to the Syriac . . . 383
Evidence of Eusebius and S. Ireneeus in favour of the Greek . . 385
Are the seven Greek Epistles really by S. Ignatius ? . . . . 385
Evidence of Eusebius 386
OfOrigen 387
Polycarp's evidence 388
Character of S. Ignatius 390
Argument from supposed anachronisms and contradictions . . . 392
ome d istinction between the^words Bishop and Presbyter . . . 393
Evidence of the apostles as to the Gnostic heresy .... 396
The argument from inteinal criticism 401
Contents, iii
Capture of Cremona by the Austrians 164
Its recapture by the French, owing to the spirited conduct of two
battalions of the Brigade 168
Recruiting in Ireland for the Brigade 169
Its behaviour at the Battle of Blenheim 170
Fighting in Spain 173
Takes part in the Battle of Ramillies 174
Vigorous charge at Malplaquet 176
Disappointed of its hope to meet the English on Irish ground . .179
Battle of Fontenoy 180
It was nearly lost when the charge of the " White Cockade " changed
defeat into victory . . . 182
The Brigade espouses the cause of Charles Edward . . . .184
Takes part in the Battles of Preston Pans and Culloden . . .185
Helps to defeat Cumberland at Laffeldt 187
Declines after the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle 187
But is of material assistance to France in the Seven Years' War . .188
Its incorporation into the British Army 189
Two striking circumstances in its history 189
National pride in its career 190
Art. VH.— Canon Estcourt on Anglican Ordination.
Consecration of Matthew Parker 192
Canon Estcourt's researches 193
The questions connected with Barlow's consecration . . . .194
Long existence of heresy in England . .- 198
The Anglican rite of the Lord's Supper 199
Canon Estcourt's history of Anglican Ordination .... 202
The case of Ridley and Latimer 203
Bishops not ordained 205
The Nag's Head story 207
The Church and Anglican Orders 208
Art. VIII. — The Case of Mr. O'Keeffe.
Origin of the case 211
The Convent proposed to be founded at Callan Lodge . . .212
First action against Bishop Walsh , 213
The incident of 8th August, 1869 215
Mr. O'Keeffe's submission 21G
Second action against the Bishop 218
Action against Mr. Walsh 218
First suspension of Mr. O'Keeffe . 219
iv Contents,
Character of Marshal MacMahon ....•.• 465
Position of the Republicrin cause 468
Character of the Due de Broglie 469
The National Assembly 472
The late Due de Broglie on the government of France .... 474
Chamcter of the Count de Chambord 475
Syllabus of his political principles 476
Summary of them 481
The Flag 483
Prospects of France 484
A.RT. VIII.— A Few Words on the Authority op S. Alphonsus 485
Art. IX.— Notices op Books.
Dr. Newman's Sermon at the Funeral of Mr. Hope-Scott . . .491
Dr. Newman's Historical Sketches 493
Bishop Ullathome's Discourse delivered at the Opening Session of the
Fourth Provincial Synod of Westminster 497
Archbishop Vaughan's Sermon ** Ecclesia Christi " . . . . 497
F. Coleridge's Sermon " Giving Glory to God " 498
Modern Saints : S. Bernardine of Siena 499
Life of B. Alphonsus Rodrigues 501
Mr. Healy Thompson's Life of Ven. Anna Maria Taigi . . . 502
Mr. A. V. Smith's Life of Ven. Anna Maria Taigi .... 503
F. Tickell's Devotions to S. Joseph 503
The Contemporary Review 505
F. Meyrick's Life of S. Walburga, with the Itinerary of S. Willibald . 509
Alberi's II Problema dell' Umano Destino 510
Canon Hedley's Light of the Holy Spirit in the World . . .513
Mr. Alfred Austin's Madonna's Child 516
Hon. E. Twistleton's Tongue not Essential to Speech .... 520
Mr. Todhunter's Conflict of Studies 521
Mr. Thomas Hughes' Memoir of a Brother 525
Dr. Shairp's Life and Letters of James David Forbes .... 526
Mr. Buxton's Notes of Thought 529
Dr. Sweeney's Sermons for all Sundays and Festivals of the Year . 531
Mgr. Martinucci's Manuale sacranim Caeremoniarum .... 532
Mr. Munro's Lectures on Certain Portions of the Earlier Old Testa-
ment History 534
Miss Ramsay's Daughter of Saint Dominick 536
CONTENTS.
■*^«-
Art. I. — Pilgrimage and Paray-lb-Monial.
Sarprise of the world at the revival of pilgrimages .... 273
Its mistake in foreseeing what will happen in the Kingdom of Gtod . 273
Even Catholics may have been mistaken in thinking that pilgrimages
were no longer in harmony with the spirit of the age . . .274
The beatification of Joseph Labre 275
The practice of pilgrimage natural to the heart of man . . . 277
It is justified by God's teaching 279
It can never die away in Christendom 282
Address of the Archbishop to the English pilgrims .... 284
The devotion to the S. Heart peculiarly adapted to the present day . 287
Reasons why it should be so 290
Protestant criticism on the Pilgrimage . * 293
Art. II. — Rousseau.
Mr. Morley's work deserving of attention 295
His criticism on Rousseau's ^* Discourse on the Origin of Inequality " . 296
His idea of the doctrine of the fall of man 298
The early life of Rousseau 299
His introduction to Madame de Warens 301
His apostasy 302
His illicit connection with Madame de Warens 304
Their separation 304
He obtains a prize from the Academy of Dijon 306
Analysis of his essays 307
Rousseau's day-dreams 313
Their result in " New Heloisa " and the " Social Contract " . . . 314
His theories were the prelude of Communism 317
His treatise on education . 319
His exclusion of religion from the education of boys . . . .321
Distressing picture of his declining years 322
Art. hi. — Usury.
Difficulties in the way of a proper understanding of the question of
usuiy 323
Production and consumption 324
THE
DUBLIN REYIEW.
JULY, 1873.
Art. I.— me. MILL'S REPLY TO THE " DUBLIN
REVIEW.^'
An Examination of Sir W, Hamilton's Philosophy. By John Stuart
Mill. Fourth Edition. London : Longmans.
A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and lufhictive. By John Stuart Mill.
Eighth Edition. London : Longmans.
[The following article had been entirely completed in its
first draft and the greater portion of it actually sent to press,
when intelligence arrived of Mr. Mill's unexpected death.
Under these circumstances, we have been naturally led to
look through the article with renewed care, to see that it
contain no particle of violence or bitterness ; but on doing
so we have found nothing to change in it, except one or
two expressions which implied that Mr. Mill was still alive.
Towards Mr. Mill in fact we were not likely to have
fallen into undue harshness of language ; and the less so,
because he was himself habitually courteous to opponents,
and especially to the present writer. On the other hand
we expressed an opinion in October, 1871 (p. 308) — an
opinion to which we were led by various indications in his
writings — that he was not a believer in the One True God
Whom Christians worship; and whereas, when avowedly
noticing our article, he expressed no remonstrance on this
head, we may fairly assume that our opinion was correct.
Nor indeed does any one doubt, that the tendency of his
philosophy as a whole is intensely antitheistic ; insomuch
that many ascribe the overthrow of religious belief, e.g. in
Oxford, almost entirely to his influence. Now it is the
firmly held doctrine of Catholics, that there is no invincible
ignorance of the One True God; or in other words, that
disbelief in God convicts the disbeliever of grave sin : so
VOL. XXI. — NO. XLi. [New ScTies,'] B
2 Mr. MilVs Rei^hj to the ''Dublin Review."
that Catholics are confined within somewhat narrow limits, as
to the amount of respecfc towards such a writer, which they
are at liberty to feel and to express. Our own personal
sympathy with Mr. Mill on one or two points was so great,
that we believe there was more danger of our transgressing
those limits than of our committing the opposite fault.
One such point of sympathy was what always impressed
us as his unselfishness ; his zeal for what he believed the truth ;
• and his preference of public over personal objects. Nor
again must we fail to commemorate his earnest opposition to
nationalism in every shape. He never spoke otherwise than
with grave reprobation of that pseudo-patriotism, which im-
plies that men can laudably direct a course of conduct to
the mere pursuit of their country's temporal aggrandisement.
His notions as to wherein man's highest good consists must
be accounted by every Catholic deplorably erroneous; but he
was thoroughly penetrated with the great truth, that the
genuine patriot aims at his countrymen's highest good, and
not at their worldly exaltation or glory.
A very able commentator on his character, in the "Pall
Mall Gazette " of May 10th, considers that Mr. Mill *' was by
temperament essentially religious " ; and that his " absence
of definite religious convictions " produced " a sharp con-
trast" in his mind "between theory and feeling." We
quite agree with what is indicated by this remark. Mr. Mill
possessed apparently passionate feelings of love, which
were ever yearning for an adequate object; and he was alas !
ignorant of Him, Who implants such feelings in order that
they may be concentrated on Himself. It is in this way we
should account for "that generous self-sacrificing philan-
thropy," which we commemorated in our above-named article
as "so attractive a feature in his character"; though we
need hardly say how much more soHd and reliable is such
philanthropy (in the Catholic's judgment) where it is rested
on the love of God. By the same characteristic of Mr. Mill's
mind we should also account for language, in honour of his
wife's memory, which otherwise would almost have induced
us to doubt the writer's sanity. We are especially thinking,
under this head, of his amazing preface to the essay on
"the Enfranchisement of Women," contained in the second
volume of his " Dissertations and Discussions " ; and to the
inscription on her gravestone, which we find recorded in the
"Telegraph" of May 10.* We confess that his possession
* Here is one sentence of this epitaph : " Were there even a few hearts
and intellects like hers, this earth would already become the hoped for
heaven."
Mr. Mill's Reply to the " Dublin Review.'* 3
of thi3 loving temperament — ^however questionable its exhi-
bition may have been in this or that particular — has ever
given us a feeling towards him, quite diflTerent in kind from
that which we can entertain towards any of his brother
phenomenists.
Turning to his philosophical character — with which we are
here of course more directly concerned — the following pages,
taken by themselves, might be understood as implying a--
very far more disparaging estimate of that character than we
really entertain. It so happens indeed, that the particular con-
troversy in which we are here engaged, deals almost exclusively
with what we must account his weakest intellectual points.
Among his strongest, we should name what may be called the
'* encyclopedic '' quality of his mind : by which we intend to
express, not merely the extent of his knowledge and informa-
tion (though this was indeed extmordinary), but his unfailing
promptitude in seeing the connection between one part of
that knowledge and another; his viewing every theme in
which he might be engaged, under the full light thrown on
it by every fact which he knew and every doctrine which
he held. Cognate to this was his sincere anxiety to appre-
hend his opponents^ points of view, and to derive from their
disquisitions all the instruction he could. Then his historical
and political studies went far below the mere husk of events :
for he possessed (we think) great power of justly appreciating
the broad facts of every-day life ; whether as recorded in the
past or witnessed in the present. His language again was
the genuine correlative of his thought ; clear, well-balanced,
forcible. What we must deny to him, is any sufficient ac-
quaintance with the subtler phenomena of mind.
This latter defect exhibited itself in two different ways.
Firstly it altogether vitiated his metaphysics. We consider
that no really profound psychologian can be (as Mr. Mill was)
a phenomenist; and conversely we think that Mr. Mill's
deficiency in psychological insight generated an incapacity of
doing justice to the arguments adduced against his meta-
physical scheme. At the same time however we must state
our own strong impression, that (whether from early prejudice
or whatever cause) he never fully gave his mind, even so much
as he might have done, to those particular psychological facts^
which are adduced by his opponents as lying at the founda-
tion of their system ; and we think that the following article
will suffice in itself to establish against him this charge.
Another consequence (we think) resulting from his un-
acquaintance with the subtler phenomena of mind, was his
tendency to the wildest speculations on such themes as
b2
4 Mr. Mill's Rejphj to the '^ Dublin Review."
'^ Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity/'* As we have already
said, Mr. Mill was very largely acquainted with facts, both
past and present : but in such speculations as those to which
we refer, facts could give him no guidance ; and he had no
other clue to assist him in his researches, except such as
was aflRorded by (what we must be allowed to call) his shallow
and narrow knowledge of human nature.
We may perhaps say without impropriety, that Mr. MilPs
death is to us a matter of severe controversial disappointment.
We had far more hope of coming to some understanding with
him, than with such writers as Mr. Herbert Spencer and
Dr. Bain ; because he was in the habit of apprehending and
expressing his own thoughts, so much more definitely and per-
spicuously than they. Our present article indeed originally con-
cluded with an earnest appeal to him, that he would join issue
on the themes therein handled, more fully than he could do by
mere isolated foot-notes and appendices. For the same reason
we shall continue to treat him as representing the antitheistic
school. His books are not dead, because he is dead ; and we
think that they both are in fact, and are legitimately calculated
to be, very far more influential than those of his brother
phenomenists. We pointed out in an earlier article that, by
singling out an individual opponent, we did but follow his own
excellent example ; and we may here add, that Sir W. Hamilton
had died before Mr. Mill commenced his assault.
On looking through our article, it occurs to us that some
may complain of what they may consider its undue vehemence,
on such a purely speculative subject as the character of mathe-
matical axioms. But Mr. Mill himself, we are convinced,
would have been the last to make this complaint. No other
inquiry can be imagined so pregnant with awful consequences,
as the inquiry whether a Personal God do or do not exist. It
is this very doctrine (as we have more than once explained)
which we are vindicating in our present series of articles. Now
the proposition that there exists a vast body of necessary
truth, may well be (as we are convinced it is) a vitally import-
ant philosophical preface, to the further proposition, that there
exists a Necessary Person.f But (as we observed in a former
* A singularly vigorous volume with this title has recently appeared from
the pen of Mr. Fitzjames Stephen, which we hope to review in our next
number. It is made up almost entirely of propositions, which the good
Catholic will either accept with hearty delight, or reject with vehement
reprobation, and even disgust.
t The truth, known by Revelation, that there are Three Necessary Persons,
in no way conflicts (we need hardly say) with the truth, known by Reason,
that there exists One Necessary Person.
Mr. MiH\s livphj fu the '' Dnhlin Review^ 5
article) the doctrine that there exists a vast body of necessary
truth, is so startling h. priori and is pregnant also with conse-
quences so momentous, that the philosopher will require
absolutely irresistible evidence before he will accept it. It is
most desirable therefore that it shall be considered, as far
as may be, on its own merits; that it shall be detached
from other topics, on which men^s affections, antipathies, mis-
apprehensions, prejudices, will inevitably obscure and compli-
cate their judgment. Now just such a neutral ground is
afforded by 77inthematical truth ; and we placed it therefore
in the very front of our controversial position. It affords an
excellent opportunity for considering the characteristics of
necessary truth as such, because no one can have any religious
or moral prejudice for or against any given mathematical
theorem.
It has also occurred to us as possible, that the following
article may be accounted arrogant in its tone towards so
powerful and eminent a thinker as Mr. Mill. But let our
position be considered. As regards the particular themes
herein treated, we are deliberately of opinion, — not that there
is more to be said on our side than on Mr. Mill's — but
.that he is utterly and simply in the wrong; that not one of
his arguments has the slightest force, and hardly one of them
the most superficial appearance of force. Now if a Catholic
honestly thinks this, he should make his readers distinctly
understand that he thinks it ; because he must know that the
welfare of immortal souls suffers grievous injury, from an
exaggerated estimate of the argumentative grounds available
for disbelief.]
IT is with great regret that we have found ourselves so long
prevented, by unavoidable circumstances, from continuing
our controversy with Mr. Mill : and yet the impediments, which
have prevented this, have incidentally produced one advan-
tage. The articles which we have already published contain our
treatment of those questions, which lie at the very root of
the whole issue ; and it is of much benefit therefore to our
cause that, before we proceed further, our own answer to these
questions be both set forth with all attainable clearness, and
established with all attainable cogency. Now Mr. Mill has
given us greatly increased facility for these two purposes, by
inserting various replies to our former argument, in his new
editions of the two works which we have named at the head
of our article. On the present occasion then we shall make
use of those replies, for the service which they are so well
calculated to render.
6 Mr. MilVs Reply to the " Dublin Review.''
We said in an earlier number that Mr. Mill has always
been '' singularly clear in statement, accessible to argument,
and candid or rather generous towards opponents \'' and the
whole tone of his replies to the Dublin Eevibw is in full ac-
cordance with this estimate of his controversial qualities. At the
same time it was his conviction no less than our own, that the
highest interests of mankind are intimately involved in the pre-
valence of sound doctrine on the matters in debate ; while on
our side we further know, that these interests are inappreciable
in magnitude and eternal in duration. It is our bounden duty
therefore to do everything we can, to expose what we consider
the unreasonableness and shallowness of those phenomenistic
tenets which Mr. Mill has embraced. Of those tenets we must
ever aflSrm with confidence, that they are (as we have just
implied) not unreasonable only, but incredibly shallow; and
it is of extreme moment that this characteristic of theirs be
fully understood. Yet the very weakness of a cause may in
some sense set forth the ability of its advocate; and our
predominant feeling towards Mr. Mill is one of surprise, that
so skilful and rarely accomplished a navigator should have
embarked in so frail a vessel.
The articles which we have as yet published in direct con-
flict with Mr. Mill, are the three following : — " The Rule and
Motive of Certitude,^^ in July, 1871 ; *^Mr. MilPs Denial of
necessary Truth,^' in October, 1871 ; and " Mr. Mill on the
Foundation of Morality,^' in January, 1872. In our present
discussion we will call these respectively our first, second,
and third articles ; and the first comment we have to make is,
that (for some reason which we are unable to divine) he has
confined his reply to a criticism of our second article. No
doubt our third article is one which, from its theme, we might
more naturally expect him to notice in a new edition of his
work on " Utilitarianism,'^ than of those on " Logic,'' and
on ^^ Hamilton." Still the same third article contains
(pp. 58-61) a supplement of some importance to the argu-
ment of our first. And as to our first article itself — which is
as simply passed over by Mr. Mill as the third — the question
which it treats is an absolutely indispensable preliminary, to
the argument of that second article, which Mr. Mill has made
the exclusive object of his remarks. Without further pre-
amble however let us commence our work, by entering again
on the matters treated in our first article ; and by seeing
where Mr. Mill stands thereon in relation to ourselves. We
begin then with " the rule and motive of certitude."
There is one truth, which the extremest sceptic cannot
possibly call in question; viz., that his inward consciousness.
Mr. MiWs Reply to the '' Duhlin Review." 7
as experienced by him at the present moment, is what it is.
To doabt this, as Mr. Mill observes, would be "to doubt
that I feel what I feel/^ But this knowledge is utterly
sterile^ very far inferior to that possessed by the brutes ;
and no one manifestly can possess knowledge worthy of
being so called, unless he knows the phenomena, not only
of his momentarily present consciousness, but also (to a
greater or less extent) of that consciousness which has
now ceased to exist. A man cannot e.g. so much as under-
stand the simplest sentence spoken to him, unless, while
hearing the last word, he knows those words which have
preceded it. We ask this question then : what means has he
oi possessing this knowledge of the past ? On what grounds
can he reasonably accept, as true, the clearest and dis tine test
avouchments of his memory ? "I am conscious of a most
clear and articulate mental impression, that a very short
time ago I was suffering coW : this is one judgment. "A
very short time ago I was suffering cold ^^ ; this is another and
totaRy distinct judgment. That a man knows his present
impression of a past feeling, by no manner of means implies
that he knows the past existence of that feeling. How do you
know, we would have asked Mr. Mill, how do you know (on the
above supposition of facts) that a very short time ago you
were suffering cold ? How do you know e.g. that Professor
Huxley's suggestion* is not the very truth ? How do you
know, in other words, that some powerful and malicious being
is not at this moment deluding you into a belief that you were
cold a short time ago, when the real fact was entirely other-
wise ? How do you know in fact that any one experience,
which your memory testifies, ever really befel you at all ?
It is plain then and most undeniable, that the philo-
sopher cannot claim for men any knowledge whatever
beyond that of their momentarily present consciousness,
unless he establishes some theory, on what scholastics
call the ^^rule and motive of certitude.'^ He must (1) lay
down the "rwZeof certitude^' ; or, in other words, explain what
is the characteristic of those truths, which men may rea-
sonably accept with certitude : and (2) he must lay down
" the motive of certitude" ; or, in other words, explain what
is men's reasonable ground for accepting, as certain, those
truths which possess such characteristic. It is conceivable
doubtless, that the principle he lays down may authenticate
* "It is conceivable that some powerful and malicious being may find
his pleasure in deluding us, and in making us believe the thing which is
not every moment of our lives." — Lay Sermons, p. 356.
8 Mr. Mill's Be^dy to the '^ Dublin lievieiv.
)9
no other avouchments except those of memory; or it is
conceivable on the contrary, that that principle may authen-
ticate a large number of other avouchments. But if he pro-
fesses to be a philosopher at all, — if he professes to establish
any reasonable stronghold whatever against absolute and
utter scepticism, — some theory or other he must lay down, on
the rule and motive of certitude. And such theory is, by
absolute necessity, the one argumentative foundation of his
whole system.
We maintained in our first article, that it is the sclwlasHc
theory on this fundamental issue, which alone is conformable
with reason and with facts. This theory is of course set forth
by diflFerent writers, with greater or less difference of detail
and of expression ; and we referred (p. 47) to F. Kleutgen,
as having enunciated it with singular clearness of exposition.
Firstly what is the mle of certitude ? or, in other words, what
is the characteristic of those truths, which I may reasonably
accept as certain ? Every proposition, he replies, is known
to me as a truth, which is avouched by my cognitive faculties,
when those faculties are exercised according to their intrinsic
laws; whether they be thus exercised in declaring primary
verities, or in deriving this or that inference from those verities.
Secondly, what is the motive of certitude ? or, in other words,
what is my reasonable ground for accepting the above-named
propositions as certainly true ? He replies, that a created
gift, called the light of reason, is possessed by the soul, whereby
every man, while exercising his cognitive faculties according
to their intrinsic laws, is rendered infallibly certain that their
avouchments correspond with objective truth.
In advocating this theory however, we guarded ourselves
against two possible misconceptions of its bearing. We
admitted in the first place (p. 48) how abundantly possible it '
is, nay how frequently it happens, that men misunderstand
the avouchment of their intellect. In fact a large part of
our controversy with Mr. Mill proceeds on this very ground :
we allege against him, that this, that, and the other propo-
sition, which he denies, is really declared by the human
faculties, when exercised according to their intrinsic laws. Then
secondly we explained (p. 49) that our appeal is made to the
mind's positive not its negative constitution; or, in other
words, that we lay our stress on its affirmations, not on its wt-
capacities. It does not at all follow, we added, because the
human mind cannot conceive some given proposition, that
such proposition may not be true ; nay, that it may not be
most certain and inappreciably momentous. This statement
appears to us of great importance, in regard to various con-
Mr. MiWa lii^dy to the '' Duhlin lU'darJ' 9
troversies of the present day ; and we illustrated it accordingly
from p. 55 to p. 60. But it has little or no bearing on the
points directly at issue between Mr. Mill and ourselves.
Such then is the scholastic thesis, on the rule and motive
of certitude ; viz., that man^s cognitive faculties, while acting
on the laws of their constitution, carry with them in
each particular case immediate evidence of absolute trust-
worthiness. It would be a contradiction almost in terms,
if we professed to adduce direct argtiments for this thesis:
because the very fact of adducing arguments would imply,
that man's reasoning faculty can he trusted ; which is part of
the very conclusion to be proved. But (1) we adduced for our
thesis (pp. 49, 50) what appears to us strong indirect argu-
ment; and (2) (which is much more important) we suggested
to the inquirer such mental experiments, as are abundantly
sufficient (we consider) to satisfy him of its truth. Under the
latter head we appealed (p. 50) to each man^s consciousness
in our favour. That which his faculties indubitably declare
as certain, he finds himself under an absolute necessity of
infallibly knowing to be true. I experience, e.g., that
phenomenon of the present moment, which I thus express : I
say that I remember distinctly and articulately to have been
much colder a few minutes ago when I was out in the snow,
than I am now when sitting by a comfortable fire. Well, in
consequence of this present mental phenomenon, I find
myself under the absolute necessity of knowing, that a very
short time ago I had that experience which I now remember.
Professor Huxley suggests, that "some powerful and malicious
being '^ may possibly " find his pleasure in deluding me,'*
and in making me fancy as past what has never really happened
to me ; but I am absolutely necessitated to know, that I am
under bo such delusion in regard to this recent experience.
My act of memory is not merely known to mc as a present im-
pression, but carries with it also immediate evidence of repre-
senting a fact of my past Cd'periencc, And so with my other
intellectual operations, whether of reasoning or any other. The
subjective operation, if performed according to the laws of
my mental constitution, carries with it immediate evidence of
corresponding with objective truth.
All must admit that this is at least a consistent and intelligible
theory ; and for several intellectually active centuries it reigned
without a rival. Descartes however, the great philosophical re-
volutionist of Christian times, substituted for it a strange and
grotesque invention of his own. He held, that each man's reason
for knowing the trustworthiness of his faculties, is his previous
conviction of God's Existence and Veracity. Nothing can be
10 Mr, MiWs Be^ly to the ''Dublin Review^
more simply suicidal than this theory ; because (as is manifest)
unless I first know the trustworthiness of my cognitive faculties,
I have no means of knowing as certain (or even guessing as
probable) God^s Existence and Veracity themselves. We in-
sisted on this consideration in our first article (p. 61) ; but as
we are here in hearty concurrence with Mr. Mill, we need add
no more on the present occasion. We fear that Descartes^s
theory possesses, more or less partially, not a few minds
among the non-Catholic opponents of phenomenism.
But if certain non-CathoUc opponents of phenomenism have
exhibited shallowness in one direction, the whole body of
phenomenists* have exhibited still greater shallowness in
another. They have universally assumed as the basis of their
whole philosophy, that each man knows with certitude the
past existence of those experiences, which his memory distinctly
testifies. They admit of course that, unless this certitude
existed, man would possess less knowledge than the very
brutes ; and yet, though its assumption is to them so absolutely
vital, not one of them has so much as entertained the question,
on what ground it rests. As we have already asked — ^how do
they know — how can they reasonably even guess — that a man^s
present distinct impression of a supposed p,ast experience cor-
responds with a past fact? Still more emphatically — how do
they know, that this is not only so in one instance, but in
every instance ? that man is so wonderfully made and en-
dowed, that his present impression of what he has recently
experienced always corresponds with what he has in fact so
experienced ? They make this prodigious assumption, without
the slightest attempt at giving a reason for it, nay and without
any apparent consciousness that a reason needs to be given.
And then finally — as though to give a crowning touch of
absurdity to their amazing position — they make it their special
ground of invective against the opposite school of philosophy,
that it arbitrarily erects, into first principles of objective truth,
the mere subjective impressions of the human mind. One
could not have believed it possible that such shallowness
should have characterized a whole school of philosophers —
some of them too undoubtedly endowed with large knowledge
and signal ability, — were not the facts of the case patent and
undeniable.
We mentioned just now in a note, that an exception to this
* There is only one exception with which we happen to be acquainted ;
viz., that of Professor Huxley, which we presently mention in the text.
By '* phenomenists " (we need hardly say) we mean those philosophers, who
ascribe to mankind no immediate knowledge whatever except of phenomena.
Mr, MilVs Reply to the '^Dublin Review,^' 11
universality is afforded by Professor Huxley ; and there may
of course be other exceptions, with which we do not happen
to be acquainted. In our first article (p. 45, note) we quoted
one of the Professor^s remarks to which we here refer. ^^ The
general trustworthiness of memory,^^ he says, "is one of
those hypothetical assumptions, which cannot be proved or
known with that highest degree of certainty which is given
by immediate consciousness ; but which nevertheless are of
the highest practical value, inasmuch as the conclusions
logically drawn from them are always verified by experience.''
To this singular piece of reasoning, we put forth (p. 46) an
obvious reply. You tell us that you trust your present act of
memory, because in innumerable past instances the avouch-
ments of memory have been true. How do you know — how
can you even guess — that there has been one such instance?
Because you trust your present act of memory; no other
answer can possibly be given. Never was there so audacious
an instance of arguing in a circle. You know forsooth that
your present act of memory can be trusted, because in in-
numerable past instances the avouchment of memory has been
true ; and you know that in innumerable past instances the
avouchment of memory has been true, because you trust your
present act of memory. The blind man leads the blind round
a " circle '' incurably " vicious.''
Let us observe the Professor's philosophical position. It is
his principle, that men know nothing with certitude, except
their present consciousness. Now, on this principle, it is just
as absurd to say that the facts testified by memory are probably ,
as that they are certainly true. What can be more violently
unscientific, we asked (p. 50, note) — from the stand-point of
experimental science — than to assume without grounds as ever
so faintly probable the very singular proposition, that mental
phenomena (by some entirely unknown law) have proceeded
in such a fashion, that my clear impression of the past corre-
sponds with my past experience ? Professor Huxley possesses
no doubt signal ability in his own line ; but surely as a meta-
physician he exhibits a sorry spectacle. He busies himself
in his latter capacity with diligently overthrowing the only
principle, on which his researches as a physicist can have
value or even meaning.
At present however, our direct business is with Mr. Mill ;
and we are next to inquire, how his philosophy stands in
reference to the rule and motive of certitude. As to the rule
of certitude, he speaks (it seems to us) so ambiguously, as to
make it a matter of no ordinary difficulty to discover which one
of two contradictory propositions he intends to affirm ; while.
12 Mr. Mill's Ficphj to the '' Luhllu lUrU w^
as to the inotive of certitude, he unites with his brother
phenomenists in shirking the question altogether.
We shall begin with urging against him this latter allega-
tion. We did not bring it forward by any means so strongly
in our former article;* because (as we shall explain further
on) we had good reason for understanding him to admit much
more in our favour, than his present reply shows him to have
intended. Even now we entirely concede that he (and again
Dr. Bain) have made a distinct step beyond earlier writers of
their school. They have advanced, we say, a little way beyond
earlier writers, along the road which (if duly pursued) would
have brought them into the observed presence of the question
with which we are here engaged. Yet even they, we must
maintain, have nowhere arrived at a distinct apprehension,
that there is such a question to bo considered as the motive
of certitude.
With Dr. Bain we are not here concerned. As to Mr. Mill,
the direct basis of our allegation against him is of course
negative. He admits everywhere, that men^s knowledge of
their past experience is an absolutely indispensable condition
for knowledge.f But we believe no one place can be mentioned
throughout his works, in which he so much as professes to ex-
plain, on what principle it is, that men can reasonably trust
their memory as authenticating their past experience. At
least, we protest we have been unable to find such a passage,
though our search has been minute and laborious.
There is no part of his writings in which one might
so reasonably have expected to find some doctrine on the
motive of certitude, as in a passage on which we have
before now laid some stress : a passage indeed which (for
reasons presently to be given) we originally understood in a
far more favourable sense, than his subsequent explanation
permits. He had said (on Hamilton, p. 209, note) that "our
belief in the veracity of memory is evidently ultimate^'; because
" no reason can be given for it, which does not presuppose tho
belief and assume it to be well grounded.^' On this we made
the following comment in our second article (p. 310) : —
He holds that there is just one intuition — one, and only one — which carries
with it [immediate] evidence of truth. There was an imperative claim on
him then, as he valued his philosophical character, to explain clearly and
* We only said (p. 64), that he " has failed in clearly and consistently
apprehending and bearing in mind the true doctrine."
t For instance. " All who have attempted the explanation of the human
mind by sensation, have postulated the knowledge of past sensations as well
AS of present." (" Op Jlarailton," p. 210, note).
Mr, MilVs Il^tphj to the '^ Dublin lievieiv," 13
pointedly, wJiere the distiiiction lies between acts of memory and other alleged
intuitions. He would have found the task very difficult, we confidently
affirm ; but that only gives us more reason for complaining that he did not
make the attempt. To us it seems that various classes of intuition are more
favourably circumstanced for the establishment of their trustworthiness, than
is that class which Mr. Mill accepts. Thus in the case of many a wicked
action, it would really be easier for the criminal to believe that he had never
committed it, than to doubt its necessary turpitude and detestableness. Then
in the case of other intuitions, I know that the rest of mankind share them
with myself ; and I often know also that experience confirms them as far as
it goes : but I must confidently trust my acts of clear and distinct memory^
before I can even guess what is held by other men or what is declared by
experience.
Mr. Mill thus replies : —
Dr. Ward with good reason challenges me to explain where the distinction
lies, between acts of memory and other alleged intuitions which I do not
admit as such. The distinction is, that as all the explanations of mental
phenomena presuppose memory, memory itself cannot admit of being
explained. Whenever this is shown to be true of any other part of our
knowledge, I shall admit that part to be intuitive. Dr. Ward thinks that
there are various other intuitions more favourably circumstanced for the
establishment of their trustworthiness than memory itself ; and he gives as
an example our conviction of the wickedness of certain acts. My reason
for rejecting this as a case of intuition is, that the conviction can be explained,
without presupposing as part of the explanation the very fact itself ; which
the belief in memory cannot.
Our readers then will observe that Mr. Mill, when
expressly challenged, gives no other reason for his belief in
the veracity of memory, except only this. Memory, he
says, must be assumed to be veracious, because ^^as all the ex-
planations of mental phenomena presuppose memory, memory
itself cannot admit of being explained ^^ : or in other words,
(as he expressed the same thought somewhat more clearly in
his original note), because "no reason can be given for the
veracity of memory, which does not presuppose the belief and
assume it to be well grounded.^' But a mementos consideration
will show, that this answer implies a fundamental misconcep-
tion of the point we had raised. The question which he
answers is, whether my knowledge of past facts {assuming that
I have such knowledge) is on the one hand an immediate
and primary, or on the other hand a mediate and secondary,
part of my knowledge.* But the question which we asked
* Observe e.g., his words : *' Whenever this appears to be true of any other
part of our hxowledge."
] 4 Mr. MiWs Reply to the " Dublin Review,'^
was totally different from this. We asked, on what ground
my belief of the facts testified by my memory can be accounted
part of my hnowledge at all. We asked in short, on what
reasonable ground can my conviction rest, that I ever ex-
perienced those sensations, emotions, thoughts, which my
memory represents to me as past facts of my life ?
We say that the question to which Mr. Mill has replied, is
fundamentally different from the question which we asked. Let
it be assumed that my belief in the declarations of my memory is
a real part of my knowledge, and nothing can be more pertinent
than Mr. MilFs argument : he shows satisfactorily, that such
belief must be an immediate and primary part of my knowledge,
not a mediate and derivative part thereof. But when the very
question asked is, whether this belief be any part of my know-
ledge at all, Mr. MilPs reply is simply destitute of meaning.
For consider. We may truly predicate of every false belief
which ever was entertained — nay, of every false belief which
can even be imagined — that " no '' satisfactory " reason can be
given for it, which does not presuppose the belief and assume
it to be well grounded.^^ If Mr. Mill then were here professiug
to prove the trustworthiness of memory, his argument would
be this : " The declarations of memory,^^ he would be saying,
^' are certainly true, because they possess one attribute, which
is possessed by every false belief which was ever entertained
or can even be imagined.^^
Or we may draw out against him, in a different shape,
what is substantially the same argument. Mr. Mill's first
business — as it is that of every philosopher — was to show that
philosophy is possible ; or, in other words, to place before his
disciples reasonable grounds for rejecting the sceptical con-
clusion. Now the sceptic's argument — as put e.g. (however
inconsistently) by Professor Huxley — may be worded as follows :
" No knowledge is possible to me, except that which I possess
'^ at any given moment of my actually present consciousness.
" No knowledge is possible to me, I say, beyond this j because
*' I cannot possibly acquire more, except by knowing that the
'^declarations of my memory may be trusted. But I see no
'^ ground whatever for knowing that these may be trusted. How
'' can I guess but that — as the Professor suggests — some power-
^^ ful and malicious being may find his pleasure in deluding me,
^^ and making me fancy myself to remember things which
never happened ? Nay, apart from that supposition, there
may be ten thousand different agencies, to me unknown,
^' which may have produced my present impression of a sup-
" posed past, not one of which agencies in any degree implies
^^ that this supposedly past experience was ever really mine/'
Mr, MiWs Bephj ta the ^'Dublin Eevietv.'' 15
5Ir. Mill, we say, was absolutely required to give reasonable
ground for rejecting this view of things, under pain of forfeiting
his position of "philosopher^' altogether. Let us consider
then how far the one argument which he gives for the trust-
worthiness of memory, will enable him to oppose the sceptical
view. His argument, if it can be logically expressed at
all, consists of two syllogisms, which we will draw out in
form.
Syllogism I.
Knowledge of much more than present consciousness is
possible to human beings.
But such knowledge would not be possible, unless they had
reasonable grounds for trusting their memory.
Therefore they have reasonable grounds for trusting their
memory.
Syllogism II.
Men have reasonable grounds for trusting their memory
(Conclusion of First Syllogism).
But they would not have such grounds, unless its veracity
were immediately evident : (because " no reason can be given
for it, which does not presuppose if).
Therefore the veracity of memory is immediately evident.
We beg our readers then to observe the character of this
argument. It abandons all profession of replying to the
sceptic at all; it assumes, as the very major premiss of its
first syllogism, that precise proposition, which the sceptic
expressly and formally denies.
We infer from all this, that the question which we pressed on
Mr. Mill, — we will not say has not been answered, — but has
not even been apj'irehended by him. With him, as with other
phenomenists, "the motive of certitude '^ is a " missing link''
of the philosophical chain. Even if the merits of his philoso-
phical structure were far greater than we can admit, no one
can deny that it is entirely destitute of a foundation ; that he
has exhibited no grounds whatever, on which inquirers can
reasonably accept either his own conclusions or any one
else's.
A similar view of his position is impressed on our mind by
another paragraph, in which he treats the sceptical tenet more
directly ; and in which he shows again, that he has not
even a glimpse of the sceptic's true controversial status. It
will be better to give this paragraph at length ; and we need
only explain, by way of preface, that he uses the word " con-
sciousness,"— not in the sense in which ive uniformly use it
16 Mr, MilVs R(.'phj to the ** Dublin Review, '^
and which he himself accounts the more usual and con-
venient,— but in a totally diflferent sense, given to it by Sir W.
Hamilton. We italicise one sentence : —
According to all philosophers, the evidence of consciousness, if only we can
obtain it pure, is conclusive. This Is an obvious, but by no means a mere
identical proposition. If consciousness be defined as intuitive knowledge,
it is indeed an identiciil proposition to say, that if we intuitively know any-
thing, we do know it, and are sure of it. But the meaning lies in the implied
assertion, that we do know some things immediately, or intuitively. That
we must do so is evident, if we know anything ; for what we know mediately
depends for its evidence on our previous knowledge of something else ;
unless therefore we know something immediately, we could not know any-
thing mediately and consequently could not know anything at all. That
imaginary being, a complete sceptic, might be supposed to answer, that
perhaps we do not know anything at all. I shall not reply to this proble-
matical antagonist in tliej usual manner, by telling him that if he does not
know anything, I do. I put to him the simplest case conceivable of imme-
diate knowledge, and ask if we ever feel anything ? If so, then at the
moment of feeling do we know that we feel ? or, if he will not call this know-
ledge, will he deny that when we have a feeling we have at least some
sort of assurance, or conviction, of having it ? This assurance of conviction
is what other people mean by knowledge. If he dislikes the word, I am
willing in discussing with him to employ some other. By whatever name this
assurance is called, it is the test to which wc bring all our other convictions .
He may say it is not certain ; but such as it may be it is our model of certainty.
We consider all our other assurances and convictions as more or less certain,
according as they approach the standard of this. I have a conviction that
there are icebergs on the Arctic seas. I have not the evidence of my senses
for it : I never saw an iceberg. Neither do I intuitively believe it by a law
of my mind. My conviction is mediate, grounded on testimony, and on
inferences from physical laws. When I say I am convinced of it, I mean
that the evidence is equal to that of my senses. I am as certain of the fact
as if I had seen it. And on a more complete analysis, when I say that I am
convinced of it, what I am convinced of is that if I were in the Arctic seas I
should see it. AVe mean by knowledge, and by certainty, an assurance
similar and equal to that afforded by our senses : if the evidence in any
other case can be brought up to this, we desire no more. If a person is not
satisfied with this evidence, it is no concern of anybody but himself, nor,
practically of himself, since it is admitted that this evidence is what we
must, and may in full confidence, act upon. Absolute scepticism, if there be
such a thing, may be dismissed from discussion, as raising an irrelevant
issue, for in denying all knowledge it denies none. The dogmatui may he
quite satisfied if the doctrine he inaintains can he attached hy u^ arguments^ but
those which apply to the evidence of our senses. If his evidence is equal to
that, he needs no more ; nay, it is philosophically maintainable that by the
Mr. MilVs Rephj to the "Dublin Review" 17
laws of psychology we can conceive no more, and that this is the certainty
we call perfect. — (On Hamilton, pp. 157 8.)
This whole passage, as we have observed, is very significant.
In the italicised sentence, Mr. Mill says that scepticism cannot
be assailed by any arguments, except those which would over-
throw " the evidence of the senses.^' Very short work would
be made of this statement by a consistent follower of Professor
Huxley. He would point of course to the undeniable fact, that
men's belief in the " evidence of their senses " or in the
phenomena of their consciousness at any given moment on
one hand, and men's belief in anything else whatever on the
other hand, — that these two beliefs rest respectively on grounds
fundamentally different from each other. He would urge
with irrefragable force, that the former belief is independent
of the question whether their memory may or may not be
trusted ; whereas every other belief is destitute of so much as
the hundredth part of a leg to stand on, unless the trust-
worthiness of memory be in some way made known to them.
Of this vital fact in the controversy with sceptics, Mr. Mill
seems absolutely and utterly unaware.
There is another passage of Mr. Mill's, which we may also
adduce. We referred to it in our first article (p. 64) ; but
now that we understand more clearly Mr. Mill's statements, we
had better quote it entire : —
I must protest against adducing, as evidence of the truth of a fieMst in
external nature, the disposition, however strong or however general, of
the human mind to believe it. Belief is not proof, and does not dis-
pense with the necessity of proof. I am aware, that to ask for evidence of
a proposition which we are supposed to believe instinctively, is to expose
oneself to the charge of rejecting the authority of the human faculties ;
' which of course no one can consistently do, since the human faculties are
all which any one lias to judge hy : and inasmuch as the meaning of the
word evidence is supposed to he something which when laid before the
mind induces it to believ.e ; to demand evidence when belief is ensured hy
the mind's own laws, is supposed to be appealing to the intellect against
the intellect. But this, I apprehend, is a misunderstanding of the nature of
evidence. By evidence is not meant anything and everything which pro-
duces belief. There are many things which generate belief besides evidence.
A mere strong association of ideas often cause a belief so intense as to be
unshakable by experience or argument. Evidence is not that which
the mind does or must yield to, but that which it ought to yield to,
namely that, by vlelding to which, its belief is kept conformable to fact.
There is no appeal from the human faculties generally, but there is an
appeal from one human faculty to another ; from the judging faculty, to
those which take cognisance of fact, the faculties of sense and consciousness.
voTi. XXI. — NO. XLi. [New Series,'] c
18 Mr. MilVs Reply to the " Dublin Review."
The lepjitiraacj of this appeal is admitted whenever it is allowed that our
judgments ought to be conformable to fact. To say that belief suffices for
its own justification is making opinion the test of opinion ; it is denying the
existence of any outward standard, the conformity of an opinion to which
constitutes its truth. We call one mode of forming opinions right and
another wrong, because the one does, and the other does not, tend to make
the opinion agree with fact — to make people believe what really is, and
expect what really will be. Now a mere disposition to believe, even if sup-
posed instinctive, is no guarantee for the truth of the thing believed. If,
indeed, the belief ever amounted to an irresistible necessity, there would then
be no use in appealing from it, because there would be no possibility of
altering it. But even then the truth of the belief would not follow ; it
would only follow that mankind were under a permanent necessity of
believing what might possibly not be true ; in other words, that a case
might occur in which our senses or consciousness, if they could be appealed
to, might testify one thing, and our reason believe another. — (Logic, vol. IL
pp. 96-98.)
Now to begin with the opening sentences of this paragraph.
Of course we admit that, under particular circumstances, there
may be a strbng disposition of the human mind to believe
untrue propositions. But Mr. MilPs statement is very dif-
ferent from this. No disposition to believe, he says, " however
strong or however general/' can evidence a fact. A more
glaringly untenable philosophical statement never was put
forth. There is literally no " fact in external nature/' great or
small, which does not rest in last resort, for the "evidence of its
truth,'' exclusively on " the disposition of the human mind to
believe it." This is absolutely undeniable, for consider. No one
fact can possibly be established, except through the past ex-
perience of human beings. Mr. Mill of all men will not deny
this. But that human beings ever had this past experience,
is a fact to which no one with any show of reason could attach
the least shred of credibility, were it not for the "disposition"
of their " mind" to accept as true the declarations of their
memory ; and were it not for that inward gift possessed by
them, whereby they know that this acceptance is reasonable.
And a comment precisely similar might so easily be made on
each successive sentence of the passage, that we should be
guilty of tedious impertinence if we inflicted such comment on
our readers' patience. Our inference is as before, that Mr. Mill,
from wholly failing to apprehend the position of sceptics, has
also wholly failed to apprehend the necessity of carefully con-
sidering " the motive of certitude."
Wehavesaid however, that Mr.Mill is oneof two phenomenist
writers, who (as we think) have advanced a littlo way beyond
earlier writers of their school, towards discerning the existence
Mr. MiWs Reply to the '^ Dublin Review." 19
of this question. In Mr. Mill's case we are here specially re-
ferring to the ninth chapter of his work ^^ On Hamilton/' con-
cerning 'Hhe interpretation of consciousness/' In p. 159 he
cites the distinction drawn by Sir W. Hamilton, between the
authority of what is commonly called consciousness on one
hand, and of what is commonly called intuition on the other;*
and in pp. 162-3 he expresses hearty concurrence with this
distinction.t Sir William proceeds — still with Mr. Mill's full
approval — to derive an instance of this distinction from the
faculty of memory. "I cannot deny/' he says (Mill, p. 160),
" the actual phenomenon " that I have that present impression
which I call an act of memory, " because my denial would be
suicidal: but I can without self-contradiction assert, that
[present] consciousness may be a false witness in regard to
any former existence ; and I may maintain, if I please, that the
memory of the past, in consciousness, is nothing but a phe-
nomenon, which has no reality beyond the present,'' Mr. Mill
then has here got hold of the truth, that the two beliefs —
belief in the present existence of the act of memory, and belief
in the past existence of those phenomena which memory
testifies — that these two beliefs rest on foundations totally
diflFerent from each other. It is passing strange, that he
should have let this truth slip from his mind after having
once apprehended it ; that he should have failed to inquire
accordingly, what is the basis on which beliefs of the latter
kind reasonably rest ; and above all, that at the beginning
of this very chapter (at pp. 157-8) he should have expressed
(as our readers have seen) an opinion, directly contrary to that
doctrine of Sir W. Hamilton's which he endorses in pp. 162-3.
We consider then that we have established a very grave
charge indeed, against Mr. Mill's philosophical character. It
is the very first business of a philosopher to show that he has
a " raison d'etre " ; that philosophy can exist ; that human
knowledge is possible. Those who hold that no human
knowledge is possible, ground their opinion on the alleged
impossibility of authenticating the avouchments of memory.
Mr. Mill not only has not solved this diflSculty, not only has
not attempted to solve it, but has not even contemplated its
existence. We are by no means implying that herein he is
* All those philosophers who use the word " intuitions " at all, use it in
the same sense. They use it to express those truths, which are not indeed
mere facts of present consciousness, but which nevertheless are immediately
and primarily known with certitude.
t These are Mr. Mill's words of approval : — " By the conception and clear
exposition of this distinction, Sir W. Hamilton has " shown " that, whatever
be the positive value of his achievements in metaphysics, he has a greater
capacity for the subject than many metaphysicians of high reputation."
c 2
20 Mr. MilVs Reply to the ^^ Dublin Review.^*
inferior to other phenomenists ; on the contrary we have said
that he is somewhat in advance of them : but what we wish
to impress on our readers, is the incredible shallowness of
the phenomenistic philosophy itself.
Mr. Mill has also replied to the rest of th^ criticism which
we expressed in our second article, on his treatment of
the memory question; and this will be our proper place
for dealing with his reply. One remark we made was, that
his statement about memory constitutes "a most pointed
exception to his school's general doctrine, and an excep-
tion which no phenomenist had made before." To this
Mr. Mill answers (on Hamilton, p. 210, note) that he
"doubts whether we can point out any phenomenist who
has not made it either expressly or by implication.*' We
reply, that we had understood him to admit in his note — and
we had excellent reason for so understanding him — much
more than (as now appears) he ever intended. We under-
stood him in his original note to express agreement with
what was said in Dr. Ward's " Philosophical Introduction,"
on this particular theme.* Now the view set forth in that
work was identical with the view advocated in the preceding
pages. Dr. Ward maintained, not merely that " the veracity
of memory" in each particular case is not known by reasoning
or by consciousness, but further that it is known with certi-
tude by means of a gift which may be called the light of reason ;
that man's belief in the veracity of memory on one hand, and
of present conscioiisness on the other, rest on grounds funda-
mentally different from each other; but thateacA rests on
evidence abundantly suflScient. Dr Ward, we may add, laid
his main stress on the proposition, that the trustworthiness
of memory, in any given case whatever, is known, not at all
by consciousness, but by the mind's own inward light.
We had no other notion then, but that Mr. Mill intended to
express concunrence with this opinion. And even if we had
otherwise doubted this, we should have been strongly con-
firmed in our existing impression, by that comment of Mr.
Mill's on Sir W. Hamilton which we so recently quoted. How
were we to guess that the same writer, who praised Sir William
so warmly for his " conception and clear exposition of this
distinction," did not Ynm^oi^ recognize the distinction? We
consider therefore (as we have more than once said in the
* Mr. Mill said : — " Our belief in the veracity of memory is evidently
ultimate," &c. " This point is forcihly urged in " Dr. Ward's Philosophicjil
Introduction, "a book .... showing a capacity in the wrier," &c., &c.
Nor did Mr. Mill give the most distant hint, that he dilTercd from Dr. Ward's
view of the subject in its most essential particular.
N
Mr. MilVs Beply to the "Dublin Review.'^ 21
preceding pages) that we had excellent reasons for considering
Mr. Mill's view to be coincident with our own on the motive
of certitude ; and we now can only regret our inevitable
mistake. We said in our first article^ that he " failed in con-
sistently apprehending and bearing in mind '' what we regard
as " the true doctrine ; '' but we now see that he never in any
way held it. Our readers then will understand, what was the
view which we inevitably (though it now appears mistakenly)
ascribed to Mr. Mill : and this being so, we easily defend the
criticism expressed by us in our second article. If Mr. MilFs
doctrine had been what we supposed, it would have constituted
" a most pointed exception to his schooFs general doctrine '' ;
for we are certainly not aware of a single phenomenist writer
anterior to Mr. Mill, who had so much as a glimpse of it.
Mr. Mill further takes exception to our remark, that " if
there ever were a paradoxical position, his is one on the
surface.'^ But it will now be understood, that we were speaking
of the position which we inevitably mistook for his, and not
of that which he really intended to assume. We under-
stood him to concur with our doctrine, that the soul of man
possesses a special gift, given for the very purpose of au-
thenticating intuitions. On such a supposition we do think
it paradoxical, to hold that there is just one class of intuitions
and no more. But we need hardly say that the statement is
of no controversial importance, and we willingly withdraw it.
We confess however, with regret, one piece of carelessness,
which Mr. Mill has pointed out. We did not sufficiently bear
in mind, that he had " avowedly left the question open, whether
our perception of our own personality is not " another " case
of the same kind ''; another case of intuition.
We now pass from Mr. Mill's doctrine (or rather absence
of doctrine) on the motive of certitude, to his doctrine on the
t-ule thereof. In particular as regards primary truths : what
is the characteristic, we should have liked to ask him, of
those judgments, which man may reasonably accept as
immediately and primarily evident ? F. Kleutgen answers —
and we are heartily in accord — that all those and only those
judgments may reasonably be accepted as immediately evi-
dent, which man's existing cognitive faculties immediately
avouch as certain.
Now whether it be taken as proof of Mr. Mill's obscurity
or of our own dulness, certain it is that on this point also,
when we wrote our first article, we considered Mr. Mill's
doctrine to be far nearer our own than it really is. We were
led astray by such passages as the following, which we quoted
in p. 62 : — " The verdict of Our immediate and intuitive con-
viction is admitted on all hands to be a decision without
22 Mr. Mill's Reply to the ^' Dublin Review J'
appeal/' " As regards almost all if not all philosophers/' —
and by his very phrase (we said) he implies that he at all
events is no dissentient, — " the questions which divided them
have never turned on the veracity of consciousness : '' where
(as we explained) he is, by his own express avowal, using the
word " consciousness " in Sir W. Hamilton's sense of ^^ imme-
diate and intuitive conviction." What Sir W. Hamilton calls
*' the testimony of consciousness/' so Mr. Mill proceeds, " to
something beyond itself, may be and is denied ; but what is
denied has almost always been that consciousness gives the
testimony, not that if given it must he believed.'' We might
have added other similar statements. Thus (p. 137) : " what
consciousness directly reveals, together with what can be
legitimately inferred from its revelations, composes by uni-
versal admission all that we know." ^' All agree with " Sir
W. Hamilton (p. 165), ^^ in the position itself, that a real fact
of consciousness cannot be denied." These sentences, one
would have thought, are most plain and unmistakable in their
assertion, that whatever is declared by men's '^ immediate and
intuitive conviction" is undubitably true. Then there was
another reason also for crediting Mr. Mill with the same
theory; viz., that, according to this interpretation of his
words, he would have laid down a solid basis for his belief in
the veracity of memory. If those judgments may reasonably
be accepted as primarily evident, which man's existing cogni-
tive faculties immediately avouch as certain, — then the various
declarations of memory indubitably rank among primarily
evident truths.
In the same article however, we quoted other sentences of
Mr. Mill, which point to quite a different — ^indeed a directly
contradictory — theory on the rule of certitude. This theory
is, that no judgment can be reasonably accepted by me as
immediately evident, which would not have been declared by
my cognitive faculties in their earliest and primordial state.*
And the sentences of Mr. Mill, which we quoted as seeming to
express this theory, are such as the following. Men should only
accept, he says, " what consciousness told them at the time when
its revelations were in their pristine purity." " We have no
means of interrogating consciousness, in the only circumstances
in which it is possible for it to give a trustworthy answer"
And we might have added several others even stronger. That
we
• We expressed this theory however somewhat incorrectly. Mr. Mill,
.. i said (p. 63)y ^' seems to imply that the laws of man's mental constitution
are changed, during his progress from infancy to manhood." The theory we
are criticising has faults enough of its own to answer for ; but need not be
understood as involving so great a paradox as this. Mr. Mill pointed out to
us this misapprehension in a private letter.
Mr. MilVs Re-ply to the "Dublin Review,'' 23
which is ^' a fact of our consciousness in its present artificial
state," may possibly " have no claim to the title of a fact of
consciousness eenerally, or to the unlimited credence given to
what is originally consciousness " (p. 1 63). '' We cannot study
the original elements of our mind in the facts of our present
consciousness'* (p. 179). ^' Could we try the experiment of
the first consciousness in any infant .... whatever was present
in that first consciousness would be the genuine testimony of
consciousness'^ (p. 178). And accordingly Mr. Mill complains,
that " in all Sir W. Hamilton's writings/' no " single instance
can be found in which, before registering a belief as a part of
our consciousness ^om the beginning, he thinks it necessary to
ascertain that it has not grown up subsequently " (p. 181). Of
course Sir W. Hamilton never dreamed of the strange tenet,
here taken for granted by Mr. Mill. He never dreamed of the
tenet, that what he called " consciousness," — i.e., as Mr. Mill
himself explains, " immediate and intuitive conviction" — is no
rule of certitude, except as regards its primordial avouchments.
This tenet indeed — we must really be allowed to say — is so
transparently shallow, that we were very unwilling to believe
it could be Mr. Mill's. In our first article accordingly (p. 64?)
we declared, " we cannot persuade ourselves that he really
means what he seems to say." When however we looked
more narrowly at Mr. Mill's language with a view to our third
article, we arrived at a difierent conclusion ; and " we found his
meaning " as we said (p. 59 note), '' much more pronounced
and unmistakable than we had fancied." We observed
particularly (what had escaped our notice) that he alleges
this theory in direct opposition to the other, as his reason
for upholding what he calls the ''psychological" as con-
trasted with the ''introspective" method of philosophising
(On Hamilton, p. 179). This consideration is decisive. We
are obliged accordingly to credit this grave writer with the
theory which he so energetically professes ; and to understand
him as holding, that no declaration of my cognitive faculties is
trustworthy, unless it be a declaration which those faculties
would have put forth, when I was " an infant ;" when I " first
opened my eyes to the light" (On Hamilton, p. 178).
Certainly he has here assumed very solid ground against
necessists.f He may very safely challenge them to show
if they can, that when they were infants, first opening their
eyes to the light, their faculties would have avouched, as
t The word " necessarian " is irretrievably appropriated^ to the purpose of
designating those who deny free wUl. We have coined therefore the word
in the tex^ to express an idea for which some word or other is urgently
needed.
24 Mr. MiU's Reply to (he " Dublin Review J'
a necessary truths the triangularity of trilaterals, or the
divergency of two intersecting straight lines. But then he
absolutely slaughters himself, by the weapon which he raises
against his opponents. We would thus address one of his
disciples. You are very confident doubtless, that you really
experienced this or that fact, which you remember to have
occurred an hour or so ago ; and you will very readily admit
that if such memory were not trustworthy, experimental
science would be even more utterly impossible than meta-
physical. Yet have you any ground (even the faintest) for
even conjecturing, that when you were a new-born infant — or,
for that matter, when you were a baby half a year old- -your
memory could truly testify the experience of your last hour ?
Of course not. When therefore Mr. Mill assumes the trust-
worthiness, whether of his own or other men's memory, he is
suicidally abandoning the ^^psychological/' and contenting
himself with the ^' introspective '' method. Or, in other
words, that " psychological '' method, which he regards as
the one safeguard of sound philosophy, overthrows the wholo
possibility of experimental science.
But, in fact, we are are greatly understating the case. Take
any one of Mr. MilPs living disciples. We nave been saying
that, on his own theory, the avouchments of his present
memory are not primarily and immediately known by him as
true. But in our third article (p. 60) we have further urged,
that (on his own theory) he has no means of even making
the inguiry whether they bo true or no. He cannot, we say,
so much as begin to investigate the question whether his existing
memoir be trustworthy, without taking for granted that it is so ;
for, unless he trust his existing memory, he cannot so much as
draw the most obvious of conclusions from the simplest of
premisses. But if he takes for granted that the avouchments
of his present memory are true, then he is taking the present,
and not the primordial, declaration of his faculties, as his rule
of certitude. We cannot conjecture why Mr. Mill has left wholly
unanswered this very direct objection, which we had so clearly
and definitely expressed.
So far we have argued against this amazing theory, from its
consequences. We have maintained that, by upholding it,
Mr. Mill inflicts on himself no less a calamity, than that of
philosophical suicide. Let us now in turn consider the same
theory, as regards the evidence addu^iblefor its truth. It is
necessarily an essential part of the foundation on which Mr.
Mill's whole philosophy rests ; and .we have a right to expect
therefore, that it shall itself be inexpugnable, x et was there
ever, we ask, a more gratuitous and arbitrary dictum, than
Mr. Mill's Reply to the " Dublin Review.'* 25
that whatever men's faculties declared in their primordial
condition, is infallibly true ? On what ground (from his point
of view) could Mr. Mill even guess, that whatever a baby's
memory distinctly testifies is infallibly true ? Was there ever
otherwise such a basis as this attempted for a philosophical
system ? such a foundation as this laid down as the one
support of all human knowledge ? The whole mass of human
knowledge is made utterly dependent on what is about the
most gratuitous and arbitrary hypothesis which can well be
imagined.
Do we then ourselves, Mr. Mill might ask, doubt that the
avouchment of men's faculties in their earlier state is in-
fallibly true ? Speaking generally, we do not doubt this at all ;
though we should be sorry to commit ourselves on Mr. Mill's
case, of the new-born infant first opening his eyes to the
gliht. But we maintain confidently that the veracity of my
;?r/morrfMiZ faculties, — instead of being a primary truth, — is an
inference from the veracity of mj present faculties. Our position
is most intelligible. Whatever my existing faculties indubitably
declare, I am under a necessity of infallibly knowing to bo
true ; and I infer from this fact, that I possess a special gift
(called by scbolastics the light of reason) which authenticates
the veracity of these faculties. Of these, none is more
vitally essential than that of memory; and by means of this
faculty, I know with infallible certainty a large number of
facts in my past life. Looking back at these, I find myself
to have possessed, at every period to which my memory
roaches, the same light of reason which I possess now ; and
I infer therefore, that then, no less than now, my faculties
were veracious. In one word, the veracity of men's faculties
in their earlier state is inferred from their present veracity ;
whereas Mr. Mill, by a preposterous inversion of the natural
order, would authenticate the present by means of the past.
Such is the contrast we would draw, between the theories of
what may respectively be called '' primordial " and ^' existing"
certitude. At the same time we have been uniformly careful
to urge, that there may be serious mistakes in interpreting the
avouchment of men's existing faculties. Particularly we
altogether admitted in our first article (p. 64), ^' that again and
again inferences are so readily and imperceptibly drawn, as to
be most easily mistaken for intuitions.'' In accordance with
this we proceeded to say, that '' in arguing hereafter with Mr.
Mill, we shall have no right of alleging aught as certainly a
primitive truth, without proving that it cannot be an opinion
derived inferentially from experience." In our third article
we acted sedulously on this principle: we argued carefully
26 Mr, MilVs Reply to tlie " Vuhlin Review.
9>
(pp. 48-53), that those moral judgments, which we were
maintaining to be intuitive, could not possibly be derived from
experience, however rapid and imperceptible the process of
inference might be supposed to be. We have no means of
knowing on what ground Mr. Mill would base his opposition to
the conclusions of that article ; but we still strongly incline to
the opinion there expressed, that he would oppose it in no
o^iher way, than by falling back on his own amazing theory of
primordial certitude.
In regard to our second article, our impression is different.
The main purpose of that article was to establish against Mr.
Mill the doctrine, that the whole body of mathematical truth
possesses the attribute of necessity. Now, if Mr. Mill really
admitted that men's cognitive faculties in their existing state
declare this doctrine — ani if he denied the doctrine on no
other ground, than that the faculties of a new-born infant would
give no such testimony — we should consider him abundantly
refuted by the preceding remarks. But we still think, as we
thought when we wrote the article, that he assumes ground far
stronger and more plausible than this. He alleges, we think,
that necessists do not accurately analyse the declaration of
their existing faculties. I consider myself e.g. to cognise, as a
self-evident and necessary truth, that every trilateral figure is
triangular: but Mr. Mill would reply, that experience has
most unexceptional ly united in my mind the two ideas of
trilateralness and triangularity; and that accordingly I mistake
for intuition, what is really a rapid and unconscious inference
from experience. In the remaining part of our article then,
this is the issue to be handled. And in this later part of our
discussion we are far more favourably circumstanced, than we
have been in our earlier. Hitherto we have trodden ground,
on which Mr. Mill can hardly be said to have entered into
express controversy with us at all ; because of his inexplicable
silence on our first article, and on that part of our third which
is connected therewith. But as to our second article — on the
necessary character of mathematical truth — he has encountered
us explicitly, and said all which he deemed necessary for our
refutation. We have the immense advantage therefore, of
knowing all which can be said against us by that opponent,
who is (to our mind), immeasurably the ablest and most
persuasive of his school.
Certainly at the outset, Mr. MilFs theory on mathematical
axioms is very startling. If I were asked what are those
truths which are best known to me by constant and uniform
experience, all the world except phenomenist philosophers
Mr. MiWs Reply to the '' Dublin Review J' 27
would be greatly surprised by any hesitation in my reply.
The truths, I should answer, best known to rae by constant
and uniform experience, are such as these : that fire burns ;
that water quenches fire; that wood floats on water, while
stones sink therein ; &c. &c, &c. &c. &c. But Mr. Mill tells me,
that this reply is a complete mistake ; that there is another
class of truths, known to me by experience with an immeasur-
ably greater degree of familiarity than those just mentioned. I
ask in amazement, to what truths he can possibly be referring :
and he tells me, to such as these ; that trilaterals are triangular,
and that intersecting straight lines mutually diverge. This
is indubitably his proposition ; for consider. I have no tendency
whatever to regard the former class of truths (the eflfect of
water upon fire, &c. &c.,) as eternal and immutable; whereas
he assures me, that my considering the latter class (the trian-
gularity of trilaterals, &c.) to possess these attributes, arises
exclusively from their having been to me such constant matters
of experience. He considers therefore that the triangularity
of trilaterals has been to me an immeasurably more constant
matter of experience, than have been the most familiar and
every-day properties of fire and water. And while this is in-
dubitably Mr. MilPs thesis, no less indubitably at first hearing
it startles me beyond expression. Ask the vast majority of
Englishmen, how often they have observed that fire burns or
that water quenches it, — they will reply they have experienced
it almost every day of their lives. Ask them on the contrary
how often they have observed that trilaterals are triangular,
they will tell you that they have never to their knowledge
experienced it from the day they were bom. Mr. MilFs state-
ment then is assuredly on the surface a startling paradox ; and
we are confident that closer examination will show it to be
undeniably and demonstrably erroneous. This closer examina-
tion is what we are now to undertake ; and we will begin with
reciting certain argumentative preliminaries : —
I. We did not in our article attempt any analysis of the
word '' necessary," nor even inquire whether such analysis
is possible. "Our present purpose," we said (p. 288), ^^ will
lead us only to attempt such a delineation and embodiment of
this idea, as shall make clear the point at issue. When we call
a proposition ^necessary' then, we mean to say that its
contradictory is an intrinsically impossible chimera; is that
which could not be found in any possible state of existence ;
which even Omnipotence would be unable to efiect." To this
explanation of the word, Mr. Mill's silence gives consent.
II. Mr. Mill himself is a phenomenist, one who avowedly
denies the cognisableness of necessary truth as such. If
28 Mr. MlWs Reply to the '' Duhlin Ecviciv.''
he admitted that there is so much as one science which is con-
versant throughout with necessary truth, he would, ipso facto,
be going over bag and baggage to what is now his enemies'
camp. It was well worth while then, as we said (p. 287), ''to
choose some special field, whereon to join issue as a specimen
of the rest/' Now '' there is one particular class of truths,
which will be generally accepted as in every respect most fitt(3d
to eflfect a clear and salient result." Our contention then was,
that mathematical truths — vast and inexhaustible as is their
number— are cognisable by mankind as necessary.
III. But it was possible very greatly to narrow this issue.
" Mr. Mill will not of course deny that, if mathematical axioms
are necessary, the validity of syllogistic reasoning must be also a
necessary verity ; and that the whole body therefore of mathe-
matical truth possesses the same character." Our thesis
was accordingly, '' that mathematical axioms (arithmetical,
algebraic, geometrical) are self-evidently necessary truths."
And by the terra '' axioms," for the purpose of our discussion,
we understood '' those verities, which mathematicians assume
as indubitably true, and use as the first premisses of their
science." Mr. Mill tacitly accepts all this as a fair and straight-
forward joining of issue.
IV. We next come to a question of words. It is plain
that propositions may be divided, if we please, into two
classes : those which express no more than has been already
expressed by the subject, and those which do express more.
Now it so happens that a distinction, substantially similar to
this, is of vital importance in the discussion between ne-
cessists and phenomenists ; and it is very desirable therefore
that names shall be given to the two above-named classes.
All non-Catholics since Kant, of either school, have used the
words '' analytical " and " synthetical " for this purpose. But
a Catholic cannot so use these words, without risk of serious
misconception; because Catholic philosophy has aflBxed to
them quite a difierent sense. What Catholics mean by calling
a proposition ''analytical" — so P. Klfeutgen explains* — ris
" that by simply considering the idea of the subject and pre-
dicate, one comes to see that there exists between them that
relation which the proposition expresses." But as we shall
immediately urge, a most important class of those proposi-
tions which non-Catholics call " synthetical," possess the very
property mentioned by F. Kleutgen ; and these are accordingly
denominated by Catholics " analytical." In our second
article (p. 288) we attempted to evade this diflBculty, by calling
• Quoted by us in July, 1869, p. 160.
Mr. MilVa Reply to the " Dublin BeviewJ' 29
these two classes respectively '^ tautologous '^ and ^' signifi-
cant/' An able writer however in the '' Spectator '' was
reasonably led by this nomenclatare to misunderstand some
of our remarks ; and we cannot ourselves on consideration
defend its appropriateness. We will adopt therefore the
words, used by Sir W. Hamilton for the purpose before us ;
and will use the two words, '^ explicative,^' " ampliative."
From this moreover we obtain the incidental advantage, that
these two phrases are to our mind really more fitted to
express the intended distinction than the other two.
We will define then these two terms thus. "Explicative''
propositions are those which declare no more, than th at some
idea (1) is, or (2) is not, identical with or included in some
other idea. If the former, they are *^ positively explicative ; "
if the latter, " negatively " so. " Ampliative " propositions are
those which declare more than this. And it may be worth
while to add, that various propositions rank technically under
the former head, which in common parlance would not be
called so much as '^ explicative," but are mere truisms : as
*' this apple is this apple," or " is an apple."
Various things of some interest might be said on these ex-
plicative propositions, were not the subject so irrelevant to
our controversy with Mr. Mill : we may refer however to the
brief remarks which we made in January, 1872, (pp. 220-223).
On negatively explicative propositions in particular, we shall
have nothing more to say in our present article.
V. All positively explicative propositions are at once re-
ducible to the principle of identity : " A is A." Take e.g.
as one example, " all hard substances resist pressure : " there
is no meaning in this proposition, except that " all hard sub-
stances are hard; " or "all substances which resist pressure
resist pressure."*
VI. A second purely verbal explanation. "Self-evident"
truths, in the present article, are by no means the same
thing with "primary" truths, but are only a particular
class of them. All those truths are "primary," which are
known to human beings immediately y and which need not to be
inferred from other truths. But we call no truth " self-
evident," unless it be cognised as certain by merely pon-
dering the proposition which expresses it; by penetrating
* We may be allowed a moment's digression, to repeat a remark made by
na in January, 1872 (p. 222). We suggested that what have been called
'Hhe fundamental laws of thought,'' are but different exhibitions of the
principle of identity. 'Thus, the principle ©f contradiction ; " anything which
18 not — B is — not B : " the principle of excluded middle ; " anything
which is— not B is not— B."
30 Mr, Mill's Reply to the " Dublin Review.''
and comparing with each other the ideas respectively ex-
pressed by the proposition's subject and predicate. The
fact that I was miserably cold a short time ago — if it be a
fact — is to me a " primary " truth : nevertheless it is not a
" self-evident '^ one; because it is known to me as certain,
not by my pondering the proposition which expresses it, but
by my consulting the attestation of my memory.*
We should add, that these self-evident truths are cdled by
scholastic writers " principles '' and '^ axioms.^' The latter
term is of much philosophical service ; but the word '^ prin-
ciples '' has in English so many different senses, that we do
not think it very well fitted to be a technical term. In our
present discussion we must refrain from using even the word
'' axioms '' in its scholastic sense ; because Mr. Mill gives the
name '^ axioms '' to the first premisses of mathematical science,
while denying that those premisses are self-evident.
There is another expression, common in modern philosophy.
Those truths are said to be " cognisable a priori,'^ which may
be known independently of experience ; whether they be self-
evident, or only deducihle from' self-evident premisses. Such
truths are called in Catholic philosophy '^metaphysically certain .''
VII. All self-evident truths are necessary. This follows at
once from the theory of certitude. Take the proposition
^' every trilateral is triangular " : and let us assume for the
moment that this proposition is self-evident; or in other words
that it is known by me to be true, if I do but duly ponder it.
But — as we urged in the earlier part of our article — the de-
claration of my faculties infallibly corresponds with objective
truth. Take therefore any trilateral which can exist in the
universe — which can be formed by Omnipotence itself — I
know infallibly of this trilateral, that it is triangular. It will
be seen then, by reverting to that very explanation of the word
'* necessary " which we gave at starting, that the triangularity
of every trilateral — if it bo a '^ self-evident " — must also be a
'^ necessary '^ truth.
VIII. Mr. Mill nowhere of course dreams of denying, that
all explicative propositions are self-evident. And certainly —
though he would doubtless wish to avoid the word '* necessary'^
— we take for granted he would admit, that the truth "A is
A " must hold good in every possible sphere of existence.f It
* We are well aware that we did not in our former articles preserve this
distinction of meaning between " primary *' and " self-evident ; " but we are
of opinion that it will be found conducive to clearness of thought.
t Yet we observe that, even thus we take too much for granted. " Whether
the three so-called fundamental laws," he says (On Hamilton, p. 491)— and
the principle of identity is one of these three — " are laws of our thoughts . . .
Mr, MiWs Reply to the ''Dublin Review" 81
is not therefore absolutely accurate (as was pointed out in the
" Spectator " criticism of our former article) to say that he
denies the cognisableness of any necessary truth, but only of
any necessary truth which is not purely explicative. At the
same time we most heartily concur with him in holding, that
these truths '' A is A/' " B is B,'' " C is C ''— though they
went through all thelettersof a thousand alphabets — are utterly
sterile; and cannot by any possible mutual combination
germinate into an organic whole. There can be no syllogism
without a middle term. Although therefore it may not be
strictly true to say that Mr. Mill denies all necessary truth,
he does deny the possibility of any necessary science; and
denies also the cognisableness of any such necessary truths,
as we may call '' fruitful.'*
IX. On th,e other hand he holds as firmly as we do, that
mathematical axioms are ampliative and not explicative : in-
deed he would consider, as we do, that this fact is suflSciently
proved by the very existence of mathematical science. Take
our ordinary instance, " all trilaterals are triangular**: no one
would dream of saying, that the idea '' triangular ** is identical
with, or contained in, the idea '' trilateral.*** And though
some able writers have maintained that the axioms of arith-
metic are purely explicative, this is not the place to oppose
them ; because Mr. Mill dissents from them as eagerly and as
confidently as we do. We briefly referred to this question in
our second article (p. 306) and in January 1872 (p. 222).
We are thus at last brought to the point at issue between
Mr. Mill and ourselves. He denies, whereas we aflBrm, that
various ampliative propositions are self-evident and necessary.
And we are now to join issue on mathematical axioms, as
being special and critical instances of the general class '' am-
pliative.**
In general accordance with what has been expressed, we
thus laid down in our second article the immediate ground
on which the discussion was to turn. '^ If in any case,** wo said
(pp. 288-9), ^^I know by my very conception of some ens,
that a certain attribute, not included in that conception, is
truly predicable of that ens, such predication is a self-evident
merely because we perceive them to be universally true of observed phenomena^
I will not positively decide."
* In July 1869 (pp. 159 — 164), we pointed out, that F. Kleutgen avowedly
concurs with Kant's doctrine, on the cognisableness of " synthetical a priori
propositions " as self-evident ; differing only from him, on the appropriateness
of this particular word " synthetical." We also argued, that on this par-
ticular there is no difference of doctrine, but only of words, between other
writers of the scholastic following and the philosopher of KSnigsberg.
32 Mr. MilVs Reply to the '' Dublin Review."
necessary proposition," These words defined with strict ac-
curacy, as our readers will have seen, the Jcind of necessary truth
of which Mr. Mill certainly denies the existence ; though they
are incidentally faulty in expression, as implying that explicative
propositions are not necessary, Mr. Mill himself might admit,
though in difierent phraseology, that explicative propositions
are self-evident and necessary ; and the controversy between
him and ourselves turns on the question, whether certain am-
pliative propositions are not self-evident and necessary also.
Moreover, as has been seen, if they are self-evident, it follows
that they are necessary.
Here then is the direct and central combat we have
to fight out with Mr. Mill, and we beg our readers to con-
centrate on it their best attention. We take, as our pattern
specimen, the judgment, '' all trilaterals are triangular." We
maintain (1) that this judgment is ampliative : because (as is
manifest) the idea '' triangular " is neither identical with, nor
contained iu, the idea '' trilateral." We maintain (2) that this
judgment is self-evident : because its truth is known by duly
pondering the proposition which expresses it; because (as
soon as I have apprehended it) I need not go ever so little
beyond the region of my own thoughts, in order to cognise
its truth. Mr. MilFs reply is substantially as follows ; and
we print his whole paragraph in a note, that our readers may
judge for themselves whether we have misconceived him.*
* " It is not denied nor deniable, that there are properties of thinis^s which
we know to be true (as Dr. Ward expresses it) by our * very conception * of
the thing. But this is no argument against our knowing them solely by ex-
perience, for these are cases in which, in the very process of forming the
conception, we have experience of the fact It is not likely that Dr. Ward
has returned to the notion (so long abandoned and even forgotten by in-
tuitionists) of ideas literally innate, and thinks that we bring into the world
the conception of a trilateral figure ready made. He doubtless believes that
it is at least suggested by observation of objects. Now the fact of three sides
and that of three angles are so intimately linked together in external nature,
that it is impossible for the conception of a three- sided figure to get into
the mind without carrying into the mind with it the conception of three
angles. Therefore, when we have once got the conception of a trilateral, wo
have no need of further experience to prove triangularity. The conception
itself, which represents all our previous experience, suflSces. And if the
association theory be tnie, it must follow from it that whenever any property
of external things is in the relation to the things which is required for tho
formation of an inseparable association, that property will get into the con-
ception, and be believed without further proof. Dr. Ward will say that
triangularity is not included in the conception of trilateral But this is
only true in the sense that triangularity is not in the connotation of the name.
Many attributes, not included in the definition, are included in the concep-
tion. Dr. Ward Ciinnot but sec that on the experience hypothesis, this not
only may, but must be the case." — On Hamilton, p. 337, note.
Mr. MilVs Reply to the " Dublm Review,^' 33
The proposition '^all trilaterals are triangular ^^ — so Mr. Mill
answers in effect — is indubitably ampliative ; because the idea
expressed by the predicate is not identical with, nor con-
tained in, that expressed by the subject. But the judgment
expressed by the proposition is not ampliative at all, but
explicative.* Why? Because, in consequence of the sing^ular
uniformity of my past experience, I have come to include
triangularity in my very idea of trilateralness ; because,
through this uniformity of experience, I have acquired an in-
ability of thinking of a figure as trilateral, without at the same
moment (implicitly at least) thinking of it as triangular. Ac-
cording to Mr. Mill then, when an adult expresses the proposi-
tion that " all trilaterals are triangular,^^ — the judgment whicli
he elicits would be truly analyzed and expressed by a different
proposition ; by the proposition, that '^ all figures whicli have
three sides and three angles are triangular.^' But this pro-
position is of course purely explicative, and is admitted by
Mr. Mill himself to be self-evident.
We are so very confident of our cause, that we earnestly
desire to exhibit Mr. Mill's theory at its thoroughly best ad-
vantage. We will put it therefore this way. The proposition
was once placed before me for the first time in a formulized
shape (perhaps in some " object-lesson''), that " horses differ
greatly from each other in colour." Though (by hypothesis)
I have never before expressly contemplated that proposition
in form, I at once recognize it as expressing a freshly
familiar truth ; a truth vividly known to me by every day's
experience. Now the very same thing took place — ;S0 Mr. Mill
would say — when the proposition was first placed before me
in a formulized shape, that " all trilaterals are triangular " : I
recognized it at once, as expressing a freshly familiar truth,
vividly known to me by every day's experience. According
to Mr. Mill, the triangularity of trilaterals is a truth as
freshly known to me by daily experience, as is the fact that
horses are of different colours or that wood floats on water.
Nay, according to Mr. Mill, the first-named truth is known
to me with indefinitely greater freshness of familiarity, than
* It may be asked how our ascription of this opinion to Mr. Mill is recon-
cileable with our recent statement, that he regards mathematical axioms as
ampliative propositions. But the answer is most easy. According to
him, my judgment that all trilaterals are triangular was ampliative when first
I formed it, and indeed for a considerable time afterwards. He considers
that it was first formed through my experience of external nature ; and
that it became more and more famiUar and intensified by the same cause,
until at last (as explained in the text) it became part of my mind's habitual
furniture and is easily mistaken for an intuition.
VOL. XXI. — NO. XLi. INeiv Series.'] d
34 Mr. MilVs Reply to the ^^ Dublin Review J'
are the two latter. For consider. Mr. Mill admits that all
mankind are under an incapacity of conceiving, that even
Omnipotence could form a non- triangular trilateral; whereas
no one of cultivated mind has the slightest difficulty in con-
ceiving, that Omnipotence could make wood sink in the water,
or could make all horses of the same colour. And it is
Mr. Mill^s precise allegation, that this contrast arises ex-
clusively from the fact, that experience is so very much more
peremptorily uniform (if we may so express ourselves) in
testifying the triangularity of trilaterals, than in testifying
the above-named properties of wood and of horses.f Mr.
MilPs contention then is as follows : " The truth that all
trilaterals are triangular, is known by every one with in-
definitely greater freshness of familiarity, than the truth that
wood floats upon water.^^ This is what he affirms, and what we
deny ; and it is precisely on this point that issue is joined.
As pohticians would say, we cannot desire a better issue than
this to go to the country upon. We affirm as an indubitable
matter of fact, that Mr, Mill is here contradicted by the most
obvious experience. We affirm as an indubitable matter of
fact, that ninety-nine hundredths of mankind — ^not only do not
know the triangularity of trilaterals with this extraordinary
freshness of familiarity — but do not know it a^ all. Those
who have not studied the elements of geometry — with hardly
an exception — if they were told that trilaterals are triangular
(and if they understood the statement) would as simply receive
t " Dr. Ward says that mere constant and uniform experience cannot
possibly account for the mind's conviction of self-evident necessity. Nor do
I pretend that it does. The experience must not only be constant and uni-
form, but the juxtaposition of the facts in experience must be immediate
and close ; as well as early, familiar, and so free from even the semblance
of an exception that no counter-association could possibly arise.'* (On
Hamilton, p. 339, note.) " Whether the " mathematical " axiom needs con-
firmation or not, it receives confirmation in almost every instant of our
lives. . . . Experimental proof crowds in upon us in such endless profusion,
and without one instance in which there can be even a suspicion of an
exception to the rule, that we should soon have stronger ground for believing
the axiom, even &s an experimental truth, than we have for almost any of the
general truths which we confessedly learn from the evidence of the senses.
Independently of k priori evidence, we should certainly believe it with an
intensity of conviction far greater than we accord to any ordinary physical
truth. . . . Where then is the necessity for assuming that our recognition
of these truths has a different origin from the rest of our knowledge, when
its existence is perfectly accounted for by supposing its origin to be the
same ? when the causes which produce belief in all other instances, exist
in this instance, and in a degree of strength as much superior to what exists
in other ca^es, as the intensity of the belief itself is superior ? " — Logic,
vol. L p. 267.
Mr. Mill's Reply to the ^^ Dublin Review J' 35
a new piece of information, as they did when they were first
told the death of Napoleon III. Then as to those who are
beginning the study of mathematics, A youth of fifteen,
we said in our second article, is beginning to learn geo-
metry ; and his tutor points out to him that every trilateral is
triangular. Does he naturally reply — as he would if his
tutor were telling him that horses are of different colours —
^'of course the fact is so; I have observed it a thousand
times '' ? Oit the contrary, in all probability, the propo-
sition will be entirely new to him; and yet, notwithstanding
its novelty, will at once commend itself as a self-evident
truth.^' * Lastly take those who learned the elements of
geometry when they were young, and are now busily engaged
in political or forensic, or commercial life. If the triangularity
of trilaterals were mentioned to them, they would remember
doubtless that they had been taught in their youth to see the
self-evidence of this truth ; but they would also remember, that
for years and years it had been absent from their thoughts.
Is it seriously Mr. Mill would allege, that they know the tri-
angularity of trilaterals with the same freshness of familiar
experience (or rather with indefinitely greater freshness of
familiar experience) with which they know the tendency of
fire to burn and of water to quench it ? or with which they
respectively know the political events of the moment, or the
practice of the courts, or the habits of the Stock Exchange ?
If he did allege this in his zeal for a theory, we should con-
fidently appeal against so eccentric a statement to the common
sense and common experience of mankind.
But is it not then — Mr. Mill might ask — a matter to every
man of every-day experience, that trilaterals are triangular ?
If by " every-day experience'^ he means " every day obser-
vation''— and his argument requires this — we answer con-
fidently in the negative. Even if we could not lay our finger
on the precise fallacy which has misled Mr. Mill, it would be
none the less certain that he has been misled. It cannot
possibly be true that the triangularity of trilaterals is a matter
to every man of every-day observation, because (as we said
just now) patently and undeniably the mass of men know
nothing whatever about it. But Mr. MilFs fallacy is obvious
* Mr. Mill does not directly reply to this allegation of ours. Nor does he
notice Mr. Mahaffy's testimony, quoted by us in the note. " A mathe-
matical friend," says the latter, " told me he perfectly well remembered, when
a boy, being taught, without understanding it, the axiom, that two straight
lines cannot enclose a space. When the fourth proposition of Euclid was
shown to him, he remembers the universality and necessity of the axiom at
once flashing on him."
D 2
36 Mr, Mill's Reply to the ^^ Dublin Revieiv.
i)
enough, to those who will look at facts as they really are.
In the first place — ^putting aside that very small minority
who are predominantly occupied with mathematical studies —
the very notion of a ^^ trilateraP' does not occur to men at
all, except acccidentally and on rare occasions. It is not
because my eyes light by chance on three straws mutually
intersecting, or on some other natural object calculated to
suggest a trilateral — that therefore any thought of that
figure either explicitly or implicitly enters my mind. I am
probably musing on matters indefinitely more interesting
and exciting; the prospects of the coming parliamentary
division, or the point of law which I am going down to argue,
or the symptoms of the patient whom I am on my way to
visit, or the probable fluctuation of the funds. The keen geo-
metrician may see trilaterals in stocks and stones, and think
of trilaterals on the slightest provocation : but what proportion
of the human race are keen geometricians ?
Then secondly — still excluding these exceptional geome-
tricians— for a hundred times that observation might suggest
to me the thought of a trilateral, not more than once perhaps
will it suggest to me the triangularity of such trilateral.
Mr. Mill himself will admit, we suppose, that such explicit
observation is comparatively rare ; but he will urge probably,
that I implicitly observe the triangularity of every trilateral
which I remark. We will make then a very simple sup-
position ; for the purpose of testing this suggestion, as well as
for one or two other purposes connected with our argument.
We will suppose that all rose stalks within the reach of human
observation had leaves of the same shajje tvith each other. On
such supposition, the shape of its stalk-leaves would be a more
obvious and obtrusive attribute of the rose, than is triangu-
larity of the trilateral; and yet beyond all possibility of
doubt one might very frequently observe a rose, without
even implicitly noticing the shape of its stalk-leaves. The
present writer can testify this at first-hand. In a life of
sixty odd years, he has often enough smelt roses and
handled their stalks; and yet he had not the slightest
notion whether their leaves are or are not similarly shaped,
until he asked the question for the very purpose of this illus-
tration. And it is plain that if he has not observed the
mutual dissimilarity of their leaves, — neither would he have
observed their similarity did it exist. Now we appeal to our
readers' common sense, whether what we said at starting is
not undeniably true; viz., that every ordinary person is very
far more likely to observe the shape of rose-stalk leaves, than to
observe the number of angles formed by the sides of a trilateral.
Mr. MilVs Reply to the '' Duhlin Review.'' 37
At the same time we fully admit, that many a man may have
implicitly observed the similarity of shape in rose-stalk leaves
(supposing such similarity to exist) without having explicitly
adverted to the fact until he heard it mentioned j and in like
manner this or that man may have implicitly observed the
triangularity of various trilaterals. But such a circumstance does
but give occasion to another disproof of Mr. Mill's theory.
Suppose I have implicitly observed the former phenomenon.
I hear the proposition stated, that the shape of all rose-stalk
leaves is similar; and I set myself to test its truth by my
former experience. I consult my confused remembrance of
numerous instances, in which I have looked at rose-stalks ;
and I come to assert with more or less positiveness, that all
those within my observation have had similar leaves. On the
other hand I wish, let us suppose, to test the proposition, that
all trilaterals are triangular. If Mr. Mill's theory were true, I
should proceed as in the foregoing instance; I should con-
template my confused remembrance of numerous instances, in
which I have observed the triangularity. But the fact is most
diflferent from this. I do not consult at all my memory of
past experience; but give myself to the contemplation of
some imaginary trilateral, which I have summoned into my
thoughts. And the impression which I receive from such
contemplation, is not at all that the various trilaterals I have ob-
served in times past are triangular, but that in no possible world
could non-triangular trilaterals exist. Observe then these
two respective cases. My process of reason has been funda-
mentally diflferent in the two ; and the impression which I
receive from that process will have been fundamentally dif-
ferent in the two ; consequently the two cases are funda-
mentally diflferent, instead of being (as they would be
on Mr. Mill's theory) entirely similar.
Our readers will observe, that we have just now twice used
the word '^ impression," instead of such more definite terms
as ^'cognition" or "intuition." Our reason for this is easily
given. By the admission of Mr. Mill himself, every adult,
who gives his mind to the careful thought of trilaterals, receives
the impression that their triangularity is a necessary truth :
but Mr. Mill denies that this impression is a genuine intuition,
and we could not of course assume what Mr. Mill denies.
Here we bring to a close the exhibition of our first argu-
ment against Mr. Mill ; an argument which we must maintain
to be simply final and conclusive, even if no second were
adducible. According to his theory, the triangularity of
trilaterals (or any other geometrical axiom) is a phenomenon
known to all men with as great freshness of familiarity, as the
38 Mr. Miirs Reply to the ''Dublin Review.''
phenomenon that fire burns, or that water quenches it : or
rather the former class of phenomena is known to all men
with incomparably greater freshness of familiarity, than the
latter. But such a proposition is undeniably inconsistent with
the most patent and indubitable facts. This circumstance
would of course be fatal to Mr. Mill, even though we were
entirely unable to account for it psychologically ; but (as we
have further argued) it can be psychologically accounted for
with the greatest possible ease.
A second argument has been incidentally included in our
exposition of the first. The mental process, whereby I
come to cognise the truth of a geometrical axiom, is funda-
mentally diflerent from the mental process, whereby I
come to recognize the truth of an experienced fact ; whereas,
on Mr. Mill's theory, these two processes would be simply
identical.
There is a third and perfectly distinct line of argument,
which has been urged with great cogency by modern neces-
sists against the phenomenistic school. We have hitherto
been advocating the necessary character of geometrical
axioms, as an inferential truth; and this is the line (we
think) most in harmony with the ' ordinary language of
Catholic philosophers. But non- Catholic necessists have
powerfully advocated the same truth, as one immediately
declared by the human faculties. Let us revert to our
specimen instance. We have hitherto contemplated the pro-
position, that '' all trilaterals are triangular'^ : we have argued
that the proposition is undeniably self-evident, and from this
we have inferred that it is also necessary. But we will now
contemplate a different proposition: viz., that "the trian-
gularity of trilaterals is a necessary truth.'' We maintain, in
accordance with many modern philosophers, that this propo-
sition is immediately declared by the human faculties ; that it
is self-evident ; that it is recognized as true, by a mere pon-
dering of its sense and comparison of its terms. Mr. Mill
himself admits that the declaration of the human faculties is
prima facie in our favour j while we on our side allege, that
profounder self-inspection does but corroborate and intensify
men's primS, facie impression. We think indeed that in no way
will the truth of our allegation be more eflectively forced on the
inquirer's conviction, than by his considering (as we shall now
proceed to do) Mr. Mill's attempted refutation thereof. He
lays very great stress on this alleged refutation; and says
that the principle on which it rests is one which intui-
tionists ought to have specially considered, " because it is the
basis of the" phenomenistic "theory." (On Hamilton, p. 314.)
Mr. MilVs Reply to the " Dublin Review, '' 39
We can only reply, that the phenomemstic theory" in that case
rests on a basis of extraordinary frailty.
Mr. Mill distinctly admits that, when the human mind con-
templates mathematical axioms, there arises in it a certain
'^ conviction of self-evident necessity '' : but he considers
that this conviction can be satisfactorily explained, without
accounting it a genuine intuition. These are his words in
reply to ourselves.
Dr. Ward says that mere uniform and constant experience cannot possibly
account for the mind's conviction of self-evident necessity. Nor do I pretend
that it does. The experience must not. only be constant and uniform, but
the juxtaposition of the facts in experience must be immediate and close,
as well as early, familiar, and so free from even the semblance of an exception,
that no counter-association can possibly arise. (On Hamilton, p. 339.)
Now we must admit at once, that thi's reply is no after-
thought of Mr. MilFs, but that on the contrary he had re-
peatedly made the same statement on earlier occasions ; and
indeed in one passage which we actually quoted (pp. 294-6).
We must admit therefore, that in our second article we did
not suflSciently bear in mind Mr. MilPs previous explanation ;
and we must accordingly withdraw a reply to him, which we
pressed with some confidence in pp. 289-90, but which
he has shown in his rejoinder to labour under this fault. This
however of course by the way, as it does not affect the merits
of Mr. Mill's argument itself. That argument, it will be seen,
runs thus. That " conviction,'^ he says, *^ of self-evident
necessity,'' which I receive "when I contemplate a geometrical
axiom, cannot be shown to be a genuine intuition ; because it
may be accounted for in quite a difierent way. In what \7a,j ?
we ask. He replies by the following syllogism.
Major. " If there be a phenomenon so circumstanced, that
not only my experience of it is constant and uniform, but the
juxtaposition of facts in experience is immediate and close and
so free from even the persistent * semblance of an exception
that no counter-association can possibly arise — an impression
will inevitably be made on my mind, that this phenomenon is
a self-evidently necessary truth."
Minor. " But the triangularity of trilaterals, or any other
geometrical axiom, is a phenomenon thus circumstanced."
The consequent is obvious.
Now plainly Mr. Mill would do noiiing for his cause, if we
could successfully deny either of his premisses; but it so
happens that we confidently deny both. We will begin with
* Our reason for inserti the word " persiatent " will presently appear.
40 Mi\ MilVs Ilephj to the " Duhlin Review J'
the minor ; which is expressed somewhat more clearly and
emphatically a few pages earlier. A geometrical axiom, he
says (p. 334) (1) is " founded on an experience beginning
from birth, and never for many minutes intermitted in our
waking hours '' : while on the other hand (2) no counter-
association is ever formed; because ^^ experience affords ^^ no
^^ case of persistent illusion/' in which such axiom has even
the semblance of being contradicted. We have said that we
deny both Mr. Mill's major and his minor; and we now add,
that we deny also both the statements contained in his minor.
We deny then altogether (1) that a geometrical axiom is
" founded on an experience never for many minutes inter-
mitted in our waking hours.'' On the contrary, as regards
the mass of mankind, we aflBrm (and have already given
ample reasons for our aflSrmation) that the triangularity of
trilaterals has never been to them a matter of observation at
all. Of course a necessist will be the last to deny, that men's
experience of such triangularity has been " constant and
uniform " in this sense, that they have never once experienced
any phenomenon mconsisff???^ therewith : but such an admission
gives no help whatever to Mr. Mill's reasoning.
Then (2) what does Mr. Mill mean, when he further says
that experience affords no case of persistent illusion, in which
any geometrical axiom has even the semblance of being con-
tradicted ? That there are ^^ illusions " of the kind, he ex-
pressly admits, though denying that such illusions are " per-
sistent " ; for he proceeds at once to mention one himself.
"In the case of parallel lines," he says, "the laws of per-
spective do present such an illusion : they do to the eye appear
to meet in both directions, and consequently to inclose a
space," Mr. Mahaffy had given another instance : viz., a
straight stick, appearing bent in the water; and presenting
thereby an illusion contradictory to the axiom, that a straight
line is the shortest way between two points. But Mr. Mill
replies, that these are not " persistent " illusions ; and explains
himself to mean (p. 335, note) that their " illusory character is
at once seen, from the immediate accessibility of the evidence
which disproves them." Observe what is involved in this.
There are two different classes of truths, which we may be
allowed for the present purpose to call geometrical and
physical axioms respectively ;* both of which Mr. Mill regards
as unknown except through experience. He admits however,
that the former class produce on my mind an inevitable im-
* We here are for the moment using the word " axioms '* in the inaccurate
sense of " obvious and elementary truths.*'
Mr. Mill's Reply to the ^^ Dublin Review/' 41
Ijression of their being necessary, while the latter produce no
such impression at all. We ask him to explain how this
difference arises, if both classes really rest on the same kind
of evidence. He replies firstly, that geometrical axioms are
known by far more unintermittent observation than physical :
and on this part of his answer we have already rejoined. He
replies secondly, that no persistent illusions befall me, in which
geometrical axioms have even the semblance of being con-
tradicted ; whereas in the case of all physical axioms I avfi
exposed to such illusions. In other words, according to
Mr. Mill, I am from time to time under an illusion, that fire
does not burn, nor stones sink in the water, — without any
" evidence ^^ being ^^immediately accessible ^^ to me, which
would correct such illusion. Mr. Mill, we are sure, cannot
have soberly intended this : yet, unless he intended it, his
elaborate argumentative structure is in ruins.*
We deny then the second proposition of his minor, no less
peremptorily than we deny the first. We deny that men^s ex-
perience of geometrical axioms is exempt from liability to
illusion, in any sense which can assist Mr. Mill's argument.
Before proceeding to Mr. Mill's major, let us revert for a
moment to our old instance ; the impression which he admits
to be inevitably made on my mind, that the triangularity of
trilaterals is a necessary truth. Does he mean that this is
merely a superficial impression ? that my faculties, if carefully
and accurately consulted, declare such impression to be un-
founded ? Or does he fall back on his theory of 'primordial
* After the substance of this article had been completed, we came for the
first time across a work on Kant by Mr. Mahaffy, from whose earlier volume
we gave an extract in our second article. Had we met with it sooner, we
should have made much use of it ; as it travels over many parts of the same
ground which we have ourselves trodden. We give an extract bearing on
what is said in the text : —
Mr. Mill " had said *had but experience afforded a case of illusion' in which"
mathematical " truths appeared to be reversed, the counter-association might
have been sufficient to disprove the supposed necessity of thought. In otner
words, had we but the least starting-point to help our imagination in doing
it, we would have conceived the reverse of 2 + 2 = 4, or of a straight line
being the shortest between two points. This statement I took up, and showed
that in our every-day life there were such things as double vision of an object
single to the touch, and a straight stick appearing bent in the water. I
argued that on Mr. Mill's showing, these natural objects should have been
sufficient to defeat " the supposed necessity, "and that still they were not so . . .
I did not mean to maintain [as Mr. Mill's answer implies] that mankind had
reason to believe that 1 = 2, or that a bent line was the shortest way between
two points ; but merely that, on Mr. Mill's own showing, we had a sufficient
amount of efxperience to enable us to onceive it." Kant's " Critical Philo-
sophy » (pp. 167, 158).
42 Mr. MilVs Reply to the " Dublin Review,^'
certitude, and give up the testimony of men's existing facul-
ties altogether ? If the latter be his meaning, of course we
can only refer to what we urged in the earlier part of this
article. It is impossible to Imow that my faculties, when I
was a baby in arms, would have declared the necessity of a
geometrical axiom ; just as it is impossible to know that they
would have faithfully represented to me my experience of one
hour back. If Mr. Mill is prepared on that account to dis-
believe the distinctest declarations of his memory, he will
doubtless be consistent in disbelieving, on the same ground,
the necessity of geometrical axioms. But as Mr. Mill always
takes the trustworthiness of memory for granted, an appeal
from him to men's primordial faculties as their rule of certitude
is the most glaring of inconsistencies.
We are anxious, however, throughout — so confident we are
of our cause — to exhibit Mr. Mill's position at its greatest
possible advantage : and we will take for granted therefore,
that his appeal is to men's existing faculties. His major premiss
then will be the following : '^ Let there be a phenomenon so
circumstanced, that not only my experience of it is constant
and uniform, but the juxtaposition of facts in experience im-
mediate and close, and so free from the persistent semblance
of an exception, that no counter- association can possibly arise.
In such case (1) a superficial impression will inevitably be
made on my mind, that this phemonenon is a self-evidently
necessary truth ; but (2) my faculties, if carefully and accu-
rately consulted, will declare such impression to be unfounded.''
Mr. Mill's major then, like his minor, contains two separate
statements ; and in the case of his major moreover, just as in
the case of his minor, we entirely deny them both.
The first of these statements however is so comparatively
unimportant, that a very few words will suffice for its examina-
tion. Mr. Mill alleges a supposed psychological fact; viz. that
certain conditions generate in the human mind an inevitable
prim 8. facie impression, that certain propositions are necessary.
What evidence does he adduce of this supposed fact ? Abso-
lutely none. He may say perhaps that conclusive proof is
impossible from the nature of the case j that he does not even
pretend that his conditions apply, except to propositions which
his opponents regard as really necessary. But at least he
might have applied something like what he calls '^ the method
of concomitant variation " ; he might have shown that in pro-
portion as there is a nearer approach to the fulfilment of his
conditions, in that proportion lliere is a nearer approach to the
generation of this superficial impression. But the fact is
indubitably otherwise. All men have unceasing experience of
Mr. MilVs Reply to the ^^ Duhlin Review J^ 43
certain very obvious physical phenomena ; yet no one has the
faintest appreciable tendency towards doubting, that Omni-
potence could make fire innocuous, could make wood sink in
the water, or could make stones float thereon.
But at last the question is one of fact, not theory ; and its
gist lies in the second of the two statements which we have
included in Mr. MilPs major. The question in fact is simply
this : what do the human faculties declare concerning geome-
trical axioms ? We have always readily conceded to Mr. Mill,
that a man^s self-inspection is often very defective; and that he
will again and again carelessly ascribe to his faculties some
avouchment, which is not really theirs. As to this however,
there is one, and only one, reasonable appeal; viz., from a
superficial to a profomider examination of the human conscious-
ness. Let as many competent inquirers as possible devote
themselves to this examination; let them by painstaking
introspection ponder on the true nature of their mind's avouch-
ment, when they contemplate the triangularity of a trilateral.
Is that avouchment such as the following : " I have never met
with nor heard of a non-triangular trilateral " ? Or is it not
rather: '^A non-triangular trilateral is an intrinsically im-
possible chimera, which Omnipotence itself could not fashion ''?
There are several arguments, we consider, any one of which
may with entire conclusiveness be directed against Mr. MilPs
theory : yet we could be content (were it requisite) to abandon
them all; and to rest our whole case on the issue we have just
raised.
In fact Mr. Mill's silence on this matter is the most emphatic
controversial support which can well be imagined. It is im-
possible to obtain from him a categorical statement, that the
existing faculties of an adult declare the " contingent " *
character of mathematical axioms. We say with some con-
fidence, that no such statement is to be found in any of his
writings ; and that just where we should most expect such a
statement, he seems to check himself in full career, and fall
back on his amazing theory of primordial certitude. In saying
then most confidently that the human faculties declare the
necessary character of geometrical axioms, we do but say what
Mr. Mill himself nowhere ventures expressly to deny.
So far we have been considering Mr. Mill's negative thesis ;
viz., that mathematical axioms are not cognizable as necessary
truths. But his positive thesis is not so easily intelligible.
* By " contingent," we need hardly say, is simply meant the contradictory
of " necessary."
44 Mr, MiWs Reply fo the ^^ Dublin Review."
No one (we believe) was ever more anxious than Mr. Mill to
treat his opponents with perfect fairness : but in fact he has
altogether failed to treat them fairly in this particular
matter; because he has kept so much in the background
his own actual theory, on the degree of certitude possessed
^by these axioms, and on the grounds which he considers
sufiScient to establish that certitude. He declares indeed,
again and again, that their universal truth is amply proved
by uniform experience; but we find it most diflBcult to
understand what he means by this allegation. Reverting
to an earlier example, let us suppose that all rose-stalks,
known as within human experience, have been observed to
possess leaves similar in shape ; what conclusion should I have a
right to draw from this circumstance ? I could not know that,
even in Dorsetshire or Hampshire, some fresh method of plant-
ing or sowing might not be found to produce indubitable roses,
growing on stalks totally difierent in shape from those hitherto
experienced ; and I could not even guess that, in some newly-
discovered country, such rose-trees should not be found
abundant. In like manner we do not see how Mr. Mill could
reasonably even guess but that, in some newly-discovered
country, a tree inay be found, the wood of which shall possess
the capability of being formed into quadrangular trilaterals.
He says indeed that the truth of mathematical axioms "per-
vades all nature ;" but how can he reasonably even guess that
this is the case ? What stronger reason can he possibly have
for his opinion that trilaterals are everywhere triangular, than
his ancestors had for tJieir opinion, that all swans are white,
and that all metals sink in the water ? *
Here however, as in several other instances, Mr. Mill has
shown himself too clearsighted, to be quite satisfied with his
own position ; and he takes refuge in a thinly-disguised repro-
duction of that very necessist theory, which he so energetically
repudiates. This fact is so very curious and characteristic,
that we beg our readers to give it special attention.
" That a straight line is the shortest distance between two
points, we do not doubt to be true,^^ says Mr. Mill, " even in
the region of the fixed stars. " (Logic, vol. i., pp. 362-3.)
What right has Mr. Mill, we asked, to hold this truth without
doubt ? He regards this axiom as merely a fact known by
* " That all metals sink in water, was an uniform experience, from the origin
of the human race to the discovery of potassium in the present century by
Sir Humphry Davy. That all swans are white, was an uniform experience
down to the discovery of Australia." — Mill's Logic (voL i. p. 306).
J pp. 105-6.
Mr, Mill's Reply to the '^Dublin Review.'^ 45
experience. But " in distant parts of the stellar regions/^ he
aflBrms (vol. ii. p. 108), " where phenomena may be entirely
unlike those with which we are acquainted, it would be folly
to affirm confidently that '' those laws prevail '' which we have
found to hold universally on our own planet.'^ In our second
article (p. 303) we asked him distinctly how he could recon-
cile these two statements j how he could regard a certain
property of stellar straight lines as a truth known by ex-
perience, while he admitted that the stellar region is beyond
the reach of experience. Mr. Mill tacitly replies, by correcting
the earlier sentence. ^^ That a straight line is the shortest
distance between two points we do not doubt,'' he had said,
'' to be true even in the region of the fixed stars.'' But now
he adds in a note a qualification. '^ In strictness, wherever the
present constitution of space exists ; which we have ample reason
to believe that it does, in the region of the fixed stars." In
the new note of his work on Hamilton, written with avowed
reference to our criticism, he expresses the same theory more
fully. We itahcise a few words.
Only if space itself is everywhere what we conceive it to he, can our conclu-
sions from the conception be ev^ery where objectively true. The truths of
geometry are valid, wherever the constitution of space a^ees with what it is
within our means of ohservaiion. That space cannot anywhere be differ-
ently constituted, or that Almighty power could not make a different consti-
tution of it, we know not (p. 338, note.)
Here is a most undeniable ampliative proposition : viz.,
'^ wherever the present constitution of space exists, a straight
line is always the shortest distance between two points." Yet
Mr. Mill admits that this ampliative proposition is cognizable,
independently of experience, as a " conclusion from the
conception" of space. It is really diflBcult to imagine a
more explicit surrender of the whole point at issue between
him and ourselves.
Or we may express the same self-contradiction of Mr. Mill's,
in a somewhat different shape. It is impossible, Mr. Mill
confesses, to know by experience that in the stellar region
trilaterals are triangular ; because in that region " phenomena
may be totally unlike those with which we are acquainted" :
yet, according to him, I may confidently ^^ conclude" their trian-
gularity, from my " conception " of stellar *^ space." In like
manner therefore, as to earthly trilaterals. I need not resort
to experience for my knowledge of their triangularity; but
I may " conclude " that attribute, from my very " conception"
of earthly " space." This is the very proposition, which
hitherto we have been engaged in affirming and he in denying.
46 Mr, Mill's Reply to tlie '^ Dublin Review,''
Here we close our direct and central conflict with Mr. Mill.
We have confined our attention to geometrical axioms, and
indeed almost exclusively to one such axiom; because the
more closely the issue can be narrowed, the greater hope there
is of arriving at a definite decision. Nor is there any incon-
venience in such a course : because (1) it is very easy for
inquirers to apply to other mathematical axioms what has been
said of one ; and because (2) if there were so much as one
ampliative judgment which Mr. Mill admitted to be
necessary, by that very admission he would be a refugee from
the phenomenistic to the necessist camp.
On arithmetical axioms in particular, we will content our-
selves with placing on record the point at issue. We gave, as
our specimen instance, the axiom "2 -f 9 = 3 + 8^^; and Mr.
Mill replies to us, in the new edition of his work on Hamilton,
at p. 339. While we confidently maintain against Mr. Mill
that the axiom is self-evident, we nevertheless entirely agree
with him that it is deducible from one still simpler ; from the
axiom, that "change of arrangement makes no difierence in the
number of objects.^^* We further heartily agree with him,
that this latter judgment is ampliative and not merely expli-
cative. On the other hand, — whereas he alleges that man's
knowledge of it is derived only from experience, — we maintain
on the contrary, that the axiom is not merely self-evident, but
among the most superficially obvious of self-evident truths.
After the discussion of the previous pages, we need not trouble
our readers with arguments on this head.
One or two subordinate points were incidentally raised in
our second article; and it will be more satisfactory not to
pass entirely over Mr. Mill's replies on those issues. At the
same time our notice of those replies must necessarily be very
brief ; and we may mention to our readers for their relief, that
they can pass over what follows, without losing any essential
part of our argument.
(1) Mr. Mill had argued as follows :
Many persons who have been frightened in childhood can never be alone
in the dark without irrepressible terrors. Many a person is unable to revisit
a particular place, or to think of a particular event, without recalling acute
feelings of grief or reminiscences of suffering. If the facts which created these
* Mr. Mill says inadvertently, " change opposition " : but we need hardly
point out, that arithmetical axioms apply to succession in time, or indeed to
any other aggregation, no less than to position in place.
In an earner article we explained, in accordance with scholastic writers,
that various propositions are self-evident, which nevertheless may be deduced
from other self-evident propositions.. (July, 1869, pp. 158-9.)
Mr. Mill's Reply to the " Dublin Review" 47
strong associations in individual minds had been common to all mankind
from their earliest infancy, and had, when the associations were fully formed,
been forgotten, we should have had a necessity of thought ; one of those
necessities which are supposed to prove an objective law, and an k priori
mental connection between ideas.
We replied to this (p. 291) that a mere necessity o{ feeling
has never been aflSrmed to prove "an k priori connection
between two ideas/^ Mr. Mill, however, thus rejoins (On
Hamilton, p. 329, note) :
If the person in whose mind a given spot is associated with terrors, had
entirely forgotten the fact by which it came to be so ; and if the rest of
mankind, or even only a great number of them, felt the same terror on
coming to the same place, and were equally unable to account for it ; there
would certainly grow up a conviction that the place had a natural quality of
terribleness, which would probably fix itself in the belief that the place
was under a curse, or was the abode of some invisible object of terror.
Of course we entirely deny this. We would ask any disciple
of Mr. Mill this simple question. Let us suppose that Mr.
Mill's conditions were fulfilled : we ask, what is that particular
ampliative judgment which, on that supposition, men would
suppose themselves to cognize as self-evident? Mr. Mill
avowedly cannot answer this question. They might think
it self-evident, he says, that the place was under a curse ; or
they might think it self-evident, that the place was the abode
of some terrific object; but it is not (according to him) more
than probable^ that they would think it either the one or the
other.
(2) We further objected (p. 292) that Mr. Mill had used the
words " necessity of thoughf in two different senses: a " law
of nature whereby I necessarily think''; and ''a law of nature
whereby I think as necessary." Mr Mill replies (On Hamilton,
p. 339) that the only evidence which can be given for my
thinking a thing as necessary, is my necessarily thinking it.
But we had adduced evidence of a totally different character.
Mr. Mill proceeds indeed to say, that he has refuted our
arguments for this different kind of evidence; but our
preceding pages have, we trust, sufficiently shown, that his
alleged refutation is invalid.
(3) Mr. Mill admits, that men possess the power of cognizing
mathematical axioms by means of purely mental experience.
He accounts for this power, by '^one of the characteristic
properties of geometrical forms;'' viz., "that they can be
painted in the imagination with a distinctness equal to the
reality.'' We urged against him that, in thus speaking, he
entirely leaves out of account arithmetical and algebraic
48 Mr. MilVs Reply to the " Dublin EeviewJ'
axioms; though these, equally with geometrical, can be arrived
at by purely mental experimentation. He replies (On
Hamilton, p. 340) as follows :
I do not leave thein out of account ; but have assigned in my Logic
another and equally conclusive reason why they can be studied in our
conception alone : namely, that arithmetical and algebraic axioms, being tme
not of any particular kind of thing but of all things whatever, any mental
conceptions whatever will adequately represent them.
We fully admit that in his Logic (vol. i., pp. 293-5) Mr.
Mill sets forth the true doctrine, that arithmetical axioms hold
good, not of any particular kind of thing, but of all things
whatever. But we cannot for the life of us see that he
anywhere assigns this doctrine as a ^^ reason why they can be
studied " and known to be true, by men's "conception alone.''
On the contrary, as it seems to us, he distinctly denies that
they can be so studied. These are his words : " All who wish
to carry the child's mind with them in teaching arithmetic, — all
who wish to teach numbers and not mere ciphers, — now teach
it through the evidence of the senses'' (p. 296).
(4.) There remains to be reconsidered, a reply we gave
(pp. 304-6) to an argument whch Mr. Mill had based on
Reid's ^^ Geometry of Visibles." It would carry us much too
far, if we attempted to make our present rejoinder understood
by those who do not clearly bear in mind our earlier remarks.
We will here therefore presuppose them.
Mr. Mill (On Hamilton, p. 92, note) does not attempt on his
own account any further discussion on the point ; but contents
himself with maintaining that Reid was of the same mind with
Mr. Mill himself, and with referring us to Reid's own argu-
ments. We are still perfectly conSdent, that it is Mr. Mill
who is opposing Reid. It is certainly not very probable that
Reid can have intended to argue against the necessary cha-
racter of mathematical axioms, considering that he habitually
and earnestly upheld their necessary character. And there is
one sentence of his, which will put the matter beyond dispute.
Reid conceived certain imaginary " Idomenians ; " who
agree with human beings in every other particular, l3ut who
possess the sense of sight without any accompanying sense of
touch. The Idomenians, he says, would regard as self-
evident certain strange geometrical propositions ; as, e. g., that
'^ every straight line, being suflSciently produced, will re-enter
into itself." The question between Mr. Mill and ourselves is
this: whether in such an opinion they would be (according
to Reid) referring to that figure, which human beings call a
straight line; or, on the contrary, to some totally different
Mr. MilVs Reply to the ^^ Dublin Review" 49
figure (viz., the arc of a great circle), which they will have
learned to call by the name of a straight line. Mr. Mill
maintains the former alternative, and we the latter. Now let
our readers observe Reid^s own words, especially those which
we italicize : —
This small specimen of the geometry of visibles is iDtended ... to de-
monstrate the tnith of what we have afi&rmed above : namely, that those
figures and that extension which are the immediate objects of sight [and
which therefore are those contemplated by the Idomenians] are not the
figures and the extension about which common geometry is employed (Hamil-
ton's edition, p. 148).
Surely this is final and decisive.
Our second article, however, was not exclusively devoted to
the discussion of mathematical axioms ; but contained in its
later part various general considerations, which tell import-
antly (as we think) against the doctrine of phenomenism.
There are only two of these which it has naturally fallen in Mr.
MilFs way to answer ; and on one of the two— relating to the
faculty of memory — we have rejoined in the early part of this
article. The remaining one concerns the very foundation of
phenomenism. The whole body of doctrine accumulated by a
i)henomenist depends throughout on his premiss, that " the
aws of nature are uniform.^' Let this premiss be successfully
denied, and straightway there is no phenomenistic philosophy.
We allege that phenomenists can adduce no grounds what-
ever, which will reasonably be accounted sufficient to establish
their fundamental premiss; and we criticised in that sense
(pp. 313-317) Mr. MilPs arguments for the desired conclu-
sion. In the new edition of his Logic, Mr. Mill replies to
our criticism (vol. ii. pp. 109-111); though we think few
readers will fail to see how unsatisfactory is his self-defence.
The question however is one of such fundamental importance
in the conflict with phenomenism, that no merely perfunctory
treatment of it is permissible. In our next essay on Mr.
Mill then we hope to elucidate the matter in more detail.
One or two other questions, more or less cognate, are in our
mind, which we trust also to include in our next paper. And
so much having been accomplished, we have every hope of
continuing in subsequent articles without further interrup-
tion— and still with Mr. Mill as our representative oppo-
nent— the course of argument which we originally projected,
against that poison of antitheism, which just now so widely
and so profoundly infects all the higher speculation of non-
Catholic Europe.
VOL. XXI. — NO. XLI. [Netv Seines.] e
( 50 )
Art. II.— the PROGRESS OF THE GORDON RIOTS.
Sketch of a Conference mth Earl Shelboume,
Weeley^s Popery ccdmly Considered,
Defence of the Froteetcmt Association^ 1780.
THE idea of inflicting some severe punishment, not only
upon the Papists themselves^ but also upon every con-
spicuous abettor of the Catholic Relief Bill, was a familiar one
to the great mass of the followers of Lord George Gordon as
well as to every friend of the Protestant Association. For
nearly twelve months they had been accustomed to hear the
most savage denunciations uttered with perfect impunity. The
pulpit no less than the platform had resounded with every
kind of menace, and, at the moment of which we write, the
one hundred thousand members of the Association represented
a power ready disciplined for evil, and taught to consider the
chastisement of the Papists a work decreed by heaven. It
was not to be expected, therefore, that the mere rejection of
their petition and the defeat of their President, would do any-
thing more than increase the irritation and the will to do
mischief of the infuriated thousands who were already on the
verge of riot and havoc j and nothing can palliate the cowardly
vacillation of the Government, which though informed for many
weeks previously of all the doings and threatenings of the
Association, took no preventive measures, and, to the last,
clung to the strange hope that sedition would prove itself
orderly, and that raving intolerance would bring forth only
fruits of mercy and brotherly love. They were soon to be
roughly awakened from this unaccountable delusion.
Before the rising of the House, the mob, which to all
appearance had dispersed, was already speedily reorganizing
evidently in obedience to a preconcerted plan. By ten o'clock
at night it was advancing in three great divisions to the work
of spoliation and vengeance specially marked out to it. The
chapel and house of the Sardinian Embassy in Lincoln's Inn
Fields, those of Count Haslay, the Ambassador of Bavaria, in
Warwick Street, as also the residences of many well-known
Catholics in and about Moorfields were the first to sufier. At
Warwick Street, the Bavarian chapel and mansion were soon
in ruins; all round the neighbourhood of Moorfields, every
house that was pointed out as either the dwelling of a Catholic
The Gordon Biots. 51
or of one who favoured the Catholic interest^ was broken into
and plundered; while at the " Royal Sardinian/' the sittings,
altar, pictures, and organ were torn down, thrown into the
street, and made into a great bonfire. The flames soon
spread to the chapel itself, which, with the well-known house
over the archway, burned till midnight without any attempt
being made to save them, so great was the terror inspired by
the mob. The distinguished lawyer, Wedderbum (then
Attorney-General), who was an indignant eye-witness of all that
passed, having ventured to. upbraid with their cowardice the
firemen who were standing idly by their engines, not daring
to employ them, was at once set upon by the furious rabble, to
the cry of, '^ No Popery ! a spy, a spy, lads I '^ and with
difficulty escaped with his life. At length, when too late, a
party of the Foot Guards made their appearance, at sight of
whom the crowd began to disperse, not without some
resistance in which several were apprehended.
But though thus scattered for the moment by the military,
the real power of the mob to reassemble whenever it should
choose, for the enticing pastime of destruction and plunder,
was not in the least degree afiiected ; and so impressed were
the rioters themselves with a sense of the complete security
under which they acted, that, as they hurried along in disorderly
groups, they proclaimed aloud through the dark streets the
tidings of their first vengeance, and with many an oath and
imprecation hinted at the more direful things to come. So
closed the first day and night of the Gordon Riots.
Saturday, June 3rd, seems to have been deliberately set
aside by the leaders of the Association, as a day of rest
preparatory for greater outrages. With the exception of a
concourse of people in and around Covent Garden, for the
Eurpose of seeing and cheering the men who had been appro-
ended on the previous evening, and who were to be brought
from the Savoy to Bow Street, there was no tumultuous
assemblage ; and, beyond a deal of groaning and hissing, and
a little harmless stone-throwing at the Life Guards, as they
passed along with their prisoners, there was no attempt that
day at open violence. In the Lords, a motion for an address
to his Majesty, praying that immediate orders might be issued
for the prosecution of the ''authors, abettors, and instruments
of the outrages of Friday on the Houses of Parliament, and
the chapels and property of the two embassies,^' was unani-
mously agreed to. But the " authors '^ and '' abettors,'' as
well as their " instruments,'' seemed equally to have vanished
out of sight, and there can be no doubt that had the most
ordinary amount of resolution and energy been displayed at
B 2
52 The Oordon Riots.
this critical juncture, either by the Government, or the
magistracy, or even by the well-disposed and peaceable
amongst the citizens, all the after misery and crime would
have been averted. Unhappily, however, the Government
was criminally asleep. The justices, with one exception (that
of Sir John Fielding) spoke openly of the great hazard that
would be incurred, if any but conciliatory measures were
adopted, in the then irritated state of the Protestant mind
— Kennet, the Lord Mayor, was notably an unprincipled, disso-
lute poltroon, and supposed by many to have actually sided
with the rioters, while the timorous though well-meaning
merchants and shopkeepers (with a selfishness for which they
afterwards paid dearly) prudently shrank out of sight, and
satisfied their consciences with hoping that nobody might suffer
much, but that even if the worst befel, it would not be them-
selves, but only a few of the most conspicuous members of
a rather obnoxious sect that would be made to feel the
popular indignation. As for the Catholics, though of course by
this time greatly alarmed, they still could not bring themselves
to believe either in the imminency or the extent of their peril ;
least of all did it ever occur to them that they were to be left
to the utter mercy of a savage mob, by that very Govern-
ment which had but just put them in possession of their
rights as British subjects. They therefore took no steps
either for flight or for defence, but like the majority of the
inhabitants of London and Westminster, tried to think that
the chief fury of the No- Popery storm had already expended
itself, and that in fact no more very serious acts of violence
were to be apprehended. A few hours sufficed thoroughly
to undeceive them all.
On the afternoon of Sunday, as if by necromancy, the mob
again rose in different parts of the City at once, and in far
greater numbers than before ; and proceeded to commence in
full earnest that work of devastation, ruin, and revenge, for
which the principles inculcated by the Association had afforded
the fittest training, and to the complete carrying out of which
the timidity or the recklessness of the authorities lent a
deadly sanction. From this day, Sunday, June 4, until the
following Friday, the great metropolis remained almost
entirely in the hands of tiie vilest and most desperate portion
of its population. Plunder, wanton destruction of property,
drunken riot, private vengeance, and the rage of irreligious
zeal, swept on in one mad career unstayed, almost unopposed.
What London became, while left to these human demons, it
is now our duty to relate.
At Moorfields the chapel and schools, as well as several
TJie Gordon Riots, 53
houses were attacked and levelled to the ground. The altar,
pews, benches, ornaments, crucifixes, and vestments were
carried by the mob to the adjacent fields, and there burnt.
At Charles Square, Hoxton, the schools were pulled down.
All this took place in the presence of large companies of both
horse and foot soldiery, who, though marched to the various
scenes of pillage, received no orders to act, and looked on like
interested spectators. At the half destroyed residences of the
Catholic Ambassadors, a better fortune prevailed; for the
Guards from Somerset House, who were on duty there all day
and night, succeeded, by their resolute manner, in dispersing
a third party of the rioters, bent upon completing the havoc
of the previous Friday. But no efiective measures were as
yet adopted, either by the Government or the local magis-
tracy, and the mob, now thoroughly convinced of the security
with which they might proceed, began to contemplate and to
prepare for a more general destruction.
The appearance on the Monday morning of a proclamation
ofiering " the reward of £500 for the apprehension of any
one concerned in setting fire to or pillaging the Sardinian and
Bavarian Chapels,^^ merely had the efiect of convincing the
leaders of the rioters of the necessity of putting more method
into their violence for the future. They accordingly an-
nounced that especial vengeance would be taken both upon
the person and property of all informers and witnesses, and
to add weight to this threat, they resolved at once to make
examples of those who had already come forward with evi-
dence against any of their body. This was the more oasy, as
the names of several who had appeared at Bow Street had
with great imprudence been given in the newspapers. In a
few hours the houses of Rainsforth, in Stanhope Street, of
Maberley, in Little Queen Street, and of Sir George Saville,
in Leicester Fields, were in flames. This done, the mob pro-
ceeded to East Smithfield and Wapping, where they destroyed
several chapels, schools, and private dwellings ; they likewise
begun to pull down the Protestant Church of S. Catherine,
because, as they declared, ''it was built in the times of
Popery.^' In this, however, they were prevented, by the
timely arrival of an armed body of " the gentlemen of the
London Association ^' ; whereupon collecting their spoils, they
marched in drunken disorder to the residence of Lord George,
in Welbeck Street, and from thence to Marylebone Fields,
where they kindled huge fires, round which they danced and
howled, and drank, until, mad with excitement and liquor,
they rushed away ready for new atrocities.
By this time the alarm throughout the City was becoming
64 The Oordon Biota.
real, and the supremacy of the mob was so generally recog-
nized that men the most opposed to Gordon and his seditious
followers put on the blue cockade, in the hope to propitiate
the ruling power. To add to the confusion and terror, the
wildest rumours were circulated and believed. Some reported
that the New River water had been cut oflF; that the soldiers
attempting to convey prisoners to Newgate had been set upon
and obliged to fly ; that the magistrates would not use the
civil power ; that the Government was about to treat with the
rioters, and to accept their own terms. The conduct of
the legislature indeed was such as to afford ground for the
most ridiculous surmises, and, what was far more serious, to
infuse fresh spirit into every disturber of the public tran-
quillity. It will be hardly credited at the present day, but it
is the sober truth that up to Monday evening the action of
the guardians of life and property against sedition and law-
lessness, was confined to the singular resolution of placing
some companies of the Light Dragoons at Kennington and
Newington Butts, for the purpose, they said, of preventing
any second attempt to hold a meeting in S. George^s Fields !
This novel method of quelling a serious riot in one place, by
stationing the protectors of order and law in another, was
equalled in folly, and surpassed in audacity by a circum-
stance for which this truly terrible time will be memorable.
We allude to the circulation of a handbill, by the Committee
of the Protestant Association, which made its appearance just
at this opportune moment, in which the rioters, and all con-
nected with them, were disavowed, the perpetration of all
that had hitherto taken place being charged upon the Catholic
body. In the language of this precious document, the riots
wei'e said to be : —
A preconcerted scheme devised to bring odium upon the Protestant
Association. . . . The Papists have destroyed the Sardinian and Bavarian
Chapels, and have committed various other outrages, so as to be able to
chai^ innocent persons with this crime, therefore all Protestants are re-
quested to be patient, and above all things not to resort to any measures of
retaliation.
This was the very triumph, the crowning deed of unscrupulous
iniquity, but, as is generally the case with imbecile malice,
failed in its purpose from very excess. Blinded and bigoted as
the men of tiie period were, this calumny, the invention of the
fertile brain of Wesley, was too monstrous to be accepted.
For in order to believe it it was necessary to suppose that the
40,000 men who had assembled under the leadership of Lord
George Gordon on the previous Friday, who had marched with
The Gordon Riots. 55
every sign of sedition to the Houses of Parliament, who had mal-
treated the members, and who had threatened that very violence
which a few hours had seen reaUzed, were, after all, innocent,
harmless, peaceable Protestants; but that no sooner were they
retired to the quiet of their homes, than another mob of
infuriated Papists, and numbering some hundred thousand,
instantly took their place and assumed their blue cockades,
and adopted their language, and forthwith proceeded to
demolish their own places of worship and to destroy their own
houses and scatter their own property, for the very insuflBcient
reason of " bringing odium upon the Protestant Association I ^'
But if any further contradiction of this most injurious falsehood
were necessary, we may mention that it was proved in the
after trials of the rioters that the men who carried the great
banner before Lord George at Westminster were among the
most conspicuous on the subsequent Wednesday at the burning
of the Fleet prison. Bateman also who was executed some
weeks later in Coleman Street for destroying the house of
Charlton, a Catholic druggist, went to the scaflTold in his blue
cockade, and boasted that he died a martyr to the cause of
Protestantism. But what can be said to the evidence of the
following few lines called a '^ Protection," which was sworn to
on Gordon^s trial, as being in his own handwriting, and which
he never attempted to deny : —
All true friends t</^Protestantism will be particular, and do no injury to
the property of any true Protestant, as I am well assured the proprietor of
this house is. He is a staunch good friend to the Cause. All men should
spare his house. Given to Bichard Pound.
(Signed) Georqe GrORDON.
It has been strangely put forward as an argument in defence
of the statement circulated by the Association, that '^ among
the wounded rioters who were conveyed to the hospitals, were
several Roman Catholics.'^ But if this can be of any force in
support of the assertion that the mob was a Cathohc one, then
this other fact (perfectly undeniable), namely, that amount the
wounded and those also condemned to death were found several
negroes, will of course satisfactorily prove that the mob was
composed of Africans. To argue seriously upon such a point is
to trifle with the reader's patience — ^let us rather resume our
narrative.
On Tuesday (June 6th) the Government began to exhibit
some slight symptoms of returning energy. At the Tower, the
Houses of Parliament, St. George's Fields, St. James's Palace,
large bodies of troops were under arms ; all the avenues leading
\o the House of Commons were lined with Foot Guards, while
56 The Gordon Riots,
parties of Light Horse patrolled from Palace Yard to Abingdon
otreet^ no person^ except members^ being allowed to pass.
Orders were also despatched to the provinces that every soldier
who could be spared should march forthwith to the defence of
the metropolis^ and the incessant beating of drums throughout
the City^ told that the various companies of the train-bands
and volunteers were being called to quarters. This was
certainly a movement in the right direction, but unfortunately
it went no further for the present, and the mob by this time
had reached such a pitch of exaltation and frenzy, as to care
nothing for a mere show of strength. A terrible and deadly
reprisal alone, on the part of the outraged law, can ever obtain
from sedition, when rampant, the recognition of a power higher
than its own. And from the responsibility of such a supreme
but necessary measure the members of the Government shrank
as yet, leaving, as a consequence, the demon of disorder and
riot still in the ascendant. Indeed, to little importance was
attached to the presence of the military, that, on this very
morning, though protected in the manner described above, the
members of the House of Commons, (if we except a few who,
to propitiate the mob, had taken care to inscribe the words
" No Popery ^' on the panels of their carriages) did not escape
without insult and, in some cases, outrage. The First Lord of
the Admiralty (Sandwich) was no sooner recognized than he
was dragged from his coach and severely wounded, and with
the greatest difficulty rescued alive out of the rioters' hands,
by the intrepidity of Justice Hyde at the head of a small body
of Light Horse. Upon this, by way of revenge, a party was
instantly despatched to Hyde's house in Leicester Fields, to
which they set fire.
Injthe Commons, Mr. Buller moved, firstly, that this House
do assert its privilege, of which the present insults are a gross
breach : secondly, that a commission be appointed to discover
the authors of all this outrage : thirdly, that an address be
presented to his Majesty, urging the immediate prosecution
of the rioters already in custody : fourthly, that Parliament
shall provide for the reimbursement of the suflTerers. All
these proposals were carried unanimously, and he was about
to continue his address, when he was suddenly interrupted
by Mr. Herbert, who, rising to his feet, exclaimed, pointing
to Lord George Gordon (who had entered the House with the
blue cockade in his hat), " Shall we suflFer that conspirator to
flaunt his ensign of riot and contempt of Parliament before
our very eyes ? '' To which Burke replied sarcastically,
" Why not ? His bludgeons are allowed to wait for you in the
streets, although you are surrounded by a military force with
The Gordon Riots, 57
fixed bayonets to preserve your freedom of debate/^ Great
uproar ensued^ in the midst of which Gordon^ attempting to
leave the House, was forcibly detained by some of the mem-
bers, and compelled to remove the obnoxious cockade. A
messenger arriving, however, at this moment with the intel-
ligence that the city, in several places, was in flames, and
that the mob was everywhere triumphant, the instinct of
self-preservation banished all other thought, and the House
hastily adjourned until the following Thursday.
On quitting the Commons, the President of the Protestant
Association betook himself to Bridge Street, where he knew
that a great concourse of his adherents was awaiting his
arrival. He attempted *t)nce or twice to address them, with
the intention, as his friends affirmed afterwards, of imploring
them to carry their violation of the law no further. But if so,
it only proved that he knew little of the savage natures which
he had gathered together, and to whom he himself had given
the first lessons in sedition. After a few moments of impa-
tient listening, the crowd, raising a ferocious yell, pressed
upon his carriage, and having removed the horses, dragged
him in ignominious triumph first to his residence in Welbeck
Street, and then to the house of his friend and seconder.
Alderman Bull, in Leadenhall Street. By this time the
glare of many fires reflected in the evening summer sky, told
that elsewhere the rioters had not been idle. In fact, early
in the afternoon, one division of their body, furnished by
some traitor with a list of the Catholics in Devonshire Street,
Red Lion Square, and the immediate neighbourhood, had
been busy plundering and demolishing without meeting with
the slightest resistance. A second party had proceeded to
the houses of Justice Cox, Sir John Fielding, and Mr. Rous,
which they wrecked and fired, finishing up with the destruc-
tion of the Ship Tavern in the " Tumstile,^^ '^ because,'^ as
they swore (and truly), " mass was sometimes said there in
secret.'^
But in greater numbers still, had the crowd poured into
Bloomsbury Square, in which stood the mansion of Lord
Mansfield. This nobleman, one of the most generous de-
fenders of the oppressed Catholics, had been jfrom the first
a marked and a doomed man in the black list of the heroes of
the Association. Indeed he possessed in an eminent degree,
every possible quality that could render him obnoxious either
to fanaticism, ignorance, or crime. To a calm and unerring
judgment, to learning the most profound, and to a reputation
that was spotless, were added a great fearlessness and a keen
sense of wrong, so that by natural impulse alone, Lord Mans*
58 The Oordon Riots,
field was the shelter of the innocent weak^ and the scourge
of every cowardly oppressor. The ill-will that was borne him
by the rioters was so well known that for several days his
residence had been guarded by soldiers, and a couple of fire-
engines, with their men, were in readiness to meet the worst.
It was not long delayed. Headed by a fellow who carried a
rope with which he proclaimed it was their intention to hang
their great enemy, the mob pressed on to the attack. By a
happy chance Lord and Lady Mansfield had eflfected their
escape only a few moments before the arrival of the rioters,
and thus the latter were hindered from the perpetration of the
greater crime which they had contemplated. Nevertheless
they were left unhindered until they'liad achieved an amount
of destruction which is a cause of regret even to the present
day to that profession of which their victim was the cluef and
leader. In addition to much costly furniture and a perfect
gallery of invaluable pictures, all of which, piled recklessly
together, and in sheer wantonness, were soon blazing in one
monster bonfire, more than a thousand volumes of rare books,
many important mortgages, 30,000 choice manuscripts, and
200 note-books in his lordship^s own handwriting, were lost
beyond recovery, — an irreparable misfortune to the whole
legal body. In the midst of this horrible confusion and ruin,
a strong detachment of the Guards, attended by Justice
Addington, came suddenly upon the spot, the Riot Act was
read (for the first time), and the soldiers fired. Some half-
dozen of the rioters were killed, and many more des-
perately wounded ; but this, so far from intimidating their
comrades, seemed but to add to their daring and frenzy. A
woman was seen to cover her hands with the blood of the
wretches who had fallen and to smear the faces of those about
her, shrieking out, " By the blood of these martyrs of Pro-
testantism, tear down and bum till not a papist is left in
England.^^ With a sort of fiendish inspiration the raving
thousands (they had found their way to the wine-cellar and
were all drunk) took up the cry, and reeling along Holborn,
shouted to all whom they met that they should join them,
for they were on their way to Newgate to rescue their friends
who were confined there.
The prison at Newgate had but just been rebuilt at a cost
of £150,000. Of more than the ordinary strength of such
places, it did not seem possible that it would yield to the
irregular attack of a mere rabble however numerous ; and
beyond question, a single company of infantry, with their
fire-arms, would have transformed it, so far as the rioters
were concerned, into an impregnable fortress. But it waa
The Gordon Riots. 59
in vain that the chief citizens, joined with the court of Alder-
men, had all this day urged the Lord Mayor to take some
measures for the defence at least of the public buildings
in the metropolis. Even when the resolution of the rioters to
take and burn Newgate was conveyed to him, it seemed only
to increase his irresolution and unwillingness to act, and to
such a degree, that they who did not execrate him as a traitor
reviled him to his very face as a pitiable coward. All that
could be obtained after much entreaty, was the promise of a
small body of constables ; and this to repel the onslaught of
infuriated thousands, who already had stood their ground
in the presence of the regular troops, and whom success and
impunity had raised to a pitch of indescribable madness.
On reaching the open space in front of the prison, the mob
halted, calling loudly for the governor to make his appearance.
He presented himself on the turreted wall over the gateway,
and to their demand that he should release those at least whom
he had received into his custody since the previous Friday,
repUed nobly that " he was Governor of Newgate to secure
felons, not to set them free.'^ Brave words, but spoken
doubtlessly with a sinking heart, for he knew that he had
been deserted, if not betrayed. His answer was the signal
for the commencement of the attack. With bludgeons, with
pickaxes, with crowbars, with huge beams of timber, used as
battering-rams, assault was made upon the doors, windows,
and walls of the Governor's house ; climbing on each other's
shoulders, the rioters swarmed in by the windows, out of
which they cast every movable thing that they could lay
hands on, of which their comrades below made a great pile
against the massy iron-plated gates, covering the whole with
tow steeped in turpentine. Fire being set to this, they
waited awhile, watching the result. Great as the conflagra-
tion was, and intense the heat, so that men by dozens dropped
fainting, never to rise again, the prison itself seemed proof;
but the flames spreading to the governor's house, and to the
chapel which adjoined it, and thence to the nearest prison
cells, soon cleared a ghastly entrance, and the mob dashing
through the- hot scorching ruins, broke down the doors leading
to the Sessions House, which passage soon became the only
escape from the most terrible of deaths ; for by the time they
had eflFected all this, not only the gaol but the whole front of
Newgate Street was one sheet of fire.
On this terrible night 500 felons (including those set free
from the New Prison in Clerkenwell, which was also de-
stroyed) were let loose once more upon the luckless city, and
hastened readily to join themselves to their ni^tural associateS|
60 The Gordon Riots.
the " No-Popery ^^ savages. Elsewhere throughout the
metropolis, the mob plundered at pleasure, boasting aloud
that before long all London should be laid in ashes. So
complete was the possession by the rioters of the most
absolute power, that regular notices were sent to the other
prisons, as well as to the Admiralty, the Mansion House, and
the Bank with the information that they would all be visited
in turn. By order also of the mob, on this same night, the
windows of every house in Westminster and the City were
illuminated, and, in the name of the Protestant Association,
contributions were levied at every door " for support of true
religion '' (we quote exactly) ^' threatened by the bloody-
minded Papists, who were everywhere slaughtering poor little
Protestant children.^^
It was during this Tuesday that a rigorous search was
made for the venerable Bishop Challoner, the rioters swearing
that when found they would chair him in derision through the
chief thoroughfares, and then hang him in the open street.
But the loving care of the faithful was quite equal to the
danger. As early as Saturday, steps had been taken to
secure a life so precious, and, yielding to the entreaties of his
friends. Dr. Challoner had left London, and had concealed
himself at the residence of a zealous Cathohc gentleman in
the neighbourhood of Finchley. As the danger, however,
increased, and all the country roads for miles round the
metropolis were occupied more or less by lawless bands, who
roamed about, plundering on every side, the fears of his pro-
tectors again urged upon him the necessity of another removal.
But to this the aged prelate would not consent. " The shep-
herd should not abandon his flock,'^ he said, " in the hour of
its peril. I will stay with my old friend, and through the
blessing of Heaven, no harm shall befall him or his on my
account.^' From a most interesting diary, kept during this
period of terror, and which has been kindly lent to assist in
this imperfect narrative, we venture to make the following
extract : —
On receiying an express from London, I went to my duty to the Bishop,
who, placing both his hands upon my head, made the most moving prayers
I ever heard for my safety. I then set out, confident in his lordship's asser-
tion, that both my town and country house would be saved from the general
destruction.^
* It was Mr. Thomas Mawhood, of London and Finchley, who had the
happiness of saving the life of Dr. Challoner. It seems the merest act of
justice to rescue from oblivion the name of one to whom the Catholics of
£ngland owe so much.
The Gordon Riots, 61
Tho condition of the great metropolis, when the sun rose
on Wednesday morning of the riot week, baffles all description.
The shops everywhere shut, blue flags hanging from the upper
windows of most of the houses, the doors and shutters almost
invariably chalked with the words ^' No Popery/' Even the
usurers of ^' the tribe of Issacher,'' and their poorer brethren,
the purchasers of stolen property in Houndsditch and Duke^s
Place, wrote upon their dwellings — ^'All within are sound
Protestants/' At the royal palaces the Yeomen of the
Guards, the marshal-men, and all the domestics were armed,
and held in readiness; the Guildhall, the Mansion House,
the Poultry, the Compter, the Excise, and the Post Office were
bristling with warlike preparations; cannon was placed in
position in all the parks ; the London Association of Foot,
and the Gentlemen Volunteers of Lincoln's Inn, Gray's Inn,
and the Temple, assembled in their various quarters, and, com-
pletely armed, made a formidable show. The intrepid
Wedderbum (of whom we have already spoken) fortified his
private house in Lincoln's-Inn Fields, vowing that at least one
man should be found prepared to resist to the death the
bravos of the Association.
In the meanwhile nothing could exceed the consternation
of those against whose very existence the fury of the rioters
was directed. All who possessed the means fled into the
provinces, or at least sent their children and female relations
out of the way of danger. Many hundreds of the poorer
Catholics wandered about the roads and fields outside the
suburbs, finding a subsistence as they best could, a difficult
thing, as it was known that spies had been appointed to watch
where they went, and to threaten any who should venture to
receive them with the vengeance of the mob. Even the
wealthier sort were, made to feel what strangers they had
become in a few days in their own birthplace, and amongst
their own countrymen. It was sufficient to be known to be
a Catholic, to make all men avoid one, and abstain from any
signs of recognition, any act of friendship. No shopkeeper
would serve, no driver of a public conveyance would carry a
Roman Catholic. As much as ten guineas is known to have
been offered to and refused by a hackney coachman for the
use of his vehicle from the Strand to Highgate. It is not then
to be wondered at that, during such a season of dreadful
panic, when society itself seemed falling to pieces, and when
every hour brought forth some new horror, many aged infirm
persons, and many delicate women, died from excess of fright.
But to return.
To suppose that even so great an array of military strength
62 The Oordon Riots.
as that which was now exhibited, would of itself be sufficient by
mere show to overawe the leaders of a body of lawless characters
numbering perhaps one hundred thousand, and as yet eveiy-
where unopposed and triumphant, was to yield to an infatua-
tion well-nigh incredible. On the other hand, the rioters,
flushed with five days of unrestrained license and success,
were not slow at setting to work at fresh enormities, as if to
dare the indecision of their rulers to come forth and attempt
its utmost. At one o'clock an attack was made upon the
Fleet Prison, which the mob was proceeding to pull down,
when the prisoners themselves begged for some hours' grace,
in order to remove their few miserable eflFects. The demand
happening to fall in with the humour of the crowd, was
magnanimously granted, and the rioters took their departure
for the moment to execute other pre-arranged deeds of ven-
geance. Maberley's house in Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn ;
Wilmot's, at Bethnal Green ; Hyde's, in Worship Street, and
the new gaol in Bridewell, were soon blazing to the sky. Two
attempts were made upon the Bank of England and the Pay
Office, which were not repulsed without loss of life. The
alarm became so great that the inhabitants in the immediate
neighbourhood of the Parliament Houses began to move their
effects, not knowing where the frenzy for destruction might
lead the rioters next, and Hatsell, Clerk to the House of
Commons, sent away into the country all the important
journals and books under his care.
At length, at 5 o'clock in the evening, after* the levee at
St. James's, a secret council was held of the Ministers, at
which it was resolved to proceed at once to the severest
measures of repression. Proclamation was made ordering all
officers to use their own discretion as in a time of martial law,
without submitting to any control from the civil power. The
manifesto went on to say that *^ the country being in a state
of treason and rebellion, his Majesty is reduced to the dis-
agreeable necessity of exerting the royal prerogative in this
manner." Lord Amherst, the Commander-in-Chief, received
at the same time the fullest powers. The words of his com-
mission were few but absolute, — '' Do what you plea.se, but
save the city and the kingdom." A plain straightforward man
and a thorough soldier, Amherst fortunately read his instruc-
tions quite literally. Command was given to the troops to
fire with ball upon the crowd at once and everywhere. But
hours before the proclamation of martial law, the mob this
day acting in several divisions and in different parts of the
metropolis, had produced an amount of ruin and raised such
a delirium of terror as the capital of England and its in-
The Gordon Riots, 68
habitants had never known or dreamt of in their wildest
times. At Langdale's great distillery in Holborn the destruc-
tion was computed at £100,000. Twice on the previous day
had threatening visits been paid to this establishment, and
on each occasion the persuasions of Sir Watkins Lewis (a
very popular man), aided by the present of a few casks of
brandy, had prevailed on the excited people to retire.
But the place was doomed. Its owner was a stanch
Catholic, and his property was of a description too tempting
to be resisted. Preceded by a man carrying the fatal blue
flag, the thirsty mob came raging up Holborn Hill. None
were there to resist them. In a few minutes the doors of the
still-house had been forced, the casks rolled out and piled up
in stacks opposite St. Andrew's Church, and fire set to the
whole. Then did the rioters yield themselves up to all the
frenzy of revenge and indulgence, heedless of the conflagra-
tion, which, fed by the inflammable liquid, spread rapidly on
every side. Men were to be seen swarming into the burning
houses in search of booty, and drinking out of pails and hats
non-r€ctified spirits, until many of them fell dead on the pave-
ment where they stood. All along the road and gutters gin
and brandy ran in great streams, which being banked up,
formed deadly pools, along which men, women, and children,
intoxicated, but still drinking, lay never to rise again. While
all these horrors were going on, others of the mob, wear-
ing the blue cockade and armed with bludgeons, house railings,
and crowbars; collected money in all the adjacent streets in
the name of the Association, and with the threat, when re-
fused, of a speedy return and a hearty vengeance. An idea
may be formed of the extent to which this levying of
Protestant black mail had been carried during the terror of
the riot, from the fact, that of the hundreds shot down by the
military upon this and the succeeding day, few were found,
upon searching, who had not concealed about their person
very considerable sums of money. On the trials of the rioters
that took place a month later, the Rev. Mr. Allen stated
that he had paid forty guineas to be allowed to pass through
Fleet Street, and that at the bottom of Holborn Hill a man
mounted upon a brewer's horse, which was decorated with
fetters taken from Newgate, suSered no one to go by without
payment, refusing, however, to take anything but gold or bank
notes. /
We must not forget to record here an act of the Protestant
Association, and one in every way worthy of it. On this
same fatal Wednesday, when the mischief had reached such
a height that a universal stupor was creeping over men's
64 The Gordon Riots.
minds^ and the whole nation seemed on the verge of bank-
ruptcy and ruin, there came forth from the printing press of
the committee of the Association^ handbills of the most in-
flammatory description^ detailing ^^ the massacres in past
times of Protestant people by Papists, and all the villanies
of Popery." But of one publication in particular it seems
worth while to preserve the programme :—
England in blood ! To-morrow (Thursday) at 8 o'clock, will be published,
one and a half sheet folio, price 3d., " The Thunderer," addressed to Lord
George Gordon and the members of the glorious Protestant Association,
showing the necessity of perseverance and union as one man, against
the infernal designs of the Ministry to overthrow the religious and civil
liberty of this country, in order to introduce Popery and Slavery.
In this paper will be given a full account of the bloody tyranny, per-
secuting plots, and inhuman butcheries exercised on the professors of the
Protestant religion in England by the See of Rome, together with the names
of the martyrs and sufferers. Highly necessary to be read at this important
moment by every Englishman who loves his God and his country. To
which wiU be added some reasons why the few misguided people now in prison
for destroying the Roman Catholic chapels, shall not suffer, and also, the
dreadftd conseqtLcnces of aXiempting to bring them to punishTnerU, God bless
Lord George Gordon.
When it is remembered that this same Association, which
now claimed as its own these men, had, at the commence-
ment of the riots, publicly asserted that Catholics alone were
the guilty parties, few, we imagine, will deny that this is a
flagrant instance of what the Psalmist calls "iniquity lying
to itself.'^
But their hour of impunity was already at an end, for by
this time the military were in position at every point, both
where the riot was actually raging and where it •threatened.
The check was instantaneous and soon most complete. As
during the past days there had beon no display of firmness,
and apparently no government, so now there was no mercy
and no discrimination. Turn where it would, the mob found
itself confronted by an incessant raking fire of musketry that
tore open its ranks, inflicting ghastly wounds and dealing
death with terrible rapidity. It was soon nothing but one
dreadful scene of confusion, flight, and unresisting slaughter.
Some still living remember to have heard old men say that
the recollection of that Wednesday night of the No-popery
Riots had never been obliterated from their memory. Thirty-
six great fires blazing at one and the same time under the mid-
night sky, families flying, distracted, with such of their house-
hold goods as they could hastily collect, the shrieking of
The Goi'don Riots. 65
women^ the shouts of the firemen^ the howling and groans of
the infuriated defeated rioters, whom the soldiers were now
charging everywhere at the point of the bayonet, made up a
spectacle and a dream of horror that might well cling to the
mind for life. No one in the City or Westminster slept that
night ; and even in the villages for miles round, the glare of so
many fires brought out the inhabitants into the high roads and
lanes, where they lingered anxiously through the long hours
till the dawn, and spoke together of their fears of what the
rioters would do next, after London should be destroyed.
But {he worst was already past. Despatches had succeeded
one another so rapidly, When the Government woke at last to
some sense of its peril, that both regulars and militia were
pouring into the metropolis in great numbers early on the
morning of Thursday. At the Lord Chancellor's, in Great
Ormond Street, a whole regiment was on duty, and the Arch-
bishop's palace at Lambeth looked more like a fortified block-
house than a peaceful episcopal residence. The gentlemen of
the Inns of Court, armed, kept watch and ward within their
respective societies. In Southwark, the principal inhabitants,
enrolled as volunteers for the protection of life and property,
patrolled the streets to the number of three thousand, while, in
the disorderly parish of Covent Garden, every householder
mounted guard from dusk until four o'clock next morning.
Under the western portico of St. Paul's, within the Cathedral
rails, companies of the Guards were quartered, and plentifully
supplied by the inhabitants, during the night, with beef and
porter. In fact, an immense display of strength was made just
as the danger was passing away, and many of the associations
that now turned out, armed to the teeth and teeming with
valour, were accused of having proved themselves anything
but forward a few hours earlier. Nothing, however, could now
exceed the readiness of all classes of the community to vindi-
cate the supremacy of the law, and at the same time to clear
themselves from any suspicion of sympathy with the late riots
and their abettors. Every suspected person was stopped and
examined, every stage-coach was rigorously searched. For the
terror was still great. From Tyburn to Whitechapel all the
shops remained shut ; no public business was transacted in the
City after three o'clock, while every now and then could yet be
heard the regular platoon firing of soldiers, who had lighted
upon some wretched relics of the great mob that had melted
so strangely away. But anything like organized tumult was
at an end. There was, indeed, some fresh rioting in the
Borough, but it was quelled in half an hour ; about one hundred
persons got together and madly attempted to rekindle the
VOL. XXI. — NO. XLi. \_Neiv 8eries,'\ p
66 The Qordo7i Riots,
ruins of the cells of Newgate and the governor's honse^ but
they were at once apprehended : others were found busy pulling
down what was left of the Marshalsea Prison ; of these, thirty-
six were shot, and the rest fled in dismay. So completely was
the heart of the insurrection broken, that captures were made
hourly by private individuals, who, two days before, were
hiding timorously within doors; and even that prince of
cowards, Kennet, the Lord Mayor, ventured to issue a notice
to the inhabitants of the City, that- —
It being determined to repress with a strong hand the disgraceful tumults
of the past days, the metropolis was to be considered as in a state of siege.
All masters are therefore called upon to keep their servants and apprentices
within doors, lest, being mistaken for sympathisers with the rioters, they may
share the rigours of martial law.
And having delivered himself of this magniloquent piece of
bombast, the Chief Magistrate set to work to make ready the
best defence his ingenuity could devise for his own dasterdly
conduct during the late dangers. A Government proclamation
also appeared at the same time, earnestly requesting —
All peaceably-disposed men to abstain from wearing the blue cockade, as
this is the ensign of a set of miscreants, whose purpose is to bum the city and
plunder its inhabitants. It is further recommended to all masters not to
employ any who wear such. Orders have been issued to the mihtary to deal
in the most summary manner with all who shall wear the cockade.
This was soon seen to be no mere empty threat, for two
men in Leadenhall Street, refusing to remove the obnoxious
symbol when ordered to do so, were instantly shot dead, at the
command of an oflScer of a company of fencibles. Such reso-
lution and severity were of magical effect, and being followed
up by one or two proceedings of equal firmness, gave the
leaders of the riot to understand that their cause was hopeless,
and that instead of attempting new violence, all their efforts
would now be necessary to shield themselves from the conse-
quences of that which they had occasioned already.
And now that peace and safety seemed about to be restored
to them once more, the citizens began to apprehend a fresh
danger. A fear arose, in reference to the security of those
liberties and rights for which their forefathers had fought so
long and suffered so much. They beheld the military acting
with all the stem energy of a conquering army, to the utter
ignoring of such an idea as the existence of any civil power.
And what a temptation might not this prove for the introduc-
tion of an authority whose only rule would be the will of the
strongest. To iacrease this natural anxiety, came all manner
Authority and the AngUcan Ohwrch. 87
of reports to the effect that the soldiers were ab*eady abusing
their victory^ that some of those who had been arrested in
Cheapside were forthwith hung upon the street lamp-irons^ and
that the troops themselves were heard to boast that the shop*
keeping population of London would be made to remember
for many a day an insurrection which, but for their sympathy
or their cowardice, might have been easily crushed in its birth.
The appearance, however, of a second notice on the part of the
Government somewhat reassured the terrified citizens ; it was
to the following effect :—
Whereas ill-designing and malicious persons have published, for the pur-
pose of disturbing the minds of His Majesty's subjects, that it is intended to
try the prisoners now in custody by martial law — Notice is given by authority,
that no such purpose or intention has ever been in contemplation by Govern-
ment, but that the said prisoners will be tried by due course of law, as ex-
peditiously as may be. In obedience to an order of the Eang in Council, the
military are still to act, without waiting for directions from the civil magis-
trates, and to use force for the dispersing of illegal and tumultuoiis
assemblages of the people, but for no other purpose whatsoever.
The close of the Gordon Riots we reserve for another
occasion.
Art. in. — AUTHORITY AND THE ANGLICAN
CHURCH. -MR. GARBETT AND CANON LIDDON.
1. The Dogmatic Faith, Bampton Lectures for 1867. By Edwabd
Gabbbtt, M.A.
2. Our Lord: 8 Divinity. Bampton Lectures for 1866. .By Henry Parry
LiDDON, M.A, Student of Christ Church.
3. Defeimo Fidei Catholicce adversus Anglicancz Secta errores. ¥, S(JAREZ,
0pp. t. xxiv. ed. Viv^.
THERE are men of our generation for whom this world is
only one of innumerable planets, careering through
space without any particular object, while its inhabitants are
more or less intelligent animals, who know neither whence ,
they came nor whither they are going. It is even considered
by such men a proof of superior acuteness to refuse to inquire.
They are equally indifferent to our origin and our destiny.
Since modem science can tell us nothing about either, it is
f2
68 Authority and the Anglican Church.
clear, they consider, that such problems lie outside the domain
of rational speculation. Everything supra-mundane, says one
writer of this school, is beyond the sphere of human interests.
Any activity in the province of religious thought, says another,
is only '' a debilitating dream. ^* Let reason know its true
limits, adds a third, and be content to investigate Matter.
This is the only reality. Thought, according to one modern
philosopher, is a secretion which takes place in the encephalum.
Freedom, according to another, is only ignorance of the causes
which determine the will. The will itself, we are assured by
a third, is nothing but " unconscious molecular movements.'^
Our resolutions, writes a fourth, which we idly fancy we can
control, " vary with the barometer.^^ And this view of the
human animal, — which has been recently defined as a " sar-
coidous peripatetic fungus,^' — of the phenomena of conscious-
ness, and the mysteries of the spiritual world, is so popular
with some of our contemporaries, that, as Dr. Radclifi'e observes
in his Croonian lectures, our progress now " is from force to
matter, not from matter to force.^' Already the differences
between ourselves and the brute creation are in certain minds
nearly obliterated. For them the soul of man is only a gland,
his intellect a nerve-power, and his heart a forcing-pump.
They are men of talent and culture who say these things,
but they are by no means the keenest or wisest of their race,
even in questions of science. The great masters of human
thought, to whom nature has revealed her most vital secrets,
have been believers in the supernatural. All the mighty
discoverers y as Whewell remarked, contrasting them with mere
observer's, have been religious men. And this, he adds, is
especially true of those branches of science which have "ap-
proached their complete and finished form,^' * such as
mechanics, hydrostatics, and physical astronomy. Copernicus,
Kepler, Pascal, Leibnitz, and Newton are examples in earlier
days, as Ampere, Owen, and Faraday are in our own. The most
profound students of nature, who lifted with reverent hand the
veil which hides her face, and disclosed to others what they
saw, were both humble and devout. The only boast ever
uttered by the immortal Kepler — of whom it may, perhaps, be
said as truly as of Newton, g-enus humanum ingeiiio superavit —
was this : *' I have built up a temple to my God." His very
labours were a prayer, and his discoveries a hymn. Yet he
surpassed modem scientists, as most of them will admit, as
much in the splendour of his genius as in the piety which
controlled its use. Like the ^^ sons of God," when they first
* " Astronomy and Greneral Physics," chap. v. p. 309.
Mr, Garbett and Canon Liddon. 69
beheld the marvels of creation, such men as Kepler ^' made a
joyful melody " * at each new revelation of nature^s laws, for
they deemed that reason should be employed in His service
who gave it, and that the noblest function of the creature is
to magnify his Creator. The divorce between religion and
science is of recent date : it is the special ignominy of our
own lawless and self-sufficient age.
The mental habits of the great discoverers were as diflferent
from those of contemporary materialists as the magnificent
results of their research are from the capricious and unstable
theories in which modern science is chiefly prolific. Hypo-
thesis and assumption, which make up so large a part of the
crude systems of our day, were moderately used and lightly
esteemed by men for whom God was the intellectual basis of
all knowledge, and who would have thought it sacrilege to
substitute their own guesses and conceits, either in the realm
of spirit or of matter, for the truths which they hoped to dis-
cover by His aid, and intended to dedicate to His glory. Not
to them could the reproach be addressed, which our men of
science are constantly directing against each other, that they
examine nature only to construct and fortify their own
theories. Professor Owen describes even the hypotheses of a
Darwin, ingenious as they are, and plausibly maintained, as
'^ the chance aims of human fancy '' ; f while the illustrious
Faraday, not less eminent in his own department of thought,
laments that discovery is impeded, and true science' obscured
by a cloud of guesses and ^' large assumptions,^' J in which he
perceives rather the vanity of self-love than the prudent and
religious investigation of scientific truth. The same evil is
deplored by Whew ell, who noticed in other spheres of research
the same incurable levity of assumption. " Many anatomical
truths have been discovered,'^ he observes, " but no physio-
logical principle. All the trains of physiological research
which we have followed have begun in exact examination of
organization and function, and have ended in wide conjectures
and arbitrary hypotheses.''§ It is this hurry to invent rather
than to discover, natural to men who put the glory of science
before that of their Maker, and seek only to force from nature
certificates of their own ingenuity, which explains, though it
probably did not suggest, the remark of a living writer, that
" former ages produced great men, while ours produces great
♦ Job xxxviiL 7.
t " Palaeontology," p. 443, second edition.
J " Experi'nental Researches in Chemistry," vol. iil p. 626.
§ " History of the Inductive Sciences," vol. iii. bk. xvii. cb. v.
70 Authority and the Angliccm Church.
inventions/' And this decay of '^ men/' as well as the exube-
rance of conjecture which marks our time, but which always
claims the unquestioning assent due only to demomstrated
truths, and seldom claims it in vain, must be referred to a
common cause. For the first time in the history of human
thought it is deliberately assumed, as a first principle both in
religion and philosophy, that men owe no respect to any
authority, either in the domain of reason or of conscience, but
such as they may choose to give to one of their own selection.
Every man, in all save his duties as a citizen, is a law to .himself.
God, if He exists, has no witness or representative on earth.
Neither the common traditions of our race, nor the collective
testimony of conscience, nor the voice of sages, nor the witness
of churches, nor any tribunal however ancient, nor any society
or institution which has been deemed at any time, or in any
measure, to represent the mind of God, has a shadow of right
to guide our reason or control our conscience. Authority is
extinct. It never existed but by usurpation. The chief
result of its exercise was the limitation of human freedom.
For long ages men acquiesced in its unwholesome domination,
and accepted its decrees, partly from habit, and partly because
they had not learned to think. At length humanity awoke to
a consciousness of its servitude, and wisely resolved to be
free. It was not till the sixteenth century of our era that man
succeeded in breaking his chains. From that date he became
his own master, the creator of his own religion, and the
arbiter of his own destiny. And the general state of the
world, some people think, has much improved in consequence.
Yet it is certain that men were endowed with reason before
the sixteenth century. They may even be said to have made
considerable use of it. Our cities are filled with their
monuments, our libraries hardly suffice to contain their books ;
and if modern writers sometimes fancy they can rival the one,
modem artists are still humbly content to copy the other.
The very ruins of what they built, and the fragments of what
they wrote, seem to us more full of beauty and majesty than
all which we can put in their place. And their genius was as
fertile in the organization and government of states, which
they had skill both to found and to preserve, as in the products
of art, or the ideal creations of thought. All the institutions
which seem to us most precious, and by which society still
maintains a semblance of cohesion, we owe to their wisdom.
The social problems which are the despair of our statesmen
either did not arise in their day, or were solved by them with-
out difficulty. They easily baffled assaults which would only
reveal our impotence, and survived dangers which would drive
Mr. Oarieti and Canon lAddon, 7 J
us to seek safety in flight. If vast masses of our populations
are relapsing into barbarism, they were able to civilize savage
nations, including our own, and did it whenever the need
arose. Nothing seems to have been too hard for them, and
their success was most complete in the very enterprises in
which we hardly even hope to attain it. Their ingenuity was
displayed in creating, ours in destroying ; and while we can-
not even preserve the blessings which we did nothing to
obtain, they were able to transmit them to others. What
they founded many ages could not overthrow ; what we build
to-day falls to pieces to-morrow. And they were as active in
the region of pure intellect, as soon as they had overcome the
barbarians, and established the strong foundations upon which
European order has ^ver since reposed, as in the works of
charity and the ministry of faith. Never was mental vigour
more spontaneous than in the middle ages, and never was it
less impeded by the restraints of an authority which was
admitted indeed by all, but which was so far from checking
the expansion of human reason, that it only encouraged its
boldest efforts, by assuring it from error, and preserving it
from self-destruction. Men could venture to be bold when
they knew that in all which relates to God and the soul they
had a teacher whom no sophistry could beguile, and a judge
whom no error could escape. Nothing in heaven, or on
^arth, or in the waters under the earth, was withdrawn from
their scrutiny, of which the range was only limited by the
knowledge which they had then acquired, and the oppor-
tunities which they then possessed. The only law from which
they neither desired nor were able to escape, but which en-
compassed them like an atmosphere, of which none felt the
pressure, and in which every limb had free motion, was that
primeval law which binds every creature of God, which can
never be annulled to the end of time, and which was announced
to the whole human race 'in the person of our first parent,
whose magnificent freedom knew no other restraint : ^^ This
one thing thou shalt not do.^^ They might do anything which
reason could compass, except contradict a precept of faith or
morals. In this direction alone motion was arrested, and the
play of individual judgment forbidden. And the effect of this
law was, not to diminish or compromise, but to secure and
establish the largest liberty of which the creature is capable.
It was, in fact, the very charter of the redeemed, and the
exclusive privilege of the children of God. Others might be
the slaves of doubt or error, but not they. Our fathers un-
derstood, both by reason and revelation, that submission to
this law was the condition of their immunity from delusion and
72 Authority and the Anglican Church,
bondage. It was for them a truism that every suggestion
of science or philosophy, however specious, which tended to
subvert a revealed doctrine attested by the Church, was
manifestly false. It was this certainty which at once en-
couraged and controlled their endless discussions de omni re
scibili. This was the clue by whose aid they went to and fro
in the boundless labyrinth of speculation, without fear and
without risk. To cast away the authority with which they
perceived that it was impossible for the creature to dispense,
would have seemed to them equally impious and irrational, and
their robust intelligence easily detected that, far from opposing
a barrier to human knowledge or a limit to human freedom,
it was the action of this authority alone which had secured to
the world all the truth which it had ever amassed, and all the
liberty which it had ever enjoyed.
What grounds have we, then, for supposing that reason has
really developed new powers since it was " emancipated,^' as
certain moderns boast, from the yoke of authority ? All that
we observe in the operations of modem thought— to say nothing
at present of the endless political and social revolutions which
have accompanied the disastrous change — seems to suggest a
totally opposite conclusion. The tumult and chaos of conflict-
ing opinions, throughout the whole range of human thought —
the incessant fabrication of new theories, equally fugitive and
contradictory — the clamour of their rival authors, each as eager
to disparage his neighbour's hypothesis as he will presently be
to retract his own — the rage of destructive criticism, which
respects nothing, and is as swift to subvert as it is impotent to
create, — the discredit of all fixedprinciples, — the adoption of the
balance and the microscope as the sole eflScient tests of truth, —
the random guesses which begin from nothing and lead to
nowhere, — the stupor of unresisting despair after the weariness
of unfruitful toil, — the universal doubt which is the palsy of
exhausted reason, or the still more dismal fanaticism which is
the twin product of its lawless abuse, — and finally, last stage
and fitting climax of this continual descent, the senseless pro-
clamation of the equal rights of truth and error : such are the
experimental results of that exaltation of self, and revolt
against all authority, which was first erected into a kind of
satanical dogma in the sixteenth century, and is still the blight
and cancer of our own.*
It seems, therefore, that men have only returned, since they
* A French writer, whose description of philosophical systems seemed to
the late Mr. Grote so ** happy a specimen of satirical pleasantry/' though it
was written in sober earnest, that he took a note of it, sums np their merits
Mr, Garhett and Ganon Liddon. 73
conspired together to renounce authority, to the same disorder
which was their shame and their (Chastisement before they had
learned to recognize it. They have lost all that had been
gained in the interval. The darkest phenomena of heathen
times are being reproduced before our eyes, and even the so-
called '^ churches '' founded upon the same principle of revolt
only contribute, as their champions will tell us presently, to
bring them into clearer view. Everything tends, and there
are some who announce it with exultation, to carry humanity
backwards, and fling it once more into the abyss from which
it had escaped. The same restless intellectual activity which
reigned among the Greeks, but which did not assist them to
solve a single problem of human life, produces among ourselves
results so exactly parallel, that Mr. Matthew Arnold, himself a
conspicuous victim of the calamity which he recounts, observes,
with only partial exaggeration, of one of the worst periods of
pagan history, that it was " an epoch akin to our own.^'f
Yet the men of this generation — both the few who reject all
religion but the worship of humanity, and the many who have
invented new religions for themselves, and adore the idols
which they have set up — are never weary of repeating that
reason was first emancipated when authority was finally
renounced. They have repeated it so often that at last they
seem to believe it. At least they are so far of one mind —
journalists, essayists, and preachers — that they all profess to
do so. It is only when they begin to construct a foundation
for this newly discovered supremacy of individual reason,
and to methodize their own conception of it, that they part
asunder into two contending schools, and betray the funda-
mental discord which underlies their apparent unity. Both
assert that as long as men submitted to authority their reason
was fettered, and thus far they coincide j but while the un-
believer contends that no truths of the spiritual order were ever
really acquired, because reason cannot deal with the intangible,
and was self-deluded in making the attempt, the sectary is
equally confident that such truths have always existed, but
thus : " Une multitude d'hypoth^ses, ^levdes en quelque sorte au hasard,
et rapidement d^truites : une diversity d'opinions d'autant plus sensible que
la Pnilosophie a ^t^ plus d^velopp^e : des sectes, des partis ni^me, des
disputes interminables, des speculations studies, des erreurs maintenues et
transmises par une imitation aveugle : quelques d^couvertes obtenues avec
lenteur, et ra^lang^es d'id^ fausses : des r^formes annonc^es k chaque si^le
et jamais accomplies : une succession de doctrines qui se renversent les unes
Jes autres sans pouvoir obteuir plus de solidity," &c. — " Life of Greorge Grote,"
oh. XXX. p. 255.
t " Essays in Criticism," p. 294, second edition.
74 * Authority and the Anglican Church,
that lie alone is able to discover them. The one denies that
God ever taught men at all, the other that He ever taught any
but himself. Both admit, what they cannot deny, that men
persevered during the long reign of authority in a marvellous
unity of thought, yet both assert the rights of the individual
against all authority, in spite of their knowledge of the fact,
that reason led only to harmonious results as long as it was
subject to control, and only to shameful contradictions since it
became exempt from it. It may be blindly trusted in our own
age, they assure us, though it so easily went astray in every
other, and is the only safe guide for us, though it so miserably
deluded our fathers. Yet as reason is just what it always was,
and was subject to no infirmity in the past to which it is not
equally liable in the present, we seem to see only a fresh proof
of its incorrigible fatuity in this singular discovery of '^emanci-
pated ^^ thought, that it must be right now because it was
always wrong before.
It is our purpose to offer in the remarks which follow what
appears to us decisive evidence of the essential agreement
between the infidel and the sectary, in spite of real or apparent
difierences, in their common opposition to the principle of
authority, and their lawless antagonism to that unchanging
Church which has been for so many ages its only representative
in this lower world. If it can be shown, by their own spon-
taneous avowals, that Christian sectaries of every school,
including the newest, exactly coincide with undisguised infidels
in their contemptuous estimate of the Christian Church, and,
unconsciously co-operate with them in their war against
revealed truth by undermining the authority of its chief
witness ; if it can be demonstrated that both concur in proclaim-
ing, often in identical terms, the pretended emancipation of
reason, the supremacy of the individual conscience, and its
independence of all authority external to itself; it is probable
that such evidence of an alliance which they do not suspect,
and would be loath to confirm by a deliberate assent of the
will, may contribute to assist some to whom we owe every
charitable service which they are willing to accept in detecting
the true nature of a position which they have inherited from
others, and which is nothing, as we hope to convince them, but
a confederation of crime and a community of revolt.
As the narrow space at our disposal will not permit us to
open the records of the past, nor to cite the long array of
witnesses, from the first founders of the Anglican Church to
the present hour, who have vied with one another in proclaim-
ing to their country the infamy of the Universal Church, —
its divisions, corruptions, abuses, and usurpations, and the
Mr. Oarhett and Canon lAddon, 75
paramonnt obligation of denying its claims and resisting its
authority ; — so that the predominant conviction of the average
Englishman has come to be this, that there is nothing which
he has such good reason to hate and despise as the Church of
his fathers; — we shall confine our attention to two contem-
porary writers, representatives of opposite schools of religious
thought, and selected on that account by the University of
Oxford to communicate to its members in successive years
their view of the religion of Christ, and its titles to human
respect. Differing as widely in intellectual force and culture
as in their theological sympathies, they are absolutely of one
mind in their estimate of the character and fortunes of the
Christian Church, and in their testimony to all whom their
words can reach against her authority. In listening to these
two champions of modem Anglicanism, of whom the one is an
ornament of the Low and the other of the High subdivision of
his community, we shall acquire abundant evidence of the pro-
position which we desire to establish, — that there is a complete
identity between the infidel and the sectary in their apprecia-
tion of the Christian Church, and that the latter is at least as
successful as the former in proving, if his assumptions are
well-founded, that she is nothing but a human institution,
liable to corruption and decay, and without a shadow of right
to exert the authority which she claims, but which it is one of
the highest duties of English Christians to resist and defy.
It will be convenient to give precedence to the Low Church
advocate, if only because he represents an earlier and more
prevailing tone of Anglican opinion than his accomplished
rival. The latter shall be heard in his turn. When both have
delivered their testimony, it will be seen that, in spite of super-
ficial differences, they exactly agree with the unbeliever, and
with one another, in denying to the Catholic Church the
slightest claim to a supernatural character; and that the worst
which a E^nan can imagine or a Matthew Arnold can write
against her is confirmed and justified by these eminent Anglican
clergymen, as it is by the official formularies of the sect to
which they both appeal.
In 1867 Mr. Garbett was chosen by the authorities at
Oxford, no doubt on account of qualities which had attracted
their esteem, to deliver the Bampton lectures for that year.
He took for his subject "The Dogmatic Faith. ^' We are
assured that he was considered by the party to which he
belongs to have acquitted himself creditably, and to have fully
satisfied their expectations. We can easily believe it. Our
own province is neither to praise nor to blame a writer who
would no doubt be equally indifferent to our approval and our
76 Axdhonty and the Anglican Church,
remonstrance, but simply to ascertain what view of the Christian
Church he recommended to the University of Oxford.
Mr. Garbett, who is more remarkable for the candour with
which he avows his opinions than for his perception of their
logical results, assured the distinguished audience which he
had been invited to address that the annihilation of authority
— of which the inhabitants of a fallen world have evidently no
need, being quite able to conduct their own affairs — was the
glory of that too successful movement to which England owes
the creation of the Anglican Church. " The Reformation/^
he said, '^ rested for its justification on two co-equal principles,^'
of which one was '^ ihe supremacy of the individual conscience
over external authority,''* Why the individual conscience of a
particular Englishman — ^unless he were Moses, Elias, or
S. Paul — should be a surer guide than the collective conscience
of mfl»ny races and generations, Mr. Garbett will perhaps tell
us later, and we shall receive the explanation, when it is forth-
coming, with lively interest ; meanwhile, it is enough for us to
have learned, on his authority, that to correct the popular
delusion that the whole is greater than a part was one of the
" co-equal '' triumphs of the so-called Reformation. But it is
due to the Bampton Lecturer, whose views we shall endeavour
to represent with scrupulous accuracy, to notice, that if he will
not permit any external authority, however ancient and vener-
able, to interfere with the supremacy of the individual con-
science, he is by no means disposed to excuse " the tendency
of the age to lawless self-sufficiency." People must, he con-
siders, obey something. The authority of the Catholic Church,
to which Christians ignorantly submitted during so many ages,
was a mere usurpation, and should be sternly resisted, as the
intelligent Reformers clearly "perceived; but there is an
authority, he adds, which is all that hers was not, which has
a right to claim absolute submission, and of which we must
endeavour to ascertain, with Mr. Garbett's friendly aid, both
the nature and the seat. We are as much impressed as he is
with the importance of the inquiry, and entirely concur with
him when he says, in order to explain its necessity, but in
more graphic language than we can command: "The man
called to discriminate between the teaching of dead Apostles
and the false glosses of living heresiarchs has a difficult
problem to solve.^'t This appears to us a discreet and tenable
proposition, and in approaching the subject of " authority '' as
defined by Mr. Garbett, we yield ourselves to his guidance
with the agreeable expectation that he will conduct us into a
♦ Lecture VII. p. 258. t Lecture I. p. 6.
Mr. Garbett and Canon Liddon. 77
region of clear light, which no conflict between dead Apostles
and living heresiarchs will be able to obscure.
We may acknowledge, however, in entering upon this in-
vestigation, that our cheerful anticipations are clouded by a
difficulty which seems to us of enormous dimensions. At the
risk of appearing to display a lawless self-sufficiency, we must
propose it to Mr. Garbett. If the individual conscience is
supreme, as he assures us, over all external authority, what is
the use of searching for any authority at all ? If it is in us,
why look for it elsewhere ? And if it is out of us, in what
mystic sphere does it reside ? Mr. Garbett evidently feels the
difficulty, as we do, but he is conscious that he wants some
authority in his system, and must have it. We are not sur-
prised, therefore, to find that he has got it. *' True dogma,''
he says, ^' is the expression of authority.''* If this means that
truth is its own authority, we have not made much progress.
If dogma and the authority which proclaims it are one and
the same thing, the only definition which Mr. Garbett can
give us of authority is, that it is dogma. And this is what he
really means. Dogma does well to be imperious, he says,
and intolerant of question, but not churches or councils ;
for " thef tone of authority, consistent and necessary in the
infallible, is inconsistent and offensive in the fallible.'^t Esta-
blish your dogma, and you may laugh at authority. But as a
less imposing writer reminds us, you must catch your haro
before you cook it, we want to know how to catch our dogma.
Mr. Garbett tells us everything about it except that. Wo
hear him with pleasure while he says, " freedom of thought,
largeness of affection, nobility of character, and political free-
dom have all been nursed beneath the shadow of dogma," for
nothing seems to us more transparently true; but when we
advance another step with our amiable guide, we find our-
selves treacherously mired in a most dismal swamp. Dogma
is authority, and dogma is infallible, but alas ! not always,
nor even generally, but only in a fitful and intermittent way.
''The sole exceptions to this fact," continues the Bampton
Lecturer, who dashes the cup from our lips before we have
time to taste it, "are to be found in the corrupt periods of the
Church," which amount to about four-fifths of her whole
existence, " when she had departed from the teaching of the
inspired Scriptures, and substituted dogmas of man's making
for dogmas of God's revealing." J It is depressing to learn to
what extent the Church, founded for quite other purposes,
has indulged in such perfidious substitutions. It is another
• Lecture II. p. 43. t Lecture I. p. 19. J Lecture I. p. 31.
78 Authority and the Anglican Ohv/rch.
Cliurcli, not quite so ancient, and only known to people of one
race, which has revealed her crimes. '' In six of her doctrinal
Articles/' says Mr. Garbett, who evidently considers their
testimony conclusive, *^ she charges it as a crime against the
Church of Eome that she has taught dogmas which not only
are not Scriptural, but are contradictory to Scripture '* ; and
to which she applies, he reminds us, among other expressive
epithets, those of '^ impious, vain, corrupt, fondly-invented,
blasphemous fables, and dangerous deceits/' " In the
Kubrics/' adds Mr. Garbett, as if he were quoting the Arch-
angel Michael, or the Apostolic Council of Jerusalem, '^ in the
Preface to the Prayer Book,'' which is for him a Fifth Gospel,
" and in the Homilies," which he considers majestic as the
songs of David, " she reiterates the same charge with great
energy of language."* Unfortunately what he says is quite
true, and must give the unbeliever a high idea of the merits of
the Christian religion and the dignity of the Christian Church,
of which Mr. Garbett and the Anglican formularies ofier him
such a pleasing account. But we are not without a certain con-
solation. The language of the Church of England to which ho
refers is so horrible, that a large section of her clergy have
lately discovered that she could not possibly have wlbhed it to
be taken in its literal sense, and that it may be easily har-
monized, by well-disposed people, with the Canons of the
Council of Trent. The same clergy tell us further that the
Reformation itself was, in the words of Mr. Baring Gould, '^ a
miserable apostasy," and that the very doctrines which the
Church of England playfully reviles with such " great energy
of language," but not with any serious purpose, are an es-
sential part of God's revelation.. The Church of England
appears, therefore, to resemble a certain American of the
*' JeflFerson Brick " school, who, after crushing a British
tourist with alarming denunciations of his country, and
announcing the general intention of his fellow-citizens to
" chaw her up " in some prompt and decisive manner, was so
much moved by the visible distress of his insular companion
at the prospect, as to add cheerfully, that " perhaps he did not
mean it." Let us hope that the Church of England did not
mean it, and resume our unfinished examination of Mr. Gar-
bett's plea for authority.
It seems to have occurred to Mr. Garbett that if ^^ the
corrupt periods of the Church" lasted so long, malevolent
critics, accustomed to leap impetuously from premisses to con-
clusions, might rashly infer that dogma was fatally compro-
* Lecture II. p. 41.
Mr. Garbett and Canon Liddon. 79
mised, and authority reduced to a shadow. He proceeds^
therefore, to combat this pardonable misapprehension. '' We
aj£rm the faith of the Church to be one/^ he says, but " if we
are taunted by the variations perceptible in the history of
religious opinion, and in the tone and proportion of religious
teaching,^^ — ^that is, in less sonorous language, by the funda-
mental contradictions of creeds and churches, — "we reply
that variation in the mode of teaching dogma is one thing,
and variation in the dogmas themselves another.^'* And with
this lofty rebuke he seems to fancy that he has silenced the
adversary, and restored authority to its proper place. He is
digging a grave for the dead, but imagines that he is raising
a monument to the living. Owing to "the weaknesses of
human nature,'^ he adds, which fully account for the failure of
the Church, though we should ourselves have thought that it
was her business to overcome them, " it cannot possibly be
other wise.'' As to the errors of faith, he continues, into
which " great and holy men of the past '' fell, " the fault was
in the men who misunderstood the Scriptures, not in the
Scriptures which were misunderstood.'' Comforted by this
reflection, he breaks out in a very surprising manner, " We
are able to judge for ourselves " — which apparently the great
and holy men of the past were not — "what the Bible teaches."
Let intemperate critics understand, therefore, that in spite of
the '^weaknesses of human nature," dogma is intact and
authority infallible, because "we" can always tell, though
our predecessors could not, owing to some now eradicated
vice of mental constitution, what the Bible teaches.
It is in this way that the Bampton Lecturer . defends
" authority," and recommends it to the respect of mankind.
S. Augustine once observed to the eloquent Faustus, the
Manichsean, who thought as meanly of " the Church of the
living God " as Mr. Garbett himself, and was as confident of
her erroneous and his own exact interpretation of the Bible,
that " instead of subjecting his faith to the authority of the
Scriptures," as that ingenious heretic boasted, " he subjected
the Scriptures to himself." Perhaps some people will think
that Mr. Garbett resembles Faustus. This conviction will be
fortified if we now accompany the former in the historical
sketch of Christianity which he presented to his Oxford
audience, and has since published to the world at large.
" The mediaeval period," says Mr. Garbett, serenely confi-
dent in his own capacity to judge everything in heaven and
on earth, and in the inability of the " great and holy men of
* Lecture II. p. 45.
80 Authority and the Anglican Church.
the past " to do either, " was the period alike of religious and
intellectual darkness/' Even " piety/' he adds, lest any one
should remind him of its ceaseless activity in those days,
'^ became narrow and angular as the cells and cloisters that
sheltered it/'* Yet the Calvinist Guizot, reviewing this
period with a riper judgment and more critical knowledge,
calls these very cells and cloisters ^^philosophical schools of
Christianity, where intellectual men meditated, discussed, and
taught " ; and whereas Mr. Garbett assured his hearers that
'^ Christianity has called the Church into existence, not the
Church Christianity," Guizot declares that she has repaid the
debt, for that ''it was the Christian Church which saved
Christianity," and that but for her astonishing victories, at
the very time when Mr. Garbett thinks she was most con-
temptible, ''the whole world must have been abandoned to
purely material force."t Mr. Garbett is perhaps ungrateful,
and certainly imprudent, and must not be surprised if infidels
continue to deride the Christian Church, when he gives them
such excellent reasons for doing so.
But it is fair to Mr. Garbett to admit, that if he confounds
and overthrows everybody else, and easily detects the errors
of the " great and holy men of the past," he is quite as ready
to expose and contradict his own. After piling up ruins on
every side, he nobly flings himself on the heap. The middle
ages, he has informed us, were " a period of religious and in-
tellectual darkness," and generally productive of extremely
unpleasant ways and thoughts, to the great detriment of the
Church ; yet he presently forgets this outburst altogether,
and announces — though the change is not in the subject, but
in himself — that the theology of that epoch "was charac-
terized not alone by mental activity, but also by a deep
interest in the great questions of Divine truth." Warming
with the theme, he adds that it was " something much higher
and better than simply ecclesiastical " ; that S. Anselm, Peter
Lombard, and S. Thomas Aquinas " had a deep reverence for
the Word," and believed that "anything contrary to Scripture
was undoubtedly false," an opinion which he will perhaps be
surprised to hear is that of every Catholic who ever lived ;
and that the language of John Scotus is " so full of beauty "
that he is constrained to quote specimens of it. But at this
point he seems to have thought that he was perhaps going
too far, and that as he had to account for "the corrupt
M — —
* Lecture II. p. 61.
t " History of Civilization in Europe," Lecture 11. ** History of Civiliza-
tion in France,'* Lecture IV.
Mr. Garbett and Canon Liddon, 81
periods of the Church/^ and the errors so justly condemned
m the Anglican Articles, he had better get back into the old
groove as quickly as possible. People might be tempted to
think that men in whom so much genius and holiness were
united, and who to '' mental activity ^' added ^^ a deep re-
verence for the Word/^ must have been almost as well
qaalified as Mr. Gktrbett himself to understand the Bible, and
almost as likely to be preserved by the God whom they loved
so devoutly from miserably corrupting it. An idea so extra-
vagant must of course be nipped in the bud, and with this
laudable object Mr. Grarbett hastens to add, that ^'they un-
consciously throned reason in the place of revelation,^^ — a
very odd thing to do in " a period of intellectual darkness,''
and the last error which might have been expected in such
stagnant times. Having thus made things straight, and got
back into his old line, he continues his narrative, and pro-
ceeds to show that, in spite of the shocking corruptions of the
Church, ^' dogma '' was stiU infallible, and " authority " unim-
paired.
The Church, all shortcomings notwithstanding, was still,
he says, '^ the bearer of a message from God," though the
messenger was so little adapted for her office, that her voice
became ^' stifled by authority and choked by definition '' —
words which have probably a serious meaning, if we could
only guess what it is. Thus the ^' irrefragable Doctor,'' as
too partial judges have absurdly styled him, but whose '^ pon-
derous argumentation," Mr. Garbett observes, ^'was unil-
lumined by a solitary spark of spiritual life," did incredible
mischief, and his evil example was followed by others. They
did it, we are assured, ^' unconsciously," — being men of feeble
parts, not fit to be trusted with the " supremacy of individual
conscience," much less to employ it like a Bampton Lecturer,
— but they did it so efiectually, that the ^' corrupt period of
the Church " became her normal state, and it is impossible to
understand how the servants of God still offered her the love
and obedience of which she had become so unworthy. But
^^ centuries rolled on," says Mr. Garbett, during which the
Founder of this deplorable Church was probably, like the god
of Baal, ^^ asleep or on a journey," until at length, by a sudden
spiritual earthquake, resembling the abrupt introduction of a
new geological epoch, ^^ with one great and vigorous rebound
from the tyranny of the past the world sprang into freedom."
We have now arrived at what is called the Reformation, of
which Mr. Garbett hails the advent in this appropriate lan-
guage. The ^^heel of authority," he continues, ceased to
crush the human race, or at least a certain portion of it, — the
VOL. XXI. — ^NO. XLi. [New Series.'] a
82 Authority and the Anglican Church,
rest being still flattened out of shape and beyond recovery, —
" and of that movement the Reformed Church of England was
the child." Is was not the only one, but, in exact resemblance
to its parent, it perhaps deserves the preference which Mr.
Garbett claims for it above its kinsfolk. It was '^ parted," he
observes with satisfaction^ "by a whole abyss of irrecon-
cilable differences from the superstitions of medisevalism, and
the fixed corruptions of the Church of Rome." * " Yet this
very difference," he continues, " only invests with the more
force the unanimous testimony of the universal Church to the
dogmatic character of the faith,^^ — a conclusion which may be
evident to the mind of Mr. Garbett, but to any one of less
resources appears a little strained. "The unestablished
Churches of the Reformation at home and abroad," making
a bad use of the supremacy of conscience, were quite as
remarkable, he regrets to observe, for " their rejection of the
true as for their rejection of the false," though they would
probably have told him that their individual conscience was as
good a judge of that or any other matter as his own; but
there was fortunately an " Established " Church, he adds,
which caught hold of " the links of inspired authority," and
made a cable strong enough to hold, if not the world, at least
the British isles. " Her glorified Head," — ^we are still quoting
Mr. Garbett, — though He had perhaps been a little negligent
for a good many ages past, became equal to the present
emergency, and "graciously watched over His Church,"
which He had unaccountably omitted to do at an earlier date.
" Dogmas found to be in accordance with Scripture," by such
excellent judges as the compilers of the English Prayer Book,
"were retained; dogmas found to be contrary to it were
rejected"; and the result of this simple process was "a glorious
edifice, resonant with the songs of the saints," — including such
melodious choristers as Tillotson, Hoadley, and Hampden, and
the numerous episcopal family of ^^ Proudie,^^ immortalized by
Mr. TroUope. From that time the people of England have
possessed a Church " witnessing in every part to the skill and
wisdom of its Divine Architect." The original building had
been rather a failure, but the new one could defy criticism and
smile at decay. We have heard of people living in a " fooPs
paradise," but they do not usually speak of their precarious
abode with so much enthusiasm as this Bampton Lecturer.
At last, then, after an eclipse of a thousand years, — the
Anglican Homily says, with cautious and critical accuracy,
"nine hundred and odd," — the A.rchitect had built in this
* Lecture II. p. 66.
}}
}}
Mr. Oarbett and Canon Idddon. 88
western clime, what ought to have been constructed long
before, — an edifice like that described by S. Paul, ^^ without
spot or wrinkle or any such thing/^ The work was perhaps a
little tardy, but, as the proverb says, " better late than never/'
Dogma and authority had recovered their lost sway, or pretty
nearly. ^^ So loud is the witness of the Church,^' in her re-
covered youth and vigour, ^^ and so many are the voices that
swell her testimony from the Reformation downwards, that
individual utterances are comparatively lost to the ear/' But
as it might be objected that these utterances are slightly dis-
cordant, and seem to propound a hundred different religions
at once, Mr. Garbett pauses for a moment in his triumphal
song to silence the ignorant objector. *^ A laborious ingenuity,
he observes, dealing with " a catena of the English Fathers,
from Jewell and Abbott to Dr. Tait and Dr. Temple, ^^ may
perhaps discover an isolated expression here and there, which,
separated from its context and general bearing, may appear to
express impatience of the trammels of dogmatic divinity."
Whether any one has been hitherto laborious enough to detect
such an exception to the general orthodox tone of ^'the
English Fathers,'' is not stated; but we are encouraged to
think not. ^' The proclamation of the saints in the first century
yet rings full and clear in the nineteenth," though the song
has been subject to so many variations in the interval, that it
is not easy to a less practised ear than Mr. Garbett's to recog-
nize the original tune. But to him " the task is comparatively
easy," he says, and his habitual unconsciousness of any diffi-
culty whatever assists us to believe him. '' The links of the
doctrinal succession must be traced," he adds, with a calm
conviction of his own ability to do it, " from the beginning
downwards ; or backwards, as will be more convenient, from
our own times to the times of the Apostles." There is not
a hitch anywhere, whether you go backwards or forwards,
though ^' the superstitions of mediaevalism and the fixed cor-
ruptions of the Church of Rome " might have seemed to mar
the unbroken continuity; nor has he the slightest doubt that
S. Paul would have fraternized with Dr. Thompson, that S.
Anselm would have exchanged pulpits with Dr. Wilberforce,
and that the ^' great and holy men of the past," with perhaps
a few trifling exceptions, would have considered the Established
Church '^ a glorious edifice, resonant with the songs of the
saints."
We have now perhaps received from Mr. Garbett as much
instruction as we can conveniently appropriate, and it appears
to amount to this. Dogma is the only infallible authority, but
the '^ individual conscience " is the supreme judge of dogma.
G 2
84 Authority and the Anglican Church.
^^ We" that is all who agree with Mr. Garbett, " are able to
judge for ourselves " ; but the great and holy men of the past,
in spite of their " mental activity " and ^^ deep reverence for
the Word/' were not able to do anything of the sort. The
Church is '^ the bearer of a message from God/' but delivered
a false one for many ages ; and though she always taught the
same religion as long as He abandoned her to error, she allows
any number of contradictory ones since He has " graciously
watched over her/' She easily maintained Christians of
every race and tongue, while she grossly misunderstood the
Scriptures, in such perfect unity of faith as was never seen
out of Heaven ; but her reformed substitute cannot even keep
a single people, though she never makes a mistake in ex-
pounding them, from such religious chaos as was never before
witnessed on earth. The one converted the cruel barbarians
of the North, and civilized all the nations of Europe; the
other cannot even convert its immediate neighbom's, and is
the jest of the heathen world. And lastly, while the authority
claimed by the one " is inconsistent and offensive in the fal-
lible," it is so peremptory and absolute in the other, which is
not fallible, as to tolerate no question nor inquiry. For this
is the climax of Mr. Garbett's teaching about " the Dogmatic
Faith." '^When we became members of this Church," he
says, — that is, the Church of England, — " we professed our-
selves to be inquirers no longer, but believers";* though
'Hhis Church" tells her disciples that every other was mistaken,
that they ought to inquire for themselves, and when they do
inquire, which sometimes happens, of her ecclesiastical tri-
bunals, about such open questions as Baptism, the Inspiration
of Scripture, or the Real Presence, the answer commonly is,
^^ Believe whatever you please." In spite of these trifling
blemishes, and the extreme diflBculty of ascertaining what is
"the Dogmatic Faith" in the Church of England, since even
her bishops and clergy profess totally opposite views of it,
" the position of inquiry," says Mr. Garbett, whom we now
quote for the last time, "is inconsistent with the first con-
ditions of the (ministerial) oflSco. A teacher must know what
he teaches." It is perhaps fortunate that this condition is not
too rigorously applied, as it would certainly deprive the
Anglican Church of the valuable services of a clergy most of
whom are chiefly occupied in refuting one another.
If our readers should be of opinion that Mr. Garbett, in
spite of excellent intentions, has not contributed much to
restore the reign of '^authority," whether of Dogma or of
* Lecture VIII. p. 323.
Mr. Oarhett and Canon Idddon. 85
anything else, and that the worst enemy of the Christian
Church could add nothing to his picture of her follies and
corruptions, nor more effectually destroy her claim to the
respect of mankind, their impression will exactly coincide
with that which his Lectures have produced upon ourselves.
A writer who could offer to the University of Oxford such a
narrative of the shame and dishonour of her whom the Apostle
called '^ the pillar and ground of the truth,^^ — with whom her
Divine Founder promised to remain '' till the consummation
of the world,^^ — and who is teaching all nations at this hour
exactly what she taught before his own sect, ^^ with one great
and vigorous rebound,^^ came into the world to correct her
mistakes, is simply the unconscious confederate of all who
reject the Saviour of mankind, and revolt against the
authority which He has appointed to represent Him till He
comes to judge the earth. They will thank Mr. Garbett for
proving how much reason they have to despise a Church which
he mocks as Herod mocked her Lord. Perhaps they will even
be encouraged to say of her, what one whom he quotes has
said of his own communion, after reviewing some of the well-
known phenomena of the English state religion, and especially
'' the cures of human souls advertised for sale,^' — '' Surely if
there be any impersonal Spirit of Evil, he may sit by with
folded hands, contented to spare interference in a state of
things which no help of his can improve.'' f
The question of " authority,'' which the Bampton Lecturer
has handled with so little fruit, is one which includes and
supersedes every other. Is is a mere waste of time and
thought to turn aside from it to subordinate issues. Whether
one of a hundred schools or sects is nearer to truth than-
another is an unprofitable inquiry, which every man will solve
according to his own predilections, and which will be debated
to as little purpose by future generations as by our own.
Whether sects have a right to exist at all, or are anything but
a manifestation of human lawlessness and self-will, is the only
question which deserves the attention of a serious man, im-
pressed by the disorders which now reign both in the religious
and the political world, and capable of tracing them to a
common origin. Has the Most High proposed to His creatures
a law which they are bound to obey, and an authority against
which they are forbidden to revolt ? Upon the answer which
men give to this question depends the future of human society,
and the eternal salvation of each member of it.
Mr. Garbett has told us that it is the glory of the " Eefor-
* Mr. Froude, " Nemesis of Faith."
86 Authof'ity cmd the Anglican Church,
mation'^ to have replied to this question in the negative.
That movement, he says truly, established " the supremacy of
the individual conscience over all external authority/^ But
if there be no external authority able to say to every human
being, ^^ This thing thou shalt not do,^^ and belief is to be
regulated only by the individual conscience, which led during
many ages, according to the Reformation hypothesis, to har-
monious but universal error, and now leads to truth expressed
by an infinite diversity of doctrinal opinion ; it is evident that
Almighty God despises in the spiritual the unity which He
maintains in the material world, and is indifferent to the
divisions which, on that supposition, He has taken no means
to prevent. There are probably few Christians who would
not reject a proposition stated in these terms. If we are to
be subject to authority in the next life, they would say, we
can hardly be independent of it in this. But since there is
only one Christian, institution which has from the beginning
claimed to be that authority, and the claim has been admitted
by all '^ the great and holy men of the past,'^ even unbelievers
confess that, if God has made a revelation, the Roman Church
is its only true witness. Perhaps this conviction, now openly
avowed by the most eminent rationalistic writers, is confirmed
by their observation of a notorious fact, upon which we have
no space to dwell here, but which must be noticed in a few
words. The Reformation, they perceive, was as fatal to
social and political as to religious order. '^ Luther,^^ as one
of his apologists observes, " is the father of democracy," *
and his doctrines have been as fatal to governments as to
churches. It was not likely that men who claimed the
supremacy of the individual conscience for the Christian
would refuse it to the citizen, or respect the temporal when
they had been encouraged to revolt against the spiritual
authority. The ceaseless revolutions of modern times are the
inevitable result of that rejection of all external authority
which Mr. Garbett says was one of the " co-equal principles
of the Reformation.'^ A distinguished writer, whom we shall
quote presently, observes, that the latest work of Strauss
contains ^' fierce attacks upon the social and religious institu-
tions of Europe, designed more particularly to promote an
anti- Christian social revolution in Northern Germany /' f but
does not seem to perceive that this is simply the application
of Protestant principles — as they are applied also by the
infidels of France, Italy, and Spain — to social and political
* " The Switzers," by William Hepworth Dixon, ch. xiv. p. 132.
t Canon Liddon, " Bampton Lectures," Notes, p. 602.
Mr. GarbeU and Ccunon Liddon. 87
qnestions^ and that men of his own school, contrary to their
intentions, are contributing with all their might to its eventual
triumph. Our limits do not permit us to pursue this branch
of the general subject of authority, but when Mr. Dixon
selects the Swiss as an example of the benefits of the Refor-
mation, we must remind him that the democratic Swiss no
more resemble their Catholic ancestors, who made Switzerland
free, than the loquacious cheat who is now called a Greek
resemble the heroes of Marathon or Salamis, whose names
he bears. They have rejected the Christian faith, even in its
Protestant disguise; and while such writers as Mr. Laing
confess that in religion and virtue they are " at the bottom
of the scale " J among all Europeans, Mr. Dixon reveals their
insolent disdain for the most sacred rights of conscience when
he observes satirically, ^^ these .Switzers understand that a
State church is a lay church,^^ which nobody has a right to
govern but themselves. The one thing which these true
disciples of the Reformation, who are proposed to us as
models, will not tolerate, is the religion to which they owe the
glory of their republic. '^ In Switzerland,^' he says, '' a man
may be a Turk, a Jew, a Buddhist, a Confucian, '^ preserving
all his civil rights, and sharing in the common government.
'' In Geneva, Jews have built a synagogue, and no one could
object if Parsees were to build a temple, and Mohammedans
a mosque. But neither in Geneva, nor in any canton of the
League, dare any one erect a Jesuit college '' — though he
may do it in the United States wherever he pleases, and the
President and his ministers will honour it with their presence
at its annual festivals.§ "If a Switzer joins the Mormons,
no one interferes with him ; but if he joins the Company of
Jesus, he foregoes his natural rights.''||
That the lawlessness which the exaltation of the individual
above all authority has generated is producing the same dis-
cord in the political as in the religious sphere, few thoughtful
men are now disposed to deny. Mr. Bright has lately pointed
out, with his usual sagacity, the " many calamities " of France,
" springing from the destruction of the ancient government,
and the apparent impossibility of finding a stable government
to succeed it,'' and that " Spain is now in the same diflBculty;"
while as to moral order, everywhere compromised by the
supremacy of the individual conscience, a writer in the Pall
Mall Gazette despairingly observes : " Whether a true moral
t " Notes of a Traveller," ch. xiu. p. 325.
As the present "w
ch. xxiv. p. 239.
§ As the present writer has seen them do.
88 Authority and the Anglican Church.
order is possible, or whether we can ever get beyond a most
imperfect set of arrangements, by which a few of the objects
of human life may be attained in an inadequate manner, is a
question on which a great deal might be said by speculative
persons/' The conclusion of the whole matter, and the fact
that all the problems of our age are now reduced to one, —
whether society shall be saved by the authority of the Roman
Church, or proceed in its downward progress towards chaos
and .dissolution, — is ingeniously expressed by Mr. Dixon,
when he seems to suggest, that in a little while, as events
are now maturing, our only choice will be '^between holy
water and petroleum/'
Turning to the Bampton Lectures of Canon Liddon, our
first duty is to thank him for the noble subject which he has
chosen, and, with some important reservations, for the manner
in which he has treated it. As a defence of the fundamental
dogma of Christian revelation, his Lectures are worthy of the
best days of the great University to which they were
addressed; as an exposition of the claims of the Christian
Church, they are, if possible, more lamentable than even the
unconscious destructiveness of Mr. Garbett. If the latter
asks the world to believe, with what we may hope was only a
thoughtless inadvertence, that the Church, which is the last
and noblest creation of God, has been, during many ages, one
of the most corrupt institutions which ever contrived to pro-
long a discredited existence ; Canon Liddon announces, with
cold deliberation, that her crimes and disorders have extin-
guished her authority, and justly exposed her to the derision
of mankind. Both are the involuntary allies of that godless
faction which never ceases to cry : " Down with her, even to
the ground.''
The main purpose of the Lectures which we are now to
examine is to defend against the Socinian the true Divinity
of our Blessed Lord, and there is not an argument employed
by Canon Liddon against their heresy which they may not
triumphantly retort against his own. The Socinian dishonours
our Lord exactly as he dishonours the Church. If we fail to
make this evident, it will not be for want of materials. Like
Mr. Garbett, he professes to maintain ^^ the dogmatic prin-
ciple," but the cruel necessities of a false position oblige him
to do it in the same suicidal fashion. Even in the preface to
his Lectures his intimate agreement with Mr. Garbett is
already revealed. In answer to the now notorious fact that
Kationalists concur with Catholics, by the common use of
pure reason, ^' in urging that either all orthodox Christianity
is false, or the exclusive claims of the Church of Rome must
Mr, Garbett and Canon Liddon, 89
be admitted to be valid,^' he says, without hesitation :
(1) ^' That the acceptance of the dogmatic principle does not
commit those who accept it to its exaggerations or corrupt
tions,'* — of which he claims to be the supreme judge; and
(2) that ^^ the promises of our Lord," which he is under a
miserable obligation to explain away, '^ are permitted to be
traversed by the misuse of man^s free-will," * — his own free-
will being used so wisely, that he can tell with absolute cer-
tainty what the Church exaggerates, and when she is corrupt.
She cannot judge him, but he can judge her. Mr. Garbett
has said nothing more fatal to the pretensions of the Church
to be, what her Founder designed her to be, " the pillar and
ground of the truth," and the Teacher of the nations.
But there is nothing in this to surprise us. Canon Liddon
is one of the most accomplished and esteemed ministers of a
Church whose most emphatic dogmatic utterance is this : that
even the Apostolic SeeSj without exception, " have erred, not
only in their living and manner of ceremonies, but also in
matters of faith." f He knows, therefore, that it is not open to
him to defend the authority of the Christian Church, or her
claims to the obedience of mankind, since he is obliged to con-
tend, either that the whole Catholic Church — Rome, Jerusalem,
Antioch, and Alexandria — has conspired to corrupt the faith,
or that his own sect is a liar. And this frightful position
he accepts with equanimity. He even adds statements of his
own, which shall be quoted immediately, in which he seems
anxious to rival the most impious language of the Articles, the
Rubrics, and the Homilies, to which his colleague Mr. Garbett
appeals with such cordial satisfaction.
Canon Liddon conducts his argument with the unbeliever
after this manner : ^^ Is this impotent, fallible, erring Christ of
the ^ higher criticism,^ " he asks, " in very deed the Founder
of the Christian Church?" '^Is this impotent, fallible, erring
Church of the Anglican criticism," they reply, " the work of a
God?" ^'To charge Him with error," he continues, ^Ms to
deny that He is God." " To charge her with error," they
answer, " is to deny that she is the Church. ^^ ^^ Christ is pre-
sented to the modern world," Canon Liddon goes on, ^^as
really Divine, yet as subject to fatal error ; as Founder of the
true religion, yet as the credulous patron of a volume replete
with worthless legends ; as the highest Teacher and Leader of
humanity, yet withal as the ignorant victim of the prejudices
and follies of an unenlightened age." J "The Church is pre-
sented to us,^^ is their rejoinder, " as one, yet divided ; as pure,
* Preface, p. xix. • Art. XIX. J Lecture VIII. p. 454.
90 Autlwrity and the Anglican Church.
yet corrupt ; as having authority, yet not knowing how to use
it ; as the heir of promises which she has contrived to forfeit,
and the teacher of truths which she has never ceased to corrupt;
as stronger than the ^ gates of hell/ yet weaker than a broken
reed ; as sole witness of the faith, yet the credulous patron of
forgeries, exaggerations, and corruptions ; as the highest leader
of humanity, yet the ignorant victim of worthless superstitions.
If she is so base and contemptible, what must her Founder be ?
If you believe in a divided and impotent Church, why may we
not believe in a fallible and impotent Saviour ? ''
To such inquiries Canon Liddon, hampered by the insensate
declarations of his own sect, can only reply by fresh assertions
of the ignominy and incorrigible humanism of the Christian
Church. Here is the picture which his own ^^ higher criticism,'^
— as irreverent and peremptory as that of a Strauss or a
Schelling, an Arnold or a Spencer, — offers to the unbeliever,
of the actual condition of the Holy Roman Church. ^^ When
once pious affection or devout imagination has seized the
reins of religious thought, it is easy for individuals or schools ^^
—not possessing the infallible guidance of the Church of
England — ^^ to wander far from the beaten paths of a clear yet
sober faith, into some theological wonderland,^^ worthy to be
the jest of the infidel, '' the airiest creation of the liveliest
fancy, where, to the confusion and unsettlement of souls, the
wildest fiction and the highest truth may be inextricably inter-
twined in an entanglement of hopeless and bewildering dis-
order.'^*
When our readers have done justice to this superb sentence,
worthy of Mr. Garbett's florid muse, they will perhaps accom-
pany us in what follows. Canon Liddon tells the Socinian that
if he will not admit Christ to be true God, he cannot rationally
maintain that He was a ^^ good " man ; but the Socinian will
certainly reply, that if the home of Christians is only a " theo-
logical wonderland,^' and the faith which they profess in the
Church a ^^ hopeless disorder," Canon Liddon cannot without
absurdity pretend that she is ^^ the pillar and ground of the
truth.'' Probably he has no wish to do so, for Canon Liddon
no more believes in a Divine Church, than the Socinian believes
in a Divine Saviour. If the former could receive the elementary
truth that the Church is as incapable of corruption as her
Founder, and that a reformed Church, in the Anglican sense,
is as wild an impossibility as a reformed God, he might with
advantage employ his learning and ability in combating the
unbeliever ; but so long as he tells him that he is quite right
* Lecture VIII. p. 440.
Mr, Oarbett aud Canon lAddon. 91
in attributing to her ^'exaggerations and corruptions/' the
adversary will only ridicule his defence of a I'eligion which ho
takes so much pains himself to dishonour. And even if ho
should venture to add that his own sect is all that God intended
the Church to be, but failed to make her, he will not divert
from the one the contempt and aversion which he counsels the
world to entertain for the other. He may emulate Mr, Garbett
in describing the Church of England as '^ a glorious edifice,
resonant with the songs of the saints,^' but the unbeliever is
sure to remind him that, according to the contention of his own
school, she is substantially the same Church as before the
'^ Reformation,^' and that '^ the airiest creation of the liveliest
fancy '' cannot make the copy better than the original.
What Canon Liddon thinks of the latter he is at no pains to
disguise. Speaking of the Definition of the Immaculate Con-
ception, and filled with the spirit of a sect which affirms that
even the Apostolic Sees erred in matters of faith, he is not
afraid to say, that it " appears to presuppose a Church which
is empowered to make actual additions to the number of
revealed certainties." But the Immaculate Conception has been
defined as a dogma of the Faith ; and Canon Liddon is probably
ignorant that it is a first principle of Catholic theology, that
no tenet can be a dogma of the Faith, unless (1) it be divinely
revealed, and (2) proposed by the Church. This is his way of
defending Christianity. Like Mr. Garbett, he assures the
world, or as much of it as he can persuade to listen to him, that
the Church became corrupt, ''not so much in denying the truth
with which she had been put in trust, as in adding to it dogmas
of her own which she had never received.'' According to Canon
Liddon, the Roman Catholic Church obliges her children to
accept false doctrines as revealed truths. If this is to defend
religion, we should like to know what is Canon Liddon's idea
of assaulting it ? What unclean spirit ever suggested a more
audacious libel upon the " Church of the living God " ? What
could one of our modern Antichrists say against the Immacu-
late Spouse of Jesus which Canon Liddon has not said ? And
what right, we must add with sorrow, has such a man, busy
only with invectives against the " exaggerations and corrup-
tions" of the Christian Church, to pretend to defend the
honour of her Founder, or what has he to do with either dogma
or authority, who is himself the living denial of the one, and
the all-sufficient interpreter of the other ?
After noticing Canon Liddon's assertions, it may be useful
.to give a specimen of his arguments. He is right, he says, in
his judgment of the Definition of the Immaculate Conception,
because it is known that the doctrine was doubted or denied
92 Authority and the Anglican Ohurch.
by individual Catholics, and lie thinks nothing more need be
said. Yet what he fancies to be a reproach is really an eulogy,
for what has been the office of the Church from the beginning,
if not to extirpate error, and keep all her children in the unity
of the faith ? Can Canon Liddon name a single Catholic who
doubts or denies the Immaculate Conception now, or who would
be admitted to the Sacraments if he did? His argument
against Papal Infallibility is still more light and unworthy.
Pope Nicholas I., he says, cited ^Hhe pseudo-Isidorian
decretals," and was therefore "incapable of detecting a
forgery,^' which " is of course fatal to any belief in the
personal infallibility of Pope Nicholas I."* We might well
indeed altogether dispute Canon Liddon^s allegation of facts ;
but there is no occasion whatever for doing so. If he had a
more exact idea of what is meant by Papal Infallibility, he would
know that to detect literary forgeries is no part of it. The
decretals set forth true and received doctrine, and might there-
fore well have been quoted by Nicholas I. ; for it was no part of
his Apostolic functions, nor necessary to the guidance of the
Church, that he should be able to detect at a glance that a
particular document was not what it professed to be. If such
reasonings are a specimen of the " higher criticism ^^ by which
Anglicans hope to overthrow the authority of the Church and
to prove her worthlessness, it is not easy to distinguish between
their idea of her character and that of professed unbelievers ;
and we have reason to say that the most reckless adversaries
of her Divine mission are not the vulgar r^ilers against
Christianity, but they who, in the name of religion, and with
loud professions of zeal for the glory of God, tell the world that
the Church is really the human and unstable thing which the
enemies of Jesus Christ proclaim her to be.
It is consoling to turn from the random and petulant insults
of self-complacent heresy to the rapturous language in which
the Saints, faithful echoes of the Apostles and Prophets,
speak of the Christian Church. They know nothing either of
the '' periods of corruption " imagined by Mr. Garbett, or of
God's promises being ''traversed," as Canon Liddon in-
sinuates, " by the misuse of man's free-will." There is not
one of them, from the Prince of the Apostles to the latest
servant of God admitted into the company of the Saints, who
would not reject such perfidious suggestions with a holy
indignation, and see in them only a fresh proof that one
impiety leads inevitably to another. Abyssus abyssum invocat.
So accomplished a student as Canon Liddon is not ignorant
* Lecture VIII. p. 471.
Mr. Oarbett and Canon Liddon', 93
that the most illustrious Saints and Doctors believed the
unity of the Church to be no less indestructible than the
unity of God. Neither heresies nor persecutions, as S. Leo
said, have any efiTect upon it. Men rebel against the Church,
by the misuse of free-will, as they rebel against God, but they
go out, while she remains what she was before. It was in
order that her unity might be for ever unassailable that she
was founded upon one man, and for nearly twenty centuries
this provision of her Divine Founder has proved eflFectual.
" The Church cannot be separated and divided against her-
self,'^ says S. Cyprian, *^ because she was built upon Peter
alone.^^ ^^ Super ilium unum addificat Ecclesiam suam, et illi
pascendas mandat oves suas.^^* Does Canon Liddon think that
S. Cyprian was an Anglican? ^^Adulterari non potest sponsa
Christi,'^ adds the same Martyr; '^ incorrupta est et pudica.'^
This is quite other doctrine than that of Bampton Lecturers.
We did right, they say, to separate from the Chair of Peter,
because of its errors and usurpations : ^^praDcidendae unitatis,'^
replies S. Augustine, ^' nulla est justa necessitas.'^ For such
a crime no pretext can over be afforded. The authority of the
Church, like that of God, suffers no diminution. It is for all
time. If the Church could be divided, as the lawless boast,
God would be overthrown; the world would have escaped
from His control, and " the earth ^^ would be no longer ^^ His
footstool.^^ The faults of her children may need correction,
as happens in our own day, but her glory remains, in the
words of S. Paul, "without spot or wrinkle.'' " Obumbrari
potest,'' writes S. Ambrose, " deficere non potest"; and even
if whole nations desert, the faithful know how to find her,
because, as the same Doctor teaches, "ubi Petrus, ibi
Ecclesia." And this is the confession of all Saints. As the
Prophets announced her indefectible majesty and purity
before she began to exist, and declared that " every tongue
that resisteth thee in judgment thou shalt condemn ";t as
the Apostles taught in the first hour of her foundation, with a
fiill knowledge that individuals could misuse their free-will,
that she should never cease to be " the pillar and ground of
the truth " ; so the Saints whom she has brought forth,
looking back, as Prophets and Apostles had looked forward
to the fulfilment of the promises, see only " impudence," to
use the expression of S. Augustine, in the suggestion that
she can ever fail. "Ilia non est," he asks with righteous
mockery of a predecessor of Mr. Garbett and Canon Liddon,
'' jma tu in ilia non es ? "
* "De Unitate." t Isaias liv. 17.
94 Authority and the Anglican Church.
It was because our fathers held it to be a conclusion of
divine faith that the Church is for ever one and incorrupt,
that they were able to exalt her undying authority, to win
every battle which they fought with the world for a tkousand
years, and to silence so eflfectually in all lands the denial of
her Lord^s Divinity, of which her immaculate purity made her
the invincible witness, that in the beginning of the sixteenth
century, as Mr. Hallam observes, ^^no heresy was more
extinct/'* At the very moment when men were about to
rebel against her, the triumph of the Church was more com-
plete than ever. And even since that Satanical Pentecost
which some moderns call the Reformation, and of which the
most characteristic product was the Church of the Thirty-nine
Articles, the friends of God have never ceased to praise Him
for her unbroken unity. The illustrious Suarez, writing
after that second Pall of man, when the enemy persuaded his
own to exalt ^^ the supremacy of the individual conscience
over all external authority,^' and to make themselves judges
both of the Church and the Bible, was so little impressed by
the departure of millions from her communion, that he told
James I., in the famous book of which the title is prefixed to
these pages, that " this Church will continue in unity till the
day .of judgment.'' She could not do otherwise without
ceasing to exist. "Not only the Church," continues the
great theologian, "cannot fall into heresy, she cannot even
err, whether through ignorance or in any other manner."
And then he asks the king, as we may ask Mr. Garbett and
Canon Liddon : " How could S. Paul say of a Church which
was liable to error, that she was the pillar and ground of the
truth? ''f
Yet Canon Liddon is never weary of asserting, as if eager
to justify those who hate both the Church and her Founder,
that she is divided into several parts, each of which is able to
" err in matters of faith." As a member of a revolted com-
munity, founded on this very assumption, he is obliged to do
so. It is not permitted to him to believe that she is a divine
institution, incapable of error, for that would be to condemn
his own sect. It was because the Catholic Church had
become corrupt and divided that the Church of England
sprang into existence, " with one great and vigorous re-
bound," in order to correct " errors " which many of her
clergy have lately discovered were no errors at all, but most
sacred truths of revelation. After reforming the Church of
• " Introduction to the Literature of Europe/* vol. i. ch. 5, p. 507.
t " Defensio Fidei Catholicae," lib. i. c. 4, p. 2.
Mr. Garbett aud Canon Liddon. 95
God, they now propose to reform their own, by reviving the
very doctrines which for three centuries she had blasphemed.
Yet it does not occur to them that if some of her clergy are
teaching truth now, they must have been teaching heresy
before, as more than half their colleagues continue to do j and
though they unconsciously vindicate the Holy Roman Church
from the very charges which their own sect brought against
her, they show that they are true children of the Reformers,
and filled with their spirit, by inventing fresh accusations as
impudent as any of which a Luther or a Calvin were the
authors. She makes ^^ actual additions ^^ to the faith, cries
Canon Liddon, with the boldness of a Zuingle or a John
Knox ; and he adds in effect that she teaches false doctrines
as revealed truths. If she does, she is simply apostate. But
Suarez would tell him, not only that what he rashly calls
*^ unknown truths '' were part of the original deposit, but
that S. Paul does not condemn every seeming novelty — such
as the definitions of the Immaculate Conception or of Papal
Infallibility, in which she was as truly guided by the Holy
Spirit as at Ephesus or Nicaea, — but only p^ofanas vocum
7iovitates, such as the blasphemies of the Anglican Articles
and Homilies. '' Sic ergo,*' he observes, and Bampton
Lecturers will do well to give heed to his words, "post
Apostolorum tempora potuit Ecclesia in multis illuminari, quae
necessaria esse potuerunt in posteriori tempore, et non prius,
vel propter dubia de novo orta, prcesertim insurgentibus hcere-
ticis, vel aUis temerariis hominibus, res fidei obscuras prave
exponentibus, vel etiam, quia haec est naturalis hominis con-
ditio ut paulatim in cognitione proficiat.*' J
Canon Liddon deals of course with the Councils as he does
with the Church herself. He is as able to judge the one as
the other. He professes indeed to admit whatever " has been
cecumenically decided,'' § but this does not commit him to the
obedience which he is resolved not to pay ; for he does so,
as Suarez says of his predecessors, not because he bows to
the authority from which alone Councils derive their sanction,
but because ho thinks that some of them do not condemn his
own errors. He claims to decide, in opposition to an erring
Church, which of the Councils were oecumenical, and which
were not. In the same way, other men profess a profound
respect for the Ten Commandments, except those which they
have made up their minds to violate. The rest are unexcep-
tionable. " But why,'' asks Suarez, " do you admit four
Councils, rather than five, or six, or any other number ? The
* Lib. i. c. xviiL § 4. f Lecture VII. p. 437.
96 Authority and the Anglican Church.
later ones have exactly the same authority as the earlier, and
they all stand or fall together." Canon Liddon admits, we
believe, six, and rejects twelve ; the avowed unbeliever rejects
them allj but there is no diflference of principle between
them, for both the Anglican and the infidel judge the iDhurch
with the same composure, and use the same right of revolt
against all external authority, though their individual con-
science leads them to slightly diflferent conclusions. The
Church is as purely a human institution, subject to their
" higher criticism," for the one as for the other.
The resemblance between the infidel and the sectary is
equally complete in every other respect. Thus the one de-
fends the equal rights of truth and error in principle, the
other in practice. Anglicans who believe the Christian
Sacrifice and Priesthood to be essential parts of Christianity—
as some of them by reading Catholic books have learned to
do during the last few years — remain tranquilly in communion
with bishops and clergy who declare of both, as the Bishop
of London and other Anglican prelates have done, that ^^ they
have no support whatever either in the Scriptures or in the
Anglican formularies.^^* Yet they deeply lament that the
Eoman Church has borne such an imperfect testimony to the
faith of which they are themselves so religiously enamoured !
They cannot enter one of their own churches without being
almost sufibcated with the fumes of heresy, yet afiect to
deplore that Catholics should live in such a tainted atmo-
sphere ! Canon Liddon, for example, quotes from Dean
Stanley language, which, as he truly says, " seems to imply
that the prayers to our Lord in the Litany are, in principle,
identical with the prayers which in mediaeval times have been,
and in Roman Catholic countries still are, addressed to the
Saints." " Our reformed Church," Dean Stanley says, '^ has
excluded these lesser mediators,^' apparently because she has
no need of their help ; ^' but this one remarkable exception of
* We think that Canon Estcourt, in his recently publiflhed work, reviewed
by us in another article, did wisely not to dwell upon historical and other
difficulties, serious as they are, when he was able to produce a theological
argument which is absolutely decisive against the validity of Anglican
Ordinations. If the Anglican bishops had been themselves consecrated, they
could not have made true priests, because it was their avowed determination
not to do it. They had cnanged the Anglican formularies more than once,
as the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of London lately argued in the
Bennett case, with the express object of obliterating the doctrine of the
Christian Sacrifice, and therefore of the Christian Priesthood. How could the
present Bishop of London, for example,— and the same remark applies to all
his predecessors, — make a true priest, since he is firmly resolved, in the very
act of ordination, not to do it ?
Mr. Garbett and Canon Liddon. 97
the Litany '' — ^in addressing prayers to our Lord Jesus Christ !
— '^ may be surely allowed, if we remember that it is an ex-
ception, and understand the grounds on which it is made/^
The reader imagines perhaps that Canon Liddon, who re-
proaches so severely the errors of the Catholic Church, out of
pure zeal for God and truth, is going to announce that he
retires from communion with a man who seems to teach that
prayers to our Eedeemer can only be excused as ^' an excep-
tion/^ The anticipation would be reasonable, but is totally
unfounded. He contents himself by replying, with great
composure, that the Anglican " reformers,^^ as he calls them,
did not consider it an "exception,^^t ai^d remains contentedly
in communion with Dean Stanley, and with ten thousand like
him, though their *' individual conscience '^ rejects a multitude
of truths which he professes to esteem as Divine. Is it pos-
sible to do more to justify the unbeliever in his opinion that
there is no diflference between truth and error, or to make him
more firmly convinced than lie is already '^ that either all
orthodox Christianity is false, or the exclusive claims of the
Church of Eome must be admitted to be valid ^^ ?
Canon Liddon condemns, as if he were a Catholic, '^ the
attempt of Donatism to dwarf down the realization of the
plan of Jesus Christ to the narrow proportions of a national
or provincial enterprise.^^ J It is one of the most wonderful
peculiarities in the new school of Anglicans that they are able
to say such things with a grave face. A member of one of
the most purely ^^ national " sects the world has ever seen
flings a stone at the African sectaries whom he imitates so
exactly ! They lived so long ago that he hopes people will
not see the likeness. Yet, as Suarez reminded James L,
every argument used by the Fathers against the Donatists
applies exactly to the Anglicans. The only difierence between
them is, that the Donatists were at least all of one mind, in
spite of their crimes, in holding the Catholic doctrine about
the Sacraments, which is held only by one section of Angli-
cans, while it is denied by nearly all their bishops, and by a
vast majority of their clergy and laity. Donatus might say
with sorrowful surprise to Canon Liddon, what Caasar said to
his friend : " Et tu Brute ! '* The heresiarch might fairly
complain that this reproach from an Anglican was ^^the
unkindest cut of all.^^ Suarez, who is said to have almost
known S. Augustine by heart, quotes the famous argument
of the latter against the Donatist, in which the beauty of the
form is perhaps as striking as the solidity of the matter.
t Notes, p. 530. t Lecture III. p. 119
VOL. XXI. — ^NO. XLi. [^New Series.'] H
98 Authority and the Anglican Church,
Like Canon Liddon, the Donatist said, to justify his own
rebellion, that the Church was defiled by " corruptions '^ ;
upon which S. Augustine asked him if they were of such a
nature as to destroy her life ? " Responde, utrum Bcclesia
perierit, an non perierit? Elige quod putaveris: si jam tunc
perierat, Donatum qua9 peperit ? '^ Suarez applies this for-
midable dilemma to the Anglican Church. From the time of
her first apostles, he observes, until the year 1534, the Roman
faith was the only one known in England. It was to a Pope
that she owed her conversion, and from a series of Popes that
she received her Bishops. Either the Church perished, says
Suarez, in the time of Gregory, when all her ^^ corruptions ^^
were full blown, or she did not. If she perished, who begot
the Anglican Church ? If she did not, and England first
separated from her in the time of Henry VIII., how can
England be Catholic as long as it perseveres in the separation
efiected by Henry ? The separation was so complete, he re-
minds the son of Mary Stuart, that during the persecutions of
his savage predecessor, who resolved to root out the Catholic
faith from her realm, Paul V. replied to an inquiry of the
sufiering English Catholics, that they must endure tortures
and death rather than take any part in the new Anglican
religion. They had asked if they might feign on certain
occasions to be present at the Anglican service, and the Vicar
of Christ, with a full knowledge of the fate to which he in-
vited his children, sent them this answer: "Cogimur monere
vos, atque obtestari, ut nullo pacto ad hcereticorum templa
accedatis, aut eorum conciones audiatis, vel cum ipsis in ritibus
communicetis, ?ie Dei iram incurratis. Non enim licet vobis
haec facere sine detrimento divini cultus ac vestrae salutis."
To take even a purely mechanical part in Anglican worship,
with no other object than to avoid fine and imprisonment,
was, in the judgment of the Supreme Pontifi", to incur the
wrath of God and peril their salvation. On the other hand,
when James I. complained that he was called a " persecutor '^
by the Pope, and pretended, like the present German Em-
peror, that " Catholics were punished, not for their religion,
but for their ofiences against the King and the State,^'
Suarez reminded the British Solomon that, at Eis instigation,
the four Protestant Archbishops in Catholic Ireland, assembled
in synod, had publicly avowed their intention " eradicandi
penitus Papisticam religionevi" *
We have now perhaps sufficiently indicated the essential
agreement between the infidel and the sectary in the view
* Lib. vL c. 9, § 16 ; and c. 10, § 14.
Mr, Qarbett and Ccmon Liddon, 99
which they take of the Christian Church, and her claims to the
love and respect of mankind. It was our purpose to show
that they are absolutely of one mind '^ in their common oppo-
sition to the principle of authority, and their lawless antago-
nism to that unchanging Church which has been for so many
ages its only representative in this lower world/^ Mr. Garbett
and Canon Liddon, speaking in behalf of their respective
schools of religious opinion, and in a day when the savage
enmities of earlier times are somewhat mitigated, concur with
the unbeliever and with one another in describing ^^ the Church
of the living God '' as a purely human institution, divided
and corrupt ; at one time " throning reason in the place of
revelation,'' at another " making actual additions " to the faith,
and teaching, as revealed, " truths altogether unknown '' to
the Apostles. The only diflference between the avowed enemy
of Jesus Christ and these Anglican advocates, — one of whom
affects to defend " the dogmatic faith,'' and the other ^^ the
dogmatic principle," — is this : that not many living Ration-
alists would apply to the Church, without qualification, the
language which they employ without fear and without remorse.
The former often contrast the claims of the Roman Church to
the gratitude of the world, or, as one of them expresses it,
" her immense services to mankind," with the ignominious
origin, shameful contradictions, and faithless compromises of
the sect which it is the business of Bampton Lecturers to
defend. If our space permitted, it would be easy to show,
by abundant evidence, that the most eminent unbelievers of
our age speak of the Catholic Church with respect and admi-
ration, compared with the senseless invectives and incoherent
libels of even the more moderate among the Anglicans ; and
that it is only after a critical examination of her claims and
character, as contrasted with those of Anglican and other
sects, that they proclaim, as all thinking men seem now dis-
posed to do, '^ that either all orthodox Christianity is false, or
the exclusive claims of the Church of Rome must be admitted
to be valid."
We should not, then, have exaggerated if we had said, not
merely that the sectary conspires with the unbeliever in
revolting against all authority, but that he is more forward to
dishonour the Christian Church, more eager to impede her
mission, and more resolute to refuse the obedience which she
claims in the name and by the command of God, than even
men who do not profess 'to be Christians. The unbeliever,
more calm in his rebellion, and more logical in his consistent
doubt of all spiritual truths, frankly admits that if God has
made a revelation, the Roman Church is its only witness;
h2
100 Authority and tlie Anglican Church.
and wliile her claim to be that witness, founded on the
indomitable fidelity with which it has been urged, the inflexible
unity of her teaching, and her unparalleled services in pro-
moting true civilization, seems to him one of the most imposing
facts in human history, and forces him to confess, "Either
thou art the teacher of the nations, or they never had one^*;
the sectary, scoffing at the majesty which even the unbeliever
respects, sees in the very persistence with which the Church
maintains her claim only a proof of its falsehood, or, as Canon
Liddon says, of her ^^ unwarrantable pretensions/' The un-
believer would admit her authority, if he could obey any
master at all; the sectary reviles it, in order that he may
remain for ever his own ; and while the one claims to test the
revealed attributes of G-od by his own notions of justice and
goodness, the other rejects the Church because she does not
agree with the counterfeit which he has substituted for her.
The first judges God, the second His Church, by the same
human standard. The sectary talks indeed of a " Church,"
but it no more resembles that which was founded on Peter
than man resembles his Maker. The only Church dreamed of
by the Anglican is one which teaches she knows not what,
and is one thing to-day and another to-morrow; which is
always "erring in matters of faith,'' and instead of being
" the pillar and ground of the truth," requires periodically to
be " reformed " by her own children, who flee from her com-
munion in order to do it more efiectually, but only to discover
three centuries later that the very truths which they had cast
away as " corruptions " were part of the Gospel of Christ. It
is a Church which it was once a duty to " hear," on pain of
being numbered with the heathen, but whose " pretensions "
have long since become " unwarrantable," whose authority is
a usurpation, and which has forfeited and made void by the
misuse of free-will, the very promises by virtue of which she
was authorized to teach the nations and claim the obedience
of mankind. It is a Church which of old had power to judge
individual consciences, but must now submit to be judged by
them, and which the Anglican every day assures the infidel he
may treat with contempt and defiance, by setting him the
example of both.
Not long ago, a dignitary of the Anglican Church, the
present Dean of Norwich, announced in a public document :
" We are becoming perfectly lawless." If the confession was
new, the fact is not. They have never been anything else.
Children of revolt, Anglicans are now what they were from the
beginning, despisers of authority, and confederates of all who
set up the individual conscience above "the Church of the
Mr, Oarbett and Canon Liddon. 101
living God/' and declare the Spouse of Christ to be corrupt,
fallen, divided, and dethroned. It is they, above all men, who
have encouraged the world to believe Christianity a delusion,
and the Church a failure. ^' I am, then, a rebel, and the ally
of rebels,'^ every Anglican may say to his own soul, '^and
the enemies of the cross of Christ find in me the justification
of their own revolt." We earnestly desire that all Anglicans
may make this reflection now to their eternal profit, lest haply
they make it without fruit hereafter. They know who has
said, of all who refuse to obey : " It is a fearful thing to fall
into the hands of the living God '^ ; and we must avow our
own conviction that among those who have defamed the
Christian Church, sapped the foundations of authority, and
taught the lawless and the unbeliever to exult in the right
of revolt, Anglicans hold the first place.
If the Christian Church is what Mr. Garbett and Canon
Liddon represent her to be, — weak and unstable, erring,
divided, and corrupt ; if ^^ the pillar and ground of the truth''
has become a teacher of lies, and of a religion " unknown to
the Apostles "; if her authority is a usurpation, and her claims
are ^^unwarrantable pretensions"; let us abandon a fruitless
combat with the world and the devil, in which we are already
defeated, and confess, with these Bampton Lecturers, that the
promises of God are made void, and His work brought to
nought. If they are right, '^ our faith is vain," and " we are
of all men most miserable." The revelation of which such a
Church is the stammering witness is palpably human, and
deserves the contempt and indifference with which these
writers encourage the world to regard it. But if such notions
of the incorrupt and undivided Church as those of Mr. Garbett
and Canon Liddon are suggestions of Satan, and an outrage
against her Almighty Founder, we have reason to say of such
men, however good may be their intentions, that they are
unconscious adversaries of the human race, and fellow-con-
spirators with the enemies of the Cross of Christ. And though
some of them affect to deplore the so-called Reformation,
mock the impious founders of their own sect, and pretend
to reverse their teaching, — which is still enshrined in the
formularies and reiterated by the bishops of their own Church;
they so exactly resemble these criminals in their exaltation of
the individual conscience above all authority, and in their law-
less revolt against the Church founded on Peter, that their
professed esteem for the Catholic principles against which
their own life is a daily protest, only contributes to the havoc
of souls, while it provokes the astonishment of Christians, and
the derision of men of the world. Even Gallio laughs when
102 The Bremen Lectures,
such men profess a tender reverence for dogmatic truths and
prove it by remaining in willing communion with all who
blaspheme it. Looking at acts apart from motives, — even
Simon Magus hardly seems to us more profane when he
oflfered to buy the gifts of the Holy Ghost, than Canon Liddon
preciching from the same pulpit as Mr, Garbett, whose religion
is the negation of his own, and ministering in the same church
with Dean Stanley.
Aet. IV.— the BREMEN LECTURES.
The Bremen LectureSj on FundamentcU, Living, Ttdigioue Questions, By
various eminent European Divines. Boston : Grould & Lincoln, 1871.
THIS volume contains a translation of nine out of ten
theological lectures — the first lecture, '' On the Biblical
Conception of God,^^ was for some reason or other not
printed — delivered in Bremen by Lutheran Divines, against
Rationalism, during the early part of 1868. The translator,
who, we learn from a prefatory note, is a German by descent,
as a rule renders the German into excellent English,
but has introduced many Gorman expressions which do not
sound at all well in our own language, — as '' love-association,"
^^ feast custom," " play-room" for the free will, and the like.
A considerable amount of carelessness also makes its ap-
pearance. At p. 149 he calls our Lord ^^a resurrected God."
In p. 125 he makes Dr. Luthardt say that He is a mystery,
because He '^ belongs with God." On a subsequent page we
are told thai. Godfrey Menken was '^a man who belonged to
the most spiritual theologians of the evangelical church." A
few pages further on we read that *^ the selfishness remaining
concealed in the depths of the heart is a governess over man."
The translation, therefore, would profit greatly by a revision.
A preface, emanating from the " Board of Internal Missions
in Bremen," briefly describes the course of events which led
to the delivery and publication of these lectures. The '^ evan-
gelical " church in Bremen, like the ^' evangelical " church in
almost every other part of Germany, had become infected with
rationalistic opinions. Therefore arose discussions, and dis-
sensions; and the '* orthodox " party attempted to gain the
The Bremen Lectures, 103
victory over the rationalists, by synodical action, by addressing
a memorial to the senate, — which, it seems, holds the epis-
copal power — by the use of the periodical press, and by the
pablication of separate polemical treatises. These efforts,
unfortunately, were not attended with success ; so '^ the wish
began to be expressed that, by means of popular scientific
lectures, a wider conviction of the truthfulness of the old faith
of the Bible might be awakened, or, as the case required, more
firmly established in the minds of our citizens/' The Board
accordingly empowered a commission, chosen by itself from
among its members, to arrange for a course of such lectures;
and the list of lecturers — in which appear the names of
Tischendorf, Lange, Gess, Cremer, Fuchs, Uhlhorn, and
Luthardt — sufficiently testifies to the favourable character of
the reception accorded to its invitations.
The first lecture contained in this volume, '^ On the Biblical
Account of Creation,^' — i.e.,in effect, on Darwinism, — is violent
and unsatisfactory. The second, by Cremer, on '^Eeason,
Conscience, and Revelation,^' is propaedeutic to those which
follow, but difficult in style, vague, somewhat mystical, and
not unfrequently fanciful in detail. Its aim is to show that
spiritual truth can be known by man through reason and
conscience; that it is personal ; and that its test or sign is
affinity to our nature. The third lecture, on Miracles, where
the point insisted on is that miracles are indispensable as the
necessary condition of the infusion of the higher and super-
natural life into our lower and natural life ; and the fourth, on
the Person of Jesus Christ, — Who is considered as the embodi-
ment of that personal truth "which on its passage through
the conscience is translated into life,'' spoken of in the second
lecture, — are by Fuchs and Luthardt respectively. They are
marked by a noble elevation of thought, as an example of
which we cite the following beautiful passage from Dr.
Luthardt's discourse : —
I have always been peculiarly impressed with that word which the aged
Simeon, as the Scripture narrates, uttered over the child Jesus, as the latter
was brought into the temple, calling him the sign which should be spoken
against. For this word, is it not, as it were, the theme of all succeeding
history down to our day, and suggested by a truly wonderful glance at the
oppositions which would agitate times and minds ? For about the person of
Jesus Christ minds have always differed, and by this to the end of time shall
the thoughts of hearts be revealed. Scarcely, however, for centuries has
there been a time for which those prophetic words of Scripture express so
precisely — if I may use the term — the programme, as for these times of ours.
This is the mystery of His being, and the secret working which Jesus
exercises, that He makes a decision for or against necessary. Every one most
104 The Bremen Lectures.
take a definite position towards Him. He c^n be abused, He can be reviled,
He can perhaps be even hated ; but ignored He cannot be. He is the ensign
which God has set up in the midst of the times, and planted in the move-
ment of history.
There is something mysterious in His person and His whole appearance,
which attracts us, and does not let go of our thoughts respecting Him. And
it is not merely our thoughts which are incited by the mystery of His being
to a solution of the riddle which His appearance puts before us ; it is also
our hearts which are drawn towards Him. For His person exercises a
mysterious influence upon all nobler spirits, who are not wholly engrossed in
the interests or enjoyments of ordinary existence. Into the soul of him who
has once been met on his way through life by this figure, it thrusts a thorn,
which will allow him to find no rest until he has found it in Christ Himself,
whom he seeks. And even the striving of the opponents against a recog-
nition of Him is a sign of this thorn which they bear within them. Every
mystery moves us to, requires of us, its solution. No historical greatness of
humanity attains to mysterious significancy and to power over the minds and
hearts of men like that attained by the person of Jesus Christ (pp. 115-116).
The doctrine of the Incarnation, taken in its entierty, is
composed of two partfl. The first treats of the Person of
Christ — Who and what He was ; the second is founded on the
first, and treats of the Work of Christ, His Mediatorship, or,
in other words, of His Kingly, Priestly, and Prophetic Office.
Justly, therefore, does Dr. Luthardt conclude that rejection of
the doctrine concerning the Person of Christ implies rejection
of the entire Christian system : —
To deny that truth is not merely to deny a dogma, but to call in question
the whole gain of Christianity. This is the tremendous import of the contest
of the present. The question of Christ is the question of Christianity itself.
They who oppose the Church's doctrine of the God-man will deny this, and
I doubt not that many of them are earnestly and honestly disposed towards
that gain which Christianity has, through its higher knowledge of Grod and
man, brought to us. Not immediately at the beginning do the consequences
of a principle reveal themselves. But they work out from an inner necessity,
and depend not on the wish of the heart or the ambiguity of the thought.
.... The attitude a person holds to the question of Jesus Christ determines
his answer to the question of man, and to the question of God. He who
rejects Jesus Christ will lose also man, and will hslve, instead of the eternal
soul hungering after God, a slave of natural necessity or a tyrant of selfish-
ness, in whose heart no sun shines, because he knows not the sun of God*s
grace in Christ. And he who will know nothing of the Son will soon lose
also the Father, who will be found only in the Son, and will have remaining,
nstead of Him, only an idea of the universe, which sees not, hears not, and
has no heart for our sorrows, or only a cold inexorable law, which, as soon as
anything lives, swallows it up in the night of death, the contemplation of
which makes even the heart of a living man grow chill iu the gloomy waste
of resignation. . . . This is the mystery of the person of Jesus Christ, that
The Bremen Lechtres. 105
with Him what is best and highest of all that belongs to us stands and falls
(pp. 137-138).
Most truly so, since He ia the heart of the world, the head
of the creation of God, the eternal need of human souls ; and
never more plainly so than now, when the issues of old con-
troversies are disclosing themselves daily with new clearness.
It therefore becomes more than merely interesting to know to
what extent the members of the body to which Dr. Luthardt
belongs hold to the doctrine of the Person of Jesus Christ.
And it must be confessed — we say it with sorrow and regret
— that those who in the evangelical church can in any true
and full sense be said to adhere to it are a very small and only
a comparatively faithful band. Nay, we may detect indications
of defection even in the present volume. Thus Dr. Gess, the
successor of Dr. Dorner in the chair of theology at Gottingen,
in his lecture on the Atonement, which is the sixth of the
series, startles us by saying that " He who reflects with due
attention upon the history of Our Lord will learn gradually to
wonder at how much Jesus understood the art of waiting "
(p. 179), It was natural, as he says, that the Atonement for
the human race should be made by Him who is its archetype,
representative, and head ; but he nowhere brings forward the
Godhead of Christ as the deeper reason of the possibility of
the Atonement, and speaks of His Divinity only in such vague
language as that '^ intercourse with God was as necessary for
his soul-life as was the breathing of the air or the seeing of
the light for his physical life,^^ " he nowhere found a separa-
tion between himself and God,^' "his inmost consciousness
told him that he was God^s child, and God was his Father "
(p. 189). The Atonement itself he imagines to have been
merely a complete recognition by our Saviour that God is
justified in punishing sin, this recognition being not in word
only, nor in mere assent of the ineellect, but in act, consisting
in His having willingly endured the entire punishment of sin
(p. 194). The extreme inadequateness of this opinion, which
falls far short of the Christian doctrine, it is unnecessary to
insist on ; but it might commend itself to a Lutheran by its
falling in with the heretical doctrine of justification by faith
alone, i.e., that we are justified " by subscribing for ourselves
to that verdict which Christ, by His willing sufiering of our
death with us, has pronounced " ; and " by making the holy
plea for the pardon of human guilt, which the first-born
brother has ofiered in the name of his brothers, our own plea'^
(p. 198).* Dr. Gess consequently lays no stress on the merit
* Cf. Dorner's " History of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ," v. 249, &c.
106 The Bremen Lectures.
of Christ, as the reason of His obtaining from the Father the
redemption of the human race ; the stress is laid on the sin-
lessness of Christ, since had He been Himself a sinner He
would not have been able to effect atonement for others, but
would have needed it for Himself, For sin unstrings the soul ;
and only one who is sinless can fully recognize how just God
is in punishing sin. The nature of this opinion will be
brought out more fully by the following passage. Dr. Gess,
it is important to observe, is the author of a treatise on the
Atonement, which has met with a favourable reception from
those who are neither Catholics nor infidels. The reader will
presently perceive that, like the majority of German Protes-
tant writers, he holds that Our Lord's human knowledge
grew more exact and complete by time and study : —
The simple word of a son, that he is sorry for the offence, does not satisfy
a father of character ; he asks the proof of earnestness by an expiatory act
And this is not want of love, but true love ; for true love knows that the son's
welfare can only then be secure when he has bowed in the fullest earnestness
in submission to the moral order. . . .
As the Boy became a Youth, and His look extended to His people, and as
through the reading of the Old Testament the history of His people and a
part of general history became known to Him, the universality of human sin,
and how entirely destitute of the Spirit from God humanity was, came more
and more forcibly before Him. Farther : we can regard it as certain, that in
the same measure in which Jesus began to come to this knowledge, His
prayei>intercourse with His Father became an intercession for His Nazareth
for His Israel, for humanity. . . . No less certain is it, however, that Jesus
must soon have perceived how mere intercession could not suffice to save
His people and humanity. . . . Humanity is restored to life only by the
Spirit from God ; the Spirit from God it receives only when an atonement
has previously been made. The intercession of Jesus became, then, the prayer
that the Father would accept Him as the Atoner for His brothers. For where
was there a holy one, save Him. And only one who is holy can become an
atoner. But how did He wish to bring about the Atonement ? " To atone
for" is actually* to take back the misdeed committed, actually to plead for
the pardon of it,.actually to break the staff over it. This Jesus wished to do
in the name of His brothers. But in what manner could He do it ? If He set
His whole strength on attesting God to His brothers and leading them back
to Him ; if He was willing to endure all sacrifices on account of this attesta-
tion of God ; if, in midst of this labour with sinners. He experienced also all
the misery which the righteousness of God attached to their sin, but bowed
His soul wiUingly under it, because where sin reigned, for the sake of God's
righteousness, misery must also reign ; — if &e did all this, and did it until the
last breath of His Me, is not this so to interpose in the process of the holy
* ActuallyBMi Act,
The Bremen Lectures. 107
God towards sinful humanity that He, in the name of His brothers, laid before
the throne of God an actual acknowledgement of the perfect right of God and
the perfect wrong of man, and an actual plea for the pardon of our misdeed.
On this theory it may be observed, firstly, that complete
recognition that God is just in punishing sin is a condition of
forgiveness because it is a condition of repentance, and not on
account of any special connection with the doctrine of the
Atonement; and therefore it is necessary on the part of the
person himself who is forgiven, and not merely on the part of
another person making satisfaction for him. Only when a
person fully recognizes that what he has done is wrong, and
so deserving of punishment, does he fully repent of it ; and
only when he perfectly and entirely repents of it, is he
perfectly and entirely forgiven. It is true that only one who
is sinless can fully recognize, in the sense of realize, how just
God is in punishing sin, and this is a reason why the severity
of God's punishments is a difficulty to us who are sinners ;
but, through faith and grace, and in spite of sin, it is possible
to recognize its wrongness in that sense in which such re-
cognition is necessary for that entire revulsion from it which
perfect repentance is, — in the sense in which we are bound to
love God above all things. It is true, again, that perhaps the
immense majority of mankind do not in this life fully recognize
even in this sense the sinfulness of sin. And that is a ground
for the doctrine of Purgatory : —
For He is patient while they may rebel,
And leads them slowly ; earth-borne thoughts as yet,
Frailties, scars of old wounds, as yet estrange
Their hearts ; and habits, that but slowly change.
Therefore He takes them wholly in His hand
To add the finer touches, and completes
The delicate work in a more holy land.
Secondly, it is true that the patient endurance of punish-
ment helps us to a full, and lasting, recognition. One who
willingly endured the entire punishment of sin would also be
one who would thoroughly recognize the deep sinfulness of
sin; and his recognition would be both the cause and the
effect of his willing endurance. Blit for complete recognition
of the sinfulness of sin it is by no means necessary that its
entire punishment should be actually endured; for this re-
cognition is essentially an internal act, not indeed of the
intelligence alone, but of the whole soul, and is essentially
dependent on internal conditions, and not on the presence of
an externally inflicted punishment. It is, indeed, in every
108 The Bremen Lectures,
one^s experience that self-acknowledgment of the wrongness
of past actions is sometimes most intense when neither is
punishment being actually endured nor the fear of punish-
ment present to the mind. And thirdly, not only has recogni-
tion of the sinfulness of sin no special connection with the
Atonement, and not only is the endurance of the punishment
not essentially necessary to complete recognition of the sinful-
ness of the sins, but it is impossible that our Saviour should
have endured the entire punishment of the sins for which He
made Atonement. From the above passage, if the words
were taken strictly, we should have to conclude that Dr. Gess
believes either that Christ endured the pains of the world to
come, or that punishment in the next life is not awarded to
sin : for unless one or the other of these alternatives be true.
He did not endure ^^ all the misery which the righteousness of
God attaches to sin.'^ We do not for a moment believe that
he holds either the one or the other alternative. That our
Lord in His Passion suflFered the pains of hell— or any punish-
ment such as neologists substitute for hell — is a doctrine too
horrible to be imputed to any one without the very plainest
evidence. It may be said that His sufferings were — ^physice
and qua sufferings, not solely moraliterj as regards their
efficacy — equal to the sufferings which would have been
endured by the human race had He not made Atonement.
But there is no proof of this, and no verisimilitude in it. It is
moreover intrinsically impossible. Infinite suffering alone
could be equivalent to finite suffering lasting for ever, and
infinite suffering could not be endured by a finite being. The
Sacred Humanity as such is finite; and its acts are finite
physically and in themselves, though possessing an infinite
value. Dr. Gess's discussion of the Atonement may therefore
be regarded as presenting ideas auxiliary to the interpretation
of that doctrine, but not as furnishing the essential explana-
tion itself.
Dr. Luthardt, as we have said, insists on this, that to call in
question the doctrine of the Person of Christ is to endanger
not merely a single dogma, but the whole fabric of Christianity.
The next lecturer. Dr. Uhlhorn, remarking that now, as in the
first ages of Christianity, the contest with unbelief centres
more and more about the Person and Life of Jesus Christ,
and that again this latter contest gathers more and more round
the doctrine of the resurrection, selects for his subject " The
Resurrection of Christ as a soteriologico-historical fact.^^ The
consideration of the resurrection as a soteriological fact, of its
place in the economy of salvation, is necessarily preceded by
the treatment of the evidence that it was an historical fact,
The Bremen Lectures. 109
that it actually took place. On this head the lecturer had no
diflBculty in showing that the hypothesis of an apparent death
and subsequent partial restoration by the coolness of the tomb
is utterly incompetent to explain the facts. Here the obvious
criticism of Strauss is sufficient of itself : —
" A half-dead maD,*^ says Strauss, justly, " a man creeping about,* sickly,
in need of the physiciiin's care, of bandages and restoratives, could never
have made upon the disciples the impression of His being the victor over
death and the grave, of His being the Lord of Life, which impression lay at
the basis of their subsequent career, could never have changed their mourning
into enthusiasm." To-day, as said, this hypothesis is of the past. I would
scarcely have alluded to it, were it not of interest to see in it the way it goes
with such hypothesis. In their time commended as the only truly scientific,
as the only tenable views, they are a few years later brought forward with a
pitiful smile as mere antiquities (p. 146).
Dismissing as gratuitous, and therefore historically worth-
less, Schwenkel's hypothesis that the body of the risen Lord
was not that which had died, he expends his force principally
against the theory that the post-resurrection appearances were
subjective visions arising from natural causes. Against this
he argues that a vision is the outcome of a corresponding
concomitant psychological condition, which becomes so intense
that it passes from imagination into sense, and that the
psychological condition of the disciples after the death and
burial of Christ was anything but such as would have given
rise to visions of a risen and glorified Lord. The only other
lecturer who enters into matters of Biblical criticism is
Professor Tischendorf, who in the seventh lecture treats of
^' The Authenticity of our Gospels .'' His lecture is not what
we should have expected from him. But there are two
points in it which deserve especial attention. The first is
the stress laid on the external evidences. " The so-called
internal evidences are manifoldly made to conform to our
opinions, nay, to our tastes, so that they can prove to one the
contrary to what another finds in them ^^ (p. 201). The con-
troversies with the school of denial appear to have made
Lutheran apologists shy of making much of the internal evi-
dences. But, on the other hand, the Lutheran doctrine of
justification by faith requires that on them the principal stress
* Literally so, on account of the wounds in the feet. Or dato non
concesso that nails were not used, but cords, the flow of blood and water from
the side indicated rapture of the pericardium (see Stroud's "Death of Christ").
The apparition at Emmaus, under a different form, is another proof that the
visions were not subjective. The restriction of the visions to disciples ex-
clusively, shows that the accounts are not mythical, — [Reviewer's Note.]
110 The Bremen Lectures.
shall be laid ; and a change of stand-point on this subject
would bring about a revolution in Lutheran theology. This
indeed it is already doing. The second point regards the
extent to be attributed to inspiration, artd is also, though more
remotely, connected with this same doctrine of justification by
faith ; —
How far from the representation, common to all the Gospels, of this sub-
lime, heavenly personality, is the thought that we have here to do with a
product of the reflection and fancy of the first Christian community. To
attempt such an explanation of the Gospels is to wander off into the realm
of the most uninteUigible. It is an error which overleaps the bounds both
of the possible and the wonderful.
But the reply will be made to me, that with all this the contradictions of
the Gospels are not solved. That such are in fact presented, though many
have been arbitrarily and erroneously alleged, I do not deny. On the other
hand I do deny that the credibility of the Gospels, so far as the divine
person of the Lord and Bis divine redemption are concerned, is affected
by them. We have, of course, no right to affirm a mechanical inspiration of
the evangelists which secures against every error: the character of the
Gospels itself forbids that. The evangelists wrote their books from human
points of view, and under human relations ; impenetrated with the Divine
Spirit, they scientifically [?] and to the best of their knowledge drew up their
records. That here and there they do not altogether agree, proves that they
wrote with a certain independence and far from all artificialness. . . . But
[it may be objected] does not this leave manifold opportunity for doubt f If
that were not so, to me the nature of faith would seem to be injured. Would
faith then have its full worth, if the possibility of doubt were wanting ?
The faith of the Scriptures is faith in the Son of God. ... No document
is put into our hands which excludes all doubt, which from its nature con-
vinces everybody (pp. 217-219).
That Holy Scripture is inspired only in this sense is, we
believe, the dominant opinion among even comparatively
orthodox Lutherans. Let us hope it will not turn out to have
been only the thin end of the wedge. To call the opinion
that all assertions contained in Holy Scripture are, in virtue of
its inspiration, true, '^ a theory of mechanical inspiration,^'
appears to us to be to call it by a name very ill-chosen. Un-
deviating adherence to truth is ill described by the word
mechanical. It may be observed that the last two sentences
of the foregoing quotation illustrate a tendency sufficiently
perceptible among those Protestants who have much to do
with the controversy against unbelief, a tendency to rest on
the doctrine of the Incarnation, which is the charter of the
Catholic Church, rather than on the letter of Scripture, which
used to be '^ the religion of Protestants." At the same time,
however, it must be confessed that the argument that the
The Bremen Lectures, 111
Incarnation is postulated by the religiousness of human nature,
is often made to swerve from its natural conclusion by the
introduction into it of the doctrine of justification by faith
alone.
The last two lectures are on ^^ The Kingdom of God/' and
^^ Christianity and Culture/' The lecturer on the Kingdom of
God, Dr. Lange, aims at setting forth the Kingdom of God,
the Church, as a movement towards the consummation of
humanity, by its being made conformable to the divine-human
ideal, Jesus Christ : in which consummation are brought into
a higher unity the antagonisms which the course of history
shows to exist. The object of the last lecturer is to show that
culture, humanism, cannot regenerate humanity. The lecture
on Christianity and Culture is scrappy ; that on the Kingdom
of God is not by any means always logically satisfactory, and
is couched in a too technical terminology : e.g., '^ The m-
dividual antagonism perfects itself in the organic; the
psychological in the allegorical; the ethnological in the
social ; and the economical in the cosmical antagoixismJ^ " In
part strange designations ! " as the lecturer himself says, —
especially for a popular lecturer. However, there is a meaning
to them ; and that is more than can be said for many of the
odd-looking expressions with which writers sometimes garnish
their productions.
Through all these lectures the same general spirit runs, for
the writers appear all to belong to that school of thought
which is due to the impulse given in Germany to Protestant
theology, by Schleiermacher. They all directly or by impli-
cation rest on the truth that religion must appeal not merely
to argument, but to the fulness of human nature, which lies
deeper, and is more fundamental, than argument. This it is,
we believe, which the last lecturer intends to express in the
following passage, though his language is in some respects
open to grave objection.
" Possibly," says Hamann, " philosophy could do us no other service than
to set our passions in a forced, methodical, and affected play." . . . Nothing
else, indeed, can be done. Philosophy does not make man, but man makes
his philosophy. Man is not a product of his reason, but reason is one of
the faculties of man. As is the man, so also is his reason, his philosophy.
The reason is an expression, a revelation of the human existence. If this,
the fountain, is pure, then is also the emanation pure ; if the fountain is
turbid, then also is the emanation. The emanation cannot cleanse the
fountain. Man preserves the reason from sin and error ; not the reason
man. First, then, must man's essential being be redeemed from the power
inimical to culture, and then a redemption also of tbe reason can be ex-
pected; Is a sickly root to be cured by attempting to cultivate on the tree
112 The Bremen Lectures.
a bough ? Only Christianity seeks to sanctify the kernel of the human
personality from within, and thence to carry purification through the indi-
vidual faculties of the human life, such as understanding, reason, imagina-
tion, talent for art, &c. ; while the non-Christian wisdom endeavours, by
beginning with the individual faculties — reason, talent for art, and the like
— to improve the central natures of men (pp. 273-274).
It is the natural impulse of Christianity to regard the facts of life, both
those of the relative, the human life, and those of the absolute, the divine
life. Life, universal life, is our instructress — not a dismembered expression
or faculty of life, like reason, — whose soundness, besides, remains to be
proved.* Only the philosophy, therefore, which has germinated from the
totality of normal life can lead also to the consummation ; while a philo-
sophy which has come from a dismembered faculty of life must necessarily
prove one-sided. If this is correct, then it is clear also that only from
Christianity can that philosophy which is a mirror of the truth grow ; because
only Christianity looks upon the normal, the redeemed and sanctified life in
God and from God as the root of a normal knowledge (pp. 292-293).
But, adds the second lecturer, human nature thus constituted
does not stand alone, like an atom in empty space. It has
that without it which is correlated with itself, and this is what
is antinomastically the truth : not particular and empirical
truths, nor mere abstract truth, but that which is true, the
basis of all particular and empirical truths. With this truth
it is the nwus of man to be conjoined as the wax is to the seal.
This is what we should call spiritual truth : the complexus of
intellectual, affective, and other truth required by the deeper
nature and for the fulfilment of the destiny of man ; the truth
of which Goethe said, that truth is the body of God.* This
truth, Cremer proceeds, it is the business both of reason and
conscience to apprehend. But if it can be known, it must have
some sign by which it can be distinguished. And this test of
the truth is affinity to our nature (p. 57). Truth is the necessary
complement of our being ; in it we find the aim and meaning
of our life made known; it reveals us to ourselves, and,
reciprocally, ourselves reveal it to us. We and it are the two
parts of a correlated whole, — the two terms, as it were, of a
relation, which mutually explain each other. So that inasmuch
as the contemplation of it discloses to us what is our true end
and what are our real capacities, and at the same time does
not leave us desolate, with a hopeless hunger of the soul, since
it reveals itself as able to be the one and satisfy the other,
* This statement is particularly objectionable in its more obvious sense.
See the remarks in our first article, on the rule and motive of certitude. —
[Reviewer's Note.]
t The truth here spoken is not merely Veritas in mente, but the ventas in
re postulated by the verUae in mmte.
The Bremen Lectures, 113
it must be the ideal. But no ideal can be truly an ideal if it is
not realized or realizable ; and this, if it were not realized
without us, could never be realized within us. This ideal
must not be an imagination merely, for so it would not be an
ideal, it would not be the truth, it would not satisfy us. This
realized ideal is at once human and divine ; human, because
in absolute affinity with our true nature, which it alone reveals
to us in its completeness ; divine, because lacking nothing of
perfection. It is He in whom dwells bodily fulness of grace
and truth. And to give up the search for it, whether we go
on to deny its existence, or endeavour to make up for its
absence by betraying ourselves over to lower happiness, is a
philosophy of despair : —
Does the trath which we seek actually exist ? Then it mast manifest
itself as reality, as reality it must at some point enter into our lives. And
indeed not as a thing, an unconscious existence, be it even a combination of
natural phenomena called natural Jaws, or the unity of the worlds and the
like, but as personaUty. For only a personality is of equal rank with man ;
to it alone can he wed himself ; in it alone can he find himself and his
proper thou ; only it is in afl&nity with him ; a life-dispensing, Ufe-emitting,
and even to all the world life-imparting personality, this the truth must be.
For so alone does it stand by the side of man as the bridegroom, suing
for his free and yet necessary love, stand as the source of life and father
to him. All this (the material world) must lie at his feet ; to it — the world
— he cannot give himself ; otherwise he would not so long have sought the
truth outside of and above the world (p. 60).
We do not need to insist on the significance of this train of
thought in relation to the subject matter of Dr. Luthardt's
lecture, from which we have laid two extracts before our
readers ; we shall just glance in conclusion at its significance
with regard to miracle, which it is now sought to set aside by
appeal to mechanical laws of nature. But a mechanical world
would be the most imperfect of all possible worlds ; for it
would be a world without God. The world cannot be compared
in this regard to a machine ; for a man makes a machine to
save himself trouble, and a machine does not want the com-
panionship of its maker ; but God created the world to manifest
therein His glory, and filled it with creatures who need His
presence. If, as we have seen, man is correlated with God,—
the material world, certainly, is correlated with man as his
dwelling, — then man and the world are not, any more than man
himself is, apart from God. Then there is a living relation
between the visible world and the invisible in which it has its
ground of being ; and miracles, far from being unnatural, are
grounded in the organization of the universe itself. " The
VOL. XXI. — 110. XLi. [New Serves.] i
114 The Bremen Lectures.
world's course/' says the author of the third lecture, '' requires
miracles/'
How much more intense miracles will the world's course require, to reach
the divine end of creation, after it has gone aside from the straight line of
normal development and by man's sin become distorted ! This is the ciymg
fiict which every look into the history of the world and of man, eveiy look into
our own hearts attests to us, that the course of the human race's develop-
ment is a course of misused freedom, an abnormal, sinful course, and there-
fore one tending to ruin, — a course which not only admits of a saving
interposition of God, but as a work of mercy most urgently demands it. . . .
For that help from above the whole cosmos lying under the ban of sin and
death cries and calls. . . .
And, thank God, this miraculous working of God, the necessity of which
is as firmly established as its possibility, has also become actual fact. Into
the world's histoiy of sin and death the golden threads of the history of
salvation have become interwoven, a continued chain of divine acts for the
saving of the world, which form a living organism of miracles. The record
of this continued history of miracles is the Scripture of the Old and New
Testaments ; its culminating point is Jesus Christ, in whom not merely
individual beams of the divine light and life, but all the fulness of the
Godhead bodily enters into the world, and, placed under the law, interweaves
a divine-human history of salvation into the world's hiBtory of death. And,
in turn, the culminating point of this divine-human history of life, the crown
and pearl of all miracles, in which the whole miracle-structure of the divine
history of revelation reaches its pinnacle, is the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
this banner of our faith, with which Christianity stands and falls ; this
summaiy of the Gospel, which from Easter to Easter, from Sunday to Sunday,
is preached and celebrated in the Christian Church.
These facts of the history of salvation yield to none of the world's history
in point of historic actuality and certainty. ** This Jesus hath God raised up,
whereof all we are witnesses ;" '* We declare that which we have heard, which
we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have
handled of the Word of Truth." So speak the witnesses of divine revelation,
with a calmness and veracity which remain unshaken in the midst of ignominy,
bonds, and death. Why then this difficulty of believing, this scepticism in
matters of divine revelation? Just because the history of revelation is
entirely different in character from whatever else human history presents.
In this appears only the transitory world-life, which is infected with sin and
subjected to death ; but there the superterrestrial Ufe makes its appearance,
which was lost in the history of the world, but for that very reason planted
anew. Such a life must necessarily have a peculiar character and history, in
which everywhere its superterrestrial nature gleams through. Therefore the
history of divine revelation, especially the history and being of Jesus Christ,
cannot be understood, believed, and laid hold of by man, so long as his sense,
and with that his understanding, remain fixed on the things of earth. There
are inner grounds, grounds in his entire method of thinking and perceiving
which cause that to appear to him impossible, in spite of all external evidences
Terra Incognita^ or Convent Life in Englcmd. 115
which is so entirely foreign to the products of the world in which exclusively
he lives. Hence no arguing and proving fronr external grounds ever helps one
from unbelief to faith ; but if man would understand God's truth, he must
consent to a change of mind. He must allow himself to be conducted from
the outer world to the inner, and instead of investigating the history of the
external world and of nature, must study the history of his heart and inner
life. Here is the tribunal where the right witnesses and judgments can be
found ; where to everyone his sins and mistakes, his losses and deficiences,
make themselves apparent ; where all the secret troubles, diseases, and needs
of human nature come to view. But so also in the interior of every man the
traces of the divine image buried within him reveal themselves, which, under
all the pressure of the external world, continually awaken in the deepest
grounds of our being a longing for, an anticipation of, and a struggling after
the supermundane life, for which we are designed. He who thus searches, in
himself, not merely in nature and the world, and includes within his inquiry
also Him who searches through all, — he who accepts and cultivates the sense
for it, — he learns to view divine revelation and Him who is its centre, Jesus
Christ, the life of eternity come down from above ; and learns to believe in,
love, and understand Him, and so becomes a partaker of His superterrestrial
life. Such a person believes in miracles ; for he has experienced in himself
one of the greatest of miracles, — regeneration from death to life (pp. 105-109).
Art v.— terra incognita, OR CONVENT LIFE
IN ENGLAND.
Terra Incognita, or the Coiwmts of the United Kingdom. By John Nicholas
MuRPHT. London : Longmans, Green, & Co. 1873.
"l^OT the least remarkable proof of the Divine origin of the
jAI Catholic Church is to be found in the exuberance and
extraordinary tenacity of the higher life of her religious orders,
whereby she has, indeed, shown herself to be the true Mother
of mankind. No mere human institution could ever have found
such a superabundant variety of outlets for the manifestation
of even one of the principles for the sake of which it may have
been established, or clung with such unyielding firmness and
undying vigour to the principle itself, when, through the per-
versity of men or the vicissitudes of time, these outlets have
been either choked up, or exchanged for other channels, or in
part even destroyed, as the Catholic Church has done in the
propagation of her higher spiritual life through her religious
I 2
116 Teira Incognita^ or Convent Life in England,
orders of men and women. The argument becomes over-
powering when we consider that this propagation has taken
place in the face of the constant repugnance of flesh and blood
to receive it, and the untiring resistance and opposition, in
later times at least, of the maxims of human policy and legis-
lation, and in all times of the powers of evil visible and invisible.
Of course this stamp of exuberant variety and ceaseless tenacity
is not confined to the manifestation of the Church's higher
spiritual life alone, but is to be found no less clearly impressed
on all the many manifestations of her wisdom and love, by
which from the first, as a teacher sent from God, and our great
Mother full of His Spirit, she has not only guided the intellect
of man into all Divine truth, but even provided him with
finger-posts to point the way at the frequently intersecting
high roads of human science, and has filled the heart of man
with a peace above all understanding, by satisfying every want
of his higher, and in many instances even of his lower nature.
Still, when we carefully weigh the intensity of the natural
repugnance of flesh and blood, which must be spiritualized
before it can enter into the kingdom of heaven, and the bitter-
ness of the opposition of the world, — not to speak now of the
hatred of the Evil One — to the religious life, we are not wrong
in saying that in no other manifestation of the Churches
wisdom and power is the variety of the means chosen for the
propagation of that life, more wonderful, or the tenacity with
which she clings to its maintenance amid the over-varying
phases of the world^s existence, more remarkable.
The religious life has its root deep down in the highest
supernatural love of the creature for Him Who has both made
him and redeemed him, a love which, being itself his Redeemer's
choicest gift, is the creature's highest offering ; — a perfect love,
which casting out fear of failure, because resting on his
Redeemer's promises made to all who embrace Him with that
love, sacrifices for His dear sake all that this world has to offer
of its own joy, and pleasure, and happiness, all those delights
of sense which a lower love of God might tolerate, and even
the highest prerogative of man, the exercise of his own will ;
in order to become like to Him Who for the love of His creatures
became the Virgin Son of the Virgin Mother, Who, when he
was rich, became poor, and Who, coming into this world to
live and die for man, sought not His own will, but the will of
Him who sent Him. !ffowhere is this Divine and supernatural
love to be found save within the happy borders of God's One
Church, which is the Masterpiece of the Spirit of love, — but
there it is always found. The sensual man cannot understand
this love ; to him it is simply impossible, while those who say
Terra Incognita, or Convent Life in England. 117
they practise it^ are in his eyes hypocrites and impostors; at
the best visionaries and enthusiasts. But to the Church of
God this Divine and supernatural love is one of her highest
glories and prerogatives, the seal of the Spirit, Who is ever
bearing witness to the spirit of her children that they are the
sons of God, which marks her out as the elect Bride of the
Lamb, and the Temple of His Love. We need not wonder, then,
that the Catholic Church has ever sought, is ever seeking, for
outlets for this love in almost infinite variety, — for it is itself
the gift of Infinite Love and must be given back to the Infinite,
— ever forming, as we have said, fresh outlets, whenever the
former ones are either weakened or changed from their original
purpose, or in part destroyed ; ever clinging to the maintenance
of the love itself even if all outward channels for its manifest-
ation should fail. So has it ever been in the history of the
Church of God ; so will it ever be, except, perhaps, during the
short period of the last persecution of Antichrist, when the
Church herself will be reduced to an abnormal condition.
The Hermit life of the desert, the Monasticism of the East and
West, the Mendicant orders of the middle ages, the Congre-
gations of modern times, all these are but so many outward
channels of one perfect love, adapting itself to the ever- varying
wants both of her children and of the world during the several
periods of her life on earth. Nations and governments which
have grown cold in love because they have lost the faith on
which love rests, may break in pieces these outward channels,
but they cannot destroy the stream of love, which will only
spread itself more widely over the earth, and form for itself
new channels ; thus changing the earth^s hitherto desert places
into the garden of God, blossoming with the lily and the rose.
The loss will be to the nations that have wrought the work of
destruction, for they in their turn will become desert places ;
but their loss will be other nations^ gain. Nay, it may well be,
although the mercy will be undeserved, that those nations from
which the stream of love has been diverted will be deprived of
its fertilizing waters only so long as the strong arm of tyranny
holds them back. Centuries of persecution may alter the face
of the land, and change the very character of the people, but
no sooner has the grasp of the arm of tyranny been relaxed,
than they will struggle to flow back again, either seeking the
old channels, or making for themselves new ones ; so that the
land may again become like a watered garden, whose waters
fail not : then shall the children of the land build the " old
waste places; they shall raise up the foundations of many
generations ; they shall be called ' the repairers of the breach,
the restorers of the path to dwell in.^ ''
118 Terra Incognita, or Convent Life in England;
Happy the nation, especially in these days, which witnesses
the return of this stream of love through the restoration of the
Churches religious orders. For whatever mere worldly states-
manship may think, the very aim and object of which is utterly
to divorce the spiritual from the temporal, the Church from
the State, — an aim and object, which, if successful, can only
end in the idolatry of material progress, and the negation of
the rights of God over the creatures which His own hands
have made — no more potent agency for the true education
and civilization of the masses of the people, which forms the
question of modem times, no surer remedy for stanching the
many hideous, gaping wounds of modem society, themselves
the result of, more particularly in England, rebellion against
the Church of God and of the overthrow of the religious orders,
is to be found than in those institutions, which, springing from
the supernatural love of God, overflow in works of unselfish
charity and tenderest mercy to their brother-men.
Of this unmerited mercy, this return of the stream of super-
natural love through the religious orders of the Church, there
is not, we may safely say, a more remarkable instance than
that which is offered at the present time by this dear England
of ours, so rich in the things of this world, so poor before God.
Why this mercy has been shown, this love thusbeen given again,
it is not for us to inquire. The gifts and graces of God are
above scrutiny ; but we may observe in passing that we have
often thought that England's apostasy having been caused far
more by the self-will of the sovereigns who ruled her, the
selfish greed of her nobles, who hungered after the Church's
goodly lands and rich possessions, and alas I that we should
have to say, the unfaithfulness, in too many instances, of the
Bishops and clergy, who sought their own, not the things of
their Heavenly Master, — than by the fault of the people, who
were forced by fine and imprisonment to worship the God of
their fathers after a manner that their fathers knew not, in
buildings which their fathers had built, but which their rulers
and lords had desecrated and made desolate ; it may well be
that He, Whose ears are ever open to the cries of the oppressed,
may for their sakes be once more guiding back to England the
stream of the waters of supernatural love, that now, when the
winter is over and past, the land may again rejoice in what our
great Oratorian has called, in words that can never die, her
'' second spring '' ; and that the English people may have at
least one more opportunity given them, if they will only know
the time of their visitation, of showing before the face of
angels and of men what they might have been had they not
been robbed of their inheritance. Be this as it may, — and
Terra Incognita, or Convent Life in Etigland, * 119
whether or not the English people may know the hour of their
visitation, — the waters are returning. Dark and dry and
barren was the land when they had flowed away from it. All
spiritual life withered up, and the House of God become
desolate. The stones of the sanctuary were scattered in every
street ; the shrines of the saints were stripped of their sacred
relics ; the glorious abbeys and minsters became either a heap
of ruins or the whited sepulchres of a worship that had cast
away from its altars the living presence of the Holy One, or
the dwelling-places and banqueting-halls of earthly masters,
too often desecrated by revelry and sin. But the broken
arches of Bolton and Fountains, Glastonbury and Tintem,
speak to us far more vividly of the spiritual ruin of the Temple
not made with hands, built up in the souls of men by the
supernatural love of our Catholic forefathers, than of the de-
struction of their own material beauty. Canterbury and York,
Beverley and Gloucester, Lincoln and Durham, with their vast
aisles unused, and their sanctuaries unhallowed by the Awful
Presence, tell us far more of the utter desolation of the Eng-
lish people during that long period when the Church of the
living God and His religious orders were driven from the midst
of them, than of their own oppressive gloom. The abbey lands
and Church possessions, for so long the property of England's
nobles, have nourished, and are still nourishing beneath their
smiling prosperity, a cankerworm of social difficulty, which is
eating into the very vitals of the English people. But now
again the waters are retuniing. Even in the darkest days the
channels of Benedictine love and Ignatian chivalry were never
left so utterly dry but that a little trickling stream was not to
be discovered, forcing its way amid the rocks and stones and
weeds, which did their utmost to beset its progress, and to
hinder it from swelling to its full height of fertilizing power.
Here and there throughout the land, hiding in holes and dens,
was to be found some poor priest of the order of S. Benedict
or the Society of Jesus, whose love[for England was '' stronger
than death,'' and who by his death more than by his life,
helped to direct the struggling cuiTent of living water where
its quickening influence might most be felt. But scarcely had
the hour of persecution ceased than the waters of supernatural
love and religious life began to rise again in the old channels,
while since then new streams have flowed rapidly into the
thirsty land, until at the present moment almost every river
which maketh the city of God joyful is to be found in England.
The deep heavenly wisdom of Dominic's Order of Truth, the
seraphic love of the children of S. Francis, the unselfish zeal
for me salvation of the souls of men, which flows from the con-
120 Terra Incognita , or Convent Life in England,
templation of our Saviour's bitter Passion, as of our Redeemer's
deeds of love, the tender, affectionate, child-like worship of
the Mother of God, which wells forth from the teaching and
labours of the Servites of Mary, the simple, merry-hearted,
soul- winning service of Jesus and Mary, as seen in the lives
of the sons of Rome's own S. Philip, — here are some of the
streams of supernatural love and religious life which are glad-
dening many parts of our so long desecrated and forsaken
country; while rivulets, which we shall shortly number, of
woman's love for God and for God's service, in ministering to
the manifold wants of His creatures, are coursing merrily
through large portions of the once dreary waste ; all together
forming by their fertilizing waters a new land, unknown
perhaps to most of our fellow-countrymen — Terram Incog-
nitam — but in God's sight it may be the only true England,
fruitful in rich works of charity, and bright and fragrant with
many-coloured flowers of grace.
It is with the streams of woman's supernatural love and
religious life, which have helped to form this unknown land,
that we have more especially to deal, having been led to make
the above remarks by the perusal of the very remarkable
work, the title of which we have placed at the head of this
article — ^^ Terra Incognita." Nothing could possibly be more
opportune or useful at the present time, when prejudiced,
though no doubt well-meaning men, are pressing forward the
inspection of our convents, which are the outward receptacles
of so much of this living water of supernatural love, but which
in the opinion of the men we have just mentioned are at the
best but prison-houses of tyranny, when they are not some-
thing worse, than the publication of a work, which written, as
this is, in a pleasant, agreeable style, and of more than ordinary
literary merit, places before the eyes of all Englishmen who
are not blinded by prejudice or passion, the almost countless
works of woman's charity and mercy which have sprung up in
England and Scotland, from the hour when, comparatively
unfettered, the Catholic Church has been free to begin again
her divine mission in our island. Nay, as we hinted at the
very outset, no one, we think, can look dispassionately at the
marvellous manifestation of supernatural love, and of the higher
spiritual life, instinctively produced by the Church of God in
every land where her action is left untrammelled, without being
forced to the conclusion that she can be no mere human insti-
tution, but the very Mother of our souls. Not a few readers,
we trust, when they lay this article down, will not only cheer-
fully adopt this conclusion, but — what is better — act upon it.
At the time of the Catholic Emancipation^ the convents
Terra Incognita, or Convent Life in England. 121
were few indeed in this island, — we speak not now of Ireland,
of which ample mention is also made in the work before us,
treating, as it does, of the convents of the United Elingdom ;
for although subjected no less than her sister isle, to one of the
most desolating persecutions which the Church of God has
ever suflFered, Ireland has never for a moment ceased to be a
Catholic country, full of that faith which instinctively works
through love. Now at the present moment, there is hardly a
want of the human soul, or the human body, which woman's
love, inspired by the love of God, can meet, which it has not
learat to meet ; not of course everywhere — that would be im-
possible as yet, for the Church cannot work beyond her borders,
and they, alas ! are as yet narrow indeed ; but still, wherever
she has had the means and the power to put forth her strength.
Amongst the many wants which can be met by woman's love,
these, surely, are the foremost : the education of young girls,
whether rich or poor ; the visitation of the sick, whether* in
hospital or at their own homes ; the watchful loving care of
the orphan and the foundling, and of the poor young girl who,
through poverty or desertion, or bad example, or evil associa-
tion, lies open at every turn in this sinful and adulterous ge-
neration to the tempter's lust ; the reformation of those who
have fallen, and their restoration to an honourable life — the
most difficult, bufc surely not the least noble of all the works
of holy love, from the day when the Lord of love found no
word of condemnation for her whom the Pharisees condemned,
and chose the woman who had been a sinner in the streets of
Jerusalem, to stand by the side of His own Virgin Mother
beneath His Cross. Yet all these, within the comparatively
short space of forty years, have been met, wherever, as wo
have said, the Church has the means and the power, by
woman's supernatural love for God ; — and what but woman's
love for Him could have met them ?
If the education of the young be one of the most important
problems to be solved at the present time in this country, not
the least important part of it, considering the dignity of the
position held by woman in the society which the Church of
the Virgin's Son has helped to form, a position unrecognized
by any other religion in the world, is the training of young
girls, both rich and poor. Who can exaggerate the influence
of a mother's care ? Yet these are to be the mothers of a
generation yet unborn; and as they are, so will be their
children. It has been said, we do not remember by whom,
that most Frenchmen of the present day cling on to the faith
of their fathers, and owe their return to the practice of
Christian morality simply to their affectionate remembrance
122 Terra Incognita, or Convent Life in England.
of their mothers* love. But whether this saying be true or
not, it is undoubtedly true that it is their mothers' influence,
more than any other, which moulds, and guides, and even
when it has ceased to be exercised, still hallows the lives of
the greater part of men. But for this the mothers
must themselves first be subjected to the higher influence of
the religion of Him who has said : " Can a mother forget the
child of her womb; and if she should forget, yet will not I
forget thee, saith the Lord.*' And who, we ask, can better
infuse all the purifying and softening influences of religion,
especially among the poor, than those who, being the brides of
Christ, have learnt from Him His own more than motherly
love for all His little ones ? If we take the poor, it is evident,
from the ignorance and poverty of the parents, that the educa-
tion of the young cannot be carried on at their own homes,
which themselves, although in not a few instances affording
bright examples of Christian virtue, are too often exposed to
the degrading and demoralizing influences of evil. Nor even
at the best of our girls' schools under lay instruction, are the
same deep religious spirit, the sense of God's presence, and
the earnest practice of virtue to be found, which we meet with
in the schools under the loving care of those holy women who
have consecrated their lives to God. God forbid that we
should even seem to undervalue our schoolmistresses and
female pupil- teachers as a body, for they are doing excellent
work, which in many cases can be done by none else ; but no
one surely will say that they can in any great degree exercise
the same religious influence over the minds of the girls com-
mitted to their charge, as is the case with Sisters of Mercy or
of Charity, whose every thought is of holy things. Worldli-
ness, love of dress and finery, extravagance, gossip and tittle-
tattle, the aping of the manners and fashions without the
refinement of those above them, are sure to be found more or
less in all our girls' schools ; but it is only in those under
the care of religious, who, clothed in the habit of their Order,
diffuse by their gentle presence a spirit of unworldliness, re-
collection, and modesty, that these evils are successfully kept
in check and sometimes thoroughly eradicated. Enormous
must be the good done amongst the lower orders by our Con-
vent schools, for it is not confined to the girls educated in
them, but multiplies itself a hundredfold in many directions,
and throughout many generations. But here we cannot do
better than let our author speak for himself.
The greater part of these girls will be yet wives and mothers. Will they
not the better fulfil the duties of their station, from the early training in the
convent school ? Will they not seoujre the same advantages of education to
Terra Incognita, or Convent Life in England. 123
their daughters as they grow up ; and will not these in their turn, do the
same for their offspring ; and thus, for many generations, will not the good
example and the teaching of the Sisters . . . /entail priceless blessings on
the neighbourhood and the whole city 7 A girl educated at a convent school
may be married to a man whose early training has been neglected, who is
careless about his religious duties, who is 'but too ready to squander his wages
in dnmken dissipation. She has been well grounded in lessons of piety, patience,
and conformity to the will of God. She may be sorely tried; her patience may be
sadly overtasked, she and her little children may suffer the pangs of hunger and
other ills entailed by her husband's misconduct. Nevertheless she perseveres,
she prays, she performs her duties, domestic and religious, as best she can ;
and in time, not unfrequently, her prayers, and patience, and example will
be sure to effect that change which will restore the whole family to competence
and happiness.
On the other hand, to a good man, what a blessing a wife who has been
so educated — to her children what a blessing a mother who has been thus
early fitted for her duties ! To her husband every day, to her children as they
grow up, how beneficial the silent teaching of her example ! Do we not all
know, from our experience, what a powerful influence for good or evil is
wielded by the mother of a family ? Her family circle is her kingdom. Its
destiny is in her hands. There she is the centre of the system, the keystone
of the arch. ... If a good wife is a blessing in the home of the rich, she is,
in one sense, even a greater blessing to the poor man, inasmuch, as to him,
poor and friendless as she is, her place cannot be supplied. ^^ A good wife is
heaven's last best gift to man," says Jeremy Taylor ; " his angel and minister
of graces innumerable, his gem of many virtues, his casket of jewels. Her
voice the sweetest music, her smiles the brightest day ; her kiss the guardian
of his safety, the balsam of his life ; her industry, his surest wealth ; her
economy, his safest steward ; her lips, his faithful counsellors ; and her
prayers, the ablest advocates of blessings on his head ! "
So again with the education of young girls who, from a
worldly point of view, are destined to occupy a higher rank in
society. We are not of the number of those who think lightly
of home-education for those of whom we are now speaking,
whenever the home is truly deserving of the name. On the
contrary — such education possesses many advantages which are
not to be found elsewhere. Still, in this age especially, and in
the present state of society, if from no other reason than the
inevitable intercourse with others who are deprived of those
advantages, it is beset with diflSculties. And then, besides,
there are many instances arising from circumstances into which
we need not enter, in which home education is impracticable.
It is clear therefore that convent education not only supplies a
want, but is absolutely indispensable. And how many are the
privileges and advantages which it offers ! It is not among
the girls educated af our convent schools that we shall find the
unmaidenly forwardness^ the fast expression^ the flippant slang.
124 Terra Incognita, or Convent Life in England.
the fashion borrowed from those whom they inwardly condemn,
while they outwardly imitate, the supercilious criticism of even
the holiest things, which, seemingly clever, springs, as the
merest observer can discover, from utter shallowness, the
coldness of heart and absence of high principle which are the
inevitable result of worldliness, the voluptuous self-indulgence
and idleness which flow from the habitual reading of worthless,
and too often immoral novels — all of which things are changing
the face of English womanhood, and making it unlovely to the
eyes of true-hearted men ; and by which even Catholic society
— for how can the latter hope to escape altogether the prevail-
ing moral epidemic of the day ? — although in a less degree, is
still far too deeply tainted. It is not in our convents that these
things are met with, for they are simply inconsistent with the
purity, modesty, gentleness, self-sacrifice, devotion, and fresh-
ness of heart which form the very atmosphere of convent life.
Nor does this salutary influence end with the years spent
under the convent roof; for, by many winning ways of love,
such, for instance, as congregations or confraternities in con-
nection with the Convent, to which, even after their education
is ended our young girls, both rich and poor, may still continue
to belong, and by which they are enabled to keep ever fresh
and vigorous the beautiful spirit of their early youth, the good
work is carried on even into their after-life. Of these, our
author speaks as follows : —
Somewhat similar are the confriries of merit established in most convents
where young ladies are admitted, exemplary steadiness, and good conduct are
the passport of admission into these ; and at school, and in after-life, may a
young lady, destined to ornament and exercise a salutary influence over the
circle in which she moves, highly values the privilege of being able to sign
after her name the mystic letters E. de M., or, in other words, of having been
enrolled an Enfant de Marie. The Association of the Children of Mary has
been also introduced into the Convent primary schools of these countries.
The aspirants must give at least one year's proof of exemplary conduct before
admission into the Association. The institution is a great incentive to steadi-
ness, and assiduity, and general good conduct, as well out of school as during
school hours. We can better estimate its beneficial effects when we bear in
mind, first, that poor girls are constantly exposed to dangers and temptations,
from which the rich are comparatively exempt, and secondly, that the great
majority of these girls will, in time, be mothers of families, with daughters to
educate, both by precept and example. Some zealous priests have also
introduced this association for young girls, rich and poor, in their parishes,
with the very best results.
There are few sights more pleasing or more edifying than the gathering of
the Children of Mary in a parish church, on the recurrence of one of the
festivals of the Association. Here, the young lady of wealth and rank, the
hard-working seamstress, the child of the respectable mechanic, and the
Terra Incognita, (yr Convent Life in England. 1 25
daughter of the poor labourer, are numerously represented — all the children
of her whose hymn or litany they are now chanting ; and as their harmoniously
blending voices fall upon the ear, and the eye ranges over the choir and
transepts, filled by this youthful congregation united in a sisterhood of faith
and demotion, surely it is not too much to hope that He before whose altar
they pay the homage of their young hearts, will pour His choicest blessings
upon them, and enable them to conform their lives — it may be, in many an
instance, lives of hardship and privation — to that of her who is above all
others the great patronness and model of their sex (pp. 335-6).
Now, let us see, how richly and wonderfully the Church of
God, with her instinct of a true Mother^s heart, has hastened
to supply this great want of religious, education among our
young girls, rich or poor, since she has been free to act as a
Mother in the land. Almost every phase of supernatural love
and religious life, representing, — for grace follows nature,
while it lifts it above itself — the varied and delicate intricacy
of the impulses of the human heart inspired from on high, is
now seen in this island. The Sisters of Mercy, the Sisters of
Charity of S. Vincent de Paul, the Sisters of S. Paul, the
Sisters of Notre Dame, the Sisters of the Institute of the
B.V. Mary, or Loretto Nuns, the Faithful Companions of Jesus,
the Daughters of the Cross, the Sisters of the S. Heart, the
Sisters of Providence, the Sisters of the Immaculate Concep-
tion, the Sisters of the Holy Family, the Sisters of the Holy
Child Jesus, the Ursuhnes, the Nuns of the Presentation, and
many others, — all these are now to be found bringing the super-
natural wisdom of their founders to bear upon the hearts and
minds of our young girls, while certain of the elder orders of
our nuns, such as the Benedictines, Cistercians, and Carmelites,
the Poor Clares and the Servites, the Daughters of S. Dominic
and of S. Francis have learnt, in the spirit of love, to adapt them-
selves to the wants of the age, by adding the active life to the
contemplative in the cause of education. The Sisters of Mercy
have, in Great Britain, forty-seven convents; the Sisters of
Charity seventeen; the Sisters of S. Paul the Apostle thirty;
the Sisters of Notre Dame seventeen ; the Loretto Nuns four ;
the Faithful Companions of Jesus eleven ; the Daughters of
the Cross two; the Nuns of the S. Heart four; the Sisters of
Providence five; the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception
five ; the Sisters of the Holy Family five ; the Sisters of the
Holy Child Jesus six ; the Ursulines one ; the Ursulines of Jesus
one ; the Nuns of the Presentation one ; the Nuns of the
Assumption two ; the Canonesses of the Holy Sepulchre one ;
the Poor Sisters of the Schools one ; the Nuns of Notre Dame
de Sion three ; the Sisters of La Sainte Union two ; the
Congregation of Jesus and Mary two ; the Nuns of the Faithful
126 Ten^a Incognita, or Convent Life in England.
Virgin two ; the Sisters of Charity of our Lady of Mercy two ;
les Dames de S. Andr^ one, with another in Jersey ; les
Dames Religieuses de la Croix one ; the Sisters of S. Joseph
two; les Dames Anglaises one; the Bridgettines one; the
Sisters of the Christian Betreat one; the Nuns of Mary
(Religieuses Maristes) one; les Dames de Marie one; the
Congregation of Mary one ; the Sisters of the Most Precious
Blood one ; the Apostoline Nuns one ; the Nuns of the Visita-
tion one ; the Benedictine Nuns eight ; the Cistercians one ;
the Carmelites five ; the Poor Clares five ; the Franciscan Nuns
ten ; the Dominican Nuns eight ; — all of them so many cisterns
of the living waters of supernatural life and love, for the
refreshment of the thirsty land. Nor, looking from a purely
secular point of view at the education given in convent schools,
is it less desirable, especially for the children of the poor.
Chapter xxxii. of the book now before us will be found to con-
tain an interesting summary of the results of Convent elemen-
tary and training schools in the North-western division of
England as certified by Her Majesty's inspector, whose reports
(for the year 1870) are the more valuable that they are the last
that will be thus separately given, as all denominational in-
spection ceased at the close of that year. Both as teachers of
the young, and trainers, of pupil-teachers, the Nuns are most
highly praised. Speaking of some of the schools conducted by
Nuns, at Preston, Manchester, and Salford, he says : —
I do not think it possible that public elementary education could accom-
plish more than is effected in these schools and others like them. Any one
acquainted, even superficially, with the daily life of the children frequenting
them, and with the influences habitually offered by home example and street
companionship, will be fiUed with admiration of the teachers whose labour
haj9 achieved so much (quoted at p. 479).
And again, with regard to the training of pupil-teachers, he
reports : —
Of the successful pupil-teachers, six times as many have been reared by
nuns as have been brought up by secular schoolmistresses. Indeed, this
up-bringing of well-handled pupil-teachers is perhaps the most useful of the
school duties undertaken by nuns, and the one in which the superiority of the
results effected by their labours is the most conspicuous (quoted at p. 486).
According to this Report of Her Majesty^s inspector, the
Sisters of Notre Dame and the Faithful Companions of Jesus
are not to be surpassed as teachers in the United Kingdom.
Even, therefore, from a purely secular point of view, it is of
the utmost importance that the number of our convents should
be multiplied as much as possible. But charity and mercy are,
as we have said, many-sided in their action, and we have count-
Terra Incognita, or Convent Life in England. 127
less other wants besides education. We need not^ then, be sur-
prised that convents have sprung up with extraordinary rapidity
throughout the land, in which aboiost every want of human misery
is met. Thus, many of the Sisters already mentioned, in
addition to their educational duties, have also reformatory
schools, orphanages for poor girls, or institutes for young
women, or houses of retreat for ladies who may wish to devote
a few days or weeks to meditation and prayer, or to retire
from the world without binding themselves irrevocably to the
religious life ; or they undertake the care of hospitals and the
visitation of the sick at their own homes. The Sisters of
Mercy, besides having, as we have seen, the care of schools,
discharge also hospital duties, and conduct orphanages, reforma-
tory and industrial institutions. The Sisters of Charity of
S. Vincent de Paul have orphanages, workrooms for girls,
creches or nurseries for infants, and very young children whose
mothers are out at work all day ; while some of their number
are engaged in visiting the poor, and sick, and destitute.
Orphanages or industrial schools are also kept by the Sisters
of Notre Dame, the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, the
Sisters of the Faithful Virgin, the Sisters of Charity of our
Lady of Mercy, the Poor Clares, the Franciscans, and the
Dominicans, the latter having also the charge of hospitals
for the incurable. In like manner there are other orders of
women, who devote themselves exclusively to the care of the
aged or the fallen or to the visitation of the sick. There are
the Little Sisters of the Poor, who, by their gentle and patient
ministry have won for themselves the love and gratitude, not
only of every city or town in which they may have settled, but
of the Protestant Press ; and who without any means for their
own support but a faith which never falters in the Providence
of Him, without Whose knowledge not even a sparrow falls to
the ground, and Who has told His followers to have no care
for the morrow, for the morrow shall take care for the things
of itself, still managenot only to feed and clothe and maintain and
solace large numbers of poor of both sexes, and without respect
to the religion they may profess ; but even to provide them
with those little delicacies and luxuries which are so acceptable
to the aged. We venture to say that no similar institution,
founded upon the spirit of mere philanthropy or benevolence,
could last a twelvemonth ; whereas the homes of the Little
Sisters both flourish and multiply. They have now eleven
houses in England and Scotland.
Here is a description of one of these establishments, that of
Portobello Road, Netting Hill, as given by our author : —
Here are eighty men, and one hundred and twenty women, all over
128 T&n'a Incognita^ or Convent Life in England.
sixty, and some indeed having attained a very advanced age, ministered to
and supported by the willing hands and kindly hearts of the Little Sisters.
There are two main divisions of the house — that of the men, and that of the
women.
In the first we see a number of comfortably clad, happy old fellows, in the
several rooms, or the exercise-ground, — here a group at cards, with a circle of
intent lookers-on ; here a knot of grey-beards, gossiping of old times ; here
quiet spectacled readers of some entertaining book ; here a venerable patriarch,
tottering on the verge of the grave, gently led about to get a mouthful of the
summer air. Several are enjoying their pipes ; for the Sisters contrive
somehow to keep them supplied with tobacco, in moderate quantity and on
this daily quest, are considerately handed by good Christians, odd scraps of
the soothing weed for the comfort of their poor old clients. . . . The women's
division is no less interesting than that of the men. The numbers are half as
many again. Some knit stockings, and otherwise usefully fill up their time ;
some quietly loll in their easy-chairs ; all or nearly all enjoy their dish of
chat ; and some few of them address us. We noticed a few extremely aged
These are looked after by their companions. All appear to be most comfort-
ably clad.
The kitchen is well worth a visit. Here are the crust-drawers — tiroirs d,
croHtes, Some of the broken bread is laid by in one, as fit only to be thrown
into the soup. In another are stale loaves and pieces of loaves, which may
very well help out the breakfast. The meat, too, is carefully sorted, some for
soup— every particle of the nutritious properties being extracted by a powerful
boiler — and some for a savoury stew. Choice morsels, too, are carefully laid
aside— here a mutton-chop, and here a portion of a fowl, for poor old delicate
appetites. Tea leaves, or coffee grounds, ordinarily thrown out, are thank-
fully received by the Sisters, and by an ingenious process of stewing, made
marvellously productive. In fact, their devices to furnish a feast from slender
materials are well worthy to stand beside the far-famed expedients of
Caleb Balderstone; but there is this difierence, that in results accomplished,
the good nuns are immeasureably more successful than was the sorely per
plexed chef of Ravenswood. ,
Everything is turned to account ; and this, in time, becomes well known
throughout the circle of their roimds, and thrifty housekeepers will say, " Do
not throw that into the dust-bin, it may be useful to the Little Sisters." Then
as we move through the cleanly, well-ventilated dormitories, we notice the
patch-work quilts in which many a bit of otherwise useless stuff, or cotton, or
silk, is utilized by these nimble fingers. Old clothes, too, male and female,
are wonderfully refreshed and turned, and remodelled by their needles. . . .
The fare of the Sisters is the same as that of the poor, whose servants they
are. They, as well as their clients, depend altogether on the bits and scraps
of their daily quests.*
The visitor to any of their houses will be particulai-ly struck with the
* We believe that we are not wrong in adding that the " Little Sisters " are
obliged by rule to content themselves with only the leavings of their aged
poor. The latter must always tiiko precedence.
Terra Incognita^ or Convent Life in England, 129
cheerful, happy aspect of the community. One of their leading rules is, let
them endeavour to surround their poor with an atmosphere of cheerfulness "
(pp. 280-1).
What a contrast to the cold, desolate, sullen, heartless
atmosphere of those prison houses of our poor, our English
workhouses, where the last years of declining life are spent in
misery, and where the infirm and the dying are waited on by
pauper nurses, rewarded for their ministry, it may be, by a
glass of spirits, while they are left at the last moment, as we
ourselves have seen, to breathe their souls away into the pre-
sence of their Judge, their last agony being thus made more
agonizing, amid the peevish interruptions and even blasphe-
mous jeers of companions, whose hearts have never been
hallowed by religion, or softened by human love. What a
blessing for our aged and infirm, if our workhouses were in
the hands of ministering angels such as the Little Sisters of
the Poor, or the Sisters of Nazareth, who devote themselves
to similar labours.
Then, too, there are the Nuns of the Good Shepherd, who
have twelve houses in the United Kingdom, and whose object
*' is the rescuing and reformation of women and girls who have
fallen, and the protection and care of those who are in danger
of falling into evil courses.^^ The Sisters take a fourth vow in
addition to the ordinary ones of poverty, chastity, and
obedience, *' to employ themselves in the instruction of penitent
girls and women, who submit themselves voluntarily, or shall
be found, by legitimate and competent authority, to submit
themselves to the guidance of the religious of this congrega-
tion, to be converted and do penance " :—
The Nuns have three classes of subjects under their charge : —
The Penitentiary Class, consisting of fallen women ; inmates of their
Magdalen Asylum ;
The Eeformatory Class, comprising juvenile offenders against the law,
such as are contemplated in the provisions of the Reformatory Schools Acts ;
The Preservation Class, which is composed of girls, who, either from their
friendless unprotected state, or the bad example and evil associations by
which they are surroimded, would, if not rescued, be likely to fall into vicious
courses. This last class is that for which the Industrial Schools Acts have
been framed.
These three classes are kept severally quite distinct, their houses and
exercise-groimds being divided by high walls, and in fact, as completely
separated as if they were several miles distant from each other. ...
.... After a few years in the Asylum, those penitents who by their conduct
give evidence of thorough reformation, and are in other respects considered
suitable, are enabled to emigrate to America, the Canadas, or Australia
where female servants are in demand. They get an outfit ; their passage is
VOL. XXI. — NO. XLi. {New Series,'] k
loO Terra Incognita, or Convent Life in England,
paid ; and they are provided with letters of recommendation to the convents
of the congregation in the places for which they are bound. Thus, on their
arrival, they find friends and protectors, and through them obtain employ-
ment, and so make a fresh start in life (pp. 196-7).
When we think of the immense extent of the fearful evil, to
meet which these Sisters labour, our regret can only be, that
they have not a convent in every large city and town of the
island, for it is not by the harsh word, the look of shrinking
scorn, the cold uncharitable judgment, — no, nor by the public
meeting and the long, sanctimonious address — but by the
charity that thinketh no evil of women purer than themselves
that the broken reed of these fallen ones^ life must be lifted up
once more, and the smoking flax of hope, weU nigh extinguished,
kindled again into a bright and burning flame. Yet who but
the Virgins, who even in this world follow the Lamb who
washes away the sins of the world wheresoever He goes, though
it bring them into contact vnth the pollution of the outcast
and the sinner, could ever devote a whole lifetime to labour
such as this ? —
To each of these fallen ones, says our author — in most cases the victims of
poverty and neglect, and far less guilty than those who have occasioned their
fall^ — thoughts of repentance come, at one time or another ; and it is all-
important that there should be a home to receive them at such a moment
and kind friends to teach, and encourage, and aid them in their endeavours
to lead henceforward exemplary lives. Such are the objects for which this
congregation was instituted ; such are the functions to which the labours of
the sisterhood are unceasingly devoted ; and from the lips of the pure and
holy daughters of religion the words of hope and encouragement are sure to
fall with tenfold efi'ect (p. 200).
Nobly are the Nuns of the Good Shepherd seconded in their
labours of redeeming love by the Congregation of Our Lady of
Charity of Refuge, which has two houses in England, and will
be, no doubt, before long, still more so by the Daughters of
the Cross, to the spirit of whom, no work of mercy, of what-
ever kind, is considered foreign ; its end being '' the glory of
God and the Sanctification of the Sisters by means of external
works of charity, performed in an interior spirit/^ At Li^ge,
in Belgium, they have under their charge a prison of solitary
confinement, a house of refuge, a hospital for fallen women,
and a house of preservation for young girls, in each of which
their labours have been blessed with well-nigh unlooked-for
success. At the house of refuge, from the 1st April, 1842, to
the 31st December, 1868, there have been received 1,508 peni-
tents, of whom 578 have returned to their families after giving
proofs of amendment, 458 have been placed in service, 113
Terra Incognita, or Convent Life in England. 131
have been sent to other establishments^ 37 are dead^ 15 are
married, 185 have left at their own request, and only 33 have
been expelled for insubordination. A most interesting con-
densed report of the foundations and establishments of this
admirable Congregation will be found in chapter xxvi. of the
work we are reviewing j and we must again express our hope
that before long its daughters may be engaged in similar
labours in England, for the harvest of our poor fallen ones^
souls is indeed great, while the labourers are few. The work
of preservation is carried on by many other orders, amongst
whom we mention the Dominicanesses, Franciscan Nuns, the
Servants of the Sacred Heart, and the Sisters of Marie R^para-
trice, and Marie Auxiliatrice, who provide houses of Mercy for
female servants out of place, or young women of the class of
milliners and needlewomen, or special houses for governesses
and young girls employed in commercial houses. How much
these are needed in our large towns may be gathered from a
circular recently issued by the Rev. Mother Prioress of one of
the convents of the Dominican Nuns in a manufacturing
district : —
The establishment of a work or serving clajss for young girls is one other
charity which we have very deeply at heart The dreadful state of vice and
immorality into which the labouring classes are plunged is most distressing.
Young people are herded together in the large factories, and one contamina-
ting another, so that it requires a miracle of grace for any young girl to con-
tinue innocent, whilst it is utterly impossible for her to remain ignorant of
sin, and I grieve to say that the greater number of poor girls who lose their
virtue is very great, and that God only knows to what a depth of degradation
and misery they fall. My heart bleeds for them, for they are almost forced
into sin, and we have at least some, especially our Catholic girls, from the
miserably demoralizing effects of evil companions, we have built a work-room,
and established a class of girls whom we employ in sewing ; and we likewise
set apart a portion of each day for secular instruction. . . . Up to the pre
sent we have done as much, or more than our means should have allowed us,
and we feel that there must be many charitable persons who would gladly
share in assisting those little ones of Christ, and in keeping as many of these
poor girls virtuous as possible ^ (quoted p. 320).
We do not find that as yet any foundling hospitals, in the
strict sense of the word, have been established in England.
Perhaps public opinion is still unprepared for them. Perhaps
the thought that they might lead to the increase of the miser-
able sin which requires their establishment is still too strong.
For our own part we believe that in the moment of passion the
after-consequences are hardly ever adverted to, while the evil,
once accomplished, further dangers can only be avoided by
institutions such as these. Surely, in these days of hideous
K 2
132 Terra Incog nita^ or Convent Life in England.
baby-farming, by means of which so many tender infants, to
escape the trouble of nursing them, are dosed with opiates to
such an extent, that if they recover, their brains are injured
for life, and of infanticide multiplied so fearfully, that, if we
remember right — we speak, however, under correction — forty
per ceM^., according to Dr. Lankester, of children bom in London
are murdered by their own mothers' hands, the establish-
ment of foundling hospitals has become absolutely imperative.
If the cry of labourers, defrauded of their hire enters, as the
Apostle tells us, into the ear of the Lord of Sabaoth, what
must be the cry of so much innocent blood in the ears of the
God of Mercy, the Lord of the Sacred Heart? Who can doubt
that one day it will call down the vengeance of the Most High
on the guilty land that has so thirstily drunk it in ? There are
many Englishmen who, like the late Dean of Canterbury, can
go to Bome, and coming home again, can write books in
which they tell us, that they thank God they are leaving the
corruptions of the city of the Popes behind them, and returning
to the simple, moral homes of England ; but they forget, that
as long as this fearful evil exists — an evil almost unknown in
Rome — there can hardly be a country on the face of God's
earth so hateful in God's eyes, because crimson-stained with so
hideous a crime. Of one thing we may be sure, that as soon as
the necessity of foundling hospitals is recognized, there are
already Orders of Mercy and Charity in the land ready to
begin them, and we thank God for it.
There is no one in England, we suppose, who, after the
writings of Florence Nightingale, will deny the immense
superiority of the ministry of woman's love over the dearly-
grudged services of hired nurses in the care of hospitals. It is
a joy for us to think that there are now hospitals in England
under the care of the Sisters of Mercy, the Sisters of Charity,
and the Daughters of S. Dominic ; and it is a thing indeed to
be wished for, that such hospitals should be multiplied a
hundred-fold, and in addition, that our orders of religious
women should have free access, at least to Catholic bedsides,
in every hospital in the land. What a perfect Catholic hospital
really is may be learnt from the description of the Mater
Misericordice Hospital in Dublin, as found in chapter xiv. of the
work now before us — the italics are of course our own : —
This hospital (says the Government Inspector) promises in our opinion
to be, when complete, one of the finest hospitals in Europe. . . .
The hospital is kept scrupulously clean, and its ventilation and indeed
all its internal arrangements seem admirable. Patients are admitted without
any recommendation other than the fitness of the case for admission, and all
classes of disease are eligible, except infectious fevers.
Teira IncogiiiteL, or Convent Life in England. 133
Since this was written (adds our author) the eastern wing has been built,
and opened for the treatment of fever and other contagious diseases. The
building of this wing, or more correctly speaking, side, of the quadrangle
has cost £14,000, to which must be added a further sum of £1,750, the cost
of 150 beds, furniture, and fixtures. Of this large outlay no less than £10,000
have been contributed by the sister themselves^ anxious as they are, not only to
employ their available resources and their time, but to sacrifice their health
and their lives, if necessary, in ministering to that class of human suffering
from which naturally one would expect that ladies would sensitively shrink.
But in the words of one of the most eminent physicians in the kingdom.
" Contagion has no terrors for those who have devoted their lives to God*s
service."
It is a pleasing fact that the Mater Misericordice Hospital numbers among
its supporters men of all shades of religious opinion. It is open to patients
of every creed. To be sick and destitute is a sufficient passport to fling open
its portals. A walk t^irough the spacious and well-ventilated wards, a view
of the patients in their neat, comfortable beds, the many ingenious appli-
ances and arrangements around, the physicians prescribing at the bedsides^
the nuns engaged in their holy work — here whispering a word of consolation,
or encourgement, here administering a cooling draught to the parched lip of
a poor sufferer— the whole air of order of cleanliness, and peace speaks more elo-
quently and impressively than any description. But the gratification of the
visitor at all that he beholds is many fold enhanced by the reflection, that
this is common ground, on which all Christian communions can gracefiiUy
unite in the discharge of the duties of Christian charity. The eminent
physician, whose words I have quoted, is of a different creed from the Sisters ;
so is another gentleman, equally distinguished in his profession (Sir W.
Wilde) : " I have the honour of bearing my meed of testimony to those noble
ladies, of whose bounty and charity, and willingness to minister in all respects
to the temporal and spiritual welfare of this institution, I have had long
experience." He is followed by the Solicitor-General (now Baron Dowse),
who observes :
" It is not only a work of charity — but of Christian charity — Christian in
the noblest and truest signification of the term. . . . Sophists may tell us
that many of the maxims of Christ are to be found scattered up and down
the pages of heathen authors ; yet it is to Christ and His Divine Spirit alone
that all the blessings of Christian civilization are due ; and Christianity alone
can organize such a system of beneficence. ... As a Protestant I feel pride
in taking part in this work, for in this place relief is administered to all with-
out consideration of sect or party. ... I have made inquiry into the mode
of management of this and kindred institutions in this city, and I have found
that no attempt is ever made with the faith of the sick or dying. In the
case only of those ladies who minister to the paiients can the inmates of the
hospital, who are of a different creed from its managers, read the lesson of our
common Christianity. In the House of Commons, during the discussion on
the Church Bill, where a member for a northern coimty said, * If the surplus
was distributed as then proposed, it might be used for proselytizing purposes,'
I sdd in reply to him then what I say now, that the hospitals to which
134 Terra Incognita^ or Convent Life in England,
allusion was made were conducted on different principles, and solely with a
view to relieve the sick or needy, quite irrespective of religion or party ! »
These words were spoken on the occasion of a public meeting held in the
board-room of the hospital, under the presidency of the Cardinal Archbishop
.... Especially deserving of notice are the words of the Cardinal, as to the
principle of respecting the rights of conscience which ought to be the rule of
all such institutions : '^ Whilst taking care in an especial manner of those
who belong to the Catholic body, the nuns, at the same time, take the greatest
precaution lest there should be any interference with the patients ^who belong
to other churches. They are allowed the fullest liberty to practise their
religion — they are allowed to call in the ministers of their own Church, and
prepare themselves in any way they think fit to meet their Eternal God. I
believe this is the case in the other hospitals of Dublin, with, I am sorry to
«ay, one exception " (pp. 170-174).
We need hardly add that that one hospital was not in the
hands of Sisters of Mercy or of Charity, for one of its rules was
no Catholic priest should be admitted to administer religious aid
and consolation even to dying patients of his own communion.
On the other hand, such as is the Mater Miser icordice Hospital
in Dublin, will be every hospital under the loving care of our
Orders of Religious Women.
But it is not only in the hospital that the sick and the dying
are to be found. Many are the lonely homes, both of the
rich and poor, where the sick-bed would be desolate indeed,
and uncared for, were it not for the gentle, patient, untiring
ministry of hands consecrated to the love of the Crucified One
in His suffering members. To meet this want we have the
Sisters of Bon Secours, who attend the rich at their own
houses during the night, taking, as we are told, in obedience
to their rule, five hours rest during the day.
This institute, recently introduced into this country, is regarded as an invalu-
able boon. When the Bon Secours Sister is in the sick-room, the family of the
patient may feel as secure at night, as if they all watched at the bedside of their
relative. Nothing that can contribute to the ease and comfort of the sick
person is omitted by the Sister. Every change is watched ; every symptom
is noted ; and the instructions of the physician are most scrupulously obeyed*
Moreover, the sick and dying are especially aided and consoled by these
experienced and holy daughters of religion.
Then again we have the Sisters of Mis^ricorde de Seez, who
nurse the sick, rich or poor, in their own homes ; the Sisters
of the S. Heart, already mentioned, who, in addition to their
other work, visit the poor and sick of their several districts ;
the Sisters of the Finding of Jesus in the Temple, who perform
the same labour of love, and, in addition, receive ladies into
their own houses. It is these refinements, so to speak, of
Terra Incognita, or Convent Life in JEnglam^d. 135
ministering love which testify perhaps, more than anything
else, to the Divine inspiration which first called these Orders
into being, and the Divine support by which they are con-
tinually nourished and maintained. It is only from the Heart
of the Man of Sorrows that they could have sprung ; it is only
by the healing grace of the great Physician of our souls that
they can endure and prosper.
We might be quite certain that amongst the many maladies
of man, those of his mind would not be forgotten ; and so
during the last few years there have come to us the Nuns of
S. Augustine, who, by long and careful training, have fitted
themselves for this most arduous and painful of duties. Nor
are the blind and deaf and dumb, we may be sure, forgotten
by the Sisters of S. Vincent de Paul.
There are, besides, in the midst of us such orders as the
Poor Servants of the Mother of God, who by lowly labour,
as for example, laundry-work, serve God in holy religion, and
at the same time minister to the wants of their fellow-men.
These and such as these we have ever amongst us in times
of peace ; but charity is for all times, and so whenever war
breaks out, with all its attendant evils and miseries, the gentle
Sister of Charity and Mercy is found in her own proper
place upon the battle-field, shrinking from no danger, whether
of cannon-ball or shot, but tending the wounded soldier in
his agony, while whispering in his ear words of comfort and
of hope. Of the Sister of Mercy, whose life is devoted to
tending the sick and sorrowful, and who shrinks from no
office, no matter how unpleasant, the Times military corre-
spondent from Orleans writes on Christmas Day, 1870 : —
" She seems to be regarded by sick or wounded officers and men as a being
outside the ordinary routine of human affairs, and as what she calls herself —
a Sister. Not a word is whispered against her, not a laugh or ribald joke is
heard either in her presence, or concerning her in her absence. We may
object to immuring women in convents, but there can hardly be a second
opinion of these kind souls who are doing women's work with all a woman's
tenderness, and from the highest motives. They are perfectly submissive to
discipline, and may be considered as a very superior class of nurses'' (quoted
at p. 131).
Hitherto we have been considering only the orders of
active love and mercy, and when we come to sum these up,
we shall find, we think that not merely every want, but almost
every refinement of every want is now beginning to be met in
Great Britain ; not indeed to the full, but more than enough
to show what the Catholic Church is ready to do through her
Orders of Religious Women, when she will be able to put
136 Terra Incognita , or Conve7it Life in England.
forth her full strength and energy. But man is composed of
soul as well as of body, and there are wants of the soul,
higher far than those of his body, higher even than those of
his mind, which must be met in like manner if he is indeed to be
useful in the part he has to play in the society of those around
him, and if he is successfully to fulfil the great work for
which he has been created and placed in this world. In the
hour of weakness, when hope of help from God or man seems
to have gone away for ever ; when no light from heaven is
shining on his path to cheer or gladden him ; when the truths
of the faith seem to have no longer any force to sustain him,
and the Sacraments of the Church any power to save him ; —
in the secret hour when the boy is trembling over the thought
of his first sin, or the maiden is standing on the very verge of
the precipice, over which she may be hurled down to the ruin
and loss of all that is beautiful and pure ; or the strength of
the strong man is parched up by the fiery heat of passion, or
the long-tried faithfulness of the virtuous woman is about to
yield beneath temptations stronger than she has ever met
before ; in the dark hour, when the intellect lifts itself up in
pride against the foolishness of the love of Christ ; in the cruel
hour when the privations of poverty are too sharp and piercing
to endure — what can help boy or maiden, man or woman
then ? God for a moment is forgotten ; the ministry of His
Church avoided ; human sympathy is of no avail, for even if
ofiered it will irritate rather than soothe, disgust rather than
soften. What can woman^s ministering love do here, where
all else has failed ? In these hours of bitter misery there are
wants of the human soul which it cannot reach. But there is
a ministry of woman's love which can reach them, the
ministry of prayer. Who shall say how often, where all seemed
lost, the heat of passion has been cooled, and the dark cloud
of unbelief been swept away, and the gold of the poor man's
poverty been kept bright and pure by the silent prayer of the
cloistered nun in some quiet convent chapel for all who are
struggling, or in danger of falling in their hour of need. The
world may still profess admiration of our active orders of
religious women, but the contemplative orders they consider
as little better than barren fig-trees cumbering the earth, for
they cannot understand them. The sensual man cannot
search into the deep things of God. We all of us remember
the story — whether true or not, it hardly matters, it will
serve our purpose — of the gifted preacher, to whom, when
having converted many souls by an eloquent sermon, it was
revealed by God, that not to any of his fine words, but to a
poor deaf woman sitting on the pulpit-steps who had not heard
Terra Incognita, or Convent Life in Englund, 137
one of them, yet who all this while had been saying ' Hail
Maries/ that they might sink into the souls of the hearers,
was the grace of conversion due. Even the works of active
charity depend upon the hidden influence of prayer, and it
may well be, that at the last day before the Great White
Throne the contemplative life of Mary, who has chosen the
better part, the one thing needful, will have a richer reward,
because productive of richer results than the active life of
Martha, careful and troubled, as it is, about many things.
Yet in England too we have contemplative orders of holy
women to minister by silent prayer to the higher wants of the
souls of men, while they give to God a higher worship than
their more active sisters. The Daughters of S. Benedict, and
Mount Carmel, of S. Augustine and S. Dominic, and the
Sisters of Marie E^paratrice, although some of them, as we
have seen, have learnt in England's hour of spiritual want to
lend themselves to works of active mercy, are ever mingling
their adoration of God's attributes or their worship of the
great Sacrament of His love with fervent intercession for the
souls of men.
Such are some of the streams of supernatural love and
mercy, which woman's hands are now directing into suitable
channels, so as to water, refresh, and fertilize our parched and
barren land. Yet there are those who would stay their further
progress by narrowing some of these channels, and choking
up others altogether. Truly they know not what they do.
It may well be hoped that the men who are of such a mind
are for the most part altogether ignorant of the immense
amount of good done by our nuns, as recorded above. It is
simply to them Terra Incognita, an unknown land which they
have never taken the trouble to explore. Yet, no doubt,
oven if they were to become better acquainted with the real
state of things, it may abo be, that through religious prejudice,
their eyes would still be blinded to the advantage of conventual
establishments, and their hearts steeled against them. We
will therefore briefly consider some of the more prominent
objections raised against convent life. For this purpose we
cannot do better than place before our readers a summary of
our author's ninth chapter, interspersed with some remarks of
our own.
Allowing to the utmost, it may be urged, that the good
done by conventual institutions is very great, it must still
remain a very anxious question* whether all the inmates are
happy; whether they are free agents, and not sometimes
treated with harshness and caprice. Might they not be glad
even to escape? Consequently, ought not Government to
138 Terra Incognita^ or Convent lAfe in England,
issue a commission with full powers to visit all convents,
separately examine the nuns, and liberate all those who may
be there against their will !
From the following remarks it will be seen that such appre-
hensions are absolutely without foundation, and therefore that
a Government commission would be simply unnecessary, not
to say, an insult to our nuns themselves.
No one enters a convent except after mature reflection, and
guided by the advice of her confessor, who is thoroughly
acquainted with the state of her soul, her character, and
tastes. With the approval of the Bishop or his delegate she
begins her conventual life as a postulant, that is, as one who
postulates or asks for admission into the order. For six
months her vocation is tried in every possible way, far more
severely in all probability than it will ever be in her future
life, and at any moment she is free to leave. At the end of
the six months she is questioned by the Bishop, at a special
private interview, and if she is considered by her superiors as
fit for admission, she receives the habit and the white veil.
After this she has two years more of probation, or even
longer — in the Congregation of the Sceurs de la Oharite it is
five years — ^when, if she still desires to enter the order, she is
again privately questioned by the Bishop, one month before the
term of profession, and if still considered fit by her superiors,
she is professed, by wearing the black veil and taking the
vows. There is yet another safeguard. The professed nuns,
all experienced in the nature, duties, and obligations of the
religious state, or the Superioress- General and her Council as
the case may be, have to decide, according to conscience, first
after six months of probation, and secondly two years later,
whether the applicant is adapted for the conventual state, or
likely to persevere in harmony with themselves, and at peace
with God. Lastly, at the moment of her solemn profession
the future nun is publicly questioned by the Bishop in the
presence of the clergy, the nuns, and her own friends. Here,
beyond all doubt, we have more of precaution than is usually
adopted in choosing any worldly profession.
This is not all. Even after profession, should any nun wish
to return to the world, she would no doubt be remonstrated
with in a spirit of motherly correction and tender love, but
should she still persist, there is nothing which could possibly
prevent her leaving. Her act must rest between her own
conscience and her God. Sometimes, although very rarely,
cases may arise in which it becomes necessary for a professed
nun to leave her convent, and then the step is taken with the
consent of the Bishop of the diocese. There are in the United
Terra Incognita^ or Oanvent Life in England. 139
Kingdom 488 convents, 258 in Great Britain and 230 in
Ireland ; but as the communities are larger in Ireland than in
this country, we may fairly estimate the number as about the
same in each island — 3,300 in Great Britain, 3,300 in Ireland.
Now, we ask, if in these convents there be any nun who is
desirous of returning to the world, or kept in religion contrary
to her will, what is there to prevent her leaving whenever
she may wish? Most of our nuns being engaged in active
works of mercy, are constantly passing through our streets on
their way to the school, or the houses of the sick and destitute,
and nothing could be easier for them, than to ftnd the means
of returning to their friends, or of making known their wishes
to the local authorities. In a country like England, especially
where religious prejudice runs so high, neither sympathy nor
assistance of every kind would be wanting. Yet who has
ever heard of such a case, although we have heard indeed of
a nun bringing an action against her convent for having been
released from her religious duties ?
Again — in the United Kingdom there are 6,000,000 of
Catholics, viz. 4,141,933 in Ireland and about 2,000,000 in
Great Britain. But from these 6,000,000, says our author,
" we never hear a word of complaint that the inmates of
convents are subject to harshness or held in durance ; and yet
they are, of all Her Majesty's subjects, those, after the nuns
themselves, most interested in the question; inasmuch as
nearly all the nuns of the United Kingdom are the sisters and
daughters of their number. Then, they are the most com-
petent to form an opinion and to speak with authority on the
subject. They best know the convents ; they have contributed
the means to build them and the several charitable institutions
in connection with them They constantly visit the nuns,
and their daughters either frequent the convent schools as day
scholars, or reside as boarders within the convent walls. ....
Every day we have instances of young ladies, who have been
educated in our convents, entering as j)ostulants, and becoming
professed nuns. Among them are several daughters of the
oldest noble families in the kingdom ; among them are many
of the daughters of the middle classes, sensible commercial
and professional men ; then there are some of the daughters of
the working classes, who enter as lay sisters. Surely, if
convents were places of distrust and homes of unhappiness,
these young ladies would not enter them, or be allowed to
enter them ; and the voices of numbers of Catholics would be
raised on behalf of the ill-treated and imprisoned inmates. All
this is deserving of the consideration of those well-meaning
gentlemen, some of them members of the legislature, who
140 Terra Incognita, or Convent Life in Englaiul,
call for a committee of inquiry into convents, and who appear
altogether to overlook the silence and happy tranquillity of six
millions of their fellow-subjects, who must know much more
of the matter than they can, and who have their sisters and
daughters professed nuns in those institutions, and send their
children to be educated there, with the likelihood that some
of them may consequently get religious ^vocations, and, in
time, become professed nuns in the several orders/^ We do
not hesitate, therefore, to say that any Parliamentary inquiry
into the state of our convents would be regarded by six millions
of the inhabitants of these kingdoms as a wanton insult, not only
to their intelligence and affections, but even to their morality.
Let Parliament fully understand that the Catholics of Great
Britain and Ireland are perfectly capable of safe-guarding the
interests of their daughters and sisters, and, at the same time,
are fully alive to their own sense of responsibility. Never
will they tamely submit to any such inquiry; for to do so
would be to abdicate their own rights as parents and brothers
and to forget their manhood.
Then again it may be objected that no woman ought to be
allowed to bind herself by vow to a convent life, for who can
tell how soon she may change her mind ? Our author's
answer to this objection is well put, and very much to the
point. It is this : ^^ May not those who marry change their
minds ? they have elected to marry. They may regret their
choice of the married state. Nay more : they may be un-
happily married. But the marriage vow is irrevocable. It is but
too true that marriages are often contracted without due con-
sideration, on a very brief acquaintance between the contracting
parties. Not so the choice of a religious life. As we have
already seen, those who are permitted by the Catholic Church
to take religious vows do so only after a long probation, in
which their vocation is well tested, and it is not likely that
they should change their mind.'' Compare for a moment the
large amount of blighted happiness springing from ill-assorted
marriages in England, as made known to us by the sad reports
of the Divorce Court, with the happy, flourishing state of our
convents ; and that it is a happy, most happy state all those
who have ever had any experience of it can bear willing
witness — for who so cheerful, so merry-hearted as our nuns ? —
and then say, while making every allowance for the com-
paratively small number of those who adopt the religious life,
which of the two vows is the more likely to be broken, that
which often hastily and for motives of mere worldly interest
welds two human lives into one, or that which only after long
Terra Incognita, or Convent Life in England. 141
probation and for the highest motives consecrates a young,
generous heart to God.
With regard to the vows themselves, the chief difiiculty felt
by the Protestant mind is of course in connection with that of
chastity. The world does not believe in a life of perfect
chastity, — it cannot understand it. Chastity is now classed by
some of our organs of public opinion as one of the virtues
that have become extinct, or at the best but as a relic of the
past. The fragmentary Christianity professed in England has
rejected it as one of the counsels of the Gospel. But the
Catholic Church, to whose mind the Spirit of Christ is ever
bringing back to her remembrance all things whatsoever He
has said, knows full well that her Divine Founder's words
remain true for ever : " Not all men receive this saying, but
they to whom it is given. Nevertheless I say unto you. He
that is able to receive it, let him receive it ; ^' and that therefore
the grace of the Giver of the good gift will never be wanting
to those to whom it is given, in order to enable them to keep
it fresh, and bright, and pure. She remembers, too, that
enthroned upon her altars is the Giver Himself, ever ready to
strengthen what He has given by the power of His Virgin
flesh which He took from His own Virgin Mother, and which
is the secret of all virginity; for "what is His beautiful thing,
and what is His good thing, but the corn of the elect and the
vine which bringeth forth virgins V And so with perfect
trust and confidence she allows those of her children to receive
Christ's saying, whom she knew to be able to receive it.
Surely it ought to be a matter of serious consideration to all
earnest-minded men who still receive the sayings of Christ as
the Words of Life, that if there be no system upon earth
which advocates a life of virginity, then there is nothing left
upon the earth which reflects the perfect mind of Christ. It
is the Catholic Church alone who, like the Virgin Mother, of
whom she is the type, just as that Virgin Mother is a typo of
herself, has kept all her Lord's sayings and pondered them in
her heart, and what is more, carried them out into practice.
We have said more than enough, we feel sure, in answer to
the chief objections urged against our convents, which in the
earlier part of this article we have seen bringing women's love
for God to bear upon England's wants and miseries. It
only remains for us to urge the perusal of Mr. Murphy's
useful and admirable work, not only upon our Catholic readers,
but upon all who take an interest in woman's work in general,
and even upon those who, through prejudice or ignorance,
may look upon convent life as dangerous and opposed to the
142 Terra Incognita, or Convent Life in England,
true interests of society. 'No member of Parliament, we
earnestly trust will give his vote on any measure that may be
brought forward for inquiry into the state of our convents, or
for their inspection, without having done so. Interesting
accounts will be found given of the origin of our chief con-
gregations of religious women, together with much valuable
information with regard to the first institution of Nuns, and
the ancient Religious Orders. Seven or eight chapters are
devoted to the consideration of British and Irish primary
education in the past, in transition, and at the present
moment; while a careful Appendix throws much additional
light upon the whole subject. Not the least valuable feature
is the admirable index, by which the reader is enabled to refer
at once with the greatest ease to any part of the work.
There is, however, one chapter to which we wish to call
especial attention, that, namely, which treats of the legal
position and property of nuns in the United Kingdom.
That in this country religious orders of men, and all gifts
and bequests to them are illegal is well known ; although, as
the law prohibiting them is unjust and therefore evaded, it
is to be hoped that before long, in accordance with the sugges-
tion of the select committee appointed in 1870, on the motion
of Mr. Newdegate, this unsatisfactory state of things may
cease to exist.
" We had before us," say the committee, " numerous witnesses represent-
ing both the religious orders, and the R Catholic laity, who all concurred in
complainiug of the law, as above stated, and of the tenure of the property
produced by that state of the law as a giievance. It waa represented to us as
inconsistent with the principles of religious liberty to prohibit and make
penal the taking of monastic vows in conformity with the religious belief,
and with the conscientious convictions of Her Majesty's R. Catholic subjects.
So long as the law gives no binding force to those vows, so long as they
remained mere voluntary engagements binding only on the conscience, and
undertaken from a sense of religious duty, it was concluded by those witnesses
that the law should not treat them as criminal acts. In like manner the law
which prohibits, * as superstitious uses,* the saying of masses or prayers for
the dead, was represented as a grievance to R. Catholics. They attach
great importance to such intercessory prayers. The first clause of the R. C.
Charities Act of 1860 enables the Court of Chancery, where property was
given both to superstitious and to charitable uses, to apportion it, and to
declare new uses in lieu of the superstitious use, leaving the rest of the founda-
tion valid ; but this section does not satisfy the wishes of R. Catholic
founders of charities, who often set the greatest store precisely on those
superstitious uses which the Court, under that section, is enabled to set aside.
" It was stated before us that the religious orders discharge important
functions in the religious and educational system of the R. C. community,
Terra Incognita^ or Convent Life in England. 143
inasmuch as the orders of men supply parish priests for 121 missons or
parishes, which are dependent on their ministrations, the number of secular
priests in the country being insufficient for the requirements of the R. Catholic
body. They exercise in this way cure of souls for 278,850 persons. They
also educate and supply missionaries for India and the Colonies. They
educate in England 1,192 students of the higher and middle classes, at ten
colleges, and 92,260 poor children at various schools. They assist various
poor missions out of the resources at their command. The orders of women
educate in England 65,321 children, and in Scotland 3,710 children. They
house and provide for 379 penitent women in England, and 102 in Scotland.
They visit and relieve many thousands of the sick and indigent. It was
represented to us as a grievance that the persons by whom this spiritual and
educational machinery was worked to the satisfaction of their co-religioniste
should be treated by the law as criminals, or should be in a position of doubtful
legality.
" It was urged that respect for the law was likely to be weakened in the
minds of those who received education from teachers whose very existence
was in violation of a law regarded by our Catholics as trenching upon the
rights of conscience . It was for this urged that the law against perpetuities,
the law of mortmain, the law against undue influence, and the laws protecting
personal liberty ; none of which were objected to by the R. Catholic witnesses,
were amply sufficient to check all abuses in conventual and monastic institu-
tions, and to prevent all improper and excessive acquisition of property by
them, without having recourse to penal clauses which never had been put into
operation, or to such a doctrine as that which condemned articles of R.
Catholic belief under the name of superstition. It was argued that public
policy would be better assisted by allowing monasteries and convents to hold
property under tmsts ascertained and declared in the usual way, capable of
being enforced by the ordinary tribunals, and assisted by the inspection of
the Charity Commissioners, instead of driving them to rely upon that system
of holding property which we have above described " (viz. pp. viL viii. of the
Report) (quoted at pp. 381-2).
Our nuns, indeed, do not labour under the same disabilities
as do our religious orders of men, unless, perhaps the 31 of
George III. c. 32, sec. 17, by a forced construction comes to
be applied against them — an attempt, however, which, as our
author points out, would be all but certain to break down. By
a recent decision in equity (July 26, 1871, Cooke v. Manners,
before Vice- Chancellor Sir J. Wickens), nuns who are engaged
in active duties of charity (e.g., the Sisters of S. Paul), are
not to be distinguished in any respect from other charitable
associations, such as Scripture Readers, Home Missionaries, or
Anglican Sisters of Mercy, and bequests to them are valid,
good as to the pure or unmixed personal property, but bad as
to the mixed personalty, so much of it as savours of real
property) ; while our contemplative orders of women (e.g. the
Dominican Nuns of Carisbrooke) are regarded as mere
144 Terra Incognita^ or Convent Life in Englaml.
voluntary associations, not for charitable purposes, but for the
purposes of working out their salvation by religious exercises and
self-denial. They are considered therefore as analogous to
London clubs, and bequests to them, not being charitable
bequests, are altogether valid, both as to personal and real
property (pp. 389-90). Nevertheless, as the wealth of our
nuns has been greatly exaggerated, it may be well to point
out that far from this being the case, they are for the most
part very poor ; and this for the following reasons, given by
our author: — 1st. " Their income is in itself small; 2nd. Small
as it is, it is encroached on by their numerous clients ; 3rd.
They are, nearly all, more or less in debt for the building and
furnishing of their charitable institutions'^ (p. 391). Yet Mr.
Newdegate and those who think with him would cripple their
narrow means still more by charging the dowries brought into
our convents with succession duties. " The gain resulting from
such a measure to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the
British tax-payer,'* continues our author, " w<5uld not amount
in a hundred years to a penny in the pound on the sum
occasionally lost to the nation, through an error in the con-
struction of an iron-clad. But let us not be unjust to the
honourable gentleman. His action is not prompted by
regard for the pocket of the British tax-payer, — it is suggested
and perseveringly maintained by an unrelenting hostility to
convents — a hostility for which they are sorely puzzled to pro-
duce one intelligible reason. Happily the British House of
Commons is not of this opinion on the subject '' (p. 392),
Our task is done ; and our readers will now be able to have,
at least, some idea of that " unknown land," which, watered
by the streams of woman's supernatural love, is being cultivated
all around them. We cannot believe that in England, where
justice and fairplay are always stronger even than religious
prejudice, this land will ever again be allowed to fall back
into a barren waste. Rather we believe — and our belief is
encouraged by the desire of imitating the noble example of our
sisterhoods which we see so rapidly taking root in the Anglican
Establishment — that even fresh tracts of uncultivated ground
will be added to the garden of God. And now for the summing
up of the whole matter. It need not delay us long. Where
is the human institution which, no sooner than the hand of
oppression is removed, could thus instinctively have rushed
forward to meet, by the tender ministry of woman's love,
almost every want of the souls and bodies of men, and in so
short a space of time have, in proportion to its strength, accom-
plished such great things ? Where is the church of human
origin, however great and powerful, which has ever thus
The Irish Brigade in the Sermce of France. 145
utilized woman^s work ? A good tree cannot bring forth bad
fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. By
their fruits ye shall know them. It is in the kingdom of His
love alone, the Church which He has purchased for Himself by
His own Blood, that supernatural love overflows with such pro-
fusion, and divides itself into so many separate fertilizing streams
of tenderness and mercy. Surely the Catholic Church, even
in this land, has once again made good her claim to be, what
she herself has never ceased to profess to be, the true Mother
of Mankind, because the Bride of Him who has loved the sons
of men with a love stronger than death. Men may take from ,
her her glorious sanctuaries ; they may throw down her lordly
altars ; they may strip her of her riches and her jewels, but
one thing they cannot do ; — they cannot make her forget that
she has received this commandment from the God of love, that
" he who loveth God, loves his brother also.'^
Art. VI,— the IRISH BRIGADE IN THE SERVICE
OF FRANCE.
The History of the Irish Brigade. By John Cornelius O'Callaohan.
Glasgow : Cameron & Ferguson. «
THE world knows too little of the Irish Brigade. History
in general, perhaps, is too little known in her true
aspect, owing in part to the faults of the pens which have
undertaken to place past events before the eye of the present,
for bias and prejudice have so disported themselves on the
historic field that while the undiscriminating have been led to
swallow all manner of audacious assertions, the more wary
have come to be of the opinion of Sir Robert Walpole, who,
when his secretary proposed to read him a history, replied —
''Bead me something that is true.^^ The more modern
chronicles of Ireland in particular have too often been of such
a nature as to suggest the idea that her appellation of
"Island of Destiny'^ foreshadowed both her political troubles
and the portraiture to which she was doomed on the foolscap
of generation after generation. She has been the battle-
field of the pen, as Belgium of the sword. Her literary fate
has in some measure followed the outlines of her political fate
as a nation. Polemical writers without end have assailed her
with the guns of Boyne Water, and have renewed the
VOL. XXI. — NO. XLi. [Neiv SeriesJ] l
146 The Irish Brigade in the Service of France.
massacre of Drogheda times out of number ; while not a few of
her truest children, in their well-intentioned eflPbrts to defend
her^ have renewed the blunders of Kilrush^ Letterkenny^ and
Newtown- Butler. Others, it is true, have won their Blackwaters
and Benburbs on paper ; but as a rule the patriotic writers of
Ireland have either soared too high on the wings of bombast, or
have plodded along roads too dry and dusty to be followed by
' any but very enthusiastic readers. All these things have formed
a good pretext for the prejudices of such as were content to
dislike the Irish people generallv, either in a broad and
"liberal," or in a narrow and old-fashioned style, without
knowing anything in particular about them. Fate, however,
has of late years begun to smile more kindly on the island
which bears her name, and the time has long passed away
of which Lord Maeaulay said that the Irish were then re-
garded in England as foreigners, and that of all foreigners
they were the most hated.
The story of the Brigade is one of the most interesting
episodes of Irish annals to the lover of military romance, and
one of the most instructive to the philosophical student of the
past. It is true that the men of the *' White Cockade "
figure more conspicuously in the history of other countries
than in that of their own ; but they sprang as a body out of
her defeated loyalty, her long-tempted fidelity, and the
oppressions under which she groaned during the greater part
of the eighteenth century. They were the weapon wherewith
she assailed her foe and master, on ground neither his nor
hers ; and they were a weapon all the sharper for being forged
by his own hand. It was the bitter winter of a system that
deprived the Irish Catholics of the education and occupations
of civilized beings, which drove these flights of " Wild
Geese" to wing their way from the deep, bowery bays and
hidden creeks of the West to lands where a warmer social
clime prevailed.
The Irish Celt was a soldier by instinct, — he naturally loved
fighting so well that, in default of other foes, he had of old
been too prone to gratify his warlike inclinations upon his
brother Gael. On several occasions he had acquitted himself
nobly in the field, when led there beneath the banners of his
own princes to meet the Saxon; but it had been too well
proved that his powers lay rather in dash than in endurance,
a circumstance which, together with certain mining operations
of a political rather than a military character on the part of
his foe, and divisions among his native leaders, had contributed
to more than one national defeat. Freed from the baleful
influence of that spirit of dissension which ever since the
Tlie Irish Brigade in the Service ofFrcmee. 147
earliest Milesian era had hovered oyer' Ireland like her evil
genius^ and of which her enemies in later times so well knew
how to avail themselves, the Irish officers and soldiers on the
Continent had fall play for their inborn valour and abilities^
now crowned by a perfect acquaintance with discipline^ long
lacking in the military history of their nation. We shall have
occasion to notice a little further on the remarkable revolution
effected by foreign training and tactics in the martial genius
of the Irish soldier. At the same time the advantages were
far from being all on the side of the emigrants ; and this fact
was fully recognized by the foreign nations whose service
they entered. Sovereigns and generals rejoiced at the short-
sighted policy of England, which placed in their hands a sword
of such temper to be used against herself. Neither Spanish
exclusiveness nor French national vanity ever precluded the
attainment by Irishmen of the honour they so well deserved ;
and such as had borne high rank among the Gael found it so
fully recognized abroad that not even the terrible etiquette of
the court of Vienna stiffened itself against the right of an
O'Donnell to rank among the princes of Europe.
After the flight of the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell in
1607, when the glory of the Elizabethan war of ten years,
though set in blood and in the gloom of despair, yet threw
an after-glow of military glory upon the nation, there was a
great gathering of Milesian heroes beneath the castled flag of
Spain ; for Spain was then their ally, their refuge, and their
hope ; and though she had bestowed upon them little besides
professions during the late* struggle, they cherished a warm
affection for the nation which had conferred on their princes
the honours due to royalty, and had fed and pensioned their
exiles, while they also paid much regard to the kinship between
Spain and Erin proclaimed by the bards. Indeed, the land
of the Cid proved a kind foster-mother to many of those
Irishmen who devoted themselves to her service, while she
still held out hopes of that second Armada which was finally
to drive the Saxon out of Erin. The civil war of 1641, how-
ever, drained Spain and Flanders of their Irish troops ; and
the next and greatest military exodus, that of 1691, set in the
direction of France. On the conclusion of the civil war in
1653, when so many Royalist officers were banished by Crom-
well, some offered their swords to France, others to Spain ;
and a troop of Irish horse, together with two or three foot
regiments, served in French armies under the great Turenne.
It is to one of these corps that Madame de Sevign^ refers as
having been clothed by Turenne at his own expense ; though
she falls into the mistake of calling it un regiment Anglais.
L 2
148 The Irish Brigade in the Service of France,
Still, there was no military emigration of very large di-
mensions from Ireland to any one country until 1691, when
the hopes of the Irish Catholics were fixed on France as they
had been fixed on Spain in the beginning of the century.
As Spain had then been the ally of O^Neill and O'Donnell, so
France was now the ally of James II. ; and to her, occupying
as she did the old position of Spain at the head of European
nations, the Irish looked to aid themselves and their king.
Times had changed since the British sovereign was the enemy
whom they chiefly dreaded, and against whom all their efforts
were brought to bear ; the day had now come which saw the
Gael of Erin rally around a King of England with all the
ancient love of clansmen for their chief and prince, and which
heard them proclaim that he should be their sovereign though
all his other crowns were reft from his brow. In spite of the
pusillanimous conduct of James in their own country, they
clung to him still ; and when nothing better remained to be
done for their cause, irreparably associated with his, the
flower of their native forces went into exile to serve his ally,
until such time as they might once more serve himself and
Ireland. Thus arose that celebrated corps which spread the
renown of Gaelic genius and daring from the banks of the
Seine and Rhine to the walls of Pondicherry.
Mr. O'Callaghan^s work on this interesting subject is
marked by a highly painstaking character, and we can well
imagine that it must have cost him the great amount of con-
scientious labour which he pathetically describes as " painful.^'
It unfortunately partakes too largely of that dry and complex
style which repels many readers so effectually. Though it may
be natural to Truth to be hidden in a well, it is not every one
who will descend into one to seek her. Moreover, a rage for
emphasis has led him to smother his lines in italics, a
peculiarity which seems, strangely enough, to be shared by
every author from whom he quotes. Nevertheless, he has done
his country a good service by writing so minute and accurate a
record of that great standing army which she possessed on the
Continent for the space of a century, and which, though
circumstances continually prevented it from striking a blow
for her at home, she may justly reckon among her most
honourable facts of the past. The domestic movement
out of which it sprang was loyal and constitutional in its
character. Only by an unnatural stretch of such prejudice
as still occasionally shows itself, and in former times constantly
showed itself — with regard to Irish political affairs, can the
war of 1689 be called in any sense a rebellion. For if the
monarchy were strictly hereditary, James was king by every
The Irish Brigade in the Service of France. 149
right; if elective, the Irish people were perfectly at liberty
to choose him as their sovereign. As Mr. O^Callaghan asks,
at p. 3 of his book, "If popular election, instead of hereditary
right, were to decide the possession of the royal dignity, on
what principle were the Irish, as a distinct nation to
be precluded from electing James, when the English and
Scotch claimed a right to elect William ?" The answer is, on
none save that of force, which unfortunately was the principle
on which the English of that day best loved to proceed in the
affairs of the sister isle. In defiance of the position estab-
lished by the letter of the law, they chose to regard Ireland
as an appendage of the British nation rather than of the
British Crown ; as a conquered country, bound to follow in
the wake of her conqueror. Every consideration, political
and religious, every claim of gratitude, obliged the Irish to
support the only king of England who had ever conceded to
them the rights of civilized beings ; and their loyal aflFection
for James II. ought to be a sufficient answer to whosoever
may assume that no benefits conferred on the Irish will ever
make them grateful. It is seldom that the character of a
nation so forcibly belies that of the individuals composing it ;
and that very struggle of 1689, with which Ireland is often
bitterly reproached, sufficiently refutes the accusation. Kind-
ness had never been tried with her before; when it was tried,
at the dictates either of love or of self-interest, it won her heart,
and all the warm affections of a people who beheld in James II.
at once the descendant of their ancient kings and the bene-
factor of that country whence his race was derived.
It is one of the strange circumstances which may be called
the paradoxes of fact, that the Irish Brigade, destined to be
as it were the principle of victory on so many continental
battle-fields, and the portion of the French army most dreaded,
or, to use an untranslatable French word, most redoute, by
hostile commanders, originated in the exigencies of necessity
and defeat. The nucleus of this famous corps was formed by
the five regiments brought to France by Lord Mountcashel in
May, 1690, whilst the war was going on in Ireland. At the very
time when Louis XIV. was required to assist his Britannic
brother in the arduous task of recovering his kingdoms, he
was himself hard pressed by the League of Augsburg; and
the Grand Monarque, like many other great monarchs, found it
impossible to afford the aid demanded of him without receiving
some equivalent. In the spring of 1 690, James, who, besides
his failures at Enniskillen, Londonderry, and Newtown Butler
during the previous year, had suffered immeasurably by the
pusillanimity which kept him all the winter from attacking
150 The Irish Brigade in the Service of France.
Schomberg^s demoralized forces, felt himself much in need of
the prestige and discipline which would be imported into his
army by a body of French auxiliary troops under the com-
mand of distinguished French officers. Louis accordingly
accommodated him with the help of 6,000 veterans, com-
manded by that Comte de Lauzun who had been disappointed
of marrying the king^s spirited cousin. Mademoiselle ; but he
required from the Irish an equivalent, which fortunately
they were able to give him. At the commencement of James's
troubles, when the Earl of Tyrconnell had appealed to the country
for fresh troops, her answer came in the shape of 100,000 men.
Unfortunately, Ireland was as poor in purse as she was rich
in gratitude, and the difficulty of arming and training this
willing army, mostly composed of raw though stalwart youths,
rendered the Irish commanders glad to exchange a portion of
their army for the well- equipped troops of Louis. Accordingly
this first instalment of the Irish Brigade arrived at Brest in
the beginning of May, 1690, under the command of Justin
MacCarthy, Lord Mountcashel, the accomplished nobleman
who had escaped with so much aplomb from his captivity at
Enniskillen. The French generals and officers beheld with
sparkling eyes these tall fresh- complexioned young Irishmen,
with their straight figures and rich, fiery speech, recognizing
in them the precious ingots which a little French training
could coin into sterling soldiers. They were remodelled into
three regiments, all of very large dimensions, since their
whole number was little less than that of the French force for
which they had been exchanged. As strangers they received,
like the Swiss, a sol per day more than the pay of the native
soldiers ; and already they bore the name which generations
of their countrymen were destined to render glorious in the
eyes of Europe. They were termed generally the Irish
Brigade of Mountcashel. The Viscount himself was colonel
of one of the regiments, and the other two were, in the first
instance, commanded by Daniel O^Brien, a son of Lord Clare,
aijd by Arthur Dillon, a son of Viscount Dillon of CastoUo and
Gallen ; while beneath their banners were incorporated those
two other Irish regiments which were in part composed of
Turenne's veterans, and of which we think Mr. O^Callaghan
has omitted to make mention. Strange how these Irish
Catholic aristocrats, who, by an exceptional stretch of the
mercy of Charles II. and the Duke of Ormonde, had been re-
stored to their estates while so many of their countrymen
were consigned to ruin, now once more returned into exile
for the love of another Stuart king I
Joptin Macarthy, Lord Mountcashel^ who may be called
The Irish Brigade in the Service of France, 151
the first founder of the Irish Brigade, well represented the
ancient Celtic aristocracy of Ireland, for in his veins flowed
the oldest and the noblest blood of Munster ; and though de-
feated as a general at Newtown Butler, his personal and
almost unsupported efforts to retrieve the day bore ample
testimony to a valour worthy of his race. On his arrival in
Prance he submitted himself to be tried by a French court of
honour for his escape from Bnniskillen, and was acquitted;
and now, although still suffering from the effects of his wounds,
he felt himself free to resume with a stainless name his
military career on foreign ground. Mr. O'Callaghan presents
his readers with portraits of this celebrated officer, showing
him to have been a man of elegant aristocratic appearance,
with the arched eyebrows, almond-shaped eyes, and full lips
so common with the high-born magnates of that period.
The brigade of Mountcashel had no sooner arrived in
France, and been remodelled after its new form, than two out
of the three regiments which composed it were required to
prove their valour in the cause of their new employer. The
political arrogance of Louis, which fully equalled his private
courtesy, had surrounded him with a circle of foes; and in
April, 1690, he became aware that Victor Amadeus, Duke of
Savoy, ostensibly his ally, was in reality a party to the Augs-
burg League, and was only awaiting a favourable opportunity
of openly turning against him. The first army despatched by
the Grand Monarque to punish his deceitful little neighbour
entered Piedmont uuder the command of Catinet ; but it was
in the second, which was to act in Savoy, that two out of
the three regiments which as yet composed the Irish Brigade
were destined to serve. By a strange coincidence, the army
of Savoy was commanded by St. Ruth, who little thought, as
the stalwart regiments of young Irishmen passed before him,
how soon he was doomed to die on an Irish battle-field. The
commencement of the campaign was somewhat retarded by
the remodelling of the newly arrived troops and the length
of the marches ; and before the Irish reached the appointed
seat of war their own king, James II., who unfortunately
commanded the armies of their native land, had furnished the-
occasion of innumerable First of July sermons by losing the
battle of the Boyne, and was hurrying back to France with
the tidings of his own disaster. But whilst one portion of
Europe was mourning and another rejoicing over the defeat
of Irish soldiers badly equipped and worse generalled in their
own country, their compatriots in Mountcashel's brigade,
among the rough passes of Piedmont, were already showing
what they could do when freed from those disadvantafi^es. At
152 The Irish Brigade in the Service of France,
tlie fight on the Isere Lord Mountcashel's own regiment in
particular won its first foreign laurels ; and though we may
regret that on this occasion the Irish were opposed to a
De Sales, it is impossible to read of their dashing up-hill
charge, and their pursuit of the enemy " to the highest tops
of the mountains ^^ (whef e poor De Sales was taken hiding
among some vines), without detecting a promise of the glorious
career of the full brigade, never so daring or so cheerful as
when their ground or their situation was against them. The
operations in Piedmont were altogether a complete success ;
and they were so in great part owing to the efficiency of the Irish
troops, whose worth Louis was thus enabled to appreciate.
Late in 1690 St. Ruth was recalled out of Savoy, where
Marshal de la Hoguette replaced him, and sent to Ireland
to take the command of the Jacobite army. His Piedmon-
tese experiences had already taught him that Irish soldiers
were well worth commanding; but in stepping on their
native soil he entered an atmosphere where jealousies, dis-
sensions, and prodigality of time and opportunity were
endemic, and extended their influence even to the stranger
of foreign blood. The old feuds of Gael and Gael were passed
away ; but the personal grudge, the unworthy envy, in which
the spirit of division now took refuge, had not died with
them. The spite of Tyrconnell against Sarsfield had already
done mischief at the Boyne, and his anxiety to keep out of
the way the Spanish O'Donnell who bore his own title with
the prefix of " Count,'' was another source of defeat. St.
Buth fell under the influence of the same moral disorder on
entering the infected country. The conduct of the poorly
equipped Irish soldiers both at Athlone and Aughrim must
fully have borne out the opinion he had formed in Piedmont
of the national military character ; and we may boldly affirm
that had not his life been cut short at the most critical moment
of his last battle, Aughrim had been another Blackwater.
But equally might it have been a glorious victory for Ireland
had not his jealousy of Sarsfield kept that valiant officer at too
great a distance from the spot, and in too complete ignorance
of his commander's plans, to retrieve the battle.
The capitulation of Limerick in October, 1691, swelled the
little brigade of Mountcashel into the splendid corps which,
for nearly a hundred years clinched the victories or covered the
retreats of the French army. On the 4th of October, the day
after the somewhat unnecessary signing of the memorable
treaty, the army of Limerick gathered on the Clare bank of
the " azure river " to choose their own lot in life. They were
at liberty either to return home, to enlist under William's
The Irish Brigade in the Service of France, 153
banners, or to enter the service of foreign powers ; and by far
the greater number chose the latter course. We have no
hesitation in affirming, that so far as the v^elfare of their
country V7as concerned, this choice V7as a mistake. It de-
prived Ireland of much of her life and vigour ; it subtracted
from her living arsenal all those strong and able young men
who had taken their first lessons in the art of war under
Lauzun, St. Ruth, and Sarsfield; and it is very possible
that her conquerors felt the less hesitation in laying on
her shoulders the burdens which oppressed her for more
than a century, because her fighting men, who had ap-
proved themselves no contemptible foes at Athlone and
Limerick, had emigrated to foreign shores. Later, when
the penal code already fettered Ireland hand and foot,
numbers of spirited young men entered the French and
Spanish services, in defiance of all threats and perils, because,
as innumerable songs and ballads inform us, ^' they would not
live at home as slaves.^' But it is impossible to repress a doubt
whether their state of bondage was not in some part due to
the first exodus of so much Irish thew and sinew, especially
when we remember the eagerness of James I/s government,
and still more of Cromwell, to drive out of Ireland those who
were best acquainted with the use of arms. Had it not been
for the military articles of the treaty of Limerick — not so
shamelessly violated as the civil articles, because they were
chiefly acted on at once— it is probable that every man who
had borne a share in the war would have been banished to
foreign lands.
Yet we are far from saying that the Irish Brigade was
altogether one of the mistakes of history. Probably there
was hardly a soldier who filed to the left on that October day
beneath the walls of Limerick, thereby declaring his resolu-
tion to follow Sarsfield into the land whither their king had
fled before them, who did not expect to return at last to
Erin as a component part of an invading army. All doubt-
less believed that they would best serve their country by
adhering to the profession of arms, and by fighting, as most
of them did, under the standard of their sovereign's ally, who
would surely employ them eventually in the re-conquest of their
own country. Ireland was seldom taught by experience. The
lessons which the beginning of the century had branded into
her heart, teaching her that if not the want of good faith, at
least the necessities of foreign monarchs too often prevented
them from aiding the struggling Gael, were soon forgotten
and effaced.
K a national revenge were the object of the men of the
164 The Irish Brigade in the Service of France.
Brigade^ then indeed they attained it. England was destined
to find in the Irish soldiers abroad the most formidable of her
foes, the destructive but unavailing Nemesis of the violation
of the treaty, and of all the wrongs that followed.
Before the end of January, 1692, more than 19,000 Irish
troops had arrived at Brest, whither James II. hastened from
St. Germains to receive and to review them. He owed them
some courtesy, as a poor compensation for having ruined the
campaign of ^90 by constituting himself their commander-in-
chief. But whatever his faults as a general and as a man, he
had completely won the heart of the nation whence these soldiers
sprang by his removal of the abuses which had existed during
the reign of Charles II., his renewal of the Act of Settlement,
and his emancipation of the Catholic religion. And no sooner
had Sarsfield^s 19,000 men been reviewed in two separate
divisions at Brest, than they gave a pratical proof of their
warm-hearted gratitude to King James.
" Upon capitulating with the enemy,^' says a quaint Jacobite
document quoted by Mr, O'Callaghan, " they [had] stipu-
lated also with their own French general, that they should
be put in France upon strangers' pay ; but when they were
modled at Rennes, it was regulated they should have but
French pay, to which they acquiesced merely to please their
own king, and in hopes the overplus of their just pay, amount-
ing to 50,000 livres a month, retrenched from them, might
abate the obligations of their master to the French court.
The world knows with what constancy they stuck ever since
to the service of France, because it was to his Most Christian
Majesty their master owed obligations most.'*
Individuals suffered severely by this ^^modlement" at Rennes,
and by that amalgamation of many regiments into a few,
which seems to have been a favourite s^tem in France at the
time, and which must greatly have spared the military chest.
But we are at a loss to see why it was that the old or Milesian
Irish suffered most. This is not the first complaint made
against foreign nations for preferences shown to the Anglo-
Irish above the Gael. A prejudice in their favour was sup-
posed to exist among the authorities of the College of Sala-
manca, and was the cause of a cutting memorial presented in
1602 to Philip III., who promised to redress the grievance,
notwithstanding which it was mentioned at the synod of
Tyrcraghin, in 1635. Was it that the sensitive, embittered
Gfaelic spirit, accustomed to see wrongs at home, saw them
everywhere? Or was it that old traditionary English pre-
judices against the ^' mere Irish '^ had silently infected other
countries f However this might be, James II. himself, who
Ths Irish Brigade in the Service of France. 155
(except perhaps for his rancour against the Sheemess fisher-
men who had called him Hatchet-face^ so much ridiculed by
Macaulay) was far more amiable in adversity than in pro-
sperity, felt keenly the deprivations of those young Irishmen
who suffered with him and for him, and he lost no oppor-
tunity of showing how fully he appreciated their devotion.
His public proclamations and private letters alike bear tes-
timony to what was certainly not the " graceful gratitude of
power '' to the successful, but the more graceful gratitude of
the unfortunate to the unfortunate ; and he announced his
intention to clear off, on his Restoration, all the arrears that
should be wanting to make their pay full English.
Of the 24,430 men who composed the Brigade when those
who arrived after the surrender of Limerick were superadded
to MountcashePs three regiments, Sarsfield^s 19,000, though
fed and clothed by Louis, were to be considered as belonging
to James, acting under his commission, and only lent by him
as occasion might require to " his royal brother of France.''
They were formed into two troops of horse guards, two
regiments of horse, two regiments of dismounted dragoons,
eight foot regiments, and three independent companies of
foot. So great had been the eagerness of the Irish Catholics
to serve King James abroad, that many even of the sergeants
were of gentle blood ; while the colonels and other com-
missioned oflScers, representing as they did many of the noblest
and best families of Ireland — O'Donnells, O'Neils, Mac-
Carthys, Dillons, Rothes — also represented various phases of
national grievances — confiscations, persecution, outlawry, and
a host of similar ills. Louis might well congratulate himself
on the loan of an army Ukely to prove so formidable to his
enemies. Fortunately the interests of Louis and of James
were at this period identical; for William III., who had
ousted the latter from his throne, was the soul of the league
which drew a hostile cordon round the former. And had it
not been for Tourville's naval defeat at La Hogue, it is pro-
bable that the hopes which were cherished by the Irish troops
of early striking a blow in their own cause would have been
gratified, and that they would have met on English soil in
1692 with the foes they had left behind at Limerick in 1691.
The invasion of England was the first service for which the
whole united Brigade were destined ; Marshal Bellefonds
being appointed commander-in-chief of the expedition, and
the chivalrous Earl of Lucan major-general. There was good
reason to believe that William was already unpopular in each
of his father-in-law's three kingdoms. In Ireland, where
Dr. Dopping, Protestant bishop of Meath, had preached soon
156 The Irish Brigade m the Service of France,
after the signing of the Limerick treaty on the advisability
of keeping no faith with Papists, a packed Parliament had
already prescribed the Oath of Abjuration, and one of those
terrible commissions, so well known to Irish Catholics, was
issued to inquire into the tenure of estates. In Scotland the
massacre of Glencoe had for ever blotted William's fame ;
while many Englishmen felt that they had occasion to fear
lest their country should resume the position she had occupied
under the first Norman kings, who regarded her as an
appendage to their French possessions, now that a Dutch
sovereign, anxious to employ British blood and treasure in
the service of his little native state, occupied the throne. The
winds, however, so often unpropitious to the invasion of
England, and now denominated by Williamites, according to
the phraseology of the day, as the " Protestant winds," pre-
vented the transport of the troops cantoned at La Hogue and
Cherbourg, until Tourville's defeat put an end to all hopes of
efi'ecting a landing. Mr. O'Callaghan speaks of this defeat
as though it had been almost as destructive to the naval
power of France as Lepanto was to that of Turkey ; but, fatal
though it proved to the present plans of Louis and James, and
though- it plainly showed that Jacobitism did not prevail in
the English navy, Tourville was able, with a large force, to
scatter the squadron of Sir George Rooke and to capture a
portion of the Smyrna fleet in the following year.
But although the Irish Brigade were not permitted to invade
England in return for the English invasion of Ireland in
1689, William's fondness for continental war gave them
ample opportunities of meeting on foreign soil with their old
acquaintances of the Boyne and Aughrim. William himself
was one of those good commanders who hardly ever win a
battle ; indeed, his only victory in the open field was at the
Boyne, where he was not only numerically superior, but had
James II. for his antagonist. The Irish regiments were still
at La Hogue and Cherbourg when Namur and Mens were
taken under the very eyes of William ; but the two Irish
troops of horse guards were present at the battle of Steinkirk
on the 3rd of August, where they signaUzed themselves to a
remarkable degree. One of these troops was commanded by
Sarsfield, whose great soldierly qualities were acknowledged
even on the ribald London stage, the other by the Duke of
Berwick, who seemed anxious, by a virtuous and honourable
life, to efiace the stain upon his birth, and who, as ^^ cause of
joy to InisfaiV^ was taken possession of by the Irish minstrels,
and set forth as an Irish hero. Both Berwick and Sarsfield
received a high encomium from Marshal de Luxembourg after
The Irish Brigade in the Service of France. 157
Steinkirk, and the ensuing action at Namur further enhanced
the fame of " les Gardes du Roi Jaques/^ The behaviour of the
Irish regiments in Italy and Germany during the remainder
of the year was also favourably recorded by their generals.
But there can be no doubt that the fire and ardour with
which the soldiers of the Brigade advanced against " English
foes in particular '^ rapidly increased as time went on, in pro-
portion to the injustice inflicted at home. Present wrongs
heaped on the head of bitter memories are wont to make
formidable foes. And when the tidings were spread abroad
throughout Europe that the civil articles of the Treaty of
Limerick were broken and repudiated, and that the condition
of Ireland, far from being what by law it should have been
under Charles II., had been made worse than it actually was
in his reign, — the loyalty and patriotism of the Brigade began
to be mingled with that deep-seated indignation and thirst
for vengeance which for more than half a century were wont
to hurl their phalanxes with well-nigh irresistible force against
the English armies to the cry of " Remember Limerick and
British faith.'^
The practical worthlessness of the Treaty of Limerick, and
the general acceptance by the dominant faction of the prin-
ciples laid down in Dopping^s sermon, were openly demon-
strated before the battle of Landen at once gave the world
a new and brilliant proof of the prowess of the Irish soldiers,
and deprived them of the gallant officer whose efforts to secure
fair treatment for his country had proved so unavailing. In
the interests of historic effect it might be wished that a larger
number of the regiments composing the Brigade had acted
together on this or on other battle-fields. But they were
naturally and judiciously distributed among different armies,
into all of which they imported a new principle of energy and
of success ; and the circumstances of the battle of Landen are
in reality deeply tinctured with the romance of history. There
Ginkell and Sarsfield met once more, and for the last time ;
there a Norman-Irish hero in the person of Colonel Barrett,
whose ancestors had once come from France to conquer
England, identified now with a third country, fell in forcing
a way for French troops into the midst of the English position ;
there the Huguenot regiment of Ruvigny, fighting valiantly
against their countrymen, felt the vengeance of those whom
they had helped to vanquish at the Boyne ; there the young
Duke of Berwick was taken prisoner by his uncle, Charles
Churchill. In spite of the numerical inferiority of the allied
armies, the strength of their position, intrenched as they were
on the heights between Neerwinden and Neerlanden, more
158 The Irish Brigade in the Service ofFrcmee.
than equalized them with the forces of Lnzemboargj who
would assuredly have lost the day had it not been for the fire
and energy of the Irish foot guards. The brigade of
Harbonville had already been flung back by the murderous
fire of William^s troops^ secured behind their defences, when
the Irish foot guards^ led on by Colonel Barrett, who waa
recently attainted and whose estate was confiscated, dashed
up the hill regardless alike of perils and of obstacles, and
opened a way into the intrenchments, the French pouring in
after them. Barrett himself lay dead on the field ; but he
had virtually won the battle. Up till that time ^' Luxembourg
repented more than once for having engaged in a combat the
success of which appeared so doubtfid ; '* but having once
forced the position of the allies, his superior numbers came
into play, and William's whole army was finaUy driven across
the Geele, unfortunately with great slaughter on both sides.
But the victory of Landen, first of the many which France
won with the arm of Ireland, had cost the Brigade a greater
loss than even that of Barrett. While the foot guardis were
attacking William's centre, Sarsfield and Berwick, on the
French left, twice took and twice lost the village of
Neerwinden. It was gained at last, but not till Berwick had
been made a prisoner and Sarsfield severely wounded. He did
not, however, die on the field, but was carried to Huy, where
the fever induced by his wounds proved fatal. Yet we are
loath to add to the number of exploded historical anecdotes
the tradition which tells that Sarsfield, when lying wounded
on the field, looked at his hand full of his own blood, and
exclaimed, "Oh, that this were for Fatherland ! '^ These
could not have been his " dying words '^ ; but there is no
proof that he did not utter them, and they were natural and
appropriate in the mouth of any Irish Catholic soldier of those
sad times, most of all in the mouth of Sarsfield, in the &esh
grief of knowing that the stipulations he had made for
Lreland's welfare were shamelessly violated.
Thus fell the most celebrated soldier, after Owen Boe
O'Neill, which that century produced in Ireland. All the
Gael speaks in Mr. O'Callaghan when he says (p. 176, note),
" If compared, however, with such commanders of the old
native race as Hugh O'Neill in Elizabeth's, and Owen Roe
O'Neill in Cromwell's time, Sarsfield was no better than a
puffed Palesman." Notwithstanding the curious manner of
the comparison, which is supported by Mr. O'Conor's asser-
tion that Sarsfield "had neither their skill, experience, or
capacity," it is true that we possess greater proofs of genius in
the two O'Neills than in the hero of Limerick. It would be
The Irish Brigade in the 8ervie$ of France. 169
venturesome, however, to refer any inferiority on his part to
the fact of his being, on the father's side, a Palesman, and
whosoever will take the trouble to study the dispositions of the
two men, will find that the great Earl of Tyrone at least
was far less Celtic in character than the grandson of Bory
O'More. Tyrone was calm, cautious, calculating, patient ;
Sarsfield warm, impulsive, simple, daring. They were placed
in very diflferent circumstances. Sarsfield was under the
dominion, and to some extent in the hands, of the tesl^, un-
soldierly Tyrconnell and the jealous St. Ruth ; whereas Tyrone
was master of his situation, his only powerful colleague, Hugh
O'Donnell, being as perfect in unselfishness as in martial valour:
The Earl had about as much prelimipary experience as Sarsfield,
having gone through two or three campaigns against his own
countrymen before he showed himself to be the champion of the
national cause, while Sarsfield, previously to 1689, had served
in France in the regiment De Monmouth. Though Tyrone
fought in his country's cause ten years, Sarsfield for only two,
as a general and strategist the commander whom Henry lY.
designated as the third soldier of his day, must carry off the
palm ; yet we doubt whether Sarsfield would have blundered
and hesitated as Tyrone did on the one occasion of Kinsale.
As to Owen O'Neill, his long military training, acting on so
great a genius, his talent for training new levies, and the in-
credibly small loss of life with which he achieved his victories,
place him on a solitary height. If he wasted opportunities,
none can deny that they were opportunities of his own
creation. In moral character both Owen O'Neill and Sarsfield
were upright and disinterested. If the former gave up brilliant
prospects on the Continent, the latter abandoned a fine estate,
and all the peace and comfort of life, in the hope of serving his
sovereign and his country. But Sarsfield was the more im-
pulsive of the two. There was in him much of the dash and ready
enterprise of the old Gaelic chieftains from whose race his
mother sprang, together with not a little of their simpUcity.
It is imagined by some students of Irish history that he
himself, as well as Tyrconnell, was in some measure to blame
for the divisions which existed between them; not because
spite, envy, or any such passion found a footing in that
chivalrous soul ; but because men like Luttrell, desiring
nothing so much as to stir up dissensions, found it easy to
impose on his straightforward and impulsive mind, for a time
at least. For the rest, the character of Sarsfield, though a
Palesman, is described by Mr. O'Callaghan as comprehended
in the words " simplicity, disinterestedness, honour, loyalty,
and bravery."
160 The Irish Brigade in the Service of France.
As to the Duke of Berwick, who subsequently married the
widowed Lady Lucan, William would actually have sent him to
the Tower as a rebel but for the threats of Marshal de Luxem-
bourg, who held a valuable hostage in his hands in the person
of James, second Duke of Ormond, whose Protestantism was
answerable for the unwonted phenomenon of a Butler bearing
arms against a Stuart. He was a poor exchange for Berwick,
for though mild and munificent, and destined at last to devote
himself to the interests of the Stewart dynasty more thoroughly
than the first duke had ever done, he was not gifted with great
abilities. His grandfather had possessed talent without honour
and generosity ; he possessed honour and generosity without
talent.
Two months after a portion of the Irish Brigade had served
France so well under Luxembourg at Landen, their country-
men in Italy, under Catinat, principally contributed to win
the battle of Marsaglia, amid circumstances which remind us
not a little of Irish warfare at home. The French despatches
of the time, which always do justice to the Irish troops, attri-
bute the victory in a great degree to their ^' extreme valour.''
Five battalions of Irish were brigaded in the first and second
lines of the centre. Their first exploit was to take possession
by stratagem of a certain annoying redoubt on the enemjr's
right. Putting on the appearance of deserters, a large number
of them advanced close to the redoubt; when they leaped in
and turned the guns against the enemy, to the great advantage
of the French army, a manoeuvre which recalls the stratagem
whereby Hugh O'Neill took Armagh in 1595. "All's fair in
war," yet it is more heart-thrilling to follow the Irish ranks
as they complete by force and skill what they began by
cunning. The Duke of Savoy had succeeded in breaking the
first line of the French, notwithstanding the presence there of
two battalions of Irish; but the second line presented a
more formidable array of tall young Gael, and the duke
ordered his soldiers to fall upon them with the sword.
But swordsmanship, unfortunately for the allies, was the
very forte of the Irish, who soon put their enemies to
flight, dashing after them in headlong pursuit. It seems that
they had not yet attained that perfection of discipline which
distinguished the Brigade a little later in its career. Carried
away by the ardour of combat, they '^ overran their orders "
and pursued the enemy beyond possibility of recall. But
successful errors are seldom hardly dealt with. Catinat had
now no choice save to order the rest of his army to join in the
chase, and the result was the utter rout, with great slaughter,
of the allies. In this battle Daniel O'Brien, Lord Clare, and
The Irish Brigade in the Sei*vice of Finance. 161
Brigadier de Lacy fell under the auspices of victory ; while
under those of defeat fell the Duke of Schomberg, son of the
marshal who died at the Boyne. Strange are the vengeances
and counter- vengeances of war !
It is impossible not to be struck by the fact that a more
than ordinary lustre attended the French arms, wherever Irish
troops formed a conspicuous portion of the forces of France.
From 1691 to 1698 France stood her ground gallantly against
England, Holland, Spain, and Savoy, and enriched her military
history by brilliant actions in Italy, Spain, and Flanders, some
of them chiefly owing their brilliancy to the gallant behaviour
of different regiments of the Irish Brigade distributed among
the various armies. The Irishman in foreign service was the
best soldier in the world. He was a good soldier anywhere.
More than a century before this period Edmund Spenser had
written, '* I have heard some great warriors say, that in all the
services which they had seen abroad in foreign countries, they
never saw a more comely man than the Irishman, nor one that
cometh on more bravely to his charge.^' And when freed
from old unmilitary customs of Celtic warfare, and from the
influence of tribal divisions, — when subjected to a continental
training, — he became what he had never been in his own land —
steady* True, he was carried on too far by his ardour at
Marsaglia, but this was an exceptional occurrence. Enduring
strength and steadiness were precious elements imported into
French armies — were, in fact, what they wanted to place them
on equal terms with the armies of Britain.
After the stirring narratives of Landen and Marsaglia, it is
• unpleasant to read of the Irish campaign against the Vaudois,
their selection to reduce those dreary creatures being appa-
rently their agility in climbing and their hatred of Protestantism.
It is painful also to reflect on the immediate consequences of
the Peace of Eyswick to the Irish Brigade. The expense of
supporting wars, principally caused by the ambition of a
magnificent but spendthrift king to be lord of Europe as well
as of France, had reduced the country to a state of poverty
which rendered considerable retrenchments necessary ; and it
is easy to imagine how greatly officers and soldiers who had
given up all means of living in their own country, and who
depended entirely on their swords, suffered by the alterations
effected in the Irish Brigade, which were so great that its
thirteen regiments of infantry, two regiments of horse, and
two troops of horse guards were reduced to seven infantry and
one cavalry corps, through the disbanding of several regiments,
of which only a small remainder could be incorporated with
others. Some of the men belonging to broken corps took to
VOL. XXI. — NO. XLi. [New Series.'] m
162 The IrUh Brigade in the Service of France.
highway robbery; the more honest were reduced to utter
indigence ; and James 11., himself living on charity, could do
little to alleviate their distress, yet he compassionated their
situation deeply, and one of the most pleasing pictures in a
not altogether lovely life is that drawn by Sir David Naime,
and reproduced by Mr. O'Callaghan at p. 190, of the banished
king receiving in his cabinet his poor but bashful fellow-exiles,
and handing them, *' folded up in small pieces of paper, five,
ten, fifteen, or twenty pistoles, according to the merit, the
quality, and the exigency of each.'^ Louis XIV,, however, was
movea by a petition presented in April, 1698, by the officers
of the broken regiments to show them the kindness which
usually marked his dealings with the Jacobite exiles, and to
form them into a distinct corps, subsequently described as
" an invincible phalanx, that, if owing much to the munificence
of the French monarch, was upon all occasions deserving of
the honourable treatment experienced from him.'* And they
deserved it, if only as officers of the Brigade. The capitulation
of Limerick, and the influx into his army of the expatriated
Irish forces, had occurred at the most convenient of all times
for Louis, and he owed a debt of gratitude to James II. for
having so disastrously wasted his opportunities when in Ireland.
The position of Louis during the existence of the League of
Augsburg was not unlike that of Napoleon in 1815 ; and who
can say but that the successes which he owed in great measure
to the Irish troops of King James may have been all that pre-
vented the allies from finally marching on Paris ? Who can
say but that he too might have had his Waterloo, but for the
fresh and invaluable element introduced into his armies by the
Irish Brigade ?
When, according to the articles of the Peace of Ryswick,
Louis acknowledged William III. as king of England, every
chance of directly serving the Irish nation and the Irish king
—for such we may well call James, elected as he was by that
nation alone — seemed to be cut off from the men of the Brigade.
But the French monarches chivalrous feelings towards the
Stewart family soon compromised him again. The seventeenth
century closed — that century which opened on the last scenes
of the Elizabethan war, and which, after witnessing two more
struggles for emancipation, left Ireland in the gripe of the
penal code, whilst the more martial and heroic of her children
enwreathed their laurels in the crown of a foreign country.
Almost at the very time when King Charles of Spain lay
dying, and when Harcourt had improved on the provisions of
the Partition treaty by inducing him to bequeath his whole
empi''^ *' ' Duke of Anjou, James IT ^"*=' seized with illness
The Irish Brigade in the Servi'Ce of France. 163
on hearing an anthem chanted which seemed to bear on his
own misfortunes. Next year the attack was repeated, and in
September, 1701, he was on his deathbed. Louis XIV. was
not proof against the dying prayers of a king in exile, and he
now no longer needed William^s alliance in the aflFair of Spain.
The influence of Madame de Maintenon further weighed down
the scale in favour of the Prince of Wales, whom Louis imme-
diately recognized as king of Great Britain and Ireland. Thus
the Treaty of Ryswick early went the way of other treaties,
Macaulay has made cutting remarks concerning the French
king^s choice for the English of a sovereign whom they did
not want ; but it should be remembered that on the Irish Louis
wished to bestow the very sovereign whom they did want.
Apparently Louis was precisely that powerful foreign ally for
whom the Irish had so long been seeking ; it seemed as though
he would do for them what should have been done by his
maternal grandfather, Philip III. of Spain. Yet, in point of
fact, his performances in regard to Ireland but little exceeded
those of the Spanish king. Philip had sent a small force there
during the Ten Years^ War ; so aid Louis during the war of
1689-91. Philip had received Hugh O'Donnell with all the
honours due to a sovereign prince ; Louis received James with
unsurpassed delicacy and kindness, and commanded that all
the court ladies should stand in the presence of his consort,
except such as had leave to occupy mysterious tabarets, under
the eye of the Queen of France, themselves. Both promised
to accomplish great things for Ireland, but neither brought
those promises to their fulfilment.
The Irish troops abroad in the beginning of the seventeenth
century had been chiefly used to oppose the encroaching
ambition of France ; the Irish troops abroad in the beginning
of the eighteenth were chiefly used to serve that ambition.
Close upon the deaths of Charles II. of Spain and James ll. of
England, followed the war of the Spanish Succession.
The Duke of Anjou was nearer to the Spanish throne than
the Archduke Charles ; but his grandmother had resigned all
title to the succession, and herein lay the only claim of Charles
in the dynastic contest which caused nearly as much effusion
of blood as a more recent war for which the possession of the
Spanish throne also furnished a pretext. William III. — no
great authority on dynastic questions — had himself recognized
Philip in the beginning of 1701 ; but the breach by Louis of
the Treaty of Ryswick in acknowledging James III., threw
William and the Emperor into each other's arms. William,
however, postponed his declaration of war, and before he
could proclaim it the " little gentleman in black velvet '' had
M 2
164 TJie Irish Brigade in the Service of France.^
compassed his death ; but the Emperor had opened hostilities
in 1700, in which year the conflict for the Spanish throne was
commenced on Italian soil.
Again the men of the Brigade found an opportunity to '^doubly
redouble strokes upon the foe/' After touching on the French
defeat of Chiari, and demonstrating the improbability of the story
that an Austrian soldier got possession of an Irish standard,
and threw it away for the sake of booty, Mr. O'Callaghan
devotes more than twenty pages to an account of the affair of
Cremona, which added so notably to the renown of the Irish
troops. Great changes had taken place in the ten years which
had passed since the whole Brigade was cantoned at Cherbourg
and La Hogue, waiting to invade England. Sarsfield was
dead ; so was the fifth Lord Clare ; so was Lord Mountcashel,
who had never recovered from wounds received at Newtown
Butler, and the Duke of Berwick and the '' Sieur de Mahoni "
were arising into eminence in their stead. Among antagonists,
too, there was a change; new lights gleam on the military
firmament of other camps beside the Irish, the stars of first
magnitude being Prince Eugene of Savoy and the Duke of
Marlborough.
There were in the town of Cremona but 4,000 men in all,
only 600 of whom were Irish, when, through the contrivance
of a priest named Cozzoli, a partisan of the Archduke Charles,
together with great neglect of Marshal Villeroy's orders on
the part of the garrison, Prince Eugene and an army of 10,000
men effected a quiet and secret entrance into the place during
the dark morning hours of the 1st February, 1 702. Before
Marshal Villeroy was aware that anything unusual had occurred,
the Germans were in possession of half the town, and Eugene
was established in the Hotel de Ville. Never was a fortress
taken so easily. The Austrians, nothing doubting of their
complete success, congratutated themselves on a victory won
without losing a man, without firing a shot. It so happened
that a battalion of the regiment des Vaisseaux, which was
commanded by the Chevalier d^Entragues, was actually under
arms for review near the gate of the Po while the Germans
were streaming into the town by other entrances, just as the
winter dawn began to glimmer on the roofs of the city. Major
O'Mahony, whose name on this day began to burst into
immortal bloom, had ordered the Irish battalion of Dillon,
which he commanded in the absence of Colonel Lally, to be
ready for reviewing at the same time and near the same gate ;
but we are sorry to observe that only one Irish captain and
thirty-five men were alacritous enough to be at their post at
daybreak, whilst the whole battalion of D'Entragues was up
The Irish Brigade in the Service of France. 165
and ready at the very time when Eugene in person was enter-
ing the city. Unfortunately the Po gate was a long way from
Cozzoli^s house, and from the gates of All Saints and St.
Margaret, by which the enemy obtained access to the town ;
and the battalion of D^Entragues being the only men equipped
for action, excepting the thirty-five Irish and their captain
(who, to our regret, figures as the innominato of the story of
Cremona), only learned what had happened when the city
awoke in uproar at finding the enemy within its gates. Whilst
the officers of some of the regiments in garrison were taken in
their lodgings, and several of the gallant defenders of the
place, making not very heroic endeavours to escape by the
nearest gates, were " intercepted by Dupr^'s cuirassiers and
Diak^s hussars,^^ D'Entragues marched straight to the Gran
Piazza to engage the Austrians, leaving the thirty-six Irish
alone to defend the Po gate if necessary. And it was neces-
sary; for Baron Mercy had received command from Prince
Eugene to secure it, in order that 5,000 men under Yaudemont,
whose arrival beneath the walls was momentarily expected,
might enter the city by that way. Mercy found the barrier
shut and defended. He ordered an assault to be made by a
picked body of grenadiers, whereupon the nameless captain
within directed his men to hold their fire until the enemy was
within " a halbert^s length.^^ The result was that the thirty-
five Irishmen, from behind their palisades, twice flung back the
picked corps with great slaughter.
Strangely enough, it was not till now that the rest of the
Irish troops, in their barracks near the Po gate, some of
whom should have been up by daybreak for review, were made
aware of what was going on by the shouts and firing at the
barrier. In their shirts, and without half their officers, many
of whom, and among them Major O^Mahony himself, were
lodged in the town, streamed from their barracks to fall on
Mercy ^s flank. O^Mahony, whose landlord had forgotten to
arouse him at the appointed time, awoke to find himself
apparently cut off from all communication with his men.
Nevertheless he resolved to conquer or fall that day at the
head of Dillon^s battalion ; and with true Irish agility and
ingenuity he actually contrived to rejoin them before they
engaged the enemy.
Meanwhile, Marshal Villeroy, doing his duty like a good
commander and soldier, had been captured on the Gran Piazza,
where he would have been killed but for the interference ol
Captain MacDonnell, an Irish infantry officer in the Austrian ser-
vice. It was one of the saddest results of the dispersion through-
out Catholic Europe of Irishmen dependent on their sword — a
1 66 The Irish Brigade in the Service of France.
result, the thought of which drew tears from the eyes of the
Hiberno-Austrian veteran General O'Donnell, that men of the
same blood, sprung from the same island mother, were so often
destined to oppose each other on the battle-field. This hostile
contact, and the eagerness of foreign generals on all sides to
engage the services of such soldiers, were both illustrated at
Cremona. The oflBcer who captured Villeroy on the Piazza was
the compatriot of the men who foiled Mercy at the Po gate ;
and whilst no offers or persuasion had power to shake
MacDonnelPs fidelity to the Austrian service, O^Mahony and
his troops, a Uttle later in the day, displayed an equal loyalty
to the service of France.
By this time the German success was complete everywhere
except at the gate of the Po ; but Eugen^ could not be said to
have taken the town until that entrance was secured. Villeroy
was a prisoner ; D'Entragues was killed; the Spanish governor
of the place, De la Concha, was mortally wounded, and the
Germans so occupied the connecting streets that the garrison
was split up into fragments. But meanwhile, Mahony and
Wauchop, at the head of their battalions, had repulsed an
attack made upon them by Mercy's infantry and cuirassiers,
and had driven them from their position adjoining the gate,
thus making way for the French cavalry to leave their barracks,
when Vaudemont's 5,000 men, some hours too late, were seen
approaching along the right bank of the river. The Irish
proposed to Brigadier d'Arenes, who had joined them, to break
the bridge of boats by which alone Vaudemont could obtain
access to their post ; but D'Arenes, being one of those oflScers
who will never, however great the emergency, act without
orders, preferred to send a detachment of 100 men across the
bridge to strengthen the redoubt on the other side. His plan
answered for a time, owing to the stupid timidity of Vaudemont,
who, alarmed at the aspect of affairs, halted to distribute
fascines, and D'Arenes was thus like a chess-player who wins,
not through his own skill, but through the want of skill in *his
adversary. It was now that Eugene, hearing that the obstinacy
of two battalions of Irish was the only bar to the complete
reduction of the town, resolved to remove by persuasion an
obstacle which apparently could not be removed by force.
These soldiers were not native Frenchmen. If they were
unconquerable, they might not be incorruptible ; and to
transfer to Austria the services of 600 Irish would in itself be
no mean success. He assigned the delicate task to MacDonnell,
the captor of Marshal Villeroy ; and it is disagreeable to think
that this distinguished oflBcer, who a little earlier in the same
day had assured the Marshal that '* he preferred his honour to
The Irish Brigade in the Service of France. 167
making his fortune/^ should have been charged with the
mission of inducing his compatriots to prefer their fortunes to
their honour. But Eugene might have known that men who
will fight for the government which employs them as the Irish
fought that day, are not likely to be false to their salt for the
sake of lucre ; and O^Mahony^s answer to his countryraan^s
overtures, notwithstanding that they were openly made in the
presence of both armies, was to arrest him as a suborner.
Eugene next tried to persuade the captive Villeroy that ^^ the
musketeers/' who yet resisted on the walls, would be cut to
pieces if he did not order them to lay down their arms ; but
the Marshal proved too sharp for him, as also did " those wise
ItaUans,'' the magistrates of Cremona.
Had Vaudemont but had the vovg to take the redoubt,
defended only by 150 men, at the end of the bridge of boats,
and to cross the bridge with his 5,000 men, it seems impos-
sible that the remains of even those two battalions of heroes
could have prevented his entrance. But so little trouble was
apprehended from Vaudemont that Count de Revel ordered
the Irish to leave 100 men at the long-contested barrier, and
to march to the gate of Mantua, which Lynch, one of the
Irish officers who had been separated from his own men, had
defended all day, at the head of a company of Frenchmen,
against Count de Kuffstein. Twice O'Mahony (who com-
manded the Irish after Colonel Wauchop had been inca-
pacitated by a wound) led that dauntless handful towards the
Mantua gate under a galling fire, and twice, after doing much
execution on the Germans who lined the way, he was obliged
to fall back upon his first position. It was after their second
retreat, near three in the afternoon, that Count de Revel
ordered that to be done which the Irish had first suggested,
namely, the breaking up of the bridge of boats. Accordingly
the 100 French and 50 Irish, who manned the redoubt, destroyed
the works and retired in the midst of a tremendous fire from
Vaudemont's soldiers, burning or removing the boats under
a storm of shot and musketry ; a precaution which might as
well have been taken at ten o'clock in the morning. And at
last the Irish, now reduced to about one half of their original
number, fulfilled the cruel order they had received to support
their brave compatriot at the Mantua gate. They had eaten
nothing all day ; many who were still on foot were wounded,
yet their ardour not only finally carried tUem as far as the
gate, but pushed them on to chase the German cuirassiers
beyond its barriers with ignominy.
The Imperialists kept up the conflict latest at St. Mar-
garet's gate, by which they finally retired, when, after a
168 Tlic Irish Brigado iti the Sei'vice of France.
conflict of about eleven hours, the fate of Cremona was
decided by Eugene^s abandonment of the city, " taken by a
miracle/^ as was said, " and lost by a still greater one ! '*
(p. 214). The " still greater miracle '' was the persevering and
unconquerable valour and, let us add, the steady skill of the Irish
troops. During a long period of the day's conflict the resist-
ance of Wauchop's and O'Mahony's battalions was all that
prevented Eugene from taking complete possession of the
place ; and when we add to their achievements those of cer-
tain of their oflBcers in other parts of the town, such as
MacDonough at the Milan and Lynch at the Mantua gate,
we shall fully agree with the hostile writer, Forman, when he
observes that the Irish performed there the most important
piece of service for Louis XIV. that perhaps any king of
France ever received from so small a body of men. He adds,
not without reason, that the salvation of Cremona was the
salvation of the whole French army in Italy. Not Landen,
not Marsaglia, raised the reputation of the Irish troops so
high as this affair of Cremona. The French were quick to
acknowledge their debt to " les braves Irlandais " ; Count de
Vaudrey declared that '^ les Irlandais ont fait des choses incom-
pr^hensibles '^ ; and when O'Mahony, who was par excellence
the hero of the day, was sent to Versailles to give an account
of the action, he was called upon to exchange compliments
with Louis le Grand himself. And who knew better than
Louis how to acknowledge the services of the brave with
a grace which ravished the heart in that monarchical age ?
Although the king's own military achievements were mostly
confined to his appearance liefore a fortress when his officers and
Vauban had secured its fall, the bronzed and wearied hero of
Cremona doubtless felt as though he were commended by
Mars himself during that hour when he was closeted with
Louis at Versailles. To his further gratification, the king
not only admired his prowess in battle, but we are told,
'^ whilo changing his dress in order to walk in the palace
garden,'' praised the clearness of his narrative and his agree-
able manner of communication, an encomium on O'Mahony's
outward polish not to be despised even by the man who kept
the gate of the Po at Cremona, when pronounced by the
monarch of whom Taine remarks that " his language was
perfect," and that during his reign " a good style filled the
air." But Louis did not limit his approbation to compli-
ments. O'Mahony was pensioned and promoted, and the
conduct of the two battalions, now reduced by death, wounds,
and captures to 250 men, was considered to shed so much
The Irish Brigade in the Sermce of France. 169
lustre on the whole infantry force of the Brigade, that all the
regiments were appointed to receive the strangers^ pay
originally denied to them. Whilst O'Mahony was knighted
at St. Germains by James III., England and Ireland were
ringing with his fame and with that of the Brigade. In the
English House of Commons it was justly observed that " those
two regiments had done more mischief to the high allies than
all the Irish abroad could have done had they been kept at
home and left in the entire possession of their estates " ; a
truth which unfortunately was not acted upon, since not only
were none of the dispossessed recalled to enjoy the property
which William^s generosity had settled on the Countess of
Orkney and on a variety of Dutch adventurers, bat the penal
code remained firmly riveted on the fettered and devoted
island. Yet a thrill of joy and pride ran through the heart
of Ireland as she lay chained on her bed of sorrow, when she
heard of the achievements of her sons on foreign soil ; and as
the bards in more glorious times had celebrated Gaelic prowess
with the clash of their harpstrings, so now the wandering
minstrels who yet remained composed in honour of their
exiled heroes an air which yet lives under the title of '/ The
day we beat the Germans at Cremona.^^
Up to the end of this year there seems to have been no
thought of recruiting for the Brigade in Ireland, which is the
more extraordinary because Irish regiments had been raised
there in the time of Turenne. In 1694, the Hiberno- Spanish
O^Donnell, who in Ireland had borne the extraordinary rank
of a double brigadier, and was subsequently very active in
trying to gain Irish deserters from the French to the Spanish
service, complains that the Irish oflBcers were very watchful of
their men because they had no means of livelihood but their
swords, and "no means of recruiting the desertions.^^ Towards
the close of the year which witnessed the defence of Cremona
and the battle of Luzzara, the want of Irish soldiers began to
make itself felt. It was no wonder that they were highly prized ;
and eiforts were made to scrape together a reinforcement
among deserters from MarlborougVs army, and the Irish
emigrants in Brittany. At the same time M. de Chambart
suggested to the king that " ou pourrait tirer des Irlandais
d^Irlande. Si cela etait possible, il serait tres important de le
faire au plus tot, ces troupes ^tant excellentes.'^ Probably
the punishment of death decreed by the British Government
against any agent who should recruit Irish soldiers, to conquer
its own armies abroad, iat first deterred officers from under-
taking the task; but as time wore on apprehension wore oflf.
170 The Irish Brigade in the Service of France,
and from the War of the Spanish Succession to the middle
of the century the enrolment of young Irishmen in their
own country steadily increased.
Dispersed throughout Italy, Spain, and Germany, the
different regiments of the Brigade everywhere made glorious
the name of a conquered nation. The regiments of Clare and
Dorrington helped to win the first battle of Hochstadt in
September, 1703; in December the Duke of Berwick and the
^' Sieur de Mahoni," the " Murat of his day," set off to in-
augurate in Spain a campaign which shed considerable lustre
on the Frencn arms. But if the Irish soldiers abroad won
fresh honours for their native land in victory, they won a double
portion in defeat. The Gael on Irish soil had often gained
glorious battles ; but he had seldom achieved the more diffi-
cult though less brilliant triumph of retreating steadily and
in good order from a lost field. In fact, the Battle of the
Boyne is the only instance of his good conduct in disaster of
which we are aware \ all other Irish defeats were accompanied
by panic winged flights. But it remained to be seen that
better discipline and freedom from home influences could
effect marvellous alteration in this very respect, and the
Irish could have had no better opportunity of proving the
change than that offered by the Battle of Blenheim. Mr.
O^Callaghan's indefatigable researches among the military
archives of the eighteenth century have enabled him to con-
tradict with authority Alison^s allegation that the three Irish
battalions present on the field were repulsed bv Marlborough
in person. It so happened that the Duke and the Prince of
Holstein Beck attacked the village of Oberglau from different
quarters; and Holstein Beck alone came into a conflict
with the Irish, who advanced at the head of eight battalions
hurled against them by Blainville. They gained the only
success of the day. The attack was repulsed ; Holstein Beck
was wounded and taken prisoner ; Goor^s Dutch regiment was
almost annihilated, and that of Blenheim lost nearly all its
officers. Had the battle gone everywhere as it went at Oberglau,
Another sight had seen that mom.
But when victory had declared itself generally for the
Allies, and the retreat was sounded, the Irish not only forced
their way '^through the enemy ^' without losing their colours
or one of their men, but " sustained the retreat of the French
army, and thus covered themselves with glory ^^ ! And as we
pursue the story of the Brigade we shall perceive that this
was not an isolated instance of their steadiness under defeat.
The French armies in Germany and Flanders were destined
The Irish Brigade in the Service of France, 1 71
to drink deeply of disaster while opposed to the transcendent
genius of Marlborough, conjoined with that of Prince Eugene
in almost unexampled harmony ; but when the battle proved
inauspicious to France, the Irish regiments were there to
cover the rear, — cool, courageous, undismayed. Nor were
caution, vigilance, and perspicacity wanting among the Irish
officers. It was an Irishman who first proposed to break
down the bridge at Cremona ; it was an Irishman who dis-
covered the practicability of the breach in the fortifications of
Kehl ; and the laughable anecdote concerning Mr. O'Byrne,
overseer of labourers at Friburgh, who discovered the stra-
tagem through which the Germans hoped to surprise the town
by beating the disguised colonel with his cane — worthy re-
presentative of the native-grown shillelagh — and provoking
him to betray himself by drawing a musket out of one of his
waggons of hay, does credit both to the watchfulness and to
the courage of that descendant of generations of troublesome
Wicklow warriors.
It is, perhaps, no exaggeration to say that Philip V. in
great part owed the throne of Spain to the Irish Brigade.
The Spanish nation, it is true, generally favoured him, as
though because, closely resembling the Hapsburg kings under
whose sway Spain had both flourished and decayed, he was
according to precedent. Macaulay considers him to have been
almost a reproduction of Charles II. ; to us he appears more
like Phih'p III. In any case, he was a perfect Spanish
Hapsburg. But he could hardly have maintained himself on
his throne against England and the Empire, with Portugal
teazing him on one side like a picador, had he not been up-
held by his grandfather ; and Louis, as in the days of the
League of Augsburg, was himself again encircled by a chain
of foes. It was an arduous task to make head against them
all; and the hardest of the hard work was accomplished by
the Irish. They saved Cremona, and with it the French army
of Italy; while besides minor successes, they chiefly contributed
to gain the partial victory of Luzzara, and the complete victory
of the first battle of Hochstedt ; and we have just seen how
they covered the retreat at the second battle of the same
name. The Duke of Berwick, whose services may be reckoned
among those of the Brigade, commanding as he did an Irish
regiment, which accompanied him in his campaigns, acted
after the year 1703 as generalissimo in Spain, where he re-
pelled the Portuguese invasion in 1704; thus neutralizing, as
it were, the French defeat at Blenheim. In the August of the
following year, five Irish battalions maintained the honour of
their nation at Cassano, under Yendome, both by executing
172 The Irish Brigade in the Service of France.
that ^^ charge with fixed bayonets/' in which they were always
so terrible, and by swimming the rapid tide of the Adda to
capture the batteries on the further side. Two months later,
Marshal the Duke of Berwick sat down with a small force
before Nice, which surrendered after a three months' siege ;
and in March, 1 706, he returned to Spain, to prove yet more
clearly than before, that although military talent seldom runs
in families, his genius all but matched that of his uncle, the
Duke of Marlborough, whilst he far surpassed him in the
moral qualities which are indispensable to the composition of
a true hero.
No character could have contrasted more completely with
that of Berwick than the character of Charles Mordaunt,
Earl of Peterborough, with whom he was destined to measure
swords in Spain. The steadiness, the private virtues, and the
public honour of the Marshal-duke offer a kind of solid basis
to the ideas after the bewildering restlessness, the profligacy,
and unscrupulousness of him who is considered to be " the
last of the knights errant '' ; and who, if so, is certainly the
worst. As to his hateful trick played on the gallant Sieur
de Mahoni, who had now attained the rank of brigadier, we
may well exclaim on contemplating it : " Did ever knight so
foul a deed ? '^ Connected by marriage with the hero of
Cremona, he obtained an interview with him at Murviedro
through the medium of a flag of truce ; his attempts to
corrupt O'Mahony's good faith proved unsuccessful; yet the
ingenious Earl contrived to arrive at the plans of the honest
but incautious soldier, whose want of reticence in the presence
of such a man is the only fault with which he can be charged.
The affectionate kinsman next bribed two dragoons to feign
desertion in order to disgrace O'Mahony with the Duke of
Arcos, who not only arrested the brigadier, but retreated to
the hills instead of advancing on Murviedro, a design which
he would have carried out on O'Mahony's suggestion but for
the not very creditable stratagem of the enterprising Peter-
borough. It is consoling to reflect that O^Mahony's explana-
tions received credit at Madrid, where Philip immediately
created him Marechal de Camp ; and the next year, after his
obstinate defence of the Castle of Alicant, raised him to the
rank of a Count of Castile. Older days, — the days of
O'SuUivan Bear, Conde de Berehaven, — seem to have re-
turned, when we find Spanish dignities once more conferred
on heroes of Milesian race.
During the years 1606-7, whilst the unfortunate peninsula
was the battle-ground on which Peterborough, Galway,
and Stanhope pitted their skill against that of Berwick and
The Irish Brigade in the Service of France. 173
Arcos, the scales inclined in favour now of Philip, now of
Charles. In the earlier half of 1 706, the Bourbon scale flew
up ; Philip fled from his capital ; many parts of the country-
favoured his rival. But while the sluggishness of the Arch-
duke retarded operations, the licentiousness of Galway's
troops disgusted the people; and in August Berwick re-
covered possession of Madrid. Peterborough's genius alone
could have regained it for the allies ; but Peterborough was
disliked and his proposals rejected by the Archduke Charles.
Accordingly the knight errant resigned his command, which
was conferred on Lord Galway; and on the 25th of April that
general was called on to prove, at Almanza, whether or no he
was a match for the Duke of Berwick.
In Berwick's army, on this grand occasion, posted in his
second line, were present four squadrons and one battalion of
those terrible avengers of their country's wrongs, whom
England would have done better to have pacified, by offering
them the rights of human beings on their native soil. The
Irish Brigade at Almanza consisted of a battalion of Berwick's
own regiment, and four squadrons of Count O'Mahony's
dragoons ; ardent soldiers, fired with animosity against the
English nation in general, and not improbably against the
French commander of the opposing army in particular. The
Irish infantry battalion, in company with three French, here
executed the manoeuvre in which the soldiers of the brigade
so greatly excelled. Advancing steadily against the enemy,
they held their fire until they came to close quarters, when ,
after having "blazed into them," they charged with fixed
bayonets, and with such terrible eclat that the five battalions
opposed to them were hopelessly routed. Count O'Mahony,
at the head of his dragoons, likewise ^*^ performed astonishing
actions"; and Berwick, with the aid of Irish troops, flung
the army of Galway into a confusion as great as ever Mountjoy,
Colonel Jones, or General Ginkell had created among Irish
armies in their own island.
During the conflict between Charles and Philip, the Irish
regiments in the service of France were replenished in a very
easy and convenient manner, which involved no oflicers in the
perils which awaited those who enlisted young men in Ireland.
The brigade was recruited from the enemy's ranks.
In those unhappy days, when spirited young Irishmen were
so eager to leave the oppressive moral atmosphere of home,
numbers who could find no opportunity of entering foreign
service, enlisted in the English army ; and for the sake of
their ethics we are sorry to add that this was usually done
with a view to desertion. The sins of a government are wont
1 74 The Irish Brigade in the Servii:e of France,
to occasion the sins of the governed. The siege of Barcelona
was fruitful of prisoners who wished to be enrolled in Irish
regiments ; and three battalions of infantry, with two regi-
ments of cavalry, were formed for the Spanish service on the
basis of willing prisoners taken at Almanza.
One month after the victory of the nephew at Almanza
followed the victory of the uncle at Ramillies. An Irishman
will feel an equal pride in both battles, since his countrymen
distinguished themselves equally in each; and for reasons
already mentioned we should feel inclined to accord even
greener laurels to those who retreated at Ramillies than to
those who pursued at Almanza. Davis's spirited but somewhat
incorrect ballad records that
The victor Saxon backward reeled
Before the charge of Clarets dragoons,
which doubtless he would have done had any such regiment
existed. According to sober fact. Lord Clare's infantry corps
all but cut to pieces a Scotch regiment whom they engaged, —
a not uncommon feat with the Irish Brigade — broke and
threw into confusion Charles Churchill's regiment (the original
Buffs), and took the only colours captured by Villeroy's army
that day. Their sole faalt was that their ardour carried them
too far, as at Marsaglia ; and on this occasion the rest of the
army did not follow on their track. However, they contrived
to extricate themselves from the midst of the enemy with the
help of the Cravats, and retreated in good order. The colours
they had won were hung in the gem-like chapel of the Irish
convent at Ypr^s, where many a daughter and sister was wont
to pour forth prayers which doubtless often effected more than
even sword and musket to protect the father or brother on the
battle-field.
Brilliant as was the victory of Ramillies (which would have
been Marlborough's last but for an Irish aide-de-camp of the
Molesworth family) it effected nothing for the Archduke, the
original cause of all this carnage. Events in Spain, and
political intrigues in England later on, were destined to decide
the succession.
Although Philip was not firm on his throne until some years
after the battle of Almanza, Berwick had administered a blow
to the cause of the Archduke, from which it never recovered,
and which greatly increased the Bourbon obligations to the Irish
Brigade. Possibly this consideration induced Louis XIV. to
contemplate a new effort towards restoring to their ancestral
throne a dynasty to whom Philip in great part owed his own.
Yet though Louis yielded so far to the entreaties of the Scotch
The Irish Brigade in the Service of France, 175
anti-Unionists, as to equip a fleet and to embark an army at
Dunkerque, and granted to his cousin James the services of
several of his own Irish oflicers, he retained on the Continent
those tall battalions whose fixed bayonets had so often flung
back the squadrons of the allies. Prance seems to have been
somewhat niggardly in sparing les braves Irlandais to the
sovereign whose commission they bore.
The expedition of 1708 came to nothing, and is chiefly
noticeable as shewing that in spite of the treaty of Limerick,
which guaranteed to the Irish troops liberty to enter foreign
service, the Irishmen taken on board the one vessel captured
by Byng, would have been executed for high treason had not
some oflBcers belonging to the Huguenot corps, who were
perpetually being played ofi* against the Irish Catholics, fallen
into French hands at nearly the same time. It is pleasant,
however, to reflect that the Irish during their imprisonment
possessed a kind, though an unknown, friend at hand, who was
wont to send them a dinner of several dishes, and a small
hamper of wine to eke out their scant prison fare ; and that
the musician Heffeman, with the romantic kindness of a
bard of old, brought his harp to solace the captive heroes.
The failure of this expedition to Scotland was quickly followed
by Marlborough^s triumph at Oudenarde, a '* glorious victory,^'
which but little altered the condition of European afiairs,
while it cost the French more than 7,000 and the Allies
nearly 3,000 men. Practically the taking of Alicant in the
following December did far more to determine the succession
in Spain than the battle of Oudenarde.
During the whole of this period, when fortune on the
whole favoured the French arms in Spain, in Germany and
Flanders France was unsuccessful. The reason is evident.
Berwick was in Spain ; Marlborough was in Flanders. The
fate of the war was apparently in the hands of the Churchills.
The British Government would have done better to send
Marlborough into the Peninsula to fight his nephew, in
default of which, the French Government would have done
better to withdraw Berwick from the Peninsula, to fight his
uncle; a lesser genius than that of Berwick would have
sufliced to oppose Lord Galway. Still Vendome was a great
general, and Vendome was present at Oudenarde; but his
advice was neglected there, and not long afterwards he was
sent in his turn to Spain. Villars and Villeroy were unequal
to their task. Marlborough, cool, steady, calculating, and
possessing, according to Lord Stanhope, that talisman of
success which consists in looking straight on to the future
without brooding over the past, was a general so perfectly
176 Tlie Irish Brigade in the Service of France,
English that it was vain to think of opposing him with any
but an English general.
At Malplaquet, as at Blenheim and Eamillies, however, the
Irish Brigade maintained their renown. Although, like tlieir
French comrades, thej had eaten no bread for two days before
the battle, and although they were posted in the very ^' gap
of danger/' they charged with such vigour as to ^' overturn
all that came in their way/' and retreated in good order.
Mr. O'Callaghan directs the cannonade of his arguments
against Captain Parker's assertion that the Royal Irish Regi-
ment in the service of England, composed of Irish Protestants,
met and defeated Dorrington's corps, which bore the same
title in the armies in France ; and although Parker makes the
event to have occurred at the outskirt of the wood of Sart,
where the Irish were actually stationed, we quite agree with
Mr. O'Callaghan that the mere fact of the fire of six platoons
being answered by the fire of one, fully shows how superior
were the numbers of the Irish Protestants, and that the aflTair
was merely an affair of outposts. Moreover all accounts
except that of Parker concur in representing Dorrington's
regiment as charging in the hottest of the fight and repulsing
the enemy, though with enormous suffering to itself. The total
loss of the Allies and of the French is estimated at about
29,000 men ; a heavy price to pay for fighting a battle
absolutely without results to Europe.
As in 1 706 there had been a set off in Spain to Ramillies, so
in 1709 there was a set off in Spain to Malplaquet. As Ramillies
did nothing to repair Almanza, so Malplaquet did nothing to
repair La Gudina, where the Irish Brigadier, Henry Crofton,
executed so brilliant a charge at the head of his dragoons that
Philip V. promoted him to the rank of Major- General. Yet it
was long before Philip's cause triumphed so completely as to
bring to a close the foolish and useless War of the Succession.
In the end of August the battle of Saragossa turned the scales
once more in favour of Charles ; and in September the King
fled again from the capital where his tenure was so precarious.
But this very event served to show that he was the Elected of
the people. Thirty thousand Spaniards followed him to
Valladolid, and far from becoming disgusted at his late want of
success, the country rallied round him more warmly than ever.
The Madrilenos made the capital too hot to hold the Archduke,
who fell back on Catalonia. On the 3rd of December, Philip,
now joined by Vendome, re-entered Madrid, and on the 10th
the battle of Villaviciosa, though not apparently so terrible a
defeat to the AlHes as Almanza or La Gudina, gave the coup
de grace to their cause. Here, too, the Irish troops were in
The Irish Brigade in the Service of France. 1 77
the thick of the fight; and Vendome, at one period of the
battle, would have given the signal to retreat had not the
Marqais Val de Canas and Count O^Mahony, by a successful
charge, repaired the giving way of the centre. The war was
henceforth confined to Catalonia — that turbulent province,
where, more than half a century before, the Irish regiment of
Philip ly. had helped to suppress an insurrection which cost
John, Earl of Tyrone, his life.
Though successful in Spain, the French could not attain to
defeating Marlborough in the Low Countries; but in 1711
Marlborough was himself defeated by a High Church parson.
After the change of ministry, which was chiefly due to
Sacheverell, Marlborough resigned his command ; the elevation
of the Archduke Charles to the Imperial dignity gave the Tories
a good pretext for ending the war; Eugene, deprived of the
genius which was the complement of his own, was defeated
by Villars at Denain ; and the Peace of Utrecht was signed on
the 31st of March, 1713. The peace between France and
Germany was not signed until the following year; and now
Catalonia only, of all Europe, opposed Philip^s right to be
King of Spain. In September, 1714, however, the Duke of
Berwick put an end to its resistance by the taking of Barcelona,
after an obstinate siege ; and thus terminated this long and san-
guinary war of twelve years, leaving matters much as they had
been at its commencement, when Philip V. first set out from
Paris for Madrid. But we may aflirm, without hesitation, that
Louis and his grandson would have been unable to maintain
themselves against the enormous pressure which bore them
down during the years of 1706-7-8-9, had it not been for the
services rendered them by the oflScers and soldiers of the Irish
Brigade. Those services, too, were rendered at the expense
of the cause dearest to the Irish heart.
Whilst Berwick lay before Barcelona, Queen Anne died;
and a little good management on the part of the Jacobites in
England would probably have placed her brother on her throne.
As it was, our old friend. Captain Parker of the Royal Irish,
has declared his conviction that but for the obstinacy of
Barcelona " the Duke of Berwick, with his Irish regiments,
would have landed among us before the Queen's death.'^
From the Wars of the Spanish Succession we pass over
many years to the next great dynastic conflict which convulsed
Europe, that of the Austrian Succession, during which the
Irish Brigade achieved the victory with which of all others
their memory is most closely associated, and which first
presents itself to the mind when their name was mentioned.
Years had wrought a change in everything, except in the
VOL, XXI. — NO. XLi. [Neiv Set^ies.] N
178 The Irish Brigade in the Service of France.
miserable condition of Ireland. George II. was seated on the
British throne j Louis XV. occupied that of France ; the hopes
of the Jacobites were fixed on Prince Charles Edward; but
Ireland was still fettered by the Penal Code, and therefore it
was that time had not greatly diminished the numbers of the
Irish Brigade in the service of France. The condition of
Ireland was such that those who loved her best were glad to
^^ bid their native land good night '' ; and the flights of ^^ wild
geese ^' reached their maximum towards the middle of the
century, when Ireland was at the lowest depth of her degrada-
tion. The disabilities which weighed on the Irish Catholics
extended even to trade and agriculture, so as to give a sharp
point to Lysaght^s reflection : —
And well may John Bull, when he's robbed us of bread,
Call poor Ireland the " Land of Potatoes.'*
The sagacious principle that the prosperity of Irish would be
the ruin of English trade, was the cause of heavy embargoes
laid on exports and imports; and these very embargoes
aided the flight of thousands of Irishmen to those foreign
lands where they fruitlessly avenged the wrongs which hiade
them exiles. Smuggling was carried on to an unparalleled
extent. Vessels freighted with wine and silks were continually
running into the western bays, "having,^^ says Mr.
O'Callaghan, '^ Irish oflScers, and occasionally friars, on board,
speaking the old language.'^
Both the recruiting officer and the friar had to brave a heavy
penalty in coming to Ireland; but the two were equally
intrepid. " Kevolutions,'' said Montalembert, '^ have passed
over the head of the priest without bending it '' ; and to the
Irish priest, above all to the Irish monk, are these words
especially applicable. As to soldiers of the same nation, they
were always ready for peril and adventure ; and as the captain or
sergeant in the service of France or Spain strolled into the
cabin of the peasant or the dilapidated manor house of the
Catholic gentleman, he found eager hearers to listen to his
descriptions of the glory to be earned and the good position to
be attained on the continent. The smuggling vessels which
brought to the Irish coasts claret, laces, and recruiting officers,
carrifed away cargoes of wool and of recruits. Strangely enough,
the natives of Ulster chiefly preferred the service of Spain — a
nation to which they seem to have clung with a kind oi
traditionary love ever since the third Philip lavished so many
barren honours on one who was assuredly the crown and flower
of their race. The names of O^Donnell, MacSweeney, O'Gara,
abound in the Irish regiments which Spain maintained during
The Iriuh Biigade iri the Service of France. 179
the eighteenth century, and some of which yet existed in the
days of the Marquis de la Bomana and the Peninsular War.
Tiie men of Munster and Southern Connaught, on the contrary,
chiefly flocked beneath the fleur-de-lys ; and although long
experience had now shown that the Grallo-Irish regiments were
more apt to be cantoned about the Channel ports than actually
embarked for an invasion of England or Ireland, there were
few among the recruits who did not hope one day to draw
their swords for Ireland and Prince Charles.
That hope was near its fulfilment in the month when
war was once more declared between France and England,
namely, March, 1 744. This time it was the wind and the sea,
not the French Government, which denied to the Jacobite
cause the swords of the Irish Brigade. The armada of Louis
was driven back on the French coast ; and Marshal Saxe and
the Irish regiments were ordered into Flanders, where the
Gael was still destined to encounter the Saxon on ground
foreign to both.
At the battle of Dettingen, lost by the French in 1743, the
Irish had not fought at all, for although Marshal de Noailles
intended that they should be " the first brigade to attack,''
they did not come up in time, owing to the misconduct of the
Duke of Grammont, who precipitated the battle. This was an
unfortunate circumstance for France, since, according to the
naive remark of the Irish oflBcer, quoted by Mr. O'Callaghan,
'^ if the brigade had been there they might have retrieved the
affair by inspiring others with an equal intrepidity.'' But
though they had not the satisfaction of engaging the
'^ Sassenach " at Dettingen, nor of invading him in his own
country, the battle of Fontenoy, fought on the 11th of May,
1745, offered them an opportunity of showing him their mettle
which was not lost.
Decidedly the best pages in Mr. O'Callaghan's book are
those in which he describes this famous battle. Here some-
thing of the rushing ardour of the Irish soldier seems to have
communicated itself for once to the minute historian ; here the
italics are fewer, and the effects more striking than in any other
portion of the work. And we particularly rejoice that so
circumspect and searching an account has been given to the
public of a battle the circumstances of which have so often
been hurried over by modern English historians, who ap-
parently would rather that their compatriots should have been
defeated by Frenchmen than by Irishmen. Mr. Crowe*
* Particularly in his Encyclopaedic History. In his more recent History
of France he does indeed allade to the achievements of the Brigade, but as
meagerly as is consistent with the mention of them at all.
N 2
180 The Irish Brigade in the Service of France.
mentions the large share of the Irish Brigade in the victory,
but usually their achievements are so much slurred over as to
leave many readers in ignorance of the fact that the sugges-
tions of Lally twice precluded defeat, whilst the steady,
daring, and intrepid conduct of the whole brigade of his
countrymen finally secured a victory which certainly would
not have been gained without them.
The Flemish campaign of 1 745 commenced with the siege
of Toumay, which was invested by the French with 18,000
men, while '^ 6,000 were employed to guard the .... com-
munications, and 40,000 remained to protect the siege and
give the allies battle. '^ Among these 40,000 in the field were
the whole of the Irish regiments, including a new one com-
manded by Thomas Arthur Lally ; and early in May the task
devolved upon this army of intercepting 55,000 of the finest
troops in Europe, who were marching under the Duke of
Cumberland to raise the siege of Tournay. On the 10th
Marshal Saxe took up his position on the north bank of the
Scheldt, defending his lines by redoubts on all points but two,
viz., a space between Fontenoy and the wood of Barri, and a
space between Fontenoy and the village of Antoin. It was
an error on the part of Saxe to rely on the impracticability of
these two passages, and one which must infallibly have caused
his defeat, had not Colonel Lally, examining the battle-field in
the evening, been struck by the dangers which might be
apprehended from the direction of Antoin, and persuaded the
marshal to throw up three redoubts, the fire of which would
rake the perilously open passage. Had the same been done for
the space between Fontenoy and the Bois de Barri, Marshal
Saxe would not have so nearly lost the battle, and the brigade
would not have won all that glory which was ^^ theirs at
Fontenoy.^'
The battle opened at five o'clock on the morning of the
11th, with a mutual cannonade. At about nine o'clock the
allied army commenced a general assault on the French posi-
tion. The Dutch, on the left, fell back before the fire of the
redoubts ; on the right. General Ingoldsby was afraid to obey
his orders. But none the less did the central column, con-
sisting of 14,000 British and Hanoverians, with twenty field-
pieces, and led on by the Duke of Cumberland in person,
force its irresistible path through all the fire of the redoubts
into the very midst of the French army. The steady persever-
ing courage of the Teutonic soldier was never better exempli-
fied. It was not a rush, not a swift torrent carrying all away
before it; it was a quiet yet forcible progress which apparently
could not be stopped or turned aside, like the advance of the
The Irish Brigade in the Service of France, 181
trampling surf when the tide is coming in. In vain Marshal
Saxe hurled against the column the most famous corps of the
French army ; they were flung back shattered and disordered,
as a child might be rolled up the beach who should oppose
the advance of the billows. The Swiss guards, even the
cavalry, recoiled beneath the fire of that " moving citadel of
gallant men.^^ The historian of the brigade has been careful
to refute (no diflBcult task) Voltaire^s statement, that certain
Irish battalions were among these defeated corps. Voltaire
always showed, when treating of the Brigade, that vulgar
tendency to make light of what was accomplished by the allies
of France, from which the French despatches and military
memoirs of the day generally show their writers to have been
free. His assertion is contrary to the accounts of all the
other authorities, French, EngUsh, and Irish, who agree in
stating that none of the Irish infantry under Lord Clare,
stationed in reserve behind the Bois do Barri, engaged
with the enemy until their grand and successful onset
when, according to Rolt, " Marshal Saxe was reduced to his
last, sole, and principal effort to retrieve the honour of the
day. This was in bringing up the Irish Brigade ; a corps on
whose courage and behaviour he entirely depended for a
favourable decision of so great .... and well contested a
battle.^^ The immense " oblong square '^ of the British and
Hanoverian infantry had then advanced deep into the French
line, having encountered most of the choicest corps in Saxe^s
army, but not Clare's Irishmen, who were yet in reserve. It
seems astonishing that there should till now have been no
thought of opposing Cumberland's progress with cannon. The
first to suggest the idea was Lally, whose foresight had already
prevented the Dutch from effecting a junction with the British
from Antoin, and who now proposed to the Duke of Richelieu
to bring against the column four pieces of cannon. Richelieu
eagerly adopted the plan, and was pleased thenceforth to give
it out as his own. Michelet, however, has accorded to Lally
the credit of his own suggestion. The king, who, according
to the Marquis D'Argencon, was in despair, and who was
about to leave the field, consented to this employment of the
cannon which were to have covered his own retreat ; amidst
an almost unparalleled tumult of battle, and the shouts of
victory which the advancing column still continued to pour
forth the four pieces were hurried forward, and Saxe gave
orders that their action on the enemy should be followed
up by a charge of cavalry on the English front, and an
attack on their right bv the infantry headed by the Irish
Brigade.
182 The Irish Brigade in the Service of France.
As in his assertion respecting the defeat of certain Irish
battalions, so was Voltaire also without justification in stating
that the Irish were second in the last onset made upon
Cumberland's column, while the oflicial and other accounts
published after the battle show that the Irish Brigade, on
whose battalions Saxe relied as his last resource, headed the
attack, sustained by the regiments of Normandie and des
Vaisseaux, who had both been driven back earlier in the day.
Even had there been no other proofs of a fact which none but
Voltaire thought of denying, it would be absurd to suppose
that the marshal would have placed in the front corps which
were fatigued with recent defeat, when the Irish regiments,
who had not as yet engaged and showed great ardotir for
the combat, were ready to his hand.
The British and Hanoverians, unsupported by cavalry in the
midst of the French army, yet presented a formidable appear-
ance; for though their path was strewn with their own wounded,
they were nevertheless flushed with victory. But Lally's
redoubts prevented the Dutch from supporting the central
square ; his ^^ four cannon,^' which were to ^^ gain the victory,^'
opened deep breaches in the *' moving citadel,^' and into these
breaches Richelieu led the cavalry, whilst the Regiment du
Roi was ordered to head the attack on the left or Hanoverian,
and the Irish Brigade on the right or British flank. Gallantly
as they fought against every enemy, never did the Irish corps
march so firmly yet so eagerly to victory, as when they were
placed in antagonism to their hereditary foes. On this occasion
they presented an appearance which must have gladdened the
anxious heart of the Marshal. They were nearly all very young
men, a circumstance which is not easily explained, except
perhaps by the fact that the soldiers of the Brigade, as they
entered later life, were often wont to return to their native is-
land and to spend their last days among their kindred. But Lord
Clare's youthful corps proved that they were in a better state of
discipline than the '^ armies under age '' of more modern times.
Ordered to hold their fire and fall on the enemy with bayonets,
they marched up the slope at a quick pace to the tune of the
"White Cockade,'* and to the sound of that war cry which
was so terrible in the ears of the enemy — ^" Remember Limerick
and the Saxon faith." " Soon," says a contemporary letter
quoted by Mr. O'Callaghan at p. 357, "as the English troops
beheld the scarlet uniform and well-known fair complexions of
the Irish; soon as they saw the Brigade advancing against
them with fixed bayonets, and crying out to one another in
English, 'Steady, boys! forward! charge!' too late they
began to curse their cruelty, which forced so brave a people
The Irish Brigade in the Serince of France. 183
from the bosom of their native country .... to wrest from
them both victory and life.^^
Although Cumberland's troops were wearied with their
previous exertions, they possessed the advantages of being
on the summit of a slope, and of having two cannon planted
in their front. "They were/^ says Mr. O'Callaghan, "a
choice body of men, containing among other corps the
first battalion of the second or Coldstream Regiment of Foot
Guards.'^ The clash of the general encounter was fore-
stalled by a single combat between an Irish and an English
oflScer, in which the former was victorious ; and as he sent his
prisoner (whose fast friend he afterwards became) to the rear,
a shout of triumph arose from the Brigade, who precipi-
tated themselves upon the Sassanach with irresistible force.
Every wrong that had been done to their race since the viola-
tion of the Treaty ; every oppression that had helped to
drive them into these foreign lands, the deprivations suffered
by their parents, their priests, their kindred, were all so many
forces which nerved their arms and steadied the ir^ footsteps.
The English, who had reserved their fire till the last moment,
now sent forth a blaze of musketry. The scarlet uniforms of
the Irish strew the slope; Lord Clare is only saved by his
cuirass. Yet none the less do those six regiments of young
Gaelic soldiers press upon the Saxon ranks with those terrible
fixed bayonets which were never known to fail them; that
charge proves irresistible ; the soUd square breaks, and advance
and victory are changed into retreat and disaster. Some of
the French Carabiniers, confused among the red uniforms, fall
upon the Irish ; but the error is soon discovered, and together
infantry and cavalry pursue the shattered and flying column
down the hill slopes. Splendidly as the English behaved that
day, splendid as was even their final resistance, the troops
who a little while before had reduced Louis and his generals to
despair now fled hopelessly back upon their reserve, until
their remains were rallied by Cumberland, who marched off
the field in good order. " In ten minutes the battle was won.'^
And the official accounts of the French War-office declare, in the
clearest manner that the Irish Brigade principally contributed
to achieve the complete victory which was ultimately won.
Yet when the pursuit was over, and the unwounded Irish
were ordered to rest, the officers observed numbers of the men
in tears. These young fellows, flushed with victory, now
knew that there were Irishmen in the hostile column which
they had just broken and overthrown ; and Lieutenant Mac
Donough, who relates this touching stoiy, adds that it was
necessary to cheer them by playing ' St. Patrick's Day in the
18i The Irish Brigade in the Service of France.
Morning/ " when they started up, and were ready for a-row as
ever/' Their own loss was considerable ; that of the French
altogether nearly equalled the loss of the Allies, both being
over 7,000. Many an Englishman, innocent of any wrong
done in Ireland, suffered on that field for the sins of his
government ; yet it must often have happened that a regiment
which had been quartered in the Green Island, and had there
contributed its quota to the miseries of the people, was borne
down by the invincible charge of the Irish Brigade.
The battle of Fontenoy increased tenfold the former renown of
the Franco-Hibernian troops, and raised different emotions in
different hearts according to the workings of interest, prejudice, or
nobler feelings. Louis XV. loaded the Brigade with rewards;
George II. exclaimed, ** Cursed be the laws which deprive me of
such subjects V and the Irish Parliament, ever the bitterest enemy
of the Gael and of the Catholic, decreed that any man who served
in the French or Spanish armies after the 8th of October should be
incapacitated from holding property in Ireland ; the possession or
reversion of such property to belong to the first Protestant
discoverer. It was the constant policy of that packed and venal
Parliament to aggravate the evils which itself had principally
created.
The ascendancy party had reason to dread the Franco-Irish
troops. Two months after the battle of Fontenoy followed
the most remarkable of all the Jacobite attempts to restore the
Stuarts to their ancestral throne. Several Irish oflicers ac-
companied Charles Edward to Ireland, for whom it would have
been better had their advice always prevailed ; but had the entire
Brigade, or even two or three of its regiments, formed a component
part of his army on his triumphal march into England, it is pro-
bable that the upshot of the enterprise would have been less un-
toward than it proved in reality. Charles Edward was wrecked
between the Gaelicism of the Highlanders and the Teutonicism
if we may so speak, of the English ; he wanted a means of support
free from the failings of both. No addition to his forces could
have made the victory of Preston Pans more brilliant than it
actually was ; the Celtic fire and daring of the clans carried away
every obstacle. But they were clans, and they were Celtic ; their
ideas of warfare belonged to the old forty day school ; and after
their first gallant advance into England, the chiefs even more than
the people were unwilling to plunge deeper into the land of the
Southron, so few of whom came forward to espouse the Prince's
cause. The English High Church Jacobites, formerly loud in their
professions of loyalty, shrank back on the day which saw their care
and comfort threatened. ** The High Church party," according to
Patten, " were enthusiastic enough for the cause when they were
The Irish Brujade in the Service of France, 185
mellow over a bottle, but did not care for venturing their carcases
beyond the tavern." Thus, when their beloved '* Prince Charlie"
entered England, the greater part of them adopted that kind of
neutrality which was Stanley's at Bosworth Field, and which waits
to see who will prove to be the strongest. It was the same old love
of ease and quiet which had made the nation Protestant at the
sovereign's will ; and which has contributed to make England so
supremely comfortable. But had the whole or a large part of the
Brigade been at Charles's disposal, he might have borne up against
these adverse circumstances. For the victors of Fontenoy, though
brimful of Celtic devotion and daring, were no longer clansmen ;
they were soldiers, and amenable to military rather than to
patriarchal discipline. They would have formed the solid basis
of his army, and prevented it from falling to pieces. Lord
Clare and his victorious legions would undoubtedly have been
eager to march upon London, and the Highlanders, supported by
such troops instead of depending on themselves alone, would
Iiave been eager to emulate their brother Gael. In the
mutual complications of gratitude existing between Louis XV.
and the Brigade, it would have been a graceful acknowledgment of
their services at Fontenoy if he could have spared their whole
force to the cause they loved so well on the occasion of the Prince's
embarkation for Scotland. In November he actually collected
about 10,000 men, chiefly Irish and Scottish, for transportation to
England and Scotland ; of whom some never sailed, some were
taken prisoners at sea, and a few hundreds, commanded by
Brigadier Stapleton and Lord John Drummond, eflFccted a landing
near Montrose. Further preparations were made for the expedition
of the Brigade into Great Britain early in 1746 ; whilst the in-
domitable Lally crossed over to England in disguise to recruit for
the Jacobite cause, escaping with Irish dexterity when a price was
set on his head, in company with some smugglers who had
proposed to him to " be on the look out " for himself The only
troops who actually embarked at this time were Fitz James's
thousand, Lally 's infantry regiments, who bore their full share in
winning the battle of Falkirk, where Highlanders and Irish proved
that they could fight side by side now as in the days of Montrose.
As to the final disaster of CuUoden, there appears to be no doubt,
in spite of Lord Mahon's denigrdnt expression, duly censured by
the historian of the Brigade, that the freed Franco-Hibernian
troops in Charles Edward's army both fought and retreated ad-
mirably. The defeated prince, writing to Louis XV. with perhaps
a shade of reproach in his tone, declared that * douze cent hommes
de troupes reglees" would have decided the day in his favour.
All along he had leaned principally on the talented and charming
General O'Sullivan, as a real military man and no Highland
186 The Irish Brigade in the Service of France.
chief ; and he was destined to owe his life in part to Captain
O'Neill, an officer of the Irish Brio^ade. It is impossible to help
feeling that in failing to bestow the services of 3000 or 4000 of
the Irish on Charles at his embarkation, Louis XV. behaved far
more ungenerously to the grandson of James II. than Louis XIV.
had behaved to Jam.es himself during the Williamite War.
As to the Irish Catholics, they stirred neither hand nor foot m
the cause of Charles Edward, confining the expression of their
sympathies to singing (in safe places) "Oh heroes of ancient
renown," " The White Cockade,'^ and " The Blackbird.'' The
fact was that
" Ireland, one vast grave, lay stilL"
The deathly silence which reigned among that crushed and
trampled people, in their dread lestGovernment should take occasion
by the movement in Scotland to increase their burdens, resembled
the unnatural calm which often broods over the landscape when a
tliunderstorm is raging in the distance. Yet the restoration of the
Stuarts was their only hope, and they looked with helpless anxiety
for its accomplishment by other people. While Charles Edward's
most able and devoted followers were Irishmen from France, who
had emancipated themselves from all connection with the de facto
British Government, their countrymen in Ireland were paralysed by
fear lest they s'lould attract towards themselves new arrows from
the Hanoverian bow. Mr. O'Callaghan supposes that had the
Prince landed in Ireland he would have met with less support
than was afforded him in Scotland. Although a landing in
Scotland was undoubtedly more to the purpose for marching upon
London, we cannot but believe that the appearance among the
Irish Celts of the celebrated Prince Charlie, more especially if he
had been accompanied by two or three regiments of the Brigade,
would have thawed the frozen blood of Ireland, and caused her
sons to rally round him as they had rallied round his grandfather.
But as this was not so they were only too glad to disarm by perfect
quietude the suspicions of their rulers ; and until near the end of
the century it appeared as though even the ardour of patriotism
had become the property of the Irish Protestants.
The Brigade, whose losses, by the capture at sea of many of their
number in the endeavour to reach Scotland were chiefly supplied
by recruits from *' O'Brien's country," contributed to the hardly
won French victory over the hated Cumberland at Laffeldt, — where
the efforts of Saxe were further aided by the customary cowardice
of the ** Dutch horse," who proved themselves to be anything but
auxiliaries. The Irish greatly enjoyed defeating the victor of
Culloden ; and Mr. O'Callaghan takes pains to show that the
English assertion as to their losing a '^ standard " at Laffeldt cannot
be true, since a standard is a cavalry ensign, and the regiment o
The Irish Brigade hi the Service of France, 187
Fitz James was not engaged. This is taking up a position on the
strict meaning of words, but altogether it appears probable that such
a disaster, which had never as yet occurred to any regiment of the
Brigade, did not overtake the Irish troops on this, one of the last
battle-fields where they figured conspicuously.
After the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle the Irish Brigade decline in
interest, as being no longer purely national. The Brigade had
inflicted so much disaster on the British arms ever since its first
enrolment beneath French banners, that Government resolved on
yet sterner measures to check the constant renewal of so danger-
ous a force. It was the Irish Parliament who hit on a mode of
effecting this, which they well knew would be efficacious. They
struck at the love of country and of home, so conspicuous in their
Catholic fellow-countrymen, by making it death for any Irishman
who had served in the French army to return to his native land.
It was customary with the old soldiers of the Brigade to take home
the savings of their pay and spend their last years on Irish soil ;
and the new law condemned them to a perpetual exile, the more
bitter because the increasing corruption whicn prevailed in France
was uncongenial to the respectable veterans of the Brigade. Though
none of the previous laws by which it had been attempted to
prevent enrolment had proved effective, this last enactment had its
result. It is interesting to conjecture whether emigration to
America would decline in the impossible event of a prohibition to
return to Ireland ; although the cases in which emigrants leave
their new country for the old one are probably not one- twentieth
of those in which the soldiers of the Brigade sought once more
the scenes of their childhood.
This law, joined with the abandonment by France of the Stuart
cause, led to a diminution in the number of recruits ; and the gaps
were filled up with Frenchmen, though the corps continued to be
officered mainly by Irish gentlemen, whose attachment to the soil
of their country was not so warm as that of the peasant. Ever
since the first establishment of the Brigade, its officers had been
shining ornaments of French society. Never did there exist a more
polished class of men than that race of charming, highly-bred
Franco-Irishmen, who were not less conspicuous for their brilliancy
in the salon, than for their valour in the field. The rude nature
of the ruinous dwellings in which many of their number had been
born, the contrivances for life with which their childhood was
often associated, had not deprived them of the natural elegance of
the well- descended Gael ; and when this was further finished by
contact with French society — more opulent, more civilized,
though at the same time far more unhealthy than that of tho
Irish gentry — social perfection was the result. At the glittering
courts of Louis XIV. and Louis XV., and in the perfumed though
188 Tlie Irish Brirjade in the Service of France,
vitiated atmosphere of the Parisian salons, the Irish officers, easy'
graceful, keen-witted, and often remarkably handsome, made a
brilliant figure. But about the time when the corps of the
Brigade began to lose their strictly Irish character, the tone of its
officers somewhat deteriorated. The oppressed condition of Irish
society, the difficulties thrown in the way of education, while at the
same time abuses in France were tending towards the moment when
court, monarchy, and aristocracy exploded together, were not without
their effect on the young men. Miss Edgeworth's portrait of a
Franco-Irish officer in the last days of the French monarchy, in
her tale of " Ormond," though drawn by an unfriendly hand, is no
incorrect representation of some of the class at that closing period.
But though the Irish Brigade had reached the zenith of its glory
at Fontenoy, it was still somewhat of a thorn in the side of Eng-
land. So hostile were the mutual feelings of France and England
that it was not long before they were once more aux prises in the
Seven Years' War. They had changed partners since 1748 ;
Frederick of Prussia being now ranged on the English, Maria
Theresa on the French side. Redoubtable still, the Irish Brigade
formed a distinguished portion of the army who inflicted so much
ignominy on the Duke of Cumberland at Hastenbeck and Kloster-
seven, and at Rosbach the honour of France was almost entirely
upheld by that island corps.
Whilst they thus yet kept their glory alight in Europe, one of
their best and bravest officers, the upright and talented, but unfor-
tunate Count de Lally, was doing his utmost to maintain the
empire of France in India against the growing power of the English
and the corruptions of the French East India Company itself,
amidst the spite of rivals, and of those who were annoyed by his
integrity. The dislike with which the officers of the Brigade were
still regarded by the " Sassanach '* was demonstrated by the un-
generous treatment experienced by the Count when in English
hands, and even by the pork broth regimen to which he was
at one time confined ; this, however, was to be expected,
and was in accordance with precedent. But who could have
imagined on the day when Lally 's zeal and clearsightedness
twice saved the armies of France from defeat at Fontenoy,
that he would at last perish by French hands and on a French
scafi'old ? Who can help sympathising with Colonel Butler when
on the condemnation of Lally, he took the cockade from his hat at
the head of his regiment, and ** withdrew from the service of
France ? ** But Lafly's death was soon followed by the swift des-
truction of that old order of things which had become so loaded
with repressed but explosive forces. Not twenty years afterwards
the Bourbon dynasty fell, and with it the Brigade which had served
it so long and so gloriously — several of its ennobled officers
The Irish Brigade in tlie Service of France. 189
falling victims to the hungry guillotine. The British Government
acted wisely in incorporating the surviving officers into an Anglo-
Irish corps ; the winding ways of European politics having thus
led to an unparalleled revolution in the position of the celebrated
force which conquered at Landen, at Almanza, at Fontenoy, and
on so many other fields of fame. The first of its warriors had
fled from British soil to fight for the dynasty which favoured the
liouse of Stuart ; the last returned to British rule because that
very dynasty, in its own turn overthrown, found its best ally in the
Hanoverian Government of Epgland.
When Louis XVIII. was restored to the throne of his fathers the
Duke of Fitz James presented to tha long banished king a bronzed
bevy of Irish officers, with the words — ** Sire, I have the honour of
presenting to your Majesty the survivors of the old Irish Brigade.
These gentlemen only ask for a sword, and the privilege of dyinii; at
the foot of the throne." Such, however, was the track of fiery glory
which the Brigade had left behind it on the historic page, that the
English government specially conditioned with Louis that the
renowned corps should not be re-established. Thus ended the
corporate existence of that matchless army of exiles which, for more
than half a century, spread throughout Europe the fame of Irish
valour and constancy, and whose charge had so often been the terror
and the ruin of their enemies.
Two circumstances especially strike us when we read the records
of the Brigade by the light of previous Irish history. One of these
is their steadiness in a lost battle, their freedom from panic, their
scorn of a hurried and disorderly flight. This improvement must,
of course, be attributed to a superior discipline. In their own
country the Irish had usually fought as clansmen, and clung more
or less to that Celtic system of returning home with booty which
had caused Prince Charles Edward to find his Highlanders such
inefficient supporters. Even Owen O'Neill, after the battle of
Benburb, had been unable to prevent some of his men from follow-
ing this ruinous practice. In the Williamite Wars the raw young
soldiers of James were clansmen no longer, but they fought under
leaders divided among themselves, and division is ever a fruitful
source of confusion. The powers of endurance, superior to those of
their French comrades, which the Irish manifested when forming
a part of a regular and well ordered army, proved that a principle
of steadiness existed within them which only lacked cultivation
to show its presence.
The second circumstance which may be called remarkable, is the
amicability and union which reigned among the Irish corps, more
especially when all the regiments were serving together, as in the
war of the Austrian Succession. " Union," says a French war-
office document of the period, quoted by Mr. 0*Callaghan, at p. 473,
190 The Irish Brigade in the Service of France,
'' has prevailed to so great a degree in the Irish Brigade, since all
the corps were thus made to serve together, that the most
trifling dispute or altercation never took place ! " And this among a
people so fiery, so quick tempered, -so quarrelsome as the Irish are
generally supposed to be, and as they had proved themselves to be
through a long and mournful course of history. The union among
these soldiers may have existed because they were countrymen in a
foreign land ; it may have been the result of a perfectly well
combined action on the battle-field ; or, again, of their absence
from the beloved old native soil, so long the hotbed of feuds, an
absence which allowed free scope to the best and warmest feeUngg
of the vivid and affectionate Gaelic nature.
At the same time there can be no greater mistake than to assert,
as some English writers have done, that the Irish always fought
well in foreign lands, but never in their own. It is all but im^
possible that good soldiership and good generalship sliould not
have been able to flourish on the very soil which produced them ;
and if there were no Irish victories of the Blackwater, the Curlieu
Mountains, and Benburb, the armies of Bagnal, of Clifford, and of
Munro laboured under strange delusions. We can even trace
in some of the circumstances attending the native warfare waged
by the Irish, the emblem of their future greatness on foreign battle-
fields. The up-hill charge, the reserved fire, the final rush upon the
foe with bayonets, of which we hear at Almanza, or at Marsaglia,
or at Fontenoy, strike us as being also incidents of the battle of
Benburb.
But the Irish Brigade were the crown of the martial glories of
Erin, and shed a lustre on her name in the time of her darkest
eclipse. Their more modem successors in the British service have
maintaine nobly her military honour ; but they have not been
called upon to prove her vitality as a nation. In no single
action did the Irish soldiers abroad ever disgrace the nation whence
they sprang, or the service to which their swords were devoted.
The existence of such officers as Lally and O'Mahony in the
French and Spanish, and of Lacy in the Russian service, showed
that tliere were still Irishmen who could lead as well as command.
The Irish on the Continent were the vindication of their country
during that dreary era of moral gloom which may be called the
glacial period of her existence, a standing contrast to her spiritless
and miserable home population, and a living testimony of what fair
and judicious treatment would accomplish in the Gaelic character
and genius. French despatches and memoirs fully acknowledged
all that France owed to the ** splendid and transccndant deeds ' of
the exiled heroes who gained their victories and covered their
retreats, whilst contemporary Whig writers paid them the hirfiest
of compliments by the apprehensions they expressed of those Irish
Ccmon Estcourt on Anglican Ordination, 191
Catholic troops who were " so perfected in the art of war, that the
private men could make very good officers upon occasion, and to whose
valour, in a great measure, France owed even her own preservation."
Though they were given no opportunity of serving their own country,
they were the sole pride and hope of Ireland in the darkness of the
penal days. Many a faint heart on the banks of the Lee and the
Shannon, or among the heaths of Connaught and the glens of
Tyrconnell, was thrilled with joy as the names of Cremona, Cassano,
Almanza, Fontenoy, and Laffeldt struck the ear, and inspired the
miubtrel's verse. Nor was the pride of those who suffered at home
in those who fought abroad misplaced, since their honour fully
equalled their valour ; and it may truly be said of the Irish
Brigade in the words of an enemy, that during their career they
*' never made the least false step, or had the least blot in their
escutcheon."
Aet. VII.— CANON ESTCOURT ON ANGLICAN
ORDINATION.
The Question of Anglican Ordination discussed. By B. E. Estcourt,
M.A., F.S.A., Canon of St. Chad's Cathedral, Birmingham. London :
Burns & Gates. 1873.
THE religion established by law as the religion of the state
in England, remains to this day what it ever has been,
an unexplained puzzle. Nobody has been able to solve the
mystery of its birth. Its ministers claim to be possessed of
the great gift which is conveyed to men in the sacrament of
Order, and the rest of the world is either astonished at the
claim, or contemptuously indifferent to it. The Anglican
ordinations are what they always have been ; time has not
given them strength, and time has not clearly shown what they
are. We may have a guess on the subject, but the guess
cannot be proved ; for the one fact which would go a good
way towards a settlement of the question is wrapped up in an
impenetrable cloud.
When Henry VIII. founded this religion, he probably did
not wish to do more than establish another schism, ^of which
he should be the head. But as a stone once set in motion on
the top of a hill goes to the bottom whether meant to do so
or not, so is it in the history of Henry's unholy work ; the
schism went farther, and the miserable king would himself
have been startled at it had he seen it in the hands of his son
192 Ganon Estcourt on Anglican Ordination.
and of Elizabeth. During the reign of this latter personage
the mystery of iniquity was completed in the consecration or
non-consecration of Matthew Parker, D.D., Deo. 15, 1559, as
archbishop of Canterbury, from whom all the other persons
known as bishops of the Establishment are descended. The
Anglicans depend wholly on Parker ; if he was never con-
secrated, they have not one bishop among them, and never
had one; if he was consecrated, they are heretics and
schismatics of the worst kind, and in one sense more to be
pitied than if Parker had never been consecrated, becaase of
the horrid profanation of the Sacraments and the sacrilege
continually committed.
Parker's consecration was of course illegal : that is to say,
it was done in defiance of all laws and canons binding in the
Church. Of that there is not, and there cannot be, any doubt.
But Parker's consecration may have been also invalid, because
the man who consecrated him, or pretended to consecrate
him, had never been consecrated a bishop himself. This man
was Barlow, an apostate friar, like Lutlier, married, and sunk
in sin. Anglicans say he was a bishop, a man who had been
consecrated though in schism, but still validly consecrated.
That is the question. The burden of proof lies on the
Anglicans, and for more than three hundred years have they
been lying under it, unable to show that their founder. Barlow,
had ever been a consecrated bishop.
The great majority of those who profess the religion which
Barlow and Parker began, care very little or nothing at all about
the facts in dispute. To them it would make no difference in
the world if clear proofs were produced that neither Barlow nor
Parker was ever a bishop. But there are men now, and there
always have been men, in the establishment, who certainly
profess a very serious interest in the disputed fact. Some of
these from time to time have discussed the history of the fact
in question, and have been able to say that the fact was
certain. No doubt they thought so, but it is true, neverthe-
less, that all misgivings have not been silenced, and that a
new disputant is always welcome. The proof of the disputed
fact is always coming, but it never comes.
Of late years the question has acquired some importance
because of certain new claims put forth by a section of the
Anglicans. These personages have done what their pre-
decessors never did, — they have asked the Catholic priesthood
to acknowledge the Anglican priesthood; in other words they
wish to be thought good Catholics, but with a difference ; the
Sovereign Pontiff is requested to own them for his subjects,
but they are to render him no obedience.
Canon Estcourt on Anglican OrdinaiiLU. 193
This singalar claim^ made probably in perfect good faith^
has been considered by many as a hopeful sign^ and by many
as one of the worst signs possible. But be this as it may^ the
claim is made^ and Catholics generally, according to their way
of viewing it, treat it, some with respect, and others without
much reverence, for they think it so unreasonable in itself as
to be a proof rather of malice or of folly.
The learned canon of St. Chad^s has treated the claim
seriously, and the book before us is the result. We do not
think we can speak too highly of it. Mr. Estcourt has
ransacked every conceivable place for documents, re-examined
documents already in print, and his patience seems unex-
hausted. He has brought together all the evidence he could
find, and has kept back none ; for he has not done his work
like an advocate speaking for his client; that was not
necessary, for in this controversy what he, and certainly all
who agree with him, want is the truth. This claim of certain
Anglicans has received an answer for the present, and until
some further evidence can be had, we do not see that any other
answer is necessary.
Of the claim now put forth by certain Anglicans to be re-
garded as priests and bishops, Mr. Estcourt thus speaks :—
The claim now advanced is for a recognition of the validity of Anglican
Orders by the Catholic Church. Such a claim must of course rest on
Catholic grounds alone, and must proceed on the principles by which the
Church is accustomed to judge, and which are laid down in her theologians.
No other principles could be admitted (p. 3).
That is perfectly fair; for if the Anglicans wish to be re-
garded as priests, they must satisfy other priests that they are
priests. Hitherto no priests have acknowledged them. None
of the eastern schismatics have ever said that the Anglican
preacher is a priest, and he is excluded, wherever he is known,
from every altar in the world.
The question then seems to be this : Are there any good
reasons for acknowledging the validity of Anglican ordina-
tions ? The Anglicans of course maintain the affirmative, and
Mr. Estcourt has answered the question in the negative. He
has been patient and attentive, and the Anglicans themselves
must admit that he has dealt most fairly by them.
Let us go back again to the story of Barlow, who, like an
evil spirit, cannot be laid, and who is a tormentor of his
successors even to this day.
The first to determine the time of Barlow's consecration —
if he ever was consecrated — seems to be the late Mr. Haddan,
in his edition of the works of Bramhall. Mr. Stubbs, in his
VOL. XXI. — NO. XLi, [New Series.'] o
1 94 Canon Estcourt on Anglican Ordination,
careful and accurate Begiatrum Sacrum Anglicanum, unable to
discover any proofs of Barlovs^s consecration^ simply adopts
the opinion of Mr. Haddan^ who is his sole authority. Mr*
Haddan and Mr. Stubbs say that Barlow was consecrated
June llth^ 1536. He may have been so^ but these gentlemen
cannot know it of their own knowledge. They may have
made good guesses^ and time may show that their guesses
were true, but at present they know no more about that
alleged consecration than we do. This is admitted by their
co-religionist Dr. Lee, who says of Barlow in his book, p. 160,
that " he must have been consecrated between April 21st and
April 25th, 1536.'^
Now Mr. Haddan thought, and apparently proved, that the
consecration could not have taken place so early, and was
driven by the evidence he thought he possessed to assign the
undetermined consecration to the month of June. Dr. Lee
had reasons for assigning an earlier date, and without much
ceremony abandoned the date which Messrs. Haddan and
Stubbs had proposed. Unfortunately for either theory, canon
Estcourt has shown that Barlow cannot have been consecrated
at or about this time. The singularity of Barlow^s case lies in
this, that no document has yet been discovered from which any
reasonable man could gather that he ever was consecrated at
all ; while some documents have been found which throw a
grave suspicion on his spiritual character.
It is always assumed that the king never restored the
temporalities to any bishop who had not been consecrated as
well as confirmed, and on this assumption people say that
Barlow was consecrated, because the temporalities of the See
of St. David were restored to him. Barlow certainly had the
temporalities of the see, but it is not so certain that he re-
ceived consecration. Mason, in his Vindidcb Ecclesice Anglicance,
says, in the tenth chapter of the third book, that he had in his
possession a copy of the deed in which the restitution of
temporalities was recorded. He did not publish it ; for his
pleasure was to publish only a portion of it. But he arranged
his extracts, consciously or unconsciously, so as to give it a
meaning different from that which the document really gives.
Let us hear Mr. Estcourt's account of this little affair : —
It strack the writer [Mr. Estcourt] as worth while to examine the original
document which was printed by Mason as the restitution to Barlow of the
temporalities of St David's, taken, as he states, out of the Rolls Chapel, in
Chancery. It is printed from Mason under that title by Dr. Elrington and
Dr. Lee, though Mr. Haddan has accurately noticed that it is not in the
usual form. Mason's refertnce designates the Patent Rolls ; but after a
Canon Estcowrt on Anglican Ordination, 195
most carefol search no such document could be found enrolled upon them.
Its non-appearance on those rdlls of course stimulated curiosity to find it^
and after some further search it was found on the Memoranda Rolls of ihe
Remembrancer of the Lord Treasurer of the Exchequer. As these latter
rolls belonged to the Exchequer and not to the Chancery, and were not kept
in the Rolls Chapel, Mason has given a wrong reference to the Record
(pp. 71, 72).
Mason does not say that he saw the original docnment any-
where ; he had a copy of it ex a/rchivio descrvptvm,. If he had
said no more^ we might have believed him to have been de-
ceived by his scribe. But he deliberately adds that he was about
to insert in his book only certain parts, — ^auca ad inatUuhim
maxime a^eommodata. The words are ambigaoas^ and may
mean that he manipulated his text as well as that it was
sing^arly adapted for his object. In the margin he said that
the entries he referred to were ex Capel. Rotul, Oan^lla/r,,
the Bolls Chapel in Chancery.
But what is to be said of Mason ? The document he quotes
is not to his purpose at all ; Mr. Estcoui*t has searched for it
and found it. There is uo such thing as restitution of
temporalities to Barlow on record anywhere, it seems. This
document, for which, among others, we have to thank the
learned canon of Birmingham's unwearied energies, is a
grant, not a restitution, of temporalities. The word restitu-
tion, we believe, does not occur once in the document. The
formula is, dedimus et concessimus. The temporalities are given
to Barlow and his assigns for life, — durante vita, episcopo et
assignatis snis. Well, that is not a restitution of temporalities
as it was understood in those days and in these.
Barlow was nominated by the king, elected by the chapter,
and confirmed by Cranmer. He was now to all intents and
purposes a legal bishop of the new religion, capable of per-
forming all the exterior duties of his state. But if, as, the
Anglicans say, no restitution of temporalities is ever made
before consecration, and the restitution of them is a proof
that the consecration has taken place, we have here something
like a proof that Barlow was never consecrated, seeing that
his temporalities were not restored, but granted. Barlow,
elected and confirmed, could administer his diocese and perform
every function except that of ordination ; and having got the
temporalities into his hands, though not in the usual way, he
stood before the world as true a bishop as any other of his
brethren in heresy and schism. He was a legal bishop, and
could sit in the house of lords, for Gibson in his Oodex,
says that a bishop confirmed may take his seat, sit and vote,
anid there never was any reason why he should not.
o 2
196 Canon Estcourt on Anglican Ordination.
There is not the slightest difficulty in this sapposition^ and
if any law was broken, it is for the Anglicans to say which
law it is. There is no law in England by which a bishop-elect
is obliged to undergo the ceremony of consecration if he
chooses to live without his temporalities. But if he wishes to
be consecrated, he can compel the archbishop to attend to his
wishes, unless the archbishop prefers the loss of his g^ods.
Barlow, having got possession of his temporalities, was perfectly
at his ease ; he had the revenues and the jurisdiction, such as
it was, and that was all he could get. If he thought con-
secration a useless rite, he probably dispensed with himself
under the circumstances, and remained a priest. Besides, a
bishop, but not consecrated, was in those days nothing
singular. Bishops before the Council of Trent delayed their
consecration for years, and yet governed their sees and were
always regarded as bishops everywhere. They were true
bishops, but they could not administer the sacrament of Order,
and they were in the habit of sending their ordinandi to other
bishops, or inviting a neighbouring bishop into their own
diocesa for the purpose of ordination.
As the Catholic use and doctrine had not died out in
England when Barlow was made bishop of St. David's —
indeed all his contemporaries had been brought up in the
Catholic faith, — there was not a man in England who would
have been surprised in the slightest degree at a bishop un-
consecrated. The other bishops, knowing him to have been
confirmed, understood perfectly that, so far as the government
of his see was concerned, he was as good a bishop as they
were. The lay peers in those days never interfered with the
spiritual peers, and all that Barlow needed for the purpose of
taking his seat among them was his writ of summons. We
speak under correction, but we will venture on the statement,
that the king could have summoned any ecclesiastic he pleased,
and that the ecclesiastic so summoned would have been for
that parliament a spiritual peer, and the equal in parliament
of the two archbishops and bishops and abbots of the two
provinces.
The discovery of this document by Mr. Estcourt has thrown
another cloud over the alleged consecration of Barlow. The only
fact which the Anglicans produced in favour of his consecration,
the restitution of the temporalities, is not a fact, for the
temporalities were given him for life, not restored to him as
bishop of St. David's.
It is quite possible that even Barlow may have some scruples
about receiving the sacrament of Order in schism, for men
like him have had such scruples ; or he may have thought that
Canon Estcourt on Anglican Ordination. 197
Henry VIII. might repent of his evil deeds and seek for the
forgiveness of the Pope, and therefore deferred his consecration.
He could the more easily do so if he could recover or obtain
the temporalities of the see. The new practice of consecrating
bishops without the leave of the Pope had not been observed
three years when Barlow accepted a bishopric; and he a man
of craft, skilled in diplomacy, might very naturally suspect
* that the practice would not last. If he remained unconsecrated,
he would stand in a better position than Brown and Manning,
whenever the schism should be healed.
Hitherto there was a certain probability that Barlow had
been consecrated, though there were always grave reasons
against it ; but now that canon Estcourt has found out that
he obtained the temporalities of St. David's in an unusual way,
without any apparent necessity for such a change, all men
must admit that the probability now is that Barlow was only
a priest while a member of the house of lords. Mr. Estcourt
sums up the story in the following very measured terms :—
The case therefore remains a mystery. It is a mystery how he could have
remained unconsecrated, or how he could have carried on his assumed
character unchallenged, especially as he was involved in disputes with his
chapter. But with so many circumstances of suspicion arising from different
quarters, yet pointing the same way, it is impossible to admit the fact of his
consecration without more direct proof of it (p. 81).
The learned canon seems to think that the members of the
chapter of St. David might have used the fact of his non-conse-
cration to his hurt if they had known it ; but we believe that
Barlow was safe on that point ; his election had been confirmed
by Cranmer, and for all legal purposes he was a bishop who
jcould sue and be sued, and his not being consecrated would
have been an irrelevant fact, of no importance either way, in
a lawsuit about rights or possessions.
Dr. Lee, in his eagerness to maintain Barlow's consecration,
refers to the lawsuits in which the man was involved, as proofs
of the fact. Now his consecration was utterly immaterial : he
was in possession of the rights of a bishop, which do not depend
on consecration, and he could therefore do all that he is said
to have done. It is simply childish to say, as Dr. Lee has
done (p. 163, note), "had he not been consecrated, all his pro-
ceedings in this case would have been likewise null and void.'*
It is also possible that Barlow was an inveterate heretic
when he accepted the bishopric, and a disbeliever in the
sacraments. Wiclifie's heresies had become common, and
men in every rank of life were disciples, more or less virulent,
of the great heresiarch, Th^re were men and women in
198 Canon Estcourt on Anglican Ordination,
England, before Barlow was bom, who held that there were
bat two orders in the Charch, — ^priests and deacons, and th^
priests might ordain priests. In consequence of this doctrino,
priests did take upon themselves the episcopal function, and
pretended to ordain priests, who afterwards gave themselves
out as priests and said mass in the conventicles of the heretics,
and sometimes, where they were not known, in the presence of
the faithful. Women also — for the heresy was strong — had the
missal rendered into English for their use, and then said mass
as if they were priests. In Wicliflfe many heresies met, for he
can hardly be said to have invented any of his own ; but from
Wicliflfe modern Europe may be traced, and his evil doctrines
had spread over the greater part of England, so that Henry VIII,
did but reap the harvest which the Oxford heretic had sown.
Whether Barlow was a follower of Wicliflfe or not, we cannot
well say, but it is probable enough ; of one of his companions
in heresy we know that he was. Latimer was made a bishop
by Henry VIII., and was consecrated according to the Catholic
rite; unlawfully, however, for he neither accepted nor applied
for his bulls, and was therefore a schismatical and irregular
priest. This man, preaching before Edward VI., spoke as
follows : —
As the Supper of the Lord is the sacrament of another thing, it is a com-
memoration of His death which [He] suffered once for us ; and because it is
a sign of Christ's offering up, therefore he [it] bears the name thereof. And
this sacrifice a woman can offer as well as a man ; yea, a poor woman in the
belfry hath as good authority to offer up this sacrifice, as hath the bishop in
his Pontificalibus, with his mitre on his head, his rings on his fingers, and
sandals on his feet. (Sermon X. Ed. Parker Society.)
Long before Luther was heard of, the English people were
too well acquainted with heresy. Many of them did not
believe in the sacrament of the altar, and did believe or profess
to believe that all Christians were as much priests as the
priests who had been ordained. The doctrines of Wicliffe had
been sown in a very fruitful soil, and Foxe, vol. v. p. 251, con-
fesses the fact : —
The fruitful seed of the Gospel (he says) at this time had taken sach
root in England, that now it began manifestly to spring and show itself in all
places, and in all sorts of people, as it may appear in this good man
Cowbridge, who, coming of a good stock and family, whose ancestors, even
from Wickliffe's time hitherto, had been always favourers of the Gospel, and
addicted to the setting forth thereof in the English tongue.
The reformers under H^nry VIII. tampered with the ecoleii*
astioal ceremonies the instant they dared j for Cranmeri whfl«
Canon Estcourt on Anglican Ordination, 199
accepting bis bulls from the Pope^ protested in private^ yet
before a notary^ that he did not mean to be bound by the
common laws of the Church. He was a heretic^ and if Foxe is
to be trusted^ did^ in one instance at leasts order a man to be
made deacon by a priest. Robert Di*akes^ says Foxe, viii. 106,
*' was first made deacon by Dr. Taylor of Hadley, at the com-
mandment of Dr. Cranmer, late archbishop of Canterbury."
Everything was in disorder from the moment Cranmer became
by fraud an archbishop. Heresy was let loose, and the
LoUardism which hitherto had been obliged to hide itself,
came forth in public to greet its child, which Luther had nursed
in Germany.
Even if the reformers had kept the forms and ceremonies
of the Church intact, the Anglican orders would have been
tainted, perhaps fatally ; for the doctrines held and taught by
the men who were in power were so thoroughly bad that the
intentions of the ministers could not be ascertained. They did
not intend to minister the sacraments in the sense of the
Church. But they did not stop here, for they changed the
ceremonies, — they denied the doctrines of the mass, and they
changed the rites of holy orders : —
"Sacrifice and priesthood" (Concil. Trident., sess. 23, cap. i.)
" are so bound together by the law of God that they existed
under every law." Sacrifice then certainly has been denied
and suppressed in the Anglican religion, but its ministers ask
us to believe that they are priests. If they are priests, we ask
them where is the sacrifice ? They speak of the sacrifice of
praise, public services, and of various other -acts, which if
done for God, may be reasonably called sacrifices. But that
is not to the purpose, for any man or woman may offer sacrifice
in that sense. What is in question is the sacrifice of the new
law, — the sacrifice and the priesthood instituted by our Lord
on the night before His Passion.
Here the learned canon has taken great pains to show how
thoroughly heretical is the Anglican rite of " the Lord's
Supper," for Cranmer and his fellows abolished the Mass,
"and restored in the place thereof Christ's holy Supper."
That is Cranmer's own account of the matter, and he surely
must have known what he was doing. Mr. Estcourt compares
the Anglican rite with the rites of foreign reformers, about
whose doctrines there can be no doubt, and he contrasts it
with the Missal, which was thrown aside to make room for it.
Having thus traced the origin and history of various dogmatic statements
and i^irases in the Book of Common Prayer and of practices involying
dootxine ; having shown the sentences and phrases of the ancient Catholic
rite for which they have been substitnted ; having compared them with the
200 Canou Eatcourt on Anglican Ordination.
dogmatic teaching of the reformers, both of foreign countries and our own ;
we come to a conclusion, not without pain, because it will appear to be
severe on persons who are honestly acting according to the lights of their own
conscience. This conclusion is, that those who receive and use the Book of
Common Prayer, whether as ministering or as communicating, do by that
formal act make a denial of the Catholic Faith in several points, and a pro-
fession of various opinions condemned as heresy.
They deny the Holy Sacrifice of the Eucharist.
They deny the priesthood of the Church.
They deny the Real Presence of our Lord in the Eucharist
They profess and assert that the Eucharistic sacrifice is only a sacrifice of
praise and thanksgiving ; that it is a bare commemoration of the sacrifice
consummated on the cross, but not a propitiatory sacrifice nor impetratory :
that the Sacrifice of the Mass is derogatory to the Most Holy Sacrifice of
Christ consummated on the cross ; that the canon of the Mass does contain
errors, and therefore it was right and necessary to abrogate it, and that Christ
our Lord in the Eucharist ii given, received, and eaten spiritually only
and not sacramentally or really.
On all this the Catholic Church has pronounced anathema (pp. 339-340).
This laborious investigation of the learned canon, which he
summed up in the passage now recited, cannot be praised too
highly. He has brought together facts and opinions, and by
means thereof thrown such clear light on the Anglican offices
of religion as must dazzle the most obstinate of those who
maintain them, and enlighten the simple.
The eflfect of that investigation is this : here is a religion
and a body of men calling themselves Christians, some even
calling themselves Catholics, without the sacrifice of the
Gospel. To all people outside Anglicanism the fact is clear,
that the sacrifice of the new law has been not simply sup-
pressed, as it will be suppressed by Antichrist, but also de-
clared to be a corruption and something wicked. Yet these
people say that they have priests amongthem : priests then with-
out sacrifice, a thing unknown before since the world began.
Barlow^s consecration cannot be proved; Parker's con-
secration is at best doubtful : and Mr. Estcourt has discovered
a paper, ^^ preserved among Foxe's MSS. in the British Mu-
seum," p. 104, which raises more questions about the famous
Lambeth registers. Everything connected with this miser-
able schism of England seems to be a new fount of doubt and
disorder.
Passing away from the disputed facts to those about which
there is none, we return now to that part of Mr. Estconrt's
admirable book in which he tells the history of the Anglican
ordinations, and the way in which they were regarded by
CathoUcs.
Canon Estcourt on Anglican Ordination. 201
We now enter on a period in "which the question first arose with regard to
the validity of the Orders given in the new form ; but although a decision
was then arrived at on the question, it has rather been the subject of contro-
versy than a settlement of it, owing to the scantiness of information hitherto ob-
tained. This period comprehends Uie various proceedings taken on this question
during the reign of Queen Mary. And the decision then given is important,
in order to show, for the sake of consistency in the decisions of the Church,
that the present practice is identical with and derived from the course
adopted at the time when the question first came under review (pp. 28, 29).
In the reign of Queen Mary all the facts were known, and
better known than we can know them at this day. Cardinal
Pole was an Englishman able and learned, and had not been
involved in the sins of Henry VIII. He was sincerely de-
sirous of restoring the public profession of the Catholic faith,
and would have neglected no lawful way of accomplishing so
great an end. He, with the sanction of the Sovereign Pontiff,
allowed the detainers of the lands and possessions of the
Church to detain them, and to those who made restitution he
forgave the ill-gotten profits of some twenty years of sin.
He found most of the benefices of the Church held by men
ordained by the new rites, and he knew well what discontent
and trouble must ensue if he disturbed these men in their
possessions, however unjustly acquired.
The Cardinal Legate and archbishop of Canterbury must
be presumed to have made inquiries and received information
before he pronounced judgment. Nobody had any interest
in hiding the truth from him, or, if anybody had such interest,
he could not have succeeded. The matters in dispute wera
notorious. The men who repented of their sin, and the men
who obstinately continued in it, all agree in one story : the
judgment of the Cardinal was against the validity of the
ordinations of the heretics, and his judgment has been the
judgment of all in every generation since. The orders con-
ferred by the bishops who fell into heresy, and who used what
is called the Edwardine Ordinal, were held invalid, absolutely
null, and unto this day there has been no change in the dis-
cipline of the Church.
Cardinal Pole and his sub-delegates can hardly be said to
have misunderstood the question ; and we may be quite sure
that the Cardinal would have been too glad to recognize the
orders, if the orders had been valid. Such conduct would
have won over many, and it certainly would have saved trouble.
But the Cardinal recognized them not ; they were absolutely
worthless, and he could not give them any value. It has
never been shown that the Edwardine ordinations were ever
regarded as valid ; and moreover some of those who were
202 Canon Estcoiirt on Anglican Ordination.
ordained in the heresy have left it on record that they them-
selves considered their orders as nullities. Bradford^ it is
true^ was never more than a deacon in the schism;, ordained
by Ridley^ but he was sentenced as a layman ; thus even the
diaconate was not considered as validly conferred.
Dr. Lee^ treading in the footsteps of Bramhall^ says that
the Cardinal acknowledged the Edwardine orders^ and produces
his "Roman Catholic testimonies to the validity of AngUcan
orders '' ; two of these are given by Mr. Ffonlkes and Mr.
Oxenham. Dr. Lee also alleges certain facts^ or supposed
factSj which show^ or tend to show^ that Roman Cathoucs of
unspotted names have admitted the vaUdity of Anglican orders.
These facts Mr. Estcourt has examined^ and shown to be
either misunderstood or utterly beside the question. What
Dr. Lee needs is this : an Anglican n)inister converted to the
faith and saying Mass with the consent of the Pope in his
Anglican orders. Married converts believing in their Anglican
orders, or unmarried converts believing in them, but living as
laymen, are not of much use. They prove nothing certainly
but the fact that the leaven of heresy is still fermenting
within them.
On review of these several cases, says Mr. Estcourt, it may be con-
fidently asserted that there is an unbroken tradition from the year 1654 to
the present time, confirmed by constant practice in France and Rome, as
well as in thb country, in accordance with which AngUcan ordinations are
looked upon as absolutely null and void ; and Anglican ministers are treated
simply as laymen, so that those who wish to become priests have to be
ordained unconditionally. Not a single instance to the contrary can be
alleged. The only case in which any discusssion appears to have arisen, is
referred to by a contemporary writer as an illustration of the accustomed
rule. And the statements made of objections having been raised by various
converts to being ordained in the Catholic Church are shown, either to be
contradicted by the facts, or to have no theological importance, on account
of the persons named being unknown or married, or of an unsuitable
character, or only recently converted, or from our possessing no clear and
certain testimony as to their opinions on the subject (pp. 143, 146).
People may dispute if they like, but the fact remains, that
in the Church the Anglican orders have never been received,
never at any time. Besides there never was any doubt about
them. The Catholics leil in England after the persecutions of
Elizabeth, and during them, never hesitated : they saw with
their eyes and heard with their ears, and not one of them, learned
or unlearned, seems to have imagined for a moment that any
of the ministers made by Parker could say Mass. It might
puzzle a profound theologian to say where the flaw is, but no
theologioni whether profound or notj has done anything else
Canon Estcourt on Anglican Ordination. 203
but confess the flaw. The flaw is there : whether we can give
an account of it or not is another matter. The conviction of
the theologian seems to be the instinct of the unlearned also ;
for all Catholics, with one consent, always regarded the
Anglican preachers as mere laymen.
Some iinglicans think they can break the force of this
unanimous consent by saying, that CathoUcs deny the validity
of their orders on the ground of their being orders given in
schism, and not on account of any defect in th^m, if the minis-
trants and recipients were in the Church. In proof of this
they allege the facts that Latimer and Ridley, who were con-
secrated according to the Pontificale, but in schism, were
degraded only from priesthood, and not from the episcopal rank.
Canon Estcourt disbelieves the story told by Foxe, that the
Bishop of Gloucester, one of the judges, said to Ridley that the
Court did not regard him as a bishop. Foxe's account is at
least consistent with itself, for, according to it, Ridley was not
degraded from the episcopal rank, but from that of priesthood
and the lower orders. Of Latimer^s degradation Foxe has said
nothing, we believe. Mr. Estcourt rejects the story because,
by the sentence of the Court — we have a part of it in an
BngUsh version by Foxe — Ridley was to be degraded from the
rank of a bishop. He also founds an argument in his favour
against Foxe on the account given by Heylin, who furnishes an
extract from the sentence, and then adds, '' they were both
degraded." But Heylin does not say that they were treated
as bishops, nor does he deny it.
We think, however, that the account in Foxe is substan-
tially accurate, and that the judges appointed by the Cardinal
to try the heretics did not treat Ridley and Latimer as bishops,
but as priests. It may be that they were directed in their
commission to try the "pretensed bishops of Worcester
and London," and to degrade them "from their promotion
and dignity of bishops, priests, and all other ecclesiastical
orders." But even this will not of itself form any objection
to the story told by Foxe. These men were reputed
bishops, Ridley of London, and Latimer of Worcester;
but the latter had for more than sixteen years been
without a bishopric. He did not pretend to be bishop
of Worcester, for, as he had accepted that see from
Henry YIII., so had he resigned it to the same person, after
holding it for less than four years. He had been once a
^'pret^sed bishop of Worcestor,^^ and that was a sufl&cient
reason for so calling him in the commission. The sentence of
the Courtj after the trial of these two men, contained the
words of the oommissionjand the degradation from the episcopal
201 Canon Estcourt on Anglican Ordination.
rank is therefore spoken of therein. But the execution of the
sentence is another affair : that would be a thing done^ and
need not correspond with all the details of the sentence, for in
the sentence would be found words, in one sense superfluous,
and therefore not to be of necessity regarded. We have an
example of this carefulness in defining powers in the com-
mission given Cardinal Pole for reconciling this country to
the Holy See. Julius III. empowers the Cardinal to reconcile
the bishops, archbishops, and patriarchs, though it was as well
known in Rome as in England that there were no patriarchs
in this country then : once indeed the patriarch of Jerusalem
was bishop of Durham.
Now, if the judges of Latimer and Ridley knew they were
not bishops, it would have been unreasonable to expect them
to degrade, in the way of fact, those men from the episcopal
rank, but not unreasonable to give power, in the sentence, to
the execution of the decree, in order to cover all possible
contingencies.
But, say the Anglicans, Latimer and Ridley were ordained
according to the Roman rite, and therefore bishops as much as
their judges ; the non-recognition of their episcopate must be
attributed therefore to the prejudice of the judges, who would
not admit that orders could be validly conferred in schism.
That is the Anglican view, and from that they go further, and
say th^t the schism is the only bar to the recognition of the
orders which are derived from Barlow and Scory.
Latimer was consecrated, doubtless, according to the
Catholic rite, and was a bishop. But Latimer never applied
for, and never received, confirmation from the Pope. Cranmer
had been confirmed, and he was degraded from the episcopal
dignity, while Latimer, as we believe, was not so degraded.
We venture to suggest an explanation, and let our readers^
take it for what it is worth.
Degradation does not touch the character conferred in ordi-
nation, for a degraded priest, by the confession of all, is still a
priest, and if restored to his place, needs no ordination. His
degradation deprived him not of the character of priesthood,
but of his rank and dignity among his brethren ; bringing him
down in foro externa to the level of the lay people. Now,
Latimer, though in the orders of a bishop, that is, a priest
consecrated to the higher functions, never was acknowledged
as a bishop in the Church. The Sovereign Pontiff had not
confirmed him, and he was not the bishop of Worcester at any
time, but always the " pretensed bishop/' He had no rank
in the hierarchy except as a priest, an^ was not a bishop in
dignity. He wwl^ pot be degraded froiyi the episcopate, for
Canon Estcourt on Anglican Ordination. 205
lie never was a bishop vested with jurisdiction; he was a sham
bishop^ an impostor^ and we do not see how he could be
degraded from a dignity he never possessed.
Anastasius^ the bishop of Thessalonica^ was Papal Vicar also^
and to him wrote S. Leo the Great, that he, the Pope, would
not recognize the rank of any bishop whom the metropolitan
might ordain unknown to Anastasius in his vicariate. There
was no question about the validity of the ordination ; but that
of the rank of the priest ordained. The words of the Pope are :
Quisquis vero a Metropolitanis Episcopis contra, nostram prce*
ceptionem prceter tuam notitiam fuerit ordinatus, vullam sibi
apud No8 status sui esse noverit firmitatem. It is the sixth
letter in the edition of the Ballerini. The Pope does not deny
the orders, he admits them ; nevertheless he says he will not
allow to the persons so ordained their state or dignity, — status
sui. They would be intruders into the episcopal order, and
therefore thieves and robbers.
Again, Photius the schismatic, who took possession illegally
of the see of Constantinople, was treated as a layman. His
ordination took place after he was wrongfully made patriarch ;
his patriarchal rank being ^tssumed by him in defiance of the
Holy See. In the fourth Council of Constantinople the Papal
Legates and the assembled Fathers dealt with him as if he
were still a layman, though his orders were valid, and after-
wards the Holy See acknowledged him as patriarch without
ordination.
Photius and Latimer have this in common : they took
possession of sees that were not vacant ; and were therefore
" pretensed bishops '' ; that is to say, they were not bishops
with jurisdiction, but only bishops ordine. And as degrada-
tion does not touch the character but only the rank, there
was no possibility of degrading Latimer from the episcopal
dignity, because he had never been in possession of it.
We therefore venture — subject to correction — to say that the
Anglicans must find some other reason than this; for the
degradation of Latimer and Eidley has nothing to do with the
validity or invaUdity of Anglican ordinations.
There is another difficulty of which Mr. Estcourt speaks
(p. 135) : the recognition of men as ministers in the establish-
ment who were ordained by no bishop whatever. It is quite
conceivable that some of these men became bishops without
being priests ; and it is well known that king James I. made
three Scotch presbyterian preachers bishops in Scotland, and
that Bancroft and Andrewes undertook to consecrate them^
though they were not priests, and made them as good bishops
as they were themselves.
206 Ccmon Estcourt on Angliccm Ordination.
This succession of bishops whicli king James set ap oame
to an end ; but his grandson^ Charles 11.^ made bishops again
in 1661^ and Gilbert Sheldon consecrated them. These
persons are not called priests^ but '^ ministers and preachers
of the Word '^ ; and they could not have been priests^ for they
were ministers ordained by the presbyterians. When they
came to London^ they had^ however^ to submit to the requisitions
of the Anglicans^ who by this time had become more exaot^
and to renounce their presbyterian ordination^ then to accept
the diaconate and the priesthood^ and after that to be made
bishops. From this time forth the Anglican ordinations were
more carefully watched and the irregularities of the former
ordinations probably put an end to, and never revived till We
come to the famous '' Jerusalem bishopric/' which was invented
about forty years ago.
Then we must remember that the old Catholic tradition is
that ministers of the establishment were often laymen ; and
that even during the time when, priests having made
shipwreck about the faith, were yet in the land. When
the old priests died out, or, repenting of their enormous sin,
returned to the Church, the Anglican ministers were laymen
simply, and as laymen have they been always dealt with.
They are not doubtful priests, for there is no doubt en-
tertained on the matter; they are as much laymen as
lawyers or physicians, or the members of any other secular
calling.
Perhaps we ought not to leave the Nag's Head unmentioned.
Mr. Estcourt discards the story, and that is perhaps the
shortest way. But as we are reviewing his book, not writing
controversy, there is no reason why we should not say a word
or two. The story comes from Mr. Neale, Hebrew Lecturer
in Oxford, but unfortunately not directly from him. The first
account in writing comes from Holywood, who changed the
English form of his name, according to the custom, into
Sacrobosco, and there is nothing improbable in it. According
to Holywood, the schismatical and heretical personages who
were to make, and be made, bishops met at the Nag's Head
in Cheapside, and among them perhaps was the Bishop of
Llandaff. But this bishop became alarmed, and withdrew^
either then or before, for the story is obscurely told, from the
ungodly assemblage. Now the words of Holywood here are
these :— ^' Hie furere candidati, Landavensem contemnere,
nova quserere consilia. Quid plura? Scorsdus monachus . . .
cseteris, ex ceeteris quidam ScorsBO manus imponunt."*
• We copy this from a Protestant, Kioming, for we have not a copy of
Holyvf ood to refer to.
Canon Estcovrt on Anglican Ordination, 207
According to the first and earliest account we havCj
then^ the bishops of Elizabeth met at the Nag's Head,
Llandaff withdrew, the faction remaining behind became
thereupon angry and sought new counsels. ''Quid plura?'^
says Holywood, "why should I go on with the details;
Scory laid hands/' &c. But Holywood does not say that he
laid hands there and then in the tavern, that is an interpreta-
tion given to his words which they may or may not bear. He
speaks of anger, and insults offered to Llandaff, and then pro-
bably, when they had cooled, they began to cast about for other
means of compassing their ends. Holywood's narrative is quite
consistent with the notion that some space of time may have
intervened between the withdrawing of Llandaff from the
heretics and the imposition of hands by Scory. But it may
be asked what brought these men to the Nag's Head. The
answer, we believe, is this, that it was customary then, and
was so much later, for the persons engaged in the ceremony
of confirmation in Bow Church to dine at the Nag's Head.
Holywood has not said that Llandaff went so far as the Nag's
Head. He probably did not take any part at all in the affair
of the pretended confirmation which was to take place in Bow
Church. It was his absence from the party that assembled
at the Nag's Head that threw Barlow and Scory into a rage,
compelled them to seek other counsels, and finally resolve that
Barlow himself should be the consecrator in Lambeth.
But there was an attempt made to confirm Parker in Sep-
tember, 1559; for a commission for that purpose was issued,
and we know it was never executed. It may be that it was
then that the absence of Llandaff caused the disturbance in
the hotel; if so, we have some explanation of the further
'' counsel," for Mr. Estcourt (p. 85) tells us that Cecil and
Parker were taking counsel at the end of September, and
therefore at a time subsequent to the date of the first com-
mission. It is true that Llsiudaff's name was inserted in the
second commission also ; but that may easily be explained,
either by the want of perfect integrity in that bishop, or a
desire on the part of the government to save appearances by
making use of the name of one bishop at least who, whatever
may have been his principles, was undoubtedly a bishop in the
opinion of all.
Certainly the story as told by Holywood, who, it must be
remembered, did not receive it from Neale, who was present
at the Nag's Head, is perfectly consistent with facts alleged by
Anglicans. It is not likely that they will deny the custom of
dining at the Nag's Head, and Holywood does not say that
Scory laid his hands on his friends in the tavern.
208 Canon Estcourt on Anglican Ordination.
It may be difficult, if not impossible^ to find out the whole
truth of the Nag's Head^story at this day; but the story has
been believed, is believed still, and there must have been some
grounds for it, adequate or inadequate. It can hardly have
been sheer invention, and there we leave it for the present.
We should like to speak of other portions of Mr. Estcourt's
admirable book, especially of the documents, which he has
printed by way of appendix, many of them never published
before, and some of them published correctly for the first time.
He has shown by most conclusive proofs that the Anglican
ordinations have in no instance been recognized; that the
practice of the Church has been uniform and constant from
the days of Cardinal Pole, under whose archiepiscopate the
question was first discussed : it could not have been discussed
before. From that day to this the Anglican ordinations have
been regarded as nullities, conveying no spiritual power what-
ever, and leaving the recipients as much laymen as ever they
were in their lives.
How can the Church recognize these men in their orders ?
They have none, and when, by the grace of God, they return
to the faith unto which they were in their ignorance baptized^
if baptized they are, they are always received, and always have
been received, as laymen. The judgment of all Catholics is
against them ; and yet some of them cry out that they are
rejected through prejudice, or some reason quite inadequate
for so serious an end.
Let us suppose that the Anglican preachers are priests, and
their prelates bishops. It follows, then, that they are guilty
of enormous sins : they profane the sacraments and commit
sacrilege of the most horrible nature ; those that are married
are living an openly immoral life, for, being priests, their
marriage is not only unlawful, but also entirely null ; the sins
which an Anglican parson commits, supposing him to be a
priest, are innumerable, but from which he would be free, and
undoubtedly is free, as a layman. But there are Anglicans
who hear confessions which even as priests they cannot law-
fully do : by pretending to give absolutions to penitents, they
are guilty of most grave offences against God and their neigh-
bour. They say that they administer the sacrament of penance,
thereby hearing in confession the story of many people's lives,
and send their penitents away, after pretending to absolve them,
in the persuasion — so far as they are concerned — that they have
given them a valid absolution and release from the eternal
penalties due for the sins confessed. Whether they are priests
or not, they have done nothing of the kind. They know they
have not, or ought to know it ; if they know it, they have
Canon Estcourt on Anglican Ordination^ 209
been " killing souls which should not die ''; and if they do not
know it, they have condemned themselves, for they cannot bo
excused, seeing that they have taken that office upon them-
selves, and are therefore bound to know what they are doing.
Nobody has authorized them; they have of their own will
chosen to do that for which they have no justification ; and it
has never been heard of before that priests could absolve
anybody anywhere, or do so without the license of their
bishops. If the Anglican bishops were true bishops in the
eyes of their priests who commit these outrages, they would
ask for their sanction when they piove about from one of their
dioceses to another; but they do not ask for it, and it is
perfectly notorious that these horrible profanations take place
in spite of, and in defiance of, AngUcan bishops, who would
gladly stop the practice if they could. They cannot, and
their priests laugh in their faces, and make a mock of them *
for the pleasure of their penitents. On the supposition that
these men are really priests, and their bishops validly con-
secrated, the validity of their ordination for which they contend
does but increase their guilt, and their sacrilegious handling of
holy things is in them, and made by them, a greater profana-
tion. It is simply incredible that these men can be priests;
they do not believe themselves that they are. They may in real
truth have some notions of priesthood, vague at best and cer-
tainly erroneous ; but they do not know what the Christian
priesthood is, and we are glad to believe that they are not
priests for their owij sakes.
If their bishops were really bishops, they would be none the
better for it, for their bishops would be without jurisdiction,
and therefore all their episcopal and priestly acts sinful
always, and sometimes null; for they are outside the Church,
and have no authority whatever over any human soul.
Anglicans are ready enough to disown the ancient sects,
though they were numerous, and sometimes spread over whole
countries, and think at the same time that they are something
different from Nestorians, Monophysites, Arians, and others;
but they differ from them in nothing but in the absence of holy
orders. The ancient heresies generally went out of the Church
with a bishop or archbishop or patriarch at their head, an army
of Satan furnished with weapons forged in the arsenals of the
Church. But not so the heretics that spring from Wicliflfe and
Luther. Wicliffe^s followers hid themselves, as the Jansenists
did, within the pavilions of the Church, and would not make a
visible sect. Not so with the followers of the drunken friar;
they had no shame, but they went out alone, and could not
carry with them any supernatural powers. When the rebel
VOL. XXI. — NO. XLi. [New Series.'] p
210 Canon Estcotirt on Anglican Ordination.
priests died out, the protestants, as they called themselves,
were laymen, and they are laymen to this day.
Some Anglicans wish to be recognized as priests, and cry
out for something else which they call ^' corporate reunion."
In other words, they want to be Anglicans and priests at the
same time ; they wish the Holy See to call them children, and
they do not want to be anything but rebels. They are to bo
regarded as Catholics by us, and they are to retain all their
heresies, and all the privileges which heresy has given them.
Now Canon Estcourt has done these men a great service,
if they would but recognize it. He has shown them that there
is no such thing possible as a " corporate reunion.'' Every
man and woman who would be reconciled to God must come
by himself and by herself. There must be the submission of
every single will separately. Cardinal Pole did not receive the
nation back in the mass, but he received those that returned
each by himself. Each bishop, each priest had to make his
confession and be absolved. So also was it with the laity,
that is, with those who had been guilty of schism. What
Cardinal Pole did then has been done ever since ; there has
been no change in the practice of the Church. Even if the
learned canon had done nothing more than bring out this
truth, he has done a very great and most important service,
and we hope that what he has written so temperately and so
clearly may have some eflFect, and spare us some of the silly
sayings about reunion and recognition. But we should mucn
desire fruit of another kind : we should like people to consider
what they are saying, and what they are doing. Anglicans
are ready enough to admit that the communities outside the
Church are in error, but they think their own position defen-
sible. Now, why should it be ? There is only one Church,
one faith, and one Shepherd over the fold of God. The question
for every one is, Am I in the one fold of the one Shepherd ?
( 211 )
A
Art. VIIL— the CASE OF MR. O'KEEFFE.
The Freeman's Journal^ 13th-18th May, 1873. Dublin.
PARISH SQUABBLE, conversant mainly with the es-
tablishment of a convent of nuns in the village of Callan,
near Kilkenny, threatens in its results not only to upset the
national system of education — the one successful institution which
England is proud of having founded in Ireland, but to dislocate
the relations between the Catholic Church in these countries
and the State. It is the old story of history — great events spring-
ing from despicable occasions acting, on deep-seated causes. We
purpose, in as brief space as we can, to review the case of the Rev.
Mr. O'KeefFe, detailing the facts simply, and stating the legal con-
troversies which as yet await their final decision. The branch of
the question which affects the National Board is a very distinct
one, and must be dealt with hereafter separately.
The Rev. Robert O'Keeffe, a priest of the diocese of Ossory, after
having been for some years parish priest of the parish of Rath-
do wney, was, in the beginning of the year 1863, promoted by the
late Dr. Walsh, bishop of Ossory, to the better benefice of Callan,
of which place Mr. O'Keeffe is a native. The Bishop's letter to
him on his promotion says that he was entitled to Callan, and
would do most good there ; so that on the Bishop's part at least
there could at that time have been no feelings of a character other-
wise than friendly towards Mr. O'Keeffe. We say so because it
appears from the subsequent disclosures that at an early period
Mr. O'Keeffe had been chaplaia to a convent of nnns in Kilkenny,
and had been removed from that office by the Bishop. If there
lurked in Mr. O'Keeffe's mind any secret grudge on this account
against the Bishop, which, was the germ of the hostility that ensued,
yet at least on the Bishop's part there could have been none, or he
would not have promoted and commended him. Mr. O'Keeffe
(judging him solely from his public proceedings, and we have no
other means of judging) is a man of fair abilities, of activity
beyond the common, and of a self-esteem which we leave our readers
to gauge from his own acts and words.
In the year 1869 he conceived the idea of establishing in his
parish a community of nuns from B^ziers, in France, many of
whom it appears were Irishwomen of the diocese of Ossory.
Prima facie the design was good and the object desirable. Whether
in reality it were so or not depended upon the circumstances of the
case. Of those circumstances the Bishop of the diocese was by the
p 2
212 The Case of Mr. O'Keeffe.
discipline of the Church and the nature of the case the sole compe-
tent judge. It would be preposterous to conceive that a parish
priest should have the right to do an act so vitally affecting the
state of religion in the whole diocese as the erection of a convent
without the consent of the Bishop. In truth, Mr. O'Keeffe makes
no such case. He says he had the Bishop's verbal consent. He
certainly acted as if he had. He took a house for the reception of
the nuns (Callan Lodge), got money from them to the amount of £500
or £600 for repairs^ of the house, which he expended for that purpose.
He obtained for them from Propaganda the concession of a private
oratory with a privileged altar. Having proceeded so far, he found
he could proceed no farther without a formal letter from Dr.
Walsh to the bishop of the diocese in which B^ziers lies,
giving official sanction to the translation of the nuns. For
this official letter he wrote to Dr. Walsh. The latter was
of very advanced years and infirm health, and instead of
giving an answer in writing to Mr. O'Keeffe's demand,
he took the occasion of a conference of the clergy being
held shortly afterwards in Kilkenny to speak to him on that and
other subjects affecting Mr. O'Keeffe. When the conference was
over, he desired Mr. O'Keeffe and his curates to remain, and after
having spoken to Mr. O'Keeffe of complaints made against him of
giving too little time to preaching and too much to secular affairs,
and that he had in fact turned shopkeeper and schoolmaster, the
Bishop proceeded to say that he never sanctioned, and did not
mean to sanction, the coming of the nuns to Callan. Mr. O'Keeffe,
in terms and with a demeanour which, upon his own showing, were
disrespectful and unseemly to his aged bishop, insisted upon
having an answer from him about the nuns in writing, and upon
the latter reminding him that he was his bishop, said that if he were
fifty times his bishop he should have an answer from him in writing.
Upon this the Bishop answered with great warmth that he, Mr.
O'Keeffe, was the last man in the diocese to whom he would
commit the charge of nuns ; that twenty years previously he had
removed him from his position of chaplain to a convent, and that
an accusation against his morals had been brought since his ap-
pointment to Callan. Mr. O'Keeffe retired, wrote to the Bishop,
calling on him peremptorily either to prove or withdraw his
slanders, and followed up this letter by an action against the
Bishop for defamation, the first of a long series of actions at law in
respect of ecclesiastical matters in which Mr. O'Keeffe has figured
as plaintiff, and of which the now famous lawsuit against the
Cardinal Archbishop is up to the present the crowning point.
The interview between Mr. O'Keeffe and the Bishop took place
in May, 1869, and the action was about to come on for trial in
the sittings after Trinity term of that year, when it was compromised
Tlie Case of Mr. O'Keeffe. 213
by the eflForts of the lawyers on either side. The action itself, and
the compromise to wliich it led, present some features of importance,
which were fully elicited in the late trial.
The Bishop's observation as to his having removed Mr. 0*Keeffe
from the charge of a convent twenty years before, conveyed no
imputation as to Mr. O'KeefFe's moral character. So Mr. O'KeeflFe
swore distinctly and positively, yet in the summons and plaint of
1869 the colour given to the statement about the removal
from the chaplaincy was that the Bishop by those words
accused Mr. O'Keeffe of being guilty of " incontinence/' a
horrible charge against Mr. O'Eeeffe if it had been made,
but which Mr. O'Keeffe now distinctly swears was not made.
In any view the trial would have been a grievous scandal,
and we can only applaud the prudence and good feeling of the
lawyers, Catholic and Protestant, who thought that on any
terms it should be put a stop to. Now the terms arranged were
these : — Mr. O'Keeflfe complained, and with fair show of reason,
that he had, in the belief of the Bishop's concurrence, got the
nuns to advance £500 for the repairs of Callan Lodge, and that if
they were not to be brought there he would be bound in justice to
repay them the money. Accordingly it was arranged that the
Bishop should pay this £500 to Mr. O'Keeffe, that he should pay
him j650 besides for his costs of the action ; that Callan Lodge
should be handed over to the Bishop and all proceedings in the
action stayed. This was done, the money paid, the Lodge handed
over to the Bishop, and but one thing remained, namely, that the
£500 should be handed back by Mr. O'Keeffe to the nuns. This
was never done. The fact was elicited for the first time at Mr.
O'Keeffe's cross-examination, and the explanation he gave was
that " the appropriation" of £500 for payment of the nuns was
" but a face " put upon the matter, a false or "fictitious face,"
and that he, Mr. O'Keeffe, was at liberty to keep it for himself if
he chose. Now this was in absolute contradiction with Mr.
O'Keeffe's own direct testimony, in absolute contradiction also with
his own letters to the Bishop, in which he spoke of the sacrifice he
had made in entering into the compromise, the affair being very
much the reverse of a* sacrifice, unless the £500 were given back
to the nuns. In this manner ended the first act of the drama.
Very shortly afterwards, viz. in the month of July, 1869, it
happened that Cardinal Cullen was giving a retreat in Maynooth,
and, in his observations to the clergy, took occasion to speak of
the scandal of a priest dragging his bishop before a lay tribunal
about a matter ecclesiastical. The Cardinal mentioned no name,
nor did he know anything of Mr. O'Keeffe's affair beyond what he
had seen in the newspapers. Mr. O'Keeffe, having been erro-
neously informed that the observations in question had been made
214 The Case of Mr. O'Keeffe.
at Maynooth by Dr. Lynch, the Bishop of Carlow, wrote a letter
to that prelate, which naturally elicited a denial of the fact, and
Mr. O'KeefFe then wrote to the Cardinal, inclosing a copy of his
letter to Dr. Lynch. That letter is a remarkable one m many
respects : it contains the following passage : —
In point of fact, my lord, it is urUrue that I brought the Bishop into
a secular court. I threatened to do it, hi^ I knew well that if the Bishop
refused me the satisfaction, I am bound in justice and honour to demand,
he would be made to grant it by any respectable lawyer whom he might
employ to defend the action. The event occurred just as I foresaw it
should. The case has been settled outside the court, and I have been given
by the Bishop more than 1 demanded from the Bishop himself.
It is curious that in this letter Mr. O'Eeeffe does not assert his
right as a priest to bring an action at law against his bishop ; on
the contrary, he shelters himself under a denial of the fact and
under the signally disingenuous plea that he relied on forcing the
Bishop into a compromise, a result which he had certainly done
his best to secure by the odious accusation put on the face of his
pleading.
In consequence of Mr. O'KeeflFe's letter to the Cardinal, a cor-
respondence of some length ensued between them, in the coarse of
which the Cardinal endeavoured by every means in his power to
win over Mr. O'Keeflfe to an attitude of submission to his bishop.
He ultimately prevailed, although Mr. O'Keeflfe manifested in the
very beginning of the correspondence an inveterate dislike to Dr,
Walsh, accusing him of having calumniated the memory of his
predecessor, Dr. Kinsella, of simony, of breach of the seal of con-
fession, and of trafficking in the sacraments. These accusations
were renewed at a later stage and in a more odious form. They
were all shown to be based on grounds so shadowy and unreal, that
only to the eyes of hatred could they for a moment have seemed
substantial.
However, the Cardinal persevered in his good work, and was
ultimately successful. Mr. O'KeefFe evidently desired to stand well
with him, and he hoped through his intervention to accomplish the
purpose which he had never in reality relinquished, that of obtaining
the introduction of the B^ziers nuns into Callan. But in the course
of the correspondence, and before Mr. O'Keeflfe had fully yielded, a
circumstance occurred in Callan which we cannot omit, as it was
afterwards made to assume most inordinate dimensions, and because
in fact it forms the main if not the sole basis upon which Mr.
O'KeeflFe has been persistently represented as a man who had been
subjected to intolerable outrage and injury.
In July, 1869, Mr. O'KeeflFe had a mission of the Oblate Fathers
in Callan, and of the money proceeds of the mission some small
balance remained in his hands. About the same time a question
The Case of Mr. (yXeeffe. 215
was raised as to the further keeping up of one of the National schools
in Callan. Christian Brothers' schools had been established there
some time previously, and the attendance upon the male National
school of Callan had fallen almost to nothing. Mr. O'KeeflFe then
conceived the project of making the National school a school for a
higher kind of education. He accordingly named it the Callan
Academy, and, with a curious mixture of educational zeal and
fantastic vanity, eminently characteristic of the man, he made or
sought to make French the normal language of the school, until the
National school inspector interfered, and had the English language
reinstated. However, it was, as we said, a question between Mr.
O'Keeflfe and the Bishop whether the National school should be at all
retained after the introduction of the Christian Brothers.
On the 8th of August, 1 869, Mr. O'KeeflFe told one of his curates,
the Rev. Mr. Walsh, who said last Mass at the parish church of
Callan, that he, Mr. O'KeeflFe, wished to speak to the people after
Mass. Accordingly, Mr. Walsh having finished his Mass, went
into the sacristy to disrobe and go to his breakfast, but being
arrested by what Mr. O'KeefFe was saying, he stayed and listened to
it from the sacristy. This very natural act was subsequently
denounced by Mr. O'Keeffe and his counsel as '* skulking and spy-
ing." It is surely in the last degree ludicrous to apply these terms
to the overhearing of remarks which were made in a public church
to the entire congregation, and which Mr. Walsh had a perfect
riglit to listen to if he pleased. If the discourse had been an
ordinary piece of pastoral exhortation, Mr. Walsh would probably
have walked home to his breakfast ; but finding that it was some-
what out of the common, and hearing the name of his bishop men-
tioned, he was naturally curious to hear what was said, and he
listened from the sacristy.
The substance of Mr. O'Keeffe's discourse was to the following
effect. First, that the Bishop had approved of his keeping on the
male National school at Callan. Secondly, that the Bishop had
directed him to apply the proceeds of the mission towards the repair
of the oflSces belonging to the parish priest's residence, which were
out of repair. Mr. O'KeefFe, it would appear, was in error upon
both these points. The Bishop had, in fact, pointed out to him the
want of repair in the glebe edifices, but had not directed him to use
the funds of the mission or other parish funds ; and he had not
given his sanction to the continuance of the school ; so, on Mr.
O'Keeflfe's observations being reported to him by Mr. Walsh and Mr.
Neary, Mr. O'Keeflfe's curates, he authorized them to contradict the
parish priest on both points. They did so on the morning of th6
15th of August, while Mr. O'Keeffe was away at a country chapel.
Now we have no hesitation in saying that in this matter the
Bishop acted wrongly. As he desired his own authority to be
216 The Case of Mr. O'Keeffe.
respected, he should have respected the authority of the Parish
Priest ; and, however much he may have been annoyed at being,
as he conceived, misrepresented by Mr. O'KeeflFe, he should certainly
have set the matter right in some other way than by giving him
a public contradiction through the mouths of his own subordinates.
By what reason he was influenced we cannot now find. He is
dead, and was then very old and infirm, and it is known that his
mental health failed for some time before his death. But what is
curious is that this public contradiction by his own curates, which
latterly has been dwelt on as such a ne plus ultra of outrage as to
justify all Mr. O'Keeffe's acts and sayings, was at the time really
made very little of by him. It is true he complained of it to the
Bishop, demanding, in his usual peremptory fashion, the re<5^all of
both the curates, but the incident had no sensible eflFect upon his
reception of the exhortations to submission which the Cardinal was
then strenuously making. These were, as we said, ultimately suc-
cessful. Mr. O'Keeffe agreed to make a retreat with the Jesuits at
Milltown Park, and to make a full and unconditional submission
to his bishop ; accordingly on the 1st of September he wrote the
following letter to the Bishop : —
CallaD, September 1, 186J>.
My Lord Bisuop, — An eminent ecclesiastic, for whose opinion I enter-
tain the highest respect, thinks that it would be proper for me, under ex-
isting circumstances, to make to your Lordship a formal profession of my
submission to you as my Bishop. I accordingly hereby express my inten-
tion and desire to exhibit to your Lordship on all occasions the reverence
and obedience which I owe you by the promises of my ordination. I
regret exceedingly the annoyance which a late proceeding of mine has
caused your Lordship. I desire to make the fullest and most ample
apology for having commenced this proceeding, and to express my deter-
mination in future to abide by anything you may decide in the discharge
of your duty wherein I may be concerned. Your Lordship is free to
make what use you please of this profession of my respect for your
authority. With the kind permission of Cardinal Cullen, I shall make a
spiritual retreat in Dublin next week, and seek absolution from any cen-
sures or irregularities that I may have incurred in consequence of the
proceeding referred to. I beg also from your Lordship any jurisdiction
which you may think I require in this matter, and I withdraw any de-
mand I have made upon you for removal of curates or anything else.
Your Lordship's most faithful servant,
R. O'Keepfe.
The words " or anything else " alluded, as Mr. O'Keeffe admitted
on the trial, to the introduction of the nuns. Mr. O'Keeffe went
further even than making the submission. Upon Dr. Walsh
desiring that it should bo read to the people by one of the curates,
Mr. O'Keeffe volunteered to read it himself, and did so. The sub-
The Case of Mr. O'Keeffe. 217
mission and the reading of the submission were apparently sincere,
and, so taken, would have been highly creditable to Mr. O'Keeffe,
reminding us, on a small scale, as one of the Cardinal's counsel said,
of Fenelon's great act of humility. But it was all done for a
purpose, as Mr. O'KeefiFe now asserts. He inferred, he said, from
an expression in one of the Cardinal's letters, that his submission
was to be followed by his success in his pet project of bringing the
B^ziers nuns to Callan. The Cardinal had said that Mr. O'KeefFe's
act of humility would serve to bring things to a ** happy issue," and
this very natural phrase used by the Cardinal in his endeavour to
reconcile priest and bishop, is now insisted on by Mr. O'KeefFe as
having held out to him that if once he submitted he was, as a conse-
quence, to have his own way ; so he swears that he was entrapped
into the submission. For this there is not the colour of justification.
The Cardinal acted throughout in simplicity of heart, and with the
guileless purpose of making peace. Mr. O'Keeffe, on the contrary,
in performing an apparent act of humility and religion, had, as he
now says, an arriire pensee in his mind. Certain it is that no
sooner had the submission been made than he commenced to ply
the Cardinal with renewed applications on the subject of the nuns.
To these demands the Cardinal replied, exhorting him to be guided
by the Bishop in that, as in all other things, and their correspon-
dence was at this stage when the Cardinal left Ireland to attend
the Vatican Council, and all communication between him and Mr.
O'Keeffe ceased for a time.
Still was Mr. O'KeefiFe inflexibly bent on carrying out his project,
and in the month of December, 1869, he took two steps to efiect
its attainment, — one was, to write to Cardinal Barnabo (December
10th, 1869) to request leave to come to Rome and personally to
lay his case about the nuns before the Holy See, mentioning in
the same letter that he had two curates to whom the parish could
be very well intrusted in his absence. The other was to institute a
fresh action against the Bishop — an action of slander grounded on
the Bishop having authorized the curates in the month of August
previous to contradict what he had stated from the altar. The
bringing of this new action is at first scarcely comprehensible.
The fact on which it was based was not only four months old, but
it had been in the most express and explicit terms condoned and
waived. Mr. O'KeefFe had reconciled himself with the Bishop,
withdrawing every demand upon him either for change of curates
or for the introduction of the nuns, and, since that complete con-
donation, nothing whatever had occurred on the part of the Bishop
or the curates to give him offence. The only intelligible explana-
tion of the renewal of the war is that Mr. O'Keeffe having succeeded
once before in driving the Bishop into a compromise, thought that
he might be able again to extract what terms he pleased.
218 The Case of Mr. O'Keeffe.
This course, however, turned out to be, on his part, very short-
sighted, for it totally defeated his design of being permitted to go
to Rome. Cardinal CuUen wjis then in Rome, and some time after
the arrival of Mr. O'KeeflFe's letter to Cardinal Bamabo, the secre-
tary of the latter spoke to Cardinal Cullen on the subject, desiring
to know who Mr. O'Keeffe was. Cardinal Cullen apprized him
of the former action against the Bishop, of Mr. O'Keeffe's apology
and submission, and then of his having brought the new action.
Accordingly leave to come to Rome was refused, with a sharp
reprimand from Cardinal Bamabo for his behaviour towards his
bishop.
The state of warfare thus re-commenced by Mr. O'KeeflTe con-
tinued down to the month of June, 1870, when the action came
on for trial before Mr. Justice O'Brien in the sittings after Trinity
term. Mr. O'Keeffe was nonsuited, the meaning of the words
proved to have been used by the Bishop in authorizing the stat-e-
mcnt of the curates being substantially difiFerent from the meaning
of the words alleged in the writ. This nonsuit was never set
aside ; but Mr. O'Kecffe immediately brought a fresh action
against Mr. Walsh, one of his curates, for the same cause ; that
is, for having, on the 15th August, 1869, said that what he (Mr.
O'KeefiFe) had, on the preceding 8th of August, spoken from the
altar about the Bishop s statement to him, was untrue. In this
action, which was tried before Chief Justice Whiteside, he suc-
ceeded, and received £100 damages.
The matter was now beginning to assume the aspect of a serious
ecclesiastical scandal That a priest should bring an action against
a brother priest, and d> fortiori against his own bishop, before a lay
tribunal for a matter purely ecclesiastical, is unquestionably a grave
offence against the canon law. That it is so was established on the
late trial by a body of evidence as conclusive as ever was adduced
in proof of a foreign law, and, in truth, no canonist doubts it. It
was attempted, on the part of Mr. O'Keeffe, to make it appear that
this rule of the Church depended on the express provisions of the
bull m Cwnd Domini to which Cardinal Cullen had referred in one
of his early letters to Mr. O'Keeffe. This reference to the famous
bull evoked, as might have been expected, a mass of the usual
nonsense, such as the late R. J. McGhee was wont to dose the
British public withal. The leading counsel for Mr. O'Keeffe on
the late trial read aloud all the damnatory clauses of the bull for
the jury, upon whom, it must be confessed, they seemed to produce
marvellously little effect, and Chief Justice Whiteside afterwards
plied the same handle with unremitting vigour. But, in truth, it
was established with surpassing clearness that by a constant and
unshaken tradition of the Church, dating from the earliest period ,
it w(tR held to be a most serious ecclesiastical offence for one cleric
The Case of Mr. O'Keeffe. 219
to bring another before a lay tribunal for anything arising out of
or connected with the priestly oflSce. In this (which is but a
following out of the Apostolic precept) the rules of the Catholic
Church are not a whit more stringent than the rules of other
religious bodies — the Quakers, for example, the Methodists, and
the Free Church of Scotland. As Mr. O'KeeflFe, therefore, per-
severed in his course of litigation, which was becoming a scandal
not only to the diocese of Ossory, but to the whole Irish Church, it
was resolved to visit him with ecclesiastical censure. Accordingly,
on the 11th October, 1870, while the action against the Rev. Mr.
Walsh was pending, but before it had been tried, Dr. McDonald,
the Vicar-General, sent Mr. O'Keeffe the following letter : —
St. Kyran's College, Kilkenny, October, 1870.
Dear Sir, — In punishment for the action at law taken by you against
the Right Rev. E. Walsh, R. C. Bishop of Ossory, and tried before the
Hon. James O'Brien, Second Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench in
Ireland, on the 5th and 6th days of July last, I, vested with the requisite
powers, do hereby suspend you from your " office," from all its functions,
from all administration in things spiritual.
Your humble servant,
E. M*DoNALD, V.G., Diocese of Ossory.
To which Mr. O'Keeffe having replied contumaciously, as was his
wont. Dr. McDonald repeated the sentence of suspension on the
13th of October. Mr. O'Keeffe again replied, and in the following
terms : —
Callan, October 15th, 1870.
Very Rev. Sir, — I have been again handed a letter of yours, dated
the 13th inst., in which you repeat your insolent assumption of power to
inflict punishment on me for having exercised my just and legal right to
resort to a court of justice, in order to protect my character from a vile
slander. With God's grace, I shall perform my duties towards my people
in the blameless manner in which I have hitherto discharged them ; and
treat any invasion of my civil or ecclesiastical rights with the moral or
physical resistance which may be necessary to repel aggression, **juxta
moderamen inculpated tutelse."
In a correspondence with Cardinal Cullen and Dr. Lynch, of Carlow,
last year, I informed these ecclesiastics of the infamous life of traffic in
sacraments and dispensations which Dr. Walsh has led for the last forty
years, and of his wicked slanders on the memory of his predecessor. If
you or anybody else should assail me publicly on his behalf, these letters
will be printed and given to the public. I would recommend you to read
them before you do any act which may render their publication necessary.
You may hear with regret, when too late, a dying man exclaim — ** Save
me from my friends." Your obedient servant,
R. O'Keeffe.
The shocking charges against Dr. Walsh contained in the above
220 The Case of Mr. O'Keeffe.
letter were proved on the late trial to have been so completely base-
less as to raise almost a doubt of the mental sanity of the man who
could make them. In fact, the only grounds on which Mr.
O'Keeffe could justify accusations so horrible were just these two :
First, that he, Mr. O'Keeffe, had for a time been the Bishop's
vicar, and that, during that time, he had instructions from the
Bishop to require a fee of a pound for a license to dispense with the
publication of banns in cases of marriage. This accusation is
absolutely ludicrous. In what church was it ever considered
simoniacal or wrong in any way to take fees for marriage licenses ?
Why, as one of the counsel observed, in the late established Church
of Ireland, in its richest and palmiest days, fees for marriage licenses
were a recognized and enforced charge. Those who did not choose
to pay the fee had to be married, not by special license, but by
publication of banns. With an unendowed church the case is
beyond comparison stronger. It is simply portion of what is
termed in the French church the castiel of the Bishop. There is
no need to resort to the argumentum ad hominem, irresistible as it
is against Mr. O'Keeflfe. He had been the man who, as vicar,
required and exacted this fee, never, as he admitted, making a
syllable of remonstrance or objection, and then, after the lapse of
years, writes of it as an infamous traffic in sacraments. The second
ground is exactly similar; namely, that Dr. Walsh, before he
became bishop, and while he was a parish priest, had required fees
to be paid for baptisms. Mr. O'Keeffe's language shows simply the
feelings towards his bishop which were fermenting within him.
Finding that the previous suspension was defied and disregarded,
Dr. McDonald resolved to proceed against Mr. O'KeeflFe by a regular
canonical process, and on the 16th of November, 1870, he served
him with an ecclesiastical citation, requiring him to appear on the
19th of December at the sacristy of the Kilkenny Cathedral to
show cause why he should not be suspended for having broilght his
bishop before a lay tribunal.
This citation was regularly served upon Mr. O'Keeflfe, but,
strangely enough, the proceeding was dropped. There seems to
have been some apprehension that the holding of a formal court
and conducting the proceedings in judicial form would have been
illegal. Certainly one element in proper legal trials could not
have been imported into the procedure. There was no power to
examine upon oath, and the administering of an oath to any
witness would have been an illegal act. But there was no neces-
sity for examination upon oath. The fact of Mr. O'Keeife having
brought an action against his bishop could have been proved by a
copy of the record, and the whole burthen would have been thrown
upon Mr. KeeflFe of explaining or defending his conduct. The pro-
ceeding was, however, as we have said, dropped, and another course
The Case of Mr. O'Kceffe. 221
taken. Mr. O'Keeflfe, persevering in his action against his curate,
Dr. McDonald, on the 10th of December, sent him a letter con-
taining a conditional suspension, that is to say, apprising him
that he would be suspended ipso facto so soon as his counsel arose
to address the jury in the case. This, also, we need hardly say,
was entirely disregarded by Mr. O'Keeffe, and the action against
the reverend Mr. Walsh went on, resulting, as we mentioned, in a
verdict for £100. In the course of this trial Dr. McDonald pro-
duced, as he had every right to do, Mr. O'KeefiFe's letter of the
15th October, manifesting his animus towards the Bishop. On the
11th of January, 1871, Mr. O'Keeffe was once more visited with
suspension — a suspension ex inforthata conscientid. The subject
of suspensions ex informatd conscientid was a good deal dis-
cussed at the late trial, and it must be owned that nothing could
exceed Mr. O'KeeflFe's ignorance of the matter. He told the Court
and jury that this mode of suspension had^no application whatever
to secular priests, that it was only applicable to the regular clergy,
and he referred to a decree of the Council of Lateran as decisive
of that view.
This was Mr. O'Keeffe's state of information on the subject, the
suspension ex informatd conscientid being, as every canonist knows,
the creation of the Council of Trent. The Bishop's letter accom-
panying the suspension, and the suspension itself, were as follows: —
Kilkenny, 11th Jan., 1871.
Rev. Sir, — As you hare disregarded the ordinary mode of procedure,
I, after mature deliberation, send you hereby a suspension " ex informatd
conscientid ab ordine, ojicio, et benefido.** You are aware that from this
suspension there is no appeal ; and that should you violate it you will
incur an irregularity. (Seal) iJ^Edwabd Walsh.
It having been established to us that the Rev. Mr. Robert O'KeefFe,
priest, is guilty of misconduct, for reasons which worthily influence our
mind, and for which we are bound to give an account to God and to the
Apostolic See, as we are commanded, and from an informed conscience,
we suspend, and declare him suspended, from rank, office, and benefice,
and order the decree of suspension to be made known to him.
Given at Kilkenny, llth January, 1871.
(Seal) Edward (Bishop).
Thomas Kelly (Actuary).
The whole subject of suspension ex informatd conscientid was made
the topic for a good deal of sarcastic commentduringandafterthe trial.
It was treated as the stabbing a man in the dark, a judgment with-
out a hearing, a ready instrument for every caprice of tyranny. All
this might be, if we suppose two things : First, that it were used with-
out conscience ; and, secondly, that there were no appeal or redress.
When at the time of the Council of Trent the Church was mani-
222 The Case of Mr. O'Keeffe.
festly passing into a new phase in its relations with the State, when
it was likely, as the event proved, that the holding of public courts
for the trial of ecclesiastical offences might become, if not impossible,
yet most difficult ; and when it became a matter of great moment
to prevent, if possible, the scandal arising out of the public investi-
gation of clerical offences, it was natural that this extrajudicial
mode of punishment should have arisen. It is to be observed that
the words ex in/ormatd conscientid are not to be found in the decree
of the Council of Trent at all, the text of which merely permits
bishops to forbid orders, or to suspend from orders, even extrajudi-
cially, and even for secret faults, etiam ob ocmdtvm crimen.
A question has arisen whether this mode of proceeding applies to
open as well as secret offences. The Archbishop of Gashel stated
at the late trial that at Rome the prevailing opinion was that it
applied to secret offences only, but the great body of testimony was
the other way ; and Dr. McEvilly, the Bishop of Galway, pointed
out with unanswerable force, that the words of the decree, etiam ob
ocultum crimen, necessarily imported that it could, dfortioriy be
applied to public delinquencies. Such certainly has been the course
of usage in Ireland. In truth, owing to the legal difficulties in the
way of holding regular courts, almost no other mode of suspension
has been practically known. The safeguard against the abuse of
such a power is (besides the Bishop's own conscience, and the
public opinion of the diocese, which would be aroused to formidable
opposition if it were suspected that from any personal pique, or
through mere tyranny, such a suspension was causelessly launched
against a priest) the recourse to the Pope, to whom every priest so
suspended has a right of personal appeal, and to whom the Bishop's
grounds of action must be disclosed, with the result, that, if con-
sidered insufficient, the sentence will be annulled. It is certain that
no discontent whatever is felt among the body of the clergy at the
existence of this power.
Another matter remains to be noticed in connection with the
particular suspension ex in/ormatd conscientid in Mr. O'Keeffe's
case. It will be observed that it purports to suspend him '* ab
ordine, officio, et benejicio/' Now the great weight of the opinion
of canonists undoubtedly is that the decree of the Council of Trent
does not authorize a suspension from the benefice to be effected in
this manner, and that to suspend from the benefice a proceeding of
a judicial character is requisite. However, there was a perfect con-
currence of testimony that, assuming this to be the case, the ineffi-
ciency of the suspension from the benefice did not affect the validity
of the remainder : utile per inutile non mtiatur.
It must be admitted tnat the issuing of these several suspensions
differing in form and method tended to give an appearance of vacilla-
tion and uncertainty to the proceedings against Mr. O'Eeeffe ; and
The Case of Mr. O'Keeffe. 223
this, we think, to be regretted that some one definite course was
not maturely weighed beforehand, and then resolutely adhered to.
But that Mr. O'KeeflFe did, at all events, by the suspension ex
informatd conscientidy fall under a valid censure of his Church, no
canonist could suggest a doubt. Still less doubt could be enter-
tained as to the position that, even if any of the suspensions were
open to impeachment, it was his clear duty to submit until the
censure had been removed by proper ecclesiastical authority. Mr.
O'Keeffe acted in open, public, avowed, and ostentatious defiance of
the authorities of his Church. The only answer which he gave to
the Bishop's letter conveying the suspension ex informatd con-
scientidy was by sending a halfpenny post-card with the following
inscription : —
The Rev. Mr. O'KeeflFe can hold no private communication with the
man ^^ho was capable of showing his private and confidential letter on the
table of a public court.
The reference is to Mr. O'Keefie's letter to Dr. McDonald, in
which he speaks of having, in a correspondence with Dr. Lynch
and Cardinal CuUen, informed them of Dr. Walsh's infamous life
of trafiic in the Sacraments ; and the letter containing this frightful
calumny on the Bishop is treated by Mr. O'KeeflFe as a private and
confidential letter to the Bishop, and its production made an excuse
for an act as wanton and insolent as ever an inferior was guilty of
to his superior.
Mr. O'KeeflFe was now living in open defiance of censures, and
was guilty of irregularity every time he said mass or administered
a sacrament. There was a complete schism in the parish. The
curates withdrew, as a matter of course, from any further acting
under Mr. O'KeeflFe, and celebrated mass at the Augustinian
Friary, while Mr. O'KeeflFe, in order to assist him in his ministra-
tions, obtained the services of a friar who was living out of his
convent, and who had been absolutely forbidden'^by the Vicar-general
to celebrate divine service. Mr. O'KeeflFe was the oflScial chaplain
of the workhouse, but finding that he could not* without the assist-
ance of the curates, both officiate there and have the parish
services performed, he obtained leave from the guardians, who were
in great part his adherents, to send the inmates of the workhouse
to the parish church for mass ; and this led to a new piece of
litigation. After the order of the guardians had been made, the
Eev. Mr. Neary, one of the curates, on the 23rd March, 1871, made
an entry in the chaplain's book protesting against " the poor being
sent out on Sunday to hear mass celebrated by a suspended priest,
in a church where the altar had been turned into a platform of
scandal and buflFoonery ; where Sunday after Sunday the Bishop
of this diocese, in the eightieth year of his age, ia slandered and
lampooned."
224 The 'Case of Mr. O'Kcrffo.
Dealing with such a man as Mr. O'KeeflFe, this was certainly not
a very wise act on Mr. Neary's part. The statement, however,
was found on the late trial to be literally true. Mr. O'KeeflFe had
got printed on a sheet of paper, known as the "broadsheet," his worst
slanders against the Bishop, containing not only his letters to Dr.
Lynch and Cardinal Cullen, accusing the Bishop of trafficking in
the sacraments, but also a letter purporting to have been written
by him to Cardinal Barnabo (but which in fact never was sent),
containing the grossest charges of nepotism against the Bishop,
couched in a strain of coarse irony and sarcasm.
This broadsheet, or the greater part of it, Mr. O'KeeflFe admitted
that he read aloud from his own altar to his congregation. Whether,
therefore, it was a prudent act or not on Mr. Neary's part, he
certainly had sufficient grounds for writing as he did. Mr. O'KeeflFe
not only replied by calling Mr. Neary's entry "a slanderous
rhodomontade," and Mr. Neary himself *' a mendacious and foul-
mouthed divine," but he did what was even more congenial to him,
he brought an action against Mr. Neary and recovered ^100
damages. In truth, Mr. O'KeeflFe 's position as regards law was
throughout a remarkably safe one. He had libelled every church-
man, from cardinal to curate, whom he ever found in opposition to
him, libelled them in language compared with which all that has
been spoken against him is meek and mild indeed. But he felt
that he did so with absolute impunity, as he relied on their not
infringing the church rule by dragging him before lay tribunals.
The situation in Callan had now become intolerable. There were
two ecclesiastical camps set up. On the one side, Mr. O'KeeflFe
with the friar to help him ; on the other, the curates acting under
episcopal authority. Mr. O'KeeflFe had possession of the parochial
church and chapels, the curates took shelter in the Augustinian
Friary. Mr. O'KeeflFe was not slow to follow the established usage
in such cases, and by a somewhat ludicrous inversion of
nomenclature he dubbed as schismatics all who sided with the
Bishop. His own followers acquired the designation of "red lights,"
from what source or on what account we have been unable to glean.
Neither is there any satisfactory statement as to the respective
numbers of these parties. Certain it is that the noisier and bolder,
if not the larger proportion, adhered to Mr. O'Keefte, and of late it
has been said that his supporters are in a great degree strangers to
the parish. Now the remedy for this scandal was by no means
plain. Dr. Walsh was overwhelmed by years and infirmity, and
his mind was beginning to give way. The Vicar-general had no
authority beyond that derived from the Bishop, and the authority of
both had been openly defied and disobeyed. Cardinal Cullen, as
metropolitan, had no jurisdiction except on appeal from the Bishop.
It became, therefore, a casus papalis, a knot which the hand of the
The Case of Mr. O'Kceffe. 225
Holy Father |lone could untie. Cardinal CuUen represented to
Propaganda the evil of permitting so great a scandal to continue,
desiring that a joint commission should be sent to himself and
some other Irish prelate to decide the matter. Is was, however,
intrusted to the Cardinal alone. The following is a translation of
the Papal ordinance : —
31st May, 1871.
Decree of the Sacrid Congregation de Propaganda Fide.
Since it has been reported to the Sacred Congregation de Propa<^anda
Fide that grave scandals have arben in the diocese of Ossory by reason of
the fact that the Rev. Mr. 0*Keeffe, Parish Priest of Callan, though sus-
pended from holy things by the Most Reverend the Bishop of that diocese,
lias still tlie audacity not only to celebrate Mass, but even in public assem-
blies to inveigh against the Bishop, now afflicted with illness : Our must
holy Lord Pius IX., Pope, at the relation of the undersigned Secretary of
the said Congregation, in audience of the 14th day of Mar, 1871» has
deigned to confer on his Eminence the Most Reverend Paul Cullen,
Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland, the necessary and proper
faculties, that as a Delegate of the Apostolic See he may be able and have
power to proceed in the case of Priest 0*Keeffe, and he has ordered the
present decree in this matter to be expedited.
Given at Rome from the Offices of the Sacred Congregation de Propa-
ganda Fide, 31st day of May, 1871.
A. Card. Barnabo, Prefect.
John Simeoni, Secretary.
When this rescript arrived, it so happened that the Cardinal was
immersed in business, and unable for some time to give the matter
his attention ; but at last, on the 16th of July, 1871, he wrote to
Mr. O'KeeflFe in a friendly but informal way, mentioning that he
was now in a position to attempt to restore peace in Callan, and
requesting him to come up to Dublin and call on him. To this
Mr. O'KeefiFe replied, setting forth the pecuniary losses which he
alleged he sustained by reason of his lawsuits, and holding out that
unless he were paid this money he would persevere in litigation.
All these sums of money (he says), with the hundred pounds
damages in each case against the curates amount to £700, and the
authorities of the diocese owe me this money. I cannot make them pay
it by law ; but unless I be paid it, I will proceed against Dr. McDonald at
Wick low, and if I fail to get paid the £700 I will renew the action against
the Bishop in the event of his recovering his mind.
A correspondence ensued between the Cardinal and Mr. O'Keeffe
without any satisfactory termination.
A matter, however, was impending which rendered some solution
of Mr. O'Keeffe's case indispensable. This was the election of a
coadjutor bishop of the diocese of Ossory. Properly this election
VOL. XXI. — NO. XLi. [New Series.l q
226 The Case of Mr. O^Keeffe.
should have been held by Dr. Walsh, the bishop of the diocese, but
Ids extreme ill-health rendered this impossible. He accordingly
requested Cardinal CuUen to preside in his place. Now one of
the questions certain to arise at the election was the status of
Mr. O'KeefiFe, as by the decree of the 1st of June, 1829, re-
gulating the mode of selecting persons to be recommended to the
Holy See for bishoprics in Ireland, those parish priests only have a
right to vote who are free from censures, — censurarum imtnunes.
The day fixed for the election was the 19th of September, and
on the 8th of that month the Cardinal wrote to Mr. CKeeflFe
apprising him that questions might arise on the rescript of 1829,
and wishing him to be prepared for the emergency. The election
was accordingly lield, the Cardinal presiding. Mr. O'KeeflFe's vote
was rejected, as he was under censure, the Cardinal offering, however,
to permit him to send his vote in a sealed envelope to Propaganda,
to be admitted if it were considered, under all the circumstances of
the case, that his vote should have been allowed. At this election
Dr. Moran was chosen coadjutor bishop. After the election the
Cardinal resolved to proceed to settle the affairs of Callan, under the
powers which he held from the Holy See. He apprised Mr. O'Keeffe
on the 2nd of October, of his being in possession of those powers,
and on the 21st of October he sent him the following letter.
Dublin, 21 8t October, 1871.'
My dkar Father O'Keeffe, — As it is necessary to settle the affairs
of Callan, I have determined to send you a regular ecclesiastical citation
to appear before me on Friday, 27th October, at eleven o'clock a.m., at
my house in Eccles-street. I will send the citation to you on Monday
next ; but I now mention the day so that you may let me know if it be in-
convenient before Monday afternoon.
I will examine whether you have incurred suspension or excomunica-
tion, either ab homine or a lege or canone^ whether you have incurred
irregularity, and whether any or what penalty is to be inflicted on you for
having neglected those censures or ecclesiastical penalties, if you have
done so.
Other matters connected with the unhappy state of Callan so well de-
cribed in your letters must also be examined.
Wishing you every happiness, I remain, your faithful servant,
^ Paul Card. Cullen.
Mr. O'Keeffe replied, expressing his willingness to attend, and
sending the Cardinal his grounds of defence; and accordingly, having
waived the necessity of a formal citation, he appeared before the
Cardinal in Eccles-street on Friday, the 27th. What en-
sued we give in the Cardinal's own words, extracted from the
reprint of the trial in the newspapers of the day : —
Mr. O'KeefFe arriv^ed in Jbk?cles-street about 11 o'clock on the day fixed.
The Case of Mr. O'Keeffe. 227
invited him to take his place, and he did ; I introduced him to Dr. Forde,
and I told him who Dr. Forde was ; then we all sat down, and in a
few words I told the plaintiff that I had called him up in order to
examine into the charges made against him, and into the state of the
old case of Callan, which had been remitted to me by the Propaganda ;
I said that as the business was very extensive, it would be well to avoid
confusion ; I added that it would be most important that we sliould
understand everything in the beginning, and see what he admitted and
what he did not admit. I then asked him in succession a question
regarding every matter that was to come before us on that day ; I asked
liim first — " Is it true that you took an action against your Bishop in
1869? " he answered it is perfectly true, but said he had compromised it,
and got out of the Bisiiop £550 and also made him pay his own expenses ; I
next asked him — " In the following year, or at the end of that same year
and in the following year did you take another action against the Bishop ? '*
" Oh," he said, " these things are all in the public newspapers — they are all
notorious ; I took an action against the Bishop, but unfortunately I was put
out of court, and the expense on mo in that action was very heavy ;'* and he
repeated several times afterwards — " but I will make somebody pay it ; *' I
asked him then had he taken actions against his curates ; he said he had^
and that he had got damages against, I think he said, each of them for
£100, but that one of them had applied for a new trial, and the case was
to come on again ; I asked him then had he taken an action or commenced
an action against his Vicar-General, Dr. M'Donald ; he said he had, but
liad given it up for love of peace ; " "We are then," I said, *' fully agreed
(»n all these points ; " " Oh, I admit all that," he said ; '* I admit all these
l)oints." I asked him, " Were you suspended by your Vicar-General in 1870 ;
October I think it was?" " I was;'' '* Did you deserve that censure ? '»
" No," said he, " I despised it and violated it ; " " Did you, in your answer
to the Vicar-General, call him an ape and a fool, or something similar? "
He said, " He deserved it." •
The Chief Justice — He said he did?
His Eminence— He said he deserved it; I said the censure from the
V icar-General ; there are two one is a repetition of the other, and I call it the
censure ; I treated the two censures as one. I asked him again — "Did the
Vicar-General send you a conditional suspension, latae sententice, — that is
(lid the Vicar-General inflict a suspension on you for your bringing 3'our
curate before a lay tribunal ? " he said he did bring the curate before a lay
tribunal, and that he laughed at the censure ; I don't say precisely he
used the word " laughed," but he said he scoffed at it or despised it. I
then asked him — "Did 3'our Bishop in the following January, 1871, I
think it was, send you a suspension ex infortnatd conscientia ?" he said he
did, and acknowledged that he had received it ; I asked him did he obey
that censure ; he said not, he looked on it as not binding, as of no avail, —
not binding. I asked him then : "Did you send an answer to that on one
of the common post-office cards, saying you would have no private cor-
respondence with a man who would betray a private letter?" he said the
Bishop deserved no respect from him on account of the wav in which the
' Q 2
228 The Case of Mr. O'Keeffe.
Bishop had treated him. The next thing was whether he employed in his
parish a friar who had been obliged to leave his own convent ; and he
stated he had employed him in Callan to say Mass on Sundays and
festivals. I asked him then had he permission from the Bishop ; he said
he had not. I asked had the Vicar-General prohibited this friar from
saying Mass ; he said he had. I then took up the paper which Serjeant
Armstrong called the broad sheet,— liad it in my hand ; I asked him
whether he had got this printed, and whether he circulated it : he said he
got it printed, and had circulated it amongst bishops and other friends of
his. I asked him then, wasn't it an awful offence against his lordship to
charge him with an infamous traffic in sacraments and dispensations, and
to charge him also with what is an awful crime amongst Catholics, the
revelation of secrets which are heard in confessions.
What reply did he make? He admitted he made those charges, and
that he believed them all to be true ; having received all these admissions,
which put the facts in the clearest light, I said, *• Now we will examine
the matters in succession ; " we then began to discuss the first ground of
accusation against him, that is, his having called the Bishop into court
twice, and his curates and the Vicar-General afterwards ; he began to
defend himself by stating that the bull, " In Ccena Domini," as it is called,
is not in force in Ireland, and that the " Apostolici Sedis " is not in force,
and consequently he did not offend the laws of the Church by what he
had done ; I think he spoke at intervals, passing from one subject to
another, but referring to this very often, for about an hour on that point ;
he repeatedly challenged me and Dr. Forde or any other person in the
world to answer his objections. Dr. Forde told him that we were not
there to enter into disputes with him, but to hear his case, and afterwards
decide on it ; both Dr. Forde and I told him repeatedly that the case we
were engaged in there had nothing to do with the bull " In Coena Domini,"
or the other constitutions ; we told him that the bull " Coena Domini "
treated altogether of excommunications, whereas in his case there were
questions only of suspension. We told him that he was charged with an
offence .against the canon law of the Catholic Church, and if the bull or the
constitutions of the present Pope had never been published we could still
punish liim if he was guilty of that offence against the canon law of the
Catholic Church ; he appealed continually to the authority of Dr. Doyle,
Dr. Murray, and Dr. Slevin. We said we had nothing to do with their
authority, that whatever their opinions w^ere we had a right to hold our
own, and their opinions or our opinions had no bearing on the case ; we
stated it was not the censure that made the offence, but the offence
existed ; tliat the sentence of excommunication or suspension was a proof
that there was an offence underlying it, which could be punished other-
wise than by the censure. Father O'Keeffe talked a great deal then in
favour of his own opinions, but alleging the same authorities and repeating
the same thing over and over until we were tired. 1 asked him then was
it not a horrible thing to persecute a poor old man beyond eii^hty years ;
I asked him who promoted hiiu to the parish which he held ; he Kaid
Dr. Walsh. I asked him—" Who made vou a Canon of the diocese ? " I
The Case of Mr. O'Keeffc. 229
think, as far as I can recollect, he also said Dr. Walsh. " Then Dr.
Walsh has been your friend and benefactor, and you correspond to his
kindness by attributing to him the greatest crimes of which a Catholic
bishop could be guilty ; " he stated again that the Bishop was really guilty
of those crimes. I asked him what proof he had of the Bishop*8 guilt ;
he replied that the Bishop was accustomed to take fees for the dispensation
of banns for marriage, that he never gave a dispensation without charging
a pound for it. I replied that it was quite customary in every part of
Ireland for bishops to take fees for the dispensation of banns, and that
there was nothing simoniacal or worthy of blame in doing so ; he spoke
about the fees for baptism, and said children were often kept a long time
waiting for baptism because the parents or godfather or godmother could
not pay the fees ; he did not bring proof of that, and he was obliged to
admit that the general custom in Ireland is to give some small fee to the
priest or bishop on occasions of baptism. I then asked him about the
revelation of the secrets of confession ; I said that was looked on as the
most atrocious crime, that if a charge of that nature was proved in Rome
against a bishop he would be set aside ; he said it w^as true, and that the
Bishop had made the tribunal of penance odious by acting as he had. I
then asked him what proof had he of the revelation of the secrets of the
confessional ; he said that the Bishop compelled all those who had con-
tracted reserved cases — for drinking on Sundays, or for fighting, or public
scandals of that nature — to go to Kilkenny, from whatever part of the
diocese they were, and he oftentimes gave them a public scolding, and
revealed their sins, and sent them home to the parish priest to be absolved.
I said, " There are two forms or tribunals of the Church, one an external
tribunal, and the other an internal tribunal, of conscience ; the secrets to
be kept belong to the internal tribunal, or private tribunal of conBcience,
but not to the public tribunal ; when a penitent comes to confession, and
confesses his sins, in order to obtain absolution for them in the tribunal of
penance, everything he says is to be kept as the profoundest secret ; it
would be treason to the Church to betray it ; but when a penitent is sent
by his confessor to the bishop, he goes forward openly, and tells what he
is sent for, — that I was drinking on such a day, I was fighting on such a
day, and the parish priest would not absolve me till I would come to your
lordship ; that is recourse to the public tribunal of the Church, and is
done openly, and without any secret connected with it."
Is that a well-known distinction in the Church? Perfectly well known;
there is public confession and private confession; public confession is when
one goes before the public tribunal of the bishop, there is no secret about
that ; there is his private tribunal of conscience, to which the greatest
secrecy is to be attached. Dr. Forde made a proposal, calculated to put an
end to all our proceedings, as he imagined ; he addressed Father CKeeffe,
saying, " I perceive that the Cardinal is very unwilling to punish you,
would it not be well then to compromise the matter?" he turned to me
and said, '^ I do this without any permission from your Eminence, and I
will not continue to make this offer of compromise unless you permit me
to do so ; " I said I would be happy to hear what he wished to propose ;
280 Th^ Case of Mr, O'Kecffe.
he then said : " Let Father O'Keeffe retire from his parish for four or five
weeks, and let the two curates also retire from the parish, and let a body
of missionaries "
The Chief Justice : A body ?
His Eminence : Company we might say, '' Let a company of missionaries
be sent to Callan to give religious instruction to the people and to restore
peace as much as possible ; " he then added that an administrator should
be appointed to take care of the parish and of Father O'Keeffe's interest
in the parish. Father O'Keeffe, after some reluctance, said he would con-
sent to these proposals ; there was one thing, however, I omitted, — that I
was, during the time of the absence of Father O'KeefFe, to send a report
of everything to the Pope, and beg of him to decide what was to be done
as to the future aspect of the case.
The Chief Justice : That was agreed to 'i
His Eminence : All this was agreed to; not agreed to precisely as yet.
Mr. O'Haoan : That also was assented to ?
His Eminence : After some reluctance and discussion he agreed to
adopt all these four proposals.
Mr. O'Hagan : The four were — his retirement, the withdrawal of the
curates, the appointment of missionaries, and tlie reference to the Pope ?
His Eminence: And the appointment of an administrator, there were
five ; I have to mention something more ; this was what passed between
Dr. Forde and Father O'KeeflFe ; I did not introduce the matter, it was
Dr. Forde ; after the matter was pretty well agreed to, I said that Father
O'Keeffe should stay away at least seven or eight weeks from the parish,
because it would be necessary to have at least that space of time in order
to prepare the case to be sent to Rome and to give time to the Holy See to
discuss and settle the matter there ; I added that I would take care to get
Dr. McDonald, the Vicar-General, to appoint or to propose a worthy priest to
be administrator, and a priest who would not be any way hostile to Father
O'KeeflTe, and these points were fully agreed to ; I proposed to have the
thing put in writing, but as Dr. Forde was unwell we agreed that the
writing should take place the next morning ; we separated then, and the
moment Father O'Keeffe was gone I went to the missionaries of St. Vincent.
It was arranged we should meet next morning ; I proposed twelve o'clock, to
put everything in writing ; Father O'Keeffe said he had to go off by the
one o'clock or half-past one o'clock train ; I then agreed to see him at ten
o'clock. He came back next morning about ten o'clock. I was alone,
Dr. Forde had not arrived. I said to him, " You have now come to put
the matter we agreed on yesterday in writing ;" he replied that he had
done so already himself ; that he had prepared an address to his people
which contained everything connected with our interview ; he then handed
me a paper which he had prepared, and which has been given in evidence.
When I read that paper I said, ** This is not the agreement to which we
came on yesterday. In this paper you say that I have pgreed to send the
whole case back to Rome, just as it came to me ; I cannot, however, con-
sent to act so improperly towards my ecclesiastical superiors. Yesterday
you agreed to be absent from the parish for seven or eight weeks, until a
The Case of Mr. O'Keeffe. 231
reply would l)e recfived from Rome, and there is no mention of that
arrangement in this document ; and you agreed to put the administration
of your parish in the hands of a priest, to he sent there by the Vicar-
General or by me, and there is not a word of that arrangement in your
address. It is impossible that I could stultify myself by approving of such
a document as tjaat ; " Father O'Keeffe replied that he would never con-
sent to leave Callan, that he would go back and remain there, and that he
would manage the affairs of the mission.
The Chief Justice : That is the mission which you were to send?
His Eminence : Which I was to send ; he said he would not agree to
anything else but what he had proposed. I think, however, that in the
interview we had the evening before or in this interview, I think it was in
this interview, he said that it would take three regiments of her Majesty's
soldiers to put him out of Callan (laughter). I then told him before he
went away that he should come back on the following Friday, I think it
was Friday or Tuesday, but the day is mentioned in the letter.
Of the absolute accuracy of the above account, no one who heard
it could entertain the slightest question. In truth it substantially
accords with Mr. O'Keeffe 's own account, with one exception,
namely, that Mr. O'Keeffe denied that his own departure from the
parish pending the reference to Rome was any portion of the
terms agreed on, though he admitted that he was to go on retreat,
a step which would certainly seem to involve his absence from the
parish ; but which he explained by saying that he could make a
retreat in his own house. Mr. O'Keeffe having thus eluded the
performance of the engagement to which the Cardinal and Dr.
Forde believed that they had bound him on the preceding day,
nothing remained but to summon him again, in order to complete
the hearing of the case. This the Cardinal did by letters of the
3rd and 6th of November. Mr. O'Keeffe first evaded and then
refused compliance. The Cardinal therefore proceeded to pass
sentence upon him as contumacious. By this sentence, which
was pronounced on the 13th of November, 1871, Mr. O'Keeffe was
declared suspended from all spiritual jurisdiction, from administer-
ing the sacraments, and especially from saying mass and hearing
confessions, and he was deprived of all ecclesiastical benefit. This
suspension commepced with the recital of the powers conferred by
the Holy See upon the Cardinal, and it ended with an earnest
exhortation to Mr. O'Keeffe, urging him to repentance and sub-
mission. It was inclosed to Mr. O'Keeffe in a registered letter,
which, with a shrewd suspicion of its contents, he refused to receive,
and it was also published at the chapel of the Augustinian Friary.
Mr. O'Keeffe having disregarded this censure as he did the preced-
ing ones, the parish church of Callan was on the 16th December,
1871, laid by the Cardinal under a formal interdict, which was also
duly published. For the publication of the suspension and of
232 Tlic Case of Mr. O'Kveffe.
the interdict Mr. O'Kceffe at once brought nn action of libel
against the Cardinal, which was the action tried by Chief Justice
Whiteside in the Queen's Bench in the sittings after last Easter
terra, to the proceedings in which we have so often referred.
But before the trial there was an argument arising on the
pleadings, which is even more deserving of attention than
the trial itself. By his pleas the Cardinal alleged that the publi-
cation was not a libel, a mode of pleading unknown in England,
where the question is always raised under the issue of not guilty,
but rendered necessary in Ireland by the statute regulating plead-
ings in that country. lie further denied the correctness of the
defamatory sense imputed, or, in other words, traversed the inuendoes,
and, lastly, pleaded special defences — on the one hand of pnvilege,
and on the other of justification. In England the sole pleas would
have been not guilty and a justification, but the mode of pleading
in Ireland is, as we have said, much more elaborate. The pleas
of privilege and the pleas of justification commenced alike by
setting forth the Papal rescript as the foundation of the Cardinal's
authority, and then set out in detail the several proceedings pre-
liminary to the suspension, averring that everything was conducted
formally and regularly according to the laws and discipline of the
Catholic Church, by which Mr. O'KeeflFe as a priest was bound.
To these special pleas Mr. O'KeeflFe replied that his suspension was
grounded simply upon the charge of having impleaded other
eccfesiastics in the Queen's courts of law, and he averred that a
suspension so based must be held illegal and invalid, as tending to
fetter the liberty of the Queens subjects in seeking redress in the
ordinary courts of law. To this replication the Cardinal's advisers
rejoined in a twofold way ; first denying that the impleading of
ecclesiastics was the sole cause of suspension ; and secondly
asserting that the impleading in question had reference to a purely
ecclesiastical matter, namely words alleged to have been spoken by
one priest of another priest, in his character of priest To this re-
joinder the plaintiff demurred, and issues in law were thus raised for
the decision of the court. Upon the argument of a demurrer the
averments in the pleadings are, as is well known, assumed to be true
in point of fact. So assuming, it would appear at first as if but one
question arose for argument or decision ; that question being, whether
a rule of that kind was so tainted with illegality that no one could
safely act upon it, and that the existence of such a rule, even
though the plaintiflf had contracted to be bound by it, formed no
defence to an action of libel grounded on the publication of a
censure warranted by the rule. The issue so raised was certainly
of vast importance, affecting the condition, not only of the Catholic
Church, but of every voluntary body in the empire, lor there is
hardly a religious denomination amongst whom litigation in courts
of law regarding their internal affairs is not more or less forbidden,
The Case of Mr. O'Keeffe. 233
and most certainly it was universally assumed that there was
nothing illegal in such a prohibition. It was looked on as a
matter of course that an ordinance of a voluntary church, by which
one churchman suing another in the courts of law, for a cause arising
out of church affairs, is deemed guilty of an ecclesiastical offence,
and made liable to .church censures, contains nothing illegal by the
law of the land, — that is to say illegal in the sense in which certain
contracts and stipulations are held to be illegal, as being contranr
to public policy. No one of course ever dreamed of saying that such
a rule possessed legal force, or could be pleaded as a defence in a
court of law, if in violation of it one churchman sued another, but
the contention of Mr. O'Keeffe'went much further and asserted
that the internal law of any society might say, *' So long as you
are of us you must be bound by our rules, one of which is that you
are not to drag the affairs of our society before a court of law."
Such a rule is so entirely illegal that a censure pronounced by force
of it is a libel. The legal position of voluntary churches has been so
often and so elaborately discussed of late years, and the law seems so
clearly settled, especially by the famous cases of Long v. the Bishop of
Cape Town, and the Bishop of Natal v. Gladstone, that in point of
principle at least, there seems no longer room for controversy. It
is all regarded simply as matter of contract, by which the members
of the voluntary church are supposed to be bound inter se. Assum-
ing then, that there is nothing illegal in the rule subjecting a priest
to censure for bringing an action against a brother ecclesiastic, the
entire issues appeared reduced to this one, namely, whether Mr.
O'Keeffe had been canonically suspended according to the laws of
his Church.
But unexpectedly, and to the surprise of every one, Mr. O'Keeffe's
counsel put forward another, and very different ground of impeach-
ing the Cardinal's proceedings. The basis of the Cardinal's
jurisdiction over Mr. O'Keeffe was, as we have showm, the Papal
rescript of May, 1871. Now, by an Irish statute of the second
year of Queen Elizabeth, following the English Act of the first
year of the same sovereign, the jurisdiction, spiritual and ecclesias-
tical of every foreign prince, prelate, and potentate, was formally
abolished within the realm of Ireland, and to assert it was made a
crime, punishable for the first offence by imprisonment and forfeiture
of goods ; for the second, by the penalties o{ ^ preniunire ; and for
the third, by the pains and penalities of high treason. In the
long course of tolerant legislation and practice which had set in
for almost a century, this, as well as the other persecuting statutes
of the same reign, had been treated as utterly obsolete and of no
value beyond that of pointing an historical moral. The communi-
cation of Catholics with the Head of their Church, and his
spiritual jurisdiction over them were regarded as being just as
much a matter of course as the discipline of any nonconforming
234 Tlte Case of Mr. O'Keeffc.
sect By an Act of the tenth year of licr present Majesty, all the
pains and penalties of the statute of Elizabeth were abolished, but
a proviso was added that the law in other respects should continue
the same as before the Act Mr. O'KeeflFe's counsel contended,
therefore, that the Pope's spiritual jurisdiction, even regarded in the
light of a jurisdiction arising from consent and contract, was null
and void, and could not form the groundwork in a court of law
for sustaining any act of ecclesiastical authority.
The question thus raised was so startling and overwhelming as
to reduce every other controversy in the case to insignificance in
point of public importance ; for if no act of the Pope done in his
spiritual capacity as Head of the Church is capable of being
relied on in a court of law, it follows that no act of spiritual
jurisdiction by any bishop appointed by the Pope could be relied on,
and the whole fabric and working of the Catholic Church in thesie
kingdoms would, so far as the law of the land is concerned, be smitten
with paralysis. It would not stand on the same footing as other
voluntary churches. It would be no longer free, but fettered and
impeded in its action, subject to a subtle but no less real persecution.
The demurrer came on to be heard in the Hilary term of the
present year, and the points raised were discussed with great
ability. The Court of Queen's Bench was divided in opinion, and
as there has been no small amount of misrepresentation as to what
was actually held by the several learned judges, we think it right
to make this matter clear. Upon the first question, namely,
whether the rule prohibiting clerics from suing one another in
courts of law about matters ecclesiastical was invalid, the three
puisne judges were unanimous and perfectly clear and decided in
opinion. They held that there was nothing whatever in the law
of the land to prevent the members of any voluntary society, be
it club, confraternity, or church, from stipulating, as one of the
terms of their association, that litigation amongst themselves should
be wholly or partially prohibited, even under the extreme penalty
of expulsion from the body. Chief Justice Whiteside alone main-
tained that any restriction upon the full right of one subject of
the Queen to. go to law with another was absolutely illegal. For
this position, which was not sustained by any precedent or au-
thority, he relied on the general principles of wnat he termed " the
Constitution. *' If the Chief Justice's law in this respect were sound,
all the rules o£ the Quakers, Methodists, and Presbyterians, con-
curring in this respect with the rules of the Catholic Church, would
be so much waste paper. But upon this, the first issue in law, the
judgment of the majority, and therefore of the Court, was, as we
have seen, in favour of the Cardinal. On the second and far more
important question the Court was still more divided. Mr. Justice
Fitzgerald and Mr. Justice Barry considered that the effect of the
proviso in the Act of the tenth year of the present Queen preserving
The Cafie of Mr, O'Keeffc. 235
tlie former law, while abolishing the penalties, was this, that the
Pope had not lepal jurisdiction in these realms. In their view,
liowever, this by no means invalidated the CardinaFs defence, as
founded on the consensual laws of a voluntary church : it merely
affected a certain small portion of the pleadings. Mr. O'Keeffe's
pleader had, as is usual, inserted inuendoes, pointing the meaning
of the alleged libel, and in some of those inuendoes had alleged that
the Cardinal, in declaring Mr. O'Keeffe suspended, meant that he
had been legally suspended. Now it is a well-known law of pleading
that if the defendant justifies, that is, avers that what he published
was true, he must adopt the very meaning attributed to his words
by the plaintiff's pleader. Therefore, in two of the Car-
dinal's pleas the very words of the inuendoes were adopted,
and it was averred tiiat Mr. O'Keeffe had, in fact, been
legally suspended. These two pleas alone were held bad by
Mr. Justice Fitzgerald and Mr. Justice Barry on account
of the use of the word ** legally.'* Another plea of justification,
tlie same in all respects with the exception of that word, Jis
well as all the pleas of privilege grounded on the papal re-
script, were held by them to be good. And they expressed in the
strongest manner their opinion that if the facts detailed in the
pleadings were sustained in evidence, the Cardinal's publication
of the suspension never could be held in law to be a libel on
Mr. O'Keeffe. Mr. Justice O^Brien took wider ground. He
reviewed the whole course of legislation as regarded Catholics from
the time of the relaxation of the penal laws, and he held that, by
force of that legislation, there had been, long anterior to the statute
of the 10th of the Queen, an implied repeal of the Act of Elizabeth,
which could not be held to be re-enacted by the general saving in
the Act of 1846. He referred, in support of his view, to the
emphatic and most remarkable language of Lord Lyndhurst,
showing with wonderful clearness of thought and expression that
to put the spiritual jurisdiction of the Pope under legal ban
was inconsistent with toleration of the Catholic religion. Chief
Justice Whiteside for his part took the extreme view on the
other side. He held that the prohibiting clauses of the Act
of Elizabeth were in full force ; that they operated to annul and
invalidate every ecclesiastical act emanating from the Pope as its
source, and accordingly that every one of the Cardinal's pleas of
justification and privilege was bad in law. Such wj^s the result of
the arguments on the demurrer, the judgments being delivered late
in Easter terra.
The trial of the issues in fact followed almost immediately upon
the judgments on the law. The case was heard before Chief
Justice Whiteside in the sittings between Easter and Trinity
terms. The question to be determined was in brief this, whether,
according to the laws and discipline of the Catholic Church,
236 -' The Case of Mr. O'Kcefe.
Mr. O'KeeflFe had been validly suspended by the Cardinal. Upon this
question Mr. O'KecflFe had but one witness — himself. On the
other hand, a jijreat number of witnesses appeared for the Cardinal,
of much learning and experience, who gave their evidence in the
clearest and most explicit mannner. They were the Cardinal
himself ; Dr. Leahy, the Archbishop of Cashel ; Dr. McEvilly, the
Bishop of Galway ; two Roman canonists ; and lastly. Canon Neville,
of Cork, who for many years had been professor of theology iu
Maynooth, and who had the highest reputation for learning.
The point upon which the evidence of all these witnesses con-
curred was this, that by the common law of the Catholic Church,
the traditional law handed down from the time of the Apostles,
and embodied in the decrees of innumerable councils, it was always
held to be a scandal and an offence on the part of a Catholic priest
to make any quarrel with a brother priest, and especially with a
bishop, arising from an ecclesiastical cause, the subject of public
controversy before a lay tribunal.
The wider immunity claimed for the priesthood, the entire freedom
from the jurisdiction of secular tribunals at all, has practically ceased
in modern times. In Catholic countries, or the greater number of
them, there is a Concordat regulating the relations between Church and
State, and defining the classes of cases which belong to the lay and
clerical courts respectively. In every case of Concordat, although
the decision of matters secular between cleric and cleric, as, for
example, questions of property, is reserved to the lay tribunals,
yet matters ecclesiastical are studiously excluded from them. la
countries' where there is no Concordat, the same result practically
follows, through admitted custom. No one would think of censur-
ing a priest for suing a brother priest in the Court of Chancery
concerning a pure matter of private property ; but tlic common law
of the Church still remains unimpaired, forbidding the bringing of
controversies between churchmen as such to be decided by laymen.
Throughout the trial, this question of the canonical validity of
Mr. O'Keeffe's suspension was treated on all sides as the issue to
be submitted to the jury. It never was, in truth, submitted to
them, owing to the course adopted by the judge, — a course which
we are certainly correct in saying took every one by surprise,
including the counsel for the plaintiff themselves.
In the very beginning of the defendant's evidence the Papal
rescript of May, 1871, was put in and read without objection. At
the close of the evidence, and before the concluding speeches, Mr.
Purcell, the leading counsel for Mr. O'Keeffe, called on the Chief
Justice to direct a verdict for the plaintiff on the ground of the
invalidity of the rescript. An argument followed, sustained by two
counsel on each side, at the close of which the Chief Justice
refused to give the direction asked for, but said he would at
the end of the case explain his views fully to the jury. This was,
The Case of Mr. O'Keeffe. 237
of course, perfectly right and unexceptionable. The advocates for
both defendant and plaintiff addressed the jury, occupying each
more than a day, and commenting very fully on all the evidence.
The Chief Justice then charged the jury. We not only do not say,
but we do not in the least mean or imply, that the very strong view
in favour of the plaintiff taken by him arose from any cause except
that such was the opinion he had formed. The fact, however, is
undoubted that it was, perhaps, the very strongest charge on a
particular side which modem times at least have seen. Still,
down to the very end, there was no indication that he meant to do
anything else than leave the decision of the issues to the jury, with
his own strong declaration of opinion. Towards the close of his
charo;e he became more emphatic, telling the jury in plain terms that
the Papal rescript was null and void, that Mr. O'Keeffe's trial before
the Cardinal was no trial, and that the whole proceedings were con-
trary to natural justice. The jury retired, and after a time returned
into court, stating that they could not agree. The Chief Justice then
became quite distinct, as well as emphatic. He told them that they
werebound'to find for the plaintiff; that he took the whole responsibility
of directing them upon himself, <and that the sole question for them to
consider was that of damages. Having thus done what at a previous
stage he ha^ said he would not do, having taken the entire case out
of the hands of the jury, he sent them in again merely to adjudicate
on the damages. The jury, thus coerced, took but a short time foi
deliberation, and returned, finding a verdict for the plaintiff, with one
farthing damages, in this way showing their opinion of Mr. O'Keeffe
and his cause. One other matter is deserving of notice, — the certifi-
cate of the Chief Justice astocosts. Formerly the smallest verdict for
the plaintiff in an action of libel carried full costs, forming in that
respect an exception to other actions for wrongs. By a late statute
this inequality was repaired, and now a verdict for libel does not
carry costs, unless the judge certifies that the libel was wilful and
malicious. Malicious under this Act has been held to mean malice
in fact, as distinguished from that legal malice which is the attribute
of every act done without legal excuse. Now in the course of the
trial the Chief Justice had in terms the most express exonerated the
Cardinal from any imputation of personal malice against Mr. O'Keeffe,
yet he did not hesitate to certify that thelibcl was wilful and malicious,
thereby, if the verdict stands, entitling Mr. O'Keeffe to full costs
against the Cardinal.
Although the damages were merely nominal, yet as great princi-
ples were involved, the Cardinal lost no time in applying to the Court
to set aside the verdict The Chief Justice, in giving his direction
to the jury, had expressly invited this proceeding, telling the jury
that if he were wrong in his direction, the Court above would
rectify it.
It was therefore thought that a conditional order for a new
238 The Case of Mr. (yKeeffe.
trial would be granted unanimously, and as a matter of course. It
was not so, however. The Chief Justice resisted the granting even
of a conditional order, delivering a prepared and elaborate state-
ment, the conclusion of which was that he would be always
prepared to maintain " the prerogative of his sovereign." The
other three judges granted the conditional order as a matter of
course. In truth, putting aside everything else, there was one
absolutely irresistible ground. Chief Justice Whiteside is the first
judge who, since the passing of Charles Fox's Act, now nearly a
century ago, has taken it upon himself to withdraw from a jury the
question whether the publication complained of is, or is not, a
libel ; an issue which that Act and the course of law ever since
have decided to be one for the jury, and the jury alone. The Act
in its terms applies only to criminal cases, but by analogy, ns the
Chief Justice himself admitted, it has been ever since held applicable
to civil cases also.
In this posture things remain. The great questions raised by
the demurrer await their decision by the Courts of Appeal. Those
raised upon the trial await their decision by the Court of Queen's
Bench, and afterwards, as is likely, by the Courts of Appeal up
to the ultimate tribunal. We have, finally, just one word to say
as to the attitude of the press.
The tone of the English press towards Ireland is often complained
of as being neither intelligent nor just. Whatever reason may
otherwise exist for this complaint, we are bound to say, that, in the
present case, we could not discover it. The very morning after the
verdict there appeared in the Times an article, evidently the work
of an accomplished lawyer, dealing with the subject fairly and
justly, and with a comprehensive grasp of the legal bearings of the
case. The other organs of reputation among the English press
took in the main the same line. With a portion of the Irish press
— we mean the .Tory or Conservative organs — the case was far
difterent. Nothing more discreditable or indeed disgraceful has
appeared in our time than their mode of dealing with this subject.
It is scarcely credible, an«l yet it is the fact, that immediately after
Chief Justice Whiteside had, by withdrawing the whole case from
the jury, by tnking the entire responsibility upon himself, and
absolutely directing them to find for the plaintifl^, coerced them into
a verdict — a verdict of a farthing damages, —the Conservative
press of Ireland trumpeted forth the result as a signal victory over
the Cardinal, announcing that Mr. O'KeeflFe had been decided by
an impartial jury of his countrymen to be still de facto and de jure
parish priest of Callan.
The questions which Mr. O'Kceft'e has been the instrument of
raising as regards National Education in Ireland are too important
to be hurriedly discussed. They must stand over till our next
Number.
( 239 )
liotwes of
The Works of Aurelius Augiistine, Bishop of Hippo, A new Translation.
Edited l)y tlie Rev. Marcus Dods, M.A. Vol. VII. On the Trinity.
Translated by the Rev. Arthur West Haddan, B.D., Hon. Canon
ot Worcester, and Rector of Barton-on-the-Heath, Warwickshire.
Vol. VIII. The Sermon on the Mount expounded, and the Harmony
of the Evangelists. Translated respectively by the Rev. William
FiNDLAY, M.A., Larkhall, and the Rev. S. D. F. Salmond, M.A.,
Barry. Edinburgh : T. & T. Clark. 1873.
OF no really great book can it be said that its work is completed and over
at any period of its duration. Though the words remain the same
and are handed down unaltered age after age, they are studied by each
generation under different circumstances, and produce new and unexpected
results. The works of the Fathers, and in particular of S. Augustine, afford
an instance of this. Without reckoning the effect, on individual minds, of
such a book as the ConfessioiiSy it was from S. Augustine, f«T>understood,
that Jansenism sprang, and therefore all the consequences to the Church
of her victory over it, twelve centuries after his death. And to S.
Augustine, studied in a humbler spirit, some considerable share is trace-
able of the movement towards Catholicism in England in 1845. Thus the
Anglican translation of the work on the Trinity we are about to notice,
observes of a passage in Book V., '* that it seems to have suggested one
of the profoundest passages of the profoundest of Dr. Newman's
University Sermons^ After a pause in the patristic research, so eagerly
renewed in the epoch we have mentioned, it seems to have now received a
fresh impulse ; and in Scotland too, where we doubt not that the publica-
tion in English of such important treatises as these will set many a
religious and philosophic mind on thinking in hitherto untrodden ways.
The translation of the de Trinitate possesses an interest of its own,
having been revised and corrected by the late Arthur West Haddan (for-
merly fellow of Trinity College, Oxford), who died as the last sheet was
passing through the press. His services to ecclesiastical literature in
connexion with the History of Councils are well known. His learning and
industry will secure him a far gi*eater place in the memory of after-times
than his retiring habits gained him in the observation of the present. It
is not for us to make any theory on the causes which to the end detained
240 Notices of Boohs.
such a mind within the pale of Anglicanism. We have only here to do
with the results of his important labours in a field which did not lead him
into conflict with Catholic doi^ma. Of the vast mass of writing which
has come down to us under the great name of S. Augustine, it may be
said that two works only are familiar to the cultivated, but general reader,
the Confessions and the de Civitate Dei, Their value is so great that it is
only wonderful that the mine from which they came is so little explored.
The elaborate treatise on the Trinity was the occupation, often interrupted,
but never laid aside, of many years of the life of the saint, having been begun
in his ripe manhood, and only given to the world in his old age : Mr.
Haddan would assign as the date of its publication, ten or twelve years
previous to A.D. 428. As may be supposed, it possesses, in a high degree,
the special characteristics of S. Augustine's mind, which are depth, pene-
tration, fulness, grasp, amplitude, affectionateness, a great deal, in short,
that belonged to the nature of S. Paul. Add to this, what we may call
by the rather hackneyed name of sttbjectivity ; that is, his personal dis-
position comes out in every line, and in his writings we seem to know him,
and to be thoroughly acquainted with him, to sit at his feet as disciples
under the old law, meeting their teacher daily in the temple. Now all this
renders him especially well adapted for translation, because, although so
remote from our times, his intellect has the modern type, more, for instance,
than has S. Thomas Aquinas. We shall proceed to give as correct an out-
line as we can of the treatise before us. It is rather dogmatical, than po-
lemical, its object being not so much to refute error, as to render an account
of the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and this in two ways, first, by demon-
strating it according to Holy Scripture, and next by establishing its
conformity with reason. And the effect S. Augustine anticipated from the
latter, on the minds of lieretics, was, thait it might lead them on to faith.
His own expression is : *^ If God be willing and aid us, we may, perhaps,
at least so far serve these talkative arguers .... as to enable them to find
something which they are not able to doubt, that so, in that case when they
cannot find the like, they may be led to lay the fault to their own minds
rather than to the truth itself, or to our reasonings ; and thus, if there is
anything in thein of either love or fear towards God, they may return and
begin from faith in due order, perceiving at length how healthfnl a medicine
has been provided for the faithful in the Holy Church." (1. ii.) The
first of these discussions is comprised in the first seven books of the treatise,
the second in the remaining eight. The preface exhibits the writer's
character in a manner that is touching and instructive. Thus, he says
that he meditates in the law of the Lord, if not day and night, at least
such short times as he can, and writes down his meditations, lest he should
forget them, hoping that God will make him hold steadfastly all the
truths of which he feels certain, or otherwise reveal to him "whether
through secret inspiration or admonition, or through His own plain utter-
ances, or through the reasonings of my brethren." He establishes from
Scripture (l)and (2) the unity and equality of the three Divine Persons,
disposing of texts alleged by the Arians, and laying down certain rules of
Notices of Boolcs. 241
interpretation, where the missions of the Son and tlie Holy Ghost are
spoken of. (3) He treats of those Divine apparitions recorded in the Old
Testament, which he ascribes to the ministry of angels. In this book there
is a deep and valuable investigation of the nature of miracles, and why
they are not usual works. Both the causes and nature of miracles come
from God, but it is the disuse and the unusual that constitutes the
miracle. For example : life is daily given to inanimate matter, from
which come beings into existence who are yet to die. It is a miracle when
life is given to the dead. S. Augustine puts the distinction into the
striking words : " When such things happen in a continuous kind of river
of ever-flowing succession, passing from the hidden to the visible, and from
the visible to the hidden, by a regular and beaten track, then they are called
natural ; when, for the admonition of men, they are thrust in by an
unusual changeableness, then they are called miracles" (book iii. c. vi.).
Next (4) comes the whole subject of the Incarnation. He shows how the
single death of Christ delivered us from a double death ; that of the body
by giving us immortality, and that of the soul by cleansing us from sin.
This introduces a subtle discussion on the ratio of the single to the double,
and the m3'stical reasons for its occurrence in Scripture. Then follows a
view of this mediation of Christ, contrasting the devil as the mediator of
death, with Christ as the Mediator of life; examining the question of the
miracles of demons, of the nature of sacrifice, of prophecy, &c. ; and
showing how this mission of the Son and of the Holy Ghost implies in
them no diminution or inequality as regards the Father. He proceeds (5)
to dispose of the sophisms of heretics against the mystery of the Trinity ;
and (6) to examine the question in what eense the Apostle calls Christ
" the Power of God and the Wisdom of God " ; again (7), and fully treating
the subject with reference to the whole Trinity, and explaining the doc-
trine of one Essence and three Persons, or three Hypostases, and the reason
why these names are used. These essences would have implied diflference
where there is absolute equality ; three somewhats [tria qusedam] had been
the expression adopted by Sabellius when he fell into heresy. " And yet,**
observes Augustine, '*it must be devoutly believed, as most certainly
known from the Scriptures, and must be grasped by the eye of the mind
with undoubting perception, that there is both Father and Son and Holy
Spirit ; and that the Son is not the same with the Father, nor the Holy
Spirit the same with the Father and the Son. It sought then what three
it should call them, and answered substances or persons" (book vii. iv. 9).
We are reminded here of the Athanasian Creed, and we should have been
glad to quote a still more striking parallel to it in the fifth book, referred to
in the translator's preface. This brings us to the second part of the treatise,
in which S. Augustine proves the congruity of the doctrine of the Trinity
with reason. He paves the way to this proof in a very characteristic and
very beautiful manner, showing how love is kindled by belief. Read some
subduing passage in the epistles of S. Paul. The sense of love with which
it would carry away a soul like S. Augustine's (and in describing the
emotion he felt in reading it, the saint unconsciously reveals his own
most loving and noble mind), is caused by the belief that S. Paul so lived,
VOL. XXI. — NO. XLi. [New SeHes.'] e
242 Notices of Boolcs,
and by the discornment of that form, that idea, steadfast and unchange-
able, according to which he lived, and from love for that idea. And the
belief that he so lived *' stirs up a more burning love towards that same
form, so that the more ardently we love God, the more certainly and the
more calmly do we see Him, because w^e behold in God the unchangeable
form of righteousness [better render the word *' justice"] according to
which we judge that man ought to live." (viii. ix. 13.) This consider-
ation of love or charity furnishes the hinge on which the rest of the
treatise turns. He finds in love a kind of trinity, — he that loves, and
that which is loved, and love ; and similarly in the ninth and following
books, he traces images of the Trinity in the human mind ; thus
we have the mind, the love of it when it loves itself, and the know-
ledge of it when it knows itself ; and these three are one, and when
they are perfect they are equal. There is also the memory, the under-
standing, and the will, not three minds, but one mind, each contained by
each, and all by each. *' I remember that I have memory and understand-
ing and will ; and I understand that I understand and will and remember ;
and I icill that I will, and remember and understand ; and I remember
together my whole memory and understanding and will." (x. xi. 18.)
And in the outer man, also, he finds traces of the same law. Thus, in
sight, there is the object, there is vision, and there is the attention of the
mind. The whole of this part of the treatise is steeped in metaphysics as
well as in theology, and perhaps the object of a notice like this will be
satisfied, if we have succeeded in pointing out to the English reader, who
loves deep thinking, how much material is afforded for it in what, to the
unlearned, are so many sealed books.
As to the translation, judging from certain passages we have compared
with the original, we should say that it is worthy of so accurate a scholar
as Mr. Haddan was ; and it is also generally fluent. As to Scripture
texts, the rule he follows is : " wherever the argument in the context rests
upon the variations of the old Latin, there to translate the words as S.
Augustine gives them, while adhering otherwise to the language of the
authorized English version." It is, perhaps, hardly fair to select for
comment a passage of extreme difficulty ; but the following has caught our
eye, and seems worth noticing : —
S. Augustine has this passage (I. Dis. 20) : " Quapropter cum filius
sit et Deus et homo, f alia substantia Deus, alia homo, homo potius
in filio quam filius in patre ; sicut caro animee meae, alia substantia est ad
animam meam, quamvis in uno homine, quam anima alterius hominis ad
animam meam." [We quote from the edition of the Lou vain theologians,
Cologne, 1616, which gives a reading in the margin, over against the t,
** al. alia substantia est homo potius."] Mr. Haddan renders : " And
therefore, as the Son is both God and man, it is rather to be said that the
manhood in the Son is another substance [from the Son], than the Son in
the Father [is from the Father] ; just as the carnal nature of my soul is
another substance in relation to my soul itself, although in one and the
same man, more than the soul of another man is in relation to my soul "
(page 25). He has evidently followed the marginal reading ; but what
Notices of Boohs. 243
he inserts in the second bracket seems indistinctly expressed. It ought to
run, in order to give what Mr. Haddan evidently intended, thus : " than
the Son in the Father [is another substance from the Father"]. The
passage may serve as an example of what a difficult task it is to translate
such a book as this. We will not enter into the theolop^y of it ; but it is
hardly necessary to remark that we must be prepared to find many passages
in the Fathers, where language is held on points settled since their time,
which would now be inadmissible.
We proceed to notice vol. viii. It does not appear to us that Mr.
Findlay's translation of S. Augustine's de Sermone Domitii in Monte is so
trustworthy as Mr. Haddan's of the de Tfinitate, We are far from sup-
posing that the translator has not been conscientious, but his scholarship
is less satisfactory. The following passage, we think, proves it. S. Aug.
(II. vii. 27) has these words : —
"De Sacramento autem corporis Domini ut illi non moveant qusestionem,
qui plurimi in Orientalibus partibus, non quotidie ccenae Dominicse com-
municant, cum iste panis quotidianus dictus sit. Ut ergo illi taceant,
neque de hac re suam sententiam defendant vel ipsa authoritate ecclesias-
tica contenti sint, quod sine scandalo isti faciunt, neque ah iis quiecclesiis
prsesunt facere prohibentur, neque non obtemperantes damnatur, unde
probatur non hunc in illis partihus intelligi quotidianum panem
lUud certe debet occurrere."
Mr. Findlay renders the above as follows : —
" But with respect to the sacrament of the Lord's body (in order that a
question may not be started by those in eastern parts, most of whom do
not partake of the Lord's supper daily, while this is called daily bread : in
order, therefore, that they may be silent, and fiot defend their way of
thinking about this matter even hy the very authority of th^ Church, because
they do such things without scandal, and are not prevented from doing
them by those who preside over their churches, and when they do not obey
are not condemned ; whence it is proved that this is not understood as
daily bread in these parts, &c ), this consideration at least ought
to occur, &c." (vol. viii. p. 84.)
Mr. Findlay has made a long parenthesis quite erroneously. The
apodosis to the sentence ut ergo illi taceant, &c., is not illud certe, &c., but
vel ipsa authoritate ecclesiastica contenti sint, the two last words of which
clause he'omits. S. Augustine tells the Eastern Christians to be content
with the authority of the Church, which does not require daily com-
munion from them, so that they may be silent on the question, &c.
Again, it is quite wrong to render " cum . . . dictus sit," " while this is
called." It ought to be "although." And "most of whom" for qui
plurimi, instead of " in great numbers," or, as we should say, " very com-
monly," is incorrect.
Nor, turning to the translation of the Harmony of the Evangelists (the
title of which, in the body of the volume, is needlessly changed to the Har-
mony of the Gospels), can we place much dependence on Mr. Salmond's
scholarship, when he shows inaccuracy and hesitation about a phrase of
no special difficulty. We allude to a passage he translates thus : —
B 2
244 Notices of Boohs,
" For they tliought that the anger of those deities would be more to theis
injury, than the good will of their God would be to their profit. But that
must have been a vain necessity and a ridiculous timidity. We ask now what
opinion regarding their God is formed by those men whose pleasure it is
that all gods ought to be worshipped." (Vol. viii. p. 163.)
And he suggests in a foot-note, quoting the Latin : " Or, away with thftt
vain necessity and ridiculous timidity." [The Italics are ours.] Now
S. Augustine's words are, **Sed fuerit ista vana necessitas et ridenda
timiditas." — (De Consensu Evangelistarum, i. 19.) Surely the phrase
ought to have created no hesitation. It means : " Supposing, admitting
that that was a vain necessity, &c." But since Mr. Salmond found it so
hard, we will give the rule on which it depends, from the very first good
Latin exercise-book we can lay our hands on. Let liim read Wilkin's
Latin Prose Exercises, p. 129. He will find there this rule : —
" Concessions, admissions, assumptions, permissions, are often signified
by the subjunctive mood independently : e. g., malus civiSy seditiostis consul
Cato fuit, Fuerit aliis : tibi quando esse ccepit ? ' Suppose he has been
80 to others,' &c."
Mr. Salmond's good sense made him translate this passage in his text in
a manner w^hich approaches the right rendering, but his work shows that
he had no sound knowledge of the rule on which this phrase depends.
However, though it is necessary for reviewers to notice deficiency of this
kind, it is pleasant to observe that Mr. Salmond himself honestly invites
attention to passages where he feels a difficulty ; and that even if there is
room for improvement in Scottish scholarship, the fact is very remarkable
that there should be a demand for patristic literature in the land of
John Knox.
Let us here notice one or two points of a different kind. In the " De
Serm. Dom. in Monte," book ii. ch. vi. p. 81, where Mr. Findlay trans-
lates thus : " No one will be allowed to be ignorant of the kingdom of
God, when His only-begotten shall come from heaven . . . visibly in the
person of the Divine Man, in order to judge the quick and the dead," he
ought to have called attention to the oi'iginal of the expression we have
italicized. It is in homine Dominico, which S. Augustine condemns in
his " Retractations." In the De Consensu Evang., I. iii. 6, Mr. Salmond
vaguely renders sine aliquo sacramento (noticing the word, however, at foot),
*^ not without a certain solemn significance." He had better have said
" mystery," the word having quite a definite theological meaning, and
answering to the Greek fiwrfipiov.
Our space will not permit us to attempt even a short analysis of the
two treatises which form the volume we have just examined. They are
both of them of high interest and importance, especially the Harmony of
the Evangelists; and there is this great advantage in studying the latter,
that it is the outcome of one great and commanding intellect (and that of
a saint and a father), applied to a most difficult subject, which is com-
monly studied piecemeal, in collections of various opinions, often received
without any reference to the originals from which they come — a fruitful
source of indistinctness and error.
Notices of Boolis, 245
The Prophet of Carmel. A series of Practical Considerations upon the
History of Elias in the Old Testament. By the Rev. Charles
Garside, M.A. London : Burns & Oates.
WE have long looked for a work on the great Prophet of Carmel, such
as Mr. Garside has now given us. Knowing the author's ad-
mirable qualifications for undertaking such a task, our anticipations were
naturally high, but on laying down the book we can honestly say that
they have been far more than fulfilled. Mr. Garside's ** Prophet of
Carmel" is unmistakably the result of the deepest and most earnest
meditation on the history of the marvellous Thisbite, while the intellectual
penetration, the rich imagination, the nervous eloquence which we meet
with throughout the whole work, all combine to give it at once a very high
place among the highest productions of our English Catholic literature.
To place the history of Elias before Catholics of the present day, re-
quires no apology ; for although one of the greatest Saints of the Old Law,
he no less belongs to the New, Nay, in some respects he belongs more to
the New Testament than to the Old. It was in the spirit and power of
Elias that the way of the Lord from heaven was prepared, and this to so
great an extent that the Baptist was himself called Elias by our Lord. At
the central point, so to speak, of our Lord's public ministry, at the moment
of transfiguration, when the light of the glory, which He had with the
Father before the world was, broke through His sacred Humanity, so that
His face did shine as the sun, and His garments became white as snow, it
was Elias who, with his actual, passible body, stood by the side of the
glorified Son of Man, bringing with him the witness of the Prophets, as
Moses brought that of the law, that He was indeed the Messias, the Saviour
of the world. So again, in the last times, at the most momentous and
terrible crisis of the world's history, before it enters upon its agony at the
sight of the great and terrible day of the Lord, it will be Elias the Prophet
who will come again to turn the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom
of the just. Elias shall indeed come, says our Lord, and restore all
things. For nine hundred years had Elias waited in his earthly body for
the first coming of the Son of Man, and during the eighteen hundred years
that have followed that first coming, he is still waiting in the same body
for His second coming. Then will that body of his itself have to shed its
life-blood for its Redeemer's sake, and Elias will take his place among the
^lartyrs of the New Law. It is clear, therefore, that every trait of his
grand character, every incident, however small, of his eventful history,
as recorded in the Old Testament, must be of the deepest interest to
Christians.
Mr. Garside has succeeded in setting Elias before us with almost the
vividness of reality. We see his gaunt form, fresh from the gorges of
GalaaJ, suddenly appearing before the wicked Achab, who, more than all
the kings of Israel that were before him, had provoked the Lord God.
His dark locks, hanging in massive clusters over his shoulders, a leathern
246 Notices of Boohs.
girdle encircling liis spare loins, and his onl}' armour a cape of rough
sheep-skin for a defence against the elements, and, perhaps, a simple
mountain-staff in his hands. At once, without faltering, he delivers his
message : " As the Lord liveth, the God of Israel, in whose sight I stand,
there shall not be dew nor rain these three years but according to the
words of my mouth." We meet him again hiding by the torrent Carith,
fed by the two ravens, waiting like them .day by day for his food from
heaven, while the land, stricken by his curse, lay parched and withered.
We come across him at Sarephta, blessing the widow's pot of meal and
cruse of oil, *^ so that they waste not, neither are diminished until the day
whereon the Lord will give rain upon the face of the earth " ; and all in
return for the little hearth-cake she had made for him. We are brought
back again to the same widow's house, and behold him, *' after strong
crying," stretching himself three times over the poor Gentile boy, face to
face, limb to limb, heart to heart, until the Lord heard the voice of Ellas,
and the soul of the child returned, and he lived again, — the first resur-
rection the world had seen since death entered into it, Elias himself re-
maining all the while self-forgetful and lowly, as if nothing unusual had
happened. He appears before us standing in the presence of Achab, with
his message of mercy that God will give rain upon the face of the earth,
and we understand at a glance why to the wicked and idolatrous king he is
but " the trouble of Israel." We are taken up the wooded heights and rocky
crags of beautiful " Carmel by the sea," Carmel, whose very name is still " a
power." We hear the usual stillness of the mountain broken by a sudden
change, the tramp of a multitude, wending their way to some preconcerted-
spot, and making the air a very Babel of loud and confused noise. We
reach the top, and there are the wicked prophets of Baal four hundred and
fifty in number ; with four hundred of the " prophets of the groves," who
sit at Jezebel's table. There, too, is Achab, clad in his royal robes, and in
the midst of the motley group stands Elias, alone of the prophets of the
Lord, both fearless and strong in the strength of the God of Israel. We listen
to him while with latent irony he proposes the ordeal which is to decide
the divinity of Baal or of his own God. From morning to mid-day, from
mid-day to the hour of the evening sacrifice we stand and watch, while the
false priests are ceaselessly crying out, " 0 Baal, hear us 1 " and Elias is
mocking them with bitter words, and no answer comes. We catch the
words of Elias's one prayer, and behold the heavens open, and the lightning
rushing forth falls upon his altar, " a blinding cataract of fire." We are
led along the torrent Cison, where the false prophets, at the bidding of
Elias, are all killed, and not one escapes. Once more we see him standing
before Achab, telling him to eat and drink, for there is a sound of abundance
of rain. The heavens are cloudless, but the prophet's ear, ever open to the
inspirations of the Lord, has already caught the sound of the coming rain.
We go with him while he prays, for, unlike Achab, he neither eats or
drinks ; we perceive the little cloud rising out of the sea, no bigger
than a man's foot, and then the heavens grow dark, and there falls a great
rain.
Then comes a cliangc — a great, sudden change. He who had stood alone
Notices of Boohs. 247
fearless on the top of Carmel, and dared the prophets of Baal to the test
of fire, actually reels at the tidings brought to him of a woman's threat.
" T/ien Elias was afraid," and rising up he went " whithersoever he had a
mind." We follow him, as without a plan, without a purpose, he flees far
into the desert, and throwing himself down beneath a juniper-tree, cries in
his heart's bitterness, " It is enough for me, O Lord, take away my life,
for I am no better than my fathers." But Elias must not die yet. The
God whom he serves knows better what is for his good than he himself
knows. His work, as yet imperfect, must be finished, and not beneath
the shade of the juniper-tree in the lonely desert, but in the chariot of fire
is his first earthly mission to end. Twice he falls asleep and twice he is
awakened by an angel's tread, and behold ! at his head a hearth-cake and
a vessel of water, and on the strength of that food he walks for forty days
and forty nights unto the Mount of God, Horeb. The "vision of Horeb,
Avith its deeply suggestive question twice repeated : "What dost thou here?"
and its manifestation of the Lord not in the "great and strong wind," nor
in the eartliquake, nor in the fire, but in the breathing of the " gentle air,"
and its command to return to the wilderness of Damascus and anoint a
prophet as his successor, and two kings — together with the revelation that
far from being alone, there are yet seven thousand men who have not
bowed the knee before Baal, — the casting of his mantle upon Eliseus, the
son of Saphat, the history of Naboth's vineyard, his waiting for Achab
in the road with his message of vengeance from the Lord, — the last scene
of all, his parting from Eliseus, and his ascension in a chariot of fire — he
Avho was the chariot of Israel, and the driver thereof — all these are set
before us with a vividness and distinctness which enable us to realize at
once both their beauty and their suggestiveness.
It is, indeed, when pointing out how full of instruction are the incidents
of the prophet's life, and in applying them to the evils of our own times
and the wants of our own souls, that Mr. Garside is especially admirable.
Take, for instance, the lesson which our author wishes us to learn from
Elias standing for the first time before Achab. What was it that made
Elias stand up before Achab like a fire ? What but faith ? It was by
the clear, inward supernatural light of faith that he saw the naturally
invisible. To all else he was stone-blind. "His faith saw only a horror
to be executed, a woe to be denounced, and a testimony to the living God
to be delivered ; and as it saw so it spoke ; for true courage is the child of
true and living faith."
" Where faith is weak," he continues, "where it is'not habitually acted
upon, but is brought out only occasionally under the influence of a kind of
religious politeness, just to prove to ourselves our own orthodoxy, there
cannot be boldness in grappling with difficulties. When faith is of this
kind, its objects have little power over us ; they are like the dim cold
images of mountains looming spectrally through a mist ; we hardly know
which is mountain and which is mist ; they are not landmarks which
direct our path. Now, if the proper objects of faith lie vaguely in the back-
ground, it is certain that other objects will occupy the foreground ; so the
lines and barriers between the two will not be distinct ; earthly motives and
principles will mingle with heavenly motives and principles ; and so there
248 Notices of Boohs.
will necessarily be instability in our conduct. Where we do not see the
leading objects clearly, our heart beats languidly and our feet tread
nervously. Men who believe a lie firmly are often bolder than those who
believe a truth feebly ; for the former have a mark, they know at what
they are aiming, and they are not disturbed and distracted by the presence
of counter-considerations : their false faith is a force, not by virtue of the
error or iniquity to which they cling, but of the clearness and singleness
of their vision.** ** This is a thought," he tells us, " especially worthy of
our consideration in these days, when the world and the devil were never
80 successful as they are now in pretentiously disguising error under the
garb of truth, when vices are enshrined as virtues in the attractive temple
of fashion ; immorality is idealized by the magic of eloquently sensuous
poetry, and debased views of God and of His creation — of the soul and the
body — are openly professed in circles of rank and intellect. Jeroboam made
priests of the lowest of the people ! but now, alas ! many who are recognized as
distinguished for their position and acquirements have become the priests
of various idolatries, such as the worship of external nature, of culture,
of art, of state government, of liberty, of material force, and of humanity
in the abstract." " The above are some of the hostile elements
with which our present life is perilously charged. How can this array of
foes be successfully met without a clear-sighted and persevering courage,
and how can this courage be obtained ? Certainly it will not spring up by
chance out of the ground on which we stand ; neither will natural tem-
perament nor routine-education supply it — what we require is an atmo-
sphere from which the soul-nerves shall be able to draw a constant current
of moral vigour. Faith can create this atmosphere, but it must be no
sickly, common-place, flickering faith All are bound, more or less,
* to stand up in the sight of God ' against the evils of the day ; and the
task is great because these evils are not signalized as pestilential by the
black flag of general condemnation, but are, on the contrary, so to say,
presented at court, and weightily supported by the very influences to
which the various classes of Christians are most exposed. The contest is
as unavoidable as it is difficult ; but with the grace of God we shall succeed
if we are * strong in faith ' ; this is the victory which overcometh the
world, even your faith" (pp. 16-21).
After this the author calls attention to " one particular act of faith, the
habitual practice of which is of immense assistance to the soul whenever
fearlessness is required in order to enable it to do its duty," — the thought
of the presence of that " living God " in whose sight Elias stood when he
.appeared before Achab.
Or, again, take the following in connection with the fear and Sight of
Elias : —
" Let us not rely on our natural character, our assurance, our circum-
stances. Above all things, let us be humble in our estimation of ourselves :
* He that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall.' We
may imagine that we are safe, because in a favourable combination of
events we have as yet shown no signs of failure. But can we wait, when
to wait is a severe cross to our impetuous temper or passion for activity?
Can we bear to sow much and reap little? Can we endure to be lonely —
* hidden in a hole of the rock ' — when we crave for a warm hand and a cheery,
encouraging voice ? Can we support the 8ii»ht of evil triumphant and
goodness oppressed ? Can we bear the spoliation of our property without
harbouring revenge against the robber ? Can we bear patiently to hear
our fair fame shattered at a blow by some audaciously precise calumny, or
Notices of Books. 249
slowly nibbled away by constant subtle inuendoes, which we scarcely know
how to grasp and strangle ? Believing ourselves to be of considerable im-
portance to a particular person or cause, can we submit charitably and
resignedly to be passed by unnoticed — nay, perhaps to be rudely trodden
down b}*^ the very feet which we have often kissed f If, in these and similar
cases, we are apt to think too highly of ourselves before we have been tried,
let us remember Elias : how brave he once was, denouncing a king and
slaying hundreds of his prophets ; how mighty he once was, raising the
dead, and shutting and opening the heavens as though he had the keys of
the skies ; and yet it is this same man whom at another time we see flying,
panic-struck, from a woman's threat, and hear mournfully wailing forth
these despondent words : * It is enough for me ! Lord, take away my life T "
(pp. 175-7).
We feel as if we should never grow wearied in pointing out to our readers
the beauties of this most chaiming and instructive book, but it is our wish
that they should learn them from the book itself rather than from these
pages. At the end of the work will be found a most useful dissertation
upon the condition and abode of Elias after his translation, on his appear-
ance at the Mount of Transfiguration, and on his return at the end of the
world. The information contained in this dissertation has been drawu
from approved theological sources.
Sermons for All Sundays and Festivals of the Year, By J. N. Sweeney,
D.D., Monk and Priest of the English Benedictine Congregation.
Vol. I. London : Burns, Oates, & Co. 1873.
FATHER SWEENEY'S merits as a preacher are too well known to re-
quire any words of eulogy from us ; but we may be allowed, perhaps,
to express our thanks for the first volume of sermons which he has given
us. Scriptural and dogmatic, they are also thoroughly practical, and while
they will be read with profit by every layman, will also, we have no
doubt, be studied as models of sacred eloquence by not a few of his younger
brethren amongst the clergy.
One of the things which has struck us most in reading these sermons is
the admirable way in which he brings out what is implied by the fast
solemnized by the Church on her several fasts and festivals. The Church,
he tells us, does not celebrate festivals in honour of mere speculative ideas,
" She is too practical for that ; and so when she institutes a solemnity and
bids us join in celebrating it, she places something real before us, and
would have us study and appreciate tlie reality." The reality of the
mystery itself, or rather, so far as we ourselves are concerned, the sermons
upon the Immaculate Conception, on the Office of Mary in the Incarnation,
the Birth of Jesus Christ, realizing the Incarnation, on the Transfiguration,
and on the Testament of the Ascension, are remarkable iostauces of what
we mean. Thus, to take but one example : in his sermon on tlie Imma-
culate Conception Father Sweeney shows to us that the principle by which
250 Notices of Books,
the Church is influenced in placing before us this doctrine, and in
observing the festival, is the close and constant association of the Mother
with the Son, and the enmity of the old serpent as disclosed in the word
of God from the first book of Scripture, where we read of the woman and
her seed, down to the last, in which we are allowed to gaze on the glorious
vision of the woman clad with the sun, and of her child who is taken into
Heaven. Thus the Incarnation, the mystery decreed to destroy sin,
includes Mother as well as Son in common and constant enmities against
the serpent.
So again —
" On the same principle which we have already affirmed, that the
Immaculate Conception was a fitting privilege of the Mother of the Word
made Flesh, because of her connection with the Incarnation, we acknow-
ledge some share in what was the result of the connection. The Incarna-
tion does concern us ; it is everything to us, it is the source of grace and
blessing ; and it has been the means of our Redemption, and of our re-
gaining the once lost claim to heaven. To say that Mary is the Mother of
our own dearest Saviour is to say that we are bound, as we love Him, to
be interested about the honour of one whom He as her Son so mightily
honoured. And if He thought and deemed that her Immaculate Conception
was a fitting privilege for her from w^hom he was to receive the Body
which was to sufl^er, and that Blood which was to be shed for us, why
shall not we rejoice at the bestowal of such a grace, and feel that it is our
own Mother who is honoured by Him, who has become through her the
sharer of our humanity ? For in becoming Man, in becoming through
Mary a child of Adam, our Blessed Lord has become a brother to us, and
has given us a share in the Maternity of Mary. It is the Immaculate Con-
ception of our own Mother, then, that we celebrate in this festival, and
therefore it does concern us " (pp. 26-27).
As examples of the way in which F. Sweeney brings the Word of God
to bear upon the difficulties of man's life and the'wants of man's soul, we
would especially call the attention of the reader to the Sermons on the
Lessons of Our Lord's Boyhood, on Master and Servant, on the Advantages
of Trust, on Works of Mercy, on Work the Condition of Reward, on
Temptations, on the Regulation of the Tongue, and on the Law of Prayer.
Most practical, they are never for a moment dry, — but warm, aff^ectionate,
sometimes even glowing. Happy the congregation that has to listen
Sunday after Sunday to sermons such as these, for they may feel sure that
not only will the whole lesson, which it is the Church's wish to teach
tliem be conveyed to their soul, but that it Avill be proposed for their
acceptance with a power and a vigour, and at the same time with a gentle-
ness and a tenderness wliich will both satisfy their intellect and touch their
heart.
We cannot refrain from giving one more extract. The preacher is
speaking of the Magi in his sermon on the Epiphany :—
" 0 my dear brethren, do you not feel moved by the generous conduct
of these noble pilgrims? And do you not feel that the Church lias done
well in instituting a solemnity in honour of such an event? But simply
to approve and admire is what the example of the Wise Men cautions you
Notices of Boohs. 251
against. They did something more in proof of their sincerity, and so must
you. There are two classes amongst you whom this festival instructs.
You that have always been Catholics, who in your infancy were baptized
as members of the Holy Catholic Church, and have never known what it
is to be severed from her membership. See whether you have lived up to
your privileges, or whether you may not in some degree have grown tepid,
disloyal, and ungenerous. We do sometimes feel shamed into greater
fervour by seeing how converts love what they have come to know so little
of. Even those that are still out of the Church, groping in the dark with
a very uncertain star to guide them, they who have seen only the outside
of the Church, and have been attracted to admire and to imitate what
they have seen, — even they, by the sacrifices which we know they make,
and the enthusiasm which they manifest in behalf of what is imaginary
and sentimental, may serve as examples of a zeal and generosity too rare
amongst us. Let the rejection of the Jews, the long-privileged people of
God, intimated in this festival, be a caution and an exhortation to you "
(pp. 128-9).
Memories of a Guardian Aiigel. Translated from the French of M. l'Abb4
Chardon. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co.; London: R. Washbourne.
WE are told in the Preface that this translation was undertaken at
the request of one of the most zealous of the prelates of the United
States. It bears with it also the approval of the Archbishop of Baltimore.
It comes to us, therefore, under high patronage. For our own part, how-
ever, although we freely recognize the merits of the work, — the evident
learning, devotion, and painstaking accuracy displayed by the author,
we cannot help thinking that the form in which it has been cast is
hardly such as will fall in with the tastes of English Catholics. It is
far too French in sentiment, we should think, to please many English
readers.
Catholic Progress, A Monthly Magazine. London : Burns & Oates.
WE have been favoured with several numbers of this excellent
Magazine, the organ of our Young Men's Catholic Association.
"We find it to contain articles of the most varied interest, both grave and
gay, scientific, political in the general though not in the party sense of the
word, literary. Some, indeed, of the articles are of very high merit ; amongst
which we would especially notice those on the Origin of Man, Pombal and
Bismarck, the Poor without the Church, Modern Jordanus, Catholic Pro-
gress, Catholic Politics, Catholic Patriotism and our Future Policy, and Eth-
notology and Darwinism. The sonnets contributed are of a higher order of
poetry than that which we usually meet with in magazines, while the name
of Lady Georgiana Fullei-ton, as a writer of one of the tales, will bear
witness, without any remarks of our own, to the excellence of the lighter
portion of the contents. Most heartily do we wish Catholic Progress all
252 Notices of Books,
success, for the sake both of Catholic young men themselves, who can
have no nobler object than to help forward by the development of their
own intellectual gifts and literary tastes, the spread of God*s kingdom upon
earth, and also of the members of the English Catholic body at large,
who will be sure to find in the pages of this magazine, instruction, amuse-
ment, and delight. We observe that in one of the numbers the establbh-
ment of a Catholic daily newspaper is warmly advocated : is it too much
to hope that they who have shown themselves such excellent contributors
to this magazine will before long themselves carry out the idea into execu-
tion ? They seem to us admirably fitted for the task. We subjoin one of
the sonnets as a specimen of the poetry.
IV. A Convent.
" He changes that he may abide the same,
And carry out what he has ever held ;
He does but yield to the resistless claim
Of principles by which he was impelled,
Ana which from bud have into blossom swelled ;
And thus he mars that he may make his fame,
Together a disjointed system weld.
And leave intact the honour of his name.
He is no regenade Avho leaves behind
Naught but imperfect truths — who aims at more
Strict discipline of conduct and of mind,
With clearer knowledge of things known before—
Who scatters empty chaff upon the wind.
But keeps and multiplies the grain in store."
The Author of ^^ A Second Hundred Sonnets,**
Life Theories: their Influence upon Religious Thought. By Lionel S.
Beale, M.B., F.R.S., &c. London : J. & A. Churchill, New
Burlington Street. 1871.
DR. BEALE, our best microscopical observer, well known for his studies
on the tissues, is also one of the principal opponents of the "physical"
theory of life. In the first part of " Life Theories " this theory is, on the
ground of biological incompetence and irreligious tendencies, attacked both
by argument and sarcasm, — for the latter of which the title of Dr. Tyndall's
lecture at Liverpool,* and the rhetoric therein about " privileged spirits,"
have afforded the author many well- used opportunities. In the second part
the " theory of vitality '* is defended, and its congruity with religious belief
insisted on.
We have alreadyt introduced these two theories to our readers ; we shall
here confine ourselves almost entirely to Dr. Beale's appreciation of tbe
* " On the Scientific Uses of the Imagination."
t Dublin Review for January 1873, p. 235.
Notices of Bool's, 253
religious bearinors of the latter of them. Firstly, then, we shall state, as
nearly as possible in his own words, what his position is. Conviction of the
truth of the theory of vitality was, he tolls us, forced upon him after many
years of careful work. It was the result, not of h priori speculation, but of
facts microscopically observed in the course of studying the tissues, on which
in 1861 he delivered a course of lectures at the College of Physicians. He
would never have accepted the " doctrine of vitality " if, by the views more
generally entertained and taught, a sufficient explanation of the simplest
phenomena of living beings had been afforded. He endeavoured to account
for the phenomena by other theories, but was unsuccessful ; " nor have
attempts on the part of others been more fortunate." Each additional year's
labour only serves to confirm him more strongly than before in the opinion
that the physical doctrine of life cannot be sustained : when he reviews in
his mind the evidence on which the doctrine of vitality rests, it seems to him
extraordinary that the contrary doctrine should continue to find adherents ;
and he cannot but conclude from his investigations that " the living is
separated from the non-living by an impassable barrier — by a gulf that will
not soon be bridged over ; that matter and its ordinary forces and properties
belong to one category or order ; and that creative power and will, design
and mind, and life, ought to be included in a very different order indeed."*
The conclusion to which he has been led by the phenomena observed \)j
him is that living matter, of whatever kind, is, as long as it continues to live,
tenanted by a power altogether different from and far transcending the
physical forces which, inasmuch as it still continues to be matter, continue
to act on and in it.t But they do not act on it in the same manner as when
it was not alive. They are now controlled, guided, arranged, by this higher
agency, to which Dr. Beale gives the names of vital power and vitality, in
order to discriminate it, on the one hand from the physical forces or energies
(with which it is not correlated), and on the other from the properties of the
particles, which are passive, and no more destructible than are the particles
themselves, t Living matter, and consequently this vital agency which is
united to it, is to be found in every part of the organism; There is con-
8equ6ntly no good reason for believing that there is any central presiding
unity, any archreus, in any one part of the body, whence the rest is regulated
and controlled. §
As to the nervous system in particular, the arrangement of the tissues to
form organs having special functions cannot be accounted for by any directing
agency brought to bear through the intervention of nerve, for it is determined
at a time when the nervous tissue is not yet developed. Each tissue is
formed by living matter which exerts no direct influence on the living matter
of other tissues.] | The biologist studies vitality, only as manifesting itself
in matter. But from its effects on matter we are enabled to conceive of it
as an actually existing power, and by studying accurately the results of its
working, may succeed in drawing a correct conclusion as to its nature and
* " Mystery of Life,'' pp. 7, 8. f " Life Theories," p. 78.
t " Life Theories," p. 12. § " Life Theories," p. 72.
II " Life Theories," pp. 75, 76.
254 Notices of Boohs.
mode of action. As far as such study has as yet gone, it seems not un-
reasonable to believe that it may belong to an order of activities or immaterial
agents, of which we can by sense learn nothing directly. * It would, then,
be in accordance with reason to hold that the relation of non-living matter
to its Creator is more remote f than that which subsists between God and
the power that influences matter in the living state. J
We may draw yet a further conclusion respecting the vital agency which
reveals itself in man as competent to produce not only those lower forms of
vital action which are exhibited also by other living beings, but also the
higher mental and moral phenomena which are peculiar to the human species.
It is reasonable to believe that the highest form of vital power of which we
have knowledge and experience is in some way yet more closely related to
Deity than the vital power which animates the lower forms of protoplasm,
bioplasm, or living matter. § Again, although our mental vital action is the
highest manifestation of vital power of which we have any experiential know-
ledge, it is not perhaps by any means the highest manifestation of which the
human mind is able to conceive. All vital power affects the molecules of matter
in a manner in which, if it had not acted, they would not have been affected.
And with this harmonizes the belief in the operation of a higher agency,
whose power transcends that of mind in as great a degree as this last trans-
cends ordinary vitality. We may observe in passing that this guides us to
the idea of God acting on nature, as life acts on matter, — to the idea of a
Divine regulative power, a power ^drawing all nature to be a perfect organ-
ism. " It is by following out such a line of thought that we may, I think,
hope to obtain, even from this lower physiological stand-point, some dim
conception, it may be, of the nature of Deity, and some idea of the relation
of Deity to man's soul and body, to the various grades of lower life, and to
matter in the non-living state." ||
Three lines of influence are here indicated : — influence on Anthropology ;
influence on our conception of the Divine Nature ; and influence on our
conception of the Universe. The first principally regards the \mion of soul
and body. The theory of vitality can, as it appears to us, be interpreted in
a Catholic sense only by taking vital power or vitality as, in the case of
human nature, synonymous with soul ; and our readers will from the
preceding summary have perceived that such an interpretation would be by
no means discordant with Dr. Beale*s representation of his theory, which
will, indeed, perhaps have already reminded them of the Catholic doctrine
* " Life Theories," p. 78.
t For instance, it would be more consistent with reason to hold that it has
a more remote relation of origin ; for, for anything the vital theory has to
say to the contrary, the inorganic universe may have been evolved through
almost an infinity of changes from a nebula. But if the vital principles are
immaterial agents, then they may have been set over the organisms which
they respectively regulate, by a divine command. And all who believe that
they possess immaterial souls must in logic believe that the creation of those
soids and their uniting with matter was an interference with the course of
nature.
I « Life Theories," p. 92. § Ibidem. || Id. p. 97. "
Notices of BooJfs. 255
that the reasonable soul is the " true and substantial form " * of the human
body. For the meaning of the technical expression, " true and substantial
form/ is/ 1 we scarcely need say, that it is the reasonable soul which makes
the body of man what it is, a living, human body ; — that it is the soul which
is at the root not only of intellectual and moral, but of all properly vital
action. And to this teaching the theory of vitality readily lends itself ; for
although the science of Biology can tell us nothing about the soul as such,
yet when the existence of this immaterial principle is made known by other
than physiological evidence, it is natural to suppose that it is the vital
principle in man, inasmuch as vital phenomena, which, again, according to
the vital theory, cannot be accounted for by physico-chemical laws, cease
when at death it is separated from the body. Nor can it be legitimately
objected that we have no immediate consciousness of the immense majority
of the vital operations going on in our organisms. For from the fact that a
certain agent produces conscious operations, it will not follow that the same
agent does not also produce unconscious operations. The immaterial
principle may well have other ways of acting besides conscious and voluntary
action ; and to introduce a second vital agent for the vital phenomena of
unconscious life would be a multiplicatio entium situ necessitate.
With this subject is, not remotely, connected the question as to the nature
of the animating principle in organisms other than the human. Our author's
suggestion on this latter point, that vitality — all vitality, as we gather from
the context, — may not unreasonably be supposed to belong to an order of
activities or immaterial agencies, will appear to most to lie open to criticism.
For, even granting the theory of vitality. Biology as such can tell us no more
about the vital principle than that physico-chemical laws cannot account for
vital phenomena, and that therefore, as vital phenomena certainly exist
notwithstanding, there must exist something else which can account for
them. It must have a name given it, and it may be conveniently termed the
" vital principle." But about what it is. Biology can tell us nothing what-
ever ; and if, in the case of man, we believe it to be an immaterial and
immortal spirit, this is on account of arguments derived from Psychology
and Natural Theology, which show that such a spirit is a part of human
nature, and because of special considerations partly indicated above, showing
that this spiritual substance is in man the vital agency also. Where, there-
fore, as admittedly happens in the case of plants, we are confined to biological
evidence alone, we can do no more than distinguish, by the method of
residues,J the effects of the vital principle from the other phenomena which
plants present : and in consequence of its effects affirm its existence. As
to animals, it is only from the mental operations of the higher among
them that we could collect premisses therefrom to argue by the analogy of
* " Forma corporis humani per se et essentialiter." (CEc. Cone. Viennense.)
t Tongiorgi, *' Psychologia," 1. 2, c. 3.
X This use of the method of residues would consist in subtracting from
the totality of the phenomena exhibited by a living being, those produced by
physico-chemical agency : the remainder would consist of phenomena requiring
an ulterior agency for their production, and so warranting belief in the
existence of such an agency.
25G Notices of Bool's.
human nature ; but of their mental operations we have only an outside
view ; and the light we receive from it is but a darkness visible, serving,
often enough, to perplex rather than to illuminate. To return to the case of
the human organism.
In the first place, if the theory of vitality as interpreted above be accepted,
and if the living being, man, be admitted to be an organism, to man, as to
other organisms, will respond the Kantian definition that an organized
product of nature is one in which all the parts are reciprocally ends and
means, and this — the being reciprocally ends and means, — will be true of
the two elements,— soul and body, —of which the human organism
is composed.* Each will be for the sake of the other ; each will, if the
expression may be permitted, dovetail into the other. If so, there is no
need to suppose the existence of any intermediary between soul and body,
to unite them to one another. As to this second point, it may be ob-
served that Dr. Beale nowhere implies the necessity of any link between
soul and body to cement them one to the other. Thirdly, we have seen that
he supposes the vital principle to be present in every part of the living
organism : in this, we need not say, he holds the same opinion as the
Scholastics, who believed the soul to be present in the whole body. In
reference to this, however, it may be remarked incidentally that the theory
of vitality, in the form in which it is propounded by Dr. Beale, involves the
admission of the existence of a large quantity of non-living matter in the
living organism. But as far as Biology is concerned, a distinction has long
been dra^vn between organic elements and organic products, such as hair, &c. ;
and Dr. Beale's opinion about bioplasm and formed matter would need only a
new application of that distinction. As far as Theology is concerned.
Catholic theologians, when teaching that the soul animates the whole body,
have always excepted those parts of it which Biologists regard as organized
products. Fourthly, and with regard to the nature of the union itself, Dr.
Beale teaches that living matter is raised, lifted up to a higher order, made
different from what it was before,— that between the living and the non-
living there is a chasm, which cannot be passed over by any gradations.
How well this harmonizes with Catholic teaching, it is almost superfluous to
point out ; for, according to Catholic teaching, the meaning of soul and body
being united is not merely that the soul is the " occasional cause " of the
phenomena which the living human body presents, nor that it is the agent
which uses the body as its instrument. There is more than this. The union
of soul and body may be compared rather to chemical combination.f The
* Or, in other language, that both soul and body are suhstantue in«om-
pletce ; that the soul 7iata est ad unionem mim corpore ; that the body natum
est ayiimcB uniri. It is therefore natural that provision for mental operations
should be found in the bodily structure, which is, moreover, formed, preserved,
and animated by the immaterial principle.
f This, it must be remembered, is but a comparison, and omnis comparatio
deficit in aliqno. The writer does not mean to assert that the molecules of
the components actually cease to exist when they combine together to form the
compound, but only that many of the phenomena of combination are as if this
were so. They are otherwise explained, by supposing that the molecules
Notices of lioolcs. 257
oxygen of water is no longer mere oxygen ; it is oxygen plus hydrogen.
The hydrogen is no longer mere hydrogen ; it is hydrogen plus oxygen. The
molecules of the components appear to lose themselves in the compound ; a
new set of molecules, possessed of fundamentally different properties, seem
to rise into being. Although a more or less obvious relation between the
properties of the compounds and those of their components in the uncombined
state may be detected sometimes and with regard to some properties, and
although we are theoretically assured that some relation always and in every
case exists, it is at present impossible, in the majority of cases, and in
regard of the majority of properties,, to detect any relation whatever. No
one could from the properties of any chemical substances infer what the
properties of a compound formed by their union would be. So, in like
manner, from the known properties of matter, no one could infer whaf would
be the properties of living matter ; and even if we had, which we have not,
direct knowledge of what the properties of a separate spirit are, we could not
infer what would be the faculties of a spirit united with a body. When we
consider the living body of man, it is no longer mere matter that we are
examining : it is matter plus spirit. When, in Psychology, we study the
mind of man, it is not, as might be imagined from the manner in which the
subject is sometimes treated, a separate spirit which is the object of our
investigations : it is a spirit plus matter. Nor, any more than in chemical
combination, is this plus the plus of mere addition. Properties are found in
that which results from the union, which are new, and neither the sum nor
the mean of the properties of the things which are united ; for instance,
according to the Scholastics, feeling, sensation, and the^ sensitive part of
emotion, memory and imagination, which certainly do not belong to brute
matter, belong as little to a separate spirit. It is in union with the body
that the soul feels, just as it is in union with the soul that the body lives,
and in union with hydrogen that oxygen is liquid, — or rather, just as we do
not say that the oxygen is liquid, but that the water, the compound of
oxygen and hydrogen, is so, so life and feeling are to be predicated neither of
soul nor of body, but of the total organism, the combination of the two. But
if the body were only the instrument of the soul, or the soul only the
occasional cause of the phenomena characteristic of the living body, the
union would not be a real union, in the sense in which the word is employed
in this connection. The virtual denial of a real and substantial union which
has been too prevalent in modern non-Catholic philosophy, has undoubtedly
been favourable to materialism.* But it has been rendered possible only by
enter into closer relations with each other ; but from these phenomena he
draws a comparison to illustrate the phenomena resulting from the union
of soul and body.
* From the time, says Liberatore, that Des Cartes, dreaming one fine morn-
ing that he was able to reconstruct the sciences from their foundation, sundered
the substantial unity of man, there could bo substituted only an unnatural
duality, by regarding the soul and the body as two complete and perfect
substances, which allied themselves together for the sake of only a mutual
intercourse. From that time till now Psychology has radically separated
itself from Physiology, which it allowed to consider no longer the living being
VOL. XXI. — NO. XLi. [New SeriesJ] s
258 Notices of BooTca.
the use of a niethorl radically unsound. Metji physicians, like other people,
have no direct knowledge of any other spirit than the human soul united to
the human body. When, instead of making this their starting-point, as they
ought to have done, they set out by laying down general propositions about
what they imagined to be the nature of spirits as such, there could be no
special reason for wonderment if they arrived at conclusions logically
incompatible with assertion of real union of the two parts of the nature of
man.
Dr. Beale, we scarcely need say, does not stand alone in believing that the
contemplation of life leads on to many valuable generalizations and confirma-
tions of Christian teaching in regard of our concept of the Divine nature and
our manner of regarding the universe. Many lines of thought in connection
with this idea have, indeed, been, at least partially, worked out long ago ; *
but as our knowledge of life, which, next to mind, is the thing likest God of
which we have any experiential knowledge, increases through growth of the
natural sciences, we may expect those lines of thought to yield more abundant
fruit. Our author, indeed, even goes so far as to believe that " starting from
a theory of vitality, we may surely and almost infinitely extend natural
religious thought." But the supporters of the opinion of a vital principle are
not of necessity orthodox. The opinion is orthodox in the hands of Dr. Beale,
because, in accordance with the common sease of the matter, he supposes a
distinct vital agency for each distinct organism. But the life in this or that
living being may be imagined to be, on the contrary, only a portion of an
universal life which concentrates itself indeed in living organisms, but is yet
diffused throughout the universe, — which sleeps in the mineral, dreams in
the animal, and first wakes to consciousness of itself in man. The starting-
but only the dead body ; reserving to itself to contemplate, no longer a man,
but an angel, that is, a spirit only, to which, one cannot tell how, it
nevertheless attributed the power of feeling sensations. And then, when it
turned itself to reconjoin the soul and the body, it could discover no other
bond than that of a simple commcrdum ; for the explanation of which it had
recourse to strange hypotheses of pre-established harmonies, of occasional
causes, of plastic intermediaries ; and, as a supreme effort of science, of an
influxiLs phydcusy by Avhich the two contracting parties should be in continual
relation with each other. The result on the other hand, and as to the
physiologists, was that, left with the dead body and the physical forces alone,
they atteniped to explain by them the vital actions ; as to the lungs and
stomach they had recourse to chemistry ; as to the circulation, to mechanics ;
while they explained reproduction as being the unfolding of what had been
precontained in the germ. And, when they considered animal life, the
materialistic doubt of Locke [whether matter can think], and the wonderful
connection between anii^al and vegetative life, made them account for the
former by the same principles as the latter ; so when they came to explain
the higher operations of the mind, they brought them by analysis under the
head of sensation, and, as sensation exists also in animals, by matter accounted
for all. To escape such terrible consequences, the only way is to re-establish
in honour the old theory of the substantial unity of man, strengthening
it by the recent discoveries in the natural sciences. — (II Composto Umano,
.pp. V. vL)
* E.g, by the Scholastics, in the question De Vita Dei,
Notices of Boohs. 259
point of speculation may be made neither matter alone, nor a Divine Mind
alone, but an obscure synthesis of mind and matter, — matter evolving itself
under the guidance of this dimly working mind, mind evolving itself and
clearing up with the evolution of matter, — so that wherever we have matter
we have mind in a more or less rudimentary or developed state, and where,
in man, we have the highest material organization and complexity, we have
also the fullest development of mind. On this opinion, — the pantheistic
form of the theory of vitality,— the phenomena of life and mind, though on
a superficial view apparently not of a piece with the phenomena of the non-
living world, would as a matter of fact belong to the same order as they.
The difference between the living and what we call the non-living would be
one not of kind but of degree. The laws of inorganic nature would be in
reality laws of mind ; they would be formulae describing the modes of action
of this dimly working mind. The sound of the thunder would be as much
the immediate result of a vital action as the sound of the voice of an orator ;
the only difference between them would be in the degree to which the living
principle manifested itself as living. The first appearance and subsequent
activity of recognized life in the world would be — not an interference with
the previous course of nature, — not the introduction from without of a new
agency capable of counterworking, for its own ends, the forces of inorganic
nature, — but the self-revelation of the agency which had been at work all
along, and had now attained in particular organisms such a development
that its true character could no longer be mistaken. Very different is it with
the tbeistic form of the theory of vitality, the form in which, as we have
seen, it is propounded by Dr. Beale. According to this second form of
vitaHsm, the universe is not, as the first form supposed, homogeneous. It is
on the contrary built up of different orders of being, of which the higher for
their own ends control and regulate the lower. Life is a thing of quite a
different kind from the forces of inorganic nature. Its first appearance in
the world was consequently not a mere evolution from, but a superaddition
to, and an interference with, the previous order of nature. Its continuance
accordingly implies continuous interference with the laws of inorganic natiu'e,
so that, in the true and proper sense of the words, a living being is a miracle
to the inorganic world. It combines itself, indeed, with matter, and uses the
inorganic forces ; but it does not confine itself to the principles of mechanical
action and reaction, beyond which the latter of themselves cannot go. On
the contrary, it introduces a new principle, the principle of forming and
maintaining an organism ; and while, where they subserve this end, it
employs the laws of action natural to the physical forces, it alters them where
they would be opposed to it.
It is impossible not to be led on to higher considerations by the contem-
plation of the spectacle disclosed to the mind by this just and scientific view
of life. For life is not the highest order of being which the universe presents
to us. Mind, and, still more. Deity, are higher far. Judging, then, from
the analogy of life, is it not to be expected, not only that mind should
exercise an analogous regulative action over life, and the higher faculties of
the soul over the lower, but also that the First Cause of all should exercise
over all created things that Divine regulative action which we call miracle ?
8 2
260 Notices of BooJcs.
Thus far of the religious aspect of theistic vitalism. Turning to its physical
side, we find it charged by its opponents with being untenable because incon-
sistent with the correlation of the physical forces. To this objection Dr.
Beale replies that he believes the doctrine of the correlation of the physical
forces as firmly as any man can believe it, but that life, being of quite a
different nature from the physical forces, ought not to be expected to be
correlated with them. Let us now endeavour to ascrtain what amount of
justice there is in this plea.
The physical forces — i.e. the forces of inorganic nature — are motion,
attraction, and repulsion of masses and molecules, light, heat, chemical
aflBnity, electricity, and magnetism. Mr. Grove first broadly enunciated the
generalization that whenever any one force, as heat or light, disappears, an
equivalent quantity of some other determinate force, as electricity or magnet-
ism, takes its place. From this, the principle of the correlation* of the
physical forces, to the hypothesis of the identity, persistence, transformation,
of force, seemed but a step. The force which appears is, it is said, only the
force which disappeared, reappearing under another form. A system of
ulterior hypotheses stands in close relation with these. Physical science at
present strongly tends to the conclusion that the physical forces are either
motion in store, as when a weight is suspended by a string, or motion in act,
as when the weight falls on the string being cut. Again, employing the
word matter in the sense of extended substance, our physicists as to its
divisibility content themselves with saying that it certainly is divided up to
a certain point, and that we have no reason to believe that physically (the
metaphysically is of course out of then: province) it is divided ad infinitum.
They therefore provisionally assume that bodies are built up of an immense
multitude of minute molecules. These molecules are not supposed to be in
actual contact ; and by assumed repulsions and attractions between them,
and consequent alterations in their relative position when their equilibrium
is disturbed, it m sought to account for the phenomena of inorganic nature.
Light and heat are believed to be, like sound, intermolecular movements
(undulatory theory of light and dynamical theory of heat) ; such movements
imply the existence of intermolecular attractive and repulsive forces, which
serve to explain as well the mechanical properties of bodies, as cohesion and
elasticity ; and, by adding to these conceptions that of polarity, or opposite
properties at opposite points, as in the two poles of a magnet, and that of
elective afl&nity, or that molecules of a particular kind, say of oxygen, will
attract one sort of molecules, e.g, those of carbon, in preference to molecules
of another sort, e.g. those of iron, it is hoped that, with the aid of the
idea of changes in the range and power of the attractive and repulsive
forces themselves, the phenomena of chemical affinity, electricity, and
magnetism may also be accounted for.
The evidence producible for these hypotheses is of course of very different
strength in the case of one and in the case of another ; but it is important
to notice that they all look one way. Give me matter and motion, said Des
Cartes, and I will construct the world. Our present physical philosophy,
* Correlation here means reciprocal production.
Notices of Boohs, 261
observes Mr. Rodwell, may almost be called Neo-Cartesianism. It has
several important consequences. It makes a chasm between the primary and
the secondary qualities of matter, and affords an independent confirmation
of the Hamilton ian distinction between perception and sensation. It lifts
out of the vague the concept of the forces of inorganic nature, by reducing
it to the familiar idea of motion, and thus we have a better chance of knowing
what they are, and what they can or can not accomplish. And, what more
nearly concerns us here, it accounts for correlation on purely mechanical
principles : — for instance, the correlation inter se of those forces which are
actual movement is a simple consequence of the persistence of motion among
absolutely elastic bodies, such as the molecules are assumed to be. The
identity of force is made self-evident. The transformation of force is simply
the change from one kind of motion to another.*
* A difference of opinion as to the nature of force is, nevertheless, brought
out by the question — are those movements of the molecules ultimate facts, or
are they produced by something that lies behind them ? It would at first sight
appear to be an adequate reply to say tnat the movements are produced by
attractive and repulsive forces. But what do we mean by attractive and
repulsive forces ? One set of thinkers reply that these so-called forces or
powers are simply the movements themselves considered under another point
of view, and that to say that molecules possess attractive and repulsive
powers is only a convenient way of expressing the fact that under certain
circumstances other molecules move nearer to or farther from them. Others
affirm that, behind the movements there is, inherent in matter, a further
agency, which produces the movements, and is the real force, of which the
movements are only the effects and manifestations. The first of these opinions
may be called the physical, the second — which has apparently in part
sugf^ested Herbert Spencer's theory of the unknowable— may be called the
metaphysical, theory of force.
Those who side with the physical theory of force may believe that the
movements just spoken of are an ultimate fact to all science whatever. And
as this would be the notion of one who, otherwise a disciple of Auguste
Comte, held the undulatory theory of flight, &c., we may accordingly call it
the positivist theory of force. But a person might very well hold that they
are ultimate facts to physical science, without therefore holding that they are
ultimate facts to all science whatever. Dr. Thomas Reid, for instance, did
not believe that active power or force can exist in things that have no will
nor understanding (" On the Active Powers," Essay I. chap, v.) ; but,
precisely for that reason, and because, rejecting Hume's succession-theory of
causation, he taught that active power is the only efficient cause, he seems
to have believed that Almighty God is, either immediately or by subordinate
intelligent agents, the cause of the phenomena of inorganic nature. This
opinion, which, for the force or power inherent in matter, of the metaphysical
theory, substitutes mind and will, has been called the theological theory of
force. It is, in fact, the volition theory of causation. The first alternative
that the mind and will which produces the phenomena presented by those
beings which have no minds and wills of their own, is the Divine mind, is
that taken by Dr. Carpenter, in his Brighton Address before the British
Association, in a paper " On Mind and Will in Nature " in the "Contemporary
Review " for last October, &c. The second alternative, that the angels are the
efficient causes of natural ])henomena, was taken by Dr. Newman in a
Sermon on **The Powers of Nature" (" Parochial and Plain Sermons," vol. iL
Sermon xxix.).
262 Notices of Boohs.
But if the correlation of the physical forces is a simply mechanical law,
and therefore obtains between agents which act mechanically, iheir correla-
tion affords no reason for anticipating that an agent which does not
act mechanically will be correlated with them. In regard of such an agent,
the ground of correlation would not exist. It would not exist, for instance,
in the case of mind ; so that if Dr. Beale has succeeded, as We believe he has,
in showing that life is of a nature different from that of the physical forces,
the principle of the correlation of the physical forces can supply no valid
objection to his theory. The existence of such a regulative power as he
supposes is not inconsistent with the correlation of the physical forces with
each other. It does not imply any increase or diminution of the total
amount of physical force in the universe. And if it supposes alteration of
distribution of the physical forces, this is precisely what the introduction of
a new. agent would of necessity effect.
In conclusion," we lay before our readers a passage in which, as a student
of science, Dr. Beale deprecates the "premature concessions," as he
considers them to be, which have been made to the physical theory of life : —
" If the progress of science is of necessity associated with the decline of
religious belief, the hostility of religious persons to science would be pardon-
able, if not reasonable and justifiable, for it has never been proved that
scientific information can, with advantage to the individual or society, be
substituted for religious teaching. Moreover, of a given number of persons,
but few would be found capable of gaining real proficiency in any branch of
science, while it must be admitted, that every one would make at least consider-
able progress in religious knowledge. Although it is an open question whether
the character is necessarily or almost certainly improved by the study of
science, the influence of religious thought for good in innumerable instances,
and at every period of the world's history, wiU not be seriously questioned.
" But, is it true that religion and science are hostile ? — That reason and
faith are irreconcilable ? Many, I fear, would answer these questions
affirmatively. Sufficient attention has not, I think, been drawn by many
who devote their minds mainly to religious thought and work, to the distinc-
tion between Science and the statements put forth in her name, — between
the actual discovery of new truths proved beyond all question, and mere
assertions, sufficiently dogmatic, dictatorial, and positive, but resting upon
[mere personal] authority, instead of upon evidence .... Rather than take
the trouble even to ascertain the meaning of an assertion put forth, not a few
accept it at once, and with it the state of mental perplexity which it involves.
But surely it is most necessary that, before a new doctrine or a new philosophy
is violently opposed, because its influence on religious thought is likely to be
prejudicial, or warmly accepted for the same reason, or for a very different
reason, it should be ascertained whether it rests upon demonstrated facts, or is
a mere dictum, conjecture, or guess, of some authority.
" I have sometimes suspected that some theologians in these days were pre-
pared to concede too much, — nay, to concede what will eventually prove to be
the key of the position, considered from the intellectual side. The proposition
seems to have been by many accepted as proved, that the laws governing the
living are the same as those which the non-living obey. The chivalrous gene-
rosity and large-heart edness of some minds, an intense love of everything that
seems to favour progress, a desire to encourage investigation and work, and a
natural hatred of narrow-mindedness and party-prejudice, have perhaps led some
thoughtful persons to accept for demonstrated facts, without the slightest inves-
Notices of Boohs. 263
ligation or inquiry, some of the most extraordinary statements ever promul-
gated in the name of truth, and to believe in all seriousness, general proposi-
tions, which, regarded from a scientific stand-point, are untenable ; as, for in-
stance, ' the sun forms living beings,' * the lifeless passes by gradations into the
living,' * the difference between a dead thing and a living one is a difference
of degree,' a * dead thing may be revivified '; and many others quite as astonish-
ing. Such doctrines rest upon no scientific evidence whatever, and those
who believe them receive them upon trust, and do not venture to inquire
concerning the facts on which they are said to rest." — (" Life Theories/'
pp. 1-4.)
A Treatise on the Particular Examen of Conscience according to S, Ignatius,
By Father Luis de la Palma, of the Society of Jesut, Author
of ** The History of the Sacred Passion." With Preface by-
Father George Porter, S. J. London : Burns & Gates. 1873.
^P>HOSE who have looked even cursorily at the Spiritual Exercises of
JL S. Ignatius cannot but have been struck by a diagram of seven pairs
of parallel lines gradually diminishing in length, on which the saint sup-
poses the faults of each day to be noted, as observed upon an examination
directed to a vice, or virtue, or the fulfilment of our spiritual duties. This is
the " Particular Examen" which |formed so cardinal a point in the system of
the Society of Jesus, and which was not indeed invented by its holy founder,
— for something of the kind has been practised wherever there has been a
serious wish to advance in virtue, — but brought into great prominence by
him, and greatly increased in efficacy by his wise teaching. The present
volume is translated from a treatise on this subject by Father Luis de la
Pahna, author of a remarkable work on the Passion. The editor, Father
Porter, S. J., has prefixed a short but interesting preface, in which he
mentions mistakes sometimes made by those who attempt this method,
supposing it to mean either noting down all the faults committed, or in-
cluding far too wide a field. For instance : Humility or conformity to
the will of God, he shows it ought to be, not humility in general, but
humility under definite circumstances, such as in speaking to one's equals,
or to one particular person ; not conformity to the will of God in general,
but in the matter of health, or one's occupations, &c. &c. This remark,
however obvious when once made, is useful in meeting a difficulty we
imagine many have felt ; viz., at the supposition that faults^ can go on
diminishing in the way anticipated by the saint. It is understood that the
circumstances are external, and the examen, for beginners, on grounds of
charity and for other reasons, is mainly directed to outward acts. Now,
it is not too much to expect that grace will enable us to effect an improve-
ment so directed comparatively soon ; and we shall speedily find out that
circumstances are endless, and that we shall never want matter ^ which
to found a continually varied examen.
The treatise is a kind of commentary on that part of the Exercises which
refer to this subject. It is very solid and complete, analyzing the method
and matter of the Particular Exercises with reference to beginners, to pro-
ficients, and to the perfect, so far as that word can be used in this life.
264 Notices of Books,
giving examples that may serve as a valuable praxis for the inexperienced
in this all-important branch of the spiritual life. Not having the original
before us, we can only speak of the translation as coming from a reliable
source. In point of style, it is, perhaps, rather stiff; but this is a defect
of comparatively little consequence, as it will certainly be little felt by
whoever makes a practical use of the book. In p. 36 we notice an
awkwardly constructed paragraph : —
" Let each one observe in what wise men usually resolve to increase their
gains, and to avoid future loss, and determine to shape on their model our
strivings to diminish our vices and to grow in virtue.
Does the writer mean " in what wise " as equivalent to " in what way,"
or ** wise " to agree with " men " ? And " our " does not correspond to
" each one." The volume is beautifully printed, which leads us the rather
to notice two or three misprints : — p. 28, ** No so " for " Not so " ; p. 35,
" fore-caste *' for "fore-cast"; p. 108, " preficients " for "proficients";
and p. 118, <*Bartim8eas" for " Bartimaews."
Vindidce Alphonsiance, seu Doctoris Ecclesioe S. Alphonsi M, de Ligotno^
Episcopi et Fundato7^s Congregationis SS. Redemptoris Doctrina
Moralis vindicata a plurimis oppugnationibtts CI. P, Antonii Balleriniy
Soc. Jesu in Collegio Romano Professoris, Cura et studio quorunidam
Theologorum e Congregatione JSS. Redemptoris, Romse, ex Typ. Poly-
glotta S. C. de Propaganda Fide, mdccclxxiii.
AN unforeseen accident occurring at the last moment, obliges us to for-
bear, for the present, giving the careful notice of this book which
we had originally intended. However, its title alone will sufficiently recom-
mend it to our clerical readers. Its subject has every element that can
attract their attention. Every priest, and not merely the studious few,
takes a lively interest in the discussion of those vexed questions which
govern the decisions of the confessor and spiritual director throughout the
whole range of their office. The ** Vindicioe " have, besides, all the piquancy
of a personal controversy. The children of S. Alphonsus step forth as
the natural champions of their master, against what they deem the
attacks of an insidious and powerful foe. The controversy is extremely
interesting, and for us in England involves also the important consideration
whether Scavini or the annotated Gury is to prevail as the text-book in
our seminaries, and the hand-book of our working clergy. We are not now
going to express any opinion on the merits of the controversy, we will
only observe in passing, that, if (as these authors allege to Jiave happened
in the case of Father Ballerini) criticism of the Holy Doctor is apt to
transgress legitimate bounds, the opposite extreme, of assent on the sole
ground of his authority, would be simply fatal to the science of Moral
Theology.
Of one thing we are certain, and that is, that no one can rise from the
perusal of this bulky volume without an immense increase of veneration
for the character of B, Liguori.
Notices of Boohs. 265
Memoriale Fratris Walteri de Coventria. The Historical Collections of
Walter of Coventry, edited from the MS. in the Library of Corpus
Chvisti College, Cambridge, by William Stubbs, M.A., Regius
Professor of Modern Hiljtory in the University of Oxford, &c. Vol. II.
Published by the authority of the Lords Commissioners of Her
Majesty's Treasury, under the direction of the Master of the Rolls.
WE are indebted to the collection of the Master of the Rolls for a copy
of this valuable work, the last eighty pages of which, comprising,
as they do, the annals of the reign of John, are one of the most important
contributions ever published to the history of that period. Nearly, though
not exactly contemporaneous, these annals are yet near enough to the reign
of John to furnish us with an accurate knowledge of the events which
occurred during that reii^n, and yet sufficiently removed to allow us to
form from them a comprehensive view of the whole period. In the opinion
of the editor it could hardly have been written later than 1227, so that,
with the exception of the Chronicle of Ralph of Coggeshall, which was
composed -about that year, it is the earliest record we have of the con-
cluding years of John's reign.
In the preface to the first volume the editor has told us all that is known
of the origin of these annals. They appear first in the Chronicle of the
Monastery of Barnwell, which was composed at the beginning of the
thirteenth century. In the middle of the century they were incorporated
in a compilation of historians in one gf the few monasteries — probably
either Crowland or Peterborough — and afterwards were transferred, with
only a few slight variations of reading, into the volume known to us as
the Memoriale of Walter of Coventry. We are informed by the editor
that a careful collation of the text of the Memwiale with the original
MS. of the Barnwell Chronicle shows that the annals have undergone
hardly any change in the process of migration, and in the present edition
the original text is given in the notes, whenever — and the cases are
few — it has been tampered with. Rightly, then,* does the editor claim for
this portion of the work the value of an editio princeps. Of its great merits,
when comparing it with the Chronicle of Abbot Ralph, the editor thus
speaks : —
*' Great as the value of Abbot Ralph's Chronicle undoubtedly is, the
work of the Barnwell scribe excels it very much, both in wideness of
narration and in clearness of sequence ; whilst in historical penetration, in
the perception of cause and consequence, in the admirable prop:rtion or
perspective, if I may use the word, of the picture, which it presents to us,
and in the accuracy of political definition, it comes very far ahead of it.
I do not think I claim too much for it, when I say that it comes both in
time and rank nearest of all our chronicles to the model of William of
Newburgh's admirable history." (Preface, p. x.)*
* In a note, Dr. Pauleys opinion of the annals is quoted. In his History
of England he speaks of the writer as : '' dieser Zeitgenosse der Magna
266 Notices of Books.
The editor appears to us to have done his work admirably, and in his
preface, instead of giving us a careful chronological commentary on the
text, which would have been foreign to the plan of the series, has sketched
the character and the reign of John ; while in the notes he has illustrated
'* the points of chronology, politics, and miscellaneous interest, which turn
up as a comparison between this and other contemporary or nearly con-
temporary histories.'* With regard to his estimate of the character of
John, we have nothing but the highest praise ; it seems to us most just
and accurate. But in speaking of Innocent III., he hardly appears — this,
however, for an Anglican clergyman is only natural — to have risen to a
true conception of that great Pope's policy. He does not in any way
exaggerate what he calls the aggressiveness of Innocent. Oti the contrary,
he recognizes him as a high-principled man, a sound and astute lawyer, an
ingenious politician, and an earnest believer in his own cause ; and maintains
that he neither made nor snatched the opportunity of quarrelling with
John ; that every step of his proceedings was strictly legal, and that if, in
the decisive act of the struggle, the election of Langton, his legality verges
on captioiisness, we ought also to bear in mind that his course was provoked
by the detected fraud of John. Still, he is unable to see how the great
Pontiff was moved throughout the struggle by a zeal for the interests of
the Church and of religion ; a zeal which distinguished him above many
even of the most zealous Roman Pontiffs. The most he can do, is to
suppose that Innocent followed the traditional policy of the Roman Curia.
Take, for instance, the following sentence : —
" The curiously elaborate and persistent policy of the court of Rome
has invested that body, in the mind of historians and politicians, with a
sort of personal idiosyncrasy, which is very slightly affected by the special
characteristics of the individual who happens to be Pope ; and so with one
school the papacy is a standing conspiracy against the freedom of man-
kind, with another a divinely guided organization for the religious regene-
ration and moral discipline of the world. And thus sometimes it seems
as if there was very little difference between the ecclesiastical acts of a good
pope and those of a bad one. But it is quite unnecessary to antedate the
existence of the political system of the Jesuits, or to suppose a definitely
elaborated plan of aggression even in a far-seeing pontiff like Hildebrand,
or his most successful follower. Innocent III. no more thought of
reducing England to the condition of a fief of the Apostolic See than John
did with enriching himself with the spoils of the bishops. But the Roman
court has a policy in which Innocent himself had been educated, and of
which he is, perhaps in all mediaeval history, the most illustrious expo-
nent,— the policy of never overlooking an advantage, or any course of
events that might be turned to advantage to the Roman court." (Preface,
p. xlviii.)
The distinction between the Roman courtand the Holy See, as represented
by each reigning pontiff, is one of the most mischievous errors into which
an historian can fall. No one imbued with it can ever hope to under-
Charta, der mit offenen Augen wie kein anderer, und mit echt englischem
Herz und Sinn, die Ereignisse geschildert hat." — Geschichte von England,
iii. 873.
Notices of Books, 267
stand either the history of God's Church or its relations with the civil
governments of the world. This, however, is the only unfavourable
criticism that we have to make. As an editor, as we have before stated,
Mr. Stubbs has done his work thoroughly and well.
A Theory of the Fine Arts considered in relation to Mental and Physical
condition of Human Existence* By Stephen M. Lanioan, A.B.,
T.C.D., Barrister-at-law. London : Burns & Oates. 1873.
T I iHIS essay is a very clever, thoughtful, and for the most part success-
JL ful attempt to show that the materialistic philosophy, so popular at
the present day, can have no claim to the infallibility of which it
is never wearied of boasting, when applied to the explanation of facts which
have their origin in the essential condition of the intellectual principle in
man. The best recommendation which our modern materialistic philoso-
phers can assert in their own favour, would at first sight appear to be the
eminence to which they have attained by their labours in the advancement
of physical science. But our author shows, and, we think, very clearly,
that this, far from being a qualification, renders them in fact incapable of
pronouncing upon mental and moral principles. For, arguing from the
phenomena of physical nature, they try to explain all tlie facts of
human experience by the same hypotheses by which they have explained
the probably general laws of animal life, or argued when they cannot
be so explained. Our author, on the other hand, endeavours to prove
that, from the diversity of material laws and mental phenomena, as subjects
of human thought, to explain the latter by the former, is utterly illogical ;
and further, that the process of mind, which, from the nature of the objects
concerned, necessarily accompanies the investigation of the general laws
that govern the phenomena of material existences, so unfits the mental
faculties for the study of psychological conditions, as to bring about a
positive inability to believe even in the existence of the latter in facts of
human experience, as real and as knowable as those of the material world.
Hence the antagonism between the students of physical science and the
observers of the phenomena of the mind, which has been carried to such an
extent, as to lead the former to the absolute denial of the existence of those
principles on which all religious and moral philosophy depends.
Mr. Lanigan points out that the term science in the mouth of these men
means only physical science, which, during its whole history, far from
being at any time substantially true, has simply been a long chain of errors
corrected from time to time by further experience. Thus, the men who
now hold, for instance, the theories of evolution and natural selection, are
no more certain of their truth than the astronomers who lived before
Copernicus, v^etx^vi theirs. The object of the present work, then, is to
distinguish between the psychological and the physiological conditions of
our bfi&g, on which depenui^ the pleasure we derive from the perception of
268 Notices of Boohs.
beauty and sublimity in the Fine Arts, and by this distinction to show that
there are facts of human nature which are inexplicable, unless the exist-
ence of mejital and ii^oral attributes is recognized as the special
characteristic of the conEjtitution of man. It is an attempt to eliminate
from the many circumstances which help to form the taste of the individual,
those essential and necessary conditions in the constitution of all intel-
lectual beings which regulate and govern all ideas of the beautiful and
sublime in art.
Mr. Lanigan, unlike Edmund Burke, has treated his subject philoso-
phically rather than historically, investigating the principles on which our
feelings of the beautiful and sublime depend, not merely describing the
effects produced by their recognition. He diflfers also from Burke in denying
that terror, in all cases whatever, either more openly or latently, is the
ruling principle of the sublime.
The author thus states his plan : —
** In accordance with what seems, as far as we know, to be the general
law of creation, viz., * that all things are double, one against the other,'
and, as a particular instance of it, we are so formed by a beneficent Creator ,
as to be capable of deriving pleasure from the contemplation of certain
natural objects, and others which are, to speak generally, the creations of our
own minds. By a consideration of the twofold character of human beings,
as composed of souls and bodies, and of the attributes which we must
suppose, either positively or negatively, to be the peculiar characteristics of
each element, 1 have endeavoured to discover on what particular parts
of our constitution, mental or physical, the pleasure we derive from the
contemplation of works of art depends, and 1 feel certain that the considera-
tion of the adaptation of our minds to receive pleasurable emotions from
those objects which seem to us to have been so created solely for that
purpose, cannot fail, while it adds another fact to the proof of apparent
design throughout the universe, to excite in us the deepest feelings of
gratitude to Him who is the Author of all good gifts to men." (Preface,
pp. ix-x.)
Throughout the whole work the existence of the human mind is recognized
as a principle in our nature as certain and as knowable as any other fact in
the constitution of things of which we are cognisant.
We do not think that we can always agree with our author when he comes
to apply his principles ; as, for instance, with regard to sculpture, architec-
ture, painting, and poetry. On all these subjects we have very clear and
definite views of our own, although we should far exceed the limits of a
sliort notice were we to state them ; but we heartily go along with him when
he says every branch of the Fine Arts depends ultimately on an intellectual
principle, and that it is simply impossible to account for, or explain, intellec-
tual phenomena by the laws which affect only the material part of our
iiature. For the object which he had in view, and for the way in which
he has thought out his subject, '♦v^ feel nothing but the highest admiration.
Our English literature stands in need of many such books as this, for the
good they will do is simply incalculable. *^>4^^
\
Notices of Boolx's. 269
A Ilistoty of the Catholic Church, By the Rev. Theodore Noethen.
Baltimore : John Murphy & Co. London : R. Washbourne.
NOTHING can well be more difficult than to compose a really useful
compendium of Church History. To know what to insert and what
to leave out, and yet to present to the reader an adequate outline of the
whole subject, is a task for which very few are qualified. It requires a
mind capable of recognizing the unity running through all the infinitely
varied circumstances of the Church's marvellous life, and for this the mind
must be gifted with the power of appreciating unity, and also thoroughly and
intimately acquainted with all the circumstances, as well as of seeing j ust what
is necessary, and nothing more, to bring the unity fully out ; for whatever
is superfluous in the execution can only mar the beanty of the conception,
and weaken the effect upon the reader's mind. Of course, in regard to all
compendiums of history the same difficulty exists ; and it was because
Bossnet met this difficulty and triumphed over it with such patience, that
his ** llistoire Universelle " is recognized as a masterpiece. But in writing
a compendium of the history of the Catholic Church, from the very fact
that it has to deal with the action of God*s Church upon every nation
and kindred, and people and tribe, the circumstances become more
numerous and complicated, and therefore the unity is more difficult to
preserve. After carefully examining the present work, we can safely say
that Mr. Noethen's history is one of the be3t we have read. It will be
found an excellent text-book for.our colleges and schools ; and as the spirit
in which it is written is thoroughly Roman, the true secret of the
Church's victory over the gates of hell, springing as it does from her
foundation on the rock of Peter, will be instilled at every step into the
minds of the young. The work is carried down to the opening of the
Council of the Vatican. At the end will be found most useful questions
adapted to the use of schools.
Patron Saints, By Eliza Allen Starr. Baltimore : John Mui*phy ii Co.
London: R. Washbourne. 1871.
WE have found this work, which is dedicated to the youth of the
Catholic Church in America, a very pleasant volume. The lives
of the Saints chosen are just such as will be popular with our
boys and girls, and they are most agreeably written. They are not the
bare lives, but are interspersed with allusions to the present time, and
with anecdotes bearing upon the subject, which add much to their interest,
while the difficulties, trials, temptations, or more common failings of the
young, are hinted at in such a way that the instruction conveyed is neither
burdensome nor annoying. Thus, in the story of S. Peter and S. Paul,
an interesting anecdote about our present Holy Father and a poor negro
270 Notices o/BooJcs.
waiting- woman is introduced, by which devotion to the person of the
Vicar of Christ is inculcated and encouraged.
We give the following extract as an illustration : —
" No one in the vast hall seemed to interest the good Pope like poor
Margaret ; and when she had answered all his questions, he gently told
her to kiss his ring and kneel for his blessing, * not only for herself, but
for all her people in bondage.' Do you, can you imagine how happy a heart,
how comforted a spirit, poor Margaret carried in her dark bosom, as she
flew, rather than walked, away from the Vatican palace that day ; and how,
instead of going straight to her kind mistress (for she was a kind one), she
stopped at the first church door, and poured out her joy at the foot of
some altar, where the little lamp told her that Jesus was waiting to receive
her thanksgiving.
" It is to kindle in your young hearts a single spark of personal affection
to this holy old man, this venerable priest, this bishop of bishops, that I
have told you this story of poor Margaret ; and it is for the same purpose,
that is, to keep alive the love of Catholics for their chief bishop, that the
Church has gathered round her, at Rome, schools or colleges where
students from every part of the world are educated under the eye and at
the knee of the Vicar of Christ" (p. 51).
The Introduction is addressed rather to parents than to children, with a
view to encourage them to place the Lives of the Saints, instead of works
of fiction, in the hands of the latter, and to educate them while still young
to the appreciation of pure religious art. We feel the greatest sympathy
with the object which our authoress has in view, for we are sure that
children who are old enough to appreciate a fairy tale, will read with
avidity and delight the marvellous stories of God's blessed Saints ; and
that an ordinary intelligent child, although he will naturally not be able
to explain his reasons for his preference, will instinctively prefer a picture
or an image designed in the spirit of true religious art, to the highly-
coloured daubs and wretched statuettes which are too often provided for
the nourishment of his childish devotion. We are far too indifferent to
this very important point in the education of the young. The illustrations
in the present volume are for the most part well chosen and fairly en-
graved. Amongst the lives which have pleased us most, we may
mention those of SS. Peter and Paul, S. Agnes, SS. Benedict and
Scholastica, S. Bede, S. Antony of Padua, and S. Dominic.
H Problema deW Vmano Destino, Par Euqbnio Albert, Firenze : Tipo-
grafia all' Insegna di S. Antinino. 1872.
WE had hoped to review at length in our present number this Italian
work, which is of no ordinary merit, and which has, we believe, re-
ceived the approbation of the Holy Father. But circumstances, which we
could not have foreseen, have prevented us ; for the moment, therefore, we
must content ourselves with simply calling the attention of our readers to its
publication, trusting, however, that in October we may be able to do it full
Notices of Boohs, 271
justice. The problem of man's destiny is solved in its pages, the cry of man,
old as himself, " Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live,
and that full of misery ; he cometh up like a flower, and is cut down, he
dieth, and wasteth away, and where is he ? " is here answered to his satis-
faction. The various philosophical systems which have attempted by their
own wisdom to solve the problem and have failed — such, for instance, as
Dualism, Pantheism, Materialism, are in this volume, briefly, indeed, but
thorouglily, examined and refuted. The origin and nature of man, with
their attendant difficulties, especially those arising from the attitude of
modern science, are searched into and explained. The existence of God
and of man's free will, and the immortality of his soul, are established. The
necessity of revelation, and its reality, are proved independently of Holy
Scripture by the traditions of all people. The Old Testament is vindi-
cated from the attacks of modern critics, and the Mosaic cosmogony
defended and reconciled with the most recent scientific discoveries. The
redemption of man by the God-man — God really manifest in the flesh
during His human lifetime and really presented on the altar of the Catholic
Church, and mystically manifested to the world through that Church,
which is His Body, the authority and integrity of the New Testament,
together with the refutation of the diff'erent schools of modern Rationalism —
the great mystery of the Trinity, on which the Incarnation hangs, — ^the au-
thority of the Cliurch as the supreme director both of the individual and of
the whole human race, and the infallibility of its earthly head, — all these are
set before us with clearness and vigour, as so many indispensable links of one
chain, binding man and his destiny to the throne of his Eternal Maker.
The unity running through the whole work is admirable, and if here and
there we may perhaps discover a weak point, still, taken as a whole, the
result is convincing -both to intellect and heai-t. It will be with pleasure
that we shall return in October to the consideration of this important
volume.
The Journey of Sophia and Eulalie to the Palace of True Happiness, By
a Lady. Translated from the French, by George Ambrose
Bradbury, O.C. London : R. Washbourne. 1873.
WE wish we could give to the present work the same mead of praise
tliat we have awarded to F. Reeves's little volume. Allegory to
be successful ought to be treated by a master hand, otherwise it soon
becomes monotonous and distasteful. The translator tells us in his preface
that " there is nothing wearisome in this little book ; it is short and interest-
ing throughout." It may be so, but we confess we have been unable to
read the work through. The translator's intention is excellent, but it
would have been better if he had exercised his undoubted talents upon a
8u])ject more worthy of them. He has, however, to make himself further
acc^uainted with the French language.
272 Notices of Boolfs.
Revue Bibliographique UniverseUe* Mai, 1873.
Paris : aux Bureaux de la Revue.
THIS Review is hardly, we think, as interesting^ as usual, hut the
notice upon recent French works on education hy the Comte Eug.
de Germiny, as well as that \ipon the Ahhe de Kir's translation of the
book of Job, by P. Martin, will be read with pleasure. It is the custom of
this review in the end of each number to give a summary of the contents
of the best periodical publications both in France and abroad, as well as
of the literary articles in the Paris journals, — a custom which we might
imitate, we think, with advantage in England.
Bismarck versus Christ, By a Convert. Translated from the Dutch.
London : Burns, Gates, & Co. 1873.
rr^ HE original of this pamphlet was first published as an article in a
-L Dutch Catholic periodical, and when translated into German was
confiscated by order of the government. The object of the pamphlet is
sufficiently explained by its title. The translation will prove useful at the
present time, when the true nature of the religious struggle now going on
in Germany is so little understood.
FlorinCy Princess of Burgundy : a Tale of the First Crusade, By William
Bernard MacCab*, Third Edition. London : Bums, Oates, & Co.
1873.
WE are delighted to find that Mr. MacCabe's well-known tale of the
First Crusade has reached a third edition. It is full both of
interest and instruction, and although not free from a certain stiffness of
manner, may fairly be reckoned among the ornaments of our lighter lite-
rature. The notes, now first published, will show the reader how carefully
the author has studied his subject. It is also a pleasure for us to learn that
" Florine" has been twice translated into French, and has been received with
much favour in the United States.
Homeward, By the Rev, F. Reeves, O.S.C. Second edition.
London : Burns, Oates, & Co. 1873.
WE are glad that Father Reeves's beautiful allegory has reached a
second edition. It is full of holy thought's and ^exquisite poetry,
and just such a book as can be taken up with advantage and relief in
hours of sadness and depression.
THE
DUBLIN REYIEW.
OCTOBER, 1873.
Art. I.— pilgrimage AND PARAY-LE-MONIAL.
A(1dri.<is of Ills Grace Archbishoji Manning to the English Pilgrims.
Tablet, September Cth, 1873.
Pastoral of his Loi'dshi}) the Bishop of Salford on Consecraiion to theS. Heart
and the Pilgrimage to Paray-Ie-MoniaL Salford : Matthew Leeming.*
THE revival of pilgrimage on a large scale both in France
and Italy, while it has irritated and alarmed, has also
surprised the world. We are not sure that even to many
Catholics it has not been a matter of astonishment. The world
had thought that such Mediaeval superstitions, as it was its
fashion to call them, could hardly be seen again on the high-
ways of Europe in the full noonday light of modem civiliza-
tion, although, perhaps, they might still linger among the
gloomy gorges of Calabria, or the least frequented provinces
of Spain. On the other hand, the icy coldness of Protestant-
ism and the dark shadows of unbelief had so chilled and
obscured even the atmosphere of Catholic Europe ; the divorce
between religion and the public life of men had been so
generally and openly proclaimed, even by the Governments of
Catholic countries ; that while a few Catholics may have clung
in their hearts to the hope of one day seeing the revival of a
practice so highly commended by the Church, the many had
brought themselves to acquiesce in its discontinuance as a
concession due to the spirit of the times.
The world was mistaken, as the world always is when-
ever it ventures to calculate or predict what will happen
within the borders of that kingdom, the spirit of which it
cannot understand, and the full establishment and triumph of
which will be its own ruin ; and in owning its mistake has
proved at the same time how greatly it was mistaken by
•
* After this article went to press, we received F. Coleridge's noble sermon
on the recent Pilgrimagew We have given it a separate notice.
VOL. XXI.— NO. XLit. [New Series.} t
274 Pilgrimage and Paray-le-MoyiiaL
wildly rushing into the opposite extreme, and apprehending
for itself dangers of every possible kind from the very practice
which it had been wont so boastfully to despise. Poor foolish
world ! it first blasphemes wjiat it knows not, and then
becomes panic-stricken the instant it is brought face to face
with the object of its blasphemy. It first affects to despise as
puerile or superstitious the practices of Catholic devotion,
and then discovers them to be of such significant import, that
the strong arm of the law must be invoked to put them
down. So is it at the present moment in Italy and in
Germany, and if it is not so also in France, this is only because
the Government of that country has providentially passed
into the hands of men who do not blush for the Gospel, or
are ashamed at the name of Christian, and because. France
herself, ceasing for awhile at least to be the demoniac of the
Revolution, appears before the eyes of men, almost for the
first time for well nigh a century, clothed and in her right
mind. In like manner those Catholics who thought that
pilgrimages were no longer in harmony with the spirit of the
age, or perhaps hardly thought of them at all in connection
with their own days, have been mistaken ; although in their
case we may well believe that. the revival of pilgrimages on so
large a scale and in so open a way may be the means of re-
minding them that it can never be said with safety that any-
thing once approved of and blessed by the Church ought to be
regarded as a thing of the past, or be laid aside, merely out
of condescension to the spirit of the times, unless indeed, — and
then of course it would be disloyalty to think otherwise, — the
Church has signified her will to this effect ; as, for example, in
the discontinuance of public penances, although in the latter
case it would not be diflBcult to show that the Church acted
not out of condescension to those who were without, but from
the instincts of her maternal heart towards her own children.
Nay, it is very often just those devotions and practices which
are most opposed to the prevailing spirit of the world that the
Spirit of God, who breathes into the Churches heart all her
devotions, and who shapes and fashions all her worship, makes
use of to crush that spirit amongst the faithful, and to prepare
the way for its final overthrow and confusion. Thus, in our
own time so especially marked by luxury, love of ease and
material comfort, effeminacy, pride of intellect, and unbelief,
the Loreto-going beggar, Benedict Joseph Labre, has been
raised to the honours of the altar ; and at the very moment
when we write pilgrims are hurrying in hundreds from every
part of Europe, and in thousands and tens of thousands from
every department of France, to the shrine of the Sacred Heart ;
Pilgrimage and Paray^e-Monial, 275
— two great facts pregnant with meaning, which, unless we
are mistaken, will form not the least important subject for
devout thought to those who come after us, when they turn
their attention to the many marvels of the Pontificate of the
great Pius IX. The type of sanctity shown to the world in the
person of the poor, ragged, pilgrim-beggar, footsore and
wearied, and covered with the dust of earth, whose whole life
was one long toilsome pilgrimage from shrine to shrine, is not
exactly that which the world relishes ; nor are the pilgrimages,
as we have seen, precisely the weapons by which the world
would care to be defeated. Yet it has seemed good to the
Holy Ghost andto the successorof S. Peter to set this particular
type of sanctity prominently before the world in these our days,
and never perhaps since the spirit of God stirred up the
Crusades to save Christendom from the yoke of the false
prophet, has the spirit of pilgrimage which was not the least
of the many motives which underlay those great movements,
so taken possession, under the influence and guidance of the
same holy and overruling Spirit, of the hearts and minds of
Christian men and women as in the second half of this nine-
teenth century. No Catholic, surely, who allows his mind to
dwell upon the subject can fail to see, both in the beatification
of Benedict Joseph Labre, and in the pilgrimages of the
present moment which have been recently declared by the
Holy Father to be a " spectacle worthy of angels and of men,^^
not only a deep connection one with the other, but the finger
of God pointing the way to a still further and more general
development of Catholic devotion amongst the faithful as the
means of obtaining for the Church and her august head, now
to all purposes a prisoner in his own city, that perfect freedom
which is the only true security for the progress and civiliz-
ation of the future. Is it too bold a thought to suppose that
the once despised pilgrim-beggar, sitting now on his throne
of glory, has obtained from God that the spirit of pilgrimage
should be once again poured out upon the earth ; or is it too
much to say that the heart of the Catholic world is even now
beating high with the hope that it is just by these despised
devotions that, under the divine blessing, the power of the
revolution is to be broken, the moral and social order to be
restored. Franco to be brought back again to her true position
as the great Cathohc nation and the right arm of the Holy
See, the states of the Church to be given back to the Supreme
Pontiff, and the reign of the King of kings established upon
firm foundations not only in the affections of men, but in the
outward renovation of Society, and in the formation of a new
and glorious Christendom ? Perhaps we are too bold ; still
T 2
27G rihji'image and rarai/'Ie-Moni'd.
the weak things of the world have been chosen to confound
the strong, and the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise. Times may have indeed changed since our forefathers
went out staff in hand to visit the Holy Sepulchre, or the tomb
of S. James at Corapostella, or when men and women came
from Franco and Germany and Italy to worship at the shrine of
S. Thomas of Canterbury ; pilgrims may now be carried to
the shrine of their devotion with the speed of express trains
and steamboats, — although there is no reason to suppose that
even in the Middle Ages they were slow to avail themselves
of every means that presented itself to enable them speedily
and easily to reach their destination — the contrary, indeed,
we know to be the fact; — but the spirit which animated our
pilgrim forefathers has proved also more powerful than all
changes, and will be sure to do its own destined work, even
in this sinful and adulterous generation, as surely and as effica-
ciously as in the ages that have been before us. Europe may
still have to owe many blessings to the Pilgrims of the
Sacred Heart.*
Yet to a thoughtful mind, the wonder, we think, rather
should be that pilgrimages on a large scale should have been
discontinued, even for so long a time as they have been,
springing as they do from a natural instinct of the heart of
man, and approved, as they are, not only by the unbroken
tradition of the Church, but also — so far at least as their
principle is concerned — by many warrants of Holy Scripture.
Indeed we can form no better idea of the utter havoc which
Protestantism and unbelief, together with the swarm of
pestilential errors with which they have polluted and corrupted
the atmosphere of the Christian world for three centuries, have
wrought in the natural and supernatural orders, than the
almost general cessation during a like period of a practice so
consonant with the best feelings of our nature, and so agreeable
to the dictates both of Natural and Revealed Religion. Pro.
* See article on " Paray-le-Moiiuil and the Rationale of Pilgrimages," Tablet,
Ang. 23, 1873. ** The Spectator^ accordingly, need not gibe at pilgrimages
by railway and in firet-class carriages. In every age pilgrimages have been
generally condncted in accordance with the usages of the age. In the Middle
Ages there were no railways and no steamboats. To-day there are both,
and pilgrims use both. In the Middle Ages, however, just as to-day, in-
tending pilgrims were wont to seek out the easiest and most expeditious
means of reaching the goal of their desire. The Flemings, Mai-seillaise,
(lenoese, and Venetians made handsome profits by conveying pilgrijns, just
as it may be suspected that modern carrying companies do now , . . .
Even kings and nations used to enter into international compacts to remove
difficulties from the way of the pilgrims, and as far back as the days of
Canute the Emperor Conrad granted special hnmunities to English pilgrims
on their passage to Rome through his dominions "
ViUjruaaijc and Paray-lc-MoniuL 277
testautism began its work of supposed reformatiou — but iu
reality of dissolution — by banishing all that was concrete in
religion. By this — not to speak now of the other ways in
which it accomplished the same object, as, for example, by
separating the Mother from the Child, and thus, so to speak,
cutting Christianity in two — it undermined the great doctrine
of the Incarnation itself, which it still professed to preserve,
and struck at the root of the whole Sacramental system.
Hence the use and veneration of holy images and pictures,*
the blessing of material objects for spiritual purposes,
the visits to holy shrines or scenes consecrated by the
presence of the Incarnate God, and of His Saints, became
in such a system, not only superfluous, but hurtful. Hence
too the necessity for all Catholics who would keep in
harmony with the mind of the Church, as S. Ignatius, with
admirable wisdom, warns us in the Exercises, to approve
of these seemingly little practices and devotions ; for we have
only to consider for a moment to discover that in them are
involved the great principles of the Incarnation, and of the
Sacramental system, which is its logical result. As Protest-
antism decayed, Rationalism and Unbelief increased, and
everything connected with religion became more and more
abstract, until in many minds the very idea of a Personal God
and Almighty Creator was lost sight of in Atheism or
Pantheism. Now although the principle of the Incarnation
has been ever kept alive by the loving watchfulness of the
Catholic Church in the hearts of her children, yet it could
hardly be but that many of them — those especially who were
weak in faith, and who failed to maintain a firm grip on
the l^ock of Peter — should also — unconsciously, however, it
may be— in their measure bo affected by the subtle influence
of the prevailing errors of their times. It is in this way alone
that we account for the comparative neglect of pilgrimage
daring the last three hundred years, — a practice, as we have
said, so agreeable to Nature, Scripture, and Tradition.
We need not waste many words in proving that the practice
of pilgrimage springs from the instincts of our nature. All
memorials of those we love are naturally dear to our hearts ;
all the places rendered illustrious by the presence of the great
and noble, or from their having been the scenes of remarkable
events in the world's history, become to us objects of intense
interest, and create within us a desire to visit them. All the
* His late Emmencc Card. Wiseman has pointed out that when men
censed to have images in their churches, they ceased also to have images iu
their own mind by raeditalior*
278 Pilgrimage and Paray-le-Mo7iiaL
ruins of the cities of the past, with their temples and theatres
— Eome, Athens, Thebes, Palmyra, PaDstum, Taormina — see
year by year a band of pilgrims gathered within them, who
come to realize more vividly the art or the grandeur of ancient
days. Who has not felt a thrill of reverent love when he
stood for the first time in the house where a much-loved
friend was born, or where he spent the earlier portion of his
life before he crossed our path, or cast in his lot with
ours ? Which of us can visit the homes of our forefathers
unmoved ? Who can look upon the tombs of the Scipios, or
of Napoleon or Washington, or Wellington or Nelson, without
being conscious of a more lively realization of the respective
parts they played in the world's destiny? Who has ever gone
down the southern side . of the hill of Perugia through the
vineyards and the olive-trees, and come in sight of Thrasimene,
or gazed from the rounded summit of Monte Porzio on the
site of Lake Regillus, without feeling that those battles of old
days were brought back more clearly to his mind ? Who
has ever lifted up his eyes to the simple grandeur of the
temples of Passtum standing out in their calm majesty in the
midst of the silent, pestilence-stricken plain, without obtaining
a more distinct insight into the worship of antiquity ? Who
has sat down on the marble seats of the Greek theatre at
Taormina, with the blue waters of the Gulf of Reggio at his
feet, and the mountains of Calabria rising up beyond them,
while many-cratered ^tna frowns upon the blue both of sea
and sky, without understanding as he has never understood
before, the 89sthetic tastes of races that have passed away ?
The wise men who are now writing so glibly in our newspapers
on the absurdity of pilgrimages would speak with the greatest
respect of visits made to the great battle-fields of Waterloo,
Magenta, or Sedan ; and were they present there themselves
would probably carry away with them not a few exceedingly
doubtful relics as memorials of their visit ; thus testifying to
the natural instinct which lies at the root both of pilgrimages
and relic- worship. But if this is true of places of merely
natural interest, how much more is it true of those which have
been consecrated by their connection with our Blessed Lord, His
Virgin Mother, and His Saints? For what are feelings of
natural love and reverence, or of mere historical interest, com-
pared with those which fill our hearts when wo gaze on the
spots which have been sanctified by the presence or the mani-
festation of Him who is more to us than father, or mother, or
sister, or brother, or friend ; or of that sinless Mother of His
who is our Mother also; or of His Blessed Saints, who once
were men of like passions with ourselves, but who are now
PilgrhacKje and Pavay-le-MoniaL 279
the glorified members of the great family of God? The
Dean of Westminster, indeed, when speaking, in his beautiful
work on " Sinai and Palestine/^ of the Holy House of
Nazareth now at Loreto, tries his best to distinguish between
what he calls the "local superstition of touching and handling'^
and that " reasonable instinct which leads us to investigate the
natural features of historical scenes, sacred or secular, as one
of the best helps to the conceiving of the events of which they
were the stage/^ Yet all through the Dean's work we find
the " superstition '' and the " instinct ^' running into one
another. Nay, it seems almost incredible that any one believing
in the Incarnation could make such a distinction, for is there
not One who knows the heart of man better than Dean Stanley,
Who was made Flesh, and dwelt amongst the hills of Nazareth,
and walked through the corn-fields of Jewry, and was crucified
on a Cross of wood, and was laid in a sepulchre hewn out of
the rock of earth, for the very reason — amongst, indeed, many
others — that He might be " seen and touched and handled '^ ?
More than this, even the Dean of Westminster himself, unless
we read him wrongly, cannot altogether close his heart to the
longing desire of possessing certain memorials of the Human
Life of our Lord. Even ho seems to envy Catholics their
belief that they do possess them. Else why in words of almost
loving complaint does he console himself for the loss of the
Holy House of Nazareth, which he calls that "mighty
sanctuary,^' with the thought of still having the everlasting
hills which our Lord's feet have touched ? * It is, then, a
natural instinct of the heart of man which leads him to make
pilgrimages to holy shrines and places.
If, however, the pilgrim-impulse springs from an instinct of
nature, the practice of pilgrimage is more than justified, for it
is implied in the teaching of God Himself both in the Old
and the New Testament. With regard to the Old Testa-
ment, we do not suppose there is any doubt upon the point.
But it may be said that under the New Law this was
changed. Surely not, for our Lord came not to destroy the
Old Law, but to fulfil it ; to bring out, indeed, the spirit from
the letter, the substance from the shadow, the reality from the
type, but at the same time in such a way that neither the doc-
trine which He taught should be entirely abstract, nor the
worship which He established so purely spiritual as to be con-
fined to the faculties of the soul alone. Else, why was the
Word made Flesh ? Nay, by the very fact that God became
Incarnate, the principle involved in the veneration of holy
'^ »Scc the concluding words of " Sinai and Palestine."
280 Fihjrlinagc ami Paray'le-MonlaL
places and holy things became also in its turn intensified and
more real, although, of course, far more spiritual than under
the Old Law ; for living on the earth as man He sanctified
every place in which He dwelt and every thing which He
touched and handled. It is true that He taught the woman
of Samaria at the well of his forefather Jacob, that the hour
was at hand when neither on that mountain nor at Jerusalem
were men to worship the Father, because God was a Spirit,
present everywhere, and they that worship Him must worship
Him in spirit and in truth. But these words, while clearly
showing that the Omnipresent God, Who dwelleth not in
temples made with hands, as Solomon himself had confessed,
was no longer to be worshipped in one temple or by the
material sacrifices of bulls and goats, but all over the wide
earth and by spiritual sacrifices, by no means exclude the wor-
ship of God in a local sense, or His special Presence in certain
places of the earth. The Incarnation, and all the teaching, all
the actions of our Blessed Lord, convince ns of the contrary,
for His human body was itself the living temple in which
dwelt the fulness of the Godhead bodily, a very shrine of
sanctification and of healing during the days of His passible
flesh to all who visited Him ; so that even from the hem of his
garment there went forth virtue. Now that He has been glori-
fied, it is still the shrine of the perfect worship of the Father
on every altar of His Church throughout the world ; while His
teaching and His actions were all alike sacramental. This
seems to us the only interpretation of our Lord's words to
the woman of Samaria which will bear examination ; for if tho
worship of the Father under the New Law is to be so purely
spiritual as to exclude the real and special Presence of God in
certain places of the earth, then are we in a worse condition
now than the Jews of old, who had at least the door of the
testimony, the oracle, and the cloud of glory. It may bo
argued, indeed, that those last-mentioned privileges were
types which met with their fulfilment in our Lord's life on
earth and in His spiritual presence with us now that He sits
at the right hand of His Father in glory ; but no one, wo
hold, can study attentively the figures of the Old Law without
perceiving that they are no less fulfilled in the worship of God's
Church on earth. No sooner was our Lord born than the
wise men of the East made a pilgrimage to visit and adore
Him, and the cave of Bethlehem became the first shrine of the
New Law ; and since then, whether during His life on earth,
or His Mystical Life on the altars of His Church — the true
Bethlehem, the house of bread — His Human Body, passible
or glorified, has ever been tho living shrine and temple where
Pihjrimage and Pavaii'lc-Moniah 281
men are healed of their luGrinities and loosed from their sins.
Thus every Catholic Church is in fact a place of pilgrimage.
The veneration of holy places and holy things — for the motive
for the veneration of both is substantially the same, and both
are intimately bound up with one another — is also implied in
the consecration and use of material objects for the communi-
cation of God's gifts and graces as set forth in our Lord's
teaching and actions. If, for example, He taught that men
must be born again to God, He taught also that it was not by
the spirit only, but by water. If He left His Body to be the
food of men, and His Blood to be their drink. He took bread
and blessed it and brake it and said : " This is My Body,'' and
in like manner He took the cup and, blessing it, said : '^This
is My Blood." If the dying man stood in need, for his soul's
sake, of restoration to health, or, as must needs be, of
special assistance in passing through the dark shadow, He
taught His apostles in their turn to teach the faithful to send
for the priests of the Church, that they may anoint them
with oil in the name of the Lord ; and the prayer of faith shall
save the sick man, and the Lord shall raise him up, and if ho
have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. If He healed
the sick, it was by imposition of hands ; if He gave sight to
the blind. He took the clay of earth, and mixing it with spittle
made of it a holy unction. If He cast out devils. He took the
poor demoniac by the hand and lifted him up. Thus material
actions and material things became the channels of His grace.
How natural then to conclude that also, under the New Law,
God should manifest Himself specially in special places, for it
is of the veiy essence of the Incarnation to take of the things
of earth and make them the divine channels of His mercy.
Thus the veneration of holy places and the spirit of pilgrimage
is, to say the least, implied in the doctrine and actions of the
Incarnate God. But from this there flows a further conse-
quence. The Church, being the Mystical Body of our Lord, is,
so to speak, the extension of the Incarnation, the power of tho
Head being manifested in the members, especially in those
which are the most penetrated by His life-giving presence.
Thus the Saints share during their lifetime more or less, ac-
cording to the measure of His presence, in the power of their
Head, while after their death they are admitted to a participa-
tion in His glory. We read in the Acts of the Apostles that
'^ handkerchiefs and aprons" were brought from the body of
S. Paul to the sick and the possessed, and '* their diseases
departed from them," and that tho very '^shadow" of Peter
passing by delivered men from their infirmities. In like
manner, just as the Body of our Lord in the Sacrament of the
282 Pllgriinago and Parai/'Ic-MoniaL
Altar makes every Catholic Church a place of pilgrimage for
the obtaining of spiritual graces, so do the bodies or relics of
the Saints sanctify the places where they rest, making them
shrines not only of spiritual blessings, but even at times of
wonder-working power ; our Lord seemingly choosing, in the
present order of His Providence, to work signs and miracles
for the most part rather through His members, than directly
by His omnipotence alone. So again, in order to glorify His
Blessed Mother or His Saints, and to excite the faithful to
greater devotion and love, our Lord is pleased to manifest His
mercy and loving-kindness in certain places by means of vision
or revelation, or by miraculous images and pictures. But all
the shrines of our Lady or the Saints are not equally miracu-
lous; for God ever works how and where and when He wills :
hence the interest of the faithful is naturally excited towards
those spots which are the witnesses of His gracious favour.
Why God thus singles out particular spots and shrines and
images and pictures, we cannot tell — His will and counsel are
known to Himself alone ; but the whole history of Christendom
testifies to the fact. " God indeed is everywhere," says
S. Augustine, ^^and He Who made all things is contained and
included in no place, and He must be adored by His wor-
shippers in spirit and in truth, and He Who hears in secret,
justifies and convinces in secret. But who can penetrate His
counsel in these things which are visibly known to men, that
He should work these miracles in some places and not work
them in others."*
Surely, then, the spirit of pilgrimage, so consonant with
the instincts of our nature and with the teaching of the Old
and New Testaments, as well as with the mind of the Church,
can never die utterly away out of the heart of Christendom.
If it ceased for a season, this could only have been— as indeed
we have seen— under a great pressure; but the faith and love
of the Christian world, weakened though they have been
during the last three centuries, have still proved themselves
strong enough, in the hour of the Churches great need, to
throw off that which was weighing them down, and the spirit
of pilgrimage is at this moment quickening the hearts of
Christian men and women in almost every land as generously
as in the days of old. How thoroughly it has taken possession
of the Church may be gathered from the fact that the Holy
Father has lately invited all the faithful who may be unable,
in person, to satisfy their devotion, to undertake spiritual
pilgrimages to the Holy Land, the shrines of Italy, and all the
* Ep. 78.
Pilgrimaf/e and Paray-Ie-Monial. 283
chief sanctuaries of Christendom. Thus the whole Church,
herself always a pilgrim upon earth, may be said to have
become a pilgrim to the shrines of our Lord, our Lady, and
the Saints, that the hearts of her sons may be turned to their
fathers, and that the children of disobedience may be brought
unto the wisdom of the just.
But it is more than time to inquire into the occasion and the
causes of this great revival. Many are the things which have
led to it and have brought it about. The dethronement of the
Vicar of Christ, the spoliation of the States of the Church, the
misfortunes of France, the persecution of the bishops and
clergy in Germany and Switzerland, the civil disorders in
Spain, the wretched state of Italy, the divorce between religion
and society, the apostasy of all the governments of the world,
the rejection of Christ's Kingship over the nations, the fright-
ful increase and spread of infidelity, immorality, license, and
luxury, have brought home to the minds and hearts of Catholics
the conviction that for them there can be.no further hope in
the arm of man, and that their only help lies in that pierced
Right Hand, which, even when nailed on the tree of shame,
overcame the world, and in that wounded Heart, whence
salvation first streamed down, with its own Precious Blood,
upon mankind. They have felt the blush of shame rush into
their cheeks at the thought that they, two hundred millions of
Catholics, are powerless to resist the world which Christ
conquered for them. Instinctively, then, the heart of
Christendom has centred itself on one little spot of earth, the
altar of the convent chapel among the vines of Burgundy,
which God in His eternal counsels has chosen out of all His
shrines and sanctuaries as the place for the revelation of the
secrets of His human heart in these latter days. The heart of
Christendom has consecrated itself by new vows of love and
loyalty to the Heart of its Redeemer, and as a proof of its
sincerity is bent on winning back to It the hearts of men, and
restoring to It Its kingship and sovereignty over the world.
With a unanimity and a zeal and a fervour not witnessed for
ages, it is sending the life-blood of the Church — which indeed
is none other than that same Redeemer's Blood — quicker and
(juicker through every true member of the Church, until the
end be accomplished. This is the victory by which Catholics
hope to overcome the world, — a renewal of their faith.
But here two or three questions naturally arise. What
proof is there that the revelation of the devotion to the
Sacred Heart, as revealed to a poor sister of the Visitation, which
has now made the name of Paray-le-Monial a familiar word on
the lips of men, is worthy of so magnificent an outburst of
284 Pilgrimage and Paray'le-Mcnial ,
Catholic faith ; and if there be such a proof, how is it that an
event which happened almost exactly two hundred years ago,
has so powerfully influenced the Catholics of the present day?
Why has the devotion to the Sacred Heart assumed at this
moment the form of actual or spiritual pilgrimage to the shrine
where first it was manifested ?
Whether the revelation made to B. Margaret Mary is
worthy of the present great movement, we leave our readers
to judge from the following striking words addressed by his
Grace the Archbishop to the English Pilgrims in his Prc-
Cathedral on the eve of their departure. The argument is
there far more forcibly and beautifully given than we could
ever hope to give it in any poor words of our own : —
" But, it may be asked," says His Grace, " is Paray-le-Monial a sacred
place ? Brethren, I will begin with a fact which the world cannot deny, and
then I will go on to an explanation which the world may question but cannot
disprove. The fact with which I begin is, the devotion to the S. Heart. The
loving veneration for the Human Heart of Jesus, deified* by union with His
Divine Person, is at this momenta devotion spread throughout the Universal
Church ; it is in every province, every diocese — I might almost say in every
parish. . . . For two centuries it has been established in the hearts of
Catholics, generation after generation. It pervades the faithful from the
oldest to the youngest. I ask whence did it arise ? From Paray-le-Monial.
Here is a world-wide fact which traces its origin to the spot to which you are
going. This the world cannot deny ; it stands out a visible fact in history,
a visible fact of sense and reason ; and it is undeniable. The world may
indeed deny the explanation of the fact, and those who utterly disbelieve in
a supernatural order, and in the revelation of Christianity, may deny it with
consistency ; but no Christian man can with consistency deny the interpre-
tation which we give. To explain this world-wide fact, arising from the
meditation of a poor despised sister of the Visitation, by any natural reason
or by any natural causes, is a demand upon my credulity which goes beyond
the bounds of my faith : and to believe that the Church of God, so jealous of
its truth, so jealous of its piety, so jealous of the piety of its children, to
whom the rule of faith is the rule of prayer, should have admitted and
sanctioned and tiiught and spread abroad the devotion of the S. Heart, if it
had not been an inspiration of the Holy Ghost, is a thing that surpasses my
belief. We therefore ascribe the rise of this devotion to the inspiration of
the Holy Ghost, and we therefore account the place where the devotion had
its origin as sacred. We call the whole world to witness the fact. AVe
account for it by a supematund explanation." ....
^ There is sufer abundimt authority for the Archbishop's use of this
word *' deify," as meaning that the Heart of Jesus has been made the Heart
of God. But his language has been the means of eliciting a display of bad
theology in the Guanlian newspaper, which must have a good deal aston-
ished those Catholics, who fancy that High Church Anglicans are commonly
orthodox on the doctrine of the Incarnation.
rihjrimafie and raray-h-MoniaL 285
After having related the vision, His Grace continues : —
" Here is the origin of the devotion of the S. Heart, and if any one who
believes in Christianity can coldly object to what I relate, I will say, — Do
you believe that Jesus appeared to Saul on the way to Damascus in a light
above the splendour of the sun ? Do you believe that Stephen saw the glory
of God and Jesus standuig at the right hand of God ? Do you believe that
in a trance in the temple Jesus manifested Himself again to Paul, and bade
him go out from Jerusalem, for they would not receive his testimony ? Do
you believe that the beloved disciple, as he writes in the Apocalypse, saw
the Son of Man clothed in a white garment, and girded about with a golden
girdle, His hair white as snow, His feet like pure brass, and His countenance
jvs the sun in its strength ? Do you Christians believe these things ? You
read them in the New Testament, which you profess to believe. If so, why
doubt this, that He who has manifested Himself to His servants in the
beginning, and has thereby given us a revelation of the order of faith and
grace under which we are to the end of the world, has also in divers ways
and sundry manners manifested Himself at all times to His servants and His
friends ? The man who can coldly deny this, let him look well to his faith
in the New Testament Scriptures. I believe those who object to and stumble
at this would have rejected the visions recorded in the New Testament Scrip-
tures even in the days when they were written."*
The quotation has been a long one, but the Archbishop's
argument deserves to be spread far and wide. We may even
press it further, and ask of those who now stumble at the
revelation of Paray-le-Monial, how they would have treated
the visions of the Apostles and the early Christians, — to which
Peter expressly pointed in his sermon on the day of Pentecost,
as a proof that the prophecy of God as to the last days had
been fulfilled, and that God had poured forth His spirit on all
flesh, — hcfore the New Testament Scriptures had been gathered
together as the Word of God ? They who now see in
B. Margaret Mary only an hysterical nun, would they not also
have regarded S. Stephen, and S. Peter, and S. Paul as
visionaries and dreamers? What would they have said to
S. Paul when describing his heavenly vision, except what
Festus said, '^Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning
doth make thee mad " ? The revelation, then, of the devotion
to the S. Heart which was made to B. Margaret Mary in her
convent chapel at Paray-le-Monial is not only worthy of the
great movement which wo are now witnessing, but it is its
immediate cause, and its only explanation; while the move-
ment itself is a most wonderful and satisfactory proof of the
divine origin of the revelation. It explains for us also how
an event which happened two hundred years ago should- so
TMd, September 6, 1«73,
286 Pilgrhnar/e and ParayM'-Ahnmih
powerfully influeuce the faith and actions of Catholics at the
present day. Both the revelation and its consequences are
our Lord^s doing, and the work of His spirit, and they are
marvellous in our eyes. There is no other explanation
possible. A movement so wide-spread, so full of liveliest
faith and tenderest love, and ungrudging self-sacrifice, as that
which is at present engaging the attention of men, must have
a cause; but it is simply incredible that the mere illusion,
or fevered dream of an excited visionary should secretly
compel so many nations, and peoples, and kindreds and
tongues, towards the worship of the very object of that vision
or dream, two hundred years after it is said to have occurred.
There have been false visionaries on the earth who have
exercised mighty influences over the world, but the mightiness
of their influence began during their lifetime, and their
influence itself, although acquiring strength and consistency
after their death, and breaking out fitfully from time to time
with renewed vigour, has always contained within it the seeds
of dissolution, which gradually led or will lead to its utter
annihilation. It is only of the visions of the Saints and
servants of God — ^in whom are verified the words of the
prophet that ^^ our sons and our daughters shall prophesy, and
our young men shall see visions, and our old men shall dream
dreams ^' — can it be said that their influence, unfelt, perhaps,
for the most part by men during the lifetime of those who
were favoured with them, increases ever more and more
through an unbroken chain of mysteries until the whole world
is leavened. It is the path of the just alone, which, like a
shining light, maketh increase unto a perfect day. It is only
the Author of unity. Who holds in His hands the threads of
devotion in which He brings out into practice the faith of His
Church in the great mysteries of religion. Who can thus
develop, according to the pattern in His own Divine Mind,
into a beautiful and perfect net-work the devotional revelations
— for of course there can be no fresh revelations of the Faith
once delivered to the saints— of one age with the worship and
practice of another. Let us look a little closer at the matter,
for the whole question of the devotion of the Church is full of
interest. The spirit of God, Who breathes when He wills,
inspires His Church with new devotions according to the
wants or abundance, the suflerings or the triumphs, the
humiliations or the victories of each succeeding age, or even
according to the peculiar nature of each passing vicissitude of
Christ's kingdom upon earth. The Church's devotions are,
so to speak, the characters in which God the Holy Ghost has
written the history of the Church which God the Son has
Pllyrimaye and raray-le-MoniuL 287
committed to His keeping. The spiritual life of the Church
and of the faithful is dependent upon the devotions with which
He inspires her, and to Him alone are known the times and
the moments when each new devotion shall arise. All the
devotions of the Church are parts of one mighty whole, means
towards one end ; and, as we have said more than once in the
pages of this Review, it is only when the necessities which
called them forth have become part of the history of the past,
that we can begin to understand them as a whole, or to grasp
the end for which they have been given. No generation can
fully comprehend its own special devotion, although it is the
very spirit which gives it life. It is only when the generation
has passed away that men can enter into all that was involved
in its nature and purpose. So, too, it will only be when the
last devotion shall have been breathed into the Church's mind
that we shall be able to grasp the whole of the marvellous
unity of her mystical life as developed and shown forth in the
devotions of her children.
Applying what we have said to the devotion to the S. Heart,
as manifested to B. Margaret Mary at Paray-le-Monial, we
shall have no difficulty in seeing how perfectly it is adapted
to the events of the times in which we live. It is especially
fitted to be the devotion of our own days. It was known,
indeed, to some of the saints of old. S. Augustine and S. Bona-
venturo and S. Bernard and S. Gertrude and S. Mechtild,
and B. Angela of Foligno, and not a few of the great mystic
writers of the Middle Ages had all tasted of its sweetness ;
still its full development was not for their times but for ours.
When S. Gertrude was favoured with a vision of S. John the
Evangelist, and asked him why he had not revealed all the
beatings of the heart of our Lord since he had felt them all
himself when leaning on His bosom, he replied, " That the
full persuasive sweetness of the beatings of that heart was
reserved to be revealed at a later time, when the world should
have gi'own old and be sunk in tepidity, that it might thus be
rel-indled and reaivahened to the love of God,''* ^ Those who
despise the vision of Paray-le-Monial will of course think still
less of the revelation made to S. Gertrude, but the children
of the Church, who believe and know that our Lord has never
ceased to manifest Himself to their Mother, His Bride on
earth, will see in the latter revelation the fulfilment of the
former, and will rejoice with joy unutterable that the grace
may still be given even to this poor world of ours — for never
* "Life of B. Margaret Mary'' (p. 349). By Father Tickell, S.J.
London : Bums & Gates.
288 Pilgnmage and Tnray'le'Moniah
before, since He came to save it, has it been so sunk in
tepidity, never has it been so unmindful of or ungrateful for
what He has done for it — to be rekindled and reawakened, if
only for a season, to i'aith in its Redeemer's love. For although
so lost in apathy, and, so far as its rulers are concerned, in a
state of apostasy from the King of kings, its state can never
be said to be hopeless, at least until the time of its final re-
jection of its Saviour. From the beginning, as we hinted above,
our Lord has always fitted the Church's devotions to the age
tlirough which it was passing, in order to preserve the hearts
of men in His service, or to win them to it. In the early ages,
when the memory of His sacred humanity was fresh and vivid
in the Church's mind. Ho led the faithful to dwell upon His
Godhead. At a later period, when the thought of His Eternal
Godhead had taken full possession of their minds, and when
the temptation might naturally arise to forget His manhood,
— for Satan is ever on the alert, — gradually, through His Holy
Spirit, He inspired His Church with such special devotions as
might remind them that, although the Eternal, Self-existent
God, He is also in all things Man like unto ourselves, with
a human heart, that can love with a human love, yet without
sin. When fear was growing stronger than love He raised up
His servant Francis of Assisi, amongst the hills of Umbria, and
stamped upon his hands and feet and side His own redeeming
Wounds, and sent hira forth to the world a living image of
Jesus crucified. From that hour to this the Holy Spirit has
not ceased to multiply devotions to the S. Humanity, to draw
the world to God by the ^^ cords of Adam and the bands of
love." First came a tenderer devotion to the Blessed Sacra-
ment of the altar, for the Holy Eucharist is the continuation
of the Incarnation in the world, the memorial of our Lord's
Passion containing within itself the Body that hung upon the
Cross, and the Precious Blood that was shed for men. By the
inspiration of the Holy Ghost the Church threw down the
screens that had hidden her sanctuaries from her people, and
brought forth her Lord from the silence of the tabernacle, and
set Him on His sacramental throne, and gathered all her
children round Him, and bade them come in familiar affection
to His very feet. She told her priests to lift Him up in their
arms, as Mary and Joseph had done of old, and bless them,
and carry Him in procession through their streets, that Hil
shadow passing over them might cast out their fear and re-
kindle their love. Later still, when, notwithstanding every
effort on His part, the love of men grew weaker and weaker
towards their Lord, and when a heresy of deadly coldness —
all the more dangerous because they who professed it remained
Pilgrimage and Paray- le-Monial. 289
outwardly members of the Church — was poisoning the life-
blood of the Church of France, and was eating its way into
Italy, and had already seized upon Austria with its death-like
gi'asp ; then it was that our Lord Himself broke through the
sacramental silence of His altar- throne, in that little convent-
chapel of the Visitation at Paray-le-Monial, on which now all
eyes are fixed. He held His own human heart in His human
hands. It was bleeding, and round about it was a crown of
thorns, and out of it came a flame of fire, and He asked His
humble daughter to give Him her own heart to rest in, for
He was wearied with the sins and ingratitude of men. Then,
too, it was that He declared that this manifestation of His
Sacred Heart was the last eflbrt of His love to gain the hearts
of those for whom He had died.
It is the spirit of this devotion which is now quickening the
faithful to a more earnest faith and a tenderer love ; and even
had not our Lord Himself proposed it as specially suited to
our own times, we could hardly have imagined any devotion
more calculated to convert the world, or more condemnatory
of the pride and self-sufficiency of the present day, than that
which gathers us in adoration before His Human Heart, Who,
although the mighty God, has proclaimed Himself the
meekest and the lowliest of the sons of men. For two
centuries the Spirit of the Sacred Heart has manifested itself
in various devotions to our Lord^s sufiering Humanity, and in
new feasts in honour of His thorn-crowned head. His wounded
hands and feet. His bleeding side, or His red precious blood.
The latter devotion, indeed, is but a development of that of
the S. Heart, and, unless we are mistaken, — already there are
many signs to this efiect which we cannot mention here — will
be spread far more widely than it is even at present, before
the end. The " Blood is the Life,'' and as with the Precious
Blood the Church of Christ began on earth, so with jt, it may
well be, will its earthly sojourn end. If devotion to the S.
Heart be the last effort of our Lord's love to gain the hearts of
men, then devotion to the Precious Blood is the last efi^ort of
the S. Heart itself. The last wound given to our Lord was
received by the S. Heart, yet when that Heart was opened,
there still flowed forth Blood and Water. Marvellous con-
nection ! The Incarnation is the summing up of all God's
wonderful works in the Person of Christ ; the Blessed
Sacrament of the altar is tho summing up of the Incarnation ;
the S. Heart is the summing up of the Blessed Sacrament,
while the Precious Blood is the summing up of the S. Heart,
because it is its life, and the S. Heart is its fountain and its
homo. But God is not mocked. When the Incarnation and
VOL. XXI. — NO. XLii. INeio SeriesJ] u
290 Pilgrirnage and Paray'le-MoniaL
the Blessed Sacrament and the S. Heart and the Precious
PJQod shall have done their work, and God can point to His
broken Heart, and to the last drop of His Precious Blood spilt
for the love of man — and can point in vaiii ; then, but not till
thei), the patience of the world's Creator will be exhausted,
an4 the cup of His sore anger will overflow, and the Mystery
of Iniquity will be revealed.
But why has the devotion to the S. Heart assumed at this
moment the distinctive form of pilgrimage, when with regard
to other modern devotions the faithful have been content to
enter into their spirit without connecting them so closely with
the place of their origin ? Many reasons might be given — too
many, ii^deed, to be given here ; but a few maybe singled out.
We have already stated it to be our beUef that the example of
13. Benedict Labre, and still more his beatification, have pro-
foundly influenced the Church of God, and that through his
powerful intercession the spirit of pilgrimage has once more
been poured upon the faithful. How general this has become
may be gathered from the fact mentioned above, that the Holy
Father has invited all Christians to visit in spirit the Holy
Places of Palestine, and the chief sanctuaries of Christendom
during this very month in which we are writing. But
other explanations are not difiicult to find. The workings of
the Holy Spirijj are never either violent or startling, and one
thing leads on to the other in His sweet and gentle Providence.
For the last twenty years, we may say, the Spirit of Pilgrim-
age has been growing in the Church, and the growth of this
devotion by an attentive observer may in great measure be
traced to the Mother of God, who overshadowed by the Spirit
of God at the moment of the Incarnation gave to the world its
Eedeemer, and who still, as then, the spouse of the same
Spirit, is ever bringing forth the members of His Mystical
Body and nourishing them, through her prayers and His grace.
Nothing is more striking, when we look back at the history
of the Church of God, than the way in which the Mother leads
to the Son, although, of course, it is not strange that it should
Le so; for it enters into the very essence of the Incarnation.
It was devotion to her Divine Maternity which secured for
ever the belief amongst the faithful in the Godhead of her Son.
It was an increase of tenderness and love towards herself
which paved the way for, and accompanied a tenderer devotion
to the B. Sacrament in the Middle Ages. So in like manner it
was devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary that led the
way to the propagation of the devotion to the Heart of her
Divine Son, for it was only a few months after the birth of
B. Margaret Mary, that Pere Eudes, the founder of a congre-
Pilgrimage and Paray'le'Monial. 291
gation dedicated to the pure Heart of our Lady, celebrated the
first solemn Mass in its honour within a few miles of the birth-
place of the Apostle of the Sacred Heart. So, too, in these
our days it has been the apparitions of our Lady at La Salette
and Lourdes, and the pilgrimages consequent upon them,
which have prepared the way for those now being made to
Paray-le-Monial. Most remarkable has been the increase of
devotion to the B. Mother of God throughout the Church
during the last quarter of a century, but its fruit is an increase
of the worship of her Son. But it is in the wants of our own
times that we shall find the especial reason why devotion to
the S. Heart has distinctively assumed the form of pilgrimage.
The world has ceased to believe in the Incarnation and in 5ie
Sacramental system, and in holy places and things — or at least
its belief in the former is but nominal, while the latter in its
eyes are simply superstitions. It has become necessary,
therefore, for all who still believe to profess their faith openly
in the face of the unbelieving world. But how can this better
be done than by their coming from every part of the world,
and falling down in prostrate adoration on the very spot,
where the human Heart of God has made Its last revela-
tion of love for the sons of men ; thus testifying by their
veneration of a holy place to their belief in the Sacramental
system, in which such veneration is involved, just as the
Sacramental system itself is involved in the Incarnation. We
say nothing here of the merit of these pilgrimages, although it
must, indeed, be great in the sight of God, since their very
object is the veneration of that which is dearest to Him, but at
which the world scofis. Of one thing we may be sure, that
there is joy araoiigst the angels in heaven, when they behold
how even now in the hour of the world^s apostasy, the Word,
Who was once seen, and touched, and handled upon earth, is
still drawing through His Human Heart, so many of the
children of men unto Himself from every country of the earth.
Yes, they have come and still are coming to the shrines o
their Redeemer's Heart. France from north to south, from
east to west, from the corn-fields of Flanders to the olive-trees
and vineyards of Provence, from the towering and snow-clad
Alps to the faithful and loyal homes of Brittany, has con-
secrated hprself by new ties to the service of her true King,
and, like her Clovis of old, may be said to have adored what
she had burnt, and to have burnt what she had adored.
Belgium, never found wanting in the hour of need, has sent
her children from her old historic cities or frpm her teeming
seats of industry to bear witness that theirs is still the spirit
of Godfrey de Bouillon^ whose statue looks 4own upon her
V 2
92 Pilgnmage and Parm/'le'Mmiial.
capital. Holland^ half of whose people is Catholic once again^
and whose bravery in the cause of the Holy Father will be
venerated with gratitude by after-ages, has been praying at
the throne of the S. Heart for the converision of all her sons.
If Italy and Spain are not so numerously represented, this is
only because of the tyranny which, under the pretence of advo-
cating a free Church in a free State, has ended by fettering the
limbs of the Bride of the Lamb in chains of iron, or of the
anarchy which necessarily springs from the rejection of the
Church's gentle yoke, while the noblest and the purest in the
former country are kneeling in spirit, as we know, at this very
moment, on the spot which their anti- Christian rulers will
not suffer them actually to visit. Not all the heart-rending
bitterness of war has been able to keep German pilgrims from
the soil which has been sanctified by Him, Whose will it is
that all the nations of the earth should live in fellowship
together. Already, we are told, the Catholics of the Americas
are preparing to cross the ocean, and to add their tribute of
intercession to the prayers of the Old World. Our own country,
where for two centuries our Lord's vineyard has been desolate
and waste, has brought her offerings to the little chapel among
the vineyards where He Who is the true Vine manifested His
desire to inebriate the world once again with the wine of His
love. When the pilgrims arrived it was England's hereditary
Earl Marshal who bore the banner of S. George, while the
silver cross of Scotland's S. Andrew glittered in the moonlight.
Ireland, on whose green fields S. Patrick's blessing rests almost
as something sacramental — unless we have been wrongly in-
formed— will soon put her sister nations to the blush both by
the number of her pilgrims, and the fervour of her loving faith.
Thus the whole Church of God may be said, now while we
write, to have cast herself in adoration before the Human
Heart of God.
What shall the end of these things be ? We cannot tell.
Not all our prayers may be heard ; not all our hopes may be
fulfilled; the triumph of the Church may be delayed a little
longer. But one thing we cannot doubt. There will spring
from the present movement, in which the finger of God is so
clearly visible, a livelier and more earnest faith, a more burning
charity, a more out-spoken testimony to the divinity of the
Church of God and to the value of her influence, a more bold
and unflinching policy in every Catholic nation under the sun,
and, in our Lord's own time, the recognition even by the world
itself that the Church which could produce such a movement
is none other than that " City which has foundations, whose
builder and maker is God."
pilgrimage and Faray-le-Moniah 293
Since the above article was written, the criticism of our
Protestant contemporaries on the pilgrimage to Paray-le-
Monial has somewhat shifted in its attacks. Recognizing, for
the most part, that the spirit of pilgrimage is natural, they
have reproached us for maintaining the revelation of the
Devotion to the Sacred Heart to have been a physical miracle.
In our article we have carefully guarded ourselves against
choosing any particular revelation as having given rise to the
devotion — all the revelations must be taken as a whole. They
have been subjected to the close- searching investigation of the
Holy See, and B. Margaret Mary has been declared by its
solemn judgment to have been full of the Holy Ghost ; while
the universal propagation of the devotion itself must be
recognized as a proof of its truth, for no mere illusion could
have so taken possession of the hearts of men — ^bringing forth
such manifold fruits of grace. But this is not the point on
which we wish now to touch: our object is to notice the
remarks of our contemporaries as to what they allege must
have been a physical miracle, or a mere imagination. His
Grace the Archbishop, in his telling letter to the Times (Sep-
tember 9), has by his allusion to the book which S. John, in
the revelation made to him, was told to take and eat, and
which was sweet to his mouth but bitter to his belly, shown
most clearly that the physical qualities of an object seen in
vision are to be read and understood !n the light and according
to the laws of God's Omnipotence. But we must not press his
words too far. Whether or not the revelations atParay-le-Monial
involved any " physical operation,'^ is known to God alone ; but
we, at least, as Catholics, cannot find it difficult of belief that
He Who, in Holy Communion, -lays His own Human, though
now glorified. Heart of Flesh side by side with our own, can also,
when it seems good to Him, operate even " physically '* upon
the hearts of men. It is true that theologians generally hold
that visions of our Lord'^s Humanity are not of His real Person;
but this does not exclude physical operation. We do not,
therefore, pronoAnce upon the question. With the Archbishop
we wish to interpret the visions of B. Margaret Mary according
to the laws of our Lord's Omnipotence, and all things are
possible to God. Probably, no ''physical'' operation took
place in these visions. They were, no doubt, spiritual mani-
festations meant in God's Providence, — and we press the
analogy upon those who still believe in Holy Writ, as a proof
of their truth, — to illustrate the ffreat Scripture doctrine that,
by His grace. He replaces our hearts of stone by hearts of
flesh. '' Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right
spirit within me." But we hold most strongly^ that whatever
294 PilgrimagG and Paray-le^MoniaL
the visions may have been, some of them left physical effects
upon the recipient. One of the proofs given by our Lord
Himself, seen by many witnesses, submitted to the judgment of
the Holy See, and approved by it, was the '^ wound in the
side of B. Margaret Mary, closed up/' The Spectator, —
always so courteous and in intention fair, dwells upon this fact.
But we ask the Spectator whether we do not find in Scripture
similar physical effects consequent upon visions. When Daniel
saw the vision of the ram and the he-goat — there is no reason
to suppose that either the one or the other stood before him in
reality, — ^he " fainted, and was sick certain days, and afterwards
rose up and went about the king's business.'' When Saul
saw a light from heaven on the road to Damascus, and heard
the voice of the Lord Jesus, he was struck blind, and after-
wards, when he recovered his sight, scales fell from his eyes.
What are these but physical effects? We know what the
Spectator will answer, — what, indeed, it has already answered
— that the dreams of " sensuous " visionaries ought to be
expunged from Scripture. The Spectator, however, has not
yet lost faith in S. Paul. But to reply to this would be to
re-open the whole question of the authority of Holy Writ.
Enough now to say that the Catholic Church interprets all
God's revelations — to use again the Archbishop's words — by
the laws of His Omnipotence. CathoUcs, at least, will find no
difficulty in recognizing the physical effects of B.Margaret
Mary's vision. To their minds will rise up, at once, the
blessed wounds of God Incarnate, imprinted on the hands and
feet and heart of S. Francis of Assisi, which sanctified his own
fair land of Umbria, and which his disciple, Bonaventure,
tells us he heard Pope Alexander IV. declare in a public
sermon that ho had himself seen. They cannot forget how,
even in a more wonderful way than with B. Margaret.
Mary, the heart of S. Catherine of Bologna was taken
from her, and replaced, for a time, by the Heart of Him
Who loved her. They, at least, will call to mind how,
when the Spirit of God overflowed the heart of S. Philip Neri
with holy joy, it burst his ribs asunder. Nor can those who,
like the present writer, have worshipped at the shrine of
B. Claae of Monte-falco, forget the crucifix and the emblem of
our Lord's Passion, stamped on the very centre of her heart,
now divided in two, that all the \yorld may see them. The
Spectator* no doubt will see in these remarks ^^a concentration
of acts of devotion " round all sorts of doubtful sanctuaries ;
but we must be allowed to affirm, openly before men, that we
Catholics still believe in the visions of the Old and New
Testament, whether ". sensuous " or . not, and believing also
Bousseau. 295
that God has left an authority upon earth, which not only
can set its seal upon doctrine, but also upon the devotion
of the faithful, so that they shall never be misguided, — that
we do not think it either childish or unmanly to hold that Ho
Who became Man for our sakes that He might be " seen, and
touched, and handled,'^ should also in that Church which ih
His Body, work, according to His good pleasure, frOm time to
time visibly, and sensibly, and physically amongst the Sons Of
men.
Art. II.— ROUSSEAU
Bomseau. By John Morley. 2 vols. London : Chapman & HalL 187?*
AN important literary work may be criticised in two leading
points of view — either with reference to the writer him-
self, and the school to which he belongs, or with reference to
the subject-matter of his book. Mr. Morley's "Life of
Rousseau^' deserves more than ordinary attention in both
these respects. It is not so much that this biography is
written in order to set forth peculiar ideas, though it contains
many a pageful of discussions unnecessary to the completeness
of his portrait of Rousseau ; but, having such ideay, Mr, Morley
writes under their influence throughout, and they appear
almost the more prominently when they are the less obtruded.
The work belongs to a class in national literature, at present
in but an early stage of its career, which is tending to revolu-
tionize English thought, and to add another stream to that
ever-ascending flood of infidelity which long since submerged
France and Germany. We say " infidelity,^^ though the word is
now scarcely an adequate representation of the thmg. Voltaire
and Diderot and their followers were infidels. Rousseau was
an infidel, though of a type specifically different. But in those
old days infidelity still had the inward consciousness of rebellion.
It was as though its adherents wore the Phrygian cap of
liberty, a sign that they had been but recently freed from
what they had learned to look upon aS a yoke of bondage.
But the modern infidels, and the English As much as any,
have more faith in their attitude as belligerent powers, and
seek to construct a new church, in which even the name of
God shall be blotted out, and out of which shall disappear into
296 Bovsseau.
non-entity Christianity and all other religions. A kind of faith
is, notwithstanding, expected to arise out of this nothingness to
govern man's life and to supply the cravings of his imagination
(we were going to say spirit — but the distinction of body and
spirit is denied), for something higher than a life that ends
with himself. We shall endeavour to collect from these
volumes the theory which underlies them in the matter of
religion, and give it, as far as may be, in Mr. Morley's own
words. It rests on the view now familiar to most readers of
the speculations of the day — that of Positivism, which has
a triple formula calculated to enable the least original of
thinkers to solve, much to his own satisfaction, the most
important problems that meet us in history. Theological,
metaphysical, positive — these three words are to pick every
lock. As for the manner in which they are handled, we find
a good example in Mr. Morley's criticism on Rousseau^s
" Discourse on the Origin of Inequality.'' He tells us that men
first thought of the phenomena of society as manifestations
of the will of deities ; these deities gradually were reduced to
a single divinity ; -then this divinity as gradually lost person-
ality, and was announced in the form of moral government of
the universe, superintending providence, &c., and ho illus-
trates the same doctrine in the field of poUtics, where divine
right stands for the theological principle, contract or natural
right for the metaphysical (i. p. 156). What then con-
stitutes the positive stage ? That, it seems, we have not yet
quite arrived at. Europe was already, in Rousseau's age,
'^too strong for the christian dogma, and not yet strong
enough to rest in a provisional co-ordination of the results of
its own positive knowledge" (i. p. 76). If we ask in what
this co-ordination of results is likely to land us, the answer is
rather vague. Baron d'Holbach and the dogmatic atheists he
entertained were too sanguine in expecting that "every root
and fragment of theistic conception" was to disappear at
once with "the superstitions which had grown round the
christian dogma." Mr. Morley expects " the slow growth of
some replacing faith " to retain the elements of beauty he
admits the old belief exhibited. It must not be Deism — that
is too vague, florid, and subjective to be the doctrinal basis of
a visible church. " It binds up religion with an object whose
attributes can neither be conceived nor defined" (ii. p. 277).
And yet he compliments Christianity as having contributed to
the Western world " those moods of hoUness, awe, reverence,
and silent worship of an unseen not made with hands which
the christianizing Jews first brought from the east" (p. 257).
Those deeper moods he thinks ''most ally themselves with
Bousseau, 297
something still more purely spiritual than the anthropomor-
phized deities of the falling church'* (p. 258). What then^
pray tell us, asks the reader on whom the dream of this revolu-
tion has not yet shone, is this new faith we are to look for ?
Simply this, if we understand Mr. Morley correctly: the
religious sentiment, which with him is feeling about the
highest forces that govern human destiny, is to centre itself on
humanity, that is, on the human race, what it has done or
suffered in the past, and what it may achieve, or may be done
for it, in the future. Instincts of holiness, a sense of awe and
sublimity, he would encourage, but base them, not on the
unseen and the infinite, which he seems to relegate into the
regions of the unknown, if not of the impossible, but on what
is seen and known — " man's awful procession from the regions
of impenetrable night,'* his struggles, in successive genera-
tions, with material difficulties, and with his own passions, and
the gradual building-up of the well-being of the race. His
notions of the mystery administered by this strange religion
seem suggested by an eloquent passage in the same key in
Carlyle's Sartar Resartus. From this religion he eliminates
the notion of mortal sin, of spiritual pride, of mortification, of
ecstasy, of terror, of heaven or of hell, but maintains, by the
example of Condorcet (!) that it will afford in death " as
religious a solace as any early martyr ever found in his barba-
rous mysteries " (vol. ii. p. 279). We will quote one passage
more at length, to show how completely the writer (who, let
it be well understood, has not broken with morality, but talks,
as wo shall see, with the gravity of one who recognizes
much that we associate with the divine law) accepts the belief
of the African savage that the spirit of man is extinguished
with the life of his body. Rousseau had consoled himself for
the loss of his friend Madame de Warens, in the hope that he
should be reunited with her in another world. The following
is the commentary of his biographer on this text :
To pluck so gracious a flower of hope on the edge of the sombre echoless
gulf of nothingness into wbich our friend has slid silently down, is a natural
impulse of the sensitive soul, numbing remorse and giving a moment's relief
to the hunger and thirst of a tenderness that has been robbed of its object ;
yet would not men be more likely to have deeper love for those about them,
and a keener dread of filling a house with aching hearts, if they courageously
realized from the beginning of their days that we have none of this perfect
companionable bliss to promise ourselves in other worlds, that the black and
horrible grave is indeed the end of oiir communion, and that we know one
another no more ? (vol. i. p, 226).
It is thus tolerably apparent that Mr. Morley is quite a
. 298 Rou88eau.
fanatic in this strange worship of the new idol set up in the
temples of the Revolution, called Humanity, which pretends
not to offer its votaries anything beyond the grave. . He is
equally fanatic in his hostility to the religion which he ima-
gines this idol is to displace. Perhaps it may be a question
whether we ought to reproduce the blasphemies which he
throws out, as occasion offers, the like of which English writers
of the respectable class have hardly ventured on since the
time of Shelley^s ''Queen Mab.'^ But it seems almost
necessary that Catholic public writers should not disguise the
extent to which this plague has now spread, or the prospect
of its spreading a great deal farther before it is subdued. We
will quote two examples. He speaks of the doctrine of the
fall and depravity of man as ''the false mockeries of the
shrine of the Hebrew divinity,^' as "the palsied and crushing
conception of this excellent and helpful being, as a poor
worm, writhing under the vindictive and meaningless anger
of an omnipotent tyrant in the large heavens, only to be ap-
peased by sacerdotal intervention '^ (vol. ii. p. 196) ; and
again calls one idea of God that of " a grim chief justice of
the universe,^' and another (referring to de Maistre, to whom
he gives a prominence which shows rather narrow reading
in Catholic theological literature) " that of a blood-smeared
monster as from some steaming shrine in old Mexico''
(vol. ii. p. 267).* To talk polemics when weapons like these
are used, would be idle. The hideous images here substituted
for divine justice and love, are only the signs, not the causes,
of hostility to what has ministered to the holiest of men since
the world began all that made their character lovely and
noble. That they are found in combination with so keen a
perception as Mr. Morley displays of the degradation of the
worst sins in a life like Rousseau's, is a new feature in the
infidelity of the present day, making it more dangerous to
some minds, because less repulsive than that which was allied
with uncleanness. They will find out, sooner or later, that the
goddess " Humanity " will never wash her worshippers clean
of such stains. There is but one source of purity to the
chaste, or of recovery to the fallen, and in vain will it be looked
for from any such earth-born idol as his.
Our readers will now understand that whilst the spirit
which Mr. Morley brings with him to the composition of the
life of Rousseau may make his views on certain important
points in appearance coincide with those a Christian writer
* It ^orth that Mr. Morley invariably spells the name of God
with a till inj
Bovssea/u. 299
woald take^ this coincidence shows not the least identity of
principle. As a penetrating analysis of character and a veiy
conscientious as well as masterly picture of the career of its
miserable subject, we can give the work all the commendation
it deserves. It shows a light, but at the same time very
telling touch throughout. AH the more unfortunate that the
author has committed his self-esteem so decisively to errors
which, by some convulsive action of the mind, grace (much
as he despises the name) may yet make him throw off. What
we shall now attempt is to give a sketch of the great leading
traits of Rousseau^s development and literary works, referring
to the originals, and to Mr. Morley's exposition of them. This
involves a notice of Rousseau^s moral character, his conversion
to Catholicism, his apostasy, his political philosophy, and his
theory of education. The " Confessions " from which the
story of Rousseau^s life is obtained is, in its way, a book of
which happily there is no other example. Many have written
their autobiographies, and even told the world their guilty
actions, repented of or not ; many have revealed a part of
themselves in religious journals, oftener, perhaps, a source of
self-deceit rather than an efficient means of enlightening others
as to their conduct. But Rousseau alone has put on record
the " rise and progress '^ of uncleanness in his soul, not its
results merely, but the process of its formation. And he
tells it with little or no remorse, rather with satisfaction. Of
remorse, indeed, there is plenty, and the book itself springs
frorp. the feeling, but it is not spent upon the worst of the
things avowed. To proceed, however, with our proposed
outline.
Jean Jacques Rousseau was bom in 1712, at Geneva, of a
Calvinist family, originally French. His father was a watch-
maker, his mother the daughter of a minister. She died iu
giving him birth, and his earliest years were influenced by his
father, a man of whom he speaks with some respect and affec-
tion; but whose moral character appears to have been in-
different. The way the father amused both himself and his
son of an evening, when the latter was only six or seven years
old, was this. They read romances aloud by turns, and even
spent the whole night in this occupation. It happened some-
times that the father, hearing the swallows at daybreak, would
say, '' Come, let us go to bed. I am more a child than you
are.^^ How sad a future was insured by so miserable a
training I Rousseau, of course, admits this, and says that he •
derived from this dangerous amusement of the years of infancy
not merely an extreme readiness in reading and compre-
hending, but a knowledge of the passions which at his age-
300 Rousseau.
was uniqne. A little later this reading was exchanged for the
healthier food of Plutarch, which, however, the child imbibed
with all that imaginative enthusiasm for the heroes of Greek
and Roman republicanism which their imitators in the French
Revolution displayed on such a scale some sixty years later.
At about the age of ten he was sent to school at the house of a
minister named Lambercier, and here, like other boys, he made
his first acquaintance with sensual temptation, to which, from
the very commencement, he appears to have yielded without
an efibrt at resistance, impure curiosity and evil thoughts
first getting their dominion over his soul, followed in due
season by their natural fruit of impure actions, and, in the
end, by the equally natural fruit of gloom, suspicion, delusive
and miserable imaginations, and the whole train of dark
passions which form the shade of a life of sin. Mr. Morley
has exhibited in a few very powerful and striking words the
inevitable sequence of states of mind which arise where no
effort has been made by a man to become master of himself,
nor any timely guard taken against "the playmate with
which unwarned youth takes its heedless pleasure, and
which waxes and strengthens with years, until the man sud-
denly awakens to find the playmate grown into a master,
grotesque and foul, whose unclean grip is not to be shaken
off, and who poisons the air with the goatish fume of the
satyr. It is on this side (he adds) that the unspoken plays so
decisive a part, that most of the spoken seems but as dust
in the balance ^' (vol. i. p. 15). To the same period of
Rousseau^s childhood belongs an incident, in itself very trifling,
but important from the great prominence he gives it, a case
of his being unjustly suspected of a piece of mischief, the
passionate and enduring resentment he felt in consequence
being all the more noticeable because he himself, later on,
greatly stained his conscience by becoming an unjust accuser
from the most cowardly motives. As he drifted towards
manhood, his friends vainly tried to settle him in a notary's
office, and then as apprentice to a watchmaker. The latter
employer treated him with great harshness, which led, at
about the age of sixteen, to his running away from Geneva,
and to the train of events which rendered him so miserable
and so conspicuous.
After some rambling Rousseau betook himself to a M. de
Pontverre, the cure of a parish near Geneva, whose family
happened to be connected historically with the Republic, and
therefore interested the youthful and imaginative wanderer.
At that time the work of conversion was pretty actively carried
pn in Savoy ; the cur^ and his young guest got to talk on
Rousseau, 301
religion, and Rousseau, though, as he says, he had a horror
of Catholicism, accepted a letter from him to Madame de
Warens, a convert-lady residing at Annecy, who was to help
him further on his way. This lady, whose connection with
Rousseau has rendered her too famous, was of noble family,
still young, twenty-eight at the time we speak of, and very
fascinating and beautiful. She had made an unhappy marriage,
was parted from her husband, had become a Catholic, and had
a small pension from the King of Piedmont. She was a friend
of a saintly bishop of Geneva, M. de Bernex, and lived, ex-
ternally at all events, the life of a good Catholic, spending
much in charitable works. There was a great deal, however,
behind, to explain all that followed, and which we shall notice
as we proceed. She immediately patronized Rousseau, and
enabled him to go to Turin, where he was admitted into an
establishment called the Hospice of Catechumens, and placed
under instruction with a view to being received into the
Catholic Church. In this hospice he met with some wretches
of detestable character and morals, who went about as real or
pretended Jews and Moors, desirous of becoming Catholics,
and earning alms by hypocritical conversion. Rousseau,
though not sunk in infamy like theirs, yet, by his own account,
had no better motives for the step he contemplated. He uses
this strong language on the subject : " I could not disguise
from myself that the holy work I was going to do was at
bottom nothing but the action of a bandit. Though still quite
young, I felt that whatever religion was the true one, I was
going to sell mine, and that even though I chose well, I was
going, in the bottom of my heart, to lie to the Holy Ghost,
and to deserve the contempt of mankind.'' However, he had
too many secret reasons for him not to go on. He had made
up his mind never to return to Geneva ; he had no friends or
resources, and he thought he had gone too far to recede, so in
about nine days (he himself says a month) he made his
abjuration, and became a Catholic. He therefore avows
that his conversion was false and sacrilegious. Perhaps after
this no more need be said about it; still we confess there
are things that incline us to think that, once a Catholic, he
did, for a considerable time, intend to remain such. There is
a curious story in the Confessions, belonging to a period three
years later, about a fire having taken place near Madame de
Warens^ house at Annecy. The Bishop de Bernex happened
to be there, and assembled the household in the garden to
pray for the divine assistance. The fire abated, and this in-
cident, being considered miraculous, was one of the facts
adduced with a view to the bishop's beatification. Two years
302 Rouaaeau.
afterwards Rousseau himself furnished an attestation of it^
and says : '^ so far as I can recall my ideas, being then sincerely
Catholic, I was of good faith. The love of the marvellous, so
natural to the human heart, my veneration for this virtuous
prelate, the secret pride of having perhaps myself contributed
to the miracle, aided in leading me astray ; and what is certain
is that if this miracle had been the effect of the most ardent
prayers, I might indeed have been able to claim my own part
in it/'* Later on, he also speaks of his confessor, though at a
time when he was living in habitual sin. As to any assthetical
feelings connected with Catholic worship, we of course do not
bring them into this question. Rousseau remained a CathoUc,
at least in name, until 1754, that is for twenty-six years, when
he apostatized, by being readmitted into the Calvinist com-
munion. Mr. Morley says that in this act he was not leaving
Catholicism, to which he had never really passed over, and
calls his original conversion a farce. It is diflScult to judge,
especially with reference to a mind that played such fearful
pranks with itself as Rousseau's, but if we accept his account
of himself in one part, we must in another, unless it is irre-
concilable; and, as we have seen, Rousseau as distinctly
declares his sincerity at one period, as he does his insincerity
at another.
After knocking about for some time at Turin, he obtained
employment as a lackey in the house of a Madame de Vercellis,
who died in about three months. Her death led to one of the
most painful incidents in Rousseau's Confessions, An old
piece of rose-and-silver ribbon had struck the boy's fancy.
He stole it, and when it was missing on the examination of
the property, and found in his possession, he accused an inno-
cent girl, a kitchen-maid, of having given it to him. She lost
her place in consequence, and bitter self-reproach for this base
action never quitted Rousseau to the end of his life. Afterwards
he got a situation in the household of a Piedmontese nobleman,
the Count de Gouvon, when, being seen to be something out
of the common order, he received lessons in Latin from a
member of the family, and would doubtless have been pushed
on in life, but for his own folly. He got restless from the
society of an idle companion, was dismissed, and made his way
back in 1 729 to Madame de Warens at Annecy. So far, there
was small promise of anything remarkable in his career ; for
besides the mean and cowardly proceeding we have mentioned,
other stains attach to the Turin period of Rousseau's life, par-
ticularly the guilty indulgence of his imagination, as before.
Madame de Warens received him kindly, and after a while
* Yid. hid Confessions, I. iii. p. 112, ed« Didot.
Rausseau. 303
he made an ineflfectual trial of his vocation for the priesthood
in the seminary at Annecy. Next he was sent to accompany a
friend to Lyons, who had been his teacher in music, and to
stay with him as long as he had occasion for him. This friend
was seized with epilepsy in the street. Rousseau called for
assistance, told the people the name of his friend^s hotel, and
then slipped away out of the crowd, leaving the poor man in
a strange city to his fate, and went back to Annecy. Madame
de Warens was absent in Paris, and the interval was spent by
Rousseau in rambling about on foot. For a time he was inter-
preter to a Greek archimandrite on a begging tour. He made
a short visit to Paris, also to Lyons, and by leading a vagabond
life, he acquired that sympathy for the common people, the
rude, struggling classes, which afterwards gave to his writings
their revolutionary fire. Thus he tells how he asked for dinner
at a peasant^s cottage, who at first only gave him barley-bread
and skimmed milk, but ventured, after due caution, to produce
good brown bread, ham, and a bottle of wine, the reason of his
keeping them back at first being his dread of the tax-
gatherers : he would be a ruined man, he said, if they did not
think he was dying of hunger. This made a powerful impres-
sion on Rousseau's mind, as well it might. The present writer
can recall a parallel anecdote in connection with Ireland.
Many years ago, in Gal way, a countryman remarked to him :
'' If a landlord sees a poor man with a good coat on his back,
he never rests till he has raised the rent ! '' Rousseau at last
made his way back to Savoy, found Madame de Warens at*
Chamberi, and there took up his residence in her house, finding
employment for some time in a government office and after-
wards as a teacher of music.
Madame de Warens was, as we have said, a convert-lady,
but she was one of a very peculiar type, who modified Catholic
morals, as well as Catholic faith, to suit her' own ideas. At an
early period of life she had unhappily fallen into the hands of
a bad man who was her preceptor, and who succeeded in con-
vincing her that there was no sin in compliance with the pas-
sions. Without, as it appears, any violent temptations of her
own, she deliberately acted upon this theory, and habitually
led an immoral life, first with one, and then with another of
those who attracted her fancy, and so acted, as Rousseau says,
without the smallest scruple or hesitation. On Rousseau's return,
he soon discovered that his patroness was living in this way with
a certain Claude Aet, her steward ; and within no long time,
he himself, by her own proposal, also became her paramour,
the arrangement being made with as much formality as if it
had been a simple question of taking him for her husband.
Not long after, Aet died, in consequence' of fatigue in an
304* Rousseau,
Alpine expedition, and Bousseau then, till 1 738, seems to have
kept the undivided attachment of this miserable woman. Their
time was spent between Chamb^ri and a country residence,
and, from Bousseau^s description, it was a period of the most
complete satisfaction in a life of sin that can easily be imagined.
He was passionately fond of his mistress ; he had the most
intense delight in the beauties of nature, in all that sensuous
admiration of scenery which he was the first to infuse into
European literature, and ho revelled in all the intellectual
pleasures "which books aflforded him, forming his mind by the
best process of self-education he could think of. He studied
Voltaire, the Port-royal Logic, Leibnitz, Descartes, &c. &c.,
trusting to develop the power of thinking, rather by the pro-
cess of reading than by any positive and independent eflfortj —
a desultory method, which his biographer justly condemns. At
length, he took it into his dreamy head, in consequence of the
study of some surgical work, that he had a polypus in the
heart ! and went ofi^ to Moutpellier to get it cured. It proved
to be all nonsense, and he came back ; but on his return found
his place as lord of the household usurped by a rival, named
Vinzenried. He remonstrated in vain, the charm of his Eden
of sin had departed, and he left Madame de Warens finally in
1 741 . We hear little more of her ; but some thirteen years later
she had fallen into poverty and had become a mere wreck.
Rousseau saw her in 1754, and reproached himself for not
taking care of her last most unhappy years, which lingered -
out till about 1 762. Her life presents one of those soft but
unprincipled careers which always end in shallows and
miseries. The explanation of it is not very diflScult. She had
evidently substituted her own vague, misty notions for an
objective creed, and probably lived in an atmosphere of bad
confessions. Whilst leading the life we have described, she
was careful, for example, to have mass said in her chapel on
the feast of her patron-saint, at daybreak, previous to spending
the day with Rousseau picnicking in the woods. She denied
a hell, but admitted a purgatory, and, somehow or other,
seems to have believed she could still be a good Catholic,
interpreting the Church in her own sense.
Quitting Madame de Warens, Rousseau at first found em-
ployment for a year in tuition, and though in practice he was
anything but successful, he then laid the foundation of the
fine-spun theories which carried the world by storm in
'' Erailius.*' He came to Paris and failed in getting people
to accept a reform in musical notation he had invented. All
at once, in 1743, he got what seemed the brilliant appointment
of secretary of the French Embassy at Venice. There he spent
Rousseau. 305
eighteen months, from which, however, no significant result
came ; he quarrelled with the ambassador, acquired new disgust
for the civil institutions of his age, and returned to Paris once
more to h've by his wits. Hardly had he got there, when he
formed with a kitchen-maid, Theresa le Vasseur, whom he
met at a shabby hotel, a connection which lasted the remainder
of his life, and which for a long time made him, as he thought,
very happy, and in the end, as he knew, very miserable. This
woman was, perhaps, the last to whom a man of genius might
have been expected to attach himself, — ignorant and stupid to
such a degree that she could not even be taught to remember
the order of the months, or to tell what o^clock it was from
the dial-plate. Rousseau believed he found in her a goodness
of heart, a sentiment which was enough to furnish out his
felicity, as his social creed was exclusive of all the tinsel of
civilization. So they set up in life together, he from the first
declaring he would always remain attached to her, but would
never make her his wife. This latter resolution, twenty-five
years afterwards, he graciously waived, and nominally did
recognize her as his wife, though no religious ceremony, and
no legal ceremony that would pass current as such anywhere
but in Scotland, ever took place between them. Theresa le
Vasseur bore him five children, all of whom he disposed of by
putting them in the Foundling Hospital, and losing all trace
of them. This shocking procedure, which is the more odious
from his elaborate preachings about parental sentiment,
seems at first to have been suggested very simply by his con-
versation with a bad set of people that surrounded him
at Paris. Afterwards he learned to justify it by canting
philosophical talk about the Spartan education. But he never
succeeded in stilling tjie voice of conscience in the matter,
which evidently haunted him to the last. His poor concu-
bine always struggled against this remorseless immolation of
her children, but in vain. It probably had a great deal to do
with her subsequent estrangement from Rousseau, for in his
later years she could not endure him, and they led a miserable
life, forming a very dark background to his early pictures of
simple happiness, — in which the very suspicion of anything
wrong appeared to be successfully excluded from his mind.
Mr. Morley, whilst censuring Rousseau^s criminality towards
his children as it deserves, extenuates it on the ground of his
remorse, and of his confession of his own guilt, but consider-
ably more by the contrast of a furious attack on clergymen
and others who favour what he calls " the common and rather
bestial opinion in favour of reckless propagation.^' We shall
quote his doctrine on this subject, which is borrowed from
VOL. XXI. — NO. XLii. [New Series.] x
806 liousscau.
Mill and publicists of that school. Mr. Morley says: ''It
really seems no more criminal to produce children with the
deliberate intention of abandoning them to public charity, as
Rousseau did, than it is to produce them in deliberate reliance
on the besotted maxim that he who sends mouths will send
meat, or any other of the spurious saws which make Providence
do duty for self-control, and add to the gratification of physical
appetite the grotesque luxury of religious unction'' (vol. i.
p. 125). Often as the wicked principle on which this declama-
tion rests has been maintained of late years, we have never
once seen in the writings or speeches of its supporters the
least condemnation of the well-known fact that it is exten-
sively carried out in France by a systematic violation of natural
laws, rendering the consciences of thousands of unhappy
women wretched, seared as may be those of their husbands,
and rapidly bringing society to the state it was when, under
the Roman empire, governments seriously took alarm at the
dwindling of the degenerate population, smitten with the
blight of immorality.
Rousseau's genius was one of late expansion. He had
reached his forty-ninth year when he obtained the prize
awarded by the Academy of Dijon to his famous essay on the
question : " Has the restoration of the sciences contributed to
purify or to corrupt manners ? " which he supplemented by
another essay, three years later, on the question : " What is
the origin of inequality among men, and is it authorized by
the natural law ? " He has himself given an extraordinary
description of the excitement under which the first of these
essays was conceived. He met with the announcement of the
subject in a newspaper, and was immediately seized with a
most overpowering rush of thought, under which he sank upon
the ground, shed floods of tears and almost lost consciousness.
When we consider the tremendous eflTect these treatises were
destined to have in revolutionizing French and even European
society, being the great fountain-heads of the stream of
" Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity " which loosened all the
foundations of society for a whole century, we cannot be
surprised that their author was in no common and every-day
state of mind when he devised them. Mr. Morley regards the
phenomenon as very easily accounted for. Rousseau had been
meditating on politics for seven years past, ever since his
residence at Venice, and now the hidden process burst into
light all at once, and the man took it for a trance. As the
biographer absolutely rejects the supernatural, he obviously is
obliged to explain the marvellous by causes which seem very
inadequate ; but we are precluded from arguing with him on
Rousseau. 307
individual conclusions, differing as we do so entirely upon first
principles. It is, however, unnecessary to suppose Rousseau's
excitement as supernatural, however able an instrument ho
may have been of evil powers in the work he contemplated.
Reading the work quietly, after the dust of more than a
hundred years has gathered over it, we are astonished to think
that it was written in such frenzy, or that it produced so
prodigious an effect upon the human mind. The essays ought
not to have deceived even the youngest mind that was accus-
tomed to think calmly. But they fell on the world " like fire
to heather set,'' and what perhaps now would put the majority
of plain readers to sleep, in the year 1754 could drive them
into delirium. The eighteenth century in its first three quarters
was, on the whole, one of a formal, stereotyped genius, highly
artificial and conservative. Such a social temperament is one
very liable to be carried by storm, if any one chooses to make
a bold attack, because it has little real strength in it, and its
hatred of change is built upon nothing but worldliness. We
may bo aided in understanding it by the extreme instance of
Japan, a country for more than two hundred years crystallized
by a conservatism compared with which that of Europe was
revolution itself, and now childishly sweeping every comer of
its social system with the besom of changes perfectly foreign
and incongruous. In Europe the changes arose from the
fermentation of the corruption into which it had sunk. To
return, however, to Rousseau's essays. Mr. Morley has given
a careful analysis of them, and has stated some of the objec-
tions against them with great clearness and ability. We do
not propose to enter into a formal outline of them, but we
shall endeavour to state their leading points, and to bring out
the idea which Rousseau had thoroughly developed in his
mind, thoroughly believed in, and was thus able, by means ol
it, to master other minds not possessed with any idea of their
own, and therefore incapable of resisting the persuasions of
a sophist who had first persuaded himself.
He begins by a declamation against the uniformity and
hollo wn ess of modern society, in which the manners are all
moulded upon one type, which makes people externally resemble
each other, by a general show of kindness and politeness,
veiling hatred, suspicion, and a whole train of vices.
This depravation he thinks obvious, and he finds the cause
by an easy jump. Virtue has diminished fi:om among men in
exact proportion to the growth of knowledge, and his proof is
the history of the a^icient world; Egypt, Greece, Rome, in
their rude and early days, having been the seats of conquering
nations, and brought to decrepitude and degradation by
X 2
308 Ilousseau.
literature and science. The early Persians, the Scythians,
and the Germans are his examples, on the other hand, of
energy accompanying what he calls "a happy ignorance/'
Further, the boasted arts and sciences took their rise from so
many vices, — astronomy from superstition, geometry from
avarice, physics from idle curiosity, and so on. The diflBculty
of finding out nature's secrets is a warning of the danger that
attends their discovery. And the pursuit in which scientific
men consume their lives, investigating, for instance, the pro-
perties of curves, the revolutions of the planets, or the strange
generations of insect-life, are all of them useless to good
government and the real well-being of mankind. Now and
then, indeed, a sage like Bacon might have a special call to a
life of research for the benefit of mankind, but these ex-
ceptional minds needed no teacher but Nature herself.
The Discourse on Inequality carried these flimsy but
mischievous paradoxes a stage further. Without troubling
himself with facts, Rousseau threw back his imagination to a
period when the earth was covered with forests, and among
these forests roamed the savage ancestors of civilized men, in
a state of independence and freedom; not associated with
each other, their bodily powers in a state of high health and
of animal perfection, their minds in a condition of cheerful
blank. He made freedom, and not reason, the true distinguish-
ing characteristic of man. Among his arguments for savage
independence as the natural state of mankind, he laid great
stress on the extreme difficulty that must have attended the
formation of language, which is essential to society. Then, as
to animal perfection, that was gained by exposure to the
weather, and by the need of defending themselves against the
brute creation. The acquisition of instruments, even of the
simplest kind, Bousseau thought must have diminished the
strength and activity of the primitive man, whom he armed
merely with stones, a good stick, and a power of appropriating
to himself the instincts which are dispersed among the various
tribes inferior to him. Virtues are scarcely attributes that
could belong to beings like these ; yet the essayist insisted
they could not be wicked, for the very reason that they knew
not what goodness meant, and that at least they possessed the
positive virtue of pity, arising, it seems, from innate repug-
nance to see their fellow-creature suffering. As for love, in
the sense of preference, it was not to be found in this charming
ideal of primeval humanity, which was content with the
gratification of the mere physical passion.
Inequality, among " salvage men ^' of this type, he conceived
there could belittle, living as they did with simplicity and
Rousseau. 309
uniformity, on the same aliments, and doing exactly the same
things ; discoveries, if made, would perish with the inventors,
and ages would roll over leaving man still a child. But he
fancied that a time arrived when this state of things under-
went a slight change, and his primitive human animals passed
into the condition of savagery, as the term is commonly under-
stood. Differences of soil and climate led to the resources,
rude as compared with those of civilization, but still of an
artificial kind, — the line, the hook, the bow and arrows.
Volcanoes, he thinks, or the effect of lightning, may have
suggested the use of fire. Gradually the idea of relation came
in, of mutual help in the chase which afforded the savages
their livelihood, yet mutual help not as yet developed into any
settled associations. Huts were constructed, introducing a
kind of property, but of an inchoate, imperfect description.
The family began to form itself, and the faculty of speech was
more developed.* The love of praise, finding its material in
dance and song, was the first step towards inequality. But
on the whole, Rousseau vaunts this early state of savage life
as the happiest, and as that which nature intended to be
permanent, the real youth of the human race, at which
collectively it would have wished to stop, as the individual
would wish to stop, in the very bloom of his years. But the
introduction of complete inequjJity he ascribes to the two arts
of metallurgy and agriculture, discoveries which led men to
associate their fellows in great numbers in order to work for
the benefit of others, not of themselves, and which in process
of time changed the primeval forests into cultivated fields,
whence comes division of land, property, and the distinction
of ranks. Next, he supposes social evils, wars, and fightings
arising from these changes, to have led to the institution of
laws and magistracies, which he regards as an adroit usur-
pation, presenting itself as a remedy, but in reality the
destruction of natural liberty, and itself giving place in the
end to arbitrary power, the last degree of inequality. Such
* Rousseau's notions of the development of society look very like a mere
expansion of half a dozen lines in Horace : —
Gum prorepseront primis animalia terris,
Mutum et turpe pecus, glandem atque cubilia propter,
Unguibus et pugnis, dein fustibus atque ita porro
Pugnabant armis, quae post fabricaverat usus ;
Donee verba, quibus voces sensusque notarent,
Nominaque invenere. Dehinc absistere bello,
Oppida cceperunt munire, et ponere leges,
Ne quis fur esset neu latro, neu quis i^ulter.
Hor,, Sat I., iil 99-106.
310 Rousseau.
was Rousseau^s theory, but put forth by him, heightened and
coloured with a resentful, angry rhetoric, which, meeting with
minds deeply influenced already by injustice and suffering,
had an effect far beyond what in any other age would have
attended such precarious, superficial, and fanciful theories.
A generation had hardly passed before men who had been fed
upon his dreams, seriously attempted what he had but
imagined, cleared the political area and removed the old
materials, in order to attempt the work of Lycurgus at Sparta,
and buifd up what Rousseau calls " a good edifice/^ Their
work was worthy of its foundation, and of the mind which had
formed itself in the way we have described in the earlier part
of this sketch.
To refute Rousseau's theory by applying to it the test of
revealed truth would of course be effective only with those who
believe in that truth ; whereas, though he did retain the sen-
timent of religion, he denies by implication all idea of the Crea-
tion or of the Fall, like the men of science, falsely so called,
whom he despised. We cannot, therefore, dispute with followers
of Rousseau on any common ground of religion, as we could
dispute with heretics, who accept, for example, the Scriptures.
But independently of his doctrines setting at defiance the
whole system of revelation as regards the state of humanity
on earth, it is not difiicult to show that they contain almost as
many absurdities as paragraphs. He imagines an ideal con-
dition of men without so much as an attempt to show that it
either exists or ever did exist, and judges by comparison with
it, of their present condition conceived in an equally imaginary
way. Mr. Morley has well pointed out a part of the absurdity
of Rousseau's conceptions of savage life.
He speaks of the savage state as one, identical, normal. It is of course
nothing of the kind. The varieties of belief, and habit, and custom among
the different tribes of savages, in reference to every object that can engagp
their attention, from death and the gods and immortality, down to the uses
of marriage and the art of counting, and the ways of procuring subsistence,
are infinitely numerous ; and the more we know about this vast diversity,
the less easy is it to think of the savage state in general (vol. L p. 178).
It is only necessary to refer to the testimonies of travellers,
whether ancient or recent, for proof that the vices of savages
are quite as great in their own way as those of civilized people,
and that the politeness which veils the darker passions is
found among the most barbarous tribes, much more than
among the lowest strata of the population of cities. A worse
idea could not be formed of the morals of revolutionary France
than Diodorus gives us of ancient Gaul. Rousseau ignorantly
Rousseau, 311
talks of the early conquering days of Egypt, Greece, and Rome,
as if, first, he knew anything about the contemporaries of
Sesostris, and as if, secondly, the 10,000 under Xenophon, or
the Romans in the day of the Punic wars, were either savages,
or one whit less energetic than their predecessors in heroic
times. And he takes as a cause of decline that growth of
literature and science which is, to a limited extent only, its
concomitant, forgetting that both these pursuits have always
deteriorated in proportion to the corruption of states, if we
understand them in their true and highest sense. A degenerate,
indolent, vicious people are not exactly the stuff from which
arise great poets, great scholars, great discoverers. Nor is a
society in which these are still found very likely to be crushed
by inroads of rude barbarians, such as his early Persians and
Scythians. His attacks on the inutility of science rest on
his assumption that a state of bodily vigour in combination
with a mind blank of all intellectual discipline is what was
intended as the perfection of this being of large discourse, look-
ing before and after. Again, the assertion that freedom of
choice, and not reason, is man^s differentia, is about as sound as
the definition of man as a cooking animal, or a commercial
animal. There can be no freedom of choice without reason,
and as man alone has reason, man alone is free. But freedom
is only one out of many exercises of reason, and to set up
any one of them as the characteristic of man, rather than the
attribute from which they all alike flow, is a confusion of
thought very frequent in those who are carried away by
some favourite idea. Rousseau hated control, and conse-
quently freedom from control was the one aspect in which he
contemplated human nature. Language, on which he lays
so much stress, is too large a subject to enter upon here,
but it may be remarked, that there seems a very much greater
facility in coining words, a much more elaborate system of
inflexions in some early states of language than in those of
advanced civilization. The transition from the supposed pure
savagery to savage barbarism as conceived by Rousseau, is
justly criticised by Mr. Morley as follows : —
Again, if the savage state supervened upon the state of nature in con-
sequence of certain climatic accidents of a permanent kind, such as living on
the banks of a river or in a dense forest, how was it that the force of these
accidents did not begin to operate at once ? How could the isolated state of
nature endure for a year in the face of them ? Or what was the precipitating
incident which suddenly set them to work, and drew the primitive men from
an isolation so profound that they barely recognized one another, into tha
semi-social state in which the family was founded ? (vol L p. 179).
312 Rousseau,
And the absurdity does not lessen as Rousseau proceeds to
trace the institution of property and laws evolving them-
selves out of the action of the herd of animals in human shape
whom his theory has assembled. As Mr. Morley asks : —
What can be a more monstrous anachronism than to turn a flat-headed
savage, gibbering and gesticulating, into a clever, self-conscious, argumentative
utilitarian of the eighteenth century ; working the social problem out in his
flat head with a keenness, a consistency, a grasp of first principles, that would
have entitled him to a chair in the institute of moral sciences, and entering
the social union with the calm and reasonable deliberation of a great states-
man taking a critical step in policy ? (i6., p. 180).
Notwithstanding this keen perception of the ridiculous
element in Rousseau's social philosophy, Mr. Morley qualifies
it in considerable admissions. On the one hand he is no
more a friend to levelling than Mr. Carlyle, but, on the other,
he thinks that writings cannot have " the resounding eflTect on
opinion" that Rousseau's had, unless they contained some-
thing that the condition of men made urgently true at the
time ; and that, as compared with the misery of thousands in
the wreck of civilization, " the savage state, or rather,^' he
says, " the state of certain savage tribes '' — a very diflTerent
thing indeed, — " is more normal, oflTers better balance
between desire and opportunity, between faculty and per-
formance [misty words] is more favourable to contentment
and internal order.'' A proposition like this, which the writer
justifies merely by a quotation from a single book of travels in
a foot-note, is nothing more than the expression of his own
opinion. We will observe, however, as to his notion that
writings like those of Rousseau must have contained some-
thing urgently true at the time, that it does not follow there
is truth in a doctrine because it flatters the passions of the
moment, nor is the acceptance of falsehood excused, because
circumstances happen to explain why men readily received it.
The name which Rousseau had now made for himself brought
him into familiarity with the great world, both that of the
financial aristocracy of France, and that of the haughty
noblesse, who were now, to use the phrase in Raleigh's fine
lyrical satire, '* shining like rotten wood," and ready to go
into dust. One of the former, Madame d'Epinay, presented
him with a cottage on the skirts of the forest of Montmorency,
where he established himself in 1756, with as great delight
as in his earlier retreat with Madame de Warens. In this
solitude, his mind, always giving itself up to its own emotions,
became more than ever their slave. At first, indeed, these
emotions clothed himself in forms apparently the most pure.
Rousseau, 313
Again he revelled in the enjoyment of the beauties of nature,
plunging himself day by day into the lonely recesses of the
forest, and peopling it with the dreams of a golden age,
idealized from whatever he could recollect that was most dear
to his memory ; and passing off into ecstatic contemplations
of the Infinite, till, as -he says, he lost himself in bewildering
transports, which, in the life of sin he continued to lead, can
only of course be regarded as miserable self-deceit. But these
imaginations of an apparently nobler cast, were soon suc-
ceeded by others of a very different sort, but indulged in no
less eagerly. This dreamer of fifty-two gave himself up to
poisonous indulgence of the castle- building kind, as recklessly
as he had done in his impure boyhood. '^Visions of the
past,^^ says his biographer, " from girl playmates of his youth
down to the Venetian courtesan, thronged in fluttering tumult
into his brain. He saw himself surrounded by a seraglio of
houris whom he had known, until his blood was all aflame,
and his head in a whirl. His imagination was kindled into
deadly activity ^^ (vol. i. p. 256). Rousseau describes himself
as thus spending hours and days, as eating his meals in hot
haste that he might run off to his woods to enjoy these fancies
undisturbed, and if people interrupted him when ready to
start, showing an ill-humour that might be called brutal. His
punishment was not long in coming. Undisciplined habits of
imaginative luxury have often a great resemblance, in their
results, to the indulgence in opium. The craving still re-
mains, but the effect of the drug becomes frightfully painful
instead of pleasurable. In the same way the images which
occupy the mind of the castle-builder, after a certain time
become terrible and gloomy, and yet are even more difficult to
throw off than those which once were so charming. Such
images are often those of causeless suspicion, anxiety, dismal
and harassing thoughts, which render life a burden, and even
end in madness. The beginning of this wretched state seems
already to have come upon Rousseau in his hermitage, though
it did not reach the worst stage till a later period. He
quarrelled with friends Grimm and Diderot, for reasons
troublesome to unravel, due chiefly to his own diseased sensi-
bility, and ended by breaking also with his benefactress,
Madame d^Epinay. This led to his giving up the hermitage
in the depth of winter in 1757, and in a temper which Diderot
described as if in Rousseau he had had a damned soul by
his side.
What, however, was peculiar in this moral disorganization
of Rousseau is that it seemed, instead of weakening his
thinking powers, to have guanoed them into a terrible fertility.
814 Rousseau.
Most minds, perhaps, in passing througli sach a fever, would
have lost the faculty of continuous intellectual exertion, but
this was certainly not his case. Whatever the faults of his
reasoning, it is always compact, concentrated, and sustained.
We see, indeed, the action of a selfish, egotistic intellect,
working out its own ideas ; like those conversationists who
never attend to anything but their own favourite line. We
see too indications of a mind that has fed itself in secret upon
" all forbidden things,^^ still it cannot be said either that there
was a total depravation, or that the weakness of his will had
pervaded every region of his mind. His dreamings in the
woods of Montmorency he ultimately shaped out into the
romance of the " New Heloisa.^^ We will not enter into a
discussion of this work, now happily little read, but which
in its day produced a sensation in France, which the genius
of Scott or Byron hardly equalled among ourselves. It is a
fiction which in moral character resembles its modern suc-
cessors which have rendered French novel- literature the very
pest of Europe, — a mixture of the sensuous and the sensual, of
fine descriptions of nature to please a poetic mind, of lust to
feed a luxurious imagination, of graceful idyllic pictures of
simple home-life, fit to deceive the young and unthinking into
thinking that reading must be innocent in which such passages
are found, the whole making up a dose of poison which
no comparison with writings of yet greater impurity can
excuse. The treatise on the " Social Contract ^' was pub-
lished in 1762. Its relations to the political theories of
Hobbes and Locke remind us of the notion the Greeks
used to entertain of barbarian wisdom. The barbarians
they thought were excellent at throwing out ideas, they
themselves in taking them up, and expanding them. The
loose material of the practical Englishman is found crys-
tallized and hardened in the exact, self-satisfied assumptions
and deductions of the Genevese. As everywhere, so in
political philosophy, the love of liberty, or more properly, the
hatred of control, lay at the foundation of Rousseau's doctcine.
And this hatred of control is equivalent to the assertion that
the source of truth and right is the individual will, and that
such will is always sound, because if it were otherwise, would
it not of necessity require to be controlled ? Rousseau began
by asserting that '' man is bom free, and everywhere he is in
chains,'' a proclamation that, finding men's minds ripe for
rebellion, called forth the great Revolution. Yet, somewhat
inconsistently with his admiration for the savage state, he was
willing to reconcile this principle of freedom with the social
order, of which the advantages could not be denied, except in
Rousseau, 315
defending a mere thesis. He supposed a time to have come
when the obstacles to a new state of nature were insur-
mountable, and it became necessary for each man to be aided
by the collective strength of his fellows. Then arose the
problem how to obtain this collective strength, and yet to save
the liberty of the individual and provide that he shall still
obey nobody but himself. Rousseau imagined a contract by
which each individual placed himself under the supreme direc-
tion of the general will, accepting each of his fellows as an
indivisible part of the whole. He then remains a fractional
sovereign, and the general will is interpreted by the majority.
No representation is recognized ; the people are held to have
alone the right to govern themselves, which is inalienable,
though magistrates exercise delegated power, and are charged
with the execution of the sovereign will of the collective
people, by whatever name such magistrates are called. As
to religion, he distinguished three sorts. (I) the simple in-
ternal worship of the Deity, dictated by nature ; (2) ritual re-
ligions coincident with the State that professed them, like
those of Paganism ; (3) religions distinct from the State, like
Catholicism, with which he classed Buddhism. This he rejects
without argument, as disturbing the social unity ; and the
second also, as superstitious and apt to be sanguinary, though
encouraging civil virtues by the consecration of the State.
He rejects also Christianity (as he understood it) because,
though it encouraged obedience to law, justice, moderation,
and similar virtues, it belonged to heaven and not to earth,
and its charity and submissiveness would permit tyrants to
get the upper hand. " True Christians,^' he says, ^' are made
to be slaves. ^^ He ends by promulgating a profession of faith,
not by way of religious dogmas, but as *' sentiments of socia-
bility, without which it is impossible to be a good citizen.''
These are, the existence of God; a future life with rewards
and punishments; the sanctity of the social contract and of
the laws. And one negative dogma, the exclusion of in-
tolerance. Whoever held that " out of the Church was no
salvation,'' was to be banished from Rousseau's ideal state.
And the positive dogmas were to be enforced under the sanc-
tions of exile, or, in case of denial after being once accepted,
of death. He fences against the charge of intolerance as
against his own theory, exactly as the English persecutors of
Catholics in old times did. It was not the religious dogma
which they punished by hanging, drawing, and quartering,
but the treason of which they gave it the name.
With a great deal of Mr. Morley's criticism of Rousseau's
theory we are ready to agree. He traces its connection with
816 Rousseau,
kindred systems with considerable precision, and he indicates
acutely enough some of its obvious absurdities. But he
criticises the whole from a sceptical point of view, and often
stabs at Christianity through Eousseau. Observe for example
the following remarks : —
How is a man bom free ? If he is bom into isolation, he perishes instantly.
If he is bom into a family, he is at the moment of his birth committed to a
state of social relation, in however rudimentary form ; and the more or
less of freedom which this state may ultimately permit to him, depends upon
circumstances. Man was hardly bom free among Romans and Athenians,
when both law and public opinion left a father at perfect liberty to expose
his new-bom infant. And the more primitive the circumstances, the later
the period at which he gains freedom. A child was not bom free in the early
days of the Roman state, when the patria potestas was a vigorous reality ;
nor to go yet further back, in the times of the Hebrew patriarchs, when
A hraham had full right of sacrificing his son, and Jephthdh of sacrificing his
daughter (voL iL p. 123).
We see that it is possible in two lines to make insinuations
that it would require a whole page .of explanations to refute.
There is also a pervading tone of intellectual arrogance and
insolence that spoils his argument even where he is right, and
imparts to it an appearance of much more weight and talent
than he really possesses. The mischief arising from the notion
of society having been formed by conventions is, however,
well pointed out. If human will made them, it can unmake
them, and hence a tendency to arbitrary change, irrespective
of the conditions of society into which it is introduced. The
Greek legislators who kindled the imagination of Rousseau,
were so far from creating the systems ascribed to them, that
it is much more probable they only gave the form of law to
what custom had already established. The English publicist
to whom Rousseau is most indebted, however erroneous his
idea of the origin of power in a state, had at least the merit of
drawing it from the facts before him. " Lockers Essay on
Civil Govemment,^^ remarks Mr. Morley, 'Svas the justification
in theory of a revolution which had already been accomplished
in practice, while the Social Contract, tinged as it was by silent
reference in the mind of the writer to Geneva, was yet a specu-
lation in the air.'^ Again, as to Rousseau's notion of law,
" he only half saw, if he saw at all, that law is a command and
not a contract.^' Mr. Morley sees the absurdity of Rousseau's
fancy that a citizen must submit to the majority against him,
because it proves to him that he was mistaken, but his own
idea of law is not very distinctly brought out. As far as we
understand him, a citizen is obliged to obey because the magis-
Rouaseau, 317
trate has power to enforce his command, and that command
ought to be promulgated, not as a right enjoyed by the legis-
lature, but as the exercise of a function he holds for the public
good. In short the government of Frederick the Great would
correspond to his idea ; a ruler able to make people obey, and
governing them as he thinks best, not for his interest, but
theirs. As Mr. Morley recognizes no life beyond the grave,
law with him can only have temporal sanctions, and the notion
of sin is excluded. If Christianity were to be dismissed as an
idle dream, which is what Mr. Morley^s teaching would come
to, we do not know that there would be much to say against
this view of law. It is of consequence, however, that the
reader should bear distinctly in mind the avowedly anti-Chris-
tian and atheistical character of Mr. Morley's political philo-
sophy ; for otherwise it might be taken up in a loose sort of
way by people who are little aware whither it ought consistently
to lead them. The scorn he shows for the follies of Rousseau,
which were acted out before the world by Robespierre and
St. Just, is a kind of bait for unthinking persons, who, equally
with him, hold them in contempt and disgust ; but then his is
a scorn which includes religion and Christianity along with
Rousseau.
Theories like those of Rousseau, which reappear in the
present day under the form of Communism, may indeed be
answered in detail by exhibiting the inconsistencies with which
they swarm, inconsistencies, however, which their fanatical
adherents are far too ignorant and passionate to perceive. But
the truer answer is the positive statement of the Christian idea
of the commonwealth, of the magistrate and law ; and the un-
flinching preaching of it to an age of which lawlessness is the
great characteristic. Civil power in the first instance comes
from God, because the family, ruled over by the father, is an
institution where authority has of necessity operated from its
origin, else the human race could not have existed a day. On
first coming from the Creator^s hands, man finds him self placed
under control, quite independently of his own consent, and with
persons above him to whom he must needs look up for support
and direction. If he disobeys them, he will sufier for it by a
natural train of consequences. There springs up from this the
habit of command on one side, of obedience on the other, and
this is the germ of political organization, which develops first
into the patriarchal system, and then into the regal. It is
true that communities, like families, may be left without a
head, and may have to choose one, but the habituation already
imparted to mankind, shows that an elected head holds the
position of father, whilst in the exercise of his oflSce ; and that
318 Rousseau,
he cannot be disobeyed, in lawful commands, without sin. This
view is not disturbed by the example of such cases as that of
the United States. A magistrate may be accountable to the
people, after his time of oflBce is over, but, as a magistrate, and
during that term, and within the limits of the laws he
administers, he is a ruler. All this depends upon the belief
that man is the creature of God, and falls to the ground if that
be denied, but that is the very question on which everything
turns in the age in which we live, and upon which men will
have to take their sides, which is the same thing as saying they
will have to decide whether they will be Catholics or Atheists.
There is indeed a third possible party, — theism d la Rousseau
and the sentimentalists ; but it is not one which a logical mind
will ever accept, if it starts from premises derived from facts
only, and not the audacious assumptions of self-willed and con-
ceited sophists such as he was. It is only in thus admitting
himself to be a creature, and subject to law, that man can ever
enjoy true freedom. Rousseau's fractional sovereign is the
helpless slave of a majority, and whenever his ideas have been
carried out, a vexatious, meddlesome system of interference
has merged individual liberty into the action of a mere State-
machine. Feudalism itself left the individual far more free,
for he had known rights secured by law. In Communism, the
individual loses his personality, and society becomes a mono-
tonous collection of units.
On the subject of Rousseau's proposed religious legislation,
Mr. Morley remarks : —
It would have been odd in any writer less possessed with the in&Uibility
of his own dreams than Rousseau was, that he should not have seen the im-
possibility in anything Uke the existing conditions of human nature, of
limiting the profession of civil faith to the three or four articles which
happened to constitute his own belief. Having once granted the general
position that a citizen may be required to profess some religious faith, there
is no erpeculative principle and there is no force in the world, which can fix
any bound to the amount or kind of religious faith which the State has
the right thus to exact (voL ii. p. 175).
And he is evidently well disposed to insert in the future
Martyrology of atheism the names of Chaumette and Clootz,
who were sent to the guillotine under Robespierre for that
crime. On the other hand he censures Hubert for preventing
the publication of a work in which the author professed his
belief in a God, as following out the same doctrine of perse-
cution, though in a mild form. If ever atheism is elevated
in its new humanitarian form into a state-creed, we doubt not
Rousseau, 319
much severer persecutions will follow, in spite of all these
protests. A state cannot tolerate that which strikes at its own
life, and an enthusiastic belief of whatever kind becomes the
life, the form of that state which has accepted it. It is no
practical question for us, because almost all modem states
have lost Christian faith, and not gained any other. But an
atheistic faith is visibly hovering in the future, and when it
comes, let the Christians then upon the earth look out for
chains and martyrdom. . „ ..
Rousseau's celebrated treatise on education, "Emilius,''
came out the same year with the '^ Social Contract,'' though
it had been in preparation for twenty years. It produced an
extraordinary effect on the world, finding, as his other great
works did, a material ready to be set in flame. And even
now, when those of his ideas which were good have been
generally admitted, and the evil ones have lost all the attrac-
tion of novelty, it is easy to understand how, in an age when
everything had degenerated into routine, a system so bold, so
carefully thought out, and wearing such an air of consistency,
must have carried those away who had no firm principles of
their own to oppose to it. Nor need we be at all surprised if
a mind that had gone through such a ruinous course as
Rousseau's, should nevertheless utter a great deal of plain
truth on the very subject of education which it bases on prin-
ciples radically false to begin with. A man of real genius was
sure to do so, and this is what is meant by a remark some-
times made, that the greatest minds of all schools agree. Not
of course that Epicureanism and Stoicism, Catholic faith and
Protestantism can ever be confounded together, but that there
are certain truths which must be dealt with somehow by all,
though they receive a setting which places them in totally
different lights, and which may give them, if such are the cir-
cumstances, all the effect of falsehood. Rousseau's philosophy
is coloured throughout by his leading assumption of the
essential goodness of human nature, by entire trust given to
its impulses, and by the utter rejection of the doctrine of
original sin. And in the proportion that his system has been
accepted as the philosophy of the Revolution, the dogma of
the Immaculate Conception, which by implication reasserted
the doctrine of original sin, is the condemnation of that whole
system. Rousseau's method of governing and training children
proceeds on the assumption we have stated. Punishment, as
ordinarily understood, always implies the commission of
something wrong. The notion of its being merely remedial
or exemplary (though it does also include those ideas) is not
320 Rousseau,
what the sense of mankind has always understood it to be.
It is also vindictive, provided we admit the notion of moral guilt,
in a greater or less degree. Now Rousseau forbids punish-
ment, except as a simple consequence or result of erroneous
action on the part of the child, that is, in his system, it ought
to be merely such a natural lesson as we get when we first
burn our fingers by meddling with hot iron. He would ma-
nage matters so that the child shall find out its mistake by
the disagreeable consequences that follow it in the natural (or
more properly artificial, because pre-arranged) train of things.
Mr. Morley very properly points out the folly of excluding out
of their train the consequence of the teacher's displeasure, of
excluding the efiects of all will and authority from without.
But the root of the delusive theory we speak of is the nega-
tion of moral guilt. It is not that Rousseau's system is one
of indulgence, or of weakness on the part of the master. He
is thoroughly French in the promptitude, decision, and co-
herence he urges upon authority to assume. There is no
shilly-shallying in his method ; but, as we have already said,
his truths are set in a false light.
This artificial character pervades Rousseau's system even
where it does not come into collision with religious truth.
He is always anxious to bring children into contact with facts :
for example, to teach the nature of property by a well-managed
dispute with a gardener ; the use of astronomy, by contriving
that the pupil shall seem to lose his way in the forest, and be
taught by his master how to discover it in the position of the
sun. An excellent plan, if it were not based upon trick,
besides that the pupil is sure to find tricks out, that proceed
upon system. Still, we are ready to allow that although
Rousseau shows his own sly nature in this favourite means of
conveying a lesson, it does contain a hint that might be very
profitable to teachers. A lesson which is founded on the
curiosity arising out of a natural, genuine train of accidental
circumstance is worth ten of mere school-room and book-
exercise, and teachers ought to have the presence of mind to
avail themselves of such opportunities, which, after all, are
sure continually to arise, when tutor and pupil are con-
stantly together, without any artificial adjustment. As a
whole, Rousseau's method is that of out-of-door education, and
supposes children brought up under the parental roof, clad
and fed very simply, learning a trade, say carpentering, for
the sake of physical training, and practical knowledge. He
may be said to have started in modern Europe the educa-
tional theories which found expositors among us half a century
ago, in the Edgeworths and their school, and nowadays in
Rousseau. 321
the exaggerated athletical development which is raining the
national schools and universities.
Iron-jointed, supple-sinewed, they shall dive and they shall run !
And grow up, in many instances, specimens of the animal man,
fine enough to please Rousseau, whilst the differentia
'^ rationale '' naturally yields little or no fruit, because the seed
has been sown too late. Rousseau^s plan, moreover, keeping
back such an important study as history till a late period
in the course, and even then admitting it only on the notion
that it gives the pupil a knowledge of the human heart, would
prepare a generation of ignorant and self-conceited young
men, just such as set the French revolution in motion. The
study of languages and even of geography fares little better.
The legislator waited for the reason to develop, and yet
denied to the reason the early training which he studiously
gave to the senses.
Finally, he deliberately excludes religion from the education
of boys until the age of 15, or perhaps even to that of 18, on
the pretence, first, that certain mysteries are inconceivable
and incredible, or, if otherwise, that children are incapable of
forming a conception of a mystery in the religious sense. To
girls, however, with strange inconsistency, he permits it,
because he holds that they are always to take their religion
upon authority, and assigns them, greatly to the disgust of
Mr. Morley, a training based on the oriental conception of
women. Mr. Morley criticises this in the tone of a disciple of
Mr. Mill. Without entering into that question, we may notice
that it has been from the beginning a mark of Christianity
that it regards the soul of a man and of a woman as of abso-
lutely equal dignity. Rousseau's and any other system which
lowers the latter, degrades both. '^If," says Clement of
Alexandria, '^ the God of both is one and the Teacher of both is
also one, thre is one Churcih, one temperance, one modesty, food
in common, a common yoke in marriage, breath, sight, hearing,
knowledge, hope, obedience, love, all things alike. And of
whom the life is common, and the grace common, and the
salvation common, common also is their love and their educa-
tion.'' ( Peed, 1 . 4.) One would imagine that Rousseau's study
of the Gospel, even in the midst of wretched sentimentality
through which he looked at everything, would have led him to
different conclusions as to the place of religion in the education
of the young. The theory he did give of it, is contained in the
famous episode of the Savoyard Vicar's Profession of Faith,
fitly placed in the mouth of a priest who has led an immoral
life, which he admits only to excuse, and who continues to say
VOL. XXI. — NO. XLii. [Neiv Series.'l y
322 Rousseau.
Mass " with all the feelings required by the Church and the
majesty of the sacrament/' while he avows at the same
moment he has rejected the teaching of the Church. The Pro-
fession is an elaborate statement of the string of sentiments
which Rousseau put forth as the articles of his creed. It may
be doubted whether Voltaire or Eousseau did most harm to
mankind. The view ^^i of the latter by Mr. Morley is that
he was a religious reab^onist. In one sense he was, if flights
of imagination and rapturous feeling constitute reUgion. But
whether these are not even a greater insult to religion when
% — united with deliberate vice, and the haughtiest determination
to pick and choose what one shall accept, than simple negative
infidelity is a question. Mr. Morley's notion of religion is a
general «ense of awe and reverence. The Christian reh'gion
from the beginning has been the obedience of the reason to an
authoritative creed, and if that is absent, all this admiration
and awe' is more than likely to end, as the cares of life harden
the heart, in the horrible picture the poet has drawn of " The
Yision of Sin.''
We must hasten rapidly to a conclusion. The troubled
years which followed the production of Rousseau's great
works j his flight from France in consequence of the deserved
proscription of "Emilius," and the dreary succession of removals
that followed ; his relations with Hume, and the morbid sus-
piciousness and delusive fancies which ended in disturbing
his brain, his life clouding over more and more; those
awful Confessions, the task of his declining years; his
afiections wounded, in the alienation of his wretched mistress ;
his body racked by lingering malady; his death at last,
accompanied with suspicion of suicide, — form altogether a
picture on which it is a relief to draw the curtain. Perhaps
the strangest as well as the most useful lesson it conveys is
th^t whilst no man had more vividly before his mind the whole
of, the path of sin which he had traversed, even, as we have
seen, mourning over many parts of it, as degrading him in his
own consciousness, he never seems even once to have thought
of its connection, as cause, with his greatest miseries. But this
very forgetfulness or ignorance is the saddest punishment vice
brings in its train, when those chords of the mind which have
been tampered with too far, have at last become so jarred that
jg they are not again to be readjusted. Such things are possible,
\ and this tremendous lesson is taught, among other things, by
such a life as Rousseau's.
( 323 )
ART. in.— USURY.
Zins und Wucher, Eine moraltheologische Abhandlimg mit Beriicksichti-
gung des gegenwartigen Standes der Cultur und der Staatswissenschaften.
Von Dr. F. X. Funk. Tubingen, 1868. *
A Defence of Usury. By Jeremy Bektham. London, 1787.
FEW questions have been involved in so much confusion
and given rise to so much controversy as that of usury.
This is not surprising ; for questions belonging to several
sciences generally occasion difficulties ; and usury belongs to
political economy (as it is called), to jurisprudence, and to
moral theology. Moreover this question has been especially
complicated by the backward state of economical science. It
can hardly be discussed at all without some economical prin-
ciples, and for long the theologians and jurists had themselves
to make out these principles as well as they were able. Nor
when professed economists appeared did they simplify the
question. They upheld many opinions so absurd and immoral
as justly to discredit their science ; and they committed the
great error of ignoring the mutable and consequently the histo-
rical nature of a great portion of their subject. Thus the question
of usury is still more or less involved in obscurity, and under
cover of the darkness various attacks, as is natural, have been
made on the conduct of the Church in regard to it. We may
mention as a recent example in our own language the sixth
chapter of Mr. Lecky^s History of Rationalism. In answer to
such attacks we propose in two articles to consider both from
the economical and theological point of view the subject of
usury. In the present article we shall endeavour to discover
what is, what has been, and what ought to be, the meaning of
the term. We shall not here have to defend the conduct of
the Church except indirectly by showing what she did not
teach, prohibit, or enjoin. In a subsequent article, on the
other hand, our immediate object will be the setting forth and
defence of the Church's teaching and discipline on usury.
In the first article we shall mainly be busied with words,
in the second with facts. In both our constant guide and
chief authority will be the excellent work of Dr. Funk,
which we have placed at the head of this article, and which
testifies to the theological, juridical, and economical profi-
ciency of its author.
We have then to discuss at present the name and nature of
Y Si
824 Uincry.
usury. But an obstacle at once appears to delay our progress.
We must settle the economical principles on which the dis-
cussion will rest. We must be agreed on the nature of labour
and capital, of interest and money. And thus we see our-
selves obliged to begin with a brief account of certain
economical first principles. If indeed the public were in
general familiar with these subjects ; if the economists were
agreed about at least the foundations of their science ; if there
existed in our language some trustworthy economical manual,
to bo obtained and understood without difficulty, to which
we could refer, we should gladly dispense with these tedious
preliminaries. As it is, we feel that it would be idle to
attempt to explain the nature of usury and the legislation of
the Church without clearly stating the economical principles
which guide us. This article will thus fall into two parts,
the first being the economical preliminaries, the second being
the actual discussion of usury.
The whole economical activity of man can be described by
the two words production and consumption. By the latter we
mean the personal consumption, or use, or enjoyment by man
of sensible things to gratify his tastes or supply his wants.
The consumption of food is when it is eaten ; of clothes, when
they are worn ; of houses, when they are dwelt in. By pro-
duction we mean the conversion by man of things unfit into
things fit for consumption. This process can take place in-
directly as well as directly ; the ploughmaker or the plough-
man, as well as the miller or baker, are engaged in preparing
bread ; they all conspire to one end, which is the final
(economical) cause of their exertions. And there are two
requisites of production, — labour, or man's exertion, and
nature, or natural objects, with their various properties and
forces. We have said man's exertion, for the application of
the term labour to the exertion of animals is undesirable, as
tending to obscure the line between persons and things,
between ends and means. The two requisites of production,
labour and nature, have been well compared to the two blades
of a scissors, each indispensable. We can do nothing unaided,
can produce nothing by ourselves. This idea has been well
expressed by F. Faber, who says of man that '^ there is a pe-
culiar kind of incompleteness about all he does, which disables
him from concluding anything of himself, or unassisted. It
is as if his arm was never quite long enough to reach his
object, and God came in between him and his end to enable
him to realize it. . . . Between his labour and his labour's
rewf»rd God has to intervene. When he lays his plans^he
Usury. 325
does nothing more than prepare favourable circumstances for
the end which he desires. . . . An element has to come in
and to be waited for, without which he can have no results,
and over which he has no control."* And thus it is fallacious
to say, as many have said, that nature does more in one thing,
less in others. " Some writers," says Mr. Mill, " have raised
the question, whether nature gives more assistance to labour
in one kind of industry or in another; and have said that
in some occupations labour does most, in others nature most.
In this, however, there seems much confusion of ideas. The
part which nature has in any work of man is indefinite and
incommensurable. It is impossible to decide that in any one
thing nature does more than in any other. One cannot even
say that labour does less. Less labour may be required ; but
if that which is required is absolutely indispensable, the result
is just as much the product of labour as of nature. When two
conditions are equally necessary for producing the effect at
all, it is unmeaning to say that so much of it is produced
by one and so much by the other; it is like attempting
to decide which half of a pair of scissors has most to do
in the act of cutting; or which of the factors, five and six,
contributes most to the production of thirty." t Conse-
quently in comparing, for example, a watch and a loaf of
bread, though we can say that more labour was required for
producing the watch than the loaf, we cannot say that nature
contributed less towards the production of the watch. Thus
also the doctrine that there are certain gains, which result
ex mera industria hominis, J is inadmissible. It should further
be observed that almost all the objects we consume have been
rendered fit by labour for our consumption. ''The whole
visible creation is laid at our feet ; but it avails us not, unless
by exerting our power we assert our dominion : then only
can we be called its master ; without this labour we are its
slave ; such is the law of our existence."§ In sudore vultus tui
vesceris pane. The very water must be drawn from the
spring ; the wild fruit plucked from the trees before they
can be consumed. They are thus not natural objects, but
products, goods, or commodities (we use the three words in-
discriminately), that is, they have been acted upon directly or
indirectly by man's labour. But not merely can hardly anything
* " Creator and Creature/' bk. L cL iL p. 69, 4th edit.
+ ** Political Economy/' bk. i. eh. L § 3.
i So Scaviiii, **Theolog. Mor.," t. Il p. 309. " Lucrum quodcunque ex
pecnnia proven iens totum oritur ex inera indiistria hominum et non ex natura
pecuniae ipsius.^ (See Funk, p. 158, note.)
§ Funk, "ZmsundWucher,"p. 159.
326 Usury.
be obtained without labour ; hardly anything can be obtained
without the intervention of a third factor of production distinct
from nature and labour. If a company of men were cast
naked on an uninhabited island, they would fail to produce
what was requisite for their sustenance, unless they constructed
at least some rude instruments of the chase and of agriculture.
But no sooner have they constructed these instruments than
a new factor in production has come into operation. It is
neither nature nor labour, but a new force which has sprung
from them, and which consists in those products whose use is
not to be consumed but to take part in further production.
This factor is called capital, which can thus be defined as
commodities (goods or products) capable of being employed
in further production. The importance of capital is immense.
Man cannot do without it. The rudest savage has some
capital, if only his bow and arrows. Among barbarians^
indeed, natural objects predominate over capital. The Arabs
have not planted the date-palms, nor the Indians reared the
wild buffaloes, which supply their food. But among culti-
vated nations it is otherwise ; everything has felt the influence
of man; he has tilled the fields and enclosed the meadow
land, and planted the woods ; scarcely anything but the air
and the water does not bear the impress of previous labour.
Let us hear Pere Felix : — " Ramassez au hasard la poussiSro
du chemin ; passez-la, si vous pouvez, au crible de Fesprit,
vous n'y trouverez pas un grain, pas un atome, pas une parti-
cule d^atome, qui ne soit une fibre de Phomme, une larme,
une sueur de son travail. Oui, dans cette perpctuelle chimie
des siecles, qui mole et change les hommes et les choses,
chaque motto de terre, chaque goutte de seve est tremp^e de
la substance humaine.^^* We must not be deceived by the
phrase "raw materials,^' or think that, for example, raw
cotton or iron-ore is the work of nature alone. They are not
natural objects but products; for previous labour has been
expended on the cultivation of the cotton-field and on the
excavation of the iron-mine. This being so, we may say that
in production among civilized communities capital to a great
extent takes the place of nature. And what we have said of
the relations of labour and nature applies equally to the
relations of labour and capital. They are the two blades
of the scissors, each indispensable; nor can one be said to
do more than the other. Further, the entire net produce
which results from the concurrence of these two factors is
* ** L'ficonomie Antichr^tienne devant la FamiUe,'* 2iid Conference of
1866. (See Funk, p. 160, note.)
Usury. 327
divided between them. In other words, after any damage
that the capital may have undergone in the process of pro-
duction has been made good, what remains of the produce
is shared in some proportion between those who have given
the labour and those who have given the capital. And
thus there are only two ways in which we can permanently
support ourselves; we must either labour personally or ab-
stain from consuming a stock of commodities which we
possess, and allow them to be employed in production.
Every one who (as the phrase is) gets his own living is either
a labourer or a capitalist. The young, the aged, and the
infirm, unless they possess a stock of commodities, must
evidently be supported by others. Similarly thieves and
plunderers of all kinds live on other people. And thus the
ultimate sources of public and private revenue are labour and
abstinence. A revenue if immediately derived from labour is
called wages ; if from abstinence, is called interest. This is
the economical sense of the word interest, viz. the reward of
abstinence or the share due to capital in the profits obtained
through its co-operation.* The legitimacy of the reward of
labour no one has ever challenged; the legitimacy of the
reward of abstinence is no less unassailable. ^' On two firm
foundations, '^ says Roscher, ^^ rests the lawfulness of the
interest of capital ; on the real productiveness of capital, and
on the real sacrifice of abstcflhing from self-gratification. ^^t
For any profit to arise it is indispensable that the labourer
shall give up his repose and the capitalist his enjoyment.
Each sacrifice can justly claim its reward out of the profit
which it has contributed to create. As to the proportionate
reward of both sacrifices, this is the question, as it is called, of
labour versus capital, with which we are not now concerned.
So much for production and consumption, the first funda-
mental point in economical science : the second is the question
of exchange, an equally indispensable preliminary to the dis-
cussion of usury.
The mutual dependence of man in the material order is too
obvious to require proof. In a civilized community it is hard
to name any commodity, which any one consumes, in the pro-
duction of which he has received no aid from others. "With-
out combination of labour man could barely, if even barely,
live.} But combination of labour is correlative to exchange.
They are merely different aspects of the same phenomenon.
* Funk, p. 215.
t " NationalokoDomie," § 189.
X On this subject see Mill, " Polit. Economy," bk i. ch. viii.
328 Usury.
The tailor could not confine himself to making clothes^ if ho
could not exchange his clothes for bread ; nor the baker con-
fine himself to making breads if he could not exchange his
bread for clothes. And four things should be noticed about
exchange. First, it connotes a state of imperfection and
dependence. If we were self-suflScing, or at least if all our
wants were actually supplied, there would be no need for
exchange. Secondly, it connotes an economical advantage;
for the whole gain resulting from the separation of employ-
ments falls to the parties exchanging, and is divided in some
proportion between them, unless one party by fraud or
intimidation secures it all. Thirdly, all exchange is exchange
of commodities — of things that have been produced. A mere
natural object will fetch nothing in the market. Thus the
most fertile lands in the far West, as long as they remained in
a natural state, were worth nothing. They only became sale-
able when the American government had established com-
munications, posts, police, &c., or, in economical language,
had expended labour and capital on them.* Fourthly, all
commodities are naturally exchangeable. It is inconceivable
that anything which man has produced should be incapable of
serving some desirable end. Any of our goods would be
acceptable to some persons somewhere, and most of our goods
would bo acceptable to most persons everywhere. But per
accidens commodities may be wiexchangeable. In a besieged
town or in the back woods we may be unable to dispose of
them at any price.
So much as to exchange in general. We have now to
consider one form of exchange most important to our present
purpose, and which arises from the relations of labour and
capital. Labourers at a common work form for the time
being a body or society. But there can be no society with-
out an authority, no body without a head. Hence the need of
an employer, director, master, manager, superintendent,
captain of industry, entrepreneur, or whatever term is preferred
to express the same functionary. The fulfilment of the duties
of this office is as much labour as that of the humblest artisan,
and is equally deserving of a reward, which, though not usually
called wages, is so in the generic sense in which we are
employing the word, viz. the reward of labour. This being
the case, it is evident that if the owner of a stock of com-
modities intends to employ them in production, he must
* What we have said applies to ohjects not in individuo but in specie.
Thus a man may find a precious stone on the beach and sell it for a great
price without any labour or capital having been expended on it. But he can
do so only because precious stones as a cmss require such expenditure.
Usury. 329
either himself undertake the labour of employing them, or
delegate this labour to some one else. In the first case he is
clearly entitled not only to the interest on his capital but also
to a certain reward for his labour — to certain wages of super-
intendence. In the second case he is entitled only to the
reward of capital.* The lawfulness of this delegation of
capital scarcely admits of a doubt. To question it would be
to question God's wisdom in giving different aptitudes to
different persons. Some have, and some have not, the qualities
suitable for an employer of capital ; and the possessors of
capital are by no means always those who have these qualities,
not to speak of many physically or mentally incapable of ful-
filling the office of employer. But this point is too obvious to
need further discussion. Two other points are more im-
portant. First, the immense advantages flowing from this
transfer of capital or credit in the economical sense. Without
it nations would remain in a condition of comparative poverty.
By credit commodities pass from the hands of those who
cannot or will not make them fructify into the hands of those
who can and will. Instead of lying idle or being consumed,
they are employed in production. And in the moral order
credit enables many, freed from the distractions of business,
to devote themselves entirely to nobler pursuits, which, though
economically unproductive and gpnerally illpaid or unpaid, are
yet of immense benefit to themselves and to society.f The
second point to be noticed is that the transfer of capital can
occur in various ways, to which various legal forms correspond;
and that consequently the several transactions bear a very
* We cannot approve of Mr. Mill's analysis of the share of the capitalist
in the produce. (** Pol it. Econ.,'' bk. ii. ch. xv. § 1.) In one jjage he defines
the profits of the capitalist as the remuneration of abstinence ; in the
next he rightly explains that all a person can get by merely abstaining
from consuming his commodities is what a solvent person would be willing
to pay for the loan of them, i.e. interest ; so that profits and interest would
be synonymous. But then, regardless of his previous definition, he declares
that profits inust suffice to defray not merely interest, but also indemnity
for risk (insurance) and wages of superintendence. In this he makes a
double confusion ; for while professing to be discussing only the reward of
capital, he treats of one species of labour and its reward ; and by including
insurance under the share of the capitalist, he introduces what is no reward
either of labour or capital That which is divided between labour and
capital is, as we have pointed out, the surplus produce after keeping up the
stock. And laying by against risk is as much a part of keeping up the stock
as is repairing fences or buildings. Thus insurance is not gain, not profits,
not the reward of capital : it is itself a portion of the capital.
t On the benefits of credit, see Fimk, pp. 224-230 ; P^rin, " De la Richesse
dans les Soci^t^ Chretiennes,'* liv. iii. ch. ii. ; Corbi^re, " L'ficonomie Sociale
au point de vue Chretien," tome i. p. 300, seq.
330 Usury.
difiFerent aspect, though, if we regard their economical nature,
they are all essentially similar. Thus for example, a person
possessing the stock of goods embraced by the terms farm or
shop, and unwilling or unable to assume the functions of a
farmer or a shopkeeper, is able in many ways to transfer these
goods to another to employ. He can let the farm or shop for
an annual rent ; he can intrust them to an agent ; he can
exchange them for other, goods, the delegation of whose
employment seems to him to be less troublesome, as for a ship
or for gold pieces, and then he can hand over the ship or the
gold pieces to a merchant ; or he can exchange the proceeds
of the farm or shop for railway shares or government stock.
All these transactions, and many others like to these, though
called by different names and introducing different legal
relations, are yet essentially similar. They all mean that the
possessor of capital, instead of employing it himself, hands it
over to others to employ, and consequently receives merely the
interest of his capital and no wages of superintendence. And
from this similarity we draw the conclusion that if the
delegation of the employmeilt of capital is lawful at all
(and who can deny it ?), it is as lawful in one form as
in another. If we may receive rent for the lease of a shop
or a farm, we may with equal right receive what is called
commonly interest of money lent to a railway company or a
government.
"What we have said on the subject of exchange will enable
us to make two or three definitions, which in their turn will
enable us to discuss the subject of money, the last point in
these economical preliminaries.
Utilities or useful things are all those things which can be
of any service to man ; for example, public security, the air,
machines, food. They are either immaterial, as the first
example we have given, or else material, as the three remain-
ing examples. Material utilities are either unexchangeable,
as the air, or exchangeable, as machines or food. Exchange-
able material utilities are called wealth in its strict economical
sense ; and as we have seen that all and only commodities are
exchangeable, wealth is merely the abstract form of expression
for commodities (goods or products). Further we must dis-
tinguish three kinds of commodities. First, those only capable
of being employed in production, as machines ; secondly, those
only capable of being employed in consumption, as bread;
and thirdly, a small class capable of being employed either in
production or in consumption, as coal, which can serve to set
an engine at work (production), and also to keep off the cold
from human beings (consumption). We may call these three
Usury. 831
classes of goods respectively prodv^tive^ conaumptivey and un-
determined commodities.
We now come to money, and are at once met by a verbal
difficulty. The word money ^' started with a most sharply
defined and accurate meaning, the ' coin of the realm/ the
pieces of gold, silver, and copper by which purchases were
made in the market, and the debts of all were disoharged.^^ *
But this simple meaning has gonor A dense obscurity envelops
the word in common discourse, and economists vary in their
use of it.f We should define it as that medium of exchange
which is also the measure of value ; and in such a sense it
would be synonymous with coin. But we have no wish to
dispute about words j and as the term coin is available with a
perfectly determinate meaning, we shall use it in the place of
money. Coin is the fitting translation of the word pecunia ;
and while, as to the past, the term will preserve us from
anachronisms, as to the present, it will enable us to keep
clearly distinct the two great classes of mediums of exchange
(or substitutes for barter), which are coin and titles to coin. J
The most familiar forms of the latter are bank-notes, bills of
exchange, and cheques; and all this class of mediums of
exchange are not material, but immaterial things, not goods,
but rights. The pieces of paper are merely the evidence of
rights. Coin is wealth, but they are not wealth. To say they
were would be much the same as saying the title-deeds were
the estate.
A question now arises immediately connected with the
subject of usury. Is coin a productive, or consumptive, or
undetermined commodity ? Can it only be employed in pro-
duction, f)v only in consumption, or can it serve either purpose ?
Here we meet with two opposed views. According to one,
coin is a res omnino sterilis. In what sense and with what
modifications this view is admissible will appear from our ex-
amination of the second view, according to which coin is a
productive commodity, and for which the argument can run as
follows : " One stage in production is undoubtedly the trans-
portation of commodities from one place to another. An
♦ Bonamy Price, "The Principles of Currency •/' Oxford, 1869, p. 179.
t Thus while Professor Price includes all bank-notes in the term (l.c., p.
176), Mr. Mill includes only those bank-notes which are inconvertible (" Polit.
Econ.," bk. iii. ch. xii. § 7).
X On the importance of this distinction see Price, loc. cit, p. 177 to 179.
To be quite accurate we should add that in countries where there is an in-
convertible paper currency, the second class of mediums of exchange is
composed, not of titles to coin, but of » to any goods that are for sale up
to a certain value, at the option oi i
332 Usury.
immense amount of labour^ — the whole carrying trade, which
all agree in calling productive, — is employed in this one func-
tion. And this is precisely the function of coin. It brings
the cotton from America, the tea from China. It is a tool for
facilitating exchanges, and as such can hardly be used except
in production. The veriest prodigal can only use his coin as
a productive tool for bringing the commodities to the con-
sumer. His prodigality begins when he sets himself to con-
sume what he has bought with the coin. The latter then is a
productive commodity, like any other machine.^^ This argu-
ment, we think, rests on a false analogy. Coin may aptly be
called a tool or machine, but it can only bo called so analogi-
cally. To think that its economical function is really the
same as that of a spade or a steam-engine, is to confuse, as is
so often done, things material with things immaterial. Coin
as such takes no part physically in production. As long as
the pieces of metal remain in their present condition there is
scarcely any physical operation to which they can be applied.
Cellars full of coin will not convey a single loaf into the
house. A common basket will assist the carrier; a bag of
coin will impede him. The operation of the pieces of metal
in facilitating exchanges is not physical but moral. This we
might deduce, if other evidence were wanting, from the fact
that this function of coin is performed no less eflSciently by
mere pieces of paper, mere titles or promises. From this
point of view coin can be called a ticket or order for com-
modities ; but it no more conveys them to their destination
than the railway tickets convey the passengers.* Moreover,
the exchanges facilitated by coin are also not physical opera-
tions. No single bale of merchandise has ever been moved
one quarter of an inch by an exchange. The expression
means simply the transfer of rights of property from one
person to another. The actual carrying to and fro of goods
is quite another matter, which may, or may not, follow the ex-
change. And thus exchange, unlike capital, is no factor in
production; but, like public security, or honesty, or intelligence,
is a circumstance of immense importance for production. It
leaves things unmoved ; but it creates new relations between
persons. It is a transaction, which in itself neither lessens
* Of course a coin, imlike a bank-note, is not simply and from all aspects
a ticket for commoditieii. The metal of which it is made can be worked up
(i.e. employed in production) by the gold or silveremitL As a piece of metal
it doubtless put« on the character of a productive commodity ; but it does
so only so far as it puts off the character of a medium of exchange. This
double character of the same physical object is what renders the subject of
money so difficulty
Usury. 338
nor increases wealth. Whether it is followed by an increase
or decrease of wealth depends on what the parties do with the
goods, over which the transaction has given them the right of
property. As a rule, they turn them to better account than
they would have done with the goods over which respectively
they have surrendered the right of property. And thus the
sum of exchanges is followed by a great intensification of
production, so that a country in which there were many ex-
changes would, ceteris paribus, be richer than a country in
which there were few. But in many individual cases exchange is
followed not by increased production but by increased consump-
tion. It enables the upper classes of this country to buy truffles
and champagne, and the lower classes to spend sixty million a
year on beer, gin, and tobacco. And thus, though every ex-
change, if the parties are undeceived and unintimidated, results
in what each thinks an advantage for himself, this advantage
by no means always consists in enabling both to produce more
or grow richer, but often consists in enabling both to enjoy
themselves or grow poorer. We now can, in a few words,
solve the question whether coin is to be called a productive,
consumptive, or undetermined commodity. We have seen
that (like cheques or notes) it performs no physical function.
But production and consumption are essentially physical
operations, so that the terms productive and consumptive are
properly inapplicable to any operation which is not physical ;
they are therefore properly inapplicable to the operations of
coin. But ^ince coin, though itself unemployed either in
production or consumption, contributes towards other com-
modities being so employed, we can by a convenient analogy
treat it as though it really had a physical operation. We can
thus regard it as employed either in production or consump-
tion, according as the goods which it can purchase are pro-
ductive or consumptive. But in the present condition of
society it can purchase both kinds. It can therefore be said
to bo employed in both production and consumption, and thus
can at present ba called an undetermined commodity. Sup-
posing, however, — and to this we call especial attention, — the
condition of society were such that coin could habitually
purchase only consumptive goods, it would then have to be
called a consumptive or sterile commodity. This remark will
be of no little importance to us in the historical portion of our
subject.*
* As the subject of money is so important for our discussion, we will give
an extract from Dr. Funk (1. c, p. 34) relative to it. We think his view is
substantially the same as the one we have given, and which his will serve to
334 Usury.
We think we have now sufficiently discussed the economical
principles which are to guide us. If what we have said on
money appear intricate or obscure, we can only plead the
intricacy and obscurity of the subject, and the absolute
necessi^ of giving some account of it before examining
usury. To this examination we now proceed.
We are met on the threshold by a verbal difficulty. In
modern languages the word usury (usure, Wucher) bears an
odious signification. It would sound as strange to speak of
justifiable usury as of justifiable robbery. But the Latin
word usura in theological and legal literature is not only
employed to express the ofience we call usury, but also to
express an economical transaction, which may, or may not
constitute the offence. In the latter or wide sense it is
commonly defined : Quidquid sorti accedit ;* or. Lucrum ex
mutuo perceptum ; or more precisely, Omne lucrum perceptum
ex mutuo vel illius occasione sive cum titulo, sive absque titulo
legitimo.f In the former or narrow sense it is described by
Benedict XIV. as follows : '^ Peccati genus illud, quod usura
vocatur, quodque in contractu mutui propriam suam sedem et
locum habet, in eo est repositum, quod quis ex ipsomet mutuo,
quod suapte naturS, tantumdem duntaxat reddi postulat,
quantum receptum est, plus sibi reddi velit, quam est re-
ceptum j ideoque ultra sortem lucrum aliquod, ipsius ratione
elucidate. The italics are those of the original. " It is clear that money in
itself (an und f iir sich) is not of a productive nature ; for, considered as a
physical object, it is neither fruitful in itself, nor yet an instniment for the
production of commodities. In this sense we see that there is real truth in
the famous phrase : * nummus nummum parere non potest,* which the
moralists adopted from Aristotle. But yet, if we merely consider the
external object, we shall fail to perceive the peculiar and deeper signification
of money ; for this lies in the economical purpose which it serves. It is the
universal measure of value and the universal medium of exchange, and as
such renders possible the immediate exchange of all kinds of goods. From
this point of view we obtain a clearer idea of the productiveness of money,
and the loan of money. We can express it in a single proposition : This
productiveness is coextensive mth the 'possibility and opportunity of obtaining
ivith money productive goods {or capital). Consequently if we regard the
economical nature of money, we see that no universal and absolute productive-
ness can be attributed to it, because, unlike nature or labour, it is not in
itself productive. Its productiveness is conditional, for it rests, as we have
said, on^the exchange of capital ; and for the realization of this exchange,
certain economical and social conditions are required. Hence it is possible
that money may lack productiveness ; and this possibility becomes a reality,
when, through the condition of society, goods serving for production cannot
be freely acquired."
* See Funk, p. 192.
t Gury, " Compendium Theol. Moral.," paiSL n. 852.
Usury. 335
mutui, sibi deberi contendat. Omne propterea hujusmodi
lucrum quod sortem superet, illicitum et usurarium est/^*
Whereas then the wide sense of the word expresses all gain
from a mutuum^ the narrow sense expresses all unlawful gain
therefrom. For we think we can say that this is the meaning
which has been generally attached by moralists to the sin of
usury. So far it seems they would nearly all agree,t namely
that this sin consists in all unlawful profit derived from the
contract called mutuum ; they would only begin to disagree
when it had to be decided what constituted this unlawful
profit, and what were the reasons for its unlawfulness. Since
then, both in the wide and in the narrow sense, usura is con-
nected with mutuum, we must examine the meaning of the
latter term.
In the Institutes! mutuum is described as follows : — " Mutui
datio § in iis rebus consistit qu89 pondere numero mensurave
constant, veluti vino, oleo, frumento, pecunia numerata, sere,
argento, auro : quas res aut numerando, aut metiendo, aut
appendendo in hoc damns ut accipientium fiant, et quandoque
nobis non eaadem res, sed alias ejusdem natures et qualitatis
reddantur.'^ The essence of the contract lies in quality and
quantity being regarded instead of specific objects. This
idea is expressed by the term fungibility. The mutuum is a
loan of res fungibiles. And these are res quas ita comparatas
sunt ut alias aliarum vice fungantur atque tantumdem ex
eodem genere nobis in relatione ad patrimonium nostrum idem
sit. II In consequence it has been held that the borrower in
this contract becomes the proprietor (dominus) of the specific
objects lent to him. The lender has no more claim on the
oil or gold pieces which he has lent, than on any other portion
of the borrower's property. The objects lent are merged in
the rest of this property, all of which may be considered as
hypothecated for the reiransfer to the lender at the appointed
time of objects of equal quality and quantity to those lent. It
should be observed that the moralists have generally employed
the expression res prime usu consumptibiles instead of res
* Encyclical, " Vix pervenit"
t Funk refers (p. 193) to certain passages in the Corpus Juris Canonici
giving a more extended signification to usury, and cites S. Thomas, Opusc. 73,
c. 8 : " Omnis contractus, in quo aliquid plus accipitur quam detur sive in spe
sive in re vocatur usuiarius."
t Lib. ill tit. 14.
§ The word mataom was applied both to the objects lent and to the
contract.
II Gliick, '< Ansfiihrliche Erlauterong der Pandekten>" vol. xi. p. 474
(apnd Funky p. 175, not^y||
336 Usury.
fungibiles.* This had its advantag^s in an age when coin
only served for consumptive purposes, inasmuch as it em-
phasized the moral aspect of the transaction. Wine, oil, com,
and the like could be said to be consumed naturaliter, coin to
be consumed cimliter. But in this view of consumptiveness
and fungibility as identical notions, was laid the germ of
inevitable diflficulties for moral theology, difficulties which
developed in proportion as coin lost its character of serving
only for consumptive transactions, and became capable of
serving as well for productive transactions.f
But difficulties have arisen through the change of circum-
stances (the nature of which change we hope in a subsequent
article to examine), not merely for theologians but also for
jurists and economists ; and the ambiguity of the words loan,
money, and interest has produced extreme confusion. To
escape from this confusion we must above all distinguish the
venerable contract of mutuum from the modem loan of money.
The contract of the loan of money according to Stephens,
'^ differs from the contract of bailm'ent. . . inasmuch as the
money which forms its subject is not to be re-delivered to the
lender, or disposed of according to his direction, but to be
applied to the use of the borrower; the latter yielding after-
wards to the lender an equal sum by way of payment. And
in addition to this equivalent, there is commonly also yielded
an increase, by way of compensation for the use of the sum
advanced, which increase is called interest, but, when taken to
a greater amount than the law has at the time allowed, has
also been denominated nsury,''^ It may be perhaps asked
why this contract is not to be called a mutuum. We answer
that the word money is no fitting translation of pecunia nor
interest of fcenus. In the case of a mutuum the pecunia or
bag of coin was actually transferred from the lender to the
borrower. At the appointed time the borrower handed back
again to the lender the same number of coins, and if they had
so agreed, certain others in addition, which constituted foen us,
or lucrum ex mutuo, or usura in the wide sense. § Such a
♦ Rudigier (in Wetzer and Welte's " Kirchen-Lexikon/* word Darlehen,
expressly gives fungibilis as equivalent to consumable (verbrauchbar).
t Funk, p. 173.
X ** Commentaries,'' vol. ii. p. 90, 6th edition.
§ According to the peculiar view of the Roman law, mutuum, like com-
modatum or mandatum, was necessarily gratuitous. And just us a loan of a
specific thing, or agency, if onerous, was not called commodate or mandate,
but fell under the contract locatio-conductio ; so also a loan of coin, if onerous,
was not called mutuum but foeneratio, or, if the word mutuum was retained,
it was still held to denote gratuitousness ; the foenus was the result of a
Usury. SSy
transaction would doubtless be called at present a loan of
money, and the fcenus would be called interest in the popular
(which is also the legal) sense of that word. But the terms
loan of money and interest apply to much else besides, and it
is only one of their least important functions to represent the
ancient mutuum and fcenus. In the vast majority of modern
commercial lending transactions neither metallic nor paper
money — neither coin or bank-notes — are employed. Innumer-
able pieces of paper, with promises written on them to pay
pounds, shillings, and pence, pass from hand to hand, and
represent transfers of goods in all parts of the world. But
coin ia only used for small change ; it is cheques and bills, in
other words, acknowledgments of debt, on which the fabric
of modem credit is erected. But we have no wish, and
fortunately no necessity to enter on a discussion of the com-
plicated phenomena of commercial exchange; since for the
explanation and proof of the preceding statements we can
refer to the treatise of Professor Price which we have already
mentioned, especially to the third lecture. It is sufficient to
cite the conclusion that " lending, the lending of trade and
banks, is not made with money, whether coin or notes."* And
thus in the phrases 'money-market' and 'loan of money,*
the word money means a great deal more than pecunia, and
loan than mutuum. Consequently interest, or ' increase by
way of compensation for the sum advanced,' means a great
deal more than fcenus. As far as its meaning among traders,
lawyers, and the public admits of any accurate definition, we
suppose that wherever one party, A, has any claim on another
party, B, not for any specific objects, but for a specific value.
separate acrreement (pactum adjectum) side by side with the mutuum. But
the mutuum we are concerned with meaiis the loan of fungible things, with-
out any regard to its gratuitousness or onerousness. Foeneratio, or the
onerous loan of coin, is one species of mutuum in this sense.
* L. c, p. 81. It is unfortunate that this very point, of such importance
for the relation of the Church and the commercinl world, should have been
quite misunderstood by the chief English economist. Mr. Mill (" PoL Econ.,"
bk. iii. ch. xxiii. § 4) says : " There is a real relation which it is indis-
pensable to recognize between loans and money. Loanable capital is all of
it in the form of money. Capital destined directly for production exists in
many forms ; but capital destined for lending exists normally in that form
alone." On which we will observe first, that since by the context it is clear
that, regardless of his previous definition, he includes the * circulating instru-
ments of credit * in the term money, he gives these the appellation of capital.
Yet they are not even wealth, much less capital, but simply titles to wealth.
Secondly, that instead of all loans being in the shape of coin or bank-notes, a
very small fraction of them are in the latter, still fewer in the former. On
an average 97 per cent, of what is lent is in the shape of bills and cheques.
See Price, Lecture iiL
VOL. XXI. — NO. XLii. [New Series.'] z
338 • Usury.
any periodical payment from B to A in consideration of this
claim is called interest.* Interest in this, which we will call
the popular sense, can, and in innumerable cases does arise,
continue, and come to an end without gold or silver, or paper
money having been employed at all ; and in all these cases
the transaction lies without the scope of the ecclesiastical
legislation on usura and fceneratio.
We now can distinguish the three senses of the word
interest, the confusion of which has greatly beclouded the
subject of usury. First, there is the popular sense which we
have just given. Secondly, there is the economical sense —
the share of capital in the produce — which we have explained
in the first part of this article. Thirdly, there is what we
may call the old legal sense, in which interest means, " the legal
profit or recompense allowed on loans of coin, to be taken
from the borrower by the lender" ;t in other words, foenus
legitimum, or gain from a mutuum in so far as allowed by the
civil law. These three meanings have in common the ex-
pression of a gain or profit, as the word interest itself shows.J
As to their mutual relations, interest in the popular sense may
be said to be the genus ; in the old legal sense, to be one of
the numerous species falling under that genus. But the
economical sense of the word stands in no such relation to the
other two senses. Thus the rent of a shop constitutes interest
in the economical, but not in the popular sense ; while the
latter usually includes insurance, and can also signify a gain
got by fraud or extortion, and even certain wages of superin-
tendence. Finally, the old legal sense of the word may or may
not constitute interest in the economical sense, according as
the goods obtained with the coin are used in production or
consumption ; and this in its turn will depend on the situation
of the parties and the condition of society.
From the foregoing it appears that the offence of usury in
the modern legal sense, viz. ' compensation greater than the
law allows for the use of a sum of money advanced,' is very
different from the ecclesiastical offence. On the one hand
it extends to a multitude of commercial transactions other
* This is not dissimilar from the definition in Wharton's Law Lexicon,
5th edit, by Will. " Interest, money paid or allowed for the loan or use of
some other sum lent at a fixed rate."
t Jacob's Law Diet., by Tomlins (edit; 1809), word. Interest of money.
To avoid confusion we have put * coin ' for * money,' since by money was
meant coin ; for in the same dictionary money is defined as ** that metal, be
it gold or silver, which receives authority by the prince's impress to be
current."
X Similaiy with the German word for interest, Le. Zins, derived from the
Latin census, or revenue.
Usury, 389
than the contract of mutuum, and which thus can give no
scope for the ecclesiastical offence of usury. On the other
hand, much that the civil law would permit as interest (in the
popular sense) would be usury in foro interne ; for there are
many cases where to make any profit from a loan would be
sinful.
But besides the modern there is the old legal sense of the
offence of usury, which is correlative to the old legal sense of
interest, and which signifies foenus over and above what the
civil law permits. The offence in this sense would always
constitute the ecclesiastical offence, which, as we have seen,
means all wrongful gain from a mutuum ; for it would be
wrongful, if for no other reason, at least for violating the civil
law which the Church bids us obey. But, as in the preceding
case, much would be usury in foro interne which would be
permitted by the civil law, the ecclesiastical would not always
constitute the civil offence.
We emerge at last from this wearisome maze of verbal
difficulties, having obtained four senses of the word usury
(the wide and the narrow ecclesiastical and the old and the
new legal sense) and three of the word interest. That these
distinctions are not unprofitable may be gathered from the fact
that Mr. Lecky's attack on the Church rests almost entirely on
a confusion of these terms. He makes no distinction between
interest and usury, much less between the various senses of
each of these words. In consequence, he utterly misrepresents
the Fathers and the Popes, and gives his readers a false notion
not merely of the spirit but of the very letter of the Canon
law. To say the Church forbade interest in the popular or
in the economical sense is to state what is not true.* And
it is incorrect and misleading to say that she forbade it in the
sense of legal recompense on loans of coin. For before any
recompense at all was permitted by the civil law, she had
begun to modify her prohibitions of foenus, so that only in
* Yet, as far as we can understand him, Mr Lecky has made both these
charges in the two following passages respectively : — " Above all the compli-
cations and subtleties with which the subject was surrounded, one plain,
intelligible principle remained — the loan of money was an illicit way of ac-
quiring wealth. In other words, any one who engaged in any speculMtion of
which the increase of his capital by interest was the object, had committed
usury, and was therefore condemned by the Church." (" Hist, of Ratiooalism,''
ch. vi. vol. ii. p. 259, 4th edit.) " As it is quite certain that commercial
and industrial enterprise cannot be carried on on a laige scale without
borrowing, and as it is equally certain that these loans can only be effected
by paying for them in the shape of interest, it is no exaggeration to say that
the Church had cursed the material development of civilization." (Ibid.,
p. 262.)
Z 2
340 Usury.
some cases and under certain circumstances would that which
the State law permitted be forbidden by. the Church law.
Only if we gratuitously affix a fourth sense to interest, and
make it exclusively mean all recompense on a loan of coin,
whether forbidden or allowed by the State law, in short,
simply foenus, can the Church be said at any time to
have forbidden all interest. The meaning and nature of
this prohibition we hope to examine in a subsequent article.
In this article we have not to explain the past, but to establish
a theory of usury suited to the present. The prevailing con-
ception of the sin of usury has been, as we have said, that it
consists in all unlawful gain from a contract of mutuum;
among which contracts the loan of coin is by far the most
frequent and important. We will now give the main points
of the new theory of usury as reconstructed by Dr. Funk, and
compare it with the prevailing view.
Contracts in the general sense of agreements, or duorum vel
plurium in idem placitum consensus, are, as is known, from
one point of view divided into gratuitous and onerous. Con-
fining our attention to the latter kind, we observe that such
contracts are in fact the legal form of what in the economical
order is called exchange. Thus what we have said of exchange
will apply to onerous contracts. They connote our mutual
dependence, and their result is a gain to be divided between
the two contracting parties. But it may be that one party
obtains more than his due share of this gain, or even obtains
it all. And this inaBqualitas dati et accepti, or lack of com-
mutative justice, can arise from two causes, referrible — the one
to the intellect, the other to the will of the injured party. In
the one case he is deceived, and if with the knowledge of the
other party, the contract isfraudulenL In the other case he is
intimidated, that is, moved by the grave fear of an impending
evil, and if with the knowledge of the other party, the contract
is usurious. Let us consider the last case more closely.
The two parties maybe on equal terms, so that, pre-supposing
complete cognitio rei on both sides, any attempt at extortion
would be met by the other simply declining the terms. But
it may happen that one of the two is in distress and in pressing
need of concluding the contract, while the other party can
refuse or delay it without inconvenience. This situation of
inequality would occur, for example, when one pursued by
( nemies contracts with the ferryman to convey him to the
opposite shore ; or when a workman without bread for his
family contracts to work for wages. It is plain that if the
party who in such cases is in the position of superiority, as
the fen'yman or the employer, takes advantage of it so as to
Usury. 341
gain more than he would have gained otherwise, his conduct
is a violation of justice. Doubtless the fugitive who pays a
pound instead of a penny, the customary price for the ferry,
and the labourer who agrees to labour at sixpence a day, in a
certain sense act freely. They choose the lesser evil, that is,
they deliberately elect for what hie et nunc appears to them
a good. For we are supposing that their reason is undisturbed
by the metus gravis which moves their will. But their act,
in the language of S. Thomas,* though voluntary simpliciter,
is involuntary secundum quid, or hypothetically ; that is, would
not be done were not special circumstances present. And it
is precisely in taking advantage of these circumstances, in
forcing the victim to make choice between two evils, that
consists the injustice of extortion and usury. It should be
noticed that this matter, which lies at the root of the question
of usury, has been quite misrepresented by Bentham.f In
the first place he confounds the rate of interest — ^we use the
word in the popular sense — as a gage or measure of the
trustworthiness of the person borrowing, and of the profitable-
ness of the things borrowed, with the rate of interest as a gage
or measure of the borrower's distress ; and because it is fitting
that the rate of interest should vary according as the borrower is
more or less trustworthy and the goods borrowed more or less
profitable, Bentham leads his readers to suppose that it is no less
fitting that the rate of interest should vary according as the
borrower is more or less in distress. In the second place he
confounds the freedom which suffices for an act to be an actus
humanus with the freedom requisite for the application of the
maxim 'volenti not fit injuria,^ and makes no distinction between
voluntarium secundum quid and voluntarium simpliciter.
Yet it is simple mockery to say to the victims of the usurer
that they suffer no wrong because they were free to refuse
the contract. The brigand might with equal reason justify
the ransom which he had extorted from his captive on the plea
that the latter had deliberately elected to pay it. Of much the
same value is the argument of certain economists that capital-
ists and labourers are on equal terms. If the labourer, they
say, is dissatisfied with his wages, let him quit his master^s
service. Unfailing remedy; yet there are remedies worse
than the disease ; and what if quitting meant starvation or
the workhouse for himself and his children ?
Usury then may be defined as making profit by way of
* " Summa Tk," la 2* q. 6, a. 6. Cf: Gury, " Compendium TheoL Moral./
pars L n. 781.
t " Defence of Usury," letter iv.
342 Usury,
contract out of another's distress, or, to give Dr. Funk's
fuller definition : " Usury is the conscious oppression of the
poor and distressed, efiected through the legal forms of con-
tract ; the positive ground whereof is the greed and heartless-
ness of the one party, the negative ground, the weakness and
neediness of the other party/'* In German or French this
can be concisely expressed by saying that usury is the ' Aus-
beutung,' or ' exploitation ' of another's distress. f
According to the foregoing definition of usury, it is clear
that it can apply to all contracts, and not merely to loans of
coin or of other fungible things. If he is an usurer who
exacts immoderate foenus, no less an usurer is he who exacts
an immoderate price for his goods, which his neighbour is in
need of, nor can procure elsewhere ; no less an usurer is the
landlord who exacts immoderate rent, knowing that his
tenants can get elsewhere no fitting habitation ; no less an
usurer is the capitalist who takes advantage of a ' redundance
in the labour-market ' to reduce to a miserable pittance the
wages of his labourers. Nevertheless, there is an historical
connection between usury, even as we have defined it, and the
contract of mutuum. For during many centuries this crime
was habitually practised only by way of this contract, and, we
should add, almost exclusively by Jews, since in the ' Dark '
Ages it was unusual for Christians habitually to make profit
out of their neighbour's distress. It will not then be out of
place to explain how usury, as we have defined it, is applicable
to loans in general, and to mutuum in particular.
The great majority of loans are either commercial or
necessitous. In the first case the borrower borrows to pro-
duce ; in the second, to consume. In a commercial loan both
parties stand normally on equal terms. They freely contract
for their mutual advantage; and the payment which the
lender periodically receives in consideration of his loan is
presumably interest in the economical sense, plus insurance
against risk, and is thus perfectly legitimate. But in a
necessitous loan the borrower is in a situation of essential
inferiority. He is in the plight of a hungry man before the
owner of a store of food. It is idle and delusive to talk of
* Page 209.
t If we do not misinterpret the following passage, Mr. Lecky would
regard as a prejudice any scruple as to this * exploitation.' He says (L c.
p. 254), ** It should be observed that when public opinion stigmatizes money-
lending as criminal, great industrial enterpiises that rest upon it will be
unknown. Those who borrow will therefore forthe most part borrow on account
of some urgent necessity, and the fEict that interest is wealth made from the
poverty of others will increase the prejudice against it." The italics are our
own.
Usury, 343
«
freedom in such a case. The lender can make what terms he
likes; and no portion of the payment he stipulates for is
interest in the economical sense, that is, his share in the
produce ; for ex hypothesi the loan is employed towards con-
sumption, and not towards production, so that there is no
produce to be shared. Thus all profit the lender makes out
of the transaction is usury, being profit out of another's
distress. But h,ere an objection will be made on the part of
certain economists. The lender, it will be said, can by no
means make what terms he likes ; for the competition of other
lenders will enable the borrower to obtain the loan at the
current rate, plus an insurance proportioned to his trustworthi-
ness. In these times any one may lend ; there is no monopoly,
and a monopoly price is impossible. Such is the objection.
We answer, that the principles which regulate the commercial
world cannot be extended to petty trade and private dealings.
As to wholesale business, and transactions which we may call
impersonal, classifications can be drawn up and laws can be
laid down. But as soon as private and personal influences
come into play, our laws and classifications are of no avail.
It were well in these matters, instead of pronouncing what
inust be, to go out among men and observe what is. We
should then learn that competition is powerless to hinder the
oppression of the poor and the weak. Competition requires
time and publicity, and a starving man cannot wait, a dis-
tressed family shrinks from exposing its distress before the
world.* Besides, all honourable capitalists employ their
capital in commercial loans, so that those who speculate on
the need of the borrower enjoy a kind of monopoly.f But
the most conclusive refutation of the competition theory is ex
facto. We will be content with one example : "The ordinary
rate of interest," says Mr. Mayhew, "in the costermongers'
money-market amounts to 20 per cent, per week, or no less
than £1,040 a year for every £100 advanced.*' J Nor is this
exorbitant rate the result of insecurity of repayment. " I
ascertained that not once in twenty times was the money-
lender exposed to any loss by the non-payment of his usurious
interest, while his profits are enormous.'' § It appears that
though the lenders never go to law, they have au effectual
method of enforcing payment by the threat of denouncing
the defaulter to the other members of the lending fraternity.
* Funk, p. 238.
t Perin, "LTsure et la Loi de 1807," p. 29.
t Mayhew, '* London Labour and the London Poor," toL i. p. 31.
§ Ibid., p. 35.
344 Usury.
so as to prevent his ever obtaining a fresh loan. And this
means his ruin. On similar usurious terms are lent the
barrows, baskets, measures, and stock needful for the coster-
monger^ s trade.
The plea then of the competition among the lenders appears
almost as delusive as the plea of the freedom of the borrowers;
and we may lay down as a general rule, that in a necessitous
or consumptive loan quidquid sorti accedit is usury as we have
defined it ; whereas, in a commercial or productive loan, it is
not usury. Further, the objects lent help us in deciding
whether a loan is commercial or necessitous. Consumptive
commodities cannot serve for a commercial loan ; productive
commodities are seldom lent to persons in distress. Conse-
quently, there is a strong presumption that all gain resulting
from the loan of consumptive commodities is usurious, and,
on the other hand, that all gain resulting from the loan of
productive commodities is legitimate. Applying this to the
particular loan called mutuum, we see that without further
inquiry nothing can be presumed in the present condition of
society as to its character. It may be a loan of coin, and coin
may serve towards production, in which case a gain from it
will be presumably lawful. But the coin may serve towards
consumption, or the objects lent may not be coin, but those
other fungible things quas primo usu naturaliter consumuntur,
as bread, oil, or wine ; in which cases the loan can be pre-
sumed to be necessitous, and all gain &om it to be usurious.
Reverting to the consideration of usury in general, we may
say that, if regarded as we have defined it, it forms one of the
four ways in which we can unlawfully appropriate ano therms
property. For since we can do this either by way of contract
or not, and also either aperte or dolose, the combinations of
these characteristics give rise to four kinds of ofience. If un-
contractual and deceitful, the ofience is called theft — furtum ;
if uncontractual and open, robbery — rapina; if contractual and
deceitful, fraud — dolus ; if contractual and open, usury.* And
of these four ways in which the fifth commandment can be
violated, the last is generally the worst ; for being habitually
directed against the poor, it becomes habitually one of the
sins crying to heaven for vengeance. No doubt it can apply
to the rich. Thus the conduct of the ferryman above men-
* When Dr. Funk (p. 209, note) speaks of the A^thholding from labourers
their wages as in its essence nothing else than usury, he seems to confuse
what he has previously well distinguished, viz. rapina and usura. Not all
oppression of the weak and distressed is usury, but only that oppression
effected by way of contract. Withholding wages is no contract, but the
violation of a contract, not usury, but robbery (rapina).
Usury. 845
tioned would bo usurious, whether the fugitive were a prince
or a peasant. Thus too if a trader were in sudden need of
cash, and the lender, knowing this, were to exact exorbitant
remuneration, the latter would be guilty of usury. There are
cases in which we are bound to lend gratuitously even to the
rich."^ And still more would usury, according to the old view,
which would include what we should call fraudulent as well as
usurious gains from a mutuum, be applicable to the rich, who
can be imposed on as well as the poor.f This is important in
connection with a passage in the Encyclical of Benedict XIV.,
in which he deals a blow at both the arch-heretics of the 16th
century. '^ Neque vero ad istam labem purgandam, ullum
arcessiri subsidium poterit, vel ex eo quod id lucrum non
excedens et nimium, sed moderatum, non magnum sed
exiguum sit [Luther had indeed originally denounced usury
with extreme vigour ; but human nature was frail, the times
were depraved, and the gracious apostle, though still
thundering against ' Wucher,^ conceded to his disciples the
practice of ' Wiicherlein '
lucrum solius causa mutui
,t vel ex eo quod is, a quo id
that is neither as the reward of
capital nor as insurance against risk] deposcitur, non pauper
sed dives exstat [Calvin had denied that there could be usury
except towards the poor] ; nee datam sibi mutuo summam
relicturus otiosam, sed ad fortunas suas amplificandas, vel
no vis coemendis prasdiis, vel quaastuosis agitandis negotiis
utilissime impensurus.^' Truly in how productive soever a
manner the loan might be employed by the trader, of whose
sudden need, or of whose simplicity the lender had taken
advantage ; this would avail not at all to cleanse away the
stain of extortion or fraud, and to render lawful the lender^s
exorbitant gain. However, the powerful and the wealthy are
not often in a position of distress ; it is the poor and weak
* Gury, L c. pars L 850, ii.
t We ought perhaps here to add a word on loans to * prodigals.' We
can in ahstracto pronounce no judgment as to their fraudulent or usurious
character. We can only decide in the concrete case. Thus, for example, if
a youn^ prodigal with slender means but large expectations borrows in order
to indulge in extravagances, any interest charged by the lender more than
the current rate and the suitable insurance, should be called rather fraudulent
than usurious gain, being the exploitation not of the distress but of the
simplicity of the borrower. But, if the prodigal, having already indulged in
extravagances, is so pressed by his creditors that a grave disgrace will oefall
him, unless he can instantly satisfy them ; and the money-lender, knowinjg
this, exacts exorbitant terms for his loan, it is a case of usury. Whether it
is lawful to lend on any terms to a known prodigal is a question clearly
distinct from that of usury.
X Neumann, " Die Geschichte xles Wuchers in Deutschland,'' p. 480, seq.
346 Usury,
who are the chief victims of that oppression which we have
called usury.
Among all nations and at all times this odious crime has
been held in just abhorrence. The law of nature^ which God
has written on our hearts, speaks here too plainly to be mis-
taken. Bentham, indeed, endeavours to account for the uni-
versal ' prejudice ' against usury and money-lenders, by the
natural enmity of the possessionless against the possessors.
" Those who have a resolution to sacrifice the present to the
future are the natural objects of envy to those who have sacri-
ficed the future to the present.^'* And Mr. Lecky tells us
that '^ the origin of this prejudice [against ' interest ^] is pro-
bably to be found in the utter ignorance of all uncivilized men
about the laws that regulate the increase of wealth, and also
in that early and universal sentiment which exalts prodigality
above parsimony.^^t ^^^ ^ot to speak of this being an
unproved assertion which we might well decline to answer, it
is even inadmissible as an hypothesis. For if the alleged
envy and ignorance were the cause of the ill-repute of money-
lenders, why has not a similar ill-repute attached to the pro-
prietors of lands and houses, and to the employers of labour, — in
a word, to all instead of to one class of possessors ? How is
it that so sharp a distinction has been drawn between money-
lenders and bankers ? Is it not plain that it has not been the
possession of wealth and power, but the abuse of them to
grind down the poor, which'has caused the public conscience
to condemn certain practices and occupations ? Because for
centuries money-lenders habitually oppressed their debtors,
the name of money-lending acquired its odious signification.
And whenever other classes of possessors have similarly abused
their position, a similar stigma has attached to their name.
Thus the title of landlord among the peasantry (unless things
have changed) in parts of Ireland, and the title of house-pro-
prietor among the poor in many towns of north-western Europe,
are no less odious than the title of money-lender.
To complete our theory of usury we will say a word on the
so-called usury laws. In times when all profit from a loan
of coin was presumably the fruit of extortion, laws (we are
speaking of civil laws) forbidding such profit and having as
their aim to hinder such extortion were wisely planned and
rightly named. But it by no means follows that the same can
be said of the name and nature of laws professing to regulate
the rate of interest. As to their name, we will but say that
* " Defence of Usury/ Letter X.
t « HiBtoiy of RatioD ' vol ii. p. 262.
Usury. 347
the modern legal sense of the words interest and usury is wide
and wavering. As to their nature, we will observe, firstly, that
such laws have been maintained through many other motives
than a desire to protect the poor : they were supposed, whether
rightly or wrongly, to favour trade, to restrain prodigals,
to bridle projectors. Secondly, that the limitation by law of
the rate of interest would mean at present in such a country
as England, that the transfer of property, when done in a
certain way, should not bring more than a certain profit to the
transferrer. Whether such a law could have any rational
object besides the suppression of the sin of usury; whether
it it would be of any avail for the latter purpose ; whether, if
it barred one way of practising usury, it would not leave ninety-
nine other ways open ; whether other legal measures could not
be adopted agaifist usury ; these questions, and others like to
these, are matters of pratical legislation, and lie without the
.province of our present discussion, which is the borderland
between political economy and moral theology.
We have set forth the reconstructed doctrine of usury.
Instead of regarding this offence as all unlawful gain springing
from a mutuum, we have regarded it as all gain made by way
of contract out of another^s distress. The first of these two views
is from one aspect wider, from another aspect narrower, than
the second. It is wider, as including not merely those viola-
tions of justice done aperte, but also those done dolose. It is
narrower, as being confined to one kind of contract, instead of
extending to all kinds. From an abstract point of view, this old
conception of usury is less logical than that set forth by Dr. Funk.
It regards, as he says,* the legal exterior of the action rather
than the moral substance. Yet in former times it had the
great practical advantage of' making the pronouncement of
the moral judgment very simple and easy ; and through the
situation of the economical world, it included in practice
almost all those offences which would have fallen under the
new definition of usury ; for, as we have said, this crime was
practised in hardly any other way than by means of the
mutuum. It was also convenient to make no unnecessary
divergence from the arrangements of the Roman law, which
was so widely spread, so deeply venerated, and which served,
so to speak, as a useful mould, in which the principles of the
moralists could be cast. But times have changed, and the
practical advantages which outbalanced the theoretical imper-
fection of the old view of usury have gone, as is evident from
the present entanglement of the question, and the numerous
♦ Page 211.
348 Usury.
distinctions and modifications which have become necessary. *
Whereas the new view would, we think, be beneficial both in
theory and in practice : in theory, by classing together similar
moral offences, and associating for common reprobation all
classes of the extortionate oppressors of the weak ; in prac-
tice, by giving the situation of the parties in all contracts as
the ground for pronouncing judgment as to the presence or
absence of usury ; a judgment, which in the case of loans
could be facilitated by the further inquiry whether the loan
served towards consumption or production.
We have now accomplished what we may call the exposi-
tory portion of our subject. In a subsequent article we
propose, by the light of the principles and definitions which
we have obtained, to examine the treatment of usury by the
canon law, to show its justice and consistency, and briefly to
consider certain comments and criticisms which it has
occasioned.
♦ Ibid., pp. 212, 213.
( 349 )
Art. IV.— the IGNATIAN EPISTLES : THEIR
GENUINENESS AND THEIR DOCTRINE.
Corjms Ignatianum, A complete collection of the Ignatian Epistles, genuine,
interpolated, and spurious ; together with numerous extracts from them,
as quoted by ecclesiastical writers down to the tenth century. In Syriac,
Greek, and Latin. An English Translation of the Syriac Text, copious
Notes and Introduction. By William Curbton, M.A., F.R.S. London :
Rivington. 1849.
Ueber die AechtheU des Hsherigen Textes der Ignatianischen Brief e, {On
the Authenticity of the previous Text of the Ignaiian Epistles.) Von
H. Denzinoer, ausserordentlich. Professor der Theologie in Wiirzbuig.
Wiirzburg. 1849.
DcLS VerhcUtniss der hii/rzeren Oriechischen Recension der Ignatianischen Brief e
zur syrischen Uebersetzung und die Authentic der Briefe vberhaupt. Von
G. Uhlhorn, Repetent der Theologischen Facultat zu Gottingen. {The
Relation of the shorter Greek Recension of the Ignatian Epistles to the
Syriac Translation, and the Authenticity of the Epistles in general. By
G. Uhlhorn. Two Dissertations in Niedner's Zeitschrift fiir die
Historische Theologie, Nos. 1 and 2 for 1851. Hamburg and Gotha.)
Veber das VerhcUtniss des Textes der drd syrischen Briefe des Ignatios zu den
vbrigen Recensionen der Ignatianischen Literatur, {On (he RelcUion of
the Text of the three Syriac Epistles of Ignatius to the other Recensions
of the Ignatian Literature.) Von R. A. Lipsius, D. TheoL Leipzig.
1869.
Meletemata Ignatiana scripsit Adalbert Merx. Halle. 1861.
Essays, Critical and Historical, Essay V. on the Theology of the Seven Epistles
of S, Ignatius, with note now first published. By J. H. Newman,
formerly fellow of Oriel. Pickering. 1871.
Ignatius von Antiochien. Von Th. Zahn, Dr. und ausserord. Professor der
Theologie in Gottingen. Gotha. 1873.
THERE are two ways in which the history of Catholic doc-
trine may be regarded. It is possible to look upon it as
the slow result of a process of human reasoning, by which a
religion originally vague, undogmatic, and in many respects in-
consistent with itself, was gradually moulded into a complete
dogmatic system, partly by the exclusion of some of its ori-
ginal elements, partly by the adoption of foreign principles,
derived from the heathen philosophy. Or, again, we may set
out with an assumption diametrically opposite. We may
recognize the Christian doctrines as divine in their origin, and
as protected from corruption throughout the history of the
350 The Ignatian Epistles :
Catholic Church by the same power to which they owed their
birth. There is no reason why a Catholic who admits, as
every Catholic must admit, this principle, should ignore the
history of doctrine. The revelation which Christ made was
given completely in Scripture and tradition. But the Church
and her doctors were not left to repeat the words of our Lord
and His apostles from age to age, or to announce the same
truths, without any change except in terminology. Human
inteHigence had its part to do. Consequences had to be
drawn from principles ; and it did not appear, till time and
controversy with one heresy after another, had done their
work, how fruitful these principles were. It was necessary to
determine the relations of faith to reason, of religion to phi-
losophy; error shifted its attacks upon the deposit of faith
from age to age ; and though truth could not change for the
sake of adapting itself to human error, each new deviation from
the received tradition made explicit statements requisite where
before, a simpler and less definite language had sufficed. It
is true that an infallible authority secured the definitions of
faith which were put forth against each successive heresy from
the taint of error. Still, these definitions followed as a rule
after the questions which they decided had been the subjects
of long discussion within and without the Church. There was
nothing to secure individual Fathers from exaggeration, or
from incompleteness of statement. They might expose revealed
truth to some danger by an excessive readiness to find ana-
logies between a philosophy like that of Plato and the teaching
of the Church ; or, in their zeal for the supremacy of faith, they
might condemn absolutely a philosophy which the Church was
able afterwards to use for her own ends. They might fix their
attention on the truths which it was their business at the
moment to defend, and fall into inaccurate .language, which
could be used, unjustly indeed, but not without a show of plau-
sibility, by heretics who fell into error at the opposite extreme.
It is certain, for instance, that Arianism was never accounted
orthodoxy. When Arius maintained that the Son of God wfta
made out of nothing, or that His will might have chosen evil
instead of good, he could find no shadow of support for his
heresy in the ante-Nicene Fathers. There was no time when
words like these would not have excited scandal and horror
among the faithful. It is none the less certain that he could
have appealed to expressions of Justin on the "ministrations^*
which the Son rendered to the eternal Father before the incar-
nation, or to language of the Apologists on the eternity of the
Word, which were inconsistent with the other teaching of
the same Fathers, and which were capable of being abused for
Their Genuineness and thtir Doctrine. 351
heretical purposes. S. Dioiiysius of Alexandria furnishes us
with a striking instance of a great Father of the Church who
acknowledged practically that, on his onset upon heresy, he
had fallen into confusion of ideas and dangerous language.
In his contest with Sabellianism, he had spoken of the Son as
" strange to the essence^^ of the Father, and had described the
relation of the Word to the Father as like that between the
vine and the vine-dresser. When the Pope of the day, to
whom he was delated, pointed out the inadequacy of these
expressions, he gave explanations which were perfectly satis-
factory. He was certain, from the tradition of the Church,
that the Son was distinct from the Father, and that the Son
was God. In attempting to reconcile these two truths, he fell
into material error. He proved by the explanations he gave,
that, while he was sure of these two truths, he was not sure
of his success in reconciling them ; and that he was not pre-
pared, as the Arians were, to abandon the true divinity of
Christ, because he had failed in his attempt to bring it into
harmony with the distinction of Persons and the unity of
God.* The Nicene definition was the legitimate development
of the Patristic teaching during the first three centuries, but
it was a development which was matured by the slow action
of time and controversy.
The difference, then, between a Catholic theologian, like
Petavius, and infidel writers on the history of doctrine, such aa
Baur, does not turn on the fact of development, but on its
nature and significance. According to the latter, the process
of development is one by which doctrine actually grows up.
From this point of view the appeal which later Fathers made
to tradition is simply false. Each age of the Church has
dropped the principles of the age which preceded it, and added
* Athanas. de Decretis NicsensB Synodi, 25, 26 ; and de Sententia
Dionysii. The expressions of S. Dionysius, which gave offence to "some
brethren of the Church,'* are quoted by S. Athanas. de Sententia Dionysii,
c. 4. Dionysius alleged in his defence, that, though he had used illustrations
not strictly to the point (dxp^orlpwv), such as that of the vine and the vine-
dresser, he had done so " i| iTriiJpofi^c''— "oflf-hand" (t6.,c 18)1; that, if he had
called the Father, in relation to the "Word** "Maker" (^oiiyr^t), this, too,
was iK i-TTidpofirjij and mi^ht be justified from the loose sense in which
7roiT}Tiig was sometimes used by Greek vriters, nay, even in the sacred Scrip-
ture (c. 21) ; that, though he had not actually used the term ofioovtrioQ of the
Son, some parts of his letter were in keeping with the truth which it enun-
ciates. S. Dionysius was justly indignant at the conduct of those who,
without " questioning him, went to Rome, and accused him to his namesake,
the bishop " of that city (c. 13). Still, it is evident from his own apology
that his language had been open to misapprehension ; and that, for some of
it at least, S. Athanasius' excuse that Dionysius was speaking of our Lord
in His human nature, will not answer.
352 The Ignatian EpUihs :
new ones. They tell us, for instance, that our Lord was regarded
first of all as the Messias, the greatest of all the teachers
sent from God, but yet a mere man \ then as the Word, infe-
rior even apart from His human nature to the Father, although
in some vague sense He was called God ; last of all, that He
was separated utterly from creatures, and declared to be con-
substantial with the Father. Petavius, and the writers who
have dealt since his day with the history of doctrine, admit
that the doctrine, when it was finally deternjined at the Coun-
cils, received a form more complete and definite than it had
presented in the wi'i tings of Fathers who lived at an earlier
date. But what Catholics have ever insisted upon is this : — The
definitions of Councils go beyond the teaching of some indivi-
dual Fathers, precisely because these Fathers had fallen short,
to some extent, of the original teaching of the Apostles. In
the course of years heresy was met by a new and adequate
expression of truth delivered from the first. The Fathers did
not add to the deposit of faith ; on the contrary, they had to
struggle with the difficulty of grasping that deposit on all its
sides and in all its bearings, of adapting it to new terms, of
opposing it to new and various forms of error. At the last the
stream of doctrine rose no higher than its source.
Here then are two views of history, each beginning with a
principle which needs verification. The first appeal is, of course,
to the New Testament. Still there is a test, simpler in some
respects, and hardly less crucial. The Apostolic Fathers do not,
like many of their successors, write directly against heretics.
They make no attempt to systematize, or to put dogma in a phi-
losophical shape. We can argue little from this silence, for they
do not profess to give any complete account of the Churches
doctrine; but whenever they do touch upon doctrine, the import-
ance of their utterances can hardly be exaggerated. Practically,
the Apostolic Fathers reduce themselves to S. Ignatius. In two
or three places in his first epistle S. Clement of Rome touches
upon theology. What he says is full of importance, and we
shall consider it in connection with the doctrine of S. Igna-
tius. Of the other Apostolic writings, the epistle ascribed to
S. Barnabas confines itself to an attack on Judaism. The
epistle of Hermas is concerned with the penitential discipline ;
while the symbolical form which its author employs renders
the scanty allusion contained in it to the doctrine of the Trinity
exceedingly obscure. The epistle of Polycarp is of a hortatory
and moral character. In contrast to these, S. Ignatius speaks
repeatedly on a number of doctrinal questions ; and he does
so without the technical phraseology of a later age, but with
abundant clearness and precision. Nor can we conceive of a
, t
Their Genuineness and their Doctrine, 353
saint more fit to represent the genuine tradition of the Church.
He was, at least, a near successor of S. Peter * in the see of
Antioch. He was a disciple of S. John. He was animated
by an intense devotion to S. Paul. The journey towards the
scene of his martyrdom, on which he wrote his epistle, brought
him into contact with many different Churches. S. Polycarp,
who was, like S. Ignatius, a disciple of S. John, collected his
letters, and sent them from Smyrna to Philippi in Macedonia.f
Moreover, throughout his epistles S. Ignatius assumes that
the doctrine of the Churches to which he wrote was in full har-
mony with his own.
We have said enough in proof that the doctrine of S. Igna-
tius was the doctrine of the Church generally in the year of
his death, 107. J Before we proceed to exhibit that doctrine
in detail, it may be well to sum up the results which follow, as
we believe, from an examination of the Ignatian epistles. First,
with regard to Catholic theology. The Latin genuine text
was discovered by Usher in 1644, the year in which Petavius
published the first three volumes of his Dogmata Theologica.
Probably, had he been acquainted with the authentic epistles,
while the main part of his work would have remained unal-
tered, he would have been able to add something to the positive
proof which he has given for the doctrine of the Trinity in the
ante-Nicene Fathers. He had to rely upon the statements of
early Fathers, the force of which is modified, though far from
neutralized, by an inadequacy of language, and occasionally
* Euseb. Hist., iii. 22 and 36, makes S. Evodius first Bishop of Antioch
after S. Peter, and S. Ignatius the second. In his Chronicle he puts the
beginning of S. Ignatius's episcopate in the year 69 ; i.e. a year after the
date given in the Chronicle for the death of S. Peter and S. Paul. On the
other hand, S. Chrysostom, who was, of course, likely to be familiar with
the tradition of the Antiochene church, says that S. Ignatius was conse-
crated bishop, to fill S. Peter's place when he left Antioch (Chiys.,
torn. ii. p. 597). Theodoret expressly declares that Ignatius was conse-
crated by S. Peter (Theodor., Dial. I. t. iv. p. 49 ; and Epist. IV. p. 1312,
ed. Schubre) ; and S. Athanas. (de Synodis, c. 47) seems to have been of
the same opinion. An account of the various suggestions for reconciling
the contradiction will be found in Tillemont (M^m., torn. IL note 1, sut
S. Ignace).
t Polyc. ad Philipp., 13.
J The date given by the Acta Martyrii for the death of S. Ignatius is
20th December, 107 (Acta, cc. 2 et 9). According to these Acts, Trajan,
when he came to Antioch, was on his march against the Armenians. Con-
temporary historians mention only one expedition of Trajan against the
Armenians — viz., in the year 115. This has led Pearson, Pagi, and many
later critics, to place the condemnation of Ignatius in the year 115. Tille-
mont, M6m., ii. note 10, sur S. Ignace, and Hefele, Patr. ApostoL, xl.,
defend the date given in the Acts. Recently, in the Tiibingen Quartalschrift,
Jan. 1873, Kraus has contended that 104 was the year of Sie martyrdom.
YOL. XXI. — NO. xui. [New Series.'] 2 a
354 The Ignatian Epistles :
by a confusion of thought, in other passages of their writings.
The genuine text of Ignatius, unlike the longer recension which
was interpolated in the interests of Arianism, would have fur-
nished him evidence for the Catholic doctrine which is de-
cisive, because it is counterbalanced by nothing which tends
in an opposite direction. Again, the Ignatian epistles tell with
fatal effect against the theory which makes the Catholic doc-
trine the growth of philosophic sp'eculation ; for they present
the dogmas of the Church, in their strongest and purest form,
at a time when little or nothing had been done to put them in
philosophic language or reduce them to system. Lastly, they
tend niore than any other remains of antiquity prior to the
work of Ireneeus to identify Christianity and Catholicism. We
shall find that the same Father who puts forth so unmistak-
ably the eternity of the Son, proclaims, with a distinctness
which Protestants have been compelled to admit, the real
presence of our Lord in the blessed Sacrament. The same
Father who insists on the authority of the Episcopate and the
unity of the Church, gives the first explicit testimony to the
primacy of the Roman See.
It is more than a mere coincidence that the contest has been
continued so long on the authenticity of these epistles. Catho-
lics and Protestants alike have felt how much turned on this
question. We shall have to consider it before the close of the
article. Meantime, we may observe that the most destructive
criticism does not venture to put the epistles later than the
year 160, and that their existence even at that time is a
difficulty which the infidel theory of development cannot meet
successfully. It is remarkable, too, that the controversy on
the Ignatian epistles, like the examination of the doctrine
which they contain, illustrates the inseparable connection
between Christianity and Catholicism, and the way in which
they stand or fall together. The authenticity was keenly dis-
puted by Protestants, such as Daill^, who were eager to set
aside the claims of the hierarchy set forth by S. Ignatius, but
who had no thought of impugning the canon of the New Tes-
tament or the Divine character of the Christian religion. In
this century historical investigation has made it plain that the
arguments against the epistles of Ignatius tell with at least equal
force against a great part of the New Testament ; and that it
is hard to dismiss the strong external and internal evidence
for their authenticity unless we are prepared to treat all the
early history of the Christian Church as a collection of myths.
Hence it is that the learned Protestants, Uhlhom and Rothe,
have been among the ablest defenders of the authenticity of
the seven epistles, and have been compelled to admit the apo-
Tlieir Genuineness ond their Doctrine. 855
stolic, or all but apostolic, origin of episcopacy ; while Baar
and Hilgenfeld/ the principal antagonists of the authenticity,
belong to the extremest section of the sceptical school.
The danger which S. Ignatius feared for the Churches of
Asia Minor arose from the spread of Gnosticism. This heresy
seems at that time to have been in a state of transition.
Corinthus had united in an inconsistent manner the errors of
Judaism with the belief in two Gods — one lower and the
maker of the world, the other supreme and remote from
matter — which afterwards developed into Gnosticism proper,
and assumed an exaggerated opposition to the Jewish law.
When S. Ignatius wrote, apparently the separation between
the Jewish and Gnostic elements was still incomplete. In
his letters to the churches of Magnesia and Philadelphia, he
speaks as if the heretics were at once Judaizing and Gnostic ;
while, in those to the SmyrneBans and Trallians, he attacks
the Docetic theory of the Gnostics without any certain
reference to Judaism. The principal points which S. Ignatius
keeps in view are the true humanity of Christ, in opposition
to the error of the Gnostics that the body of Christ was a
mere phantom ; and the unity of the Church, with the autho-
rity of its bishops, which he sets against the sects established
by these heretics. In insisting on these truths the saint
touches, by way of illustration, on other doctrines. But he
never argues systematically, or draws out any scheme of
doctrine ; and his words have a special interest and value,
precisely because he uses simple and untheological language,
and because, except on the Incarnation and on the authority of
the Episcopate, his utterances bear the character, more or less,
of obiter dicta. Sometimes he is exhorting the faithful, some-
times, though rarely, he argues from one doctrine to another;
but he never attempts to reconcile truths at first sight dis-
cordant with one another ; he never tries to apply philosophy
to revelation ; and hence, there is nothing to obscure the
clearness of his doctrine : his statements have an accuracy
and a fulness which the later Fathers reached with greater
difficulty and with material error, which was eliminated very
gradually. In the following pages we have thrown into order
the doctrine which lies scattered through the epistles.
To begin with the doctrine of the Trinity. On more than
one point with regard to this mystery, many of the Fathers
who lived in the second half of the second, and in the
third century, frequently express themselves in language
which is inaccurate and inconsistent with their own teaching
elsewhere. S. Justin Martyr is a convenient example to take,
for he is the first of the Fathers who treats a part of Christian
2a2
356 The Ignatian Epistles :
doctrine systematically. In his anxiety, probably, to put
Christianity in the form most intelligible to Platonizing Jews,
he calls the Son " a God diflTerent in number, though not in
mind, from the God who made all/^* He attributes the
Theophanies in the Old Testament to the Word exclusively,
and contrasts the '^ God who has been seen *' with the '^ God
who ever remains above the heavens, who has never been
seen by any man, or conversed immediately with any one/* t
In a multitude of places he speaks of the Word as '' minister-
ing*' to the Father, without limiting this ministry to the
time of His incarnation, J as being the '^ Son of the absolute
God " {tov ovTioQ flcov) and as holding the " second place,'*
while the " prophetic Spirit ** occupies the third.§ However
these and similar expressions in the later apologists, diflScult
to reconcile with the eternal procession of the divine Word,
may be explained, this much is clear, that they need explana-
tion. If we compare with them the doctrine of S. Ignatius,
we shall see that these defective explanations sprang not
from the original tradition of the Church, but from the action
of the individual minds which exercised themselves upon that
tradition. S. Ignatius knows nothing of a Son who is
" another God.** " There is one God,** he says . , . . " who
has manifested Himself, through His Son Jesus Christ, who
is His eternal Word.**|| Christ is called absolutely "our
God.*'T There is " nothing more excellent ** than He.** In
Ignatius it is impossible to discover any trace of subordina-
tionism; any idea that it is anything in the nature of God the
Son which makes it more possible for Him than for the
Father to appear in visible form. When he tells the
Magnesians to be subject " to the bishop, as Jesus Christ to
the Father,** he expressly defines the nature of this subjec-
tion. " Be subject to the bishop, and to each other, as Jesus
Christ was after the flesh to His Father, and as the apostles
were to Christ and the Father and the Spirit.** ft He exhorts
Polycarp to " wait for Him who is above time, who is without
time ; who is invisible, but for our sakes visible ; who cannot
be touched, who is impassible, but for our sakes passible ;
who endured in every sort for love of us.** J J " There is one
physician,** he says, " in the flesh and spiritual (Tri/ev/iarcKoci
* Dial c. TrypL, 56.
t lb. — For a passage stronger still, vid. Dial c TrypL, 60 and 127.
I Dial c. Tryph., 68, 60, 113, 126. § I. ApoL, 12, 13.
II Ad Mafi^nes. 8. 1 AdEph. 13. *♦ Ad Magnes. 7.
ft Ad Magn. 13.
Xt Ad PoL 3. — " No room is left here for any idea of subordinationism.** —
Kuhn, Trinitatslehre, 114.
Their Oenuitieness and their Doctrine. 857
here, probably = divine, as in Hermas, Sim., v. 5; Tertull., " De
Orat.,^^ c. 1 ) — made and not made, God in the flesh — in death true
life, from Mary and from God : first impassible, then passible,
from Mary and from God — Jesus Christ our Lord/^* The
following striking passage excludes at once the heresy which
denied the real distinction between Father and Son, and that
of the Arians, which denied that the generation of the Son
was eternal. " There is one God who has manifested himself
by Jesus Christ His Son, Who is His eternal Word, not pro-
ceeding from silence.*^ f I^ ^he discussion on the authenti-
city of the epistles, we shall have to treat of the allusion to
the Gnostic aeons in the words " not proceeding from silence.'^
Their dogmatic import seems to be this. The word of man is
uttered after a previous silence. Man begins to speak ; but
the divine Word was uttered from all eternity. The act of
creating the world did not make the Word, which had been
once indistinguishable from the Father, proceed into existence
as a distinct Person. He was ever distinct from God the
Father, and with God the Father. % S. Clement of Rome
had spoken before Ignatius of the Son as " the sceptre of the
majesty of God,*^ § and once he implies, though he does not
say so directly, that " the suSerings of Christ '' are the sufler-
ings of God. | S. Clement was repressing sedition in the
Corinthian Church. S. Ignatius was warning the faithful
against heresy; and as the latter had occasion, to a degree
which S. Clement had not, to dwell upon the divinity of our
Lord, so, in asserting the truth of Christ^s humanity, he
settled beforehand the controversies which were to arise in
the fifth century on the union of the two natures, and excludes
Nestorianism by anticipation. To him the blood of Christ is
the " blood of God.^^lf It is " God who was conceived by
Mary.^' There is another matter in connection with the
redemption eflected by the incarnate God which deserves
notice. Baur has argued, by an interpretation of Iron. v. 1,
* Ad Eph. 7. Hefele and Dressel read ytvurbQ xai dylvijroc We are
inclined to think S. Ignatius wrote ytwtirbQ kuI dysw. Still the reff. in
Hefele and Jacobson ad loc. (add Philosopb. L 19, p. 32-34, ed. Duncker
and Schneidewin) prove that in the Anti-nicene period y«vv»?r6c and yivrirdc
were used as synonyms and justify our translation. Ad Rom. 3 makes it
certain, as Hilgenfeld admits, that S. Ignatius was not Patripassian.
Ad Magnes. 8 is still more decisive.
t Ad Magn. 8.
X Ad Magnes. 8 cf. ; a similar passage in Irensens, ii. 28, 5, where the
same contrast between the human and divine Word is worked out more in
detaiL S. Irenseus is opposing the Catholic doctrine of Procession in the
Trinity to the same form of error ; viz., the Gnostic procession of seons.
§ 1 Ep. 16. II lb. 2. 1 Eph. 1.
358 The Ignaiian Epistles :
repeated in a popular English work,* that, according to that
Father, the devil had actual rights over fallen man. Thus
IrenaBus is supposed to have led the way to Origen^s theory,
that the sacrifice of Christ was oflTered to Satan; and an
attempt has been made to trace this idea back to S. Ignatius.
Much might be said on the real meaning of the passage in
S. IrenBBus. At present, however, we shall confine ourselves
to the Ignatian epistles. They aflSrm, with a plainness which
cannot be mistaken, that Christ ''presented Himself for our
sakes, an oblation and a sacrifice to God/'f Nowhere does
any hint occur that satisfaction was made to Satan. It is
hardly worth while answering an objection made from the
"Acts of the Martyrdom,^^ where Ignatius speaks of our
blessed Saviour as " Him who crucified my sin with him who
invented it.^' The power of Satan was "crucified^* and
brought to nothing by the sacrifice of the Cross ; but this has
little enough to do with making satisfaction to him. We are
at a loss to see how an idea like that of S. Ignatius, can become
" the basis of a theory of satisfaction,'^ J with which it has no
connection.
Thus the Catholic doctrine that Christ offered Himself to
God as sacrifice in atonement for the sins of the world,
appears plainly in S. Ignatius. Of the Protestant theory, that
the merits of Christ are imputed to Christians without infusion
of grace or necessity for mortification, it is not enough to say
that no support can be found for it in the Ignatian epistles.
It is not only that they contain statements in absolute contra-
diction to such an idea. They breathe from first to last a
spirit which is either fanatical or simply unmeaning to those
who do not accept the Catholic doctrine that grace is a
principle of merit, that the Christian has to satisfy for his
sins by penance, and conform his life to the Passion of our
divine Redeemer. Two sentences in S. Clement of Rome — ^in
one of which we are said to be "justified by works,*' § i.e. by
works done through grace, while the other denies that we
are "justified by works,'' || Le., as the context shows, by
natural good works, — put in its double aspect the Catholic
doctrine of justification. Similarly, in the opening chapter of
* Oxenhara's "Catholic Doctrine of the Atonement," p. 115.
t Ad Eph. 1.
J Oxenhani's "Atonement," 114. In the account given of the Ignatian
doctrine of the Atonement, the one passage which contains a clear view
on the subject — ad Eph. 1 — is omitted dtocether, and the author treats
the " Acts " as if they had the same title to be considered authentic as the
epistles. § 1 Ep. 30. || lb. 32.
Tliclv Genuineness and ihair Dudrlnc. 859
his epistle to the Ephesians, S. Ignatius describes the good
Christian as one who receives the name of Christ iv f^vau
SiKai(^ " in a nature which is (really) just/* and the work of
salvation as '^ the connatural work/* because it is effected not
by mere imputation of Christ^s merits, but in virtue of a
principle which dwells in the soul, and unites itself to the
nature of man. It is because this idea was so firmly rooted
in his mind, that he talks of Christians as '^ men who bear
Christ/* " men who bear God " within them, that he extols
virginity in words which must sound strange to Protestants,
as a state chosen in "honour of our Lord*s Flesh/** But his
desire for martyrdom, his longing to be offered up in sacrifice
with Christ, is the most striking commentary on the aspect in
which Christ's sacrifice presented itself to his mind. Protes-
tants have frequently taken offence at this eagerness for
suffering ; and it is hard to see how they could fail to do so.
To some it has seemed utterly incredible, and an objection to
the authenticity of the epistles. Others have excused it, as
the result of Oriental extravagance, or an imagination excited
by the concourse of Christians from the different Churches,
and the circumstances in which the martyr was placed. To
Catholics, it is needless to say, it offers no diflSculty. He asks
the Romans to let him imitate " the Passion of (his) God ; **t
to pray that, by means of the wild beasts to which he was
soon to be exposed, he may offer himself as "a sacrifice,** J
and pour out his blood " for a libation to God, now that the
altar is ready.** § "God has summoned me/* he says, in
words of pathetic eloquence, " from the east to the setting of
the sun. Fair it is to set from the world to God, that I may
rise in Him I write to you in life, but in desire of
death. My love is crucified. There is in me no fire which
craves for earthly fuel, but living water, which speaks in my
heart and cries from within — Home to the Father.** ||
We have said already that the testimony afforded by the
Jgnatian Epistles is the refutation, on the one hand, of infidel
theories on the development of doctrine ; and on the other, cuts
away the ground on which the more orthodox Protestantism is
supposed to rest. It is often said that the Catholic faith is one
consistent whole, of which each part is connected- logically
with all the others. It is no less true that it all depends on the
same kind of historical proof; and that Protestants, who urge
* Ad Pol. 5 — €tc Ti^rjv Tov Kvpiov TfiQ aapKdg. The rendering we have
given is supported by the Syriac and Armenian version. Hefele's transla-
tion, '* in honour of the Lord of the flesh," may be adopted without prejudice
to our ar^raent.
t Ad Rom. 6. J lb. 4. § lb. 2. || lb. 2 and 7.
3G0 TJie Ignatian Epistles :
historical evidence for doctrines they accept, will be forced to
admit, if they are reasonable and candid, that this evidence
carries them further than they wish, and tells with the same
force in favour of doctrines they reject. As it is, we have seen
that, while S. Ignatius affirms the divinity of Christ, and the
reality of His Sacrifice, which the more orthodox Protestants
hold, his principles on the application of that Sacrifice and its
effects, are in sharp contradiction to popular Protestant theories.
What he says of the holy Eucharist and the Church supphes
evidence, more convincing, because it is more full, for the in-
sepai'able union between the different articles of the Catholic
creed. In the mind of S. Ignatius the Incarnation is no mere
fact of the past. Christ continues His bodily presence in the
midst of the faithful. He believed that, when our Lord was
visibly upon the earth, virtue went forth from His sacred Hu-
manity by physical contact with it. After the Resurrection, he
tells us, the apostles " touched Him and believed, mingling
with His flesh and with His Spirit. Therefore they despised
death, and were found superior to it.^' * The following pas-
sages show that this virtue of Christ^s Body, which makes man
victorious over death, and insures eternal life, did not cease
after the Ascension, but continues in the Sacrament of the
Altar. *^ Within the altar^' we partake of " the bread of God.^^ f
The Christians, in union with the bishop, " break one bread,
which is the medicine of immortality, the antidote against
death, the pledge of everlasting life in Jesus Christ.'* J "I
wish,'* he exclaims, " for the bread of God, the heavenly bread,
the bread of life, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ I
wish for the drink of God, for His blood, which is charity
unfailing and life perennial.^' § No doubt, if these sentences
stood by themselves, attempts would be made to explain
them away as the exaggerations of Oriental rhetoric. For-
tunately, there is one place in which he addresses to the
Docetic heretics a reproach for their disbelief in the real pre-
sence of our Lord's body on the altar, which attests his own
faith beyond dispute. Not admitting that our Lord took upon
Himself true fl^h, those men " abstained from the Eucharist
and prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is
the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ'' — (that flesh) ''which
suffered for our sakes, and which the Father in His goodness
raised to life." || Had the Church in those days believed that
the blessed Sacrament was no more than a symbol, there was
nothing in the celebration of the holy mysteries which need
* Ad Smym. 3. t Ad Ephes. 5. J Ad Eph. 20.
§ Rom. 7. II Ad Smym. 7.
Their Genuineness and their Doctrine. 361
have given any offence to the Docetse. They granted that
our Lord had an apparent body, and they could have offered
no objection to the commemoration of His death under a sym-
bolic form. They withdrew from the mysteries of the Church,
because they were a reality as well as a commemoration. They
could not partake in a Sacrament which professed to commu-
nicate the true body of Christ, because they denied that He
had any true body at all. The well-known Protestant com-
mentator on the New Testament, Meyer, cannot help allowing
the force of this passage. In an historical account of the
Eucharistic doctrine, appended to his commentary on S. Mat-
thew,* he allows that " Ignatius, in opposition to the Doceta9
(ad Smyrn. 7), undoubtedly states the doctrine that, in the
Eucharist, Christ's flesh (aapS) and blood are given, and that
in a real way.'' He adds, that Justin, on the same subject
(Apol. 1, c. 66), "expresses himself with yet greater clear-
ness and precision. In him we meet with the notion, deduced
from the Incarnation, that the body and blood of Christ are
consumed, and that certainly in a material way '' — (the
italics are his own) — " and at the least, this consumption (as
Justin understands it) is liker the Catholic than the Lutheran
idea of the Eucharist " (nearer transubstantiation than consub-
stantiation) — " a point which should never have been called in
question." This admission, if he reflected upon all it involves,
must have cost Meyer something. He interprets the words of
institution — " This is My body" — in the Zwinglian sense, and
refuses to see in them more than a mere metaphor. Now, in
the first place, it cannot be maintained, with much show of
reason, that the words of our Lord necessitate a metaphorical
interpretation; while the sixth chapter of S. John supplies
strong confirmation of the view which Catholics take of our
Lord's meaning. Let us suppose, for the sake of argument,
that holy Scripture leaves the real presence of our Lord in the
blessed Sacrament undecided. To whom can we go, better
fitted to help us in deciding the question, than to S. Ignatius ?
He was brought up by S. John, who was actually present at
the last supper. He wrote a few years after the apostle's
death. His doctrine is that of S. Poly carp, another disciple of
S. John ; and in his confiden9e that the doctrine of the real
presence was universal in the Church, he actually taunts the
Docetae, as if this were enough of itself to ruin them in the
eyes of Christians, that they do not confess the Eucharist to
be the flesh of Christ. If Meyer is right, then we have no alter-
native ; we are forced to imagine that, in the very lifetime, or
* Commentary on S. Matthew, fifth edition, p. 555. Gottingen : 1864.
362 The Ignatian Epistles :
immediately after the death, of one who had witnessed its insti-
tution, and been specially in the confidence of Christ, a simple
and symbolical rite had been transformed — to put it cautiously
— throughout a great part of the Church into an astounding
miracle. And this belief, be it remembered, arose without a
word of protest, and without prejudice to the veneration of the
Christians for the bishop who expressed it in terms so decided.
The mystery of the Altar is a curious instance, though it is
but one out of many, of the effect which the progress of Patristic
studies among Protestants has upon their attitude towards the
Church. Investigation cannot make them Catholics; but it
obliges them reluctantly to increase their concessions as to the
antiquity of the doctrines which they impugn. During the
last century, Massuet* congratulated the learned High
Churchman Grabe on the advance he had made on Claude and
Albertinus, Protestant scholars of an earlier date. Like them,
Grabe had denied that the bodily presence of Christ in the
Eucharist was taught before the Council of Nicaea; but he
found himself forced to abandon in part the position they had
held, and to allow that two great Fathers of the fourth century
— S. Cyril of Jerusalem, S. Gregory Nyssen, " and perhaps
several others " (aliique fortasse plures)^ — believed " the very
substance of the bread to be changed into Flesh, which is
Flesh of Christ.^^t Grabe carried the doctrine of the real
Presence up to the fourth century. In our own day a cele-
brated Protestant scholar places it, as we have seen, in the
Apostolic age. He can hardly wonder if Catholics distrust a
view of history which is constantly losing ground, till at last
it is only by dint of prejudice and inconsistency that it can
hold any ground at all.
Before we conclude what we have to say on the doctrine of
the real Presence, it may be as well to consider two passages
which might be urged against us. We do so rather for the
sake of completeness than because they are real difficulties;
and, as a matter of fact, Meyer passes them over without
notice, while Domer J interprets them just as a CathoUc theo-
logian might do. In one of them S. Ignatius calls ^* faith the
flesh of our Lord,^^ and '^ charity His blood ;" § in the other he
speaks of " fleeing to the Gospel as to the flesh of Christ.^^ ||
Whatever power these words may have to weaken the argu-
ment from the devotional language of S. Ignatius about " the
* In the Benedictine edition of S. Irenseus, torn. iii. Diss, ill art. 7, 97.
t On this Dollinger remarks that those are the only two Fathers who treat
the subject ex professo. — " Lehre der Eucharistie," p. 8.
t " Person of Christ," English Transl., L p. 107.
§ Ad Trail 8. || Ad PhUadelph. 6.
Their Genuineness and their Doctrine. 363
bread of God/* they cannot be supposed to affect the dogmatic
statement of his belief which he makes against the Docetaa.
His attack upon them is without meanings except on the hypo-
thesis that Christ, as man, is literally present on the altar;
while, on the contrary, we may take this belief for granted,
and yet find no difficulty in understanding him when he affirms
that faith is the body of Christ. Faith and Charity are the
body and blood of Christ, in the sense that they have His true
humanity for their object, and attain their end by uniting us
to it. " Such passages only imply that the supernatural gift
includes the moral virtue, or that the virtue or grace consists
in the supernatural gift. If, for instance, one says that 'a
house is a shelter against the weather,* or ' of our shelter being
a house,* no one would have any right thence to argue that
' house * had no literal sense, and was only metaphor standing
for protection and shelter ; the proposition meaning no more
than this, that the house is to us shelter, or that shelter lies
in having a house.*** Or, as Dorner puts the same idea,
though without the elegance and precision of Father New-
man : — '^ Christ*s Blood, primarily that shed on the cross,
afterwards no less that present in the Supper (Eucharist), is
the objective principle which founds love, as Christ*s historical
appearance in the general founds faith, f We may quote in
confirmation of the explanation, though it needs none, a sen-
tence in the tenth chapter of the Epistle to the Church of
Smyrna : — " Nor will you be ashamed of your perfect faith,
Jesus Christ.** Christ is, of course, distinct from the interior
act of faith ; and it is one chief object of the epistles to set
forth the reality of His two natures, human and divine. He is
spoken of as " perfect faith,** inasmuch as He is the Object
and the Author of that virtue. J
There are repeated references in S. Ignatius to the ''altar** §
Ov(nacrTr]Qiov oi the Christian Church. St. Clement of Rome ||
assigns to the bishop the office of '' offering the gifts ** ;
and the use of the same word " gifts,** in Constit. Apostol.,
viii. 12, leaves no room to doubt that he is alluding to the
oblation of the Eucharist. Neither Clement nor Ignatius states
expressly in what this oblation consists. But the distinctness
* F. Newman's " Essays : Critical and Historical,*' voL i. p. 213.
t Loo. cit, p. 108.
+ Hefele (Patr. Apostol. ad loc.) translates 17 riKiia irternc, qui perfecU
fidelis est. We have followed in the text the rendering of Dressel, Patres
Apostol., Leipsic, 1863. The latter seems much the more natural meaning ; cf.
Ep. ad Hebr. xii. 2.
§ E.g. ad Ephes. 5 ; ad Magnes. 7 ; ad TralL 7.
1 Ep., 44.
364 The Ignatian Epistles :
with whicli S. Ignatius declares his faith in the real presence
of Christ in the Eucharist, is of itself proof that our Lord ia
the victim offered on the altar. '^ Sacrifice," " oblation/' and
the like, are the terms in which the Eucharist is constantly
described by S. Justin and S. IrenaBus. Protestants have
argued that, though these Fathers indisputably regarded the
Eucharist as a sacrifice, they meant by this sacrifice no more
than an oblation of bread and wine offered up to God in the
name of the faithful, who presented them to the bishop. This
argument, however, was based on the supposition that, in the
ante-Nicene period, no one believed that the bread and wine
were changed into the body and blood of Christ. If S. Ignatiua
recognized (and he certainly did) the Eucharist as the fiesh of
Christ, that, and nothing short of it, can be the oblation which
is made upon the altar. With the idea of Christ's sacramental
presence so strongly and so constantly in his mind, it is no won-
der that he does not point out more definitely that the oblation
which made the Mensa Domini an altar, was none other
than the same body and blood of Christ. It is hardly neces*
sary to say that there is no allusion in his epistles to a sacrifice
of bread and wine ; and in one passage he brings the Flesh of
Christ, the altar, and the bishop, into an immediate proximity,
which implies the connection between the presence of Christ's
body, the sacrifice in which it is offered, and the priest who
offered it. He reminds the Philadelphians, that they must
'^ partake of one Eucharist ; since there is one flesh of our
Lord Jesus Christ, one chalice which unites us to His Blood,
one altar; as there is one bishop with the body of the pres-
byters and with the deacons, my fellow-ministers." *
Here the Eucharist is the bond which unites the members
of the Church around the same altar. And this leads us by a
natural transition to the doctrine of the Church itself, its
authority, and its constitution. His conception of the Church's
unity has what Father Newman has called a "sacramental
character" ;t and there is hardly an instance in which he
mentions the Church, without I'ecurring at the same time to
the mysteries of the Incarnation and the Eucharist. The fact
that Christians are members of Christ, and that the Church is
His body, is the key to the relation between these doctrines.
As the eternal Word, invisible in His divine nature, took a
visible body, so He lives on in the world which He has
redeemed, not in an invisible manner merely by means of the
Eucharist, but visibly through His body, the Church. Thus,
when he urges upon the Ephesians the necessity of submission
■ — ^
♦ Ad Philad. 4. t Essays, L 220.
Their Genuineness and their Doctrine. 365
to the bishop and of preserving unity, the reason he gives is
this, that except on these conditions God will not acknow-
ledge them as the members of His Son. " It is your part
to concur with the mind of the bishop, as in fact you do. For
the whole body of your presbyters, worthy of renown, worthy
of God, fits in with the bishop as the strings are fitted into
the lyre. For this cause, in your concord and in your har-
monious love, Jesus Christ is sung. But further, let each and
all of you form part of the choir; that so, taking up the
melody of God in unity, you may sing with one voice through
Jesus Christ to the Father. Do this, and God will listen to
you, knoiving, by your good deeds, that you are members of
His Son,''* This incorporation with Christ through the Church
is visible and external ; first, because the faithful are united
to each other and to Christ, in body as well as in soul,
through communicating in the same sacraments ; and next,
because our Lord has left visible representation upon earth,
and ordained that external communion with them should be
the sole means of union with Himself. Thus S. Ignatius
praises God, because the Christians of Smyrna ^'are esta-
blished in faith immovable, nailed, as it were, to the cross of
our Lord Jesus Christ, in flesh and in spirit, founded in
charity " (the word which he constantly uses for the unity of
Christians in the Church) " by the blood of Christ, fully per-
suaded " (in contrast to the Docetee) '^ that our Lord is truly
of David^s race according to the flesh ; being the Son of God
according to the will and power of God ; truly bom of the
Virgin ; baptized by John ; that all justice might be fulfilled
by Him, truly nailed^* (to the cross) "in the flesh for our
sakes, under Pontius Pilate, and Herod the Tetrarch. We
are His fruit by virtue of His Passion, which is blessed
before God, that He may raise a standard to last for ever,
through His resurrection for His saints and His faithful,
whether they be Jews or Gentiles, in the one body of His
Church." f On the contrary, the Docetic heretics are not
*' planted by the Father " ; they do not share in the benefits
of Christ's Passion, since they are severed from the " union "
of the Church, which is the fruit of Christ's sufferings.
" These men the Father hath not planted. Were it so, they
would show themselves shoots sprung from the cross, and
their fruit would be incorruptible. Through the cross in His
* Ad Eph. 4. Mohler, Patrologie, L 150, rightly observes that the Incar-
nation of the divine Word, in opposition to the Docetse, is " the fundamental
idea^ on which S. Ignatius '*has based his sublime conception of the
Church."
t Ad Smyrn. 1.
366 Tlie Ignatlan Ejjistles :
Passion he calls to Himself us who are His members. The
head, then, cannot be bom without the members, since God
promises union, being himself union/^* If the faithful are
visibly united with each other, this unity has a visible centre
in the Bishop, who holds Christ^s place. The Magnesians are
warned that they must obey ^^ without hypocrisy, since one
[whose obedience is insincere] is not only deceiving the
Bishop, who is seen, but trying to impose on the invisible
Bishop ^^ ;t i.e. upon our Lord.
We have dwelt upon this connection between the Incarna-
tion and the Church, and have made extracts of some length,
for this reason, that the analogy between these two truths is
the idea on which all that S. Ignatius says of the Church
depends. To him the Church is the Body of Christ, the fruit
of His cross. With this idea in his mind, he argues from the
oneness of Jesus Christ to the unity of His Church. "Do
nothing without the Bishop Let your prayer be one
while you gather together ; your supplication one ; your mind,
your hope, one, in charity and blameless joy. Jesua Christ is
one .... Therefore, let all of you meet together as in one
temple, as at one altar, as in one Jesus Christ, who proceeded
from one Father ; who returned (after His ascension) to one,
and abides in one.^^J We are to receive one Eucharist (i.e.
to receive it in the one Church) : for there is one flesh of our
Lord Jesus Christ, one altar, one chalice as there
is one Bishop. § So again, the actions of Jesus Christ
upon earth have a mystical significance, and have secured the
indefectibility of His Church. " For this the Lord received
ointment on His head, that He might breathe incorruption into
His Church.^^ || Lastly, this conception of the Church
explains his attitude to those who are separated from it. The
energy with which he attacks them would be fanatical and
senseless were he defending his own opinions, or a religion
founded on private judgment. As it was, he felt that he had
to contend for the House of God, and the sole means of union
with Him. " Those who corrupt families shall not inherit the
kingdom of God. If then, they who have done this according
to the flesh have been put to death, how much more he, who,
by evil teaching, corrupts the faith of God, for which Christ
was crucified ? Such an one is polluted, and will go into fire
unquenchable, with him who listens to him.^^^f Heretical
doctrine is '' a deadly drug."** Heretical teachers are "wild
beasts in human form " ; and Christians should avoid even
* Ad Trail. 11. t Ad Mafi[nes. 3. % Ad Magnes. 7.
§ Ad Philad. 4. || Ad Epes. 17. IT Eph. 16. ♦♦ Trail. 6.
Their Genuineness and their Doctrine. 3G7
meeting them, as far as tbey can, and content themselves
with prayer for their conversion, which is '' very difficult,^'
though the power to effect it is " with Jesus Christ, our true
life/^ *
It is plain that a visible Church, with definite claims on
the submission of all men, requires a regular organization.
S. Ignatius never considers the authority of the Church apart
from that of the hierarchy, and he sums up union with the
mystical body of Christ as union with the Bishop of each
diocese. " All that are of God and of Jesus Christ, are with
the Bishop.^^t We are to "reverence the Bishop as Jesus
Christ, the Son of the Father, the body of priests as the
Sanhedrim of God, and the band of the Apostles. Apart
from these there is no Church.^^J Every one knows how
constantly S. Ignatius commands submission to the Bishop,
and with what extraordinary earnestness and frequency he
distinguishes between the authority of the Bishop and that of
his presbyters. But why should he take such trouble to insist
on the difference between priest and bishop; why should
he take such special pains to exalt the episcopal office, if it had
been familiar to Christians from the first, and was recognized
throughout the Church as a divine institution? This is a
question which has often been asked by those who have
attacked the authenticity of the Ignatian epistles ; or, again,
by Protestants who have accepted them as genuine, but who
have had obvious motives for representing the Episcopate as a
human institution, which sprang into life immediately after
the Apostolic age. To answer it, we must look at the Episco-
pate in its relation to the position of the Apostles. When
they were beginning their laboars there was less urgent need
for prelates under them, who were to exercise local jurisdic-
tion and confer holy order. There must have been, besides, a
difficulty in selecting from neophytes persons capable of
exercising the episcopal office, and securing an obedience
which turbulent spirits sometimes refused to S. Paul himself.
Later on, it became necessary to provide for the wants of the
Church, after the Apostles had passed away; and hence, in
the pastoral epistles of S. Paul, mention is made of persons
who had the power '^ to impose hands,^' and '' ordain priests
in every city '' ; to receive accusations against priests, and
pronounce sentence upon them ; to " set in order the things
that are wanting " throughout a large district. These are, of
course, mere allusions, scattered through the later part of the
New Testament. We have to put them together, and draw
♦ Smym. 4. f Phil. 3. X Trail. 3.
368 The Ignatian Epistles :
our inferences from them. But there is a classical passage on
the origin of the Episcopate, in the first epistle of S. Clement,
written possibly in the year after the martyrdom of S. Peter
and S. Paul, and certainly some years before the death of
S. John.* "The Apostles,'^ he says, "knew, through our
Lord Jesus Christ, that strife would arise about the name of
' Episcopate.' On this ground, having received perfect know-
ledge of what would happen, they appointed the afore-men-
tioned rulers [i.e. priests and deacons], and ordained for the
future that when they themselves should fall asleep, other
approved men should succeed them [the Apostles] in their
ministry. Those then [priests and deacons] appointed by the
Apostles or by other excellent men " (i.e. by the bishops who
had succeeded to the Apostolic ministry) are not to be
deprived of an office they have exercised. f In other words,
the Apostles transmitted the Episcopal order, which had been
previously in great measure united with the Apostolate, to
men who were to receive Episcopal order without universal
jurisdiction. The existence of three grades among the clergy
is implied more than once in S. Clement^s epistle. He draws
a line between the " prelates'' {irporiyovfjievoi) and the presby-
ters ; J and further on he adduces the threefold organization
of the Jewish hierarchy (high priests, priests, and Levites) as
a parallel to the orders of the Christian clergy. § Still, when
Clement wrote, the titles for the ecclesiastical orders were as
yet unfixed. With him, presbyter and bishop do not neces-
sarily denote distinct offices; nay, in two places, "presbyter"
means no more than " venerable layman." S. Ignatius is the
first author who invariably employs the terms "presbyter"
and " bishop " in the sense which has since prevailed.
Partly, no doubt, this development of language may be ex-
plained, as Bollinger says, from the " natural process by
which the thing comes before the name."|| There is another
reason, however, which may account both for the careful way
in which he distinguishes between priest and bishop, and for
♦ It was written just after a persecution of the Church. Vid. c. 1. TiUe-
mont (M^moires, torn. 11, S. Clement, note vL) and Dollinger (First Age
of the Church, p. 294) understand this of Domitian's persecution, and place
the epistle about the year 97. Pearson and Hefele (Prolegomena to S. Cle-
ment, xxxiL seq.) assign it to the time after the persecution of Kero, and
before the fall of Jerusalem (68-70). The internal evidence is not decisive
for either date. It must be determined by the weight we give to the con-
flicting authorities for the order of the first four Popes.
t C. 44. The interpretation we have given is substantially the same aa
that of Dollinger (First Age of the Church, L 294). It differs from that
of Hefele ad loc.
t ^ 91, § Co. 40, 41. II Loc. cit, 296.
Their Genuineness and their Doctrine, 869
the zeal with which he defends episcopal authority. S. Cle-
ment was appeasing strife within the Church ; S. Ignatius
was face to face with heretics, who separated from her pale
and set up rival sects, without, however, pretending to possess
a hierarchy. Hence, the authority of the Bishop was the
most obvious and intelligible form in which he could press
home upon them the fact that they were outside of the
Church, and therefore aliens from Christ. The Episcopate
was a divine institution — they did not possess it — and this
was enough to condemn them. ^^If some have wished to
deceive me according to the flesh, yet the spirit is not
deceived, since He is from God I cried out, while I
was among you ; I said, with loud voice, ^ Give heed to the
Bishop, and the Presbyterate, and the deacons.^ Some have
suspected me, as if I said this, foreknowing the division of
some. He is my witness, in whom I am bound, that I have
not known this [doctrine] from flesh of man. But the Spirit
cried out, speaking thus, ^ Do nothing without the Bishop.^ "*
The Bishop, too, was necessary for the validity of the sacra-
ments, as well as for the unity of the Church'. We know
from S. Irenaeus that Marcus the Gnostic introduced a
sacrilegious imitation of the Holy Eucharist,t and that other
Gnostics mimicked baptism. J Such rites were always likely
to be invalid, for there was little security that such fantastic
sects would preserve the true matter and form; and, with
regard to the Eucharist, there was the further objection that
the Gnostics were without orders. S. Ignatius may have had
cases like this in his mind when he says, ^' Let that be con-
sidered a valid Eucharist which is celebrated by the Bishop, or
one to whom he has commissioned.^^ §
After this we shall be able to appreciate at its real worth
Dorner's assertion that S. Ignatius "has by no means laid
down the Catholic conception of a bishop.^^ | We may leave
his arguments, that from the fact S. Ignatius ^^ wished the
individual to be related to the Bishop, not as a bondsman, but
as a freeman, united to him by love and confidence,^^ and con-
siders "bishops, in conjunction with presbyters, to be the
rulers of the Church,^' to answer themselves. Nothing can
bo made of his not using the word Upug, since he does again
and again speak of the Christian "altar,^^ which surely implies
a priesthood ; or, again, of his being silent about the grace
* Ad Philad. 7. What S. Ignatius learned on divine authority can only
be the institution of the Episcopate. The fact of heretical division was a fact
patent to everybody, and there was no occasion to learn it by revelation.
t Iren., i. 13, 2. J lb., i. 23, 5. § Ad Smym. 8.
II Dorner, " Person of Christ," vol. i., note DD.
VOL. XXI. — NO. XLii. [Netu SeriesJ] 2 b
370 The Ignatian Epistles ;
given " through the medium of the sacrament of Ordination,
since he never alludes to the ^^ imposition of hands " at all,
though that was indisputably an Apostolic rite. Indeed, he
had no motive for dwelling upon the mode in which bishopB
were consecrated ; for he had to encounter sects who did not
pretend to have bishops. Far from falling short of the
Catholic idea of holy order, on this, as on most points, his
teaching is more exact than that of many later writers within
the Church. S. Ignatius and S. Clement are the corrective of
S. Jerome's famous words on the institution of Episcopacy,
which have been so often urged by the enemies of the hier-
archy. Moreover, S. Ignatius saw in the altar the centre to
which, not the Episcopate only,* but all the orders of the
Church refer. This, of course, is the true view of their cha-
racter and meaning. It has been continued by S. Thomas
and the scholastic theologians generally. But it had been
obscured among the Greeks, even before they were severed
from the unity of the Church. In the year 692, the Synod in
Trullo, consisting of two hundred and eleven Oriental bishops,
committed themselves to the erroneous proposition that the
deacons mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles had the care of
the poor, and did not serve in the sacred mysteries.* On this
theory it follows that the Diaconate, as a holy order, is of no
more than ecclesiastical constitution. S. Ignatius is evidence
that this view was in the teeth of the old tradition in the
Eastern Church. According to him, bishops, priests, and
deacons, all alike, are appointed, Iv yvw/xy 'Iijaou Xpitrrovif
i.e., as Smith and Hefele paraphrase it, '' juxta sententiam et
ordinationem Christi per Apostolos factam,'' in accordance
with the decision or ordinance of Christ, carried into effect by
the Apostles. And these deacons are ministers ''of the
mysteries of Jesus Christ.^' .... ''They are deacons not
of (common) " meat and drink, but ministers of the
Church of God.'^J
So far we have kept to the idea of Church unity in each
particular diocese. It was enough for S. Ignatius to maintain
the obligation of submission to the bishops, for in the circum-
stances of his time that was a sufficient test of orthodox
* Synod in Trullo, can. 16 ; Mansi, xL 949. Cf. Hefele, Concilien-ge-
schichte, ill 304, who refers to Assemanni, Bibliothec. Juris Oriental,
torn. V. p. 147, seq.
t Ad Philadelph., ad init.
X Ad Tra]L 2, cited by Baronius, ad ann.34 (cf. ad ann. 692, 28), against the
Council in Trullo. We have adopted, with the best editors, the reading
fjLV(TTrjpitDv or fJLv(TTTjpiovj instead of nvtrrripiov. The former is supported by
the ancient Latin version, and seems to be absolutely required by the sense.
Their Genuineness and their Doctrine, 371
#
belief. In the course of the second century, as the heretical
sects became more numerous and better organized,* appeal
was to the tradition of the Apostolic Churches. Later still,
the Apostolic Churches were themselves at variance. Antioch
and Alexandria were invaded by heresy, and Christians turned
to the see of Peter, the prince of the Apostles, to that Bishop
whom " our Saviour had intrusted with the guardianship of the
vine.^' Now, of course, all Catholics hold that the primacy
of the Holy See formed part of the deposit of faith from the
beginning. Events might bring the supremacy of the Koman
Church into greater prominence; time might be needed to
develop all that was involved in Christ^s commission to S.
Peter ; still the rights of the Holy See came not from man but
from God, and were acknowledged by Christians from the
first. The history of the Church witnesses to this truth. In
the lifetime of S. John, the first of the Apostolic Fathers,
S. Clement asserts practically the primacy of the Roman see
by sending three deputies with a letter to settle disputes and
lay down the laws of ecclesiastical government at Corinth.f
The very next of the Fathers, S. Ignatius, shows that this
primacy was acknowledged throughout the Church.
We have said that S. Ignatius was concerned mainly with
the unity of the Church in each diocese. For all this, h©
makes it plain that his conception of the Church's unity did
not stop there. All his arguments from the unity of Christ
to the unity of His Church, point to an internal organization
which united the faithfiil, not in each diocese only, but
throughout the world. The term '^ Catholic Church '^ %
appears in S. Ignatius for the first time in Christian literature,
and it embodies the same idea which he expresses elsewhere,
when he tells the Ephesians to be " united in the mind of
God^^; and goes on to say that the bishops established
throughout the world (icara to, wtpara) " are in the mind of
Jesus Christ.^' § The Church in each diocese had its centre
in the Bishop. What was the centre of unity in the Church
universal? In six of the seven epistles there is nothing
which can help us to solve this question, and but for the
accident that S. Ignatius was sent to suffer at Bome, and so
came to write beforehand to the Christians in that city, we
should have been left to mere inferences. Protestants would
have urged here, as they have urged so often, the deceptive
* By that time some at least of the Gnostics had nominal bishops. —
Philoaophum., vL 41. t Oc. 42-44.
X Ad Smym. 8. It was not in the oldest form of the Apostles' Creed.
Vide Denziuger's Enchiridion, ad init § Ad Ephes. 3.
2 B 2
372 The Ignatian Epistles :
argumentum de silentio^ and assumed that S. Ignatius believed
in the absolute equality of bishops. But the Epistle to the
Romans throws clear light upon his theory of unity. He
salutes the Church which presides {irpoKaOriTai) in the region
of the Romans.* And in the epistle to the Magnesians f he
employs the very same word {irpoKaOrifJiivov tov tTrtaKwoi;) for
the presidency of the Bishop in his diocese. We must re-
member that he salutes not the Roman bishop but the Roman
Church ; and when he says that it '' presides/^ he can only
mean that it is to the Catholic Church what each bishop is
to his own particular church. Repeating the same word
(7rpoica6ij)uli/ij), he attributes to the Roman Church a "presi-
dency in charity." This last word constantly denotes the
union of the faithful ; and Hefele translates irpoKaOrifiivri Tfjg
aydirriQ, '^ presiding over the union of charity ; i.e. over the
Christian body." J He gives a practical illustration of the
way in which he understood the primacy, when he consoles
himself with the thought that when the Church of Antioch
is bereft of its bishop, " Jesus Christ alone and your charity
[i.e. the charity of the Roman Church] will act as bishop to
it." § The whole tone of the epistle is in keeping with the
reverence he expresses for the Roman Church. Its faith is
'^-purified from every shade of strange doctrine." || He gives
the Romans no counsel about obedience to bishops, no warn-
ing against schism. " I do not give you precepts," he says,
with evident allusion to the foundation of the Roman Church,
" like Peter and Paul." If Of the Roman Church alone he
declares that it '^ has taught others." ** There is no parallel to
this in any of the other epistles. The most he says of any
other Church is, that its members have taught him personally.
And when he writes to the Bishop of Smyrna he admonishes
and instructs him. Nor does he even allude to any other
Church " holding a presidency " ; and this, though he addressed
one of his epistles to the Church of Ephesus, the chief city of
a large district. Catholic writers are unanimous in the inter-
pretation they give of the presidency which S. Ignatius
attributes to the Roman Church. Indeed, the fact that he
uses the same word for the primacy of Rome which he employs
to describe the presidency of each bishop in his own diocese,
* Ad Rom., ad init. t Ad Magnes. 6.
1 Hefele, Beitrage zur Kirchen-Geschichte, Archaologie und Liturgik, vol.
ii. 48. Tillemont says, " II reconnait mSme assez clairement la priniaut^ de
'^glise Romaine." (Tillemont, iL 231.) So, at greater length, on the grounds
^ven in the text, Newman (Essays, i. 262), Mohler (Patrol., i. 157),
Hagemann (Romische Kirche, 687, seq ).
§ Ad Rom. 9. || Ad init IT C. 4. *• 0. 3.
Tlieir Genuineness a/nd their Doctrine, 373
puts his view beyond reasonable doubt. But we cannot help
adding a word on the Protestant exegesis of this passage.
Hilgenfeld, who rejects the authenticity of the epistles, and
professes no belief in the divine character of Christianity, has
no motive for forcing the words of these epistles to the
Romans into a Protestant sense, and he takes them much as
we have done. After pointing out that the bishop is the
representative of Christ in each particular Church, but that
the epistles also recognize a Catholic, or universal Church, with
a unity of its own, he continues : this " Catholic Church has
its own centre of internal unity ; viz., the primacy of the
Roman Church, indicated in the inscription of the epistle to
the Romans.'^ (Apostolische Vater, 267.) Bunsen and the
most recent Protestant writer on S. Ignatius, Zahn, may
serve as specimens of the difficulty which the words of S.
Ignatius have occasioned to those who admit their authenticity
without acknowledging the authority of the Holy See. Bunsen,
in his "Letters to Neander," p. 123, seq., actually translates
iKKXrjaitjf, r)Tig irpOKaOrjTai iv Towt^ yu}piOv 'Ftofxaftxiv — *'tho
Church which presides in its dignity over the region of the
Romans.^^ Zahn (Ignatius von Antiochien, p. 311) alters
the reading totti^ into rvirt^, and this without any sort of au-
thority either from MSS. or ancient versions.
This is the testimony given to the authority of Rome by a
disciple of the Apostles, who was bishop of the one Church
which had a pretext for rivalling the authority of Rome, for
Antioch, too, was something more than a Church of apostolic
foundation. It was a see which S. Peter himself had admi-
nistered, and in which he had ordained a bishop as his
successor. S. Ignatius was engaged in no ecclesiastical strife
when he had an interest in securing the assistance of the
Roman bishop ; he had no temptation to reverential or
diplomatic language which might afterwards be taken in a
strict sense and construed into privilege. He lived before the
age of councils, when the institution of metropolitan and
patriarchal sees was still in the future. There is a theory
that the primacy of Rome arose out of its patriarchal power,
just as there is a theory that the Catholic doctrine of the
Trinity arose from the influence of philosophy and theological
dialectic. S. Ignatius refutes the one hypothesis and the
other. He witnesses to the primacy before the Patriarchates
had begun to be ; to the Trinity, before the rise of the theolo-
gical schools.
We have seen the importance of the testimony which the
Ignatian epistles render to Catholic doctrine ; and their dog-
371- The Tgnatiati Epistles,:
matic character has given an extraordinary interest and
vitality to the question of their authenticity. Accidental cir-
cumstances have helped, no doubt, to protract and to diversify
this controversy, but it arose, and we must expect it to con-
tinue, by a sort of necessity. If the epistles of S. Ignatius
are genuine, many theories which have been advanced on the
early history of the Church and the primitive form of Christian
doctrine fall to the ground. However strong may be the
historical evidence in favour of the epistles, those who are
committed to such theories have, and confess they have, but
one alternative. They are compelled either to reject tho
epistles as spurious, or else to shift their theological position.
Catholics, of course, are not fettered in this way. They are
bound to no thesis which compels them either to accept or
deny the authenticity of the epistles. It is true that great as
the diflference of opinion among Catholic critics has been when
they have had to discuss the genuineness of early writings
which seemed to supply plausible arguments for Catholic
doctrine, not one of them, so far as we know, has ever con-
sidered the epistles attributed to Ignatius as a forgery. The
explanation of this agreement is, as we hope fo show, simple
enough. The evidence for the authenticity of the epistles is
as conclusive as historical evidence can be; and it is only
under the pressure of theological motives that it is ever likely
to be called in question. To make this assertion good, we
shall have to enter into the controversy in some detail, begin-
ning, by way of preface, with a short account of the phases
through which it has passed.
In 1557 twelve epistles bearing the name of Ignatius were
edited for the first time in the original Greek by Pacaeus. Up
to that time they had been known to European scholars only
through an ancient Latin version, and even that had been
printed in a complete form but twenty-one years before.
Great diversity of opinion was expressed in the claims of these
epistles as they appeared in the Greek text of Pacaeus, to be
considered a genuine work of the Apostolic age. Baronius
(ad ann. 109) and Halloix were confident of their authenticity.
Calvin spoke of them as the work of a stupid impostor, while
the Magdeburg Centuriators were content to leave the matter
doubtful and to suggest difficulties. Petavius with a critical
sagacity which is not surprising in him, saw the true state of
the case, and was ready with conclusive reasons for the judg-
ment which he had formed. ^' It is certain,^^ he says, " that
all the epistles of Ignatius have been interpolated ; for most
of the passages which the ancients have adduced are either
Their Oenuineiiess and their Doctrine. 375
wanting altogether in the present text, or else appear in a
form widely ^fiTerent/^* When Petavius wrote this, he had
only a single Greek text before him, and that he believed to
be corrupt and interpolated. He lived to see the whole aspect
of the controversy change and his own judgment amply con-
firmed by the discovery of the true text.f
This second stage of the controversy began with the year
1644, when Usher published from two English MSS. an old
Latin version of the seven epistles mentioned by Eusebius.
Two years later Vossius edited from a MS. in the Medicean
library at Florence, a Greek text corresponding to Usher^s
Latin version for six out of the seven epistles, while the Greek
of the seventh was supplied from a MS. known as the Codex
Colbertinus, by Ruinart, in 1689. This Greek text of the seven
epistles was much shorter than that of Pacaeus, it was secure
from a multitude of objections which might be urged against
the longer Greek, and above all it tallied, as the longer Greek
did not, with the quotations made from the Ignatian letters
by Eusebius, Theodoret, and many other Fathers. The longer
Greek was now all but universally abandoned, no doubt was
entertained on any side that we were at last in possession of
the Ignatian epistles, as they were known to Eusebius at
the beginning of the fourth century. The discussion was
reduced to narrower limits. The epistles were undoubtedly
recognized by Eusebius, and the only question left turned upon
the correctness of his judgment and the evidence which could
be alleged for or against it from earlier sources. The mass of
Protestant scholars attacked the authenticity of the shorter
Greek text, influenced chiefly by their opposition to Episco-
pacy. They were very much divided about the date at
which the supposed forgery arose. The most learned and able
of all those who opposed the authenticity, DallsBus, contended
that it was the work of a period subsequent by two centuries
to the death of S. Ignatius ; so that, in fact, it was little more
than twenty years old when Eusebius quoted it in his history.
On the other hand, the authenticity was defended by the
Protestants Vossius and Hammond. In 1672 the objections
of DallsBus were met by the '^ VindicisD IgnatiansD '^ of the
Anglican Pearson. It is difficult to say too much in praise
of the marvellous learning and acuteness displayed in this great
work. Tillemont may answer for the esteem in which it was
held by Catholic scholars. Minute and careful as he is in the
method which he pursues in his Memoires, when he comes to
the epistles of S. Ignatius, he dismisses the question of their
_
♦^ De Trin., Praef., c. 2. t De Hierarch.,v. c. 8.
376 The Ignatian Eplatles :
authenticity, because he considers that the " grand et savant
ouvrage " of Pearson has closed the question. We can test
the merits of the '' VindicisD '- better still, if we look at its eflFect
upon the opposite side. Later on we shall see that the
opponents of the authenticity have receded from the position
of Dallaeus. No scholar will venture to maintain now that
the Ignatian epistles are a forgery of the fourth century.
Two causes have contributed to change the aspect of the
controversy during the last twenty or thirty years. In 1845
Cureton published a Syriac version of three Ignatian epistles,
viz., those to S. Polycarp, to the Ephesians, and to the
Romans, from two MSS., one of which dates, as he thinks, from
about 550, and contained the epistle to Polycarp ; the other,
which belongs to the seventh or eighth century, he was able
to use for the three epistles. In 1849 he availed himself of a
third MS. with the same Syriac version of the three epistles.
This Syriac version omits a great number of passages found
even in the shorter Greek; and hence it was possible now to
advance one of three hypotheses with regard to the authenticity.
It might be held that the shorter Greek epistles were the
genuine work of S. Ignatius, and the Syriac version a mere
abridgment ; or, again, that the Syriac version represented, as
Cureton himself maintained, the original letters, so that even
the shorter Greek text contained four false and three inter-
polated epistles; or, lastly, that no genuine epistles existed at
all, that the shorter Greek text was a forgery, and the Syriac
recension the incomplete abridgment of a forgery. Since
Cureton gave the Syriac version to the world, the discussion
which it originated has been carried on almost entirely in
Germany, and the way in which it has been conducted has
depended in great measure upon the schools of theological
opinion prevailing there. Baur* and Hilgenfeldf have
denied the authenticity of the epistles altogether. They
have been able to do so with greater consistency than the
old-fashioned Protestants, for their attack on the authenticity
of the Ignatian epistles results from a sceptical method,
which has led them to reject by far the greater part of the
New Testament canon, and to reduce the history of the Church,
for the first century and a half, to a myth. They at least are
not open to the charge of accepting historical evidence for the
doctrines which Protestants believe, and ignoring evidence of
precisely the same kind when it tells on the side of Catholicism.
* In Die Ignatianischen Briefe und ihr neuester Kritiker, and in an
earlier work, Ueber den Ursprung des Episcopate, p. 147, seq.
t In Die Apostolischen Vater, p. 274, seq.
Their Genuineness and their Doctrine. 377
They are indeed inconsistent enough when they attempt to
divine the real history which they suppose to underHe the
collection of myths, and substitute an imaginary history which
rests upon nothing but unproved hypotheses in place of facts
which are well established. But this feature does not come
into prominence while their criticism is merely negative. On
the other hand, it has become more and more difficult to carry
criticism halfway. If the evidence for the epistles of
S. Ignatius is not enough, that for S. John's Gospel is inconclu-
sive also, and many arguments urged by Baur and Hilgenfeld
against the epistles of S. Ignatius apply, and are meant to do
so, against that Gospel as well. Hence many Protestants, who
are far from accepting, as Pearson did, the divine authority of
the Episcopate, have written in defence of the Ignatian
epistles. In this respect we find Protestants, like Rothe* and
Uhlhorn, on the same side as Hefele and DoUinger, Indeed it is
to Uhlhornf that we owe the most masterly defence of the
Greek text which has appeared since Pearson's ^^ Vindicise.''
Lastly, Cureton's Syriac recension has opened up a middle
line, which has been followed in Germany by Bunsen,J
Ritschl,§ and Lipsius. || The Syriac text is extremely meagre
even in the three epistles which it preserves, and has omitted,
as a matter of course, many of the dogmatic statements which
occur in the Greek, At the same time the Syriac text does con-
tain a number of dogmatic statements which are incredible,
if we accept the sceptical theories of Baur, in the mouth of
one who was a disciple of the Apostles. Bunsen used the
Syriac text at once against those who believed more and those
who believed less than himself, — " against the Romish Papacy
with the strict episcopalians in the Protestant Church, and
against the new Tubingen school."
This account of the controversy, short and imperfect as it
is, may suffice to put before the reader the questions which
have to be settled. We have said nothing of tnree epistles at
one time ascribed to S. Ignatius, which exist only in Latin.
We may also dismiss the longer Greek text published by
Pacaeus, and all the epistles except the seven mentioned by
Eusebius. The longer Greek text was defended, after Vossius
* Anfange der Chriatlichen Eirche.
t In two Dissertations in Niedner's Zeitschrifb fiir die Historische
Theologie, 1851, numbers 1, 2.
X Die drei achten und die drei unachten Briefe des Ignatius von
Antiochien.
§ Entstehung der altkatholischen Eirche, p. 274, seq.
II Ueber das Yerhaltniss des Textes der drei Syrischen Briefe des Ignatios.
1859.
378 The Ignatian Epistles :
had published the shorter one, by Morinus, and even as late as
1835 by Meier.* But Meier was answered by Kothe, and
since then the longer Greek has been abandoned by universal
consent. In what follows we shall speak of the shorter, or
Medicean text, as the Greek text simply; and when we have
to use the text of Pacaeus, we shall call it the interpolated
Greek. Thus we are left with two questions before us. First,
does the Syriac version represent the original epistles, or is the
Greek text genuine, and the Syriac version no more than a
selection and abbreviation of three out of seven epistles?
Next, supposing the existing Greek text to be older than the
Syriac version, are we justified in regarding the seven Greek
epistles as the work of S« Ignatius ?
Let us be^n with the external evidence for and against the
Syriac version, though it is hard to find any external testimony
in its favour. It comes before us, as F. Newman puts it,
" without vouchers, without location, without correlation " ;
the MSS. which contain it '^ do not tell their own tale; and
there is no one to tell their tale for them.'' t The MSS.,
indeed, close with the words which Cureton and Bunsen J
translate) ^' Here end the three epistles of Ignatius,, bishop and
martyr." But this termination cannot have come from the pen
of S. Ignatius himself: it must have been added at some
time, and nobody can say when. More than this, two Syriac
scholars — Petermann and Merx — are confident that the Syriac
need mean no more than " here end three epistles of Igna-
tius, bishop and martyr.'* Again, there is no shadow of proof
that the original Syriac version did not consist originally of
the seven epistles in the fuller form which they have in the
Greek text. On the contrary, Cureton's Syriac fragments furnish
us with passages wanting in Cureton's version but supported
by the Medicean Greek. Three Syriac scholars — ^Denzinger,
Merx, and Zahn — argue, and the two last from a minute ex-
amination of their linguistic peculiarities, that some of these
formed part of the same Syriac translation which is epitomized
in Cureton's three MSS. We have, besides, an Armenian ver-
sion, which corresponds to the Greek text of the seven epistles ;
and was made, as is allowed on all hands, not directly from the
original Greek, but from a Syriac version. Petermann pro-
fesses to show that it is a rendering of the same Syriac version
part of which Cureton discovered ; and is proof that the Syriac,
* In the Studien und Kritiken for that year.
t Essays : Critical and Historical, L 258.
t Die drei achten und vier unachten Briefe, &c^ preface, xvl
Their Genuineness and their Doctrine. 379
in its complete form, was no less full than the Greek text.
On this point Petermann's judgment is confirmed by another
eminent Orientalist, Kalergi. *
So much for the testimony, or rather absence of testimony,
in behalf of the Syriac recension. Let us contrast with it the
evidence for the prior claims of the Greek text. No doubt
the Syriac MSS. are older than the Medicean and Colbertine
MSS., which are the chief MS. authorities for the Greek text;
but surely nothing can be more uncritical than Cureton^s state-
ment, that ^^ the far greater antiquity of the copies in which it
is contained alone justifies ^^ us in assuming* that the Syriac
" represents the most ancient text.'^f The decision -depends,
not on a comparison of MS. with MS., but on the weight which
we are prepared to give to Syriac MSS., which leave us in the
dark as to the character of the version which they contain on
the one side, and the explicit evidence of writers in the first
four centuries on the other. Eusebius J recognizes not three,
but seven epistles, as the undoubted work of S. Ignatius.
He makes an extract from the epistle to the Romans, which
contains one striking sentence : — '^Now I begin to be His dis-
ciple,^^ which is found in our present Greek text, but is miss-
ing in Cureton's Syriac. He cites the first half of the third
chapter of the epistle to the Smyrnsaans, — an epistle entirely
wanting in the Syriac. Moreover, he mentions the places at
which the epistles were written, the bishops mentioned by the
saint ; and in all these particulars he confirms the Greek text.
Again, when Eusebius says that Ignatius wrote against heresies
'^then sprouting up,*' his description suits the Greek text,
but will not fit the Syriac, which hardly alludes to heresies at
all. We have said as much as this in proof that Eusebius was
in possession of the Greek text as we have it, making allow-
ance, of course, for various readings, because Cureton§ appears
to have doubted it. Neither Bunsen nor anyone else in Germany
has ventured to follow him. Indeed, Lipsius,- 1| the latest defender
of the Syriac version, admits that the Greek text arose as early
as 130-140 A.D ; and Uhlhorn % seems to us to judge rightly
when he takes the testimony of Eusebius for granted, and
* See Denzinger, Aechtheit des bisheri^en Textes der Ignatianischen
Briefe, p. 95, seq. ; Merx, Meletemata Igiatiana, chapters 3 and 4 ; Peter-
iiiann's edition of the Epistles, with a Collation of the Armenian version,
introduction ; Zahn, Ignatius von Antiochien, Gotha, 1873, p. 164, seq.
t P. xlix. J Hist., iiL 36.
§ xxxi. seq. of the first edition, quoted by Uhlhorn. In the Corpus
Ignatianum, p. Ixx. seq., which we have used, he seems tacitly to abandon
this theory about Eusebius.
II See his dissertation in NiedneFs Zeitschrift for 1856, No, 1, p. 47.
IT P. 10, note 5.
380 The Ignatian Epistles :
passes by Cureton's view on this point " as scarcely needing
refutation/* Here, then, we have the clear and explicit decla-
ration of Eusebias, about the year 330, against an inference
drawn from a MS. of the sixth century.
We are able to go higher than Busebius. The few words
taken from S. Ignatius by Irensaus (v. 28, 4) and Origen
(Hom. vi. in Luc, Prolog, in Cantic), decide nothing, for they
are common both to the Greek and the Syriac. S. Polycarp,
however, the friend of S. Ignatius, writes thus to the Philip-
pians* (we translate his words as literally as possible) : — " Wo
have sent to yon the letters of Ignatius {iiritTToXag), sent to us
by him, and other [letters] , as many as {oaag) we had by us,
as you enjoined.** If the Greek letters are genuine, what
Polycarp says here is plain enough. He speaks of letters
addressed, one to him, in union with the Church of Smyrna,
another to himself specially — iSlwg, as Eusebius expresses it.
On Cureton*s theory his words are inexplicable, for there
were but three letters altogether; while Polycarp*s words
imply that there were at least four, and of these one only ad-
dressed in any sense to Polycarp. It is true that iTriaroXal
may be used for a single letter. But the word 8aag compels
us to take it in the sense of '' letters *' in the second half of
the sentence; and it is more than unKkely that Polycarp
should have used the word in two senses in one short sentence.
In the very same chapter he has occasion to speak of a letter
in the singular, and there he uses the singular noun l7r£(n-oXf|.
Lipsius,t the latest and most learned defender of the Syriac
text, admits candidly that ^^ it is simplest to refer ** the word
kiTKXToXdg to the epistle addressed to Polycarp and that to the
Smymseans ; and thinks this reference makes it unlikely " that
the words in question** (i. e. the words of Polycarp) " can
be understood of our Syriac recension.** Fortunately we are
not left to probabilities, however strong. Polycarp says the
Philippians and Ignatius had written to him, begging that he
would send a messenger with, letters to Antioch. Now, this
is precisely what Ignatius does in the eighth chapter of his
letter to Polycarp, as it is in the Greek text ; but in the Syriac
this commission is left out. J We have only to look at the way
in which this decisive testimony has been met by the advocates
of the Syriac text to see its strength. Cureton passes over it
sicco pede. Bunsen,§ Bitschl,|| and Lipsius^ admit that the
* C. 13, quoted hj Euseb. Hist, ill. 36. f P. 13.
X 01 c. 8 of the Greek text with Coreton's Syriac Corpus Ignatianam,
p. 13.
§ Fifth Letter to Neander, p. 107.
0 Loc. cit., second edition, p 584. ^ P. 14.
Their Genuineness and their Doctrine, 381
words of Polycarp, if genuine, are fatal to the Syriac recen-
sion; and they have been forced into the assertion that the
thirteenth chapter of Poly carp's epistle is an interpolation.
For this theory of interpolation nobody pretends that there is
a shred of external support. First, we are asked to believe
that the Greek text of the Ignatian epistles is interpolated,
and this on the authority of the Syriac recension. We urge
the testimony of Polycarp's epistle for the Greek ; and we are
asked to believe that Polycarp^s epistle, which was for a long
time read publicly in the churches,* is interpolated, and this on
no authority whatever. No motive — dogmatic, or of any kind
— can be assigned for the other passages in Polycarp's epistle
(c. 3, the whole; c. 11, qui autem ignorat — noveramus; c. 12,
confido enim — credo esse in vobis), which Ritschl regards as
interpolations. Against the thirteenth chapter he objects
its recognition of the " Pseudo-Ignatius,'^ which is, of course,
to reason in a vicious circle ; its mention of several martyrs,
in which there is nothing very surprising ; the words in which
S. Polycarp asks for information about S. Ignatius and his
companions, as if S. Polycarp might not know of their fate,
and at the same time be anxious for details about their stay at
Philippi, Ritschl also argues that the clause in the thirteenth
chapter of Polycarp's letter, which tells against the complete-
ness of the Syriac version of Ignatius, may be cut out without
injury to the sense. But what document will stand against
a method of criticism which, without any term of comparison,
first decides what may be lefb out, and then concludes that it
must be left out ? It must be remembered that the letter of
Polycarp is mentioned by his disciple IrensBus ; and historical
scepticism of the most extreme kind supposes that the letter, as
we have it, was forged shortly after the martyr's death, in 167.
Let us accept this theory of Hilgenfeld f for the present. Let
us put Poly carp's letter about 170; and we have evidence
early, and more than early enough, to justify us in preferring
the Greek to the Syriac recension. {
With external evidence so strong against the Syriac version,
we may dispense with a detailed account of the objections
which may be brought against it from its internal character.
They have been drawn out at length by Uhlhorn, and we
shall confine ourselves to a few specimens of the argument
which fall under this head. The omission in the Syriac of salu-
* Hieron. de Viria illuatr., c. 17. f Apost. Vater, p. 274.
X Pearson, Vindic, 1, 5, refutes a theory of Dalkeus similar to that of
Kitschl. Denzinger, in the Tubingen Quartabchnft, 1861, p. 388, seq.,
has completely disposed of Bitschl's arguments.
382 The lynatian l!jj)i8tle8 :
tations at the close of the epistles^ except a very meagre one
in the epistle to the Romans^ and of all personal aUusions,
must of itself create a strong suspicion against that recensicHi.
The most striking instance of this is in ,the epistle to the
Ephesians. It opens in the Syriac with a lengthy inscription
to the Church of Ephesus, and ends abruptly with the words,
"and that which was perfected with God took its beginning.'*
It is hard to see why an interpolator should have added the
personal matters and salutations with which the epistle closes
very naturally in the Greek ; while the mention of names at
Ephesus would be of little interest to a Syriac Christian, and
he could omit them very easily if he wanted to abbreviate the
epistles. Again, in some cases the Syriac translator has
evidently made omissions, for he has destroyed the sense. A
famous passage from the epistle to the Epheaans will illustrate
this. In the Greek, Ignatius says : '' Unknown to the prince
of this world were the virginity of Mary and her child-bearing,
and likewise the death of our Lord, three mysteries crying
aloud, which were effected in the stillness of God/' This is
a difficult passage, but it is far from uninteUigible. The idqia
is the same as that of S. Paul (2 Tim. i. 9), where he speaks
of '^ the purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the times of the world, but now is made manifest.'*
S. Ignatius means that these three mysteries, the virginity of
Mary, the birth of our Lord, and His death, were fixed in the
counsels of God, unknown to the devil, aud at last manifested
openly. Apparently the Syriac translator could not under-
stand how the " death of our Lord '' could be unknown to the
devil, since it was effected in open day. So he leaves out
these words, and gives us the passage thus : " Unknown to
the ruler of the world were the virginity of Mary and her
child-bearing, and the three mysteries which cried aloud/*
What are the three mysteries ? He has only mentioned two.
Or, if we translate, with Cureton, the " three mysteries of the
shout,'' what were they? We need not linger over the
attempts which have been made to correct the Syriac reading,
or to give it an intelligible sense. So, again, the omission of
the sixth chapter and the first half of the seventh in the
Syriac version of the epistle to the Romans, has destroyed
the connection so utterly that the defenders of the Syriac text
have been reduced to the greatest straits. Bunsen* has
taken the expedient of cutting down the Syriac text further
still, while Lipsius f has reinserted the sixth chapter from the
Greek, and admitted that here, at least, the Syriac makes a
• See Uhlhom, No. I. p. 54. t P. 177, seq.
TJieir Oenuineness and their Doctrine, 38
<\
large omission. This same epistle in Syriac contains an addition
as well as omissions. The holy bishop has been addressing the
members of the Roman Church with the greatest deference ;
insists that they have taught others, and that it is not for him
to " make commands to them/^ and the letter seems to be
drawing to a close. Suddenly the whole tone is altered.
Two chapters are inserted (cc. 4 and 5) from the Greek epistle
to the Trallians, where he speaks of heavenly knowledge
which he possesses, but is afraid to communicate, in case those
to whom he writes should not be " able to contain it.'' '' It
is as if/' to quote the words of Hilgenfeld, ^' the epitomizer
felt that such a passage as ad Trail. 4, 5 was too characteristic
to be left out in the epistles of the martyr, and so inserted it
at the end of the epistle to the Romans^ with alterations,
some necessary, others unnecessary. One might almost
suppose, too, that the author of the Syriac text wanted to
neutralize the strong expressions of humility which Ignatius
employs in writing to the Romans by an addition from the
epistle to the Trallians." * To these instances, which might
easily be multiplied, we will only add, that here and there the
Syriac epitome leaves in particles which betray its real
origin. For example, in Cureton's text (pp. 17 and 19 of the
Corpus Ignatianum) of the epistle to the Bphesians, we read,
" Blessed is he who has bestowed such a bishop upon you
who are worthy of him. But since charity does not permit me to
be silent, for this cause, I have been beforehand in exhorting
you to concur with the mind of God.'* Here the strong
adversative but (aAAa) is without meaning, for there is no
opposition between the sentences. The Greek text supplies
the explanation. *' Blessed be God," Ignatius says there,
" who has granted the possession of such a bishop to you who
deserve it." Then, after a considerable interval, he declares
that he does not give them injunctions, that he is nothing,
that he is only beginning to be a disciple, and needs the
assistance of the Ephesians. *' But since charity does not
permit me to be silent, for this cause," &c. The epitomizer
omitted the sentences which come between ; he forgot, how-
ever, to alter the aXA' ewe( at the beginning of the last sentence,
and lets us into the secret of his work.
We said above that the cause of the Syriac text had been
taken up by Bunsen partly under the influence of theological
prejudice. As a matter of fact, the Syriac does omit most
of the passages enforcing the authority of the Episcopate
which recur so constantly in the Greek text. They would be
♦ Apost Vater, p. 277.
884 The Ignatian Epistles ':
of small interest at a time when ecclesiastical controversy Iiad
taken a new direction, and war was waged between contend-
ing parties on our Lord^s divinity or the union of His two
natures, while all were agreed about the divine institution of
the Hierarchy. But here, too, it is plain that the Syriac text
does not come from a time prior to the Greek text, or repre-
sent an earlier form of doctrinal development. Wherever the
Syriac text touches on doctrine, it holds a language exactly
similar to that of the Greek. The Bishop is distinguished in
name and oflBce from the presbyters, and obedience to him is
put forward as a duty imposed by God. " Give heed to the
Bishop, that God may give heed to you. I give my soul as
surety for those who are subject to the Bishop, and the priests,
and the deacons '' (Pol., c. 6, Corpus Ignatianum, p. 11).
On other points the Syriac epitome has retained strong state-
ments of doctrine. The blood of Christ is ''the blood of
God'^ (Eph., c. 1 ; Cureton, p. 15). One of the most striking
passages quoted above for the absolute divinity of our blessed
Saviour is common to the Syriac (ad Pol., c. 3; Cureton's
Corpus Ignat., p. 7). And so it is with an allusion to the
blessed Eucharist, — " the bread of God which is the flesh of
Chrisf (ad Rom. 7; Cureton^s Corp. Ignat., p. 51). This
is just what we should look for if the Syriac is an epitome of
the Greek. If, on the contrary, the Greek is a later and in-
terpolated text, we should expect a difierence in doctrine, or
at least in the mode of its expression. The interpolated
Greek text of Pacaeus is an instance in point. There the
doctrine is widely different from, nay often directly opposed to
that of the genuine Greek or Medicean text.*
Here we may dismiss the Syriac text, and conclude with
the words of Denzinger : " Sint ut sunt aut non sint.'*
Cureton expected that the Syriac epistles would be recognized
as '' the only true and genuine letters of the venerable bishop
of Antioch,^^ hardly less soon and less universally than the
three Latin letters were rejected as spurious. In fact, how-
ever, the very cause which told against the Latin epistles
tells against the Syriac recension; viz., the utter want of
historical evidence to support it. Certainly this universal
recognition seems still to be a long way off. " Bunsen's
theory,^^ Hilgenfeld writes — and Bunsen^s theory is Cure-
* See, e.g., for examples of Arian doctrine, ad Trail., cc. 5, 6 ; ad Smym.
7 ; ad Magnes. 4 ; and in the false epistles, ad Tars. 2, 5. A most in-
teresting account of this text will be found in F. Newman's Essay, L 239,
seq. Zahn, writing in 1873, but without any knowledge of F. Newman's
Essay, comes to almost the same conclusion as to the date of the longer
Greek recension.
Their Oenuineness and their Doctrine. 385
ton^s, — ^^has been completely annihilated by two men of
learning (Baur and Uhlhorn) from two different points of
view," In England almost the only contribution to patristic
criticism of enduring value, which has appeared for some
years, is a refutation of the pretensions of the Syriac recension
by F. Newman; * and in Germany, this very year, Zahn,t a
Protestant professor of theology at Gottingen, has issued an
elaborate work on S. Ignatius, in which he defends at length
the authenticity of the Greek text.
We may proceed, then, to the question still remaining.
Are the seven Greek epistles ascribed to S. Ignatius really
his ? It will be convenient to take Hilgenfeld as the repre-
sentative of those who have answered this question in the
negative, for he is the latest, as well as the most learned and
cautious, exponent of their views. He has had the advantage
of writing after Uhlhorn's reply to Baur, and, while he
defends Baur's position, he has corrected many of his errors ;
so we may fairly assume that, whatever can be said against
the authenticity of the epistles, has been said by him. We
shall begin with the external evidence for the epistles. There
is no external evidence to be set on the other side, so that we
have only to consider the arguments which have been brought
against the epistles from their internal character, and from
the matter which they contain. In conclusion, we hope to
show that an examination of the epistles themselves, far from
weakening the external evidence in their favour, confirms it in
the most striking way.
We may pass over the later testimonies which Pearson has
collected in the first part of his VindicisB, chapter second,
and start from Eusebius. This historian, as we have seen
already, writing probably about the year 330, enumerates the
epistles of S. Ignatius, and makes two extracts from them. J
Before him Origen (185-254) had quoted them in his sixth
homily on S. Luke, and again in the prologue to his com-
mentary on the Canticles. Further back still, about the year
190, S. lrenaeus§ cites words from the epistle of S. Ignatius
to the Romans. Pearson proves, with great care, that Origen
* This Essay is in the hands of every one interested in the subject, and
the reader will see the assistance we have derived from it throughout. It
would be hard, were it necessary, to make frequent reference to it, for there
is no part of the controversy, on which, directly or indirectly, it does not
throw new light.
t Apost. Vater, 274
t Hist., iii. 36. A third extract will be found in a fragment of Eusebius,
printed in MaFs Nova Collectio, tom. L p. 3. § V. 28, 4.
VOL, XXI. — NO. XLii. [New Series.'] 2 c
386 The Ignatian Epistles :
and S. Irenaeus really were acquainted with the epistles of
S. Ignatius, as we have them in the Medicean text. It is
useless, however, to repeat his arguments at the present day,
for the position taken by Dallaeus and others, who attacked
the authenticity of the epistles in the seventeenth centuiy,
has been abandoned by their successors. Baur, Schwegler,
and Hilgenfeld do not dispute the fact that the three ancient
writers whom we have just mentioned recognized our
epistles, and content themselves with asserting that they
were deceived. It is worth while, therefore, to examine these
testimonies, and see what weight they carry with them.
First with regard to Eusebius, who may be said to speak for
the whole Church, between the martyrdom of S. Ignatius and
his own date. The fact that he mentions S. Ignatius and his
letters would prove nothing more than this, that the epistles
were in vogue some time before the composition of his own
history. But every one acquainted in any degree with that
history, knows that Eusebius had the most extensive acquaint-
ance with Christian literature from the earliest date. He
used, as Pearson reminds us, the great libraries of Pamphilus
and of Alexander, bishop of Jerusalem, and every page of his
history shows that he used them with extraordinary diligence.
Now, he made special use of this learning to distinguish
between books which had been received universally from the
first, and those of doubtful authenticity. He is most careful,
for instance, in separating books of Holy Scripture, which
had been always acknowledged in the Church, from the
avTiXeyofieva, books like the Apocalypse and some of the
epistles; (e.g. the 2nd of S. Peter, the 2nd and 3rd of
S. John,) the authority of which had been questioned, or
which could not claim, in his opinion, the same amount of
ancient testimony as the rest of the New Testament. He
states the names of the early writers who mention these dis-
puted books, and gives an account of the controversies which
had arisen about some of them. He pursues the same course
as to doubtful patristic writings, such as the so-called epistle of
Barnabas, the "Shepherd of Hermas,^* and the second epistle
of S. Clement of Rome. He remarks expressly that the last of
these writings had not the same authority as Clement's first
epistle, because " we are not aware that the ancients have
made use of Clement's second epistle.'** About the epistles
of Ignatius he speaks with absolute certainty. He does not
even trouble himself to give the testimony of Origen in their
behalf, though he must have been familiar with it ; and we
♦ Hist, iil 38.
Their Genuineness and their Doctrine, 387
are justified in concluding ttat he knew of no reason, negative
or positive, in antiquity, for calling their authenticity in ques-
tion. Cureton,* followed by Bunsen,t evidently felt that the
evidence of Eusebius cannot be lightly dismissed, and he tries
to break its force by misquoting him. It is not true that ^^in
commencing his account of the martyrdom of Ignatius, and of
the letters which he is said to have written in his journey to
Rome, Eusebius does not venture to make a positive assertion,
but prefaces his notice with the guarded expression, Xoyog S'
txet." This expression is used not of the letters, but of the
fact that S. Ignatius was martyred at Rome, which could not,
of course, be mentioned in the letters themselves. ^' Tradition
has it, that being sent from Syria to the city of the Romans,
he became the food of wild beasts, because of his witness to
Christ.^' J We may add that Eusebius had strong motives for
throwing doubt on the epistles of S. Ignatius, had he been
able to do so. His own Arianizing theology, as he draws it
out in the first book of his history, offers a remarkable con-
trast to that of S. Ignatius. A theologian who could, and
that perhaps even after the Nicene Council, talk of the Son as
^Hhe second cause of the universe after the Father,^* and as
holding " the second place in the rule over all *' ; who could
argue that the Theophanies in the Old Testament must be
appearances of the Word, since the Father^s " essence '' is
"ingenerate and unchangeable,^^ as if the essence of the
Word were distinct from that of the Father, had strong
inducement to reject the Ignatian epistles — the same induce-
ment which led the Arians, later on in the same century, to
mutilate and interpolate them, by way of adaptation to their
own heresy. §
Of Origen we need only say that he too is a learned and a
critical witness. Irenaeus, again, was not likely to be deceived
by a forgery, palmed off under the name of S. Ignatius. He
quotes the epistle of that saint to the Christians of Rome, a
city in close communication with Lyons, which was his own
see. He himself had been sent to Rome || on an embassy.
Moreover, he had spent his youth with Polycarp, the friend of
S. Ignatius, among those very Christians of Asia Minor to
whom six of the Ignatian letters are addressed.
* Corpus Tgnatianura, p. Ixxi. f Letters to Neander, p. 17.
t Hist., iii. 36. A comparison of Euseb. ii. 22, shows that \6yoc «x"
does not imply doubt ; but this is irrelevant to our argument. It is not used
at all of the Ignatian Epistles.
§ We have followed F. Newman and Zahn, p. 144, in regarding the
interpolated Greek text as the work of an Arian, in the latter half of the
fourth century. || Euseb., v. 4.
2 c 2
388 The Ignatian Epistles :
One testimony remains ; and that, if genuine, is conclusive.
Poly carp, writing, as his epistle shows, soon after the martyr-
dom of Ignatius, tells us that he collected the letters of Ignatius.
The modern opponents of the Ignatian epistles allow unhesi-
tatingly that the words of Poly carp, if they are really his, decide
the question; and to deny the authenticity of the Ignatian
epistles, they are obliged to deny that of Polycarp^s letter also.
Fortunately, however, this " letter of Polycarp written to the
Philippians,^^ is mentioned and described by IrensBUS,* the
disciple of Polycarp ; and the boldest scepticism does not ven-
ture to dispute the authenticity of the work in which the words
of Iren89us occur. The authenticity of this letter of Polycarp
is the cardinal point of the whole controversy ; and it will be
best to give the exact words in which Hilgenfeld puts his
theory with regard to it. He grants that this letter "was
composed, perhaps, while Polycarp was still alive, in any
case, shortly after his death in 167, because it was known
to Irenaeus.^^ It was written as a sort of ^' preface ^^ to the
Ignatian epistles, at a time when the '^Catholic system"
(Katholicismus), which these epistles had helped to set up,
was " already firmly established and victorious.^' t Surely this
theory needs some positive proof. Here is a letter, forged,
according to Hilgenfeld, perhaps in the lifetime, certainly soon
after the death of Polycarp, to whom it was attributed. It is a
forgery of the most unlikely kind, for it is impossible to discover
a motive for it. It contains hardly any dogma; it does not
contain one word on the claims of the Episcopate. It is just
the letter we should expect from a young bishop, as Polycarp
was then, writing on a personal matter which had little interest
for any one except himself and the Philippians; while it is
most unlike the manner which a forger of those days would
certainly adopt when he wrote in the name of one who was
already regarded as a most illustrious bishop and confessor.
The style is utterly diflferent from that of the Ignatian epistles,
although we can undoubtedly trace, as Pearson has done, the
influence of the latter on the mind of Polycarp. It must have
come, as Hilgenfeld seems to admit, from another hand than that
which composed the Ignatian epistles. Why did this second
forger set to work ? Not to spread Catholic dogma, or to exalt
the glory of Polycarp, as we have seen; not to support the
Ignatian epistles, for there is no trace of opposition to them.
It is true, as Hilgenfeld urges, that falsified letters were cir-
culated during the lifetime of Dionysius of Corinth in his
Iren., ill 3, 4. f Hilgenfeld, p. 271, seq.
Their Genuineness and their Doctrine, 389
name ; * but then they betrayed, as Dlonysius tells us, their
dogmatic motive, and they were exposed by Dionysius himself,
Hilgenfeld finds allusions in the letters of Polycarp which do
not suit the time (108) at which he is supposed to have written.
It is strange that these incongruities and anachronisms did not
strike Irenaeus, Polycarp's own disciple. Let us see, however,
what they are. The first objection is, that Polycarp^s epistle
implies that Gnostic heresy was widely spread, — a thing im-
possible in the first decade of the second century. Any one
who reads through the second chapter of S. Polycarp^s letters
will see that the words adduced by Hilgenfeld, '* serve God
in fear and truth, leaving the vain babbling and the error of
the many,^' need not refer to Gnostics. The whole context
applies, at least, as well to the heathen population. Hilgenfeld
also urges that it is a " gross anachronism ^' to make Polycarp
(c. 7) talk of heretics as " the firstborn of Satan,^^ since we
know from Irenaeus (iii. 3, 4) that he used these words long
after to Marcion, at Rome, and another to make him tell the
Philippians (c. 12) that they are to pray '' for kings, those in
power, and princes,^^ since there was never more than one
Roman emperor at a time till the reign of the Antonines. As
to the first " anachronism,^^ it requires us to assume that
S. Polycarp, in a long life, never repeated the same phrase
twice, — an assumption extravagant in itself, and which,
curiously enough, happens to be contradicted by S. IrenaBus. f
As to the prayer "for kings,^^ the identical words occur in
S. PauPs first epistle to S. Timothy, ii, 2 ; and we have only
to remember how rapidly the Roman emperors often succeeded
each other if we wish to understand S. Polycarp^s exhortation.
Once more, Hilgenfeld asserts that S. Polycarp has drifted
from S. Paulas doctrine on faith, because he reminds the
Philippians (c. 3) that hope and " charity to God, and Christ,
and our neighbour,^^ ought to accompany faith ! This is, lite-
rally, all that a learned man can bring against the epistle of
S. Polycarp. Yet if this epistle is genuine, then, beyond all
doubt, and by the admission of our adversaries, the epistles of
S. Ignatius are genuine also. If these epistles fall to the
ground, the whole history of the Church for the first three
centuries falls with them. They are attested by the evidence
of S. Polycarp, which is, in the strictest sense, cotemporary.
The letters both of Polycarp and Ignatius are vouched for by
Irenaeus, Poly carpus disciple; those of Ignatius are quoted
by Origen ; while Eusebius, with all his knowledge of anti-
* Euseb., iv. 23.
t To avvrjf^kg avTov dwutv, Ep. ad Florin, apud Euaeb., v. 20.
390 The Ignatian Epistles :
quity, could find no excuse for doubting their authenticity.
Few, indeed, among the documents of the first Christian ages
can plead evidence so overwhelming.
We may proceed to examine the matter of the epistles, and
compare it with the early history of the Church, as it is known
to us from other sources. Here the objections fall naturally
into three classes. Some are drawn from the personal charac-
teristics of S. Ignatius, and the events immediately preceding
his martyrdom, as they appear in the epistles ; others from the
prominence which he gives to the episcopal system; others,
again, from the account given of the Gnostic heretics whom
S. Ignatius attacks.
Under the first of these heads a great deal has been written
on both sides to little purpose about the character of S.
Ignatius. Whether that character, as it manifests itself in
the epistles, looks genuine and natural, is a question too
subjective to be settled by argument. Rothe, a Protestant
historian, is at a loss to understand how any one can study
the character of S. Ignatius without perceiving how real and
natural it is ; Baur is quite as confident in the opposite direc-
tion. It is well, however, to remember that the character of
the Saint must be tried by comparison with that of other early
martyrs ; not by the ethical standard of modem critics. His
desire of martyrdom need surprise none who recall to mind
the belief of the early Church that martyrdom remitted sins,
and was the passport to the glory of heaven.* It was not
more intense than that of Germ aniens, the youth martyred
with Poly carp, who " enticed the wild beast, and forced it on.^'t
Something indeed must be said on the events of the martyr-
dom; but here of late the question has been reduced to a
much narrower compass. It was usual to take as the authority
for these facts not only the epistles of S. Ignatius, but also
the Acts of his martyrdom. Uhlhom in 1851 J demonstrated
that the ^^Acta Martyrii^^ cannot be put on the same level with
the epistles. None of the early authorities who vouch for the
epistles mention the Acts or show any acquaintance with them.
.1 —
* Vid. Clem. Roman. Ep. 1, 5 ; Pastor Hennse Sim. 9, 28 : — " Omnia
eonim [i. e. of martyrs] deleta sunt peccata."
t Acts of Polycarp's Martyrdom, c. 3. No one disputes the authen-
ticity of these Acts.
X See his Dissertation in Niedner's Zeitschrift, 248, seq. So confused
-was the method pursued by Baur on this part of the subject, that he was at
pains to prove the impossibility of a circumstance in the martyrdom of
Ignatius, which rests on no higher evidence than that of Metaphrastes in the
tenth century, and urged it against the authenticity of the epistles. This is
an extreme, but not a solitary instance of the arbitrary method which charac-
terizes the Tubingen school
Tkciv Genuineness and their Doctrine. 391
Tlioy are first mentioned by Evagrius in the sixth century ; and
we may surrender the authenticity of the Acts, as Uhlhorn,
Zahn, and at least two Catholic scholars, Aberle and Kraus,
have done, without affectiug the cause of the epistles. In this
way several historical diflSculties disappear. We are no longer
called upon to explain how the Roman Christians could expect
to secure the deliverance of Ignatius after his condemnation
by Trajan at Antioch. The epistles say nothing of a trial
before Trajan in person. As far as they go, the saint may
have received his sentence at Antioch from the governor of
the province, so that an appeal might still be made to Trajan
at Rome, where it might possibly have been backed by Chris-
tians in the imperial household. So again the epistles do not
speak, as the Acts do, of any general persecution to which
Christians were subjected, nor do they require us to suppose
that Ignatius travelled by sea from Seleucia to Smyrna. For
the rest, increased investigation has told in favour of the
history as it is given in the epistles. The Shepherd of
Hermas (vis. 3, 2) and the epistle to Diognetus (c. 7) prove
that Christians from very early times were condemned to fight
with wild beasts. At a later date emperors forbade the
sending of criminals from the provinces to fight in the Roman
amphitheatre, except in special circumstances; but this rather
tends to show that such a custom had prevailed in earlier
reigns.* It is certain, too, from parallel instances, that the
freedom allowed to Ignatius in his journey is perfectly consist-
ent with historical records. For instance, Lucian, (de Vita
Peregrini, c. 12,) describes Christian churches at a distance
as sending embassies to a Christian confessor in prison. Later
than Lucian^s date, in 177, the martyrs of Vienne and Lyons
sent a letter from their prison to Pope Eleuthems (Buseb., v. 4),
and Cyprian, in his tenth epistle, speaks of it as the constant
custom, under his predecessors, that deacons should visit the
Christian confessors in captivity. Hilgenfeld, however, has
still two arguments against the history of the martyrdom in
the epistles. First, he thinks it impossible to reconcile the
narrative of the persecution with the famous rescript of Trajan
to the younger Pliny in the year 110. The persecution of
Antioch cannot have occurred before this rescript, otherwise
the emperor would not have written as if the case of the
Christians were proposed to him for the first time. Nor, again,
could the persecution, as S. Ignatius describes it, have
occurred after the rescript, for Trajan forbade all search for
* See the quotation from the Pandects, I i« xxxi. D, in Uhlhorn and
Hilgenfeld.
392 The Ignatian Epistles :
Christians, and magistrates could only try the Christians
brought to their tribunal at the instance of private individuals.
Consequently the real Ignatius could not have talked as the
author of the Ignatian epistles does (ad Smyrn., c. 11) about
a sudden cessation of the persecution. "How can we
suppose/' Hilgenfeld asks,* "that, after a definite time, all
accusations [against the Christians] had ceased/* Much might
be said in answer to the first part of the dilemma, but it is
suflScient for our purpose to accept the second alternative, and
take for granted that S. Ignatius was tried after Trajan's
rescript. On this theory the answer to Hilgenfeld's question
is not far to seek. When the fury of the people was once
appeased, and the magistrates unwilling to shed more blood,
the incentive to the accusations of Christians was gone. We
know that when Polycarp was martyred, the persecution
came to an end, and the Church of Smyrna found rest.f The
Church of Antioch may have found rest in the same way.
Hilgenfeld's second objection turns on the date of Polycarp's
entrance on the episcopate. He is represented as a bishop in
the Ignatian epistles, and he died, we are told, in the year 167.
At that time, he said that he had served Christ 86 years; J so
that, if we place the martyrdom of S. Ignatius in 107, he
must have been a bishop when he was only 26 years old.
This alleged diflSculty rests on three unproved hypotheses.
It assumes that 167 was the date of Polycarp's martyrdom,
though this is far from certain ; it assumes that in the first
ages a young man was never consecrated bishop ; above all,
it assumes that S. Polycarp dated his service of Christ
from the year of his birth, — a most unlikely interpretation of
bis words. When S. JrensBus knew him he was vdw 7iipaAloc>§
'^ a man in extreme old age." S. Simeon of Jerusalem was
martyred about the same time as Ignatius, in his 122nd year;
and it is certainly possible that Polycarp may have lived long
beyond his 86th year.
Our opponents, from Dallaaus to Hilgenfeld, have exhausted
their learning and ingenuity in the endeavour to discover
anachronisms and contradictions in the epistles. In this they
have failed ; but their labour has stood us in good stead. They
have given us a certainty, otherwise impossible, that the whole
account of the martyrdom is consistent with itself, and with all
we know from other remains of antiquity. We have still to
treat of the Episcopate and the Gnostic heresy. There, too,
we shall find that the Ignatian epistles have nothing to fear
from a searching investigation.
♦ P. 278. t Acts of S. Polycarp's Martyrdom, c. 1.
X lb., c. 9. § Irenseus, ill 3, 4.
Their Oenuineness and their Doctrine » 393
In the Ignatian epistles there is a constant and sharp dis-
tinction between the words bishop and presbyter ; and it was
possible for writers like Dallaaus to make great capital of this
against the authenticity. It is certain and admitted on all
hands that S. IrensBos recognized the oflSce of a bishop as
superior to that of a presbyter, but it is also certain that he
does not always observe the distinction of the names, and
often uses the word presbyter when h6 means what we call a
bishop. The same holds good of Clement of Alexandria, and
of TertuUian.* At a time when learned men were found to
maintain that the Ignatian epistles were a forgery made as late
as the close of the third century, it might be argued, and not
without a show of reason, that the application of separate
names to the two oflBces of bishop and priest marks a stage
in the development of the Episcopate subsequent to S. Irenseus.
Pearson^s answer to this objection is full of historical interest,
but it is needed no longer for the defence of S. Ignatius. In
the face of the external testimony for the epistles, those who
impugn their authenticity at the present day do not venture to
put them later than the middle, or about the middle, of the
second century. Hence nothing can be made of the Ignatian
distinction between the words bishop and presbyter. Our
opponents cannot argue, "This distinction is not found in
S. Clement of Rome, who wrote say about 98, therefore it
cannot have been familiar to S. Ignatius, who died nine years
later," unless they are also prepared to argue, "This distinction
of name, constant as it is in the Ignatian epistles, is not observed
by Irenasus, therefore these epistles must have arisen after
S. IrenaBus.'^ They cannot carry out their reasoning to this
extent, for they are aware that Irenaaus actually quotes the
epistles of S. Ignatius, and mentions that of Polycarp, which
could not have existed unless the Ignatian epistles of which it
sppaks had existed first. Hence the whole of this argument
falls to the ground. Hilgenfeld (p. 267, seq.) tacitly abandons
it. It is strange that he should substitute an argument which
labours under the same objection. In his letters S. Ignatius
never calls the bishops successors of the Apostles ; he regards
them as occupying the place of Christ. This, as Hilgenfeld
thinks, is a higher and therefore a later view of episcopal
authority. He forgets that it is S. IrensBus and Tertullian,
not to speak of Fathers later still, who put forward bishops as
* Vid. Iren., iii. 14,2; Clem. Alex. Paedag., iii. 12; Strom., vi. 13, for the
distinction between the oflSce of presbyter and bishop ; and for the inter-
change of the words presbyter and bishop, see Iren., iii 2, 2 ; iv. 26, 2, 4, 5 ;
Clem. Alex. Strom., viL 1, with Potter's note, voL ii. 830, in his edition of
Clem. ; perhaps also TertulL ApoL, c. 39.
394 The Ignatian Epistles :
the saccessors of the Apostles^ and he supplies as with a fresh
instance of an argument which proves too much.
We may be asked for proof independent of our epistles, that
the episcopal office existed before or about the time of the real
Ignatius. The documents remaining to us from the beginning
of the second century are few and scanty, nor have their
authors the motive which actuated S. Ignatius for dwelling
upon the rights of bishops. S. Ignatius himself, in his epistle
to the Church of Rome, never alludes to the Bishop of that city,
which was undisturbed by heretical intrusion, S. Polycarp
says nothing of a bishop at Philippi.* If, as might well have
happened, we had nothing left of the epistles of S. Ignatius
except that which he addressed to the Romans, both he and
S. Polycarp would have been called as witnesses against the
primitive origin of Episcopacy, and less in all likelihood would
have been said against the authenticity of their writings. How-
ever, other early documents, so far as they go, point to the
same distinction between bishop and presbyter which is worked
out with greater fulness by S. Ignatius. Earlier in this article
we had occasion to refer to the indications of three distinct
orders of the hierarchy which occur in S. Clement^s epistle to
the Corinthians. The very fact, moreover, that it is Clement, and
not a college of presbyters, who writes officially in the name
of the Roman Church to the Christians of Corinth, is practical
evidence that the episcopal office already existed. In Justin
Martyr we can find nothing decisive either for or against
episcopacy, though, as Uhlhorn shows, all that can be
gathered from his Apology (c. 65, seq.) tells in its favour. But
in close proximity to Justin we meet with two decisive testi-
monies. The first is from the Shepherd of Hermas. This
book cannot have been written later than the middle of the
second century, between the years 142 and 157.t Y©* ^^
enumerates, (vis. 3, 5,) the three orders of the Hierarchy — ''the
bishops {iTrhKOTToi) and teachers *^ (SiSao-icaAoe, and in the Latin
version doctors, i.e. presbyters, as appears from Tertull.
Praescr., c. 3; Acts of Perpetua, c. 13; Cyprian, Ep. 24,
quoted by Pearson, ii. c. 13), " and deacons, who have borne the
Episcopate and have taught and ministered (Seajcovi^aavrcc)."
More than this. When Hermas wrote, the Episcopate cannot
* Zahn, pp. 297, 635, does actually take this for proof that in 108 the
Episcopate, already established in Syria and Asia Minor, was not yet intro-
duced at Rome and PhilippL
t The Muratorian Canon says it was written "nuperrim^,temporibusnostris,"
in the pontificate of Pius, i.e. 142-157. Hilgenfeld, p. 180, seq., places it
earlier. We have followed the Greek text discovered in 1856, and published
first by Anger and Dindorf, then by Dressel in his Patres ApostolicL
Their Genuineness and their Doctrine. 895
have been absolutely new ; for, as Hilgenfeld admits, Hermas
represents Clement, bishop of Rome (91 — 100) as occupying a
rank superior to that of the presbyters. The scene of the
visions is laid at Rome in Clement^s time, and the second
among them ends thus: — "Thou shalt write two littlebook8,and
send one to Clement and one to Grapte. Clement will send
it to the foreign cities, for [this] is permitted to him [or, as the
Greek text reads, ^it is addressed to him^J. Grapte will ad-
monish the widows and orphans. But thou shalt read it in
this city with the presbyters who preside over the Church.^'
Here it will be observed that Clement is separated from the
presbyters, just as Grapte, the deaconess, is from the widows com-
mitted to her care. The second testimony, that of Hegesippus,
is more important still. " Being in Rome,^^ he says, " I made
a table of succession (8(a8oxT?v cTroeyjera/Liyjv) down to Anicetus
(157 — 168), whose deacon Eleutherus was. To Anicetus suc-
ceeded Soter; after him came Eleutherus. Now in each succes-
sion and in each city things are ordered according to the de-
claration of the law and of the prophets, and of our Lord.^^*
This table must have been made about fifty years after the
martyrdom of S. Ignatius. It is plain that it recorded the
names of bishops. Had the church of each city been governed
by a number of presbyters, there would have been no line of
single prelates, as Hegesippus implies. Besides, nobody con-
tests the fact that episcopacy was fully established in the time
of Eleutherus, towards the close of the second century, and
Hegesippus makes no difference between that bishop of Rome
and his predecessors. Again, so far is Hegesippus fi:om any
thought of a recent institution for the Episcopate, that, during
his stay at Rome, he constructed a list of the Roman bishops
down to his own time. How could he have attempted to do
so if, as the opponents of the Ignatian epistles require us to
believe, diocesan bishops had not yet existed fifty years in the
Church ?
We have been trying to show that there are indisputable
traces of the episcopal oflBce before the middle of the second
century. But we must not forget that the burden of proof
devolves on our opponents. Their case is that the Ignatian
epistles belong to the period between 140 and 160, that they
were not written by S. Ignatius in 108, because at that time
the episcopal oflBce mentioned in the epistles had not begun to
* Apud Euseb., iv. 22. Many editors have read diarpipfjv liroiri<rdfiriv^ on
the authority of Rufinus ; but all the MSS. jfive the reading we have
adopted in the text. Yid. Heinichen ad loc. In any case the words " in
each succession and in each city " suffice for the aigument in the text.
396 TJie Ignatian Epistles :
be. We are entitled, therefore, to ask for positive evidence
that the Episcopate arose after 108. We are entitled to ask for
documents as late or later than 108 in proof that the Church
was still exempt from the government of bishops. This proof
is essential to the argument against the Ignatian epistles. But
it is proof which is not given.
Pearson regarded the argument which we have just treated
as the palmary objection to the authenticity of the epistles. Of
late, the main attack has been made in another direction. S.
Ignatius throughout the epistles is in conflict with a Gnostic
Docetism. Hilgenfeld does his utmost to prove that such a heresy
had no place at the beginning of the second century, and he
regards this as the turning point of the whole question. There
is no need to enter on the many and divergent theories which
have been advanced in modem times on the origin of Gnosti-
cism. It will suflSce to put together the notices S. Ignatius
gives of the heresy which threatened the Church in his own
time, and to examine them in the b'ght of all that can be ascer-
tained with certainty on the history of Gnosticism. We have
full information about the Gnostic systems as they existed in
the middle of the second century. We know something of
the heresy in its initial form, enough to convince us that^
in the first fifty years of the second century, it had
undergone great change. In which form does Gnosticism
appear in the epistles of S. Ignatius? Is it the developed
Gnosticism of Basilides, Valentinus, or Marcion, — Gnosticism
such as it began to be after Hadrian^s accession in 117? Or,
again, is the Gnosticism which S. Ignatius combats still in its
germ, without that hold upon the world which it obtained
shortly afterwards, containing elements which the later
Gnosticism stripped oflP, and still far removed from the doctrine
which became the special characteristic of the later Gnosticism
in all its manifold divisions?
First, then, it is plain that, according to the data furnished
by the epistles themselves. Gnostic heresy had not struck deep
roots in the Christian population. The heresiarchs went from
city to city, and strained every nerve to spread their errors
(ad Ephes. 9), but as yet with small success. S. Ignatius had
not to lament over evil done already, rather, he wants to put
the churches on their guard, to warn them for the future.*
There is no taint of error among the Roman Christians (ad
Rom. inscript.). When S. Ignatius urges the Magnesians to
shun heresy, " it is not because be knows any of them to be
in such a case'^ (c. 11). At Ephesus " all live according to the
*■ "' ■■■■■■ M^^^p— I .1 , ^^^^^ , . , ., — .^i^^
* The word 7rpo^v\d<r<ru recurs ad Magn. 11, ad TralL 8, ad Smyrn. 4.
Their Genuineness and their Dodnne. 397
trutV (c. 6), and at Tralles S. Ignatius has no reason to think
that anything like heresy exists ; only he cautions them (c. 8)
against the scandal which may arise from a '^ few foolish
persons/^ as if the number of heretics were not very consider-
able anywhere. Hilgenfeld infers from the epistle to the
Philadelphians, c. 3, that heresy had broken out among the
Christians there, and his interpretation of the passage is not an
unnatural one ; but there is nothing which can lead us to
suppose that any one of the other churches to which S. Ignatius
wrote had suflFered in like manner. Hilgenfeld fails in his
attempt to explain away the congratulations which the saint
offers to the churches on the absence of heresy within their
borders. S. Ignatius cannot have meant simply that the
Catholic churches of these cities were free from error, though
they might stand side by side with heretical sects, which
counted numerous followers. Gnostics were in habitual oppo-
sition to the hierarchy. They abstained from the eucharist or
celebrated it without the Bishop (ad Smym. 7), and it would
have been meaningless to congratulate a church on the absence
of heretics, who left the Church as a matter of course. S.
Ignatius would never have assured the Magnesians that he
knew of none among them infected by error and excused his
words of warning on the ground of his anxiety " lest any should
fall into the snares of vain opinion, ^^ if many Magnesians had
already quitted the Church and attached themselves to Gnostic
sects. Nor, again, is there any indication in the epistles that
Gnosticism was at that time a heresy of old standing. There
is, indeed, one (and only one) passage which Hilgenfeld alleges
in proof that even then it " was of no recent origin,^^ but it is
a passage which proves nothing. S. Ignatius saya in the
chapter to which Hilgenfeld refers, that ''some are accustomed
to bear the [Christian] name with wicked craft,^^ but he does
not tell us how long this custom has lasted.
Next as to the character of the heresy which comes before
us in the epistles. It rejected the hierarchy, and it denied that
Christ took a real body or suffered really; in other words, it was
Docetic. So much as this is plain from the whole tenor of the
epistles. There was, however, another feature in the Gnosticism
of the epistles of vital importance for our argument. In some
places, at least, the Gnostics united Judaism to their Docetic
errors. In the epistles to the Bphesians, the TralUans, and
perhaps in that to the Church of Smyrna, all the argument is
aimed at Docetic error, without reference to Judaism. In
those to the Magnesians and Philadelphians the heretics
attacked were at once Judaizing and Docetic. Hilgenfeld, from
motives which will appear presently, maintains that S. Ignatius
398 The Ignatian Epistles :
is at war with two distinct kinds of heresy, — that of the Docetas
and that of the Judaizers. Bat the epistle to the Magnesians
is incompatible with the theory that these were two separate
forms of error. In c. 8 an allusion to Gnosticism comes in
the middle of a sentence about Judaizing Christianity : in the
two following chapters, observance of the sabbath and of other
Jewish rites is condemned : the eleventh chapter concludes the
subject with exhortatioijs to belief in the reality of Christ's birth,
death, and resurrection. Here Docetic and Jewish error are
inextricably united. These four chapters are unintelligible
unless the twofold error was held by the same persons.
This is the picture of Gnosticism which we get from the
epistles, — a picture strangely unsuited to the Gnosticism of 150
or 160, the date at which Hilgenfeld thinks the authors of
the forgery went to work. By that time great schools of the
Gnostic heresy had been formed under renowned leaders.
Valentine had gone to Rome about 142, and stayed there till
157 (Iren., iii. 4, 8). Marcion went there a little later. He
joined the followers of the Gnostic Cordon, whom he found in
the city, and he himself made disciples in turn (Iren., loc. cit.).
^he diffusion and the fame, the power of these heresies is
utterly inconsistent with the state of things presupposed
in the epistles. Again, in the reign of Hadrian (117-138),
Basilides had developed to an immense extent (in immensum
extendit, Iren., i. 24, 3) the Gnostic doctrine, by introducing
a vast system of aeons ; and other founders of Gnostic schools,
almost without exception, had vied with him in the invention
of theories on the origin of the world equally elaborate and
fantastic. There is no allusion to developed systems such as
these in the epistles. Above all, the later Gnostics men-
tioned by Ireneeus in his first book had denied that the Jewish
religion came from the supreme God, To them Judaism was the
religion of the Demiurge, the lower God, the God of ignorance
and selfishness : Christ had descended from the higher world
to free " spiritual men '' from the tyranny of the Demiurge,
and his carnal law. S. Irenasus is never weary of vindicating
the divine origin of the Jewish law, and pointing out the
testimony which our Lord and His Apostles had borne to it.
This opposition to Judaism, which had reached its highest point
in Marcion, was the prominent characteristic of Gnosticism in
the middle of the second century, and any one at that time
who forged testimonies of S. Ignatius against the Gnostics
would have taken care to make the saint speak out on this
point. Yet this is just what the epistles never do. Hilgenfeld
understands how the circumstance tells against his hypothesis.
He sees that, left unanswered, it turns the weapon he has taken
Their Genuineness and their Doctrine, 399
from the history of Gnosticism against himself, and he is obliged
to devise an explanation. " In almost all the other authors of
the second century/^ he says (p. 252), " from the ancient
section of the Recognition (bk. ii.) which is directed against
Basilides, down to TertuUian, quite the principal point is this '^
(i.e. the principal point of the Gnosticism which they attack),
'^ that the God of the Old Testament and Creator of the material
world is regarded as the imperfect Demiurge, and placed in
absolute subordination to the supreme God ; yet in our author
[the author of the Ignatian epistles] there is not one allusion to
this subject Why does Ignatius observe a profound
silence on that fundamental doctrine of the Gnostics ? . . . .
We can only explain this phenomenon by supposing that he
does not take the same position of hostility against all which
is otherwise peculiar to Gnosticism.'' In the eight pages
which follow (252-260) Hilgenfeld tries to substantiate the
extraordinary theory that the Ignatian epistles are themselves
infected by the ideas of the Gnosticism which they reprobate.
His argument consists in seizing every phrase in S. Ignatius
which was ever used by the Gnostics, and forcing it by a method
most violent and arbitrary into a Gnostic sense ; but he does
not produce one word from the epistles to show that this author
had any sympathy with the heretical contempt for the Jewish
religion ; and he is silent about passages, such as ad Smyrn. 5,
which prove the contrary. He has to explain how it comes
that an author in controversy with Gnosticism in the middle
of the second century ignores the most striking feature of
Gnosticism at that time. Hilgenfeld states the difficulty and
leaves it untouched.
There is in fact but one means of solving it, and that is to
take the epistles for what they profess to be, — the work of
S. Ignatius. Their account of Gnosticism fits in with an
exactness which no forger fifty years after the saint's martyr-
dom could have attained, with an exactness which would have
defeated the purpose of the forgery had it been attainable, to
all that can be learned about the earliest phase of Gnosticism.
S. Ignatius wrote in 107, at a time when heresy, as
Hegesippus* tells us, which had made some way after the
death of S. James, now that S. John, the last of the Apostles,
had gone to his rest, came forth '^ with naked head." Some
years were still to pass before the Gnostic leaders went to
Kome. This, as we have seen, is precisely the position of
* Apud Euseb., iv. 22, and ill. 32. In the latter passage the words of
Hegesippus cannot be taken strictly except of the Church at Jerusalem. See
Iren., iii. 3, 4.
400 Tlie Ignatian Epistles :
affairs which we find in the epistles. • Again the heretics of
the epistles are Docetas^ and this too is in keeping with the
history of the original Gnostics. Simon Magus, according to
Irenaeus, i. 28, 3, and the Philosophumena, vi. 19, held
that Christ's humanity was a phantom : '' He seemed to be a
man, though he was none, and was thought to have suffered
in Judaea, though He did not suffer/'* Cerinthus, with a
Docetism less strict, taught that Christ was a superior aeon,
who descended upon the man Jesus at His baptism and
deserted Him in His passion, so that Christ never really
suffered. Lastly, and this is the important point. Gnosticism
did not at first imply an exaggerated hostility to Judaism.
Cerinthus had taught in the very churches to which S. Ignatius
writes. Now of him, Bpiphanius relates (Haer., 28, 1) that
'' he leant partly to Judaism '' ; and this is confirmed by the
early authorities (apud Buseb., iii. 28), who attribute to
Cerinthus miUenarianism,— a well-known tenet of the
Judaizing Bbionites.f Soon after the death of S. Ignatius this
inconsistent union of Gnostic error and Docetism broke up,
the very fact that it had ever existed was all but forgotten ;
Gnosticism and a Judaizing Christianity were viewed as the
oxtreme poles of heresy.
It has been common indeed for the opponents of the epistles
to rely upon the supposed allusion to the Valentinian aeon
Sige, in ad Magnes. 8,—" there is one God, who has manifested
himself through Jesus Christ His Son, who is His eternal
word (\6yog), not proceeding from silence {ovk otto <riyrig
TTpo^kOiljv)" The passage, in spite of Pearson's and Uhlhom's
arguments to the contrary, seems to contain a genuine re-
ference to the Gnostic aeon- system, and we fail to see any
solid ground for believing that the Gnostic Valentinus had
published his system of aeons in the lifetime of Ignatius.
Still the fact that the Valentinian aeon Xoyoc did not proceed
immediately from Sige but from Nus, which was begotten by
Sige, makes it probable that it was some aeon-system other
than the Valentinian which the author of the epistles had in
his mind. This probability becomes certainty if we take the
context into account. It shows that the heretics who held
this aeon-system were tinged with Judaism, of which Valentinus
was the bitter enemy. S. Ignatius then was thinking of a
Gnostic system of aeons, and of these aeons one was called
* Simon said this of himself, but he also maintained his own identity
with Jesus Christ, teaching that he (Simon) ** had appeared among the Jews
as the Son/' in Samaria as the Father, elsewhere as tne Holy Ghost — Iren.,
i. 23, 1.
t Adopted, however, by some of the early Fathers.
Their Genuineness and their Doctrine. 401
Sige, and yet this system was independent of and older than
Valentinus. On this point we can appeal to the two great
authorities for the history of Gnosticism. IrenaBus (i. IJ, 1)
informs us that Valentinus adapted to the teaching of his own
school the principles of older Gnostics. Both Simon Magus
and his disciple Menander used the word Bnnoea as the
name of an aeon (Iren., i. 23, 2, 5), and this was only another
name which Valentinus gave to his aeon Sige. The discovery
of the Philosophumena in 1851 carries us a step further.
There in an extract from a book of Simon's, " The Great
Announcement/' we find the actual name Sige given to one
of his aeons. (Philosophum., vi. 18.) A little further on (c. 20)
the author of the Philosophumena points out that Valentinus
borrowed the first six aeons of his system from Simon. We
may doubt, as Hilgenfeld has done, whether this book, attri-
buted to Simon, really was his. Be this as it may, it is
certain from Justin's first Apology, c. 26, written in 138, that
there was a Simonian sect professing themselves Christian
and independent of Valentinus.* It is certain that this aeon
Sige was the common property of the early Gnostics, and that
it is vain to take the reference to it in the Ignatian epistles
for proof that they were written after the time of Valentinus.
Wo know that Judaizing Gnostics like Cerinthus had specula-
tions of their own about the Logos (Iron., iii. 11, 1), a name
given by Valentinus to another of his aeons, and it is likely
enough that the aeon Sige played a similar part in their theories
of emanation. t
Within the limits at our command we cannot exhibit as we
would the strength of the argument from internal criticism in
favour of the epistles. '^ It is not at, all easy," says Father
Newman (Essays, i. p. 246), "to succeed in a forgery. . . .The
author and the champions of supposititious works in ancient
times do not seem to have been alive to this .... and in con-
sequence their detection at the present time is easy." Forgers
in ancient times were destitute of critical tact. They are
incautious about anachronisms. They never know when to
stop. They are not content with anything short of express
testimonies against the whole teaching of the heresy which
it is the purpose of the forgery to refute. The interpolator of
* On this account Merx, a recent opponent of the authenticity, surrenders
the arfjument from the allusion toValentinianism (Meletemata Ignatiana, p. 7).
f See Denzinger's dissertation " On the time at which the Gnostic .^n-
system arose," published in the Tiibingen Quartalschrift for 1852, as a
sort of appendix to his book on the authenticity. No one since has
written so fully or so well on this part of the controversy, though something
has been added by Zahn, p. 356, seq.
VOL. XXI. — NO. XLii. [New Series.'} 2 D
402 The Iijnatlan Ejjistles,
the Ignatian epistles even makes the saint mention by name
a list of heretics who arose after his death. Had the Ignatian
epistles been fabricated about 1 60, we may be sure that they
would not have been silent on that apostolic institution of
Episcopacy which is the favourite theme of succeeding Fathers;
they would have attacked, as Justin does, the Gnostic blasphemy
which denied to the Jewish religion the character of a divine
revelation ; they would have avoided expressions used in a
heretical sense by the Gnostics of that day, or at least have
inserted explanations, as the Greek interpolator does.* They
would have quoted the New Testament far more frequently.t
They would have gratified the curiosity of Christians about
the Apostles and their love to hear their names. The Clemen-
tine Recognitions and Homilies, a genuine instance of a
forgery belonging to the very date which Hilgenfeld assigns
for the fabrication of the Ignatian epistles, illustrate this
last point. They bring Peter, James, Zaccheeus, Barnabas,
Simon Magus, the centurion Cornelius, &c., upon the scene.
A striking contrast this to our epistles, which never mention
the intercourse of S. Ignatius with the Apostles, which
introduce no hero of the Apostolic age except Polycarp, and
mention him without allusion to his dignity as a disciple of
S. John.
The authenticity of the Ignatian epistles is a cardinal
question in the whole controversy on the origin of Christianity.
If they are authentic, then S. John^s Gospel, which has left
its mark upon them, J is authentic too. If they are authentic,
then the sacramental system and the hierarchy are essential
parts of Christianity, and the learned Protestants who have
defended the epistles of Ignatius, because otherwise they
would have to abandon a great part of the New Testament
canon, have been labouring for a cause which is not theirs.
And authentic they are, unless evidence is to count for nothing
against the assumptions of a school which overthrows the
early history of the Church to reconstruct it a priori.
* Ad Magnes. 5, in the longer Greek.
t Locorum certe evangelicorum in istis epistolis ea est ratio quae antiqoiora
sseculi ii tempora redolet, qunm et rarius et vix nisi alludendo talia memoret
auctor apocryphasque narrationes non dubius immisceat. — Anger's Synopsis
Evangel., p. xxii Leipsic, 1852.
t Philad. 7, compared with John iii. 8. For a full admission of this point
see Eeim, Jesus of Nazara, yoL i p. 134. English trans. 1873.
( 403 )
Art. v.— father NEWMAN ON THE IDEA OF A
UNIVERSITY.
The Idea of a University defined] and illustrated. By John Henry
Ne vman, D.D., of the Oratory. London : Pickering. 1873.
F NEWMAN has been occupied for some time, as our
• readers well know, in editing a uniform edition of
his works ; and no one can so much as look at their titles,
without being struck with the perfectly, amazing variety and
extent of his power, learning, and accomplishments. We
have not failed to notice each instalment of the series as it
has proceeded : but the present volume presents itself at so
peculiarly opportune a moment, that we are led to review it at
somewhat greater length ; though it would be unsuitable of
course to comment on so well-known a work with the same
kind of detail, which would have been appropriate at its first
appearance. That first appearance took place at the most
critical moment of Catholic higher education in Ireland, and
its re-issue takes place at the most critical moment of Catholic
higher education in England. The great principles, so power-
fully set forth in it, are no less practically momentous in
England now, than they were in Ireland then. If there be
any little flaw in the exposition or application of those prin-
ciples, such flaw may be as practically injurious now as it
could have been then.
We cannot make a more auspicious commencement of our
task, than by exhibiting the spirit in which P. Newman entered
on his labours as Rector of the Catholic University. After
stating various diflSculties which had been alleged against his
undertaking so great an enterprise, he thus proceeds : —
Reflections such as these would be decisive even with the boldest and most
capable minds, but for one consideration. In the midst of our difficulties I
have one ground of hope, just one stay, but, as I think, a sufficient one,
which serves me in the stead of all other argument whatever, which hardens
me against criticism, which supports me if I begin to despond, and to which
I ever come round, when the question of the possible and the expedient is
brought into discussion. It is the decision of the Holy See ; S. Peter has
spoken, it is he who has enjoined that which seems to us so unpromising,
lie has spoken, and has a claim on us to trust him. He is no recluse, no
solitary student, no dreamer about the past, no doter upon the dead and
gone, no projector of the visionary. He for eighteen hundred years has lived
2 D 2
404 F. Neivivan on the Idea of a University.
in the world ; he has seen all fortunes, he has encountdircd all adversaries, he
has shaped himself for all emergencies. If ever there was a power on earth
who had an eye for the times, who has confined himself to the pracUcable
and has been happy in his anticipations, whose words have been foots, and
whose commands prophecies, such is he in the history of ages, who sits from
generation to generation in the Chair of the Apostles, as the Vicar of Christy
and the Doctor of His Church.
These are not the words of rhetoric, Gentlemen, but of history. All who
take part with the Apostle, are on the winning side. (p. 13.)
He had already in fact laid down the true rule of a Catholic's
action : —
Ecclesiastical authority, not argument, is the supreme rule and the appro-
priate guide for Catholics in matters of religion. It has always the right to
interpose, and sometimes, in the conflict of parties and opinions, it is called
on to exercise that right. It has lately exercised it in our own instance : it
has interposed in favour of a pure University system for Catholic youth,
forbidding compromise or accommodation of any kind. Of course its
decision must be heartily accepted and obeyed, and that the more because
the decision proceeds, not simply from the Bishops of Ireland, great as their
authority is, but the highest authority on earth, — from the Chair of S. Peter.
Moreover, such a decision not only demands our submission, bvi h(U a
daim upon our trust. It not only acts as a prohibition of any meaturtSy &ut
as an ipso facto confutation of any reasonings, inconsistent vM, it. It
carries with it an earnest and an augury of its own expediency, (p. 10.)
We have italicized one sentence in this extract, for the follow-
ing reason. We wish to press on our readers' notice the fact, how
far removed is F. Newman from those minimizing believers,
who admit indeed that they must submit their intellect to the
Church's doctrinal definitions,* but hold that nothing more
than external submission can be due to her acts of discipline.
Our author urges, that the Church's condemnation of mixed edu-
cation in Ireland demands more than mere external submission ;
for that it " is an ipso facto confutation of any reasonings incon-
sistent with " the expediency of such condemnation. And in
the same spirit, at the very end of the volume he urges his
Catholic hearers to ^^ trust the Church of God implicitly, even
when their natural judgment would take a diflferent course from
hers, and would induce them to question her prudence or her
correctness" (p. 518).
Such was then the attitude of every loyal Catholic in
Ireland, towards the decisions of Rome on Irish higher educa-
tion j and such is now the attitude of every loyal Catholic in
* Such persons, moreover, commonly deny the character of " doctrinal
definitions '' to many pronouncements which incontestably merit that title.
F, Newman on (lie Idea of a University, 405
England, towards her decisions on English higher education.
It will be useful then, before proceeding further, to recite the
more important of these decisions ; as we have reason to think
that some excellent Catholics are not quite aware, how con-
sistent and how peremptory has been the voice of authority.
I. On Dec. 13th, 1864, the assembled Bishops of England
declared (1) ^'that the establishment of Catholic colleges at
the^^ Protestant "universities could in no way be approved '';
and (2) " that parents were by all means to be dissuaded from
sending their sons to the universities.'^ On Feb. 3rd, 1865, the
Cardinal Prefect of Propaganda wrT)te word, that '' the Sacred
Congregation had, after mature examination, confirmed the
judgment of the Bishops, as being in entire conformity with
the principles which the said Congregation had always laid
down.'' And on March 24th the Bishops issued a circular
letter, informing the clergy of these decisions.
II. On March 12th, 1867, the Cardinal Prefect of Propa-
ganda wrote to the Archbishop, stating 'Hhat the Sacred
Congregation, by its resolution of Dec. 1866 with respect to
the establishment of a community [the Oratory] at Oxford,
had wished only to provide for the spiritual wants of the
Catholics of that city ; and not in any way to lessen the force
of the declarations made by the Holy See* against the estab-
lishment of a college at Oxford, and agaifist the dispositions
of those who should desire a pretext for sending Catholic
youths to study at that University.'' The Cardinal Prefect
further begged the Bishops to confer again on the subject, and
to communicate with the Propaganda upon the measures to
be taken for preventing Catholics from studying at Oxford.
III. On May 1st, 1867, the Bishops addressed a letter to
the Propaganda, in which they confirmed their declaration of
Dec. 13th, 1864; and stated that they would wish to make
known to the faithful, both by pastoral letters and indirectly
through the clergy, the grave danger incurred by those who
should enter the universities in spite of the admonition of
their pastors. On Aug. 6th the Cardinal Prefect wrote back,
desiring the Bishops to address such pastoral letters as had
been suggested. The Cardinal Prefect's letter included these
words : — '^ You will clearly explain in your pastoral letter the
doctrine of the Church on avoiding the proximate occasions
of mortal sin ; to which occasions no one without grievous sin
can expose himself, unless under the pressure of grave and
adequate necessity, and unless such precautions be taken a?
* It will be observed that the Cardinal Prefect ascribes these declarations
to "the Holy See "itself.
406 F. Newman on the Idea of a University,
ghall remove all proximate danger. And in the present case^
where, as his Holiness has declared,* there is an intrinsic and
very serious danger to purity of morals ,as well as to faith
(which is altogether 'necessary for salvation), it is next to im-
possible to discover circumstances, in which Catholics could
without sin attend non-Catholic universities/' t
IV. On September 19th, 1872, the Cardinal Prefect wrote to
the English Bishops as follows, referring to the previous decla-
ration of 1865 : — ^^ The declaration then given was founded on
the grave dangers which the said universities presented
Not only does the Holy See perceive no reason why it should
recede from the afore-mentioned decision of 1865 ; but in
proportion as the reasons which called forth that decision
have increased in gravity, so much the more necessary does it
appear that the decision should be maintained.^'
V. On August 12th, 1873, the English Bishops assembled in
Provincial Synod addressed a Pastoral Letter to the faithful, in
which, not only they recite the above words of the Cardinal
Prefect, but add that no Catholic parent' can send his son to
a Protestant university ^' without incurring grave sin.''
Whether this subject has been considered at the recent
Provincial Synod, can only, of course, be matter of conjecture ;
and what definite result in that case may have ensued, cannot
be 80 much as matter of conjecture. But of one thing we may be
very certain ; viz., that whatever may have been decided (if
anything) will have been in profound harmony with the above-
cited utterances of authority. We may fairly then call on all
English Catholics, in P. Newman's words, to "trust the Church
of God implicitly, even when their natural judgment would
induce them to question her prudence or her correctness."
We may call on them to accept the Church's decision, " as an
ipso facto confutation of any reasonings " producible on the
opposite side. And we are quite confident that such a call will
not be in vain. To our own mind indeed the voice of reason is
as clear and unmistakable in the same direction, as is the voice
of authority. Still there are some Catholics undoubtedly, to
whom this is not so manifest ; and we are quite confident, as
we have said, that the great majority of these will accept
P. Newman's counsel. We are quite confident that they will
put away from their thoughts, at once and for ever, any scheme
— such as the establishment of a Catholic college at Oxford —
which the Holy See has unequivocally condemned; and that
* Here again it will be observed that the declaration is ascribed to " His
Holiness."
t We take the preceding documents from the Acts of the Westminster
Diocesan Synod of 1872.
F. Newman on the Idea of a University. 407
they will co-operate heartily with their brother Catholics, under
the Church's guidance, in the present emergency.
No one then could set forth, more clearly than P. Newman
has done, the Church's claims on her children's trust. At
the same time it was not the purpose of his Discourses to
dwell on this doctrine, but rather to show the reasonable-
ness of those principles on which the Church has ever acted.
This was a very important task: for he thus disposed
educated laymen, on the one hand to co-operate more intelli-
gently, more heartily, and more harmoniously with the Church'a
action, and on the other hand to defend that action more
successfully in controversy with enemies of the Faith. And
this having been his scope, it follows that his discourses
are as opportune for English Catholics in 1873, as they were
for Irish Catholics in 1852. We rejoice to think that they
cannot fail of being attentively studied, and of renewing and
strengthening the eflFect which they produced on their first
publication. It is our business as reviewers, on the one hand to
draw special attention to the portions which impress us as
the most important and valuable of all ; while on the other
hand we criticise those few particulars in which they may appear
to us defective or even mistaken. We may here add, that the
nine Discourses delivered in 1852 are supplemented in this
volume by " occasional lectures and essays, addressed to the
members of the Catholic University " in the years immediately
following.
The eight Discourses of 1852, which follow the Introduc-
tion, may be roughly divided into three portions ; comprising
(1) the first three of these Discourses, (2) the three next, and
(3) the two last. The first of the three portions may be thus
briefly analyzed. Christian faith and devotion are based exclu-
sively on certain great verities. Every catechism and every prayer
rests as simply on the basis of science, as does any popular
instruction in mechanics or chemistry. To exclude theology
then from the scope of an institution which claims to teach
universal knowledge, would be, at least, as monstrous and
pernicious, as to exclude therefrom experimental science.
Now we can fancy many Catjiolics having been quite per-
plexed by the circumstance, that P. Newman took pains to
elaborate what in their mind is a mere truism. Here indeed
is one frequent reason, why controversy with Protestants pro-
duces so little fruit j viz. the natural difficulty felt by Catholics,
in apprehending their opponents' stand-point. What Catholic
could suppose any one to doubt so very obvious and elementary
truth as that just stated ? And yet the great majority of
Protestants are entirely blind to it. We have observed this
408 F, Newman on the Idea of a University,
again and again ; and F. Newman gives an amusing in-
stance : —
I open the Minutes of the Committee of Council on Education for the
years 1848-50, presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her
Majesty, and I find one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools, at p. 467 of
the second volume, dividing " the topics usually embraced in the better class
of primary schools " into four : — the knowledge of signs, as reading and
writing ; of facts, as geography and astronomy ; of relations and laws, as
mathematics ; and lastly sentiment, such as poetry and music. Now, on first
catching sight of this division, it occurred to me to ask myself, before ascertain-
ing the writer's own resolution of the matter, under which of these four heads
would fall Religion, or whether it fell under any of them. Did he put it
aside as a thing too delicate and sacred to be enumerated with earthly studies ?
or did he distinctly contemplate it when he made his division ? Anyhow, I
could really find a place for it under the first head, or the second, or the
third ; — for it has to do with facts, since it tells of the Self-subsisting ; it has
to do with relations, for it tells of the Creator ; it has to do with signs, for
it tells of the due manner of speaking of Him. There was just one head of
the division to which I could not refer it, viz., to sentiment ; for, I suppose
music and poetry, which are the writer's own examples of sentiment, have
not much to do with Truth, which is the main object of Religion. Judge
then my surprise. Gentlemen, when I found the fourth was the very head
selected by the writer of the Report in question, as the special receptacle of
religious topics. " The inculcation of sentim£nt," he says, " embraces reading
in its higher sense, poetry, music, together with moral and religious educa-
tion." (p. 31.)
I ask what can more clearly prove than a candid avowal like this, that in
the view of his school. Religion is not knowledge, has nothing whatever to
do with knowledge, and is excluded from a university course of instruction,
not simply because the exclusion cannot be helped, from political or social
obstacles, but because it has no business there at all, because it is to be con-
sidered a taste, sentiment, opinion, and nothing more ?
The writer avows this conclusion himself in the explanation into which he
presently enters, in which he says : " According to the classification proposed ,
the essential idea of all religious education will consist in the direct cultiva-
tion of the feelings" What we contemplate, then, what we aim at, when
we give a religious education, is, it seems, not to impart any knowlege what-
ever, but to satisfy anyhow desires after the Unseen which will arise in our
mind in spite of ourselves, to provide the mind with a means Of self-command,
to impress on it the beautiful ideas which saints and sages have struck out, to
embellish it with the bright hues of a celestial piety, to teach it the poetry
of devotion, the music of well-ordered affections, and the luxury of doing
good. (p. 32.)
Certainly, as our author observes, in the eye of those who
are enslaved to such a notion as this, '^ it is as unreasonable to
demand for religion a chair in a university, as to demand
one for fine feeling, sense of honour, patriotism, gratitude^
F, Neumian on the Idea of a University, 409
maternal affection, or good companionship^' (P-29). This thon is
the notion against which he is in conflict from his second to
his fourth Discourse inclusively. It is at least as certain in the
Catholic's judgment that God exists and became Incarnate, as
that the angles of a triangle equal two right angles, or that
the earth moves round the sun, or that diamonds are combus-
tible. On what principle can the former truths be excluded
from university teaching, while the latter are included therein ?
Let the doctrine of the Incaraation be true : is it not at once of the nature
of an historical fact, and of a metaphysical ? Let it be true that there are
angels : how is not this a point of knowledge in the same sense as the natu-
ralist's asseveration, that myriads of living things might co-exist on the point
of a needle. That the Earth is to be burned by fire, is, if true, as large a
fact as that huge monsters once played amid its depths ; that Antichrist
is to come, is as categorical a heading to a chapter of history, as that Nero
or Julian was Emperor of Rome ; that a divine influence moves the will, is
a subject of thought not more mysterious than the result of volition on our
muscles, which we admit as a fact in metaphysics, (pp. 26-7.)
But further, every branch of knowledge has a real connection
with every other ; and religious knowledge (if it be knowledge)
is intimately connected with all : —
If the various branches of knowledge, which are the matter of teaching in
a University, so hang together, that none can be neglected without prejudice
to the perfection of the rest, and if Theology be a branch of knowledge, of
wide reception, of philosophical structure, of unutterable importance, and of
supreme influence, to what conclusion are we brought from these two pre-
misses but this ? that to withdraw Theology from the public schools is to
impair the completeness and to invalidate the trustworthiness of all that is
actually taught in them. (p. 69.)
Lastly, —
Supposing Theology be not taught, its province will not simply be neglected,
but will be actually usurped by other sciences, which will teach, without
warrant, conclusions of their own in a subject-matter which needs its own
proper principles for its due formation and disposition, (p. 98.)
These various propositions are maintained with that clear-
ness and largeness of thought, that aptness and variety of illus-
tration, which are F. Newman^s well-known characteristics.
We would especially draw attention to the noble exposition of
Theism in p. 36 and pp. 61-67. And this reminds us of a fact,
which strikingly illustrates the author's perspicacity of philoso-
phical vision. The tendency of modern thought outside the
Church is not to anti- Christian deism, but to denial of a
Personal God. This is now a conspicuous and generally ad-
mitted fact : but how many Catholics are there who saw it in
410 F, Newman on the Idea of a University .
1854 ? How clearly P. Newman saw it, is evinced both in the
second of his University Discourses, and in his very remarkable
and powerful Essay (pp. 381-405) on ^'a form of infidelity of
the day/'
The fundamental question however, on which all controver-
sies concerning higher education of course turn, is that which
examines the end to be aimed at in such education. It is asto-
nishing how many persons are still more or less consciously
influenced by the notion, that a liberal or higher education
diflFers from that which is more elementary, in the simple
circumstance of more knowledge being imparted under
the former than under the latter. That intellectual culture
consists in the mere acquisition of knowledge, is among
the most calamitous of fallacies. And though no thoughtful
man can ever by possibility have held this notion in its
naked absurdity, yet F. Newman has really (we think) the
merit of being the first writer to set himself explicitly,
argumentatively, and methodically against it. Since these
Discourses were first published, the distinction between culture
on the one hand and mere knowledge on the other has become
quite a first principle, with those who specially write or think
on the theory of education ; but there are still, we fear, many
even of the higher class, who are far from apprehending it. It
is not knowledge — F. Newman is ever repeating — which con-
stitutes the intellect's highest excellence, but " thought and
reason exercised on knowledge.''* There is acertainassemblage
* It is worth while to quote one of F. Newman's most vigorous and charac-
teristic passages, in which he denounces that idea of education, which would
make it consist in the cramming of miscellaneous knowledge for an examiiui-
tion. The italics are ours : —
" Self-education," he says, " in any shape, in the most restricted sense, is
preferable to a system of teaching which, professing so much, really does so
little for the mind. Shut your College-gates against the votary of knowledge,
throw him back upon the searchings and the efforts of his own mind ; he will
gain by being spared an entrance into your BabeL Few indeed there are
who can dispense with the stimulus and support of instructors, or will do
anything at all, if left to themselves. And fewer still (though such great
minds are to be found), who will not, from such unassisted attempts, contract
a self-reliance and a self-esteem, which are not only moral evils, but serious
hindrances to the attainment of trutli. And next to none, perhaps, or nope,
who will not be reminded from time to time of the disadvantage under which
they lie, by their imperfect grounding, by the breaks, deficiencies, and
irregularities of their Knowledge, by the eccentricity of opinion and the
confusion of principle which they exhibit. They wiU be too often ignorant
of what every one knows and takes for granted, of that multitude of small
truths which fall upon the mind like dust, impalpable and ever accumulating ;
they may be unable to converse, they may argue perversely, they may priae
themselves on their [worst paradoxes or their grossest truisms, they may be
full of their own mode or viewing things, unwilling to be put out <rf their
F. Newman on the Idea of a University. 411
of intellectual qualities^ he maintains — for want of a better name
we may say a certain intellectual " culture/* — which is seen by
every competent observer to be desirable for its own sake,*
and to be an indefinitely higher possession than mere know-
ledge; which gives its possessor an immeasurably greater
power over his fellow men, whether for good or for evil, than
is wielded (otherwise than in most exceptional cases) by
those who are without it. This is the truth which our
author elaborates in his 5th, 6th, and 7th Discourses ; and
these contain (to our mind) the most vital portion of his entire
argument.
In fact, if there be such a thing as intellectual culture, it
must evidently be one principal end at which Catholics should
aim in their higher education. Far more emphatically, if such
culture gives its possessor immeasurably more power for
good or evil over his fellow men than he could otherwise
wield, no exertions can be too great in order that it may be
attained by those who will use it for good, and be not left the
exclusive property of those who will use it for evil. It is
therefore of extreme moment, in every inquiry about higher
education, that inquirers should clearly understand, both
the real nature of this intellectual culture and the best means
whereby youths may be imbued with it. We consider then
that we shall do good service, if we place before our readers at
one view the principal passages in which F. Newman describes
its character. In nothing which he has ever written, to our
mind, does he exhibit more conspicuously the inimitable beau-
ties of his thought and language ; and we have the less scruple
therefore in extending our extracts over several pages. We
will begin with the longest of our quotations ; which we take,
not from the nine Discourses, but from the Essays which close
and complete the volume. He is describing the nature of that
way, slow to enter into the minds of others ; — but, with these and whatever
other J labilities upon their heads, they are likely to have more thought, more
mind, more philosophy, more true enlargement, than those earnest but ill-
used persons, who are forced to load their minds with a score of subjects
against an examination, who have too much on their hands to indulge them-
selves in thinking or investigation^ who devour premiss and conclusion
together with indiscriminate greediness, who hold whole sciences on faith, and
commit demonstrations to m^emory, and who too often, as might be expected,
when their period of education is passed, throw up all they have learned in
disgust, having gained nothing really by their anxious labours, except
perhaps the habit of application." (pp. 148-9.)
* Suarez points out that there are various goods, desirable for their own
sake, which nevertheless it is more perfect " not to love except as they are
instruments of virtue." He gives bodily health as one instanije ; and intel-
lectual culture is evidently another. This is implied by F. Newman at
p. 123.
412 F. Newman on the Idea of a University.
intellectual malformation, whicli it is the special work of true
intellectual discipline to correct : —
There is a vast host of matters of all kinds which address themselves, not
to the eye, but to our mental sense ; viz., all those matters of thought which,
in the course of life and the intercourse of society, are brought before us,
which we hear of in conversation, which we read of in books ; matters politi-
cal, social, ecclesiastical, literary, domestic ; persons, and their doings or their
writings ; events, and works, and undertakings, and laws, and institationa.
These make up a much more subtle and intricate world than that visible
universe of which I was just now speaking. It is much more difficult in
this world than in the material to separate things off from each other, and to
find out how they stand related to each other, and to learn how to class them,
and where to locate them respectively. Still, it is not less true that, as the
various figures and forms in a landscape have each its own place, and stand
in this or that direction towards each other, so all the various objects which
address the intellect have severally a substance of their own, and have fixed
relations each of them with everything else, — relations which our minds have
no power of creating, but which we are obliged to ascertain before we have a
right to boast that we really know anything about them. Yet, when the
mind looks out for the first time into this manifold spiritual world, it is just
as much confused and dazzled and distracted as are the eyes of the blind
when they first begin to see ; and it is by a long process, and with much effort
and anxiety, that we begin hardly and partially to apprehend its various con-
tents and to put each in its proper place.
It is the fault of all of us, till we have duly practised our minds, to be un-
real in our sentiments and crude in our judgments, and to be carried off by
fancies, instead of being at the trouble of acquiring sound knowledge.
In consequence, when we hear opinions put forth on any new subject, we
have no principle to guide us in balancing them ; we do not know what to
make of them ; we turn them to and fro, and over, and back again, as if to
pronounce upon them, if we could, but with no means of pronouncing. It is
the same when we attempt to speak upon them : we make some random ven-
ture ; or we take up the opinion of some one else, which strikes our fancy ;
or perhaps, with the vaguest enunciation possible of any opinion at all. we
are satisfied with ourselves if we are merely able to throw off some rounded
sentences, to make some pointed remarks on some other subject, or to intro-
duce some figure of speech, or fiowers of rhetoric, which, instead of being the
vehicle, are the mere substitute of meaning. We wish to take a part in poli-
tics, and then nothing is open to us but to follo>v some person, or some party,
and to learn the commonplaces and the watchwords which belong to it. We
hear about landed interests, and mercantile interests, and trade, and higher
and lower classes, and their rights, duties, and prerogatives ; and we attempt
to transmit what we have received ; and soon our minds become loaded and
perplexed by the incumbrance of ideas which we have not mastered and
cannot use. We have some vague idea, for instance, that constitutional
government and slavery are inconsistent with each other ; that there is a
connection between private judgment and democracy, between Christianity
F. Newman on the Idea of a University. 413
and civilization ; we attempt to find arguments in proof, and our arguments
are the most plain demonstration that we simply do not understand the
things themselves of which we are professedly treating.
Reflect, Gentlemen, how many disputes you must have listened to, which
were interminable, because neither party understood either his opponent or
himself. Consider the fortunes of an argument in a debating society, and
the need there so frequently is, not simply of some clear thinker to disen-
tangle the perplexities of thought, but of capacity in the combatants to do
justice to the clearest explanations which are set before them, — so much so,
that the luminous arbitration only gives rise, perhaps, to more hopeless alter-
cation. " Is a constitutional government better for a population than an
absolute rule ?" What a number of points have to be clearly apprehended
before we are in a position to say one word on such a question ! What is
meant by " constitution" ? by " constitutional government ^1 by " better" ?
by " a population " ? and by " absolutism " ? The ideas represented by these
various words ought, I do not say, to be as perfectly defined and located in
the minds of the speakers as objects of sight in a landscape, but to be suf-
ficiently, even though incompletely, apprehended, before they have a right to
speak. " How is it that democracy can admit of slavery, as in ancient
Greece ? " " How can Catholicism flourish in a republic ? " Now, a person
who knows his ignorance will say, " These questions are beyond me" ; and
he tries to gain a clear notion and a firm hold of them ; and, if he speaks, it
is as investigating, not as deciding. On the other hand, let him never have
tried to throw things together, or to discriminate between them, or to denote
their peculiarities, in that case he has no hesitation in undertaking any sub-
ject, and perhaps has most to say upon those questions which Are most new
to him. This is why so many men are one-sided, narrow-minded, prejudiced,
crotchety. This is why able men have to change their minds and their line
of action in middle age, and to begin life again, because they have followed
their party, instead of having secured that faculty of true perception as re-
gards intellectual objects which has accrued to them, without their knowing
how, as regards the objects of sight, (pp. 495-499.)
What the mind then pre-eminently needs, is such a gift as he
describes in his preface ; " the force, the steadiness, the com-
prehensiveness, and the versatility of intellect, the command
over our own powers, the instinctively just estimate of things
as they pass before us, which sometimes indeed is a natural
gift, but commonly is not gained without much eflfort and the
exercise of years ^' (p. xvi.). Such excellence of intellect ia
a true illumination.
Possessed of this real illumination, the mind never views any part of the
extended subject-matter of Ejiowledge without recollecting that it is but a
part, or without the associations which spring from this recollection. It
makes everything in some sort lead to everything else ; it would com-
municate the image of the whole to every separate portion, till that whole
becomes in imagination like a spirit, everywhere pervading and penetrating
414 F. Newman on the Idea of a University.
its component parts, and giving them one definite meaning. Just as our
bodily organs, when mentioned, recall their function in the body, as the word
" creation " suggests the Creator, and " subjects " a sovereign, so, in the mind
of the philosopher, as we are abstractedly conceiving of him, the elements of
the physical and moral world, sciences, arts, pursuits, ranks, offices, events,
opinions, individualities, are all viewed as one, with correlative functionSy
and as gradually by successive combinations converging, one and all, to Uie
true centre.
To have even a portion of this illuminative reason and true philosophy is
the highest state to which nature can aspire, in the way of intellect ; it puts
the mind above the influences of chance and necessity, above anxiety,
suspense, unsettlement, and superstition, which ia the lot of the many.
(p. 137.)
In fact, by this intellectual discipline, '^ a habit of mind is
formed which lasts through life, of which the attributes are,
freedom, equitableness, calmness, moderation, and wisdom **
(p. 101). To form such a habit, he argues, is an adequate
end of intellectual disciphne, were there no other end.
The artist puts before him beauty of feature and form ; the poet, beauty
of mind ; the preacher, the beauty of grace : the intellect too, I repeat, has
its beauty, and it has those who aim at it. To open the mind, to correct it,
to refine it, to enable it to know, and to digest, master, rule, and use its
knowledge, to give it power over its own faculties, application, flexibility,
method, critical exactness, sagacity, resource, address, eloquent expression,
is an object as intelligible .... as the cultivation of virtue, while, at the
same time, it is absolutely distinct from it. (pp. 122-3.)
The final summary of his whole argument, in the last of his
nine Discourses, runs as follows : —
I have laid down first, that all branches of knowledge are, at least im-
plicitly, the subject-matter of imiversity teaching ; that these branches are
not isolated and independent one of another, but form together a whole or
system ; that they run into each other, and complete each other, and that,
in proportion to our view of them as a whole, is the exactness and trust-
worthiness of the knowledge which they separately convey ; that the process
of imparting knowledge to the intellect in this philosophical way is its true
culture ; that such culture is a good in itself ; that the knowledge which is
both its instruoaent and result is called Liberal Knowledge ; that such
culture, together with the knowledge which effects it, may fitly be sought
for its own sake ; that it is, however, in addition, of great secular utility, as
constituting the best and highest formation of the intellect for social and
political life ; and lastly, that, considered in a religious aspect, it concurs
with Christianity a certain way, and then diverges from it ; and consequently
proves in the event, sometimes its serviceable ally, sometimes, from its very
resemblance to it, an insidious and dangerous foe. (p. 214.)
At the same time there is one question of paramount import-
F, Newman on the Idea of a University, 415
ance, on whicli we think most Catholic readers will feel that the
author has not expressed himself so clearly and distinctly as might
be wished. Here is a conspicuous instance of what we mean.
In p. 151 he lays down the fundamental verity, that "truth of
whatever kind is the proper object of the intellect.'' But he
then proceeds to say, that the intellect's "cultivation consists in
fitting it to apprehend and to contemplate truth"; so that he does
not (as far as his words go) include the imhwing it with truth.
Our own conviction is, that F. Newman and ourselves are entirely
at one on this momentous matter; and we shall presently
adduce passages of his in support of our conviction. But
what we are now urging is this. His language, both in the
extracts we have given and in the nine Discourses generally,
would convey an impression to the superficial reader, (1) that he
regards the giving of intellectual culture, asbyfar the principal
and paramount work of higher education; and (2) that he
does not include, under the head of "giving intellectual
culture," the inculcating pervasively, and penetrating the mind
with, moral and religious truth. We repeat, we do not for a
moment believe that F. Newman holds this doctrine ; but we
do think that he has not sufficiently guarded himself against
the imputation of holding it.
What we wish that F. Newman had more pointedly and
prominently urged, we would express thus. No tolerable result
is obtained from higher education, though the intellect were
rendered exempt from narrowness, vulgarity, shallowness;
though it had acquired accuracy, strength, refinement, large-
ness, perspicacity, self-knowledge ; though it had learned to
co-ordinate all facts within its cognizance, under certain ruling
principles ; — all this, we say, would be no tolerable result
of higher education, unless the intellect have been further
trained to choose for those " ruUng principles " truth, not false-
hood. Higher education, we maintain, will produce much more
evil than good, unless its recipient be taught to apprehend,
and to apprehend profoundly, those principles, which are the
true measure and standard of human action : whether as
regards the reasonable ground for accepting them; or as
regards their intrinsic character ; or as regards their bearing
on every-day life.
For our own parts, we should be disposed to say that, even
according to the ordinary use of the word "intellect," such
knowledge as we have just spoken of is an integral part of
intellectual perfection. Let it be assumed that certain princi-
ples are cognizable with certitude, as giving the one true
standard and measure of human actions : it is surely then a
great intellectual imperfection not to know^ to apprehend, to
416 F. Newman on the Idea of a Uulversity.
thoroughly grasp those principles. If, e.g., there is certainly
a Personal God, the intellect of an antitheist labours under a
grievous imperfection ; in that he refers human actions to a
standard fundamentally false, and by consequence funda-
mentally misunderstands their real relations. We may call
such knowledge as we speak of by the name *' architectonic ''
knowledge. And we should say, that intellectual culture is
only one part of intellectual perfection ; that intellectual
perfection consists, not only in the possession of such qualities
as intellectual strength, comprehensiveness, accuracy, flexi-
bility, and the rest, but quite as essentially and emphatically
in the possession, and intimate appropriation, of architectonic
knowledge.
This question however, whether architectonic knowledge is
to be accounted an essential part of intellectual perfection^ is
at last purely verbal; and if it were ruled against us, we
should only have to change our mode of expression. What
we maintain confidently is, that higher education, to be really
a good, must not only impart a due measure of intellectual
culture, but no less prominently a due measure of architectonic
— that is, of moral and religious — knowledge. And applying
this general statement to the case of a CathoUc student in
particular, we would urge that higher education will be to
him an evil rather than a good, unless his mind is profoundly
imbued with a knowledge of those doctrines, both in them-
selves and in their full practical bearing, which (as P. Newman
expresses it) ^' are subservient to ^' the Churches " direction
of the conscience and the conduct^' (p. 183). On former
occasions we have expressed at much greater length what we
here intend; and we would refer especially to our number for
January, 1869, from p. 89 to p. 105. Here, however, we are
not dealing with particulars, but urging what we regard as a
general truth.
Now we think that the reasonableness of the general state-
ment we have made must be obvious to every one who will
consider it. Intellectual culture indefinitely increases men's
power of action, whether for good or evil ; and it is only their
possession of moral and religious knowledge which can prevent
them, even with upright intentions, from exercising that
power for evil rather than for good. Take the Catholic
student in particular. He has received an education, wo
suppose, which makes him thoughtful and intelligent. He
will not be content, therefore, to think haphazard and at
random, but will measure all things by one standard or
another. If therefore he have not been trained to estimate
them one by one according to the Churches standard, he will.
F. Newman on the Idea of a TJniversiiy, AVI
measure them by those contradictory principles, which he un-
consciously imbibes from the world around him, and which
are but too fatally congenial to the natural man j he will grow
more and more out of harmony with the Churches teaching,
and will regard her practical attitude with constantly increasing
distaste and aversion. We need not enlarge on the calamitous
consequences, in regard to his highest welfare, which must
thus ensue.
We may add, as we have often urged before, that the
principle which we are here enforcing — at all times true and
most important — has a special importance of its own in times
like these. Catholicity is not now menaced by special heresy
or false theological dogma, but by what may be called the
spirit of the age ; the principles of liberalism ; the subtle
poison of indififerentism. If the Church is enabled to hold
her own and suflBciently to repel these enemies, she will
remain the one conservative element of Europe, its one
regenerating and saving influence. The future of the world
may probably enough depend on this simple issue, whether
educated laymen do or do not work in profound sympathy
with Holy Church and with Catholic doctrine. But by giving
them increased intellectual culture, you do but open to them
so many additional avenues, whereby the evil atmosphere
around them may eflTect its entrance. Their one preservative
consists in their being inspired with the full spirit of the
Mother of souls.
While we are writing, we find what we would say ably
expressed by our excellent contemporary, the '^ Irish Eccle-
siastical Record,^^ in its September number, p. 543 : — ''In
these days, and in these countries. Catholics are surrounded
by an atmosphere, that holds as it were in solution the most
deadly poisons; and they can hardly exaggerate the evil
influence that an un-Catholic and an anti-Catholic press can
gradually exercise on Catholic instincts. In such circum-
stances it is necessary to aim at being (if we may be allowed
an exaggeration) more Catholic than the Church herself. It
is needful that Catholic principles — especially those of them
that are distinctively and aggressively Catholic — should be
not merely apprehended by the intellect, but brought home in
full force to the whole moral and intellectual nature, and made
the motive powers of social and political action. We should
have them on our lips and in our hearts, and bound on the
determined foreheads which we raise to confront the infidel
politics which strive, and not without a certain melancholy
success, to rule this Europe that once was Christian and
Catholic ; and that may, in God's good time, if we and such
VOL. XII. — NO. iLii. [New Series,'] 2 e
418 F, Newman on tlie Idea of a- University,
•
as we do well our part, be CHristian and Catholic again. It
is needful that our watchwords be — No compromise of Catholic
truth, but a full insistance on it down to its last detail, cost
what it may ; no paltering with conscience for temporal ends>
however desirable; no seeking even for glorious issues by
unholy means; no scant and grudging, but a full and heartfelt
submission to that voice that goes out across the waste of
waters, wherein powers and thrones have been engulphed,
from the bark of Peter/' Here is sketched out the great
work, for which Catholic youth are to be trained. No method
of higher education may be thought even endurable, which
shall not fully secure the unceasing display of this standard
before its students' intellectual eye. Nor is it sufficient
merely to exhibit such a doctrine. They must be carefully
trained to apprehend the various arguments, which show how
utterly unreasonable is any lower standard, on the supposition
of Catholicity being true ; and they must be trained also to
trace in detail the conflict between Catholic and anti-Catholic
principles, throughout the whole sphere of social and political
action.
We are convinced (as we have already said) that in all this
we are substantially at one with P. Newman ; though we
venture to wish that he had expressed it more prominently
and unmistakably. But observe, e.g., what he says to the
evening classes of his University : —
I think that mcalculable benefit may ensue to the Catholic cause, greater
almost than that which even singularly-gifted theologians or controversialists
could effect, if a body of men in your station of life shall be found in the
great towns of Ireland, not disputatious, contentious, loquacious, presumptuous
(of course I am not advocating inquiry for mere argument's sake), but
gravely and solidly educated in Catholic knowledge, intelligent, acute,
versed in their religion, sensitive of its beauty and majesty, alive to the
arguments in its behalf, and aware both of its difficulties and of the mode of
treating them. And the first step in attaining this desirable end is that you
should submit yourselves to a curriculum of studies, such as that which
brings you with such praiseworthy diligence within these walls evening after
evening, (pp. 486-7.)
Elsewhere he declares (p. 373) that there is an ''imperative
necessity '' of introducing '' religious teaching into the secular
lecture^room.^' But generally indeed, throughout his nine Dis-
courses, lie constantly insists on the vast distinction, between
what a university is in itself and what it becomes under the
Church's guidance. See particularly his remarks from p. 216
to p. 219. '' Intellectualism,'' he says, ''even within the pale
of the Church, and with the most unqualified profession of
her creed, acts, if left to itself, as an element of corruption and
F. Newman on the Idea of a University, 419
debility '^ (p. 218) ; and is likely to produce ^'an adulteration
of ^ the Catholic " spirit^' (p. 219). But the eighth Discourse
in particular deserves attention on this head. " The educated
mind/' he says (p. 180), (precisely as such) "maybe said to be
in a certain sense religious j that is, it has what may be con-
sidered a religion of its own, independent of Catholicism, partly
co-operating with it, partly thwarting it''; "sometimes its ser-
viceable ally, sometimes an insidious and dangerous foe '^ (214).
In other words, intellectual culture, if left to itself instead of
being directed and illuminated bymoral and religious knowledge,
will generate a habit of mind, in some respects antagonistic to
Catholicity, and which F. Newman presently calls (p. 196) "a
godless intellectualism.'^ F. Newman cites, as prominently
illustrating this habit of mind, the apostate Julian (p. 194),
the detestable Gibbon (p. 196), the scoffing Lord Shaftesbury
(pp. 196-8). And he speaks of certain Catholic doctrines,
with which this habit of mind pre-eminently tends to be in
collision. " The ruined state of man ; his utter inability to
gain heaven by anything he can do himself; the moral
certainty of his losing his soul if left to himself; the simple
absence of all rights and claims on the part of the creature in
the presence of the Creator; the illimitable claims of the
Creator on the service of the creature ; the imperative and
obligatory force of the voice of conscience ; the inconceivable
evil of sensuality ; '^ the doctrine " that no one gains heaven
except by the free grace of God or without a regeneration of
nature ; that no one can please Him without faith ; that the
heart is the seat both of sin and of obedience ; that charity is
the fulfilling of the law; and that incorporation into the
Catholic Church is the ordinary instrument of salvation '^
(p. 183). From all this it certainly seems to follow by most
manifest implication, that the due enforcement and inculcation
of these doctrines — whatever be the best means of effedting
such enforcement and inculcation — is an absolutely indis-
pensable part of Catholic higher education.
Here then are the two principal and absolutely indispensable
constituents of good Catholic higher education ; the imparting
of adequate intellectual culture, and of adequate doctrinal
knowledge. But we may further remark in passing — what
F. Newman implies throughout — that there may be various
other branches of knowledge, which — even apart from any
bearing on intellectual culture — claim nevertheless to be
included under Catholic higher education ; as being absolutely
required, in order that the educated CathoUc may play his part
effectively on the world's stage.
However the two chief ends of higher education, as we have
2 E 2
420 F. Newman on the Idea of a University,
said^ are adequate intellectual culture and adequate doctrinal
knowledge: and we are thus led to inquire, what are the
means proposed by F. Newman for achieving these two
results. And first as to intellectual culture.
On this important question we will begin by placing before
our readers a long passage, which to some may appear, at first
sight, doubtful or even paradoxical ; but with which we our-
selves heartily concur. We italicise a few sentences :—
I protest to yon, Gentlemen, that if I had to choose between a so-called
University, which dispensed with residence and tutorial saperintendence,
and gave its degrees to any person who passed an examination in a wide
range of subjects, and a University which had no professors or examinations
at all, but merely hrought a number of young men together for three or four
years, and then sent them away, as the University of Oxford is said to have
done some sixty years since, if I were asked which of these two methods was
the better discipline of the intellect, — mind, I do not say which is morally
the better, for it is plain that compulsory study must be a good and idleness
an intolerable mischief, — but if I must determine which of the two courses
was the more successful in training, moulding, enlarging the mind, which
sent out men the more fitted for their secular duties, which produced better
public men, men of the world, men whose names would descend to posterity,
I have no hesitation in giving the preference to that University which did
nothing, over that which exacted of its members an acquaintance with every
science under the sun. And, paradox as this may seem, still if results be
the test of systems, the influence of the public schools and colleges of
England, in the course of the last century, at least will bear out one side of
the contrast as I have drawn it What would come, on the other hand, of
the ideal systems of education which have fascinated the imagination of this
age, could they ever take effect, and whether they would not produce a
generation frivolous, narrow-minded, and resourceless, intellectually con-
sidered, is a fair subject for debate ; but so far is certain, that the Universities
and scholastic establishments, to which I refer, and which did Httle more
than bring together first boys and then youths in large numbers, these
institutions, with miserable deformities on the side of morals, with a hollow
profession of Christianity, and a heathen code of ethics, — I say, at least they
can boast of a succession of heroes and statesmen, of literary men and
philosophers, of men conspicuous for great natural virtues, for habits of
business, for knowledge of life, for practical judgment, for cultivated tastes,
for accomplishmeuts, who have made England what it is,— al)le to subdue
the earth, able to domineer over Catholics.
How is this to be explained ? I suppose as follows : When a multitude
of young men, keen, open-hearted, sympathetic, and observant, as young men
are, come together and freely mix with each other, they are sure to learn one
from another, even if there be no one to teach them ; the conversation of all
is a series of lectures to each, and they gain for themselves new ideas and
views, fresh matter of thought, and distinct principles for judging and acting,
day by day. An infant has to learn the meaning of the information which
F. Ntwman on the Idea of a University, 421
its senses convej to it, and this seems to be its employment. It fancies all
that the eye presents to it to be close to it, till it actually learns the contrary,
and thus by practice does it ascertain the relations and uses of those first
elements of knowledge which are necessary for its animal existence. A
parallel teaching is necessary for our social being, and it is secured by a large
school or a college ; and this effect may be fairly called in its own department
an enlargement of mind. It is seeing the world on a small field with little
trouble ; for the pupils or students come from very different places, and with
widely different notions, and there is much to generalize, much to adjust,
much to eliminate, there are inter-relations to be defined, and conventional
rules to be established, in the process, by which the whole assemblage is
moulded together, and gains one tone and one character.
Let it be clearly understood, I repeat it, that I am not taking into
account moral or religious considerations ; I am but saying that that youthful
community will constitute a whole, it will embody a specific idea, it will
represent a doctrine, it will administer a code of conduct, and it will furnish
principles of thought and action. It will give birth to a living teachings
which in course of time will take the shape of a self- perpetuating tradition,
or a genius loci, as it is sometimes called ; which haunts the home where it
has been born, and which imbues and forms, more or less, and one by one,
every individual who is successively brought under its shadow. Thus it is
that, independent of direct instruction on the part of Superiors, there is a
sort of self- education in the academic institutions of Protestant England ; d
characteristic tone of thought, a recognized standard of judgment is found in
them, which, as developed in the individual who is submitted to it, becomes
a twofold source of strength to him, both from the distinct stamp it impresses
on his mind, and from the bond of union which it creates between him and
others,— e/fec<« which are shared by the authorities of the place, for they them-
selves have been educated in it, and at all times are exposed to the influence
of its ethical atmosphere. Here then is a real teaching, whatever he its
standards and principles, true or false; and it at least tends towards
cultivation of the intellect ; it at least recognizes that knowledge is something
more than a sort of passive reception of scraps and details ; it is a something,
and it does a something, which never will issue from the most strenuous
efforts of a set of teachers, with no mutual sympathies and no inter-communion,
of a set of examiners with no opinions which they dare profess, and with no
common principles, who are teaching or questioning a set of youths who do
not know them, and do not know each other, on a large number of subjects,
different in kind, and connected by no wide philosophy, three times a week,
or three times a year, or once in three years, in chill lecture-rooms or on a
pompous anniversary, (pp. 145-8.)
These most impressive and forcible remarks lead ns irre-
sistibly to a brief digression. It is admitted by every one,
that a very large proportion at least of the ablest Oxford
students are at present explicit and earnest disbelievers in the
cognizableness of a Personal God. To speak then of Catholics
obtaining at Oxford a genuine university education, while
422 F. Newman on the Idea of a University.
avoiding free intercourse with these miserable antitheists, — is
hardly less than a contradiction in terms; for F. Newman tells
us, with undeniable truth, that the very characteristic of genuine
university education is the free conflict and interchange of
.thought. But moreover F. Newman further testifies, and
with equal truth, that the Protestant universities of England
are pervaded by ^^ a characteristic tone of thought, a recog-
nized standardofjudgment,^^ which "impresses a distinct stamp
on the mind ^' of those submitted to it ; that ^' the genius loci
imbues and forms more or less, and one by one, every indi-
vidual who is successively brought under its shadow/' Nor
again does any one deny that this "atmosphere,^' this " recog-
nized standard of thought,'' this "teaching," this '^genius
loci" is intensely anti-Catholic. Alas for those miserable
youths (happily they are very few) who, being Catholics, are
exposed to this pestilent infection !
We return, however, to our inquiry — what is that method
of discipline which F. Newman recommends, with a view of
producing that intellectual culture on which he lays such stress.
And the passage just quoted furnishes one part of the answer
to this inquiry. He considers that intellectual culture finds
an invaluable instrument, in the free intercourse of mind with
mind ; in the healthy collision of opinion and taste ; in the
combined efforts towards investigating truth, put forth by
those youthful spirits who are eager for its attainment. Now
certainly under present circumstances, considering the com-
parative paucity of Catholics, this particular benefit would be
much less fully attained in a Catholic higher college, supposing
one to be established, than it is in the Protestant universities.
But on the other side it must be taken into account, that there
is generally among Catholics far more confidentisil intercourse
than among Protestants between pupils and superiors. The
Catholic teacher, who understands his true position, accounts it
as among the most important of his functions, to cultivate
friendly relations with those under his care ; to encourage them
in the freest communication of opinion and feeling ; and to aim
specially at throwing his mind into their diflBculties and
personal circumstances. This is at all events a more morally
healthy method, and perhaps not a much less efficacious one,
than that mentioned by F. Newman, for generating those
various qualities which constitute intellectual culture.
The chief question, however, under this head concerns, of
course, the scheme oi studies Yj\i\c\i F. Newman would suggest,
as his instrument of intellectual culture. He sets forth his
opinions on this head in various parts of his- volume, with
signal ability ; but we do not know that we concur with him
F. Newman on the Id^^a of a University. 423
quite as heartily in this matter, as we do on the value and
character of intellectual culture itself. His general view
will be found stated compendiously in p. xix. ; and at much
greater length in his singularly lively, humorous, and enter-
taining discussion on "elementary studies,'' from p. 331 to
371. This discussion indeed may be recommended fidso on its
own ground, as an example how, in the hands of genius, the
gravest and most solid arguments may be made more power-
fully and vividly to impress the mind, by being clothed in
lively and humorous dress. Nevertheless we still doubt
whether he does not adhere too exclusively to what was the
recognized Oxford intellectual discipline of his own time, the
study of classics and mathematics.* We certainly incline to
think, that a certain not very scant admixture of physical and
other studies — over and above their practical value, which is
not here in question — would very importantly conduce to
intellectual power and enlargement. But we will not further
pursue this particular inquiry. And we will content ourselves
with a brief reference to an opinion expressed by F. Newman's
successor at the Catholic University, which we quoted on a
former occasion, (July, 1869, p. 104). Mgr. Woodlock con-
siders that " the deep study of religion '' " exercises a wonder-
ful influence in the development of the human intellect/'
A still more important question succeeds. What is the
especial discipline proposed by F. Newman, in order that
Catholic students may more thoroughly grasp those vital
points of doctrine, which he enumerates in p. 183, and which
we have already cited ? On this matter also we have to regret
his comparative silence. He makes an important remark
indeed in p. 101, the full drift of which will be better under-
stood by those who remember, how earnestly he has contended
in his earlier discourses for including theology as the very
highest of university studies : —
It is a great point then to enlarge the range of studies which a University
professes, even for the sake of the students ; and, though they cannot pursue
every subject which is open to them, they will be the gainers by living among
those and under those who represent the whole circle. This I conceive to be
the advantage of a seat of universal learning, considered as a place of educa-
tion. . An assemblage of learned men, zealous for their own sciences, and
rivals of each other, are brought, by famiUar intercourse and for the sake of
intellectual peace, to adjust together the claims and relations of their re-
* F. Newman admits (p. 100) that " the classics, which in England are
the means of refining the taste, have in France subserved the spread of
revolutionary and deistical doctrines.'' This tends to explain Ahb^ Gaume's
movement.
424 F. Newman on the Idea of a University,
spectlTe subjects of investigation. They learn to respect, to consult, to aid
each other. Thus is created a pure and clear atmosphere of thought, which
the student also breathes, though in his own case he only pursues a few
sciences out of the multitude. He profits by an intellectual tradition, which
is independent of particular teachers, which guides him in his choice of
subjects, and duly interprets for him those which he chooses. He apprehends
the great outlines of knowledge, the principles on which it rests, the scale of
its parts, its lights and its shades, its great points and its little, as he otherwise
canuot apprehend them. (p. 101.)
Still no one will maintain that Catholic students oould acquire
due knowledge of their religion, by the mere fact of studying
classics and mathematics in the same institution where others
are studying theology ; even were it proposed (which of course
it is not) that there should be habitual intercourse between the
lay and the theological students. Accordingly in another part
of the volume (pp. 372-381), he treats directly ^' general religious
knowledge/' as regards its place among " elementary studies/'
Without disparagement, however, to the great truth and value
of many statements contained in those pages, it does not seem to
us that they supply any sufficient answer to the question with
which we are engaged. In the first place he does not imply
that there is any definite relation (nor does there seem to be
any) between the religious studies there recommended, and
the doctrines on which he lays such deserved stress in his
eighth Discourse. And in the second place, — ^judging by the
general tone and drift of his remarks — he treats these studies
rather as something congruously added to the substance of
Catholic university instruction of young men, than as an essen-
tial and vital part thereof.
There is one remark, however, to which we would draw
attention. " Nothing,^' he says, " will be found to impress and
occupy the mind'' of students, " but such matters as they have
to present to their examiners " (p. 374). We would submit this
statement to the consideration of those who are satisfied with
an arrangement, under which secular matters are prepared
diligently for examination, while no corresponding stimulus is
given to religious study.
It will have been seen that here again our criticism is purely
negative : we are not objecting to anything which F. Newman
has said, we are only regretting his silence on a particular
topic. But there is one passage from which we cannot deny
that we dissent with some confidence. We think that
F. Newman ascribes to intellectual culture a certain singularly
high place in the promotion of its possessor's spiritual interests,
which it by no means really occupies. We give the passage
in full. And we must explain that the word '^ philosopher
ff
F, Newman cm the Idea of a University, 425
in the first sentence, means (as is made clear by the context)
the imparter of that high intellectual culture or '^ philosophy/'
which is so prominent a theme of the nine Discourses : —
Now on opening the subject, we see at once a momentous benefit which
the philosopher is likely to confer on the pastors of the Church. It is obvious
that the first step which they have to effect in the conversion of man and
the renovation of his nature, is his rescue from that fearful subjection to sense
which is his ordinary state. To be able to break through the meshes of that
thraldom, and to disentangle and to disengage its ten thousand holds upon
the heart, is to bring it, I might almost say, halfway to Heaven. Here,
even divine grace, to speak of things according to their appearances, is ordi-
narily baffled, and retires, without expedient or resource, before this giant
fascination. Religion seems too high and unearthly to be able to exert a
continued influence upon us : its effort to rouse the soul, and the soul's effort
to co-operate, are too violent to last. It is like holding out the arm at full
length, or supporting some great weight, which we manage to do for a timci
but soon are exhausted and succumb. Nothing can act beyond its own
nature ; when then we are called to what is supernatural, though those extra-
ordinary aids from Heaven are given us, with which obedience becomes
possible, yet even with them it is of transcendent difficulty. We are drawn
down to earth every moment with the ease and certainty of a natural gravita-
tion, and it is only by sudden impulses and, as it were, forcible plunges, that
we attempt to mount upwards. Religion indeed enlightens, terrifies, sub-
dues ; it gives faith, it inflicts remorse, it inspires resolutions, it draws tears,
it inflames devotion, but only for the occasion. I repeat, it imparts an
inward power which ought to effect more than this ; I am not forgetting
either the real sufficiency of its aids, nor the responsibility of those in
whom they fail I am not discussing theological questions at all, I am look-
ing at phenomena as they lie before me, and I say that, in matter of fact,
the sinful spirit repents, and protests it will never sin again, and for a while is
protected by disgust and abhorrence from the malice of its foe. But that foe
knows too well that such seasons of repentance are wont to have their end :
he patiently waits, till nature faints with the effort of resistance, and lies
passive and hopeless under the next access of temptation. What we need
then is some expedieilt or instrument which will at least obstruct and stave off
the approach of our spiritual enemy, and which is sufficiently congenial and
level with our nature to maintain as firm a hold upon us as the inducements
of sensual gratification. It will be our wisdom to employ nature against
itself. Thus sorrow, sickness, and care are providential antagonists to our
inward disorders ; they come upon us as years pass on. and generally produce
their natural effects on us, in proportion as we are subjected to their influence.
These, however, are God's instruments, not ours ; we need a similar remedy,
which we can make our own, the object of some legitimate faculty, or the
aim of some natural affection, which is capable of resting on the mind, and
taking up its familiar lodging with it, and engrossing it, and which
thus becomes a match for the besetting power of sensuality, and a
sort of homoeopathic medicine for the disease. Here then I think is the
important aid which intellectual cultivation famishes to us in rescuing the
426 jP. N&ivman on the Idea of a Univenity.
victims of passion and self-wilL It does not supply religiotu motiTes ; it is
not the cause or proper antecedent of anything supernatural ; it is not
meritorious of heavenly aid or reward ; but it does a work, at least maJte-
riaUy good (as theologians speak), whatever be its real and formal character.
It expels the excitements of sense by the introduction of those of the
intellect.
This then is the primd fade advantage of the pursuit of knowledge ; it is
the drawing the mlad off from things which will harm it to subjects which
are worthy a rational being ; and, though it does not raise it above nature,
nor has any tendency to make us pleasing to our Maker, yet is it
nothing to substitute what is in itself harmless for what is, to say the
least, inexpressibly dangerous? Is it a little thing to exchange a
circle of ideas which are certainly sinful, for others which are certainly
not 80 ? You will say, perhaps, in the words of the Apostle, ** Knowledge
puffeth up " : and doubtless this mental cultivation, even when it is success-
ful for the purpose for which I am applying it, may be from the first nothing
more than the substitution of pride for sensuality.. I grant it : I think I
shall have something to say on this point presently ; but this is not a neces-
sary result, it is but an incidental evil, a danger which may be realized or
may be averted, whereas we may in most cases predicate guilt, and guilt of a
heinous kind, where the mind is suffered to run wild and indulge its thoughts
without training or law of any kind ; and surely to turn away a soul from
mortal sin is a good and a gain so far, whatever comes of it And therefore,
if a friend in need is twice a friend, I conceive that intellectual employments,
though they do no more than occupy the mind with objects naturally noble
or innocent, have a special claim upon our consideration and gratitude,
(pp. 184-6.)
On its first reading this passage might seem to mean, that
of all who do not possess high intellectual culture, it may
almost infallibly be predicated that they fall frequently into
mortal sin. On closer examination, however, we see that at
all events one very importantexception is made ; viz., the case of
those visited with special "sorrow, sickness, and care'*: and this
exception at once removes the poorest class from the scope of
the allegation. On the other hand we readily admit that the
number of men is utterly insignificant, who can keep up through
the day a constant course of divine contemplation ; and that
men in general, according to God's appointment, are very im-
portantly cheered and sustained in their course of piety (if they
practise it) by the quiet, tranquil gratification which He
has attached to the orderly performance of secular duties and
cultivation of secular interests. But the vast majority of those
raised above the poorest class have a great abundance of
secular duties and interests, placed on them by the very neces-
sity of their position ; nor can F. Newman mean that these men,
— unless they possess high intellectual culture or unless they
are visited with unusual sorrow, sickness, or care, — will almost
F, Newman on the Idea of a University. 427
infallibly fall into frequent mortal sin. But take even the
leisured class itself. Many excellent reasons may be given,
why persons of this class should procure for their sons high
intellectual culture, and should also do their best to supply in
that respect their own deficiencies. But F. Newman seems to say
that, unless they possess it, their interests will be so unoccupied,
that those of them who are not visited with exceptional sorrow,
sickness, or care, will almost infallibly (be they Catholics or
non- Catholics) fall into frequent mortal sin. Now we will not
deny that regular habits of application may often be of ex-
cellent service, towards assisting the struggle against mortal
sin ; whether in the case of bankers' clerks or of philosophical
students : much more however in the former case than in the
latter, because in the former case regularity of habit is com'
pulsory. But F. Newman is dwelling, not on the evil pro-
duced by irregular hours, but on that produced by vacancy of
thought. And his language (as we understand it) implies,
that of those leisured persons, who neither possess high
intellectual culture nor are visited with exceptional sorrow,
it may almost (or quite) infallibly be predicated, that this
vacancy of thought leads them into frequent mortal sin.
Yet surely a vigorous devotion to their duties, as magistrates
and country gentlemen ; or to yachting, or billiards, or chess,
or whist, or the sports of the field ; will do for them the
very same service, which F. Newman claims as peculiar to
high intellectual culture. Or they may try experiments in farm-
ing ; which will at once provide them with constant interesting
occupation, and also confer much benefit on the nation. Or
they may follow the example of a late baronet, and take oflSce
as drivers of some four-in-hand daily coach. Or they may
busy themselves in the organization and practical working of
benevolent schemes ; or enrol themselves as members of a
mercantile house. But even were all this otherwise, a
taste for miscellaneous, desultory, ill-digested reading
has no tendency whatever — as F. Newman will himself
be eager in professing — to the acquirement of high intellec-
tual culture : yet it will be every bit as useful as the latter
in filling up unoccupied moments, and in "staving oflF the
approach of our spiritual enemy." Perhaps even more so;
because at the moment of temptation the mind will more easily
be diverted from evil by opening a novel or looking over a
shallow and flippant article, than by studying some philoso-
phical speculation on foreign politics, or trade combinations, 6r
the Homeric poems. But indeed the reader will probably
know many leisured persons, who have neither any pretension
to high intellectual culture nor even any g^eat taste for the
428 F. Newman on the Idea of a University.
most desultory reading, who nevertheless find life full of
amusement; and who, if they do commit mortal sin, are
certainly not driven into it by ennui and dulness of existence.
Nor have we the slightest doubt that there are many leisured
Catholics — neither much interested in intellectual pursuits
nor yet visited with exceptional sorrow — who lead nevertheless
lives of edifying piety ; and some, who are noble examples to
the whole Catholic body.
We by no means intend to imply of course, that the various
resources we have mentioned above are equally admirable : some
of them are most laudable in themselves ; while others have no
laudableness at all, except that arising from the good purpose
to which they may be put. Still there is not one of them to
which F. Newman's words will not strictly apply, that when
cultivated as the alternative to sensuality, it '' exchanges a
circle of ideas which are certainly sinful, for others whicn are
certainly not so.'' Surely high intellectual culture can do no
greater service in the particular direction mentioned by
F. Newman, than can be done equally well or better in a
hundred other ways. We speak with some earnestness :
because we think that idolatry of intellect is among the chief
miseries and perils of the day ; and we fear that a certain
spurious feeling of utterly misplaced reverence might grow up
towards mere intellectual excellence, if the latter were thought
to have any such special spiritual vaJue as F. Newman ascribes
to it.
At last however it is abundantly possible that we may have
misunderstood F. Newman's meaning ; though we have
honestly done our best to catch it. Certainly the eighth Dis-
course, as a whole, seems to us (as we have said) among the
best. And the last, on "duties of the Church towards
knowledge," seems to us quite a model ; as the well-balanced^
dispassionate, and profoundly Catholic treatment of a delicate
and difficult question.
Here we conclude our remarks on this most suggestive and
powerful volume. There are one or two matters, we have said^
on which we regret F. Newman's silence, and one of muck
importance on which (if we have rightly understood him) we
have had to express dissent. But the main feeling with which
we have risen from our renewed perusal of the work, has been
one of great delight. We have felt most hearty sympathy
with its general principles; and we have intensely admired
the genius, with which those principles are set forth in theory
and applied to the details of practice.
{ 429 )
Art. VI.— the LIFE AND LABOURS OF S. THOMAS
OF AQUIN.
The Life and Labours of S, Thomas of Aquin. By the Very Rev. Boobr
Bede Vaughan, O.S.B., Cathedral Prior of S. Michael's, Hereford.
In two volumes. VoL II. London : Longmans & Co. Hereford :
James Hull 1872.
Since the conclusion of his life of S. Thomas of Aquin,
F. Bede Vaughan has been called by the grace of God and
the favour of the Holy See to one of the most important mis-
sionary positions in the Church of God. The metropolitan See of
Australasia is the centre of an ecclesiastical province, not yet half
a century old, in which the growth of the faith has been aflFected
neither by State patronage nor persecution, and in which the
spread of its missions has been even more rapid and remark-
able than in the United States of America. There is this
essential difference between Australia and the United States,
countries which it is natural to compare, because they have both
been rapidly, so to speak, fabricated by the influx of emigra-
tion, that in the United States, heavy as has been the weight
of the Irish vote, Catholics have never been able to assert for
themselves a place among the governing classes, while in
Australia there are in every colony Catholic statesmen, and
there have been even ministries in which the predominant in-
fluences and personages were Catholic. It is a country in which,
on the whole, notwithstanding occasional absurd outbreaks of
Protestant bigotry, a greater measure of religious liberty for
Catholics obtains than in the United States. It is a country of
the dimensions of a continent, and of which the Church, should
it develop as it is doing, may one day be raised to the rank of a
Patriarchate — a country in which the growth of population during
the next century will probably exceed that of the United States,
and of which the riches and resources are untold, indeed, as yet,
perhaps inconceivable. Archbishop Vaughan, who now pro-
ceeds to share, at the bidding of the Holy Father, the cares and
toils of the first Prelate of a land so great already in achieve-
ment, so vast in its future promise, is, if we may venture to say
so, not unworthy to sustain and to follow the footsteps of one
so holy and so zealous, so discreet as has ever been Archbishop
Polding. He brings apostolic zeal, and generous energy, and
430 The Life and Labours of S, Thomas of Aquin.
preaching power, the Benedictine large and liberal spirit, its
organizing faculty and love of culture, the gracious courtesy
of an ancient Catholic race, frank speech and noble presence to
sustain him in his great task. He will, we are well convinced,
worthily second and continue the work already so well begun,
and leave, long hence we hope, a name, very memorable in the
history of the Church in Australia.
EEW biographical studies from ecclesiastical history are
more interesting in themselves, or contain plainer or
more useful lessons for Catholics in the nineteenth century,
than the life and labours of the great mediaeval saint and
theologian whom Archbishop Vaughan explains to us in these
interesting and varied, as well as painstaking and substantial
volumes. His first volume has already been the subject of an
article in the Dublin Review;* the second, with which we
have here to do, deals almost exclusively with S. Thomas as a
theologian, the only biographical chapters being the first,
" S. Thomas made Doctor,''t and the last, " The Death of
S. Thomas/^ J The other chapters contain comparatively little
properly biographical matter.
Of S. Thomas as a theologian, consequently, we have to
speak in this article. The subject is immense, and we can do
no more than illustrate some of its more general aspects ; but
while we cannot hope to rival Archbishop Vaughan's graphic
and attractive style, the very necessity of confining ourselves
to the generalities of the subject will prevent us from entering
into details of perhaps too technical a nature. At some
future time we hope to speak in particular of the way in which
S. Thomas reacted against the errors of his time and the
extent to which he was subject to its influence ; of his theology
as a system ; of his manner of treating questions with which he
had to deal in constructing it ; of its method, and of its general
conclusions. In the present article we shall consider his
position as a theologian in the Church, and the causes which
led to his filling this position ; the tone and temper of hits
mind ; the influences by which he was formed ; and his ac-
quired qualifications for his work. S. Thomas was the principal
defender and systematizer of the Christian religion in the
thirteenth century, and his work cannot be considered out of
relation with the life of which it was the outcome.
To begin at the beginning, S. Thomas was one of the school-
men. To understand his position among the schoolmen, we
♦ January, 1871, pp. 111-138. t " Life and Labours,'' iL pp. 1-117.
X Ibid,, pp. 912-928.
The Life and Labours of S. Thomas of Aquln. 431
must take a glance at the nature and history of scholasticism.
By the scholastic theology, in the largest sense of the term in
which it is convenient to use it, is meant the theology taught
in the schools of the Middle Ages, — that is, a variety of theo-
logical systems more or less complete, and diverse in details
and arrangement, but agreeing in this, that their chief cha-
racteristic was an attempt to analyze and systematize the
doctrines of the Church by the aid of a more or less perfect
philosophical system, sometimes predominantly Neoplatonic,
sometimes predominantly Peripatetic. The history of the
scholastic theology may conveniently be divided into four
periods : the first extending from its commencement to the
publication of Peter the Lombard's " Sentences ;''♦ the second
from that time to John Duns Scotus ;t the third from Scotus
to the great eclectic scholastics of the Reformation period ;
and the fourth from them to Viva, who may be regarded as
the last of the schoolmen properly so called. The first of
these periods was tentative and initial ; the treatises produced
in it were comparatively fragmentary and unsystematic ; it
witnessed the first unpractised essays of human reason in this
direction — essays which exhibited all the customary rashness,
crudity, and disproportion of first attempts. The prin-
cipal name in it was that of Abelard ; J the principal discus-
sions were excited by Rationalism, by the question of uni-
versals, and by a spurious Platonism. The second period was
constructive, synthetical, systematizing ; the chief figures in
it were Alexander of Hales,§ Albert the Great, || S. Bona-
venture,^ and S. Thomas of Aquin ;** the principal additional
discussions were those arising out of the controversies with
the Arabo-peripatetic philosophy. The theologians of this
period wrote with a greater solidity, dependent on larger
knowledge of the traditional teaching of the Church, the
result of fuller researches, of which the Lombard had set the
example ; and with a greater caution, produced by the re-
membrance of the excesses of the preceding period, and by
the extreme delicacy of the controversies arising out of the
errors of the Arabs. The third period was predominantly
one of criticism and disintegration; many breaches were
made, or attempted to be made, in the walls of the philosophico-
theological edifice which the thinkers of the preceding epoch
had built up. It was inaugurated by the criticisms of Scotus ;
the chief names in it are those of Scotus and Ocham;tt the
* Petrus Lombardus died in 1164. || Bom about 1200; died 1280.
t Born 1274 ; died 1308. T Bom about 1221 ; died 1274.
X Bom 1079; died 1142. ♦• Bom 1226 ; died 1274.
§ Bom about 1200 ; died 1245. ft Died about 1350.
432 The Life and Ijahuurs of S. Thomas of Aqum,
chief discussion, as in part of the first period, was on uni-
versals, to which a number of minor discussions were made
subordinate, while a multitude of independent and often
frivolous questions were also agitated. It closed in the dawn
of the Renaissance, and with the apparent triumph of a
sceptical nominalism. The first writers who entered the lists
against the Reformers were somewhat unsystematic, and dealt
more in positive than in sdiolastic theology ; they addressed
themselves to the defence of individual doctrines which hap-
pened to be assailed, rather than endeavoured to put them in
their full light by presenting them as connected with the com-
plete body of Christian truths of which they are integral parts.
But presently others took up this higher line of attack and
defence. From this originated the fouHh period of scho-
lasticism, which sought to form a synthesis of whatever truths
had been elicited by discussions in preceding periods, and,
for reasons which will presently come before us, rested on
S. Thomas more than on any other single scholastic. Among
the greatest names belonging to this period were those of
Vasquez, Suarez, and Francis de Lugo. The principal dis-
cussions were those connected with the heresies then spreading,
and such as in the opinion of the writers were necessary to
the completion of their respective systems, or presented points
of special interest. A process of criticism analogous to that
which has been noticed as existing in the third peiiod after-
wards set in : many examples of it may be found in the
dogmatic theology of Viva.
This apergu will show in a general way what was the
position of Albert and Thomas in scholasticism ; some further
observations will enable us to define it more clearly. It is
evident that when people who are on the same side take to
picking holes in each other's garments, it is plain that they
are not, or at least do not think themselves to be, in presence
of a common enemy. While the battle is going on, every one
with common sense feels that it is necessary to preserve an
unbroken front. It is only when it is over that the tactics of
the generals are criticised. An age of danger is naturally,
after the first confusion, an age of synthesis; an age of
security is naturally an age of criticism. Now, as will here-
after appear from description of the influences opposed to
religion in the thirteenth century, the time in which S. Thomas
laboured was one of great peril to the Christian religion. He
therefore does not aim at pointing out deficiencies in Catholic
writers who have preceded him. He endeavours rather to
conciliate statements which look erroneous or one-sided.
Where he comes across an obvious error, he for the most part
The Life and Labours of 8, Thomas of Aquin. 433
does not mention the names of those who introduced or sup-
ported it, for he would rather that modern errors among
Catholics should be forgotten. Where he has to mention
names, as in the case of the ancient heretics, or of the Arabian
philosophers, he never irritates his opponents by using bad
language. He for the most part says simply, in hoc erraverunt ;
points out how they came to err, replies to their arguments,
and shows that he is not unduly biassed against the Arabian
philosophers by quoting them, even as authorities, where they
are in the right. In his day Christianity was opposed by an
intellectual system of enormous pretensions ; to that system
it was his aim to oppose Christianity itself worked out into a
system as vast and as commanding.
On the other hand it would be absurd to say that the period
between Scotus and the Reformation was a period of security
for the Church. It was, on the contrary, a period of very
considerable danger, arising from the great schism, from tho
partial continuance of Averrho'ism, from political circumstances,
from practical corruptions, and from the presence in Europe
of the descendants of the Manichaean and other heretics of
the twelfth century. But the magnitude of these perils was
revealed only by the event. With the exception of the debates
about general councils and Papal Infallibility, which belonged
rather to positive than to scholastic theology, there was no
new and pressing theological danger. Consequently speculative
theologians in their lecture-rooms, to a large extent, con-
tented themselves with criticising what had been done by
those who had gone before them, and while they thus dis-
arranged the systems which had been constructed by others,
did little new work in the way of construction themselves.
When, therefore, the theologians of the fourth period cast
about for a systematized Catholicism to oppose to the Re-
formation, they looked for it not in this third period of
scholasticism, but in the second, in which like dangers had
produced a like need of synthesis or construction. To the
four great names of the second period they therefore in-
stinctively turned. But neither Alexander of Hales, nor
Albertus Magnus, who belonged to the first and initial part of
the second period, could give them what they stood in need
of. Living in the first confusion of the movement, these two
great writers had indeed laid down the first broad outlines
of a systematic theology, but they had not laid them down
with a suflBciently firm hand. The writers of the fourth
period were therefore attracted rather to S. Thomas and
S. Bonaventure, the pupils and successors of Alexander
and Albert, who had drawn tho connecting links closer, had
VOL. XXI. — NO. XLii. [New Series.'] 2 ¥
434 The lAfe and Labours of S, Thomas of Aquin.
obstruct the flow of the stream of thought, the order in which
eliminated statements inconsistent with their general theory,
pruned excrescences, and filled up lacuiice which their masters
had left. But, again, S. Thomas and S. Bonaventure fiaithfiilly
represented the general character of the Orders to which
respectively they belonged. The Franciscan theology was
aflfective, and more immediately useful for devotional writings ;
that of the Dominicans was speculative, and more immediately
useful for controversy. S. Bonaventure had been the principsd
teacher among the Franciscans, and had received the title of
Seraphic Doctor on account of the ardour of his love, but in
the discussions of the third period had been partly superseded
by Scotus; the great teacher among the Dominicans had
never ceased to be S. Thomas, who had been surnamed the
Angelic Doctor, on account of the clearness and calmness of
his intellect. The great eclectic theologians of the fourth
period, therefore, with some exceptions which it is unnecessary
here to particularize, took the theological system of S. Thomas
as the foundation on which they worked, without at the same
time neglecting the criticisms which had been made on it by
subsequent writers. These theologians have dominated sub-
sequent Catholic theology, and partly through their influence,
partly on account of other causes presently to be indicated,
this influence has never ceased to be very largely felt in the
Church.
Archbishop Vaughan commences his appreciation of S.
Thomas as a theologian by a chapter,* '^ The Popes on S.
Thomas,*' devoted to proving by external evidence the great,
and indeed unequalled, excellence of his theology. The multi-
tude of theologians who have thrown their work into the form
of commentaries on his Summa, the praises of him which might
be quoted from almost any Catholic writer of reputation, and,
not to omit a very different kind of evidence, such testimonies
as that of Martin Luther, and the celebrated saying attributed
to Bucer, would of themselves suflSciently attest this. But, as
Archbishop Vaughan himself reminds us, " when a Sovereign
PontiflF bears public testimony to the greatness of any man,
that testimony carries with it an especial weight. And when
his utterance has to do with an eminent teacher; when he
who is the shepherd of the flock points out the field, and
declares it wholesome food and excellent, then his words
carry with them a conclusiveness beyond those of all other
men.*' Archbishop Vaughan, in this chapter restricting himself
to external evidence, has therefore done wisely in laying the
• " Life and Labours of S. Thomas of Aqum," vol. ii. pp. 118-20L
The Life and Labours of S, Thomas of Aquin. 435
principal stress on the most anthoritative external evidence of
all. He has brought together a long catena of testimonies ; we
have space to quote only one, but this one refers to a num-
ber of others. Clement XII. (1730—1740) had to deal with
the infidelity of the last century. In his bull Vei^ho Dei he
tells the world that when the corruption of false doctrine is
spreading abroad in every direction, and imperils the Catholic
Faith and the morality of Christians whom the Lord has con-
fided to his care, it becomes specially his duty to hold up to
admiration those teachers who have been eminent for know-
ledge and piety, and to popularize that teaching which, being
wholly founded on Scripture and tradition, treats of faith and
morals in a solid fashion, equally fitted to form worthy
ministers of the Church, and to secure the salvation of souls.
'^ And,^' he continues, —
It is on this account that the Sovereign Pontiffs, our predecessors, have
always singled out Blessed Thomas of Aquin, known by the glorious title of
the Angelical Doctor. The just praise which they have often bestowed upon
liim in their decrees, proves clearly enough what their feelings were. In the
very lifetime of S. Thomas, Pope Alexander IV. admired the treasures of
science with which Heaven had enriched him. His successors thought and
^poke in a similar strain : John XXII., Clement VI., Urban V., Nicholas V.,
f *ius IV., Blessed Pius V, Sixtus V., Clement VIII., Paul V., Alexander VII.,
Nicholas XII., and Benedict XIII., all have approved of S. Thomas in the
siuiie way. They loved to put him in the sacred /a«ti of the Church, and to
rank him among such great Doctors as S. Gregory, S. Ambrose, S. Augustine,
and S. Jerome. — " Life and Labours of S. Thomas of Aquin," voL ii. pp.
153-154.
The great minds of the Catholic Church since S. Thomas
have probably drawn more from his Summa than from any
other single uninspired work ; nor can its influence ever pass
away unless theology should cease to be studied as a science.
We have now to ascertain what, besides those which have
been already mentioned, are the reasons of this popularity.
We have to see what were the qualifications of S. Thomas for
the work, the nature of which we have briefly described. We
shall begin by dwelling on those qualifications which were not
the result of study and purpose, but out of which the study
aiid purpose came ; and some of the external features of the
Sinnma will furnish us with a point from which to start.
Two causes, besides the intrinsic merits of the subject-
matter, have contributed to the popularity of the Summa.
The first is the remarkable lucidity of the style. His choice
of words, the construction of his sentences, the calm simplicity
of his expositions, the absence of ornamentation whicH would
2 F 2
436 TJie Life and Labours of S, Thomas ofAquin.
he presents his ideas^ make S. Thomas one of the clearest and
most unambiguous of theological writers. Each sentence and
clause falls just where it ought to be ; there are no involved
constructions, and no unnecessary divagations from the subject
under discussion. If what he is speaking of can be really
comprehended by the human intellect, he it is who will make
it intelligible; and, his terminology once mastered, it is
seldom possible to put his meaning into clearer language than
that by which he has himself conveyed it. His illustrations
always, and his quotations generally, are brief and well chosen ;
he never attempts to show off, or make a parade of learning,
or triumphs over those against whom he may be contending;
and his aim always is to give the greatest possible amount ot
information with the least expenditure of time and trouble on
the part of the reader. The second reason is the admirable
disposition and arrangement of his subject matter. Order is
itself a source of lucidity, — lucidus ordo ; and although that
this order should be absolute and perfect throughout the whole
long sweep of the Summa would be too much to expect of
human nature, — just as it would be to expect of any one that
he should never be obscure, — yet, to a greater extent than we
have noticed to be the case in any other work, one always
knows whereabouts to find what one is in want of. His in-
tention, indeed, in writing the Summa Theologica was to
introduce more perfect method into theological teaching.
Order and lucidity, calmness and modesty, are signs of
deeper excellences. Clearness of expression is commonly
attendant only on clearness of thought, and orderliness of
exposition betokens a mind itself well ordered. The intellect
of S. Thomas was distinguished for its clearness and tran-
quillity ; it was too large to be easily disturbed, and too well
accustomed to the perception of truth to mistake a mist for a
transparent atmosphere. And while it was clear, it was not,
as many minds remarkable for clearaess are, narrow; the
mind of that man who could devote his life to the construction
of a system embracing all moral and religious truth, and
standing in relation with all the knowledge of his day, must
have been essentially broad. Above all, his mind was a
meditative mind ; and meditativeness is the characteristic of
the very highest form of the human intelligence. Newton was
asked how he made his discoveries. By persistent '^ thinking
unto them,'' he replied. " What is genius,'' said Goethe, ''but
the faculty of seizing and turning to account everything that
strikes us ; of co-ordinating and breathing life into all the
materials that present themselves? . . . What have I
done ? I have collected and turned to account all that I have
The Life and Labours of 8. Thomas of Aquin. 437
seen, heard, observed ; I have put in requisition the works of
nature and of man ; my work is that of an aggregation of
beings taken from the whole of nature, — it bears the name of
Goethe/' Great ideas do not come all at once in their fulness
on the minds of their originators. They need time to grow in,
and cultivation to foster them. If genius be defined to be the
power of perceiving remote analogies, the more remote an
analogy is, the more it has to be sought for before it is found.
The greater part of mankind go through the world quite
content to view in juxtaposition only a very small number of
the truths with which they are acquainted. A very few of our
ideas lie on the surface, and by the movements of thought are
occasionally contrasted and brought into new lights and new
relations ; but the vast majority are seldom or never called up
before the tribunal of consciousness, and remain stagnant and
confused in the dark and sluggish pools which lie beneath the
surface currents of the mind. He who is meditative and
thoughtful alone summons them before him ; and that mind
is the greatest which, through the blessing of an excellent
memory, possesses the greatest store of mental riches, and
through meditativeness of disposition and assiduity of appli-
cation, calls them before it most frequently. Clear, calm,
large, and meditative was the intellect of S. Thomas of
Aquin.
And here, as in other cases, this is in great part to be
accounted for by the circumstances of his life. He seems from
the first to have been turned to the contemplation of divine
things, which thus from long use must have become gradually
more easy and familiar, and his earliest religious impressions
must have been strengthened and confirmed by his own
almost miraculous escape from death in infancy. One of his
sisters, while an infant, was, when sleeping beside her nurse
and her little brother Thomas, killed by a flash of lightning,,
which left her brother and her nurse uninjured. His dis-
position was gentle, thoughtful, and quiet. His stay at the great
monastery of Monte Cassino probably had a very considerable
influence over his character. The idea of the old monasticism
had been to flee from the society as well as from the vices of men;
the home of the first monks was the solitude of the desert. 'When,
later, those who had bidden the world good bye sought to be
strengthened and protected by mutual example, intercourse,
and organization, there remained with them still the spirit of
that first solitude. Tossed by the tempests in which the
Western Empire had suSered shipwreck, men looked on the
religious houses with an exceeding love and longing, for, even
afar off, they saw in them stormless havens of quiet rest and
438 The Life and Labours of 8. Thomas of Aquin.
peace. The monasteries of the Benedictines were set on the
qniet hillsides, in beautiful and lonely places^ where day by
day the same sights met the eye and the same sounds the ear ;
and, far removed from the turmoil of cities, nature impressed
on those who dwelt in them the likeness of her own tranquillity
and timelessness. In hopeful and loving devotion, in friend-
ship true and tender, in the slow labours of agriculture, in
patient and careful study, the years passed by unnoticed and
age came on unfelt. There was no hurry in their lives. They
needed not to speak before they had thought out their thoughts,
nor to judge before they had well considered : no man required
it at their hands. With their matured wisdom, with their
inherited learning, they from their solitudes could guide the
world, so long as its pulse beat slowly, and intellectual activity
was not great, and the layman, like the monk, lived chiefly on
the past. The world had need of rest after recovering from
the pestilence with which Rome had filled its veins. The
stream of civilization was broadening, not deepening; the
dissemination of what was abeady known was of more impor-
tance than the discovery of what was new. At Monte Cassino
not only would the Saint become familiar with the principles
and practices df monastic life, but his natural disposition
of mind would be strengthened and confirmed. And if we
admit an influence of natural scenery on character, we may
imagine that the grandeurs of his mountain home had some-
thing to do with that commanding intellectual insight which
carried him beyond the controversies and above the con-
fusions of his time, and enabled him to penetrate into that
deeper region of thought which never becomes antiquated in
substance.
But he was not destined to remain at Monte Cassino. After
he had been therje for seven years the monastery was sacked
by a band of Ghibellines, and the monks partly dispersed and
partly massacred. His education with the Benedictines thus
came to a sudden and unexpected termination. He was sent
back to his father and mother, and remained with them till he
could be transferred to another school ; and from the fact that
this school turned out to be the University of Naples, as well
as from the early ripening of Italian childhood, we may
conjecture that he had made considerable progress during his
stay at the monastery. Of the intellectual and moral atmo-
sphere of the University of Naples, with the swift and turbid
current of whose life the gentle and quiet youth, reared amid
the solitudes of Monte Cassino, had now to miugle, we cannot,
perhaps, better form an idea than by reflecting on the character
of Frederick II., its founder and patron : —
The Life and Labours of S, Thomas of Aquin, 439
Frederick was emphatically a representative man. He represented the
brute force, intellectual licence, and moral depravity of the thirteenth century.
His versatility, learning, and political finesse, his love of pleasure, of novelty,
of free speculation ; his courage, his perfidy, his chivalry, his cruelty, his
arrogance, his superstition — all combined in one man — were specimens
of the various vices and excellences of the subjects over whom he ruled. . . .
His ambition, not content with four crowns, carried him through forty years
of continual and aggressive war. . . . His enthusiasm for poetry and letters,
for music and art, was quite as remarkable as his ambition and his taste for
war. He spoke Latin, Italian, German, French, Greek, and Arabic, when,
in all probability, not one in four hundred of his knights knew how to sign
his name. He occupied many of his leisure hours in his choice library,
poring over rolls of Greek and Arabic manuscripts, which he had carefully
collected in the East. . . .
But Frederick was a thoroughly worldly man. Learning did not lead
him to the practices of Christianity. If he ever did seriously hold its
teaching, his life among the Infidels of the East appears to have upset his
faith, and to have delivered him over to the influences of political materialism.
He publicly declared that he possessed the right to determine definitively
every question, human and divine. ...
Frederick was never more at ease than when in the company of the subtle
and polished natives of the East. When in Palestine he lived among the
Mussulmans, and sent as a present to the Sultan a learned solution of difficult
problems in mathematics and philosophy. The Sultan sent him, in return,
an artful and curious instrument for indicating the movement of the stars.
Whatever seemed capable of offering enjoyment to his mind in science,
or to his body in sensuality, that Frederick II. made no scruple of acquir-
ing, and of using with all the elegance and prodigality of a sinful man of
genius.
He naturally surrounded himself with minds in harmony with his own.
IVIichael Scott, and Pietro della Vigne, who is fitly placed in hell by Dante
to exclaim, —
" I' son colui che tenni ambo le chiavi
Del cor di Federigo," —
were noted for the brilliancy of their talents, and the pagan tendencies of
their minds. Cardinal Ubaldini, the Emperor's familiar friend, professed
open materialism, and was accustomed to declare that, if he did happen to
possess a soul, he would willingly lose it for the Ghibellines. His words
carry all the more weight, inasmuch as he was the mouthpiece of a large
section of literati, who preferred the teachings of Epicurus or Pythagoras to
the religion of Jesus Christ. Dante points to two Florentines, Favina and
Cavalcanti, as types of thousands. The Ghibellines were noted materialists,
and scoffers at Christianity ; and in Florence the infidels formed a wild
unruly sect. A poem, called the Descent of Paul into Hell, alludes to a
secret society, which was formed for the express purpose of expunging
Christianity, and introducing the exploded obscenities of Paganism in its
place. Then the overweening admiration of classical antiquity, political
schemes for reconstructing pagan Home, the ferment produced by the newly-
440 The Life and Labours of S. Thomas ofAquin.
dLscovered philosophy of the Greeks, the slavish imitation of ps^an poets,
and the biting satires of buffoons and troubadours, suc}i as Ruteboeuf, Jehao,
and Eenard, helped to spread among nobles, scholars, and general society an
iafidelity and licentiousness, ^hich was a foretaste of the more elegant and
polished wickedness of the Renaissance. — Vol. L pp. 39-44.
It is scarcely probable that Frederick absolutely disbelieved
in Christianity. The temper of the Middle Ages was unfavour-
able to absolute disbelief. But hie had learnt by experience
the falsity of the wild and preposterous legends by which the
hate, and fear, and ignorance of the West had sought to make
the jfollowers of the Koran more abhorred ; and, mingling with
the most courtly and learned of the Orientals, found not only
that they were not the fearful creatures they had been repre-
sented to be, but that they were even refined and cultivated, and
in possession of a literature, a science, and a philosophy beside
which the literary, philosophical, and scientific achievements
of the mediaeval West sank into simple nothingness. He
moreover personally liked the delicate an^ luxurious civilization
of the East better than the rougher fibre of the Occidentals,
whom he no doubt regarded as a set of coarse, ignorant, and
quarrelsome barbarians, who plumed themselves on advantages
which they did not possess, and made themselves ridiculous
by calumniating what they did not understand. To him they
were only Latiniy who could not be expected to have anything
to teach which it would be of the slightest importance for any
one to learn. They were nothing but a set of declaimers,
adapters, imitators, compendium-makers, logic-choppers, ser-
monizers; great in verbal disputations and verbal contro-
versies; foul-mouthed and ignorant; barren and good for
nothing if mention came to be made of advance in knowledge
and useful discovery. So when the dazzle and glitter of
Oriental learning and civilization had shaken his faith and
diminished, if not destroyed, his respect for Christian institu-
tions, he made it his business to import the Oriental learning.
Oriental refinement, Oriental civilization, into the West ; and,
Bismarck-like, he saw that no means of spreading it would be
so powerful or so sure as to lay hold of some University, where
the flower of the next generation was being trained, and use
it as an instrument for the diffusion of his ideas. But the
great University of Paris was out of his reach ; Bologna had a
spirit of its own. The influence of Albert the Great was pro-
bably too strong at Cologne, and opposition would necessarily
have had to be encountered in any established University; so
the course adopted was to found a new one where the desired
tinge should from the very first be given to the teaching.
Frederick therefore united into one great University the
TJie Life and Labours of S. Thomas of Aquin, 441
schools which had always existed at Naples ; and compelled
students to resort thereto, where they were provided with
first-rate professors, endowed with many privileges, and
exempted from the jurisdiction of the ordinary tribunals. The
Emperor, with his court, among the members of which were
numbered the grandchildren of Averrhoes, whom he supported,
resided often in the neighbourhood. With the Emperor, or
teaching at the university, was the celebrated Michael Scott of
Balwearie, who was the first Occidental to write commentaries
on Aristotle, and to introduce in its fulness the Arabian philo-
sophy into the West. Not without its intellectual dangers,
therefore, was the University of Naples ; while as to the moral
character of the place, it was celetrated as being not only the
most beautiful, but also the most wicked city in the world.
Religious influences, however, were at work on the oppo-
site side, and each of the thj'ee great orders, of S. Francis,
S. Dominic, and S. Benedict, was striving by teaching and
example to put some restraint on the prevailing moral and
intellectual licence. The only really important facts known
about this part of the career of S. Thomas are that in the
critical age of youth, when impressions are readily received
and lastingly retained, he spent some years at a university
such as that of Naples then was ; and that there he entered
the order of S. Dominic. At Naples he came into close and
daily contact with the sources of the evils of the thirteenth
century. What he saw and heard may very probably have
suggested to him the idea of doing something to counterwork
the moral disorders, the intellectual confusion, the calamities
issuing from Arabism and Manichaeism, which were manifest
on every side.
The old age of the old world had wanted rest ; the youth of
the new world wanted activity, and the old principle of rest
had no attraction for it. When the fermentation of the new
life of modem Europe began in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries ; when philosophy, at first in a fragmentary manner,
afterwards more systematically, began to be applied to
theology ; when, on account of the crusades. East reacted on
West, and Arab clashed with European ; when Manichaean
heresies began to creep up the Danube, and, infecting
Southern France and Northern Italy, joined in troubling the
peace of the Church, — the old Monastic principle could not
keep up with the quickened stream, and lost its hold on the
world. The solitude was deserted for the city, the monastery
for the university. It might have seemed natural that under
these circumstances the secular clergy, who on the one hand
were dedicated to God, and on the other had of necessity to
442 The I/ife and Labours of 8. Thomas of Aquin,
mingle with the now rapidly changing worlds should have taken
up the reins which the older monasticism was showing itself
unable to retain. To a cectain extent they did so; but
unfortunately a notable part of them was by no means in a
condition to do anything of the kind^ being itself morally and
intellectually only on a level with, if not inferior to, those
among whom it had to minister. This constituted one of the
especial perils of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries : —
Godfrey of Troyes uses very strong language :— "Phinged in material
things, the priest troubles himself little about intellectual things. He differs
from the people in his dress, not in his spirit ; in appearance, not in reality.
He teaches in the pulpit that which he gives the lie to by his works. The
tongue, dress, and language give him a superficial varnish of religion ; and
within, under the skin of a sheep, are hidden hypocrites and ravening wolves.
Again, Elinand, who had had all the experience of a wild life himself,
says : — ... What is wanting to them more to make them look like liber-
tines, to bring shame on the order to which they belong ? All day long
they are looking out for a mirror : they walk about with a spotless dress, and
with a soul all soiled ; their fingers shine bright with rings, and their eyes with
the brightness of their smile. Their tonsure is so small that it looks less,
like the mark of a churchman than that of a venal body." . . . Then con-
cubinage was another evil which the Church was ever striving against in the
clergy, and which, together with pride, riches, simony, nepotism, and other
miseries, rendered the work of making head against the fierce sincerity of
heretics, who knew how to stain the minds of the people, and make the most
of the sins of priests, a very terrible task.
Still, it must not be unagined that there was not a large body of devoted
clergy and earnest men on the side of purity, truth, and order. The rust
had eaten into the clergy, but had not destroyed them. This state of things
gave a handle to the enemy, and called loudly for some organization which
could oppose the mighty evil in the Christian world. — " Life and Labours of
S. Thomas of Aquin," vol. L pp. 65-67.
By being mingled with the world, the salt instead of pre-
serving it had lost its savour. Equally with the monasticism of
the Benedictines, the presence of the secular clergy in the
centres of intellectual, social, and political activity was
showing itself insuCBcient to prevent the age from falling
away firom religion. But these two failures indicated what
must be done. The seculars had failed because their dis-
cipline and their organization were not firm enough, and their
training was not deep and solid enough, to keep them from being
corrupted by the world. The regulars had failed because they
had not come sufficiently into contact with the world and with
the ideas which were afloat in it j they had kept themselves
to themselves, and had consequently fallen behind. What
was wanted was to combine the training of the Benedictine
The Life and Labours of S. Thomas of Aquin. 443
and the contact of the secular clergy with the laity; and
this, with limitations necessarily arising from the nature of
the special objects which they had in view, was the aim of the
two new orders of S. Francis and S. Dominic. The idea of the
new monasticism was to begin by training the soldier of
Christ in the principles of the monastic life; to give him all
the helps that come of organization, intercommunion, and
mutual example ; to make him live in community and under
rule ; and to bring him forward, thus formed and protected,
to bear upon his fellow-soldiers in the world, and do his part,
according to the direction and the richness of his special gifts,
in acting, or assisting others to act, on the spirit of the age in
which he lived. The Order of S. Francis set itself to correct
the practical abuses of the age especially ; that of S. Dominic
applied itself more particularly to the correction of the errors
from which abuses had sprung, and of heresies which abuses
had encouraged. The preaching of the Franciscan was an
exhortation ; the preaching of the Dominican was an instruc-
tion : his purpose was to place the truths of faith and morals
in so clear a light as would make disbelief and disobedience
inexcusable. The Dominican led the schools, and shone in
the University ; the Franciscan went forth into the fields and
villages, and sought by his burning words to arouse the tepid
and convert the sinner. To the Dominicans the management
of the Inquisition was naturally committed ; and the heretics
with whom in the time of S. Thomas the Order had to deal
are thus described by our author : —
To this fever in the political world corresponded the religious aberrations
of men's imaginations. The Albigenses, whose suppression took at least
200 years, from Eugenius III. to Alexander IV., had grown into the propor-
tions of a Church when Innocent III. became Pope ; and had spread from
the Danube to the Pyrenees, and from Rome to England. . . . They believed
in two Gods, — a God of matter, filled with the most devilish malice ; and a
God of spirit, who was benign. Spirit was pure, matter essentially satanic.
. . . Christ was a creature — some held a myth ; all [all who did not believe
him to be a myth] agreed that he was born of an angel, without sex, and died
simply in appearance. The Old Testament was the Bible of the Devil,
S. John the Baptist au impostor, and the Church the instrument of hell for
the destruction of the elect. Sin consisted in defilement with matter. . . .
Then, there were the followers of Peter de Brays, the Henricians, whose
founder was condemned to perpetual imprisonment by the Council of Rheims
(1148) ; the Catharites, who spread from Italy into England ; the Ebionite
and Arian sects of the Circumcised of Lombardy ; the poor men of Lyons, who
rivalled the Albigenses in their satanic hatred of the hierarchical order of the
Church ; and endless risings of maddened and infuriated men, thirsting for
pillage and destruction, who threatened by their theory and practice to overset
444 The Life and Labours of 8. Thomas ofAguin.
the foundations of supernatural religion, and those first principles by which
Christian society is bound together. The Trinity, the Incarnation, the Church
itself, the priesthood, and the sacraments, the laws of social life, of marriage,
of property, of authority, of the civil order, all, indiscriminately, became the
objects of their fierce attack and devilish hatred. Their principles spread
throughout Italy, Spain, Germany, and France. The Brothers and Sisters of
the Free Spirit, who careered from place to place, clothed like maniacs, and
yelling for bread, partook of the common intoxication. Their immoralities,
their blasphemy, their inversion of the commonest laws of nature, their
obscene practices, besotted with impurity, show to what an excess human
nature can be carried, when no longer subject to supernatural control — "Life
and Labours of S. Thomas of Aquin,*' vol. i. pp. 62-64.
•
The contrast between the two Orders will of itself show to
which of them the young Count of Aquino must have been
strongly drawn. While attending the University, he was of
necessity brought into contact with members of both; and
both were in their first fervour, and attracting a good deal of
attention. The Dominicans, who, as a rule, were of higher
birth and better education, were, however, the more flourish-
ing at Naples ; and to the Franciscans had been assigned by
their founder a role which did not so well consist with hia
reflective and studious disposition. The wickedness of the
great city made him tremble ; and if the errors of the day,
nowhere seen more clearly than at Naples, made him long to
do something to counteract them, the thought must have
crossed his mind that nowhere would he have better oppor-
tunities of doing so than as a member of that Order which
had been specially raised up against them. He was full of
youth and life, and shrank from passing his days in a retire-
ment such as that of the earlier Benedictines ; and yet he had
been educated in a monastery, and loved the thoughtfulness
and reverence, the peace and discipline, of a religious house.
Nor is there any contradiction in this. The activity which
was in him was not that of the missionary, but that of the
thinker. The highest and healthiest intellectual activity
is attained only where there is on the one hand regularity and
absence of distractions, and on the other the stimulus which
comes of friction with other minds. Both these he would have
as a Dominican. The great corruption of the secular clergy,
and the connection between moral and intellectual error on the
one hand, and between holiness of life and clearness and
steadiness of insight on the other, must have made the severer
discipline and stricter self-denial of the Mendicant Orders
appear not an impediment to him, but an advantage. The
Christian religion is a moral and spiritual subject, and can be
profitably treated only by a moral and spiritual mind.
The Life and Labours of S, Thomas of Aquin. 445
At Naples, then, S. Thomas was often seen in the church of
S. Dominic. The Dominican fathers watched and noticed him.
He became a Dominican, and his doing so was the turning
point of his life. For thus he at last found the intellectual
atmosphere he needed, and was put on the way for the
accomplishment of his destiny.
The troubles which " followed his reception into the Order
gave him an opportunity of exhibiting that firmness without
which the most pre-eminent intellect can accomplish nothing
that is really great. These troubles arose from the designs of
his family in his regard. Their idea in sending him to Monte
Cassino had been that he should become abbot in after years,
and by the influence he would thus possess add to their power
and prestige ; and when they sent him to Naples, it was not
that they had given up this plan of theirs, but that they were
waiting for better times. When, therefore, he ruined their
projects by becoming a Dominican, their indignation may
well be imagined. They imprisoned him in their castle of
Eocca Sicca, or at S. Giovanni, for about two years, without,
however, breaking his resolution; at the end of that time they
were obliged to release him, and he returned to his Order.
The indomitable resolution with which S. Thomas clung to
his resolve through the petty persecutions of these two long
years of solitude, and afterwards in presence of the most
weighty influences, cannot sufficiently be admired. The same
firmness and perseverance, exhibited by him in the intellectual
undertakings of his after-life, was a principal source of his
success. Ji\ indeed, his history had come to a close here, it
might be possible for some one to say that his conduct for these
two years was simple obstinacy and wrongheadedness. But
judging this part of his life in the light shed on it by his sub-
sequent career, it is easily to be seen that his family would
simply have spoilt his life had they succeeded in their designs.
Judging it even as a mere man of the world would judge it,
the step which they so strenuously opposed was in fact the
very means by which the name of d^ Aquino was to be rendered
for ever famous. They had altogether mistaken the character
of Thomas. He had no taste for the politics and the intrigue
which accompanied the power of Monte Cassino. He was
thoroughly unsuited for the position into which they were
endeavouring to thrust him, and the state which, by force of a
natural gravitation of character, he had chosen for himself, was
just that which was fitted to bring out the peculiar excellences
which were in him. AJter this, however, they worried him no
longer. He appears now to have thrown himself with his
whole heart into the spirit and observances of the monastic life,
446 Tlic Life and Labours of S. Thomas of Aquin.
which was no doubt all the more endeared to him by the length
of time he had been looking forward to it and the di£S-
culties he had surmounted to gain it. And in this he never
relaxed. From this time, therefore, his biography oSera few
incidents of personal interest. His life was a quiet, even,
unbroken life of prayer and study, and afterwards of writing
and the discharge of professorial duties. His one idea seems
to have been to do what he could for God. Contact with
great minds kept him humble about his own. He was always
occupied, and spoke Uttle ; his recreation consisted in pacing
up and down a corridor. Above all, his . life was a life of
continuous and unremitting labour, of conscientious labour,
done as in the sight of God.
Other creatures all day long
Rove idle, unemployed.
Man hath his daily work of body, or mind.
Appointed, which declares his dignity,
And the regard of Heaven on idl his ways.
We have lingered so long over these early years of the life of
S. Thomas because they are the most important for obtaining
a knowledge of the influences by which his character was
formed. We have now to trace the further influence which
his being placed under Albert the Great exercised over him.
Wc have seen how natural it was that he should have been
sent to the Ghibelline University of Naples. It appears that
he there showed unequivocal tokens of intellectual excellence :
'' his renown,'^ says Malvenda, " spread through Naples and
all its schools.^* * During his stay he would go through the
ordinary curriculum of the Middle Ages, — ^the Trivium, con-
sisting of the arts,
Gramm. loquitur, Dia. verba docet, Rhet. verba colorat ;
and the Quadrivium, consisting of the sciences, the partes
or branches of real knowledge to which the artes were
introductory, —
Mus. canit, Ar. numerat, Geo. ponderat, Ast. colit astra.
Dialectics, which " taught words,^' was at this time princi-
pally occupied with the first book of Aristotle's " Organon,'' at
first known only indirectly through the treatise on the cate-
gories attributed to S. Augustine, and through other inter-
mediaries. Logic was regarded as constituted by grammar,
dialectics, and rhetoric ; and physics, ethics, and logic were
* " Life and Labours,'' vol. i p. 49.
The Life and Labours of S. Thomas of Aquin. 447
the three divisions of philosophy. It is not however unlikely
that, owing to the influence of Michael Scott, the works of
Aristotle were now better known at the University of Naples,
this knowledge being accompanied by a largeridea of philosophy
and the difi*usion of Arabo-peripatetic difllculties against the
Christian religion, to which no satisfactory answer had as yet
been found. Pietro Martini, professor of humanities and
rhetoric; Pietro di Hibernia, who lectured on philosophy;
and Erasmus, a Benedictine under whom he is said to have
studied theology there, are known to have had relations with
S. Thomas during his stay at Naples (1238 or 1239 to 1242 or
1243).* When, after his captivity, he was restored to the
Dominicans, his superiors, with that instinct in bringing out
their men which is one of the consequences of the organiza-
tion of religious communities, determined to devote him to
study. He probably had already some knowledge of philo-
sophy and perhaps some tincture of theology, and it was
determined to place him under Albert the Great, who,
himself a Dominican, was one of the most eminent theo-
logians of the day, had taken up the question of the relation
of the Arabo-peripatetic philosophy to Christianity, and
was then lecturing at Cologne, where the Dominicans had
for some years been established in the Stolkstrasse.f The
General of the Dominicans, who had to go to Cologne in con-
sequence of a General Chapter of the Order having to be held
there in the following year, and had also occasion to visit the
Dominican College of S. James in the University of Paris,
consequently took S. Thomas with him, first to Paris, then
to Cologne, where he left him with Albert, to go through the
four years^ course of study required by Dominican rule of those
who were intended afterwards to occupy the professorial chair
(1244). J Albert, however, was, next year, perhaps incon-
sequence of decisions come to at the General Chapter, sum-
moned to teach in the College of S. James ; there he probably
arrived in October, the month in which the '' schools'* and
colleges opened ; there S. Thomas accompanied him, and,
partly under him, partly under other masters, completed his
course at Paris (1245 — 1248). But the four years* course was
not the only preparation for the taking of the Doctor's degree
and the subsequent professoriate. Those meant for professors
had after it was finished to practise themselves in teaching by
reading in the schools, i.e., by lecturing on philosophy. Scrip-
ture, and theology, — not without control and supervision, but
♦ Vol i. p. 47. t Vol. L p. 311.
t Echard, Vita, p. x.
448 The Life and Labours of 8. Thomas of Aquin,
under the eye of a superior professor : this they did for four
or five years, being during that time called Lectores, Magistri
Secundarii, Magistri Htudentiiim, etc. The future professor
might then present himself as Bachelor to the University of
Paris, or to some other University, and commence the course of
study immediately preparatory to the taking of the Doctor's
degree. While S. Thomas was studying at Paris, the Order to
which he belonged was increasing in numbers and importance.
In 1248, in a General Chapter held there, it was accordingly
ruled that four new Dominican colleges should be founded,
and one of these was to be at Cologne, where, although the
Dominicans had had a convent, they had not previously had a
college aggregated to the University. This necessitated new
arrangements as to professors j one of which was that Albert had
to go to Cologne, to take the chair of theology there, organize
the studies, and be Begent. Thomas returned with him, and
was made Magister Studentium,* He continued to discharge
the duties of this office for nearly five years, when, according
to De Eubeis, in the Lent of 1253, both he and Albert went
again to Paris, Albert to teach in the schools, and he to go
through the course of study immediately preparatory to taking
his degree. How his future career was moulded by the in-
fluence of Albert we shall perceive as we come to see what the
character of Albert himself was. We must now speak of his
acquired qualifications for his future work.
In the first place, his training under Albert was a training
in Scripture and the Fathers. In the second place, it was a
training in Scholastic Theology. First of all then, let as take
his training in Holy Scripture. In order here to distinguish
what S. Thomas received from Albert from what he did for
himself, it would be necessary to compare the Commentaries
of Albert with the Commentaries which S. Thomas afterwards
wrote. This, however, our space forbids us to do. We must
therefore confine ourselves to laying before our readers a
couple of specimen passages from the Commentaries of the
latter, afterwards making some observations on them. The
first shall be taken from his Commentary on Isaias. On the
words, '^ trail sibit in pace " f he says : —
*' He shall pass in peace/' Note, upon the words ^^ he shall pass in peace,"
that Christ passed in peace. First, in the peace of the flesh with the spirit,
which He experienced : " knowing that thy tabernacle is in peace." Secondly,
in the peace of man towards his neighbour, which He taught : ** How beautiful
upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings and that
* *^ Life and Labours of S. Thomas of Aquin,'' voL i. p. 426.
t Isa. xli. 3.
The Life and Lahours of S. Thomas of Aqum. 449
preacheth peace U" Thirdly, in the peace of the world towards the Lord,
which He brought about : " Making peace, and reconciling both to God in one
body." — " Life and Labours of S. Thomas of Aquin," vol. ii. pp. 595-596.
The second passage shall be taken from his Commentary
on the words " I therefore, a prisoner in the Lord, beseech
you that you walk worthy of the vocation in which you are
called^' :*—
The Apostle had in what went before called to their remembrance the
divine fiivours by which the unity of the Church is constituted and preserved ;
here he admonishes them to remain in the unity of the Church. In regard
of which he does two things : for, firstly, he admonishes them to persevere
in this unity ; and, secondly, he instructs them how they are to do so, where
he says, "This then I say and testify in the Lord," &c. He moreover
divides the first part into two, for firstly he admonishes them to preserve
ecclesiastical unity ; and secondly he lays down the law of unity, where he
says, " One Lord, one faith," &c. The first of these two parts he again
divides into three. Firstly, he premises certain considerations to induce
them to preserve ecclesiastical unity ; secondly, he gives his admonition ;
thirdly, he explains what is the aim of the admonition, where he says, " careful
to keep the unity of spirit in the bond of peace." The considerations by
which he seeks to induce them to preserve ecclesiastical unity are three ;
firstly, the prompting of love : " I beseech you '^ ; secondly, the thought of his
bonds : " I, a prisoner " ; thirdly, the blessings God had given them : " the
vocation in which you are called." He hints that the very promptings o
love should make them give an ear to him, by his beseeching them. Inas-
umch as you have received so many favours from the Lord, he says, I beseech
you, I who could command you :— but through humility, I do not command,
but beseech you. " The poor shall speak with supplications." Besides, love
moves us more than fear. " Though I might have much confidence in Jesus
Christ to command thee that which is to the purpose, for charity's sake, I
rather beseech thee, thou being such a one, and I Paul the aged." He would
draw them by the remembrance of his bonds when he says, " I, a prisoner in
the Lord." By this for three reasons he would move them to keep unity.
Fir-stly, because a friend is drawn more to his friend when he is in affliction, and
endeavours in whatever he can to do his will, so that thus, if only thus, he
may console him. " A friend shall not be known in prosperity, and an enemy
shall not be hidden in adversity. In the prosperity of a man his enemies
are <;rieved," in his adversity his friend is known." Secondly, because it was
for them that the Apostle endured these bonds, and therefore he brings them
to their minds, desiring to lay them under an obligation to give heed to him.
" For whether we be in tribulation, it is for your exhortation and salvation, or
whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation, or whether we be exhorted,
it is for your exhortation and salvation, which worketh the enduring of the
same sufferings which we also suffer." Thirdly, because these tribulations
of his were their gloiy, as he had said in the third chapter : for that for their
* Eph. iv. 1.
VOL. XXI. — NO. XLii. [New Series.} 2 a
450 The Life and Labours of S, Tlionias of Aquin.
salvation Grod exposed His friends, and His elect, to tribulations, was a great
glory to them. And therefore he adds " in the Lord," that is, for the Lord's
sake. Or he says this because it was to the Apostle's gloiy that he was
bound not as a thief, nor as a manslayer, but as a Christian, and for the sake
of our Lord Jesus Christ, as it is said, " Behold, they shall put bonds upon
thee, and they shall bind thee with them." He persuades them by the
remembrance of God's favours to them when he says, "Walk worthily
of the vocation in which you are called." Look how high it is ; walk
agreeably to it. For if any one were called to a renowned kingdom, it would
be beneath him to do a countryman's work. You are called to bo " fellow
citizens with the Saints, and of the household of God " ; it is not fitting,
therefore, that your actions should be of the earth, or your minds be settled
on worldly things. Therefore he says — worthily : — " walk worthily, pleasing
God in all you do," — " let your conversation be worthy of the Gospel of
Christ." And why ? Because He called you out of the darkness into His
wonderful light. — " D. Thomse Aquinatis Commentarium in omnes D. Paull
Epistolas." Antverpioe, 1591, foL 163.
The first thing we would remark on this passage — which is
a fair sample of the Commentary- from which it is extracted —
is that from it we may gather what pains S. Thomas took with
Holy Scripture. His work, plainly, was not done off-hand
merely, or in passing ; he can have spared himself no trouble
to get to the full meaning of S. PauPs words, to throw himself
into the thoughts and feelings of the Apostle when writing
them. Again, we may notice what kind of associated ideas
the words of S. Paul suggest to his mind. They are associa-
tions full of religiousness and human sympathy ; and, like the
passage which we quoted above from his Commentary on
Isaias, show on what regions of thought his mind was ac-
customed to dwell in connection with Holy Scripture. His
Commentaries, though lengthy (as will have been gathered
from the last quotation, which is on a single verse, the rest of
his Commentary being much on the same scale), are lengthy
because he has much to say, and not because he dilates on
what he has to say. His matter, while abundant, is condensed ;
he says only what is sufficient to make his meaning understood,
and then passes on to the point next to be considered, leaving
the realization of the meaning to the thoughtfulness of the
reader. His power of illuminating Scripture by Scripture,
the richness of his application, and the facility with which
he brings texts to bear from all parts of the sacred volume,*
* " Life and Labours of S . Thomas of Aquin," vol. ii. p. 667. " S. Thomas
and Holy Scripture" is treated by Archbishop Yaughan in pp. 566-602,
and ** S. Thomas and Tradition," the subject we have next to consider, in
pp. 521-566 of his second volume. In the preceding pages, after an Intro-
The Life aiid Labours of 8. Thomas of Aquin. 451
are so remarkable as almost to justify the belief that he
knew the Bible by heart ; not less remarkable is the simple
and unaffected piety which runs through his expositions,
and is all the more telling because he never makes a parade
of religion any more than he . makes a parade of learning.
Wo may with every show of reason assume that the
general character of his Scripture lectures when Magister
Studentium was the same as that of the Commentaries which
he afterwards wrote ; and if so, coming as they did from one
who was known to be a learned man, a wise man, and a good
man, they could not have failed to produce a deep impression
on the young students who were his hearers.
At the same time it is to be remembered that S. Thomas
did not know Greek ; he knew a Greek word here and there,
and that was all. Nevertheless, one of the most eminent
English-speaking non- Catholic commentators of the present
day ranks him among the " most distinguished commentators,
ancient and modern,^'* and says of him that while ^^philo-
duction on " S. Thomas and the Fathers " in general (pp. 228-262), he draws
ont at great length comparisons between S. Thomas and S. Anthony (pp.
267-291), S. Athanasius (pp. 291-318), S. Basil (pp. 318-363), S. Gregory
Theologiis (pp. 363-372), S. Jerome (pp. 372-395), S. John Chrysostom
(pp. 396-423), S. Ambrose (pp. 427-443), S. Augustine (pp. 447-488), and
8. Gregory the Great (pp. 489-520). These sections contain a selection of
incidents from the lives of the above Fathers, whom Dr. Vaughan very
appropriateljr calls " the columnal Fathers of the Church " ; but while they
are interestmg as a series of essays, and although contrast brings out ch8^-
racter, they occupy rather too large a space in his book. The " columnal
Fathers," we may observe, are those whom S. Thomas more firequently
quotes and refers to.
After having treated of the relations of S. Thomas to the Fathers, Dr.
Vaughan |)roceeds to speak of his relations with the Greek philosophers.
" It is evident at a glance," he says (vol ii. p. 604), " that if the substance
of tlie Angclicars writinns be identical with the teaching of the Fathers, the
form is not so. The logical precision, the brevity, the scientific formality of
tlie Anr,^el of the Schools, were unknown to the more emotional and rhetorical
minds of the classic Doctors. If he gained so large a portion of his substance
from them, whence came so great a difference in his method ? " From the
fathers of Greek philosophy," he answers ; so after a short general introduction
on *' S. Thomas and the Greeks " (pp. 603-617), he proceeds to contrast him
Avith Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle (pp. 617-695), concluding this part of the
subject with a chapter on " S. Thomas and Reason" (pp. 697-746), in which
lie gives an outline of the use made of their philosophy by the Angelic
Doctor. His order is therefore here analogous to that which he employed in
speaking of S. Thomas and the Fathers. But it was not enough merely to
consider separately the use made by S. Thomas of Scripture, tradition, and
tlie metaphysical philosophy of his time ; it was requisite also to show how
he combined them. To do this is consequently the function of the concluding
chapter, *' S. Thomas and Faith," which closes with an account of the last
illness and death of S. Thomas.
* Moses Stuart, " Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans," p. 670.
2 G 2
452 Tke Life and Labours of S, Tlwmas of Aquin.
logical commentary is not to be expected from him,'' his
Commentary on the Bomans ^^ contains some very acute theo-
logical commentary/^ The manifold divisions and subdivisions
under which he treats the text will have been already noticed ;
they were probably intended as a help to clearness in teaching,
and to bring out the full meaning of the passage in hand, of
which he always endeavours to make as much as possible.
The knowledge possessed by S. Thomas of the Fathers was
quite exceptional, not only for his own age, in which their
writings were in manuscript, often difficult to get at, and
without indices, — but for any age whatever ; and although a
modern writer, with the assistance of indices and books of
reference and utilizing the labours of previous workers in the
same field, might heap together a larger number of quotations
from them on a given subject than the Saint could by any possi-
bility have done, his real mastery of the body of patristic litera-
ture has probably been surpassed by very few indeed. At the
same time, it is unnecessary to say that in his time there were
no schools of Patrology. Although, therefore, he sometimes
distinguishes the ground taken by one body of Fathers from
that occupied by another — as, for instance, the opinion of the
Latin from that of the Greek Fathers on the time of the
creation of the angels"**" — his general tendency is to mass the
Fathers together, without pausing to consider the position
occupied by this or that Father in the history of theology.f
* In the Opusculum de Angelis, cap. xxvii. — an obscure question, which
shows the minuteness of his knowledge.
t This was not because he was unacquainted with what has in our own day
been called the Theory of Development, for Albert, his master, had written : —
" The faith increases subjectively, both as regards the number of things
which are believed, and as regards the affection [of the will and disposition]
by which they are believed. As regards the things which are believed, it
increases from four causes : from revelation enlightenmg the mind from above,
from the explication of doctrine, from things foretold coming to pass, and
from study of the truth laying it open to the understanding. From revelar
tion : for he who receives fuller revelations sees the subject-matter
of faith more clearly, and perceives it better. From explication of doc-
trine : for, as we have said above, the articles of the faith are better under-
stood in proportion as more articles are expressly taught (exprimuntur),
or a single article is taught in a more explicit form (pluribus proprUta-
tibus expi-imitur). Thus the Holy Fathers in the Council of Nice ex-
pressed with greater definiteness the articles of the eternal generation of
the Son and the procession of the Holy Ghost, which the faithful consequently
understood better [than before], and were better able to guard against the
opinions of the heretics as to these articles. So also some Fathers have
taught more articles than others, and have taught some more explicitly than
others : they therefore had a better knowleage of the faith. Also when a
thing believed happens, our knowledge of the faith increases. And by study
also is laid open a way of understanding what is believed, inasmucn as, us
The Life and Labours of S. Tliomas of Aquin. 453
It is equally unnecessary to say that he was not a critic, to
decide what works were falsely attributed to particular Fathers,
what were their genuine productions : he accepted and used
as genuine those which passed as such among his contempo-
raries. But he lived at a period when the Fathers were more
studied by speculative theologians than they had previously been.
The publication of Peter the Lombard^s " Sentences ^' had
marked a new era in this particular. Albert, although his
labours had principally taken another direction, had also
studied the Fathers ; but Thomas went far beyond either Peter
or Albert, utilizing to the utmost the opportunities of con-
sulting the libraries of different monasteries which his frequent
journeys from place to place afforded him. His capacious
memory enabled him in this way to gain an extensive know-,
ledge of Patristic literature, as will be evident from the
following passage, from which it will be seen also that he did
not always write with the works from which he quoted before
him. The passage is taken from his Tractate against the
Greeks, and the Fathers referred to are mostly Greek
Fathers : —
It belongs to the said Pontiff to determine matters of faith, for Cyril says
in his " Treasures," — " As members let us abide in our head, the Apostolic
throne of the Roman Pontiffs, from whom it is our duty to inquire what we
ought to believe, and what we ought to hold." Maximus in a letter directed
to the Orientals also says, — " All the ends of the earth which sincerely receive
Christ the Lord, and the Catholics of the whole world who confess the true
faith, look upon the Church of the Romans as upon the sun, and receive
from her the light of the Catholic and Apostolic faith ; nor without reason,
for we read that Peter was the first to confess perfect faith, under divine reve-
lation when he said, " Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God." Hence the
Lord says to him, " I have prayed for thee, Peter, that thy faith fail not."
It is evident also that he is the Prelate of Patriarchs from what Cyril
says, namely, that it is " its place alone," — that is, the place of the apostolic
throne of the Roman Pontiffs, — "to reprehend, correct, decree, dissolve,
loosen, and bind, in the place of Him who built it up." And S. Chrysostom,
in his Connnentary on the Acts of the Apostles, says that "Peter is the most
holy summit of the blessed Apostolic throne, the good shepherd." Again ;
this is evident also from the authority of our Lord, saying, "And thou
being once converted, confirm thy brethren."* — " Life and Labours of S.
Thomas of Aquin," vol. iL pp. 789, 790.
Anselm says in the Proslogian, thought and meditation are handmaids of the
faith." (In 1. 3, d. 25, a. 1, § IMcendum.) Though known, the Development
theory was not very largely applied. Nor could it be largely applied, for
want of definite and exact knowledge of the History of Dogma.
* Opusculum Primum, Contra Errores Grsecorum, cc. Ixix, Ixx. The
second and third passages quoted are not to be found.
454 Tlie Life and Labours of S. Thomas of Aquin.
A stream of quotation runs through the whole Opiiseulum.
But his mastery of the writings of the Fathers is more
strikingly shown in the Catena Aurea, a commentary on the
Gospels of SS. Matthew and Luke, which is almost entirely
composed of passages from the Fathers. Of this work Dr.
Newman thus speaks : —
It is impossible to read the "Catena" of S. Thomas without being
struck with the masterly and architectonic skill with which it is put
together. A learning of the highest kind— not a mere literary book-
knowledge, which might have supplied the place of indexes and tables in
ages destitute of these helps, and when everything was to be read in un-
aminged and fragmentary MSS., — but a thorough acquaintance with the
whole range of ecclesiastical antiquity, so as to be able to bring the sub-
stance of all that had been written on any point to bear upon the text which
involved it, — a familiarity with the style of each writer, so as to compress
into a few words the pith of a whole page, and a power of clear and
orderly arrangement in this mass of knowledge, are quaUties which make
this Catena perhaps nearly perfect as a conspectus of patristic interpreta-
tion.— " Catena Aurea," vol. i. p. 1 ; preface, pp. 3, 4. Oxford, 1841.*
S. Thomas was a scholastic; but, remarks Archbishop
Vaughan very justly, ho was a scholastic who lived in the
company of the ancient saints. It has been said of a classical
education that it gives breadth to the mind by introducing it
to an order of ideas widely different from those of our own
age. If S. Thomas had not known the Fathers so intimately,
his mind would inevitably have been comparatively cramped.
But they not only enabled him to breathe an atmosphere
different from that in which his life had to be spent, but —
" Things near loom large '^ — by rendering him familiar with
the Christianity of all ages they helped to prevent him from
attaching an undue importance to his own age, and so helped
to prevent him from being carried away by the temporary
errors of the thirteenth century. We have seen what was the
spirit of his Biblical studies. From the use made by him of
the Fathers in his works, it is evident that he studied them,
not merely as many appear to do, for the sake of passages useful
in dogmatic controversies, but also for the sake of their moral
and spiritual teaching. His Biblical and patristic studies,
undertaken in such a spirit, confirmed in him a religiousness
of mind which saved him from being spoiled by the often
irreverent disputations of the schools. Again, his aim was to
oppose to systems of error a system of truth. But he was
not so misguided as to imagine that he could do so effectually
* Quoted by Abp. Vaughan, vol. ii. p. 235.
The Life and Labours of 8. Thomas of Aqxiin, 455
by adding to the systems already in existence yet another, the
offspring of his own subjectivity. The system he meant to
oppose to them was the Christianity of all ages. And there-
fore in Holy Scripture and in the writings of the Fathers and
of approved contemporary authors, in the decrees of Popes
and councils, in the discipline, ceremonial, liturgy, and in the
visible magistenum of the Church around him, he studied the
mind of the Church. Just as a Carlo Dolce, our author finely
says, would ponder over some beautiful face, photograph it
upon his imagination, and reproduce it upon his canvas, so
the Angelic Doctor spent his days in the study of the linea-
ments of the spotless bride of Christ, and to reproduce the
likeness of her beauty was the labour of his life.
The labour of his life, did we say? Not so. Great as
this labour was — great as it must have been in the Middle
Ages above all, — there was another and in many respects a still
greater labour which he had also to undertake. Not only had
he to make the mind of the Church his own and to reproduce
it in his writings, but he had also to reproduce it in a scientific
form. We must distinguish theology properly so called from
the subordinate branches of study which are often confounded
with it in this country, — from historical criticism, which seeks
to determine the age and authorship, and to ascertain the
correct text, of ancient works which have come down to us ;
from hermeneutical or exegetical science, which proceeds to
interpret their meaning; from ecclesiastical history, which
from the information thus obtained puts together the outward
history of the Church; from the history of dogmas, which
traces the history of her inner life; and from rehgious an-
tiquities, which shed light on the rest. Theology is the
science which throws into a scientific form, and subjects to a
scientific treatment, the subject-matter of faith, i.e., the sum
of the speculative, moral, and ascetical truths which are con-
tained in or connected with the Divine revelation. Taken in
conjunction with the visible magisterium of the Church, these
subordinate sciences — if sciences they can be called — enable
theology to perceive what the mind of the Church is, and at
the same time give her valuable side-lights for the treatment
of her proper subject. But they are not identical with
theology herself; they only supply premisses for her to work
on. Theology is in essence the application of reason to
religion. She analyzes, compares, and constructs. Re-
ceiving the deposit of faith from its divinely-appointed
guardian, she in the first place divides it into its component
parts, distinguishing doctrine from doctrine, disentangling the
elements of which the several doctrines themselves are com-
456 Tlie Life and Lahoura of 8. Thoniaa of Aquin.
posed, and expressing the results of the investigation in a
technical and therefore precise terminology. She compares
doctrines one with another, and by eflfect of this previoas
analysis is enabled to detect principles running through a
plurality of doctrines, and indicating the way in which they
are to be built up into a system. A system she therefore
completes her task by constructing ; for science is co-ordained
knowledge, and what is co-ordained is systematic.
From these considerations it is evident that without a Meta-
physical Philosophy a Theology is impossible. By Metaphysical
Philosophy we mean a reasoned knowledge of God, the soul,
and the world, concluded from premisses independent of
revelation. The knowledge which we have by revelation is
supplementary to that which without revelation we possess on
these subjects ; it fills up lacunce, and carries our conclusions
farther, but does not belong to an order altogether different.
The perfections of God, the existence and immortality of the
soul, good and evil, merit and demerit, the life to come, the
nature of a state of probation, the office of the body and of
external nature, are, like a multitude of other subjects,
possessed by Philosophy and Theology in common. The
difference between the two sciences is not like the difference
between Optics and Acoustics, that they treat of quite different
subjects; it is like the difference between an essay and a
treatise, that the latter tells us more about the same subject
than the former does. Thus Philosophy and Theology, to a
large extent, cover the same ground ; they are Hke two circles,
one larger than the other, but both drawn round the same
centre. A Theology essentially incomplete would not be
scientific. But, for the above reasons, a Theology essentially
complete must include Metaphysics, and could no more be
constructed without it than a treatise on Mathematics could
be written without using addition and subtraction. There are
also many other reasons. A true and scientifically worked-
out Metaphysical Philosophy would be in effect a first rude
sketch of a Theology — an imperfect outline, requiring only to
be filled in ; it would itself suggest in what way a theological
system should be constructed. Treating to a great extent of
the same subjects, it would give to Theology the outhnes of
a scientific terminology, and would show in what way the
analogous subjects, with which Theology alone could deal,
might be treated scientifically. Again, a theologian intending
to exhibit the connections of Christian doctrines would be
insane if he left out those connections of which natural reason
can take cognizance. And again, in the analysis of doctrines
we are continually being brought down to metaphysical ideas.
The Life and Labours of S. Thomas of Aquin, 457
and are therefore continually finding ourselves in need of a
Metaphysical Philosophy. In the doctrines of the Trinity, the
Incarnation, and the Eucharist, for instance, we cannot stir a
step without having recourse to the Metaphysical ideas of
substance or nature, person, and accident or attribute. In
order, therefore, to form a complete body of doctrine, it is
as necessary to supplement the knowledge we have from
revelation by the knowledge we have from reason, as it is to
supplement what we know from reason by what we know from
revelation. Theology stands to Metaphysics in the relation
of the greater to the less ; and without Metaphysics S. Thomas
would have been unable to form even a materially complete
corpus (lodrince. And even though he could have obtained
the greater part of his matter from Scripture, tradition, the
magisterium of the Church, and the other sources indicated
above, the scientific form into which it was to be cast, the
scientific method of treatment, and the elements of a scientific
terminology, could be obtained only from a Metaphysical
Philosophy, without which he would consequently have been
as one
Who cannot build, but only gather stones.
But a Metaphysical Philosophy did not lie ready to his hand.
The only Metaphysics which had any prestige in the thirteenth
century were the Metaphysics of Aristotle. But the Aristo-
telian or Peripatetic Philosophy was, in the first place, not
exempt in itself from dogmatic error; and in the second place,
it was introduced into Europe from Spain and from the East,
where it had been partly misinterpreted, and partly corrupted,
by the Arabian philosophers, who had thus made it considerably
worse than it was originally. Partly, therefore, in order to
refute them, and partly for the sake of a scientific Theology,
S. Thomas made an extensive study of the Peripatetic
Philosophy : —
He was profoundly convinced that no lasting work could be effected without
taking possession of the most sagacious and scientific thinker of antiquity.
He was well aware of the poisonous influences which had been brought into
the Paris University through Eastern commentaries and paraphrases of tho
works of Aristotle. Albertus Magnus had done much, but he had not done
everything. The Oriental mind, with its pantheistic tendencies, its sceptical
or rationalistic leanings, with its dreamings and dangerous ascetism, could
not thoroughly be confronted without striking at the very root from which
its errors chiefly sprang. As long as perilous tenets were brought forward
on the authority of the " Philosopher," it was excessively difficult to meet
them. ]N 0 writer could be cited on the other side who was equally revered ;
indeed, the very name of the master of Grecian thought was almost enough
458 The Life and Labours of S. Thomas of Aquin,
to secure respect for any doctrine, independent of its intrinsic conformity to
the principles of sound reason. The Angelical, with his keen intelligenoey
perceived at once that the authority of the Stagyrite was a power in itself
— that, with a certain alloy of error, there was a fund of truth in his philo-
sophy ; and that in reality not a few of the heresies attributed to him were in
reality fathered upon him through the unfairness, misconceptions, or the pre-
judice of Jewish or Oriental commentators. He saw distinctly that in more
points than can be mentioned, the points of difference between the Stagyrite
and the tradition of the Scriptures could, without much difficulty, if treated in
a conciliatory spirit, be harmonized ; and that if the tendency of the com-
mentator was to bring Greek Philosophy into unison with Catholic teaching,
and not to widen the breach as far as possible, then instead of the Stagyrite
being found to be an enemy to the doctrines of the Church, in many instances
he would show himself their invaluable champion. . . .
In his prison at S. Giovanni the Saint had not only read the Scriptures
and the Lombard, but he also earnestly applied himself to certain writings
of the Stagyrite. His vast and profound commentary on Aristotle's principal
works is but the full flower of that bud which germinated then. Perhaps,
in the whole range of the writings of the Angelical, these labours on the
Greek philosopher exhibit more brain power, more piercing vision, more
indefatigable industry, and more devotion to the one object of his life, than
all the others put together. There is no mental fatigue equal to that of
gra.sping and then expanding, of correcting and then harmonizmg, the
metaphysical or moral teachings of a really master-intellect. . . . His Chm-
7nentaria on the principal physical and metaphysical labours of the Stagyrite
All four volumes of the Parma edition, occupy about four thousand four hun-
dred pages, and in reality contain the subject-matter of the greater portion of
his smaller Opuscula and brochures.
In these four volumes the Angel of the Schools cuts the ground from
under the Eastern and Jewish commentators, and hands over Aristotle to
the uses of the schools, purified of Paganism, divested of Oriental colouring.
Christianized from end to end, and conveying the true meaning of the
author. — " Life and Labours of S. Thomas of Aquin," vol. ii. pp. 696-703,
It was in this that S. Thomas received most assistance from
Albert, who before him had written on the works of Aristotle,
and had been called an ape, a sorcerer, and an ass, for his
pains. Albert the Great was the first Catholic teacher who
introduced the Peripatetic Philosophy as a whole into the
Christian schools : —
He actually had the boldness to modify and mould Aristotle, by the right
of Christian principles, into a Christian form, to be set before Christian men,
as Christian philosophy. And what is more, he made use of the position he
occupied as public Professor of Theology and Philosophy to instil his novel
views into the minds of the rising generation. Never before this had
Aristotle been made the special subject-matter for lectures in the schools,
and never before had the disciples of any professor seen their master with
such fulness, depth, and comprehensiveness, build up so vast a system of
The Life and Labours of 8. Thomas of Aqutn. 459
harmonious tnith. Albert has, over and over, been accused of " introducing
the philosophy of Aristotle into the very sanctuary of Christ," of " allotting
to him the principal seat in the middle of Christ's temple " ; of being drunk
with the wine of secular science, human wisdom, and profane philosophy ; of
uniting contentious, thorny, and garrulous dialectics with most sacred and
most pure theology, and of teaching his followers a new and philosophic
method of explaining and teaching the Holy word.—" Life and Labours of
S. Thomas of Aquin,*' vol. i. p. 126.
It is worth our while to remember that the victory of the
Catholic Church over the Arabo-peripatetic errors of the
thirteenth century was the result of Catholic Theologians
having transformed their method of teaching, of their having
taken up and purified the partially erroneous philosophy which
was opposed to them, and suited their method and terminology
to the age in which they lived. It cannot be said that
S. Thomas had what is commonly called a creative mind,
except in so far as creatiou may be said to be involved in
systematization. A change of policy had become a necessity
of the time, and in this point of applying the Peripatetic
Philosophy to the teaching of the Church he did but carry out
with a surer hand the policy which his master had inaugurated.
He stood on Albert's shoulders, and completed his work, so
far as it was then possible to complete it. His principal phi-
losophical differences from Albert arise partly from this his
historical position, and partly from his having occupied himself
chiefly with Ibn-Roschd (Averrhoes), while Albert occupied
himself chiefly with Ibn-Sina (Avicenna). The idea of a
Summa was not original in him, for both Albert and Alexander
of Hales had written Summce, In the first volume of the
" Life and Labours '' a number of instances are given to show
the advance which S. Thomas had made on the teaching of
Peter the Lombard ; but on referring to Albert's Commentary
on the '^ Sentences,'^ the reader will find that in these advances
5. Thomas was to a great extent only following his old teacher
in Theology and Philosophy.* Ideas which to us seem original
in him often appear to be so only because he so excelled the
* For instance, Peter proposes the question, Utrum Christtu secundum
quod homo sit hoc aliquid ; the Nihilian alternative was taken by some,
J?. 1 homas rejects it ; but although to be rejected, the Lombard hesitates.
Albert, however, had already said of it "Haic opinio. . . jamnon est opinio,
sed error manifestus est, condemnatus per Alexandrum Papam " (in 3, d.
6, a. 3). Another instance is that S. Thomas corrects the Lombard for hold-
ing that the anima separata is a person. Albert had done the same thing
(in 3, d. 5). A third is that Peter had said that an excommunicated priest
cannot consecrate ; but here again Albert had anticipated S. Thomas, —
^' Baptizat hsereticus, et baptizatum est ; confirmat, et confirmatum est :
ergo etiam conficit, et oonfectum est. Quod autem inductiones yer» sint,
460 Tlie Life and Labours of 8. Thomas of Aqtdn,
writers from whom he took them that they have ceased to be
commonly studied.
Such were the natural and acquired qualifications of
S. Thomas of Aquin for the great work which has made his
name immortal for ever. He died at the Benedictine monastery
of Fossa Nuova, of what is described as a fever, in the year
1274, being then only a little past the prime of life. His life
was one of intense mental labour, as is attested by the bulk
and condensation of his writings. His theological works alono
would fill more than ten thousand pages of the Dublin Review.
He was, indeed, altogether immersed in study and meditation,
in writing and teaching. He was once asked what, of all
things in this life, would please him best. " Thoroughly to
understand what I read,^^ answered he.* When the General
of his Order took him to Paris, as they came to a part of the
road where for the first time they had a full view of the capital,
'^ What would you give. Brother Thomas,^' the General asked
him, " to be king of this city ?" '^ I would rather have
S. John Chrysostom^s treatise on S. Matthew^s Gospel," ho
replied, " than be king of the whole of France.'^ f Some
amusing anecdotes are told of his absence of mind. Once,
after he became famous, he was invited to the court of King
Louis of France ; he sat silently down to dinner, had a dis-
traction about some argument against the Manicheeans, forgot
where he was, and suddenly struck the table with his fist, and
broke out with *' Conclusum est contra ManicheBOS." Where-
upon the Prior, who was with him, gave him a good shaking,
and he came to himself, and begged the king's pardon. J On
another occasion, § the Papal Legate in the Italian kingdom
asked the Archbishop of Capua, who had been a disciple of
his, to arrange a meeting. This was accordingly done. S.
Thomas, who as usual was engaged on some train of thought,
came down from his cell ; but before he had got down, the
train of thought on which he had just before been occupied
resumed entire possession of his mind. He stood before his
guests utterly oblivious of their presence. Then a smile broke
over his face. '^ I have found what I was in search of,'^ he
exclaimed. The Cardinal Legate began to think that this
reputed wise man was a perfect simpleton. But the Archbishop
turned round and said, "Lord Cardinal, be not astonished;
he is often carried away like this." Then pulling the Saint
sharply by the cappa, he awoke him as if from sleep ; on which,
probatur 1, q. 1, per multa decreta " (in 4, d. 13, a. 20 ; so also Alexander,
p. 4, q. 10, m. 5, a, 1, §§ 4, 5 c). Cf. " Life and Labours," vol. i. pp. 534-554.
* Vol. ii. p. 537. t Vol. i. p. 119. J VoL ii. p. 425. § VoL iL p. 427.
The TAfe and Labours of S, Thomas of Aquin, 46 J
perceiving a Prince of the Churcli before him, the Angelical
made many apologies for his seeming want of courtesy. He
was of a retiring disposition, and liked to keep in the back-
ground ; whenever he was forced to come forward, an over-
whelming sense of responsibility seemed to weigh upon him.
Towards the end of his life Clement IV. conferred on him the
Archbishopric of Naples, but neither persuasions nor threats
would make him accept it ; so the bull had to be withdrawn,
and he was happy again.* When a student at Paris he was
often found praying in the church attached to the monastery,
after the others had gone to rest. When called on to take his
Doctor's degree, he did not wish to do so; and,t when it had
been finally determined that he should do so nevertheless, he
went down into the church, prostrated himself before the
altar, and wept like a little child, — and then he fell asleep, as he
had done after the agitation of mind produced in his imprison-
ment by temptation. As a Professor, he had the reputation
of being a Saint ; miracles were reported of him in Paris. As
a student, S. Augustine and Cassian were his favourite books
for spiritual reading, which he used to intermingle with his
studies lest they should dry up his devotion. It was said of
him that he found all his wisdom at the foot of his crucifix. It
was noticed that when he found himself in a theological
difficulty he betook himself to prayer for its solution. When
wo consider S. Thomas as a theologian, we must not forget
that he was a Saint ; nor must we forget that his being a
Saint helped him to be a theologian.
We shall conclude by quoting a passage which contains the
outcome of much that we have been saying in this article : —
Genius does much ; but genius without time, opportunity, and unweary-
incr industry, can do little lasting good. Many men who have possessed high
(lualities for speculation have had few opportunities for displaying them,
^lany—who would have left to posterity volumes of untold value, full of
trains of thought conceived with exact precision and worked out with
scientific accuracy — because they have been detained in active occupations,
have done little else than record, to the regret of those who came after them,
just sufficient evidence of their transcendent talent to make it clear, that, had
they only had the chance, they would have proved themselves mighty bene-
factors to the hu]uan race.
He then would be fairly considered the king of men, who, inheriting high
intellectual power combined with indomitable will, should be so fortunate as
to find both time and opportunity for bringing to perfection, in the first place,
his own intellectual and moral gifts ; and then, that scheme, or work, which
he proposes to himself as the one labour of his life.
* Vol. ii. p. 821. t Vol. ii. p. 91.
462 Marshal MacMahou's Government of France.
It is obviously quite possible that a man might possess both time and
ability, and yet lack the courage, generosity, or self-sacrifice reqoisite — ^first,
for initiating some great achievement, and then for carrying it into effect.
Many men who had been destined to do some master-work have failed through
sloth, cowardice, or want of perseverance, or through some other moral
imbecility. But with such as these we are not concerned at the present
moment. They are only brought forward to be dismissed. We have
nothing to do with clever cowards, or with the torpidity qf intellectaal
men. . . .
The Angelical selected his department of Church labour ; he forged the
weapons which other men have had to use ; he lived in the world of moral
and scientific thought ; he abode in his place ; he sold himself over, to labour
and to toil without respite in his grand vocation ; he had that courage,
generosity, and sacrifice, in an eminent degree, without which nothing last-
ing can be accomplished. There was no sloth, cowardice, or want of per-
severance, in the Angel of the Schools. He possessed time and opportunities
such as no Doctor of the Universal Church was ever able to command, and
he carried out a giant task such as not one of the columnal Fathers can be
said even to have attempted. — " Life and Labours of S. Thomas of Aquin,"
vol. ii. pp. 131-133, and p. 211.
Art. VIL— marshal MACMAHON'S GOVERNMENT
OF FRANCE.
Correspondance de M. le Comte de Chamhord, Bruxelles : Decq. 1860.
Reflections on the Eevolution in France. By the Right Hon. Edmund
Burke. London : Rivingtons.
Vues sur le Govemement de la France, ouvrage inddit du Due de Broglie,
Public par son fils. Paris : L^vy. 1870.
AN Irish pilgrim, who visited Paris in the month of August,
when he was asked what he thought of the state of affairs,
replied that he had found the potatoes uncommonly good — a sign,
to his simple mind, that the stars in their courses favoured an Irish
President. Without sharing the fetish of the Celt, it may at
least be said, that the Government of Marshal MacMahon has
already deserved well of France and of the world. Certainly to any
one who has watched the vibrations of that country's feelings and
fortunes since the fall of Napoleon the Third, the change since
last May in the etat des esprits and in the state of things presents
certain phenomena little short of miraculous. Order prevails in
the capital and throughout the departments. Religion enjoys
almost absolute freedom. Men of good will recover the courage
Marshal MacMahou's Ooverntnent of France. 463
of their convictions. The enemies of God and man are stupefied
and bewildered. The spirit of the Revolution is being effectually
quashed, after the third Empire, by the third Republic previous to
the third Restoration. The House of France is one, and, with
God's lielp, henceforth indivisible. There is perfect liberty to do all
tilings whatsoever that are lawful ; and all men know that should
the law be assailed, the sword will not fail to smite. A new army is
being formed of the same character as its chief, simple, pious, and
heroic, in which, as in a microcosm, France, in all its ranks, is
represented ; and which will not soon forget the stain, deeper far
than that of Sedan, which the mob of Paris inflicted upon its flag
in the presence of the German enemy. The last franc has been
paid ; the soil of France no longer feels the Prussian heel. The
public credit never stood higher. The Funds rise steadily. Trade
expands. French industry has had a manifold triumph over all
Europe at Vienna. The year's harvest is not so abundant as the
last, but its default does not prevent the people at large from
enjoying present (may it be perpetual !) prosperity and peace.
France is a country in which, for nearly a century, the spirit of
ridicule has been hardly less potent than the spirit of the revolu-
tion. The French temper is peculiarly susceptible to the influence
of ridicule ; and from the days of Voltaire the Catholic religion in
France has been the special and principal subject and object of
ridicule. It is one of the strongest signs of a deep and common
cliange in the minds of men that the function of ridicule is at
l)resent rather addressed to the revolutionary than to the religioua
idea. An utter stranger to the country who happened to traverse
France in the month of August would inevitably have been led to
conclude that it was the most simply pious of Catholic countries.
The whole population seemed to be moving in pilgrimage. In
England much was heard of Paray-le-Monial ; but in France
Paray-lc-Monial is only one of at least a liundred places of pil-
grimage. Between Notre Dame de Boulogne in the north, and
Notre Dame de la Garde in the south, between Mont St. Michel out
in the sea in the west, and Einsiedlen up in the Alps in the
east, a continual stream of pilgrims, counting by the thousand, often
embracing the men, women, and children of whole parishes, tra-
versed day by day, with holy song and penitential prayer, the ancient
ways that lead to the shrines, where the saints of France of old
raised the rooftrees of its faith. A pilgrimage, individually con-
sidered, is, it may be submitted, an act of robust faith and deter-
mined piety. It costs time and trouble. It associates poor and
rich together on terms that irk pride. It presents aspects that
yield whet and scope to ridicule. This year it is no exaggera-
tion to say thousands of men made pilgrimages in France who,
four years ago, would as soon, or sooner, have volunteered on a
464 Marshal MacMahon^s Ooveniment of Frmice,
forlorn hope. The public mind of France was so much impressed
by the depth, extent, and sincerity of the movement, that aftempts
to ridicule it simply recoiled. A band of English pilgrims with
a banner of the Sacred Heart and a Union Jack, and the Scotch
Lion ramping in his field of gold, would but lately, in passing
through French streets, have been aware that they chafed the
levity and taxed the courtesy of the crowd. It is so no longer.
The French spirit has been chastened by their great humiliation.
Reverence resumes its normal place in their nature. Yet ridicule
will have its outlet, for after all man must laugh. If after a pro-
cession of pilgrims, another sort of procession, not infrequent two
or three years ago, should nowadays pass through a French street,
a crowd of workmen and students, attended by the usual train of
the class that are called " declassed " in France, with some black-
leg barrister or rapscallion writer of the Red Republican press at its
head, and a red flag, or for that matter a red^ white, Tind blue one,
borne before it, roaring with all its raucous lungs the " Marseil-
laise/' or '^Mourirpour la Fatrie* — then assuredly the same crowd
of spectators who had with bare head and reverent aspect watched
the one procession, would not fail to salute the other with a sibilant
buzz of laughter, and curiously complex movements of grimace. It
maybe fairly said, all wise Frenchmen now feel that the Revolution of
the 4th of September, terrible in its immediate consequences, is simply
ridiculous in its eflfective results. Ridiculous is the very name and
aspect of this French Republic, which is not so much a Republic
without republicans, as a monarchy awaiting its Monarch, and
which, meantime has an Irish Duke for President, and an Italian
Duke for Prime Minister. Ridiculous are all its outward and visible
signs and symbols ; its absurd street nomenclature, its vulgar lines
of black paint drawn across splendid palaces and venerable
churches, Liberie , Egalite^ Fraternite, Propriete Nationale, as if
the edifices of the Church and the Monarchy had fallen into the
hands of a gang of bailiffs and tipstafis, and were only awaiting auc-
tion, like the Prince's tojs and the Empress's linen. Ridiculous its
most characteristic monument, its statue of Voltaire, set up almost
with words of worship on the eve of the siege, though Voltaire had
prophesied with chuckling delight that the Prussians would again
and again grind the French to powder, and in the coat-skirt of
which, by a stroke of infinitely fantastic irony, a Prussian bullet
found its billet three months afterwards. The Revolution of Sept. 4,
from its very commencement tended to make revolution itself
ridiculous, and so while the spirit of revolution is being gradually
exorcised in France by the spirit of religion, it is also being rapidly
evaporated by the spirit of ridicule.
Much of the profound respect that attends the acts of the public
authority in France at present, and of the growing confidence which
Marshal MacMahon's Government of France. 465
pervades the miads of men in that country, is due to the personal
character of Marshal MacMahon. It is unfortunately a very long
time since France has known what it is to be governed by an honest
man — a man who has accepted the supreme power simply because
it was his supreme duty so to do, and to whom the idea of prolong-
ing his own period of authority, or of using it for any personal or
dynastic purpose, would be not merely foreign, but abhorrent. France
has had within our own generation the government of Louis Phi-
lippe, and the government of Louis Napoleon ; it has been governed
by Lamartine, Gambetta, and Thiers, — governments very different
in kind and degree; but of none of which could it be said that they
possessed the cordial confidence of all the considerable ranks and
classes as well as of the masses of Frenchmen to the same extent
as that of Marshal MacMahon. Ireland owes much to France for
the chivalrous sympathy and pious hospitality afforded to her exiles
in evil days ; and the debt lias been acknowledged, wherever the
French flag had foes to meet, by many a gallant deed and death
of glory. But when the history of this age is at last really
written, it will, we venture to predict, be said that no nation
ever rendered to another in the civil order two sugh services as
Ireland lias rendered to France in the political philosophy of
Edmund Burke, and the provisional government of Patrick Mac-
Mahon. The one supplies its animating principles to the policy of a
rising generation of her statesmen, who have at last, through
terrible calamities, learned that Revolution is in their country
only another name for moral, social, and national ruin. The
other, her present Government, enables her, without surprise, with-
out violence, by the exercise of her own dearly-bought wisdom and
uncoerced free will, to decide what shall be her future form.
Exactly eighty-four years ago, at the very commencement of the
French Revolution, Mr. Burke wrote to a French friend, then full
of sanguine ardour, " Your settlement may be at hand, but .that it
is still at some distance is more likely. The French may have yet
to go through more transmigrations. They may pass, as one of our
poets says, ' through many varieties of untried being,' before their
state obtains its final form.'' They have, since these words were
written, lived under fifteen different political constitutions, and as
yet the final form is not. Advising his friend as to how he should
control and conduct himself in the evil days ahead, Mr. Burke put
this maxim in the first line, " Never wholly separate in your mind
the merits of any political question from the men who are con-
cerned in it. You will be told that if a measure is good what have
you to do with the characters and views of those who bring it
forward. But designing men never separate their plans from
their interests ; and if you assist them in their schemes, you will
find the pretended good in the end thrown aside or perverted,
VOL. xxi.-- NO. XLii. [Nevj Series.'] 2 h
466 Marshal MacMahoro's Oovemment of Fra/nce.
and the interested object alone compassed, and that perhaps
through your means. The power of bad men is no indifferent
thing." Of all the evils that France has endured during these
eighty-four years has there been any to be compared with that of
having the elaborately tyrannical system of administration formed
during the first Revolution placed under the control of bad men ?
And how seldom, in all these years, from the days of the Mirabeaus
and Marats to the days of the Mornys and Favres, has it been in
the hands of good men ! Hence the calm, sudden and profound,
which followed the announcement in May last that, in a moment
of courage and wisdom, the National Assembly had vested the
chief executive authority in the hands of a man brave as Bayard,
and good as Du Guesclin.
In many respects the authority which attaches to Marshal Mac-
Mahon's name in France resembles that which belonged to the
Duke of Wellington in England — " the good grey head which all
men knew ;" " the voice from which their omens all men drew ;"
'* the iron nerve to true occasion true/' Nor less " the tower of
strength that stood four-square to all the winds that blew." He
is the one man in France in whom all honest men, of whatever
opinion, can trust, and from whom they can all feel that they are
sure of just consideration and control. He is, strangely enough,
of all, yet independent of all. An Irishman of ancient blood, he
is not less proud of his pedigree, which runs back in a direct line
to King Bryan, who broke the Danish power in Western
Europe, than he is of his dukedom or his baton. His family
is Legitimist, holding the rank of marquis from the monarchy,
and is connected • with the great ancient houses of Chimay and
Caraman. His father was the intimate friend of Charles X.,
and he entered the army and fought his first campaign under
the white flag. He was the comrade of the Orleans princes in
the wars of Africa, and rose to the rank of general by their side.
The Empire made him duke, marshal of France, and governor-
general of Algeria. The pact of Bordeaux made him commander-
in-chief. The City saluted his accession to power by sending the
funds up 3. The Church knows that he is a good Catholic — pious,
simple, and humble. He is yet so truly the man of the people, and
the hero of the democracy, that when named President of the
Republic, there were found only two members of the Assembly out
of 892 who dared to vote against him. This popularity is so
peculiar, so different from what French popularity has in general
hitherto been, that one is tempted rather to regard it as a gift of
Providence than an effect or example of la gloire. Certainly Mac-
Mahon has never shown the slightest respect to that great Demo-
gorgott, the mob of Paris. When it was necessary to reconquer
the capital from the Commune, he directed the necessary proceed-
Marshal MacMahon's Oovemment of France. 467
ings with an unrelenting energy that never hesitated or halted until
the last spark of resistance was extinguished in blood. Fifteen thou-
sand dead men went underground in consequence of that momentous
operation. Belleville thinks all the better of him for it. When
in June '48 General Cavaignac was obliged, in somewhat similar,
though not by any means so serious circumstances, to dose the Fau-
bourg St. Antoine rather severely with grape-shot, his popularity so
utterly vanished that the Reds, as a rule, voted for Prince Louis Na-
poleon at the ensuing Presidential election instead. The comparison
is curious and interesting, if not instructive. The disaster of Sedan
would have ruined any other reputation in popular estimation, for,
after all, it was infinitely more humiliating to military pride than
Waterloo ; and the circumstances which influenced the Marshal's
strategy during that last ten days of that unhappy August were
so complicated that it will probably be a favourite study for
military critics fifty years hence. Marshal Moltke has already
borne testimony, beyond suspicion, to the splendid generalship
which guided the French retreat after the disastrous defeat of
Woerth, but history has much yet to say on the events that fol-
lowed. The popular belief in France at the time was that the
Emperor was the real cause of the inglorious ruin of the one army
France had in the field. MacMahon took the first opportunity
that offered of exonerating the Emperor, and assuming the absolute
responsibility of all that followed his assumption of the chief com-
mand. His military honour has sustained no stain. If Sedan had
been a glorious victory, he could not be more truly regarded to-day
as the first of French soldiers. Whether he is a great strategist
remains to be proved ; and, unhappily for mankind, the proof may
not be far distant ; but certainly no great officer, not even Ney,
has for centuries established such a character for heroic valour.
Forty years ago, the Arabs knew him as the Invulnerable, and the
God of Fire. He it was who, on each occasion, first of the storm-
ing column, with his own hand planted the flag of France in the
breach of Constantine and on the top of Malakoff. Courage is one
of the greatest gifts that a ruler of men, and especially of
French men, can possess. Every government that has gone
down before the Revolution in France, has first failed in the
personal courage of the depositories of authority for the time
being. Louis XVIII. fled ; Charles X. fled ; Louis Philippe
fled. It was generally — most unjustly in our belief — supposed
that Louis Napoleon's personal courage was not of perfect proof,
and that he too would, if confronted by direct danger, not die
at the foot of his throne, if a convenient disguise and way of escape
were open ; but in the ranks of the Marianne or Internationale there
is not one fool so besotted as to believe that MacMahon will
abandon the post in which France has stationed him, while there is
2 H 2
468 Marshal MacMahon^s Government of France,
an ounce of powder or an inch of steel available. Thus its sense of
the courage of one man is the source of confidence and self-control
to a nation which has been again and again exposed to ruin by the
contagion of terror radiating from the centre of authority.
To have a brave and good man at the head of affairs in the period
of transition through which France is passing is a great blessing.
It is something also to acquire the conviction, as we do from day to
day, that the cause of Republicanism in France is the cause of
senility on the one hand and the mob on the other. The men of
mark on the Republican side in the Assembly, with the exception
of M. Gambetta, are as old as the Prussian generals. M. Thiers, and
the leading members of M. Thiers' ministry, were septuagenarians.
The men who may be regarded as irrecoverably doctrinaires of that
political faith, are men of an antiquated if not obsolete air. The natural
tendency of the rising political genius of France, on the other hand,
is to assimilate and act upon the principles of Mr. Burke and Count
de Maistre, and to restore the hereditary and moderate monarchy of
the house of Bourbon. The Due deBroglie, Ducd'Audifiret Pasquier,
M. Ernoul, M. Duval, M. Keller, M. Batbie, the true celebrities,
authorities, and leaders of the Assembly, are comparatively young
men. The men who have the future of France in their hands are
men of faith in religion and order, and men of approved consistency
in their convictions. What can be more miserably inconsistent on
the other hand than the attitude of a venerable statesman like M.
Thiers, long trusted implicitly by the Assembly, because of his con-
nection with the cause of Constitutional Monarchy; because, again,
he was supposed, as he grew older, to have become more and more Con-
servative in his convictions ; because, in the Corps L^gislatif especi-
ally he had wrung from M. Rouher the famous cry of Jamais ! and
compelled the Emperor to send de Failly's chassepots to Mentana ;
because, finally, at the date of the pact of Bordeaux he had denounced
Gambetta as unfoufurieux, — ^what can be more inconsistent than
to find him now looking out for his deathbed in that Brummagem
Mirabeau's new couches sociales ? Even after he had renounced every
opinion, and played fast and loose with every principle that had
commended him to their confidence, that Assembly, mindful of his
great services, his marvellous powers, and his venerable age, bore
with him long, bore with him until he had threatened to resign once
too often, until France had got as weary of his unquiet ways as
England is of Lord Russell's. Then the dignity of a sovereign
Parliament duly asserted itself. The old man was quietly deposed —
let down as if through a trap door. France breathed freely ; the
funds went up. And even M. Gambetta exclaimed cest bien fait.
Among the present ministers of France, there is one to whom the
downfall of M. Thiers is chiefly due, and whose position is other-
wise weighted with a peculiarly arduous and serious responsibility.
Marshal MacMalion's Government of France, 469
There is no statesman in Europe, not Prince von Bismarck himself,
who occupies so important and influential a position, none on whose
wisdom, courage, energy, and tact so much, humanly speaking,
depends, as the Due de Broglie. To him was universally ascribed
tlie honour of having so reconciled and organized the various sections
of the majority before the truly historic night of the 24th of May,
that the deposition of M. Thiers from power, which had been re-
garded as certain to produce a collapse of confidence and credit, if not
an outbreak of civil war in France, passed as tranquilly as the annual
change of the Lord Mayor at Guildhall. The Due de Broglie has
hitherto proved himself not unequal to the weighty task which then
devolved upon him. The Assembly under his impulse passed with'
out serious debate a measure of army organization in which the ma-
tured military experience of the President replaced the pedantic
crotchets of M. Thiers ; and which is rapidly producing the greatest
and the most solidly composed army France has ever had. Scientific
soldiers who have studied that measure confidently predict that after
four years of steady progress on its lines there will not be in Europe
such an army as the French. In fiscal legislation, again^ the same
sagacious impulse led the Assembly quietly to retrace or undo
the reactionary Protectionist measures of M. Thiers. The effect
has already beneficially told on the finances of France. The
management of the Duke's own particular department, the
Foreign Office, has been equally able. The relations of France
with all other powers are excellent. Never were the great
diplomatic posts occupied by men who so unite adequate capacity
to personal eminence of character. The great historic names of
France are again to be found representing their country in every
European court, and are quietly asserting or winning for it an
influence, to which the contrast between their character and that
of the Persignys and Fleurys considerably contributes. During
the recess, M. de Broglie has spoken several times on behalf of the
Government, in words with which we should not always agree to the
syllable, but which in their essence have had an evidently profound
efiect on opinion. The test to which the talent of the present
Premier of France has been so suddenly subjected was, withal,
surely of the severest. The Due de Broglie is now between fifty
and sixty years of age. During the years of man's life in which
the arts of office and the power of guiding assemblies are naturally
acquired, he was condemned by the existence of the Empire to
live in retreat. The master study of history, which excuses, if it
does not involve, all other studies, had an early fascination and an
absorbing hold upon his mind. He seemed to have forgotten the
Empire of the Napoleons in tracing the great moral and physical
causes which sapped and demolished that of the Caesars. The
impression which Prince Albert de Broglie, as he then was, made
470 Marshal MacMahon^s Oovemment ofFrcmee.
on a stranger, who met him now and then in a French salon ten
years ago, was that of one in whom the dignity of the noble and
the culture of the scholar were blended in a character so coloured
by a certain austere melancholy, that if in later years he had sought
retreat for life in the studious habit of S. Benedict there woxdd
not have been much cause for surprise. Much more likely did it
seem, then, that any sudden change in the Government of France
would have made M. de Montalembert sovereign lord of the Parlia-
mentary tribune, or called the masterly tact and temper, and the
capital administrative talent of M. Cochin to the Ministry of the
Interior. Alas, how often, since the ever-weighty, never-ceasing and
unrelieved cares of Government have devolved upon his head, must
M. de Broglie have lamented the loss to his country and the loss
especially to him in his tremendous task, of the bold, buoyant,
generous, and commanding genius of the one friend, and the con-
ciliatory spirit, eager industry, and broad common sense of the
other. Differing as we did from them on questions now for ever
happily settled, we always bitterly lamented the loss to France and
the Church under the ban of the Empire of their eminent civil
courage and their versatile and vigorous political talents.
The day of Sedan abruptly, but completely and absolutely,
changed M. de Broglic's whole career. The one recluse of that
great Italian family, which had in every generation since it first
adopted France for its home, given either a marshal or an ambas-
sador, or a minister to illustrate the annals of Europe, was sud-
denly summoned from his library to greater charges than any of
his ancestors had undertaken — to be Prime Minister, with powers
larger than M. Guizot had in the Monarchy of 1830, or M.
Rouher in the Empire ; and under the absurd aegis of an institution,
calling itself a Republic, to take the principal part in closing the
era of revolution, and founding a government for France. Arduous
the task, immortal fame and benedictions should he succeed, the
most calamitous and lamentable of failures should he want — which
Heaven forbid ! — the wise inspiration, strong will, and good luck
that his fate demands of him forthwith. Hitherto under his
guidance the ship of the State has seemed to glide ** o'er the smooth
surface of a summer sea," but the hour is at hand when it may
have again to struggle with uncertain winds and restless waters,
unknowing the moment when, as in the grim pool of Corryvriekan,
the very waves may seem to fall asunder, and the nether pit to
yawn beneath fifty fathoms of boiling surge.
Assuredly the instrument with which the Due de Broglie is called
upon to govern and to found a government for France, is apparently
the most difficult to comprehend and control of all the deUberative
Assemblies that ever existed. English critics judee it and the
government which is its organ by the rules which apj^y to our Par-
Marshal MacMaJum^a Oovemment of France. 471
liamentary system. But the National Assembly of France is not a
House of Commons, subject to the check and control of two co-ordi-
nate branches of the legislature, and liable in case of disagreement
with them to be dissolved. It is a Sovereign Constituent Assembly,
especially elected to do three things, — to make peace, to secure tne
evacuation of French territory by the enemy, and to frame a political
Constitution for France. It can only dissolve itself, and neither a
majority of itself nor a majority of France wishes it to dissolve. If
Barodet and Kane were elected in every still vacant constitueney,
so much the more reason why the Assembly should calmly c<m-
tinue its work and not dissolve until that work be done. It
has proceeded to discharge its three duties in their order, wisely as
we hold, but certainly contrary to the general expectation of English
opinion at the time that it was convoked. If the English
journalists who are now so wroth with the Assembly for proceeding
to restore Monarchy in France by a mere majority will only
revert to their own columns in Januanr and February, 1871, they
will find that it was then their confident expectation that the
monarchical majority woxdd at once exercise its right, and establish
some sort of throne forthwith. It was quite as much a question of a
mere majority then as now. But the Monarchical party of France
was then a divided party. The Count de Paris was not yet recog-
nized as Dauphin. The Emperor Napoleon still lived ; and the Im-
perial constitution, it is well to remember, had recently been ratified
by five or six millions of votes. The Monarchical Party was
moreover a deluded party. It gave its whole confidence to M. Thiers.
It no more believed in his turning Republican than in his tiuming
Trappist. The Monarchical Party, moreover, felt that, especially after
the act of indecent bravado by which the King of Prussia assumed
the Imperial Crown of Germany in the Throne-room of the Palace
of the Kings of France, it would ill beseem a descendant of St.
Louis to resume his crown while a German soldier stood on French
soil. The partisans and sympathizers of the Brcpublican Par^, who
now protest that the Assembly has no right to ^ve a definitive
government to France, will do well to remember with what ener^
and industry they employed the interval of time which elapsed in
endeavouring to cozen or coerce the majority to rec<^ize the
Eepublic. Had M. Thiers succeeded in carrying a Republican
Constitution through the Assembly by but six votes six months ago,
who of all the objectors of to-day would have doubted the Assembly's
absolute constitutional powers ? But, it is argued, there have beenfour
Republican elections within the last month, and therefore the mind
of France is now really Republican. Elections are not always a certain
index of public opinion. In England lately there was a succession
of elections all of a Conservative character so unbroken, so curious
considering some of the localities, that a general belief b^an to
472 Marshal MacMahon^s Government of France.
spread in what is called " Conservative reaction." Mr. Disraeli
was tempted to write a letter congratulating the ballot-boxes of
Bath beforehand^ and there was an immediate end of the Con-
servative reaction. In Ireland there will, it is said, be 70 or 80
Home Eulers elected at the next general election. There was a
Fenian convict elected in one of the greatest of the county con-
stituencies of that country three years ago. There will probably
be five or six Fenian convicts elected in the great cities and counties
of the South next year. The Irish always expect to get the benefit
of the peculiar logic of which English public opinion is so profuse
in regard to foreign national and revolutionary movements ; and it
will be a sorry answer to give them in such an event that they must
submit, when there is question of constitution and general govern-
ment, to a majority of English and Scotch members. In France
the majority are, after all, French. In France, moreover, a
minority is not like Her Majesty's Opposition. It becomes con-
verted, coalesces, subsides, vanishes in ways to which our political
life affords no analogy. Last summer it was estimated that there
were 72 Radicals, 148 Republican Liberals, 87 Moderate Repub-
licans, and 34 Conservative Republicans — in all, 341 so-called
Republicans in the French National Assembly ; and on the other
hand, 278 general Monarchists, 45 absolute Legitimists, 28 Bona-
partists, and 39 Conservative Liberals — in all, 390 of the Royalist
party. The full number of 390, wliether so composed exactly
or not, we cannot say, voted for Marshal MacMahon's election.
The minority in that division, however, only numbered two. The
Opposition did not make one serious demonstration during the rest
of the session ; and the latest reliable calculation we have seen
estimates the present number of votes certain to be given for the
restoration of the Monarchy at 420. It is, probably, an under-
estimate. Among the Moderate Republicans and Conservative
Republicans there are, we do not doubt, very many honourable
gentlemen who became Republicans partly because they believed
that M. Thiers was the man of the situation, and partly because
tlicy were convinced that the Republic was the Government " which
least divided Frenchmen." But M. Thiers is now simply deposed,
and disposed of. Of all possible eventualities, his resumption oif
supreme power is the least likely. There is only one Prince and
one J^arty among the Royalists. The Bonapartist leaders, in
desperation, have coalesced with the Left ; and whether they will
be able to carry their party with them remains to be seen. It
is a moment in which much depends on the firmness, patience,
rectitude, and good sense of the Ministers of France ; and in which
the less finesse and artifice there are in their policy the better.
'^ Every politician," says Mr. Burke, '* ought to sacrifice to the
graces, and to join compliance with reason. But in such an under-
Marshal MacMahon's Govei^iunent of France, 473
taking as that in France, all these subsidiary sentiments and graces
are of little avail. To make a government requires no great prudence.
Settle the seat of power ; teach obedience, and the work is done.
To give freedom is still more easy : it is not necessary to guide ;
it only requires to let go the rein. But to form a free govern-
ment— that is, to temper together those opposite elements of liberty
and restraint in one consistent work — requires much thought, deep
reflection, and a sagacious, powerful, and combining mind. This, '
he adds, writing in 1790, " I do not find in those who take the
lead in the National Assembly. Perhaps they arc not so miser-
ably deficient as they appear. I rather believe it. It would put
them below the common level of human understanding. But
when the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction
of popularity, their talents in the construction of the State will be
of no service. They will becomeflatterers instead of legislators ; the
instruments, not the guides of the people. If any of them should
happen to propose a scheme of liberty, soberly limited and defined,
with proper qualifications, he will be immediately outbid by his com-
petitors, who will produce something more splendidly popular.
Suspicion will be raised of his fidelity to his cause, moderation will
be stigmatized as the virtue of cowards, and compromise as the pru-
dence of traitors ; until in hope of preserving the credit which may
enable liim to temper and moderate on some occasion, the popular
leader is obliged tcT become active in propagating doctrines and
establishing powers, that will afterwards defeat any sober purpose at
which he ultimately might have aimed."
It is the function of the National Assembly of France at the
present moment to be legislators and not flatterers of the people —
of the Ministry of France to be its wise guide, not its blind
instrument.
Happily, and unhappily, France has had a vast and varied ex-
perience since Mr. Burke wrote of the National Assembly in 1 790.
Her history since is full of wrecks and of warnings — a political
philosophy taught by examples of the most pregnant and vivid
character. She has tried the Republic twice, to find that it in-
evitably tended to the most intolerable of all tyrannies, the tyranny
of anarchy, and that comparative freedom and security were to be
attained in the worst, theoretically, of all conceivable governments, a
military despotism. The third trial hurries to a crisis. "We do not
know any work written by a Frenchman in which, with certain
considerable exceptions, the political experience gained from so
many revolutions has been so carefully and fairly stated as in the
Vues sur le Gouternement de la France oi the late Due de Broglie,
the father of the present Prime Minister. The late Due was born a
year or two before the Revolution commenced, and he died on the
eve of the fall of the second Empire. His father perished on the
474 Ma/rahal MacMahon^a Oovemment of France.
scaflfold in 1798. He was witness in his youth of the rise and &11
of the first Napoleon ; was a great parliamentary personage under
the Restoration ; a trusted minister of Louis Flulippe ; in his old
age the prophet and the guide of a school of stat^mien in which
death has already made too many gaps. His book, ready for
publication so long ago as 1861, but ruthlessly suppressed by the
Minister of the Interior of the Empire, was published by his son
in 1870. In the crash of arms the words of wisdom fall un-
heeded and unechoed. Yet, for they are wise as Sully and direct
as Montaigne, we venture to predict the ideas of this book will have
a great influence on the future government of France. The
following passage, every line of which is strictly applicable to the
present situation, though written more than twelve years ago, when
Napoleon^ III. was at the very pinnacle of his power, almost rises
to the dipiity of a political prophecy : —
The name of Prince is given in the language of Public Law to the execu-
tive power, whatever it be, — ^to the executive power, whatever its nature or
duration, whether it be one or multiple, elective or hereditary. I employ
the term here in order to preserve, whatever may happen, a neutrality
between the various fortunes which the future may reserve to my country.
Always absolutely regarding monarchy as the most noble of governments,
that which most accords with the order of Providence, and the progress of
civilization (the only one which suits great States, and the only one which
promises to France greatness and repose), I do not dare to affirm that my
country may not yet be reduced once more to traverse the perilous ordeal
of the republican regime. In truth, that the monarchy may establish or re-
establish itself at the end of a long series of civil troubles, it is not enough
that it should be preferred to every other form of Government — it is
essential that at the determined moment there should be forthcoming a man
without peer, a man called to the throne by the force of circumstances, and
worthy of the throne by hereditary or personal distinction, a man who may
be, as some one has said, with a naive energy, du bois dont on fait Us rois*
If this man does not exist, we must await him, and give time to time (du
Umps au temps).
And if it should happen, which is by no means impossible, if it should
, happen that several pretenders contend, several pretenders unequal in title
in the eyes of reason and of history, but equal, or nearly so, in their chances
of success, in that case indeed it will be wise to prefer the Republic to civil
war ; for it will in that case be the Government which least divides, which
most enables the public spirit to strengthen, and the legitimate interest to
grow great and ultimately to triumph.
In one case, or the other, it will then be a wise necessity to be resigned ;
but it will be wise at the same time only to consider the republican regime
as a pis allevy as a state of transition, and not to sacrifice to the republican
spirit, to its jealousy, its turbulence, especially not to sacrifice to the main-
tenance, to the perpetuity of the Republic, any of the guarantees of order at
home, any of the conditions of security or greatness abroad.
Marshal MaeMahon^s Oovermnent of Fra/nce, 475
Nor is this wise estimate and eulogitun of constitutional govern-
ment less applicable to the present movement of events, and state of
affairs : —
Admirable mechanism, which the hand of man did not make ; simple
development of the conditions attached by Providence to the progress of
civilized society ; machine where each organ finds itself in its place almost
without having the need to search for it, where each function accomplishes
itself by the energy of its own proper nature ; where all the forces of the
social body aid while reciprocally limiting each other ; economy, easy, and
powerful where all interests are placed under the guardianship of all
rights.
Is it then true that this model government is of only one time and of
only one country? That elsewhere than in England it cannot establish
itself solidly and definitively ? Is it necessarily true that this " fine system
found in the woods,*' as Montesquieu said, must promptly relapse into
barbarism; that the constitutional monarchy, that reign of right, necessarily
tends to the triumph of numbers, to democracy, as democracy necessarily
tends to oligarchy, and oligarchy to dictatorship ? Is human society to be
condemned to " roll round and round in a perpetual circle without repose,"
to quote Pascal's words, passing alternately from anarchy to despotism
through some brief moments of liberty and happiness ? Let us hope better
things.
Nor is the passage in which government by a National Assembly
is characterized less simply powerful and true, because the present
National Assembly, forewarned by the example of its predecessors,
has known how to place its supreme power in the hands of a soldier
who could be trusted only to use the sword in defence of justice,
liberty, and right : —
The dictatorship of an Assembly is the worst of constitutions. It is the
scourge of which a military dictatorship is the remedy ; or rather, it is at the
same time the daughter and the mother of all the scourges of which it is
the mission of a military dictatorship to purge the world.
When the Due de Broglie expressed his conception of what ought
to be the character of a king of France, " a man without a peer, a
man called to the throne by circumstances, and worthy of the throng
by his hereditary or personal merits, a man of the stuflF of which
kinfijs are made,"' he hardly dreamed that the time and the man
were so near at hand ; and we may be pardoned for thinking he cer-
tainly had not the Count de Chambord in his view. Yet, if there
ever was a man to whom so exalted a standard of character can be
without hesitation applied, it is the Count de Chambord — a man
who is honour and principle personified ; who has never during his
long exile intrigued or conspired for the throne, which only would
be welcome to him when the will of God and the will of France
called him to it ; who is, if ever there was, in the long and illustrious
476 Marshal MacMahon's Governmeut of France.
line of the House of Bourbon, a prince most worthy to bear the title
of the very Christian King. In saying so much, and in averring its
simple^ literal, and very truths do we not also say that the Goont
de Ghambord is the most misunderstood personage of his epoch ?
This, also, is the simple truths and it is only too easy to proye it.
To many men of lower mettle it would have been a martyrdom of
the spirit to have been so systematically, ignorantly, and malig-
nantly traduced as he has been year after year ; bat the grossest
misrepresentation never ruffled his magnanimity, though at times
he must have felt tempted to think that the sphere of invincible
ignorance was extending from religion into politics. Even now,
when it might be expected that with the restoration of Henry V. im-
mediately imminent, English writers would take the trouble to read
a few easily accessible, and by no means voluminous or costly books,
so as to inform themselves as to the real principles and opinions
of the future sovereign of France, we can hardly open a London
newspaper, of the very highest intellectual rank, without reading
absurdities such as journalists with the opportunities of information
open to the London press, ought to be ashamed to write about the
King of Ashantee, or the newly elected President of some small South
American Republic. There is hardly a day in which we are not
asked whether the Count dc Ghambord is prepared to surrender his
claim of divine right to the throne of France, and the unlimited
obedience of the French nation. The Count de Ghambord has never
once, even by accident,used the phrase " Divine Right/' — has always,
on the contrary, as it seoms to us, carefully abstained from using it,
in connection with his relation to the French crown and nation.
Again, English journalists are not ashamed to repeat the rubbish
of the lower class of the French revolutionary press, that a restora-
tion means arbitrary power, an aristocratic government, and religious
persecution. On the contrary, the Count de Ghambord has always
declared that he regards the principle of hereditary monarchy as
the true basis and only adequate guarantee of public liberty and
right ; and accordingly that if his exile should ever come to an end
by the will of France, he would only rule as a Constitutional mon-
arch, and on the basis of a constitution freely settled with an elec-
tive National Assembly. For, after all, it is the principle of
hereditary monarcliy that Henry V. represents in France ; and the
monarchy which he inherits the title to represent, is not that of
Louis XIV. but that of Louis XVIIL When it is stated, therefore,
as it is daily stated, by writers who ought to be ashamed of their
gross ignorance, and of the grosser prejudice which causes their
ignorance, that the Count de Ghambord must renounce his most
solemn declarations, and the principles to which his whole life has
been immolated, if he accepts the terms of restoration that will be
imposed on him by the National Assembly, the answer is easy. The
Marshal MacMahon's Oovemment of France, 477
Count de Chambord comes back on his own terms. He has nothing
to retract, nothing to disown. In all the declarations he has
made concerning his relation to France, he has been the most per-
fectly consistent of men. The terms proposed for his return, are
the terms defined and stipulated by himself ever since his first utter-
ances on such a subject, and which were more especially and care-
fully expressed in a letter to M. Berryer, written more than twenty
years ago. This may seem a startling statement, but the proof is
ready. The best service we can render to his cause at the present
moment, and to public opinion in this country, if it will condescend
even at the last hour to accept useful information, is to compile a
short syllabus of the opinions of the Couot de Chambord from the col-
lection of his letters published now some thirteen years ago, and
therefore, like the Due de Broglie's book, not certainly originated
with any regard to the present conjuncture of afiairs in France.
Nearly thirty years ago, writing to Baron Hyde de Neuville, on
the 4th February, 1844, in regard to the course of conduct which
he had even then determined to pursue, under all the circumstances
of the coming time, towards his country, he uttered these words : —
The men who now govern France seek to have it believed that, animated
by sentiments of a personal nature or of a vulgar ambition, I desire to
introduce trouble and discord into our country. It is therefore right that
those of my friends who, like you and M. de Chateaubriand, know me well,
and exercise influence over public opinion, should take pains to contradict
these calumnies. I regard the rights which I hold by my birth as belonging
to France, and far from allowing them to be made a cause of trouble or
misfortune to her in my personal interest, I do not desire ever to set my
foot in France save when my presence may serve to promote her happiness
and her glory.
At the same date, writing to M. de Fontaine of Lille, he used
these words : —
Those who saw me at London can attest that with me this is only a
question of the happiness of our common country. It is the constant object
of my desires, and I only see in the rights, which by the ancient laws of the
monarchy I hold from my birth, duties to fulfil. France will always find
me ready to sacrifice myself for her.
In tlic same year he wrote to M. Berryer and certain other
deputies of the Legitimist party on their re-election, due in
some measure to the support of men not strictly belonging to their
party : —
The sentiment of generosity which has led these honoiurable men who do not
as yet partake our convictions to draw near on such an occasion ought to give
us the hope that a day will come, a happy day of conciliation, when all sincere
men of all parties, of all opinions, abjuring their too long divisions, will
478 Ma/rshal MacMahon's Oovemment of France.
reunite in good faith on the common ground of monarchical prindpleB and
the national liberties, to serve and defend our common country.
In the same year General Donnadieu wrote to him, complaining
that it was said to be necessary to bear a title of nobility, in order
to be well received by him. This is his reply : —
It is an odious calumny which I repel with indignation. If it had come
from the pen of an enemy I should be grieved ; but I could not but be surprised
that it should reach me from a man who calls himself a BoyaHst, and
devoted to me, — this is inexplicable. At London, as at Rome, as eyeiy-
where, when I have had the happiness to meet with Frenchmen, I have re-
ceived them all with cordiality, without distinction of ranks, of classes, of
conditions, or even of opinions. This is, thank God, a notorious &ct, which
it will not be easy to misrepresent. I have said, and I repeat it, if ever
Providence should open to me the gates of France, I do not wish to be the
King of a class or of a party, but the King of alL Merit and service
shall be the only distinctions in my eyes.
A letter to the Vicomte de Bouchage, of about the same date,
gives evidence of his early attention to the condition of the working
classes of France : —
I regard it as a duty, he writes, to study everything connected with the
organization of labour, and the amelioration of the lot of the working classes.
Whatever may be the designs of Providence upon me, I shall never forget
that the great king, Henri Quatre, my ancestor, has left to all his descendants
the example and the duty of loving the people. That, at least, is a heritage
which cannot be taken from me.
The Count's correspondence in the three succeeding years shows
that there was no question involving the interests of l?rance which
he did not deeply study ; but it appears that as the revolutionary
crisis of 1848 approached, some of his friends conceived that he
ought to assume a more active and prominent public position. He
was then in the flower of his youth, and if he had chosen to conspire
or intrigue, had at all events a more powerful and devoted party
to sustain him than the Imperialist pretender ; but he absolutely
and at once refused to canvass or to treat for a restoration. Im-
mediately on the eve of the Revolution of February he wrote to the
Vicomte St. Priest : —
I am aware, and I am grieved, that a number of my friends accuse me of
inaction, even of indiflference, and that they would wish me to take a more
active part, if not in the stnigglc of parties, at least in the discussion
of the social questions which preoccupy all minds at this moment. My
actual position exacts too much reserve, prudence and circumspection to
permit me to satisfy their wishes ; and those of my friends j who, like you,
more particularly enjoy my confidence, and are known to have frequent
intercourse with me, ought to take great care to enlighten the Boyalist party
Marshal MacMahon's Oovemment of Fra/nce, 479
in regard to my sentiments and my intentions. Remind them, then, that
on all occasions, and especially at London, I have openly manifested my
conviction that the happiness of France cannot be secured except by the
sincere alliance of monarchical principles with^the public liberties. All that
shall tend to this end will always have my approbation.
Writing to the Due de Noailles in August, 1848, he says: —
You know already that which I wish is the peace, the happiness, and the
glory of France ; and in my profound conviction these great interests can-
not be secured except by returning to the principle which, during so many
centuries, was the guarantee of all social order, and which only can allow
their full development to be given to the public liberties, without in any-
thing depriving government of the force and authority which are necessary
to it. . . . For me, in the part which I may be destined to take in this
noble task — exempt from all personal views — I have no other thought than
to fulfil the sacred duties which my birth imposes upon me, to help to
deliver my country from the evil of to-day, from the fear of to-morrow, to
aid her to recover security at home and greatness abroad. Who does not
feel that the only means for obtaining so desirable an end is in the alliance
and co-operation of all parties, resolving themselves into one, and firmly
united for the defence of the great interests of society ? So, the happiest
day of my life shall be that on which I may see all Frenchmen, after so
many dissensions and deadly rivalries, drawn together by the bonds of
common confidence and a real fraternity. The royal family reunited with its
head, in the same sentiments of respect for all rights, of fidelity to all duties,
of love and of generous devotion to their country ; in fine, to see all France
pacified by the reconciliation of all its children, giving to the world the
spectacle of an universal, sincere, and unalterable concord, which may
promise to it long ages of glory and prosperity.
In another letter to the Duke, he reiterates his strong desire for
the reconciliation of the Royal family, and then speaks of the
changes which time had made in the condition of France since the
fall of the throne of Charles X. : —
I understand the conditions which time and events have imposed on the
existing form of society. I am aware of the new interests which on all sides
have come into being in France, and of the social rank which has been
legitimately acquired by intelligence and capacity. If Providence should
call nie to the throne, I will prove, I hope, that I know the extent and the
elevation of my duties. Free from prejudice, and far from intrenching myself
in a narrow spirit of exclusion, I will do my utmost to combine all the talents,
all the high characters, all the intellectual force of all Freijchmen for the
prosperity and the glory of France.
Writing to M. Berrycr, in 1S49, and speaking of the eventuality
of his being called upon to govern France, he again says :
My reign must be neither the resource nor the result of an intrigue, nor
480 Marshal MacMaJcon's Government of France,
the exclusive domination of a party. You know my sentiments and my in
tentions in regard to the members of my family as well as in regard to those
men whom their lofty character and their approved capacity qualify to render
to the State eminent services. I authorize you to give in my name the
assurance that I shall always be disposed and resolved to take all those
measures which, while reconciling with the rights of the Crown, the dignity
of the Government, and the stability and grandeur of political institutions,
will favour the development of the liberties and interests of all, and will
especially cause to reign that spirit of peace and union among all Frenchmen
which is my most dear desire.
Writing to the Due de Noailles, in December 1850, he said : —
I know all the difficulties which a return to the principle of hereditary
monarchy must meet as much on the part of those who contend against it,
as often also because of those who defend it ; and these different obstacles 1
feel that it is my duty to seek to discover, and as far as in me to dissipate.
And so I have constantly endeavoured to prove by my words as by my
conduct that if Providence should one day call me to reign I shall never be
the king of one class alone, but the king or rather the father of alL Every-
where and always I have shown myself accessible to all Frenchmen, without
distinction of classes or of conditions. I have seen them all, heard all, been
pleased to see myself surrounded by all ; you have been yourself the witness
of this : how then can one suspect me of wishing to be only the king of a
privileged class, or to use the terms which I find in use, the king of the
ancien rigime, of the old noblesse, of the old court ? I have always believed
and I am happy here to find myself in accord with the best minds, that the
court can never again be that which it formerly was. I have always likewise
believed that all classes of the nation should unite to work in concert for the
common safety, some contributing by their experience of affairs, others by
the useful influence which they owe to their social position. It is necessary
that all should be engaged in this combat of good with evil, that all should
bring the concourse of their zeal and their active co-operation, that all
should take their part of the responsibility in order to aid loyally and effi-
caciously authority to found a government with all the means to fulfil its high
mission, and which may have a durable character. I have always had the
profound conviction thi\t only the monarchy, restored on the basis of here-
ditary and traditional right, which, while responding to all the necessities of
society, such as it haa been made by the events accomplished now more than
half a century, can conciliate all interests, guarantee all acquired rights, and
place France in full and irrevocable possession of all the wise liberties which
are necessary to her. I appreciate all the services which have been rendered
to my country, I keep record of all that has been done at different epochs to
preserve her from the extreme evils by which she has been and still is
menaced. I appeal to all enlightened minds, all generous souls, all true
hearts, in whatever ranks they may be found, and under whatever flag they
may have hitherto fought, to give me the support of their lights, of their
good will, of their noble and unanimous efforts to save the country, to assure
Marshal MacMahon's Government of Fra/nce. 481
its future and to prepare for it after so many trials, vicissitudes, and mis-
fortunes, new days of glory and prosperity.
Early in the following year he wrote to M. Berryer, from Venice,
the most distinct and explicit programme which has yet appeared of
the principles of his policy. It runs in these words : —
Depositary of the fundamental principle of the monarchy, I know that that
monarchy could not respond to all the wants of France, if it were not in
harmony with her social state, her manners and her interests, and if France
did not recognize and accept with confidence its necessity. I respect my
country as much as I love it. I honour its civilization and its present glory
as much as the traditions and the memories of its history. The maxims which
it has so much at heart, and which you have defended in the tribune, equality
before the law, liberty of conscience, free access for all talents to all employ-
ments, to all honours, to all social advantages — all these great principles of
an enlightened and Christian society are as dear and sacred to me as to you,
as to all Frenchmen.
To give to these principles all the guarantees which are necessary, by
institutions in coufonnity with the wishes of the nation, and to found in
accord with the nation a regular and stable government, placed upon the
basis of the hereditary monarchy and under the guardianship of public Uberties
at once firmly regulated and loyally respected, such shall be the one object
of my ambition.
I dare to hope that with the aid of all good citizens, of all the members of
my family, I shall want neither the courage nor the perseverance to accom-
plish this work of national restoration, the only way to render to France that
assurance of the future without which the present, even though tranquil,
remains unquiet and stricken with sterility.
After so many vicissitudes and fruitless experiments, France, enlightened
by her own experience, will be brought, I have the firm confidence, to
recognize where lie her better destinies. The day when she becomes
convinced that the traditional and venerable principle of hereditary monarchy
is the surest guarantee of the stability of her government and of the develop-
ment of her liberties, she will find in me a Frenchman, devoted, eager to
rally around him all the capacities, all the Udents, all the glories, all the
men who by their former services have merited the gratitude of the
country.
On tlie eve of the proclamation of the empire, exactly twenty-one
years ago, on the 25th October 1852, he issued a protest addressed
to the French people, which concluded in these words: —
I maintain my right, which \a the most sure guarantee of yours ; and
taking God to witness, I declare to France and to the world, that, faithful to
the laws of the kingdom and to the traditions of my ancestors, I will
religiously preserve to my last breath the deposit of the hereditary
monarchy, of which Providence has confided to me the custody, and which
VOL. XXI. — NO. XLii. [New Ser!es,'\ 2 i
482 Marshal MncMahon^s Government ofFram^.
is the sole porb of safety in which, after so many storms, France, the object
of all my love, may yet find repose and happiness.
Writing to the Dae de L^vis in June 1853, he repeats word for
word the programme of his policy, addressed to M. Berryer, from
Venice, and adds :
My duty is to preserve loyally for my comitry, and transmit intact to my
successors, the principle of the hereditary and traditional royalty, the only
basis of that true, strong, and moderate monarchy to which one day I have the
firm hope France will wish herself to confide anew her destinies. It is not
possible to resolve how to regulate all things in advance ; there are important
determinations, such as those of which you speak to me, which it is not
expedient to make known, or of which the settlement must be reserved for
events. In regard to these determinations, I ought at all events to preserve
my initiative. According to the rules of conduct which I have followed, in
the free position which I have assumed, by abstaining during exile from every
act as from every exterior sign of royalty, I know no question which may
not be resolved according to the circumstances and the exigencies of the
country, nor any difficulties in the situation which may not be sarmotmted
honourably for all.
In a letter to the Due de Levis, in March 1856, he again repeats
in a very distinct and cutegorical form his views of the political
principles and constitution necessary to France. He writes : —
My dispositions are always the same and will never change. Exclusion of
all arbitrary government ; the reign and the respect of the law ; honesty and
ri<^ht above all ; the country truly represented, taxing itself and concurring
in the preparation of the laws ; the expenditure faithfully controlled ; pro-
perty, individual and religious liberty, inviolable and sacred ; the communal
and departmental administration wisely and progressively decentralized ; free
access for all to honours and socLil advantages : such are, in my eyes, the
true guarantees of a good government ; and my whole desire is to be able,
one day, to devote myself entirely to establish it in France, and so to assure
the repose and the happiness of my country.
We might extend these extracts by at least double the number
we have given ; but we pause at this point, because nothing that
has since been uttered by the Comte de Chambord is a retractation
of, or is inconsistent with, or is other than confirmatory of the
political programme which he announced in the last letters we have
quoted, at a time when, humanly speaking, his prospect of ascending
the throne of France was utterly hopeless. What he has said last
year, or the year before, might be supposed to be spoken with a
present purpose and for an immediate effect. That which he spoke
when Queen Victoria was visiting Louis Philippe at Eu, and when
Louis Napoleon was declaring Italy free from the Alps to the
Marshal MacMahon's Govenimeni of France. 483
Adriatic, may claim to be taken as the expression of his serious
and candid convictions. He is consistent in all that he has said
on the subject of the French Government and Constitution ; and it
may now be seen he has been by no means chary of his opinions, or
vague in their expression. He not merely never utters the words
" Divine Right,'" but he has always angrily repudiated the idea
associated in the English mind witli the doctrine of ** Divine
Right,'* — has again and again declared himself against arbitrary
authority on the part of the monarch ; ascendancy of any sort,
political or social, on the part of an aristocracy ; the predominance
of or even a preference for any political party ; and also against
any privilege whatsoever save such as is conferred by law ; more-
over, he has always declared the traditional monarchy to be
mainly useful to France, because it is the solid guarantee of a free
Parliamentary Government, of liberty of conscience, the equality of
all before the law, and the equal access of all French citizens to all
public employments. Again, be it remembered, he has always said
that he only hoped to return to France when it was the wish of
France, and in virtue of a free Constitution, settled in accord with
a National Assembly. At this moment when the House of France
is happily reunited, we should not fail to notice also the tender
magnanimity of his language towards his family. It was in 1848
as generous and as gentle as the day after the visit of tlie Comte
de Paris to Frohsdorff. In the words of Henry V. there is nothing
to regret, nothing to retract. They are the words of one who is every
inch a king.
Remains the question of the flag. Upon this question, nearly
two years ago, * we ventured to express our conviction that too
mucli was made of a mere symbol by the Count de Chambord and
by tl)e Legitimist party. The true solution would have been the
Endish solution — the flao; of the House of Bourbon over its
palaces, and the tricolor, like the Union Jack, for the service flag
of tlie n^ition. It is said, with much rhetorical effect, that the
tricolor waved over the scaffold on which Louis XVI. was be-
lieaded. Charles I. was beheaded, but no one in England ever
dreamed of revenging the act on whatever flag, if any, happened to
be visible, at that memorable scene. The tricolor, in truth, has
waved over a great many strange scenes and strange places. When
the revolutionary party pretend that it is tlieir peculiar property,
let them remember that it is the flag under which the Faubourg
St. Antoine was subdued in June 1848 ; under which the
coup d'etat was effected in December 1851 ; under which Paris
capitulated, Alsace and Lorraine were ceded, and the Commune
was crushed in 1871. When the Bonapartists boast of its
* Dublin Review, January, 1872 (p. 176).
2
484 Marshal MacMahon's Government of France.
victories, it is well to remember that it is the flaoj of Waterloo
and Sedan and Metz. The enthusiasm of the irreligious in its
regard is not so intelligible, for after all it is the flag under
which the authority of the Pope was restored at Rome in 1849,
and the battle of Mentana fought in 186S. The disasters with
which it is associated are, it seems, peculiarly the disasters of those
parties who cling to it most fervently and fondly — if in the spirit of
mortification, it is well ; if the spirit of pride, it is absurd. The
best course of all would be to revive, which the monardiy alone
could properly do, the old fighting flag of France, the Oriflamme.
Even Belleville could not object to that, for it is blood-red ; and
Viscount Victor Hugo is not too old to make his peace with the
Prince who inspired his early muse by a lyric in honour of the
historic banner of Gaul far superior to anything Beranger has
written about the tricolor.
We look forward then not merely with hope, but with confidence
and ease, to the future of France. The cause of Faith and Patience
and Prayer, the cause of Right and Honour and Loyalty, the good
old cause — the cause of God and the King prevails at last, after
many years, terrible trials, the multiplied a2:ony of a great nation
humbled to the very dust. He who comes back to France by the
will of Heaven and the will of his people, has a soul whose white-
ness has never been stained by one untrue, unjust, or angry thought
towards ought that called itself French. He is the most French
of Frenchmen, and the first gentleman in the world, who will soon
be crowned as the very Christian King, and the eldest son of the
Church. May the reign of Henry the Good be as glorious and
prosperous as that of Henry the Great ! May his accession be the
first happy date in the calendar of a new era, his throne the comer-
stone of a new Christendom ! May he live to see the Revolution
and its evil works utterly undone, not merely in France, but in
Germany, and Italy, and Spain, and the peace of the world secured
by the sovereign freedom of the Vicar of Christ !
( 485 )
Art. VIII.— a FEW WORDS ON THE AUTHORITY
OF S. ALPHONSUS.
(Communicated.)
Vindicice Alphonsiance, seu Docioris Ecdesice 8. Alphmm M, de lAgono^
Episcopi et Fundatoris Congregationis SS, Redemptoris Dodrina
Moralis vindicata aplurimis oppugTuUionibus CI. P, Antonii Ballerini,
oc. Jesu in Collegia Romano Professoris, Cura et studio quorundam
Theologorum e Congregatione SS. Redemptoris. Rornae, ex Typ. Poly-
glotta S. C. de Propaganda Fide, mdccclxxiii.
IN the July number of the Dublin Review (p. 264), there
were a few words on the " Vindiciea AlphonsiansB," a work
which has created no small stir in theological circles at home and
abroad. Most clerical readers are probably ere now familiar with
the circumstances of its appearance, which sufSciently explains the
interest it has excited. It is an elaborate work of controversy, in
style and bulk recalling the fashion of a hundred years ago,
directed against F. Anthony Ballerini, Professor of Moral Theology
at the Roman College of the Jesuits. Father Ballerini's criticisms
of S. Alphonsus, in the edition of Gury annotated by him, were
largely drawn upon by the Promoter of the Faith, in the inquiry
which resulted in the title of Doctor of the Church being conferred on
tlie Saint. The Redemptorist authors of the present volume were
asked by the defendant of the canse to aid him in replying to the
Promoter's objections. This was the immediate origin of a contro-
versy, which shows every sign of being widespread, vigorous, and
sustained. The " Univers " newspaper followed the lead of the
*' Vindiciae," and denounced the Jesuit theologian as an importer
of liberalism into moral theology. The Professor replied to the
Journalist with admirable temper, force, and dignity, and declared
liis intention of answering the Redemptorists in a special work.
Until the promised treatise appears, it would be premature to pro-
nounce on the merits of the controversy in its personal aspect. I
shall therefore abstain from expressing an opinion, as to how far the
vindicators have succeeded in showing that F. Ballerini's criticisms
are baseless in fact, flippant in tone, and insulting to S. Alphonsus.
These domestic quarrels are of small importance, — except to the
parties immediately concerned, — in comparison with a variety of
other topics, which underlie this discussion, which are of supreme
interest to all students of moral theology, and which are ripe for
solution independently of the issue of this controversy.
Paramount in importance and first in order among these, is the
inquiry into the precise authority of S. Alphonsus as a moral
486 A Few Words on the Authority of S. Alphonsua,
theologian. The critical question, whether the S. Thomas of
casuistry was an equiprobabilist or a probabilist pure and simple, —
though most interesting and deserving of attention — is nevertheless,
from a scientific point of view, less fundamental and far-reaching
in its consequences, than the question of his authority. Perhaps
an occasion may hereafter arise for discussing the true interpreta-
tion of the Liguorian system of morals ; and for testing the ac-
curacy of the statement, often made, that the Saint was really the
inventor of a new system unknown in the schools before his time.
At present the previous question more urgently demands a solu-
tion. For it is clear from the turn the writers of the " Vindiciae "
have given to their controversy with the Roman Professor, that no
one can ever know how to begin the study of Moral Theology, with-
out having previously determined the position of S. Alphonsus in
relation to the science, and the attitude to be taken in consequence
by the student towards the Saint's writings.
It is upon this point that I propose to oflFer a few remarks ;
rather in the way of suggestion and ventilation, than with any
pretensions to dogmatize or to exhaust the subject. The inquiry
is necessary, because the parties to the present controversy occupy,
in relation to the writings of S. Alphonsus, different if not opposite
standpoints. F. Ballcrini's idea of the Saint's position is in-
telligible enough. He regards him consistently as an authority of
the very first rank, but as one to be followed with open eyes, not
blindly. He assumes as a matter of course a full right to test the
soundness of the master's doctrines, the validity of his reasonings,
and the accuracy of his citations by all the means which reason
and criticism and wider experience offer for the purpose. He
assumes that he is free to dissent from the opinions of S. Alphonsus,
and to qualify those opinions as they seem to him to deserve,
saving only the reverence due to a great Saint and Doctor. Whether
the Professor has, in practice, always kept within the bounds of sober
and modest criticism is one question and (as I have already said)
of minor importance ; whether he was within his right in entering
upon such criticism at all is another and of immeasurably greater
moment. The former concerns F. Ballerini alone, the latter every
priest, and indeed the whole future of moral theology. For the
authors of the " Vindici* " hold another view of a professor's
duty towards S. Alphonsus. According to them it is not com-
petent to a writer or teacher to reject any of S. Alphonsus's conclu-
sions as mistaken (false) or as founded on invalid reasoning, or
even as resting on misquotation. They declare that the Holy Sec
has given an approbation to the writings of S. Alphonsus so
definite as to extend to every single doctrine or conclusion of the
Saint's, and so positive as to preclude any authority less than the
Holy See from qualifying any proposition of his as improbable.
A Few Words on the Atithonty of 8, Alphonsus. 487
They do, indeed, in one place admit a private theologian's right to
weigh the Saint's conclusions, to determine their greater or less
probability, and even to combat them under the same reservations
as in principle apply to the work of every writer. But I confess
to a difficulty in understanding how this admission, grudgingly
conceded to common sense, is to be brought into harmony with the
whole tenor of the " Vindicise," or with the severity of reproof
repeatedly administered to Father Ballerini. The writer in the
" Univers/' after the manner of his nation, carries the teaching of
the " Vindiciae " to its legitimate issue. Following out the argu-
ments ad invidiam and ad verectmdiam, too frequently employed
by the vindicators, he reaches the conclusion that "a sober,
modest, and learned" theologian, who had arrived at a subjective
certitude that S. Alphonsus had, on a given point, made a clear
mistake, not only may, but actually must, still follow the Saint's
opinion, under pain of forfeiting his character for modesty and
sobriety. Unfortunately the writer leaves us in ignorance of how
this psychological feat is to be performed. But, omitting the
philosophical difficulty, I must say that, unless my theological
instinct is entirely at fault, such a statement as this is simply sub-
versive of scienfic theology. For consider for a moment what it
involves. It places the extrinsic before the intrinsic argument.
The authority of a writer, or of any number of writers, which
heretofore has been considered as none except in so far as it is seen
or presumed to be founded on intrinsic reasoning, is here made to
have an independent existence ; and to be of even greater account
than the intrinsic evidence in which, of necessity, it has its ultimate
origin. It is superfluous to add that in S. Alphonsus himself will
be found no patronage of such an attempt to turn topsy-turvy
the science of his predilection. Nor can it alter the necessary
relation of the extrinsic to the intrinsic argument that, in the case
of S. Alphonsus, we have the highest testimony that his conclu-
sions are, in general and for the present, safe, and may therefore
be acted upon without further investigation by a prudent director,
or taught to his pupils by a diffident or lazy professor. Moreover,
it is a point worthy of observation in this connection, that there is
no branch of ecclesiastical learning in which the hMitjurandi in
xerha magistri is so fraught with ill consequences as Moral
Theology. The dicta of the moral theologian are constantly subject
to revision and correction from the multitudinous variety of cir-
cumstances, impossible to be foreseen by the most sagacious in-*
tellect ; from new discoveries in physiology, medicine, and other
sciences ; from the development of the commercial system ; from a
hundred causes, in short, some of which will suggest themselves at
once to persons conversant with the subject. For instance, is it
possible to conceive any writer of the last century holding as just
488 A Feio Words on the Authorily of 8. Alphon^us.
views on the lawful interest of money, as a trained theologian may
now acquire without difficulty by merely taking the trouble to
make himself acquainted with the course of business in London,
New York, Melbourne, or elsewhere ? Is it not manifest that the
views of such a writer would be as antiquated as those of our own
Court of Chancery on the same subject? It is impossible to
suppose the existence of an approbation of the works of S. Alphonsus,
or any one else, which would be equivalent to a recommendation
from authority to shut up all our books except those of the ap-
proved author ; and to keep our eyes fast closed against an influx
of light from any other quarter whatsoever. We may rest
assured that no royal road to the knowledge of moral science is
open to us any more than to those who have p;one before us. The
paths of the science which treats of good and evil, of the lawful
and unlawful in human acts, still remain tortuous and thorny,
and only to be explored at the icost of sore toil and travail. I know
it is the fashion with some to make light of the advantage which
Theology may draw from the progress of other sciences, mental,
physical, and social, and to profess distrust of the methods and
conclusions of these latter. But the Dublin Rbvibw has never
been of that way of thinking ; and one may be permitted to express
an opinion, that the time is gone by when such distrust can be
considered reasonable, prudent, or attended by any good result.
I pass to another consideration not to be neglected. If the view
taken by t!ie authors of the " Vindiciae" be correct, S. Alphonsus
holds a place in the Church diflFerent in kind from that of any
other ecclesiastical writer since the death of the Apostles and
Evangelists. It is competent to every theologian to discuss,
criticise, accept, or reject as to him shall seem good, every single
proposition in the whole range of the writings of S. Thomas or S.
Augustine (I mean, of course, propositions which are those authors'
own, not propositions in which they merely record the teaching of
the Church), provided he does so with the modesty required by
literary good taste, and the reverence due from a fallible mortal
to a canonized Saint and Doctor. The just prerogatives of S.
Alphonsus are very high (and I hope no word here written can
fairly convey the impression that I wish to derogate from them in
the slightest degree), but it will nevertheless be new to many to
hear that more observance is due to him, than to the traditional
Angel of the schools and to the greatest of the Fathers.
It will have been perceived that I have been up to this point
preparing the way for a rational interpretation of the various
approbations which the works of S. Alphonsus have at different
times received. And this is now an easy matter ; so easy, indeed,
that a difference of opinion on the point might cause some astonish-
ment, if it were not proverbial that there are at least two opinions
A Few Words on the Aathoi*ity of 8. Alphonsits. 489
on every subject connected with Moral Theology. On the one
hand, then, it may be taken for granted that the Holy See has had
no intention of changing the principles on which moral science is
based ; nor of equivalently advising all students of that science to
forego the use of their mental faculties, with the solitary exception
of memory ; nor of departing from the traditional idea of what is
meant by approval of an author's works ; nor of deposing S. Thomas
Aquinas from his supremacy in the schools. On the other hand it
is to be remarked that no ecclesiastical writer has ever received
such direct, express and formal approval as S. Alphonsus Liguori.
His titles to authority are these. First, his sanctity, authenti-
cated by his canonization. This title he has in common with
S. Antoninus. Secondly, his doctorate ; and this is now common to
him with S. Thomas Aquinas. I may observe in passing, that the
Doctorate had not yet been conferred when F. Ballerini's notes were
published. Thirdly, for various works, many of them on Moral
Theology and among them the " Theologia Universa,'' he at dif-
ferent times received complimentary and laudatory letters from
more than one Pope ; and this title to esteem he has in common
with a great many writers. Fourthly, in preparation for his Beati-
fication ; and afterwards, a second time for his Canonization ; and
again a third time in preparation for the Doctorate ; his works were
thoroughly examined ad hoc, and were declared to contain "nothing
that merited theological censure," but to be such that all might
read them *' without tripping" in the faith, and generally to be
excellently adapted to the salvation of souls. And this title again
he possesses in common with all canonized saints, who are writers
on theology, and with some writers who are not canonized. Fifthly,
in reply to a question as to whether a professor of theology might
safely teach the opinions of S. Alphonsus, and again whether a
confessor was to be blamed for following the opinions of the Saint,
without inquiring into the reasons of them, solely on the ground
that his works had been approved by the Holy See, the Congregation
returned, in the first case an affirmative, and in the second a nega-
tive answer. This last title to authority is, in the universality of
its application, peculiar to S. Alphonsus ; the nearest approach to
an equivalent in the case of other authors being the reply often
given to applicants on particular questions — " consulant probates
auctores."
Now what is the legitimate outcome, without exaggeration or
depreciaion, of all these titles to authority? Plainly that S.
Alphonsus is in morals an authority of the first class, and that
his name alone makes an opinion probable until it has been shown
to be mistaken. No more than this and no less can be fairly con-
cluded from the tenour of the approbations. From a simple perusal
of these it is obvious that they in no way fetter the liberty of sue-
490 A Few Words on the Avthority of 8, Alphonstts.
ceediDg theologians. All but the last are common to S. Alphonsns
and other writers, and therefore secure to him no more inviolability
than to them. The last is evidently permissive, and even ostenta-
tiously careful of the rights of other theologians past and present.
It is also worth while to recollect, that the principal intent of all
the approbations was to support the mild doctrines of S. Alphonsns
as against the Jansenists and the French rigorists ; so that it is
hardly fair to turn them into weapons against a theologian who,
after all, is only striving to carry on the work so eflFectually inau-
gurated by the holy Bishop of S. Agatha. It must not be omitted
also, that no small share of the glory of these approbations is to be
ascribed to the Saint's dogmatic works on the Immaculate Concep-
tion and the Infallibility of the Pope, as well as to the numerous
treatises for spiritual reading which his zeal for souls scattered broad-
cast among the people. While therefore I yield to no one in
admiration of the genius, industry and piety of S. Alphonsus,
nor in gratitude to him for the great work which will always be his
chief title to fame, — the banishment (I mean) of rigorism from the
schools and from the Confessional,— I must yet ask leave to put in
this plea for what is still more sacred, the rights of theology and its
professors. *' Amicus quidem Plato, sed magis amica Veritas.''
E. R.
( 491 )
Itoticcs of §oolis.
Orate pro animd JacoH Boberti Hope Scott, Sermon preached in the
LoDdon Church of the Jesuit Fathers, at the Requiem Mass for the
Repose of the Soul of James Robei-t Hope Scott, Q^C. By the Very
Rev. Dr. New^ian. London : Burns & Oates.
THIS sermon naturally deserves marked notice from us, because of the
author as well as of the subject, and yet to write a satisfactory
notice of it is a less easy task than the reader would expect. There is little
to supplement, where a view so complete and luminous has been given of a
great character ; and to analyze a sermon that contains nothing that is
superfluous would be almost to transciibe it. As the only example, so
far as we recollect, of a funeral sermon by F. Newman that has been
given to the world, it must interest even those outside of the Catholic
Church, or those to whom the name of Hope Scott is not a familiar sound.
Such readers will find that it abounds in characteristics for which the
writings of F. Newman have always been remarkable ; a style which is at
once the instrument of a keen intellect as well as the expression of a deeply-
feeling and sympathizing heart. We gather from it words and phrases
full of thought, the fructifying seed of observation in minds of less
originality. It might be read as an investigation of the causes of success
in life, and of the means by which that success, a very unusual thing, was
made the material of sanctification. Thus he tells us that even as a young man
Mr. Hope Scott had that about him which inspired confidence. What was
this talisman ? It was the ^* simplicity, seriousness, and sweetness of his
manner, as he threw himself at once into the ideas and feelings of those
who consulted him, listened patiently to them, and spoke out the clear
judgment which he formed of the matters which they had put before him."
Then we hear of his ^* locating the subject under consideration, pointing
out what was of primary importance in it, what was to be aimed at, and
what steps were to be taken in it." Refinement of mind, F. Newman
justly remarks, is sometimes fatal to a man's success in public life, as
causing shyness, or reserve, or pride, or self-consciousness. Refinement
was one of Mr. Hope Scott's most distinguishing traits ; but then it was so
wonderfully mingled with sympathy, that it never made him shrink into
himself in the way that has checked so many careers. The reader well
acquainted with F. Newman's writings will be reminded here of a favourite
idea of his. Without quoting long passages, among the most beautiful
he has written, we will only refer to the *' Discourses on Uniyersity Educa*
492 Notices of Boohs,
tion," pp. 220 and 329 (ed. 1862). The success which Mr. Hope Scott
achieved was undoubtedly extraordinary ; and yet there would have been
nothing at all unreasonable, in expecting even still greater from such
powers. F. Newman rightly measures this "unfulfilled renown" by the
splendour of the positions attained by contemporaries or friends of Mr.
Hope Scott, who have reached the highest offices in the State ; and he
accounts for the fact by the singular absence of ambition which Bir. Hope
Scott's character exhibited. On this subject he makes some valuable
remarks. There is too much tendency, as it appears to us, to praise a life
spent in the shade, simply for that reason. F. Newman shows how much
we owe to public men, and admits the rule that great gifts are correlatives
of great works. But, on the other hand, whenever numbers of persons
are in action, human nature is sure to show the symptoms of the fall,
even where combinations are made for religious purposes ; and hence good
men of great talent may prefer more indirect ways of serving God. The
manner in which this preference was worked out by Mr. Hope Scott is beau-
tifully shown in the great leading element of his character, which was a re-
fined, ingenuous, yet widely extending and self-forgetting liberality. If we
add to this a simplicity and seriousness in conversation that evidenced in
him a high degree of the gift of faith, — a solicitude to obey the decisions of
Holy Church, — resignation under bereavements so exquisitely painful that
they seemed to indicate special purposes of providence for him — we shall per-
haps have given the effect of a portrait, of which F. Newman has drawn so
firm, masterly, and yet so tender an outline. The "Month" for September-
October contains a very interesting sketch of Mr. Hope Scott's life, by
Father Coleridge,iWhich with tlie funeral-sermon preached by F. Amherst
in the chapel of St. Margaret's Convent, Edinburgh, will also be of great
value to the many persons to whom his memory is dear.
This seems a fit opportunity to notice another honoured name which
has lately been united with the records of the past — that of Henry
William Wilberforce ; who in the history of Anglican conversions of this
century, belongs to the same epoch with Mr. Hope Scott, and who was a
no less dear and intimate friend of F. Newman's.* Mr. Wilberforce was
a constant contributor to these pages ; and so has been familiar to our
readers, though they may not have been aware of the authorship of many
an article from which they have derived profit and pleasure. He too
belonged to the number of those who have made sacrifices for the faith, such
as would prove them capable of far greater ones, had the age been such as to
hold out the crown of martyrdom. The very title of a Wilberforce was
enough to draw the eyes of the world upon a man ; and if endowed with
talents as he was, equal to its prestige, it might be said the world was
before him. Early in life he made himself conspicuous by inviting
Catholic priests to his parish to minister to the poor dying Irish in time
of pestilence, and this no doubt assisted in earning for him the grace of
* Our readers will remember the very affecting account, given in the
Catholic journals, of F. Newman's presence at Mr. Wilberforce's funeral,
and the circumstances which followed.
Notices of Books. 493
conversion. Almost ever after he had an uphill, difficult path, instead of
the smooth and easy road that invited his entrance when Oxford honours
gave him the first rewards of early ambition. He bore all he had to encounter
with a sweetness that it seemed as if nothing could alter, a noble simplicity of
character, which indeed he had inherited, but which was adorned by the
grace he had purchased so bravely. Such an example will not soon depart
from recollection, but will bear fi^reater fruit than that of many whose
careers afford the biographer more opportunities of display.
Historical Sketches, By John Henry Newman, of the Oratory, some time
Fellow of Oriel College. New volume. London ; Basil Montague
Pickering. 1873.
THIS volume of F. Newman's " Historical Sketches " contains " the
Church of the Fathers," and what may be called articles on
S. Chrysostom, Theodoret, the Mission of S. Benedict, and the Benedictine
Schools. We are told in a prefatory notice that the attempt " to bring
before the mind S. John Chrysostom and the B. Theodoret in their personal
aud especially in their ethical aspect, are portions of a projected volume
which was to have included like sketches of S. Ambrose, S. Jerome, perhaps
S. Athanasius, under the title of " Ancient Saints." The essay on Theodoret
here appears for the first time, and will on that account be read with
peculiar interest ; but we regret exceedingly to learn that Dr. Newman has
now abandoned the hope of completing such a volume as he had designed,
which would have been most valuable.
As we gave a careful notice of the *•' Church of the Fathers'* when
the first Catholic edition of it was published,* we need say nothing more on
that portion of the present volume. But the introductory chapter on
S, Chrysostom necessarily demands some comment from us, since it expresses
a ditference of opinion, as to that method of writing Saints' lives, which has
been so strenuously advocated in the pages of this Review. Such lives as
^ve prefer F. Newman finds for himself less beneficial, even spiritually, than
those framed on a different model. He finds the former " too scientific to be
devotional " (p. 229).
Now there is one important point which, in justice to F. Newman, we are
anxious to make clear at starting. He mentions (p. 217) certain devotional
tastes of his own : he gains more e.g. " from three verses of S. John, than
from the three points of a meditation " ; he is " more touched by the Seven
Dolours, than by the Immaculate Conception," &c. Ac. Now a very appre-
ciative review of this volume, in our excellent contemporary the " Tablet,"
parallels this remark with a passage in the " Grammar of Assent," where
F. Newman says that in metaphysical " provinces of inquiry egotism is true
modesty " (p. 379). But the " egotism," which F. Newman practises in his
philosophical work, is fundamentally different from any *^ egotism" contained
* Dublin Kevilw, July, 1868, pp. 271-275.
494 Notices of BooTcs^
in the passage before as. In the former work he is speaking of wtiat '^ he
believes and is sure is true ^ (p. 380) ; and of what he is satisfied miist con-
Tince others as it hajs convinced himself, except for accidental impediments
(p. 381). It would of course be utterly intolerable, if a Catholic writer spoke
in such a tone as this on the mere peculiarities of devotional taste ; and F.
Newman is most emphatic in repudiating any such notion. " People are
variously constituted,'' he says, with his usual tolerant large-mindedness
(p. 217), and " what influences one does not influence another." " I do not
say," he adds (p. 218), "that my way is better than another's ; but it is my
way and an allowable way." Here there is no question of true and false,
but merely of one man's taste and another man's taste. On some of the
particulars he mentions our own devotional taste differs widely from F.
Newman's ; but he would no more dream of blaming us for ours, than we
should dream of blaming him for his.
At the same time, on one point among those which he mentions, he does
account his own taste the preferable one, and gives his reasons for so account-
ing. " I confess to a delight," he says, " in reading the lives and dwelling on
the characters of the Saints of the first ages, such as I receive from none
beside them" (p. 217). And he proceeds to give reasons for this delight.
These are (1) that the Fathers have left behind them numberless letters — ^a
kind of literature " which more than any other represents the abundance of
the heart, which more than any other approaches to conversation." 2. They
do not write formal doctrinal treatises ; they write controversy, and their
controversy is correspondence. 3. " They mix up their own persons, natural
and supernatural, with the didactic or polemical works which engaged them " ;
while " their authoritative declarations are written, not on stone tablets, but
on what Scripture calls the ' fleshy tablets of the heart.' " 4. " Dogma and
proof are in them at the same time hagiography. They do not write a
sxf^mma theologicBy or draw out a catena, or pursue a single thesis through the
stages of a scholastic disputation. They write for the occasion, and seldom
on a carefully digested plan." 5. " The same remark holds of their comments
upon Scripture." " All this forms a kind of literature which is now well-
nigh extinct."
But we ask, why has it become well-nigh extinct ? May it not be — ^we
think that it is — because God's over-ruling Spirit, Who disposes all things
to His own ends both with strength and sweetness, seeing that the circum-
stances of the world have changed, has changed also the form both of the
Church's literature and of her theology ? Admirably adapted as the earlier
sacred literature and theology may have been to the requirements of the
Church of the Fathers — and they were most admirably adapted — they may
be no longer so to those of the Church of the children. In the early ages
the Spirit of God may have found it necessary to dwell upon the human
side of the lives of His Saints, and to teach the doctrine of the Eternal Son
in an unsystematic form. But as time went on and circumstances altered^
it may have been no less necessary to dwell upon the divine side of the lives
of His holy ones, and to systematize dogma on a carefully digested plan.
Just as iu the case of devotion to our Lord's Person, the tendency. of j^j:ly^es
was towards the worship of His Divine Nature, and in later times to-
Notices of iBooks. 495
^var(^s that of His Sacred Humanity— the ultimate Object of adoration in
either case being His Divine Person — so in placing the lives of His Saints
before the faithful, it may have seemed good to Him to reverse the process ;
and to bring out first of all the human side of the lives of the sanctified
members of our Lord's Body, and afterwards their divine side. So in like
manner in the early Church it may have seemed good to the Holy Spirit to
insinuate doctrine after doctrine, as it were bit by bit, into the hearts of the
faithful ; while in the later Church it may have seemed no less good to Him
to gather up the fragments into one systematic whole, that nothing might be
lost. That it was so in both instances, we believe ; but we have nothing
now to do with dogma, only with the Lives of the Saints. We shall confine
our remarks therefore to the latter.
How is it possible, we ask, that the Divine life of our Lord in His sancti-
fied members can be gathered from epistolary correspondence, from letters,
many of which, on F. Newman's own showing, were historical and state
papers ; others of which referred to public transactions, or included con-
troversy 1 How are the faithful, who in most instances have only a very
few moments to devote to the reading of Saints' lives, to wade through all
this sometimes very unspiritual matter, to get at that Divine life for which
they are hungering ? As we have contended in our article on " Saints' lives
as spiritual reading,"* and in several of our notices, this can only be done by
what we have called the"hagiological," or Italian method — by which the heroic
virtues of the Saints and servants of God are, so to speak, mapped out for the
convenience of the faithful, and may be seen at a glance. We have advocated
this method, not as the only one, but as the best method of writing the Saints'
lives in accordance with the spiritual wants of our own times. Even the critic
in the "Tablet," to whom we have already referred, while on the whole
adopting F. Newman's view, confesses that during a retreat he would
prefer the " hagiological method." But surely this is in fact to abandon
F. Newman's position altogether ; for in a retreat, stiU less than at any
other time, would one prefer a book, which is " too scientific to be devotional."
F. Newman (p. 228) thinks that* lives, written, on what we have called the
"hagiological method," give no knowledge of the real Saint; of those
characteristics which distinguish him from other Saints. We appeal confi-
dently to readers of the old Oratorian series, whether they did not expe-
rience the very opposite ; whether they did not find, as they rose from the
perusal of any given life, that an image specially his own of the Saint, whose
acts and words they had been studying, had unconsciously formed itself in
their mind. And there is surely this further distinction (as we urged
once before) between those lives and such as F. Newman prefers ; viz.
that the latter can hardly do more than represent a Saint as he appeared to
his fellow-men, whereas the former emphatically set forth his interior life
and his communion with liis Creator and Redeemer. There is none who
performs with more signal success whatever he undertakes, than F. Newman ;
and we may be certain then that the life of S. Chrysostom in this volume is
a pattern specimen of the historical style. Let our readers compare the
■ ^ JIMI II
* July, 1872.
496 Notices of Books.
knowledge it gives us of that Saint's interior affections, with the knowledge
e.g. of S. Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi's, which we obtain from the Oratorian
life of her. In the latter we are as it were admitted behind the veil, and
privileged to witness the direct intercourse between God and a holy sonL
And we must express emphatically our own humble opinion, that there are
no lives which approach those written on the " hagiological *' method in Hub
particular quality, — that their various details '^coalesce into the image
of a person'* (Newman, 228), with certain definite and distinguisfaijig
peculiarities to characterize his relations with Almighty God.
We think, however, that we have been misunderstood by some of onr
Catholic contemporaries. We have been taken to advocate excluiively the
"hagiological method." We have done nothing of the kind. We have
simply represented it as the best possible one for spiritual edification. We
have always allowed that lives of the Saints, whether set forth in their
letters, or in an almost romantic form, do very good work, amongst those who
would know nothing about them by any other means ; and that such volumes
are indeed most serviceable in many different ways. We should be very sorry
indeed, if works of this kind did not continue frequently to be brought before
both Catholics and Protestants. But to suppose that a life like that of S. Francis
Xavier, published by F. Coleridge, admirable though it is, which is made up
for the most part of his letters, — or Miss Bowles's "Life of S. Jeanne Fran^ise
de Chantal,'' of which we said when noticing it, that although most beautiful,
the only ejaculation which could frequently be elicited after reading page
after page, in the short time usually allotted to spiritual reading, would be
in connection with the beauty of the scenery or of the persons spoken of
and the only resolution taken would be to make a summer tour to Annecy, —
to suppose (we say) that such lives are for spiritual purposes the best that can
be formed, seems to us unreasonable, and therefore untenable. We wish
it to be understood, once for all, that iu preferring one particular class of
Saints' lives, we have always had in view "spiritual edification." We
would only add,— what neither F. Newman nor any other Catholic will
dream of questioning — that this is incomparably the most important purpose
for which a Saint's life can possibly be written.
We should add however, that F. Newman shows his wish of doing eveiy
justice to those lives which he does not prefer. The facts recounted in them,
he says (p. 228), " humble me, instruct me, improve me ; I cannot desire any-
thing better of their kind." But he thinks, as has been seen, (1) that these
books are " too scientific to be devotional " ;-and (2) that they do not give their
reader any more knowledge of " the real Saint," than he had before. It is
on these two points that we have ventured to express our earnest difference
of opinion.
We must postpone to our next number our notice of the very important
essay on Theodoret, and of the other essays which complete the volume.
Notices of Boohs. 497
T/te Discourse delivered at the Opening Session of the 'kth Provincial Synod
of Westminster, By Bishop Ullatiiorne. London : Burns & Gates.
HIS Lordship tlie Bishop of Birmingham has dedicated this truly
Episcopal Sermon to the diocesan clergy of the province of West-
minster, whom lie has, he says, "loved more than they have known,
loved with all a Bishop's love, and with all a Bishop's thirst for the
pei-fection of their life and labours."
Spoken in synod, these words were addressed to the clergy ; but in
giving them to the world, through the press, his Lordship has conferred an
obligation on the laity, which we wish heartily to acknowledge. No one
Ijetter than the Bishop of Birmingham, who was chosen by the wisdom of
the Holy See from a religious order, can teach the "true balance between
religious and ecclesiastical perfection of life." He has illustrated it in his
own person for so many years in such a way that, to use his own words,
we all love him " more than he has known," — loved him with a faithful
love.
Ecrlcsia Christi : Words spoken at the Opening of the Second Session of the
M Provincial Council of Westminster, By Archbishop Vaughan.
London : Burns & Gates.
WE find it a remarkable sign of God's Providence that at the openin
both of the first and second session of the 4th Council of West-
minster the discourse should have been delivered by Bishops of the order
of S. Benedict. What S. Benedict did for England in the old days will
never be known until that last great day when all his children, that shall
be gathered amongst the blessed, and all his works proclaimed before
angels and man. What S. Benedict is still doing for England we gather
from the last synod— never, of course, however, forgetting what his sons
are doing in other places and in other ways. That great and learned
order, which has given so many Popes to the Church of God, so many
Saints for our worship, which has sanctified literature by its touch has
given us, if we mistake not, two of the Bishops who now so lovingly rule
over us. But the author of this sermon has been sent, by his father S.
Benedict, to work far away from us. Like Abraham of old, he goes away
from liis kindred and his father's house into a land, to which God has sent
him. But he goes — like Saul, a goodly man, fair to look upon, both as to
soul and body — " a head and shoulder above his brethren," and all our
best wishes follow him — ad muUos annos.
VOL. xxr. — NO. XLir. [New Series."] 2 k
498 Notices of BooJcs.
Giving Glo)y to God, A Sermon. By the Rev. H. J. Coleridge, S.J.
(Published by request.) London : Burns & Oates.
THIS beautiful sermon did not reach us in time to enable us to quote it
in our article on "Pilgrimage and Paray-le-Monial." Doubtless
amongst the many who listened to these touching words of F. Coleridge,
here were not a few who went on the pilgrimage. Anything more calcu-
lated to create the desire of visiting a holy place we can hardly conceive.
To ourselves it has always seemed that what went to our Lord's Heart,
more than any other thing during His sojourn upon earth, was the want of
honowr shown to His Father by not giving Him glory in the face of the
world. He, Who was the Lamb of God, " meek and lowly of Heart," could
still speak the severest words of the Pharisees who desecrated His Father's
honour by giving Him false glory — nay take a scourge in His hands and
drive those out of the Temple who dishonoured His Father's house. There
is such a thing as the wrath of the Lamby and woe to the world when it falls
upon it. F. Coleridge very clearly and beautifully brings out the necessity
of giving glory to God, by a public recognition of His benefits.
" People are asking,'* says F. Coleridge, ** what can sensible, honourable,
practical Englishmen and Englishwomen be doing, when they throw them-
selves into the stream of Continental fanaticism — urged on, as we are told, .
for political purposes — and give themselves the trouble of a long journey by
tea and land for the sake of hearing a Mass, or going to communion, on the
spot of a reputed vision 200 years ago. What are they doing 1 They are
doing what the leper did when he knelt at our Lord's feet, with a loud
voice glorifying God. Tliis is the simple answer— they go to "glorify
God."
Yes, it is surely time that we, the Catholics of England, should give
glory to God in a more public way than hitherto we have done. Even the
Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial, glorious as it was, how far could it be said
to represent adequately the desire of English Catholics to give glory to
God ? There were the highest, and the noblest, it is true ; some of the middle
class, and we believe a few of the poor. But what we should have wished,
speaking with due gratitude to those who organized the pilgrimage, would
have been to see evtry parish in England represented, and some of Christ's
forgotten but most faithful poor sent by the alms of the faithful to worship
at their Master's shrine.
The world gets more foolish every day, and more outspoken in its folly.
It behoves therefore every member of that Kingdom which is not of this
world to give glory to God, at least in as clear a way as the world dis-
honours Him. The world laughs at the Revelations made by our Lord in
the convent chapel at Paray-le-Monial— calls them ridiculous — not worthy
of God — the ravings of an hysterical nun. To our mind for the world's
Redeemer to open His Sacred Heart, and to tell one of tlie daughters of
Eve that He wished to enter in and dwell there, because He was wearied
Notices of Boohs. 499
mth the world's ingratitude, is as lovely — ^to say the least — as the linen
girdle ; or the bottles which the prophet Jeremias was commanded in vision
to use for mystical purposes; as the good and bad figs — " naughty figs," to
use the Protestant version, — ''which could not be eaten, they were so bad ;"
as the boiling pot which Ezekiel was told to make use of as a type of the
city, on which was the scum which would not leave it. We find it no more
difficult to believe that the world's Redeemer should appear in vision to
one of his cloistered daughters and to speak to her words of hnman love
for the sake of humanity, than that the prophet Uabacuc should have been
lifted up by the hair of the head simply to carry a dinner to a prophet.
Believing in our Lord's words that greater works were to be done by His
followers then He had done Himself we should be astonished, indeed,
were no marvels worked in that Church through and in which He still
lives among us. But the world will still laugh on. The Ethiopian can-
not change his skin, nor the leopard his spots.
Modem Saints. ''The Life of S. Bemardine of Siena."
London : R. Washboume. 1873.
WE find it difficult to express our delight at the revival of the
Oratorian series of the Lives of the Saints. In it the dear and
holy father who inaugurated it, and who during his lifetime — ^too short,
alas I for us — did so much to encourage the reading of Saints' lives
as spiritual reading, lives again. We seem, in taking up the volume, to
see once more the old loving smile, the old familiar grace, which, when he
was with us, drew so many souls to God. It is a joy for us to think
that in this Review we have ever tried, to the best of our poor power, to
carry out F. Faber's views, as to the way in which Saints' lives should
be written. When introducing the series to the English public, he stated
his reasons for preferring those written on the " hagiological," or Italian
method. His reasons for so doing, and our own reasons for warmly
supporting him, are so well known to our readers, that we need not urge
tbem now. Even in our present number we have elsewhere touched upon
tlie subject.
No one who ever knew F. Faber could fail to be struck by the way in
which — thrilled through and through as he was with the love of God — he felt
the pulse of the Church and of the age, and knew almost instinctively the
wants of the faithful. In all that dear Catholic life of his, — so precious to
the Church in England — we know nothing more striking, than the holy
persistence with which he advocated the reading of Saints' lives among the
faithful, as one of the most powerful means of kindling among English
Catholics the sparks of the higher spiritual life. It was by the example of
God*s heroes that the men of his generation^ to which his Blessed Master
2 k2
500 . Noiu'os of Bool's.
had sent him to preach, were to be lifted above their own poor level. Most
of us remember the opposition which for a time interfered with the
execution of his plan. There are few Catholics, we think, now when we
write, who will not give thanks to God that — the opposition ended —
F. Faber's design was carried out, and is now, by the revival of the
series, being perfected. Great indeed is our debt of gratitude to tlie Fathers
of the London Oratory, for their carrying out the wishes of their first
Provost.
The present volume does not bear upon it so distinctively the marks of
the ^Miagiological method," as some of the others which we shall soon have
among us. But it is of the spirit in which the whole series is offered to us
that we are writing now ; and we rejoice to think that the faithful will
before long have in their possession solid matter for spiritual reading in
connection with the saints and servants of God, which they can take up at
any moment and turn to spiritual pwposes. Saints' lives written upon other
methods are all in their way admirable. Let us by all means have lives
beautifully and touchingly written ; no one knew better than F. Faber
how to utilize beauty in the service of God, when it would do good ; witness
e.g. the poetry in which he clothed his theology. Let us also have the
letters of the Saints, that we may look the better into the workings of the
man ; but for the nurture of the soul we shall always hold, with F.
Faber, that the lives of the Saints should be so set before us, that we may
be able, so to speak, to feed at our ease upon their supernatural virtues.
For this we must have lives written on the method which we have called
the " hagiological " ; nor ought they, for spiritual reading, to be written in
so attractive a style, as to distract us from their spirituality.
As to this particular life, it is certainly one of great interest. The long
absence of the popes from Italy during the Avignon period, the horrible
feuds and disorders of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, and the paralysing
effect on church discipline of the forty years of the great schism of the
West, brought the whole country into an almost unimaginable state of
irreligion and corruption. A terrible description of the state of religion
and morals will be found in chapter xii.
It was towards the end of this unhappy period, that God raised up S.
Bernardine to revive the fast-failing Christian character of the population.
There is an interesting account of his meeting at Alexandria with the great
Dominican, S. Vincent Ferrer, who was to achieve as great wonders in
France and Spain as Bernardine in Italy. •
The marvellous work accomplished by the Saint is related in the history
of his missions in one after another of the Italian cities.
*' Numbere of men and women assombled before daybreak in the public
squares, where he was wont to preach, to secure a convenient place before
the throng of people arrived ; and a great multitude, both of religious and
secular persons, flocked in to hear him from the surrounding country, often
taking journeys of more than thirty miles for the purpose. Fathers
carried their children on their shoulders, infants hung from their mothers'
necks." (p. G9.)
" Of the innumerable cities and villages of that land, there was not one,
however torn by implacable hatreds and intestine strife that he did not
Notices of Boolcs. 501
reduce to Christian tranquillity. Private enmities, without number, were
abandoned. The laws of honour and modesty were once more observed,
the churches and sacraments frequented, holidays kept. Men might be
seen burning those instruments of the enemy, cards, dice, and gaming-
tables, in heaps in the public squares, as well as the effeminate ornaments
of perfumes, paint, false hair, vain trinkets, masks, and looking-glasses, or
again, writings concerning the black art. Hospitals were erected, usury,
frauds, and mercantile deceit ceased, and thieves, pirates, and the wrongful
owners of the property of others, converted by Bernardine, restored some-
times to the amount of more than a thousand ducats of gold. Through
him widows and orphans regained their possessions whole and entire."
(pp. 72, 73.)
A special characteristic of S. Bernardine's wonderful apostolate was
the constant preaching of the devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus. In
all his missions an important part was played by the tablets which he
invented, bearing the monogram of the Holy Name surrounded with rays
of glory, afterwards adopted as a favourite device by S. Ignatius and the
fathers of his order. Held aloft as a text for the holy Ariar's burning
words, carried triumphantly in procession, or fixed up on the walls of
the palaces and public buildings, where before had been blazoned
emblems of strife and party, the sacred monogram became a potent
instrument in the conversion of souls.
Tried by persecution, the Saint was denounced and summoned to
Rome to answer the charge of preaching novel, heretical, and even
idolatrous practices. But the devotion was approved, and finally con-
secrated by the institution of the Feast of the Holy Name.
We are glad to observe that this Life has been translated with greater
care than some of the old series.
T/te Life of B, Alphonsus Rodrigucs^ Lay- Brother of the Society of Jesus.
By a Lay- Brother of the same Society. London : Bums & Gates. .
WK heartily thank this lay-brother of the Society for this beautiful
life. It has always struck us that the life of the lay-brethren of
that great order which has done so much for the Church of God is one of
the most striking features of its history ; and this was a lay-brother indeed.
Instinctively they seem to have imbibed, and still imbibe, that devotion
to our Divine Redeemer, which can only come from love of the Sacred
Heart. The Fathers of the Society have been chosen by God to propagate
this great devotion — now so necessary for the Church of God — ^and noble
in the Spirit of the Sacred Name, under whose protection they labour,
they have done their work, but hardly less is the debt of gratitude we owe
to the lay-brethren of the Society of Jesus. We need not multiply proofs of
our assertions, but we write within narrow limits. Every one who taken
up this life will know what we mean.
Most interesting is the way in which the suspicion of Quietism fell upon
this great servant of God. It was a shadow only. The theologians of the
502 Notices of Boohs,
Sacred Congregations, as we are told in the preface, triumphantly proved
that his statements were altogether free from condemnation, but they in
theii- turn witnessed to the charity of this poor lay-brother. They com-
pared him to S. Francis de Sales and S. Thomas Aquinas.
Another point which we wish to 'press upon our readers in connection
with this life is his devotion to the Mother of God. The devotion of
Blessed Alplionsus Rodrigues to God's Mother is very remarkable ; but we
rejoice to think that his work may be one of the means of sowing in tliis
cold land of ours a few at least of the seeds of devotion to Our Lady, which
may bring back again our country— onco called her <* dower,"— to be the
England of the Saints. Our Lady is the destroyer of all heresies, but she
is also, being the Mother of .God Incarnate, that great Mother who brings
forth II is elect.
The Life of the Fen, Anna Maria Taigi, the Roman Matron.
London : Burns & Oates. 1873.
WE have to thank Mr. Ilealy Thompson for his fifth volume. The
direct purpose of his biographies is always spiritual edification.
The work bifore us now lets us into the secrets of the divine communica-
tions with a soul that, almost more perhaps than any other in the whole
history of the Church of God, has been lifted up to the level of the secrets
of omnipotence. The Blessed Saints differ in their lives, almost as the leaves
of God*s beautiful trees, now falling so thickly all around us in this
autumn season. Every leaf of their heroic virtues is shaped dififerently,
and we love to take them up and look at them separately.
Now this is just what Mr. Ilealy Thompson enables us to do. The Ven.
Maria Taigi has as yet been only declared venerable ; so in God's Providence,
we cannot tell, she may never become a canonized Saint, but, apparently,
speaking in all submission, lie gave her to the Roman Church to tell some
few of His secrets.
We think it better not to say anything about the prophecies of this
great servant of God. They, no doubt, will be justified at His good
pleasure. But all prophecies as to temporal things are modified by
circumstances, — in a word, they are conditional. Hereafter we shall know —
now let us give thanks to God for all the marvellpus virtues of that dear
servant of His, who in serving Him has done also such service to His
Church.
We feel it our duty to place before our readers part of the Decree of
the S. Congregation as to the cause of the Beatification and Canonization
of this holy woman.
" He, Who about to show forth His power and His wisdom, has been
wont for the most to beat into dust the pride of the world through the
week and foolish things of the world He, in this our age, when
men have lifted up their minds, and the powers of hell have appeared to
combine together to destroy — so far as it was possible — not only the foun-
Notices of Books. 503
(lations of the Church, but also of civil society placed as an obstacle to
these inrushing waves of wickedness a single woman."
So has He done many times before — He who to overcome the world
entered into it through a human mother.
The book is admirably got up, and has, what many will value, a picture
of the Saint. With Dr. Newman, we love to see the faces of those we
Venerate.
Life of the V, Anne Maria Taigi, Translated from the French of R. F.
Calixte de la Providence, by A. S. Smith, Sligo.
Ta most valuable work on the same subject, being a trans-
lation of P. Calixte's well-known volume. All the merits which
we have singled out for praise, in speaking of the other life, are found in
this ; but that one was an origin 1 work— the present is simply a trans-
lation. It seems to us to be well ^done— bctte far than the average of
translations.
I Surely, when we find two works coming out at the same time in England,
on the same subject, — and that subject connected with a servant of God
who has had so much to do with Him Who chose her as His interpeter —
we can hardly doubt that her spirit is under the influence of God's Blessed
Si)irit to be diffused amongst us — and what is it? — loyalty to the Church
of God.
Devotions to S. Joseph, Reprinted from the English Edition of 1700. Edited
by the Rev. G. Tickell, S.J. London: Richardson &Son. 1873.
ONE of the titles of the Church is that, like the Mother of God, she is
encircled with variety, — **circumdata varietate," not with that
variety which is the fruit of discord, a sure evidence of contradiction, and
a stage in the advancing progress of decomposition, but with that multi-
plicity which is the many-sided radiance of a Divine unity. The actual
history of the Church, the theological development of her doctrines, the
elastic yet homogeneous expansion or contraction of her disciplinary
government according to the special requirements of different ages and
nations, and also the solemn and precious devotions which, like a wise
gardener, she plants continually in her paradise for the edification and
delight of her children, blending themselves, as they do, haimoniously
with what may be comparatively called the older flowers of Christian piety
are all facts incessantly reminding us of the fertility and beauty of
Catholic unity. The Devotion to S. Joseph is an illustration obvious
to all Catholics of the principle to which we are referring — a devotion
which was always embedded in the primeval rock, so to speak, of th
Gospel-revelation, but was only brought to the surface as a practical
treasure at an advanced period *of the age of the Church.
504 Notices of Bool's.
" Devotion to S. Joseph," writes Fatlier Faber, " lay, as it were, dormant
in the Church .... tradition licld some scanty notices of him, but they
had no light but what they borrowed from S. Matthew .... but God a
time came for this dear devotion, and it came, like all His gifts, when times
were dark, and calamities were rife."
The cultus of S. Joseph, as Father Tickell observes in the preface to
his book, "founded intrinsically upon th» relation in which S. Joseph
stands towards Jesus and Mary, lias assumed in some sense a new character
from the authoritative declaration of the Holy See, which has sanctioned the
desire of the faithful to venerate him as patron of the whole Church. He
is the patron of each one of the faithful, and in the position which he
holds in relation to the whole Church is to be found the principle which
will render devotion to him universal. To aid in promoting this devotion
is the object of this little work." So many volumes of various qualities
and sizes are issuing from English and continental sources in reference to
S. Joseph, that their abundance is becoming an eiiibarras de ric/iesses.
If, however, any of our readers is in search of a book that in the small
space of 147 pages contains solid dogmatic instruction, simple spiritual
wisdom, and modes of honouring the Foster Father of our Lord with
prayers and actions that are sufficiently ample for individual wants and
tastes, without being distractingly numerous, we have no hesitation in
saying— ^procure Father Tickell's book. The Devotions are a reprint
from an English edition nearly two centuries old. This in itself is an
interesting fact, and shows that our national forefathers understood and
were deeply imbued with the spirit of a devotion, the comparative novelty
of whose diffusion throughout the Church has, to say the least, been
needlessly exaggerated.
Besides various praj'ers which are judiciously given in the freshness of
their original phraseology, the work contains a most admirable treatise
by Father Paul de Barry, S.J., entitled "Remarks upon the Life of
S. Joseph," — a work printed first at Lyons, in the year 1640, and now
extremely rare ; and also " Eight Meditations for the Octave of S. Joseph,"
by the same author, who was the founder of the Convent of the Visitation
at Paray-le-Monial (1626), so illustrious in connection with Blessed
Margaret Mary Alacoque and the devotion to the Sacred Heart.
If F. Tickell had done nothing else but republish these "Remarks,"
he would have deserved our thanks. They are singularly concise, and yet
are composed in a style whose quaint elegance and poetic clothing lead the
reader on with delight from point to pointy until he lays the book down
with regret that F. Paul de Barry has not written more. The follow-
ing quotation will give an idea of the author's imagination. He is
comparing S. Joseph to a lily : — " The sixth and last miraculous leaf or
prerogative of this lily, is that he is one of the persons of the created
Trinity, which is next in dignity to the uncreated, and wonderfully
also resembles all the Three Persons of the uncreated Trinity, as
the lily does which he bears in his hand. For, in a white resplendent
cup or throne, it includes three golden sceptres, all three equal
in fragrance, beauty, and shape, issuing from the middle or
Notices of Boolxs, 505
heart of the flower. Which resemblance gives no little honour to the
Jily, since it makes it a similitude whereby to declare the majesty of this
Divine mystery. Nor is it any less honour to our lily S. Joseph to resemble
the Three Divine Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, which he does
after such a manner as might raise a jealousy even in the angels, to see
tliat God has bestowed upon man such a resemblance of that mystery,
which in itself is the most wonderful of all mysteries, did they not adore
witli all possible submission and resignation His Divine will and pleasure
in all tilings" (p. 57). "If, heretofore, an ingenious artist did so cut
and dispose the leaves of several flowers that they made a very beautiful
picture of Flora, why may not I, quickened by S. Bernard's fancy when
he sa^'s, 'as many virtues as there are lilies,' endeavour to make a lively
picture of S. Joseph's virtues out of the diff^erent sorts of lilies, and
different signification of their colours. By the white lily is represented
his chastity ; by the yellow his charity ; by the carnation his mortifi-
cation ; and by the green his hope" (p. 68).
Modern books upon religious subjects no doubt have many advantages :
they are suited, or ought to be suited, to the current needs, and more or less
to the literary taste of the present age. But sometimes the writers them-
selves are unconsciously influenced too much by a natural desire to adapt
their matter to the transitory phases of popular taste ; so that the spiritual
menu, if such an expression may be tolerated, runs a risk of savouring more
than is wholesome of the modern spirit. It is occasionally, therefore,
most refreshing to meet one of the old books even upon an old subject,
especially if the author is allowed to wear his original costume : if archaic,
there is an artless charm about the antiquity ; age supplies the attraction
of novelty without its deteriorating element. Such is the praise which is
justly due to F. Tickell's unpretending but valuable little volume.
The Coutcmporaiy Review, September, 1873. King & Co.
WE notice this number of the Contemporary in order to bring before
the attention of our readers an essay by Mr. ^Hvart on a subject
certain phases of which have been already touched on in the pages of this
Review — Contemporary Evolution.
The aim of Mr. Mivart's paper is to furnish an answer to the question —
I n what direction does the current of human movement at present set ? His
title, " Contemporary Evolution," consequently refers to the evolution of
human society in our own day and in the time immediately preceding and
subsequent to it. Judging of the future by the present and the past,
*' What," he asks, "are we drifting to? We in England (and, indeed, in
Europe generally) may be said to be traversing an epoch likely to be
memorable for a long period to come We are all called upon to
contribute to social evolution, and more or less distinctly to take sides, and
of course only by rare accident can beneficial action directly result from
erroneous judgments." We are therefore bound to do what we can to
506 Notices of BooT(s,
appraise the epoch in which we live, and to estimate its tendencies correctly.
In order to do this he puts three questions : —
I. The first of these is, whether in fact one spirit and tendency has or
has not really animated those great movements which have marked the
post-mediaeval epoch ?
II. The second question is, if there has heen one such inspiration, what
has been its tiue nature and character?
III. The third (juestion is, what is likely to be the further effect of such
a spirit, and is it likely henceforward to increase or diminish? — Cont. Rev.
p. 599.
The first question is answered in the affirmative. The post-medijeval
movements have been marked by wide- spread break up of definite religious
systems, and by tendency to democracy in politics. Thus the French
Revolution was avowedly anti-Christian. The Renaissance w^as tainted
by scepticism, and ** was speedily followed by religious disruptions which
are deemed by many who heartily approve them, as but the logical pre-
cursors of that absolute negation of Christianity which has, in fact, become
so widespread in Switzerland, Germany, France, and Holland, and is now
openly avowed by many of those who lineally represent the initiators of
such disruptions." It was a naturalistic pagan revival ; a worship of nature,
pleasure, sense ; an antinomian rebellion against restraint, law, and duty ;
and was accompanied by a second current, the " Reformation," by which
" certain remnants of dogma were drifted together in definite but unstable
aggregations, labelled * Lutheranism,* * Calvinism,' and what not." This
second current, however, soon proved to be a mere ** backwater." It has
resulted in no developments, and the materials it stranded have either
remained stationary or disintegrated. " Dogmatic Protestantism, as such,
is essentially anti-scientific and profoundly anti-naturalistic, proclaiming,
as it does, the utter depravity and helplessness of our human nature ; and
M. de CandoUe has recently shown how Geneva has gained its scientific
eminence only since it threw off its orthodox Protestant character." In
appreciating the essential movement of the last five hundred years we may
therefore leave Protestantism out of account, except in so far as it has
accelerated the " process of Christian disintegration." On the tendency to
democracy, which dates back even from the " Renaissance,^* it is needless
to insist.
The reply given to the second question is that " the whole modem move-
ment from the humanists of the Renaissance to the present day has been
and is a Pagan revival ; the reappearance of a passionate love for and a
desire to rest in and thoroughly sympathize with mere nature, accompanied
by a more or less systematic rejection of the supernatural, its aspirations,
its consolations, and its terrors." For, Mr. Mivart observes, while the
ancient Paganism, like the modem movement, rejected any definite and
therefore exclusive religious system, it did not interdict the religious
feelingSjbut on the contrary endeavoured to supply them with an object in the
contemplation and veneration of nature, whose powers, variously personified
and represented to imagination, it set np for the adoration of mankind.
It was thus, in essence, a kind of Pantheism ; and tlie habits of mind which
it created were fundamentally antagonistic to Christianity : —
Notices of Boohs » 507
We may note the harmonious organisation (so fitted ta its needs) of each
species of animal and plant, proclaiming a nature instinct with intelligence
as well as with beauty. Here also we may learn how slight differences of
colour or form may protect the individual life, and what fatal effects ma^
result from an apparently trifling defect of structure. Teeming nature is
seen to be the mother of myriads of creatures of which but few can reach
maturity, and seems to proclaim trumpet-topgued a natural gospel of
happiness for the healthy, the beautiful, the strong.
The loveliest tints displayed by birds as well as their springtide melody,
the blossom of all flowers as well as their sweetest perfumes, all become
known to us but as subordinate agencies ministering to the great repro-
ductive function — spontaneous tributes of organic life to Alma Venus.
Such phenomena seem to combine with the evidences of the destructive
and apparently cruel process of nature to inculcate the brief lesson of the
grim symbol att he Egyptian festival — "Enjoy.". . . .
How strongly does a nature so replete with interest, with wonder, with
beauty, with pleasure, and with awe, solicit the devotion of man's faculties !
The courts of such a scientific temple [as a modern museum] tend to
produce in not a few minds feelings of delight mingled with a riuasi-religious
sentiment ; and when, instructed by such teaching, we wander forth amidst
the living products of nature, that feeling becomes intensified indeed. . . •
When from some smooth-browed, chalky down we, reposing amid
fragrant wild-flowers and the hum of insect life, look down on the peaceful
ocean rippling in sunlit splendour at our feet— as we mark the sea-fowl
sailing in circles with rarely-flapping wings, or listen to the lark rising
blithly through the summer air — how strong with many will be the
impulse towards a joyous cultus of an underlying soul of which such
visible beauty is the living and palpitating garment. The Great Pan
lives once more, nor is Aphrodite unlikely to receive a mute and mental
homage. This world is felt to be lovely and sweet indeed, and visions of
exclusively terrestrial joy pass before the mind and tend to produce in it
scanty reverence for the forms and but slight admiration for the beauties
of Christian supernaturalism.— Cont. Rev. pp. 605, 606.
This reviviscence of Paganism has undoubtedly been assisted by the
modern developments of the physical and biological sciences; but it is
according to our author chiefly to be attributed to the circumstance that
the Aryan race, of which we are descendants, lias been for untold ages
saturated with the spirit of nature- worship. Prostration before the strength
and majesty, and aesthetic admiration of the beauty of nature ; love for
her as the common and kindly mother and friend of all, the true Consokt*
trix Afflictorum ; veneration for those hidden powers that dwell in her, and,
by their mighty, wise-seeming, and ubiquitous working, produce results so
beneficent to the human race, are burnt into us Aryans, and have become
a part of our very organization, Inherited from a long succession of
ancestors. Mr. Mivart here in fact calls in the principle of Atavism.*
* iMore properly reversion to ancestral type. The ordinary form of
Heredity being from parents, that from grandparents, Atavism properly
so called, is rarer, that from great-grandparents rarer still ; but if the
heritable tendency have been at the outset sufliiciently strong, and partici-
pated in by a sufficient number of ancestors, there is no repugnance in
supposing that, even after having been repressed through hunoreds or even
thousands of generations, it should under more favourable circumstances
at last find issue in remote descendants. Thus Mr. Mivart urges that in-
508 Notices of Books,
As to the third question, Mr. Mivart thinks it not improbable that the
revival of the Pagan spirit may be carried much farther, and may assume
a far more distinctly religious aspect than at present. He does not, how-
ever, believe that this "religion of the future" will encumber itself with
myths, as the ancient Paganism did. On the contrary, he conceives that
it will ally itself with science, and place itself in connection with Mr.
Spencer's Philosophy, — which, by the way, he aptly and accurately identi-
fies with Buddhism, quoting thereanent a striking passage from the
Upanishad (p. 612), — inasmuch as that Philosophy gives for object of the
religious feelings the Unknowable which works through nature. If
Herbert Spencer's Philosophy ever came to be generally held in a country
where the instinct of worship is strong and the sense of taste cultivated,
our author considers that the powers of nature, as manifestations of the
Unknowable, might readily come to be worshipped, either as such, or under
appropriate symbols. He reserves for a second paper — which we trust he
will publish soon, and before the remembrance of the first has become
indistinct — the consideration of the effects which the farther progress of
the movement towards the revival of Paganism may be expected to pro-
duce on Christianity, and the result of the conflict between " the modified
Christianity and the so revived Paganism." When he has done this, we sftall
have before us the whole, and not a fragment only, of his speculations on
the subject ; and we hope then to be able to speak of it more in detail than
is possible within the limits of a short notice. We therefore abstain from
criticism ; we abstain also from commendation, . Our readers will, even
from the brief and imperfect account here given, have noted the originality,
force of thought, and aptness of expression, of Mr. Mivart's essay ; of his
facility of illustration, and wide command of various knowledge, they
will be able to judge only by consulting the essay itself.
asmuch as, with the Aryan race, the worship of nature is of unknown
antiquity, and during unknown ages was universal in extent, it is not to
be wondered at that it should prove of immense tenacity, and that in spite
of having been overborne by the superior force of Christianity from the
fourth to the fourteenth century, it should have revived when the study
of Nature was so energetically resumed after the middle ages had run
their course, when the Renaissance had turned the thoughts of men to the
monuments of Pagan antiquity, and when Christian ideas had lost a
portion of their hold on the world. It may be added that the nature- worship
has never quite disappeared from Europe (Cont. Rev. p. COO) ; that the
essential character of the European nations has shown a remarkable
persistence (Cont. Rev. p. GOl) ; and that Darwinians carry the principle
of Reversion much furtner than Mr. ISIivart, since they account for certain
excei)tional variations from the common type by saying that they are
normal in certain of the lower animals, and, when found in human beings,
are due to ancestral influence. Thus the small brain of the idiot migiit
be ascribed to reversion.
Kotires of Boolis, 509
A Life of S. Walhurge, mth the Itineraty of S. Willihald, By the Rev.
Thomas Meyrick, of the Society of Jesus. London : Burns & Oates.
1873.
WE welcome with much interest this reprint of one of the series of
"Lives of English Saints" put together thirty years ago hy the
society which gathered around F.Newman at Littlemore, or studied, thought,
and prayed for light under his powerful influence. The effect which these
Lives produced on the Anglican world is well known. It was not inferior,
though different in its operation, to that of the Tracts fw the Times. If
the Tracts stirred men's minds in general with a love for a holier and
nobler past, and with the charm of the very name of Catholicism, the
Lives seemed to act like some powerful solvent, separating, never again to be
reunited, elements of religious belief and unbelief which, up to that time,
had been unconsciously held together. Most of the biographers became
Catholics within a very few years after, and the stream of conversions
fairly set in. Having fulfilled their office, these works seemed to pass away
from recollection ; and yet among them were some which are not such
that the world ** willingly lets die." Father Meyrick's contribution to
this series, now before us, though one of the most unpretending, was one
that caused perhaps more astonishment than any, the simple faith with
which it stated the miracle of the holy oil which distils from the relics of
S. Walburge, taking Protestants completely by surprise.
A book which thus reappears after the lapse of a generation may be
treated as a new one, being now intended for a different class of readers, and
under wholly new circumstances. So short a work is always rather diffi-
cult to notice, because an account as long as it merits seems like repro-
ducing the volume itself ; however, we will endeavour to avoid that error,
and 3'et give some notion of what it contains, and of the manner in which
the subject is treated. In presenting such a life as that of S. Walburge
to the public, the author opens out a field which even now is very un-
familiar to many. The Saxon saints as the objects of a devotion in which
religious feeling was mingled with a passionate regret for a nationality that
was trodden down by the feet of invaders, are comparatively little known to
the descendants of those whom they taught or ruled. A few indeed stand
out in popular remembrance. All still reverence the name of Edward the
Confessor ; few are ignorant that S. Boniface was the apostle of Germany.
What Northumbrian but loves to hear of Cuthbert, Godric, and Wilfrid ?
But only the students of Saxon antiquity are aware how full and animated
are the records of that age, and how very peculiar and beautiful is the type
of saintliness it produced, of which the great features were, piety in royal
or noble rank, sweetness, simplicity, and devotion to the Holy See, We
may add, too, the missionary spirit. S. Walburge was a Saxon princess
of the royal family of Kent, the sister of Saints Winnibald and Willibald,
botli of whom were the faithful assistants of the great S. Boniface (who
was their uncle) in the evangelizing of Germany. Their father Richard,
titulary king, had died at Lucca, where his tomb remains to this day ;
510 Notices of Books.
and it was under the influence of the Holy See that the hrothers went on
their mission among the wilds of Germany. Meanwhile St. Walburge
was living as a nun in the convent of Wimburn, in Dorsetshire. She was
invited, at the age of 40, by S. Boniface to go and assist in this work, and
went, accompanied by thirty of the sisterhood, into Thuringia, where
Winnibald had established seven monasteries. Four years later, the brother
and sister founded a double monasteryfor monks and nuns in a remote valley
of the German Alps, called Heidenheim. Here they toiled, evangelizing
and civilizing for many years. At the death of Winnibald, she took the
government of both the monastery and convent, which was not unusual
in those times, fulfilled this duty for fifteen years, and died on Feb. 25, 77G.
Little seems to be known of her actions during that period, excepting one
or two, which shine out like the rich colooring on the storied glass of a
Gothic cathedral. We may mention, for instance, her walking fearlessly
among some savage wolf-hounds which surrounded tlie gates of a castle, as
she approached it in the evening on an errand of mercy. She was probably
the writer of a curious and valuable account of the pilgrimage of her
brother S. Willibald to Jerusalem, given in this volume, and a proof of
the cultivation of Saxon ladies of rank at that remote period. She is
famous through the centuries that have elapsed since her death, among
the saints called elaophoriy or from whose bones exudes a miraculous oil.
Father Meyrick notices in his preface that, after his conversion in 1845, he
became aware of a recent miracle wrought by the pil of S. Walburge at
Preston, showing that the miracles recorded in the saint's life are no mere
things of the past.
We may, perhaps, be allowed io remark that whilst the simplicity of this
sketch is, in one sense, its great merit, as intended merely for edification, it
might have been not amiss to add that research which is so acceptable to
the student of history, whether Catholic or Protestant. For example, the
transcript of a note of Alban Butler's (Feb. 25) would have given the reader
a great deal of valuable information which we desiderate in this little
volume. We, however, heartily thank Father Meyrick for it, and must
also commend the typographic elegance it displays, which reflects great
credit on the Roehampton press.
, iProhlema dell* Umano Destino, Per Euoenio Alberi. Volume unico.
Firenze : Tipografia all' Insegna di S. Antonino. 1872.
WE promised in our last number to give this month a fuller notice of
this valuable book than we were then able to furnish. The chief
merit of this work lies in its unity, and in saying this we pay it the greatest
compliment that we can. To attempt to solve the problem of man's
destiny, in his relations both with his Creator and with the history of the
world which that Creator has given him to inhabit ; to point out how all
the truths revealed by the latter are bound together link by link, and at
the same time are in harmony with his wants ; to trace out the gradual
Notices of Books. 511
disintegration of God's revelation through the error of the human mind,
and yet to sum up all by showing that the final triumph remains with
man's Maker, and with the means which He has established for man's
good, is no ordinary task. It requires a great mind to conceive the plan,
and vigorous logic to secure its successful execution. Throughout the
whole work there must be one central thought, never for a moment for-
gotten— although of course from time to time suppressed from view —
which binds, as by a connecting chain, all the parts together. '*I1
Problema*' possesses these merits. We confess that in our first hasty
notice we hardly did the author justice as to the way in which he has
executed his task. We feel it therefore incumbent upon us to state that
both in the conception and the execution we have found Signor Alberi's
volume a masterpiece of argument. It has always struck us that the
Italian mind excels by its logic, and although poor Italy is at the present
moment literally deluged with illogical and debasing writings, we feel that
it is against its will and its better judgment. Gladly then do we welcome
so valuable a contribution to the cause of truth, justice, and morality.
Our author first states the problem in the clearest possible terms, a
problem which may be well summed up in his own quotation from the book
of Job : *^ Man dieth and wasteth away ; yea man giveth up the ghost,
and where is he 1 " Admirable is the way in which he examines in the first
book the different philosophical systems which have attempted to solve it.
Dualism, Pantheism, Materialism. Refuting as he goes along the theories
of spontaneous generation, and the transformation of the species, he states
boldly and forcibly the true origin and nature of man, and noticing
passing objections drawn from Biblical chronology, and from geology,
proves to every reasonable mind, from man's intellectual and moral faculties,
that he comes from God. Next, having proved man's divine origin, he
treats of the existence of his Maker, and of divine Providence, of the
freedom of the human will and of the immortality of the soul. In the
second book he brings before our notice part of the solution of man's
destiny, as given us by God Himself ; that is to say, primitive revelation,
— a subject which he handles hardly less felicitously. Just as the various
philosophial systems had failed to solve the problem, so now he shows how
all religions, except the one revealed by God, failed to make man truly
happy, and that the only good to be found ' in them lay in the greater or
less proportion in which they reflected the first revelation. He proves
the latter point most clearly from the traditions of all peoples inde-
pendently of Holy Scriptures, and he defends the Old Testament from
that false science which in this very respect is now ruining by its shallow-
ness so many souls in England, Italy, and Germany. His commentary
on the Mosaic cosmogony is most scientific, and while refuting the more
modern objections he has availed liimself of everything in favour of the
truth which modern science has against its will been able to furnish.
The connection between original sin and the promised redemption is no
less clearly traced ; while he shows link by link, how by the dispersion of
the nations, the election of the Jewish people, and the prophets, the world's
Creator gradually prepared it for the coming of His Sont The third
512 Notlrcfi of Bool'si.
book treats of the redemption itself. The ** my tliological " system of
Strauss and Renau is scattered to the winds. The New Testament is
made to stand upon a firm foundation by the proofs of its authenticity
and iutcgiity against all the arguments of rationalism, and Christ, the
God-Man in His person, doctrine, and works is shown to be the centre of
God's dealings with mankind. Here — although to a superficial reader
the author might appear to be taking a step backwards — he is in reality
presenting the unity of his conception by introducing the mystery of the
Holy and Undivided Trinity, without which the mission of our Redeemer
could not be understood. The nature of the latter is most clearly define d
and its object shown to be just that which links us all together, through,
the visible and sensible signs of the Sacraments with Him Who is the
first and the last, the beginning and the end— the centre of all creation,
in Whom dwells the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
But our Lord having also a Body Mystical, the type of which was His
Real or Natural Body — the problem of man's salvation is in the fourUi
book-- still further worked out through His Church, founded upon
Pontifical infallibility, that is, on the rock of Peter. The Church being
thus proved divine, the conclusion necessarily follows that she i^ the
supreme director both of the individual and of the human race. We trust
this work of Signer Alberi will soon be translated into English. It is
not of every Italian work that we should say the same thing. The
differences of race and climate must necessarily vary the treatment of any
subject of thought, and the lamentable circumstances which of late years
have convulsed the Peninsula have perhaps rendered the defenders of the
truth somewhat too timid in facing the difficulties brought forward by
unbelievers. Signor Alberi has not done this ; he has looked the enemy in
the face, and overpowered him.
The last chapter, in which our author treats of faith and reason, is to our
mind the best of all.
As a specimen of the argument and style of the work, so far as a trans-
lation can render it, we subjoin the following : — " It is true that from
S. Thomas from whom we learn that the first knowledge (conoscimento),
proceeds from reason, and again that ' reason is a reflection of the light of
God,' an interior light by which God speaks in us, down to P. Perron e,
who teaches that faith and reason are two rays of the same indefectible
light, no human philosophy has so glorified reason as the Church. It has
expressly defined man to be a reasonable animal, and it ceases not to
repeat with S. Paul that we must off^er to God a reasonable service. Lately
the Ecumenical Council of the Vatican has again confirmed this constant
doctrine of the Church by proclaiming * that however much faith may be
above reason, there can never be any discord between them, as they both
have for their origin the same God, who reveals mysteries and infuses
faith into the human mind, in which He has placed the light of human
reason ; God not being able to deny Himself, ortruth tocontradictthetrue."
We heartily thank Signor Alberi for this work, which we regard-
approved as it has been, if we understand rightly, by the Holy Father —
as one of the most important works recently p\iblished in Italy,
Notices of Bool's, 51 S
The Light of the lloli/ Spirit in the World, Five Lectures by
Rev. Canon Hedley, O.S.B.
THERE are very few Catholic writers who evince so keen a sense as
Bishop Hedley, of the rapidity and completeness with which society
is s.eparating itself from religion. All the five lectures contained in this
volume show much power ; but it is the first which impresses us as far
the most characteristic and significant, and we shall confine our notice to
its contents. He begins thus ; and his words are even more applicable to
the continent of Europe than to England.
*' If we observe what is going on round about us, we must have our
doubts and our fears for the future of this country we live in. There is no
doubt that, from a religious point of view, public opinion is settling steadily
in a downward direction. Looking at things all round, and without for-
getting how many different kinds of religious revivals this century has
seen, still it is true that the great bulk of our books and newspapers, and
the larger number of our infiuential men, are edging away from the Gospel.
There is no rush in the opposite direction ; there is no furious outbreak of
blasphemy or vice, except in one or two cases which I admit are excep-
tional ; though even they are very significant as symptoms. But what
with the scientific men who do not believe in the existence of anything
except their own thoughts, the other scientific men who question every-
thing written in Bible or Creed, the independent philosophers for whom
the Christian ideas of right and wrong are not enough, and the Christian
clergymen who are called * Broad,' and whose office it seems to be, like
the Angel from Heaven anathematized (hypotheticallyj by S. Paul, to
bring us ' another Gospel' — the tone of public opinion is lowering everv
(lay, and it seems likely that there will soon be a very low level indeed.
The world in bygone days, did lie low, in darkness and in the shadow of
death ; and that is where it is falling to again ; for it is on the way to
Paganism." (p. 3.)
The Bishop dwells on two particulars in this connection. (1) The
gratification of the lower appetites is theoretically defended, as an end to
be pursued for its own sake. But (2), and still more^importantly, the age
is relapsing into heathen darkness. It is quite true that reason by its in-
trinsic power can prove with certainty the existence of God and the immor-
tality of the soul ; but in matter of fact how many are there, external
to the light of Revelation, who have mastered these truths? As a general
rule, " all the answer" which could be given on those questions ** by the
wise men of India and Persia and Greece," ** was uncertainty and guess ;"
while *' the millions that toiled and wrought in the world cared very little
about even such answers as they got : they ate and drank and died "
(p. 4). This is what Europeans of the nineteenth century will no less
arrive at, in proportion as they lose faith in Christianity. Take England
then and inquire what is its present state.
" The people of England believe still ; but the thought and intellect of
the country has begun to deny or to doubt even Immortality — even the
very being of God. Now, as it is perfectly certain that in every age of the
world the mass of men and women have taken their religious belief from
VOL. XXI.— NO, XLir. [^New Series,] 2 l
514 Notices of Boohs*
authority of one kind or another, so is it ceHain that the doubts and denials
that seem now confined to intellectual men and high-class periodicals will
si)read by degrees into the heart and fibre of the people. Tliat is to say,
this is what will happen if thin;j;s are left to themselves. We have before
us the prospect of Heathen Darkness. And Heathen Darkness is a more
serious thing even than Heathen Dissoluteness. However bad a man be as
to his moral life, if he only keeps the knowledge of the truth, he may repent
and reform. When his passions die down, or his opportunities disappear, or
his conscience is awakened, he knows where to turn and what to do ; he has
the Light. And it is the same with a nation. The vice of many Christian
cities has been, and is, frightful ; but as long as faith and its symbols and
its sacraments are in their midst, how many souls are by the mercy of God
snatched from destruction even at the last moment? But extinguisli the
Light, and even Hope seems to disappear." (pp. 4, 6.)
Little do those know who have not carefully considered the subject^ how
vast is their debt to Revelation.
" We are living in the very midst of the supernatural Light of God, and
we find it almost impossible to get a look at it. Tiiiths that Aristotle and
Plato would have given their lives to be sure of, we have learned uncon-
sciously, as if they were part of the atmosphere about us. Christianity is
a second nature to us, and we cannot form an idea of what we should be or
what we should feel if we were without it. Like the air that we live in, which
covers us over and presses upon us, and which we do not feel, so the Liffht of
the Spirit lies over us and round us, and we do not think of it. But if that
vital air were drawn off and dissipated in the ether of the planetary spaces^
— or if it were only altered, rarified, or thickened, or deprived of one small
element in its composition, what would follow? — Pain, oppression, disrup-
tion of organs, suffocation, and finally death. And very like tp this would
be the effect upon the moral world if Christian Truth and Light should
cease upon the earth. Imagine that you had lost those grand but familiar
truths which you have learnt from your Christian parents, from your
religious teachers, from your Bible, from the very books and journals of a
Christian country — truths about the one God, the Future Life, the Im-
mortality of the Soul, the Coming of Jesus, and the Grace of the Spirit ;
suppose that all these truths died out of the world ; then Virtue would be
a name, Prayer an impossibility. Religion an affair of police ; a few hearts
would sigh and yearn for unseen truth, the rest would make the earth
their home ; and the reason of man, so Divine in its possibilities, would
never lift its gaze upwards from the narrow sordid fleeting scene, in the
midst of which sensuality had chained it fast.*' Tpp. 6, G.)
" Perhaps it may seem improbable that the world, even when rejecting
all belief m God's voice, should come to reject also all those treasures ot
truth wliich that voice has bestowed upon it. But this is really what
must happen. Let men teach their children that Revelation is only a
name for a certain set of opinions ; let them teach them that Revelation is
partly guess, partly ignorance, and partly imposture ; then let the children
of those children be left to darkness, trained to doubt, taught to be in-
different ; and it is merely a question of time when the darkness becdmes
complete. The change may not be completed in one generation ; the Light
will still send some of its rays into the unconscious souls of those who
despise it. But one generation or ^yq generations ^it matters not ; the
deepening twilight will end some day, and the night will fall as surely as
though it fell with the swiftness of an eclipse. The hour will come when
evil teaching will have done its work ; when the customs and traditions of
the Christian centuries will have been gradually pushed out of sight ; when
Notices of BooJcs. 515
even laws and institutions will have altered their character to suit the
alteration of opinion ; when Churches and Creeds will be as the rubbish
of the past ; when human speech in great houses and in small, in high
places and in low, in the lecture-room and in the press, will have run into
new moulds and been stamped with new shapes ; and the world will be
standing once more at the point where Christ found it, asking the question
which Pilate asked — living the life that Tiberius led." (p. 8.)
It will be replied perhaps, that, since reason has the power of proving
with certitude these fundamental verities, an appeal to reason at any given
period will suffice for their re-introduction. But to whom are such
arguments to be addressed ?
" First they are addressed to the thousands, the millions, of working
men and women who eat their bread in the sweat of their brow. They
are addressed to the illiterate poor in the cities, in the fields, in the factories,
in the docks, in the mines ; to the men and women who cannot read, or if
they can read, who cannot put a premiss to a premiss ; and who, even if they
could read and could reason, have to work hard from morning till night.
What a mockery to tell a working man — an anxious bread-winner of a
family who walks out to his work in the morning hardly refreshed, and
comes home at night tired out with toil— what a mockery, to tell him he
must devote his mind to find out whether or not he has a soul — whether
or not that soul is immortal — and what the future life is likely to be I
Hard grinding labour from the morning when they rise, reluctant and
slow, to the evening when they sink down again weary and overcome, to
eat and then to sleep — is this a school where men can settle the deepest
questions of speculative truth? And if you rise in the scale of in-
telligence, and take a class that is better off and has more leisure, the
mockery is still the same. Look through all the grades of the great
middle class, from the well-to-do artisan to the banker and the profes-
sional man ; think how full of work their life is, howbusy their brains
and their hands ; remember how in every gi*eat country it is a condition
of greatness that the immense majority of the citizens dedicate their best
and longest hours to the production of wealth in one shape or another ;
consider among all the clever and educated men who make up the very
marrow of our national life, how difficult it is to find one whom you
would trust to give you a decisive answer to an unprofessional speculative
question, such as, for instance, in what circumstances it is permissible to
take another man's property ; and then say whether it be not a wild delu-
sion to suppose that from these busy workers can come any clear or con-
sistent system of natural theology or natural law. It is vain to talk about
education. I will grant that the greater number of citizens will be what
is called educated when the moment comes for the disappearance of Reve-
lation. But their education will have got rid of the very truths they
want ; and their mere ability to read will only enable them to read the
books of people as dark as themselves ; and the cultivation of their minds,
whatever it may be, will never make philosophers of them, or help them
to stop for a day's leisure, the ever-revolving wheel of work. Invite
them to prove the existence of a God in the midst of an atheist generation,
and you mock them. Their minds are full of money ; they have ventures
at home and abroad ; they discuss companies and harvests, and mines ;
they think of digging, and moulding, and making ; they watch the skies ;
they are intent upon the field and the beast ; they handle the fruits of
the earth ; or perchance they study the schemes of princes and of parlia-
ments, the fevers of nations, the disturbances of peoples, and the fluctua-
tions of funds ; or it may be that they pore with close and eager eye over
2 L 2
51 G Notices of BooJcs.
the secrets of science ; or take the pen and make hooks ; or seek their gain
and their fame in the arduous practice of exacting professions ; in a
word, they are tlie men who make the cahinets of government, who fill
the halls of justice, of science, of commerce, who work the banks and the
printing presses of this unresting world. Teach them ; bring your truth
to their doors, and they will look at it, and they will most likely know it
when they see it ; this you can do for them ; but do not mock them by
asking them to supply a darkened world with its necessary Light. And
even if we could stop the work of the world, change its labour into
leisure, and give mankind every chance and opportunity to ponder, to
examine, and to decide, a moment's thought will convince us that we
should be little nearer the end. I do not here speak of the infinite
diversity of opinion that would be the result of an appeal to the reasonings
of the multitude ; this we must notice presently. But is there one man
in a hundred, even among educated men, who has the ability or the
taste for a life of intellectual study ? Is there one in a thousand, or in ten
thousand ? If there is not — and we know there is not — then they must
be enlightened in some other way, or be for ever dark." (pp. 9, 10.)
We have never met with more powerful writing or more profound think-
ing than this. We wish educated Catholics would duly lay it to heart ; and
come to see that the assaults of infidelity — terribly vigorous now and sure
to increase in power and vigour at a rapidly increasing rate — threaten
society with every evil which a Catholic would most dread. We wish
educated Catholics would more and more see that the one great work in-
cumbent on their class — a work in comparison with which all other
intellectual labours shrink into insignificance — is to face this fearful
torrent, and build up that bulwark of Catholic truth which alone can offer
effectual resistance. To bring out clearly the full strength of Catholic
doctrine on those particular matters on which it is now assailed — to treat
in detail and with laborious candour the various arguments on which such
assault is based — and to raise up a fabric of higher education whereby a
succession of fully-equipped Catholic champions may be maintained, — this
is surely the one paramount intellectual work, on which the ablest
Catholics should concentrate their energies and resources.
Madonna's Child, By Alfred Austin. Edinburgh and London :
William Blackwood & Sons. 1873.
rinnE title of this poem, and the frontispiece representing our blessed
JL Lady crowned with stars and the moon under her feet, are sufficient
to claim our attention. The externals would seem made to attract the
Catholic reader. Nor is the first impression cancelled on reading the book.
It appears to be written in a believing spirit. There is much reverence
and love of Catholicism exhibited, an intimate acquaintance with its ritual,
and a knowledge, by no means superficial, of the modes of thought peculiar
to the Catholic mind. Internal evidence shows that the author has paid
no flying visits to the shrines and temples where Catholics adore their God
and cultivate communion with His Saints. His glowing descriptions wear
the colouva nf the heart, and it is evident that if the doctrines of our divine
Notices of Boolcs. 517
religion do not really afifect him now, they must at some time of his life
have done so deeply. His heroine personifies all that is lovely in a young
Catholic maiden — spotless purity, intense devotion, fondest affection. His
hero is noble-minded, faithful, loving, but — he cannot pray — he cannot
believe. Does the heroine or the hero represent the writer's inmost
thoughts ? Is he a believer or an unbeliever — a Catholic or a Positivist ?
These are the questions that force themselves on the mind of every attentive
reader of this beautiful poem. In itself it will scarcely resolve the doubt.
Even the preface supplies us with a key to the author's meaning only when
we become acquainted with his previous writings and something of his
personal history. B}*^ the help of these, however, we arrive at the fact that
his own feelings and opinions are expressed by Godfrid, not by Olympia,
Madonna's Child.
The groundwork of the poem is simple and affecting. In a retired spot
in Italy on the sea coast, and lying at the foot of the Alps, a devout maiden
]>asses her life in tending ^ shrine of the Madonna. The sanctuary and
its minister are thus described : —
" Within it is a lovelier little chapel
Than ever wealth commanded, genius planned ;
Surpassing all those shrines where pomp doth grapple
Witli art to blend the beautiful and grand.
No gold adorns it, and no jewels dapple.
No boastful words attest the builder s hand ;
From porch to belfry it most plain but fair is,
And bears the name, Maria Stella Maris.
Breaks not a morning but its simple altar
With fragrant mountain flowers is newly dight ;
Comes not a noon but lowly-murmured psalter
Is duly breathed with unpretentious rite ;
Its one sole lamp is never known to falter
Its faithful watch through the long hush of night ;
From dawn till gloaming, open to devotion
Its portal stands, and to the swell of ocean.
Never did form more fairy thread the dance
Than she who scours the hills to find it flowers ;
Never did sweeter lips chained ears entrance
Than hers that move true to its striking hours ;
No hands so white e'er decked the warrior's lance
As those which tend its lamp as darkness lours ;
And never since dear Christ expired for man,
Had holy shrine so fair a sacristan."
A stranger visits the spot, frequents the chapel, and becomes enamoured
of the fair "daughter of the sunlight and the shrine." Their hearts are
united in the fondest affection, but the heavenly-minded child is horrified
to find that her lover — so thoughtful, so gentle, and so manly — will not
bow his knee in prayer to Saint or Madonna, to Christ or the Father. His
woes, he says, are deeper than bead, or prayer, or psalm can hope to probe.
He had been taught at his mother's knee to cast himself on God, and cling
to the garment of Mary, but now he wanders through the world homeless
518 Notices of Boohs,
and aimless, the victim of Fate, but bowing humbly to the Sovereign Will,
without imploring either grace or gift. This is a dismal announcement
in poor Olympia's ears.
" On her young cheeks no more that rose did blow
Such as'in hedgerows in lush June you pull.
And all her poor pale face was washed with woe,
But of that sort which maketh beautiful ;
Her large orbs, swart and satin as the sloe,
Whose lustrous light no sorrow could annul,
Yet wore a strangely grave and settled look,
Like a dark pool and not the laughing brook."
Her love is strong as ever, yet she feels that she dare not wed an infidel.
A thought strikes her— it is a flash of light in the darkness— she will
implore him to repair with her to Milan. There lives one venerable priest
who first taught her the fnith, and he may be able to resolve Godfrid's
doubts. There, too, rises that magnificent dome where God is worshipped
in the beauty of holiness, and where, if anywhere, the unbelieving heart
will humble itself before the King of kings. Hand in hand Godfrid and
Olympia start on their journey, while the silvery mist creeps up the hills,
and melodious matins ring out from all the feathery brakes. Modern
poetry contains few stanzas more perfectly expressed, more softly and
sweetly coloured, than those in which their loving pilgrimage to Milan is
described. Every lovely feature of Italian scenery is woven into the verse,
and the tissue is all the more beautiful for being elaborate. Mr. Austin is
an enemy of the Pre-Raphaelite school of poetry, and defends on principle,
while he illustrates by example, the correct versification of Pope, Gray,
and Cowper. It is well that there should be some living protests against a
style of poetry, now fostered by a few partial critics into fictitious notoriety,
which defies the established rules of art, and presents us instead with slip-
shod rhymes, new-fangled metres, extravagant fancies, incomprehensible
rant, liquid blasphemy, and refined obscenity. Disagreeing as we do with
Mr. Austin's appreciation, or rather depreciation, of Tennyson, we think
his strictures in " Temple Bar" on the poems of Messrs. Browning, Swin-
burne, and Rosetti were cauteries as well deserved as they were skilfully
applied. But this by the way.
Arrived in Milan the youth and his companion enter the gorgeous
Cathedral precisely when a function of more than usual solemnity is
taking place. No English poet has described a Catholic ceremony in a
higher and richer strain of poetry than Mr. Austin in " Madonna's Child."
It seems as if the ritual of true Christianity had still a strong hold over his
affections, unless, indeed, he possesses an extraordinary power of depicting
scenes which have lost their interest for him. But the stately pomp of
Crozier and Cross borne in long procession, the thrilling music, the golden
censers, the rich light streaming through the painted panes, the myriads of
knees bowed in phalanxed prayer, and the Sacred Host itself held aloft,
fail to produce any softening effect on the obdurate unbelief of Godfrid's
heart. He prays, indeed, when left alone in the Cathedral by Olympia to
pray, but Lis words are rather a challenge to the ^^ angels and spirits of
Notices of Boohs. 519
celestial make" to appear if they can, than a cry for mercy and light from
a humble and contrite heart. They partake too much of the spirit of Cain,
in Lord Byron's drama, when he stands erect by the altar and proudly
addresses the Omnipotent, or of Manfred when he invokes by a spell the
spirits of the Alpine heights over whom he has obtained for a moment a
delegated sway.
" Not such the prayers to which stem Heaven replies ;
The lips of faith another language speak ;
Celestial visions visit downcast eyes,
And those who find, not arrogantly seek :
No answer came to his presumptuous cries,
Such as, *tis said, descends on suppliants meek.
But only deeper darkness, and a sense
Of bootless thirst and yearning impotence."
Olympia's prayers return into her own pure bosom. They bring down
no showers of grace on the arid field which she would fain see a garden of
the Lord. But this failure decides her on resigning the dearest object of
her existence, and her refusal to be Godfrid's bride is best told in the poet's
own language, with which the volume concludes.
" The foam-fringe at their feet was not more white
Than her pale cheeks as, downcast, she replied :
* No, Godfrid ! no. Farewell, farewell ! you might
Have been my star ; a star once fell by pride ;
But since you furl your wings, and veil your light,
I cling to Mary and Christ crucified.
Leave me, nay leave me, ere it be too late !
Belter part here than part at Heaven's Gate !'
Thereat he kissed her forehead, she his hand.
And on the mule he mounted her, and then,
Along the road that skirts the devious strand.
Watched her, until she vanished from his ken.
Tears all in vain as water upon sand
Or words of grace to hearts of hardened men.
Coursed down her cheeks, whilst, half her grief divined,
The mountain guide walked sad and mute behind.
But never more as in the simple days
When prayer was all her thought, her heart shall be ;
For she is burdened with the grief that stays.
And by a shadow vexed that will not flee.
Pure, but not spared, she passes from our gaze.
Victim, not vanquisher of love. And he ?
Once more a traveller o'er land and main : —
Ah ! Life is sad, and scarcely worth the pain ! "
As a literary production, " Madonna's Child" has few blemishes, and is
second to no poem that is not first-rate. It has no claim to striking
originality, but there are readers to whom it will be all the more acceptable
on that account. As a tale, its tendency is Catholic rather than otherwise,
despite the scepticism of the hero and, as we suppose, of the writer too.
We accept it as an offering laid on the altar of our religion, and we do so
the more willingly because it is perspicuous in style, and unstained with
the literary vices of " the dreamy and difficult clique."
520 Notices of Books.
The Tongue not essential to Speech ; with Illustrations of the Power of Speech
in the African Confessors. By the Hon. Edward Twistleton.
London : J. Murray. 1873.
THIS book has been criticized with so much care in an elaborate paper
in the September number of the Month, that little is left for us to
say in the present notice, coinciding most completely as we do in the view
which the writer of that paper has taken. To most of our readers likely
to speculate on the subject, Dr. Newman's famous ** Essay on the Miracles
recorded in Ecclesiastical History,*' which first appeared about thirty
years ago, and has been republished of late, must be familiar. One of the
miracles to which he gave the greatest prominence, is that wrought upon
certain African Confessors, who liad their tongues cut out by order of the
Aryan tyrant, Huneric, and who nevertheless retained perfectly the gift of
speech ; for which we have the testimony of several witnesses of such
weight as not to be got over unless by obstinacy that is ready to reject
whatever is marvellous, if only it be alleged in proof of the Catholic faith.
In the last century Dr. Middleton threw out the idea that, even if the fact
was as stated, and the excision of the tongue complete, still speech was
possible ; and in proof of this, he quoted the case of a Portuguese girl born
without a tongue, and of a boy at Saumur who lost his tongue by gangrene,
who nevertheless were able to speak. This argument of Middleton'a was
adverted to by Dr. Newman (as Mr. Twistleton tells us with some admira-
tion), though it had escaped Gibbon's notice and that of several learned
men — Guizot, Milman, and Dr. W. Smith, >vho have annotated Gibbon,
For nearly twenty years Mr. Twistleton appears to have made this question
of tongueless speech his pet Rubject, and he has put together in this volume
all the instances of it he has been able to find, having already, in 1858,
called attention to the matter by a memorandum in " Notes and Queries,"
in the same line of argument. Dr. Newman, in reference to this memo-
randum, had allowed that the pritndfade evidence, till proved irrelevant,
took away the controversial use of the miracle, but still was unable to say
that he believed there was nothing miraculous in the case. Mr. Twistleton
is displeased with this caution, and compares it to the conduct of Naaman
the Syrian, had he, whilst abstaining from entering the temple of Rimmon,
still carried about with him a small image of the idol. We hear so much
in the present day from scientific men of the sceptical school, of the value
of prudence iu their researches, that it is rather hard Dr. Newman should
be thus severely satirized for the exercise of so favourite a virtue of theirs.
Among the collection of cases accumulated, we must say, with great care
and industry, by Mr. Twistleton, one of the most interesting is that of a
Mr. Rawlings, whose tongue was cut out for cancer, by means of incision
under the chin, which allowed the application of tight ligature for a length
of time. The patient spoke immediately after the operation, and con-
tinued to retain the power of speech. Professor Huxley, however, does
not give us the idea that his speaking was more than comparatively good.
*' His words were almost always intelligible, and the majority of them were
Notices of Boohs. 521
very fairly pronounced," and that is all. He changed his Ps and d^s.
initial and final, into /, r, r, 5, /, which of course must have made a great
hash of the pronunciation. Now the evidence as to the African Confessors
all goes to show that speech in their case was retained without any impedi-
ment, which at once establishes a great difference. The reviewer in the
Montky making use of the table of observations in Mr. Rawlings's case
furnished by Professor Huxley, shows that if the African Confessors had
retained speech to as imperfect a degree as he, an important verse in the
Athanasian Creed would in their mouths have run thus : — "Fiesaufera
cafoica hcec eth uf unum eum in Frinifafe ef Frinifafem in unifafe
veneremur ! ** Waiving, however, this consideration, evidence that speech
remained after the tongue was removed by a most splendid effort of
scientific skill, operating for days, will hardly convince us that it would
naturally have remained after the excision of the tongue by a rude African
executioner ; and even if this were possible under ordinary conditions, a
religious mind will still be apt to judge of the case by its circumstances
collectively. A mother, to whose passionate prayers has been granted
her child's recovery from an almost hopeless fever, will feel that the
physician's skill has had the divine blessing. The line that separates the
natural from the supernatural is a waving one, and if the latter energizes
at all, it energizes sometimes more and sometimes less, at one moment with
startling force and visibility, at another with force scarcely distinguishable
from inferior agency. Expressions such as these : " What a kind Provi-
dence ! " " The hand of God was there ! " show this feeling where there
is no idea of asserting miraculous interposition of a stupendous kind. The
case of the African Confessors may pass off into this softened, but still
wonderful order of unusual events, which meet us all along the history of
Christianity, and for which we are prepared by those which lie at the basis
of it all, and in testimony of which the Apostles and early martyrs shed
their blood, a proof which science will no more destroy than it can destroy
the testimony of creation to the being of God.
T/ie Conflict of Stadicsy and other Essays on Subjects connected with Education,
By I. ToDiiuNTER, M.A., F.R.S., formerly Fellow and Principal
Mathematical Lecturer of St. John's College, Cambridge. London :
Macmillan & Co. 1873.
THE variety, excellence, and popularity of Mr. Todhunter's mathe-
matical manuals, naturally lead us to take up with curiosity and
pleasure any work of his on education ; and the present volume has not
disappointed the expectations we had formed. It is a collection of six
essays on university studies and examinations, academical reform, and
kindred subjects, practical throughout, and presenting some very interesting
views. The first essay, on "the Conflict of Studies," takes us over a
ground of great and increasing importance, but not so much on the vexed
and familiar question of the rival claims of classics and mathematics, as
524 Notices of Boohs.
the school of metaphysics which denies that the inconceivable is neces-
sarily the false ? " (p. 182).
In more than one place the author speaks, with the authority to which
liis great experience gives him a right, in testimony of the high state of
mathematical science in England. Some rather ignorant disparagement of
this, in comparison with France, has found currency among us, and it
certainly is satisfactory to find the matter placed clearly in its true light.
" Let an inquirer," says Mr. Todhunter, " carefully collect the mathe-
matical examination papers issued throughout England in a single year,
including those prepared at the Universities and Colleges, and those at
the Military Examinations, the Civil Service Examinations, and the so-
called Local Examinations. I say then, without fear of contradiction,
that the original problems and examples contained in these papers, will,
for interest, variety and ingenuity, surpass any similar set that could be
found in any country of the world. Then any person practically conver-
sant with teaching and examining can judge whether the teaching is likely
to be the worst, when the examining is the most excellent" (p. 138).
We shall only notice one or two points in the paper on " Academical
Reform." One is that of exclusive clerical fellowships, which, this acute
writer says, — " 1 do not suppose that it would be possible to defend, except
on the following grounds : 1. That by this means a succession of learned
theologians is preserved ; 2. That by this means a supply of laborious
and earnest parish clergymen is secured ; 8. That by this means a high
standard of morality is maintained in the University.*' Not possible to
defend it, except on these grounds ! The real ground is not one of the
three, but the principle of education being controlled by the Church, sup-
posed, in this case, to be the Establishment, and of its having throughout
a Christian type. But, however, when he comes to apply his three reasons
he finds them break down, because in point of fact very little actual
theology is taught, and no suitable works are found to exist on miracles,
prophecy, evidences, or Christian doctrine (the order is significant), whilst
during the last few years nearly twenty works have been published by
clergymen on conic sections. As to parish work, it seems clerical fellows
dislike accepting livings, and stipends for curates have to be raised in Cam-
bridge, for some parishes, by collecting contributions. And as to the third
advantage, Mr. Todhunter, though he allows it in some degree, evidently
does not count much on the example of men who, though neither ignorant
nor selfish, are clerical only in name. The whole subject, however, of aca-
demical reform, with which may be joined the essay on the" Mathematical
Tripos," is of more special interest to Cambridge men as such, than it can
be expected to be to our readers. We may notice, however, that the
writer thinks the class of poll-tutors ought to be discouraged. These are a
set whose business is to prepare the inferior students for examination. He
notices some painful tales as probably fictions or gross exaggerations, but
as perhaps indicating the tendencies of the s^'stem. "Thus it has been
reported that instruction has been sometimes conve^'cd to a class supplied
with beer and tobacco ; and it has been hinted that the facts of Scripture
History and the ehments of theology have been woven into doggerel verse
for the pupils of weak memories. The University is to blame if it admits
Notices of Books. . 523
applied. It is a test of such value as eliciting self-possession, nerve, tact,
and readiness, that a branch of examination which is necessarily without
it, must, so far, be unsatisfactory. As to the marking-system, Mr. Tod-
hunter recommends negative marks for errors.
Next comes an exceedingly acceptable essay on " the Private Study of
Mathematics." On the whole, we gather from it that a solitary student
has little chance of considerable success in examinations at Cambridge ;
however, the author gives some good hints to those who, from whatever
circumstances, have to pursue their studies for themselves. One is, to do
their best to understand the text of their books by itself, and not to fly to
examples to clear it up. If they cannot understand a passage after
reasonable pains, let them go forward, and revert to it at a later period,
when perhaps their difficulty will have vanished. He however recommends
the study of printed solutions of examples, of course after diligent attempts
have been made by the student to obtain the solution without the book.
For examinations, he puts forward prominently one important and obvious,
though often neglected rule of prudence, which is, not merely to consult
the official programme, but the commentary on it which the examination
papers furnish. He reminds solitary students that they are expected not
merely to understand a train of reasoning, but to be able to reproduce it,
yet remarks that very long and intricate investigations may in general be
passed over, and recommends them even to give up passages which
they find their memory obstinately refuses to master. This may
appear too indulgent, yet we think that this interesting chapter
in Mr. Todhunter's will be found practically sound, and that his views —
though always kind and sympathizing — by no means sanction a want of
thoroughness. Passing over for the moment an essay on " Academical
Reform " we notice one on " Elementary Geometry," in which we are glad to
find him the unhesitating advocate of retaining Euclid in our mathematical
education instead of the new-fangled and easy but superficial substitutes
some people are endeavouring to force upon us. Which of all these
manuals is to be accepted instead of the ancient authority ? And have
results shown that the training founded upon them is more effective than
that founded upon Euclid ? The difficulties arising from what we must
call the crotchets of the innovators, are well brought out in the following
paragraph : —
" One gi-eat source of trouble seems to me to consist in the fact that what
may be a sound demonstration to one person with adequate preliminary
study is not a demonstration to another person who has not gone througn
the discipline. To take a very simple example, let the proposition be —
t/te angles at the base of an isosceles triangle are equal. Suppose a candidate
dismisses this briefly with the words ^this is evident from symmetry y the
question will be, what amount of credit is to be assigned to him? It is
quite possible that a well-trained mathematician may hold himself con-
vinced of the truth of the proposition by the consideration of symmetry,
but it does not follow that the statement would really be a demonstration
for an early student. Or suppose that another, imbued with * the doctrine
of the imaginary and inconceivable,' says as briefly *the proposition is
true, for the inequality of the angles is inconceivable, and, therefore, false,'
then is the examiner to award full marks, even if he himself belongs to
524 Notices of Boohs.
the school of metaphysics which denies that the inconceivable is neces-
sarily the false?" (p. 182).
In more than one place the author speaks, with the authority to which
his great experience gives him a right, in testimony of the high state of
mathematical science in England. Some rather ignorant disparagement of
this, in comparison with France, has found currency among us, and it
certainly is satisfactory to find the matter placed clearl}' in its true Ught.
" Let an inquirer," says Mr. Todhunter, " carefully collect the mathe-
matical examination papers issued throughout England in a single year,
including those prepared at the Universities and Colleges, and those at
the Military Examinations, the Civil Service Examinations, and the so-
called Local Examinations. I say then, without fear of contradiction,
that the original problems and examples contained in these papers, will,
for interest, variety and ingenuity, surpass any similar set that could be
found in any country of the world. Then any person practically conver-
sant with teaching and examining can judge w^hether the teaching is likely
to be the worst, when the examining is the most excellent" (p. 138).
We shall only notice one or two points in the paper on " Academical
Reform." One is that of exclusive clerical fellowships, which, this acute
writer says, — " 1 do not suppose that it would be possible to defend, except
on the following grounds : 1. That by this means a succession of learned
theologians is preserved ; 2. That by this means a supply of laborious
and earnest parish clergymen is secured ; 8. That by this means a high
standard of morality is maintained in the University.*' Not possible to
defend it, except on these grounds ! The real ground is not one of the
three, but the principle of education being controlled by the Church, sup-
posed, in this case, to be the Establishment, and of its having throughout
a Christian type. But, however, when he comes to apply his three reasons
he finds them break down, because in point of fact very little actual
theology is taught, and no suitable works are found to exist on miracles,
prophecy, evidences, or Christian doctrine (the order is significant), whilst
during the last few years nearly twenty works have been published by
clergymen on conic sections. As to parish work, it seems clerical fellows
dislike accepting livings, and stipends for curates have to be raised in Cam-
bridge, for some parishes, by collecting contributions. And as to the third
advantage, Mr. Todhunter, though he allows it in some degree, evidently
does not count much on the example of men who, though neither ignorant
nor selfish, are clerical only in name. The whole subject, however, of aca-
demical reform, with which may be joined the essay on the " Mathematical
Tripos," is of more special interest to Cambridge men as such, than it can
be expected to be to our readers. We may notice, however, that the^
writer thinks the class of poll-tiUors ought to be discouraged. These are a
set whose business is to prepare the inferior students for examination. He
notices some painful tales as probably fictions or gross exaggerations, but
as perhaps indicating the tendencies of the s^'stem. "Thus it has been
reported that instruction has been sometimes conve^-ed to a class supplied
with beer and tobacco ; and it has been hinted that the facts of Scripture
History and the ehraents of tlieology have been woven into doggerel verse
f^y tiiA ?•!»-• Is of weak memories. The University is to blame if it admits
Notices of Books, 525
to its privileges the idle youths for whom these appliances are necessary "
(p. 129). This certainly is the very least that could be said on the
question.
Memoir of a Brother. By Thomas Hughes, Author of " Tom Brown's
School Days." Second Edition. London : Macmillan & Co. 1073.
WE really must enter a protest against the publication of this book.
Common sense surely requires that the subject of a biography
given to the world should have been remarkable in some way, in character,
achievements, or history ; should have been either so elevated above, or
depressed below the common standard, as to make him in some marked
manner either an example or a warning. Nothing of the kind is found
here. Mr. George F. Hughes (1821-1872) was an ordinary English gentle-
man, of excellent moral character and fair talent, educated at Oxford,
where he took a second class, then went to Doctors' Commons, married in
1 852, and gave up practice in the course of a few years, because the health
of his wife's mother by adoption made it desirable they should be always
with her, and that she should spend the winter months abroad. He appears
to have brought his family up very creditably, lived in a kindly, manly
way, as a country gentleman, and died regretted, no doubt very deservedly,
by his family and friends. His brother, a well-known author, comes
forward to print his life. The writer, in his preface, seems pretty con-
scious that the publication is a little absurd, but says, ^* I do see that it
has a meaning, and an interest for Englishmen in general," and shows how
Englishmen of high courage and culture, and so on, would be forthcoming
wlien wanted in any serious national crisis. Granted : but that whole pages
should be filled with letters from papa to his son at school, beginning
" Dearest Old Boy," which any papa of us all might have written, is too
ridiculous. They absolutely have nothing to make them of the slightest
consequence out of the family circle. The volume is dedicated "to my
nephews and sons," and had it been printed for private circulation among
them, all we can say is, there could have been no objection beyond the
waste of a considerable sum of money — perhaps a trifle to the family con-
cerned. But when the book is published, and reaches a second edition, its
acceptance by a particular set must not make a reviewer shrink from
condemning the patent folly of the whole thing. What is of consequence
to the Hughes family, nay even to the boys at Rugby School, who may
happen to have been comrades with any of them, is mere twaddle to the
world at large.
It must be understood that what we have said applies to the memoir
taken as a whole ; we do not mean to say that it does not contain some
passages that may be read with real amusement or profit. Every well-told
life would afford such ; but in a case like this, they might have been use-
fully put together in a very short obituary, or have served as illustrations
to an independent article.
The best among them is the description of a yoang scapegrace at Oriel
526 Notices of Boohs.
in Mr. George Hughes's days, who was nicknamed " the Mouse," and
who had to take his name off the books, though ^^ the knave was mine
exceeding good friend," and who ended his days in a couple of years after
in the Cape Mounted Rifles. The following remarks of the author on the
subject of modern school-games are worth attention : —
" The machinery of games gets every year more elaborate. When I
was in the eleven at Rugby, we * kept big-side ' ourselves ; that is to say,
we did all the rolling, watering, and attending to the ground. We had no
* professional' and no 'pavilion,' but taught ourselves to play; and when
a strange eleven was coming to play in the school- close, asked the doctor
for one of the schools, in which we sat them down to a plain cold dinner.
I do not say that you have not better grounds, and are not more regularly
trained cricketers now ; but it may cost a great deal in many wa^'s, and
the game has been turned into a profession. Now, one set of boys plays
just like another ; then, each of the great schools had its own peculiar
style, by which you could distinguish it from the rest." (p. 96.)
There is also a chapter of some interest on the origin of the co-operative
movement in England in 1849-60, which the author was concerned in
starting, but in which he could not get his brother, who was a Tory of the
old school, to take any active share.
As to religion, or rather " Church politics,'* Mr. George Hughes's idea
could not be better summarized than in his own words. He thought that
" both parties are right in some things, and wrong in others, and that the
truth lies between the two." He protested against any faction trying to
turn out those whom it disliked ; but, on the other hand, was not tolerant
of what his biographer calls " the stiiTing of thought within the Church,
which has resulted in criticism, suj)posed to be destructive of much that
was held sacred in the last generation." He held that " free thought" on
such subjects ** should be incompatible with holding office in the Church,"
The outer life of a devout man should be thoroughly attractive to others ;
he should be ready to share in blameless mirth, and be indulgent to all,
save sin. " Tried by this test," says the biographer, " the best we have at
command, my brother was essentially a devout man." And he quotes
instances to show that he kindly attended the deathbeds of his poor people,
and taught classes of the young men and elder boys of the village. Of his
goodness we hav^ no doubt ; but to off^er him as the exemplification of an
ideal, is what may be very natural to brotherly affection, but what none
can accept who know of something higher, not far distant from any of us.
Life and Letters of James Ddmd Forbes, FM,S,, late Principal of the
United College in the University of S, Andrew^ &c., &c. By J. C.
SiiAiRp, LL.D., Principal of the United College of the University of
S. Andrew ; P. G. Tait, M.A., Professor of Natural Philosophy in the
University of Edinburgh, and A. Adams-Reilly, F.R.G.S. With
portraits, maps, and illustrations. London : Macmillan & Co. 1873.
THIS volume merits attention not only as a record of the great
scientific seryices of the excellent man whose life it relates, particu-
Notices of BooJes. 527
larly with i*eference to Alpine exploration, and of his career as an impor-
tant university official, but also from the fact that into the former subject
there enters in some degree a controversy arising from investigations made
in the same province by a Catholic prelate, the late Mgr. Rendu, Bishop of
Annecy. It has also, independently of Principal Forbes's career, a peculiar
interest for the history of a man of world-wide fame, from the circumstance
that Forbes's mother was the first love of Sir Walter Scott, whose disap-
pointment in that suit coloured his mind so very deeply throughout,
although his natural force of character and loftiness did enable him to get
the better of it in a manner that was both touching and noble. The
biographer has brought together the particulars of this topic, furnished by
Lockhart. It appears that the alliance with Miss Stuart (afterwards Lady
Forbes) would have been a very natural and suitable one for the poet, but
the misfortune was, the lady preferred his rival. The choice turned out
quite happily for her ; and her husband, Sir William Forbes, lived to be a
most kind and valuable friend to Sir Walter, when he needed it very much.
Yet tlie anguish of the disappointment remained fresh in Scott's mind
thirty years after. Principal Shairp refers to a criticism of Keble's on
this subject, who thought that " this imaginative regret, haunting Scott all
his life long, became the true well-spring of his inspiration in all his
minstrelsy and romance." There is no doubt it must have powerfully
affected his genius one way or another, though its traces are not to be
found on the surface. There is a very interesting portrait of Lady Forbes
in this volume. She died in 1810, about a year and a half after the birth of
the subject of this memoir. The development of his character affords nothing
of extraordinary importance. He appears to have been good and virtuous,
to have had a great love for his father, whose loss, when he was about 19,
acted strongly on his religious feelings. He showed a passion for science
from his earliest years, and trained himself with the wisdom a real natural
bent is sure to give, if undisturbed, for his future course of action. One
tiling may be noticed, as a useful lesson for young minds. He was singularly
accurate as well as fluent in writing ; and he ascribed this to an early habit
of never setting his pen to paper till he had something to say, and knew
what he was going to say. He early came in contact "with Sir D. Brewster
and other eminent savans, and, quitting the Bar, to which he had been
first directed, he was chosen, at the early age of three-and-twenty, to be
Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, beating
the veteran Sir D. Brewster in the contest.
Ilis professional life left deep traces on the educational system of the
University of Edinburgh, which notwithstanding the m^n of genius it
possessed on its staff, had lingered in that course of academical change, or
rather revolution, which Oxford had commenced in the beginning of the
century. Forbes organized the method of examination by means of printed
papers and of marks which is in force at the present time. His great dis-
covery of the polarization of radiant heat was made at the age of 27* An
ample account is given in this volume of Forbes's Alpine travels, which led to
his great theory of glacier-motion. This was, that ** a glacier is an imperfect
fluid, or a viscous body which is urged down slopes of a certain inclination
528 Notices of Boolcs.
l)y the mutual pressure of its parts.'* This idea of the viscosity or ductility
of glaciers had heen previously guessed hy Mgr. Rendu, Bishop of Annecy,
in whose " Theorie des Glaciers " Professor Tyndall (as quoted in a paper of
Forbes's), found " a presentiment concerning things as yet untouched by
experiment which belongs only to the higher class of minds." This, in fact
would seem to have been the bishop's merit, to have thrown out a happy
conjecture ; that of Forbes, to have established it scientifically, and there-
fore (if Paley's maxim, "he only discovers who proves," is to hold in
science) to have been, strictly speaking, the discoverer.
Forbes was made Principal of the United College in S. Andrew's in 1850.
Of thatUniversit}', Principal Shairp remarks, that "it is one of the few frag-
ments.which survived the wreck of the Scottish medieval church," and he
acknowledges that three out of the four Universities of Scotland had
Catholic bishops for their founders, which was pre-eminently true of
S. Andrew's, the most ancient of them all. Forbes' services to liis University
appear to have been very great, though of course they can only have an inte-
rest for a very limited class of our readers. He regulated the finances of
his college ; he established a compromise on the vexed question of medical
graduation in the Universior ; he founded a college hall ; he restored the
college-chapel of S. Salvator, and he examined and arranged the contents
of the college charter-chest. All this doubtless represents a great deal of
very conscientious and exemplary work.
As so much interest attaches to University questions at present in the
Catholic body, it seems worth while to make the following extract, on the
subject of University vacations: —
" The life of most Scottish professors was then, as now, divided into six
months of unbroken work in college, and six months of vacation. To
strangers unacquainted with tlie ways of Scotland and the habits of its
students, so long a vacation appears a strange anomaly. But there are
reasons enough grounded in our social facts and habits which have justified
it for generations ; and which satisfied the late University Commissioners
when they carefully inquired into all the bearings of this question. It
must not be supposed tiiat these six months are to either student or pro-
fessor times of idleness. The former is often employed in some useful
>vork for self-support, as well as in carr^^ing on his college-studies. The
latter, when he has reci-uited himself after the toils of the session, finds
full employment in preparing new lectures or recasting old ones for the
approacliing session. Besides this, whatever Scottish professors have done
for science, philosophy, or literature, has been the fruit of their summer
leisure *' (p. 107).
Forbes was one of those instances, too rare in the present day, of scientific
men who have retained faith in Christianity. The school to which he
belonged was that of Scottish Episcopalianism, and his religious adviser was
his kinsman and friend, the well-known Protestant Bishop of Brechin. His
intellectual habitude, as regards religion, seems to have been what we are
accustomed io think English rather than Scottish, namely, that which
enables men to acquiesce patiently in contradictions. Thus he never
sought for means of reconciling science and religion ; and whilst admitting
that Tractarians could hardly escape from the conclusions of the Jesuits,
he himself slipped from them by accepting indefiniteness as " a trial of
Notices of B00J18. 529
our faith." Dr. Forbes communicates to this volume some recollections of
him during a part of his protracted last illness, at Hyeres (he died at Clifton
on the last day of 1868), in the course of which he likens him to Pascal,
minus the rigorism, and minus surely, the depth, force, and compass of that
extraordinary mind. Such comparisons, instead of heightening their object,
always seem to diminish it far below the standard to which it would
otherwise have been assigned by the impartial observer.
Notes of Hiought, By the late Charles Buxton, M.P. Preceded by a
Biographical Sketch, by the Rev. J. Llewelyn Davis, M.A. London :
J. Murray. 1873.
THIS book contains 684 detached thoughts on very miscellaneous
matters — men, manners, and religion. The author was a country
gentleman, a member of parliament of the philanthropist' type, a Church of
England man, with a considerable dash of Quakerism in his mental compo-
sition, his mother having been a Gumey. He had no commanding talents,
but had been carefully educated, and endeavoured to acquire the art of
thinking from his early years, keeping a journal, of the religious type, from
tlie tender age of ten. One of his favourite books was Coleridge's ** Aids to
Reflection," and the volume before us is such as might be produced by a
mind of very ^moderate powers, brought up in that school. Mr. Buxton's
life was calm and prosperous, but cut short when its prime was only just
coni])Ieted. He died at 48, and this volume appears to have been the result
of incidental meditation during the ten years previous to his death.
Probably these indicia will enable a practised reader to anticipate the
general character of the thoughts. He will not open them, expecting to
find reflections of the mark of Pascal or Goethe, or indeed of a drauglit
much beyond that of ordinary thinking men. Noif w.ill he expect the
absence of that hostility to the Catholic ideal which Quaker antecedents
could not but intensify in a mind of no special originality. But he will
anticipate^what in fact the volume yields, much that is amiable, shrewd,
(piiet, cultivated rather than refined, transparent rathft: than deep. The
author had evidently also lost no opportunity of securing those ideas which
crop up in any mind of fair capacity accustomed to feed itself well, but
which few take the trouble to gather and store up. Perhaps the fairest mode
of criticising such a book is to offer a few specimens from it. We remem-
ber the story of the scholastic in Hierocles, who, having to sell a house,
carried about a brick for the inspection of intending purchasers. But
specimens from a book like this are like a handful of com out of a sack,
which is quite fair.
As an example of the hostility to Catholicism which we have noted, is a
thought which occurs early in this book, in which the thinker declares
against enforced celibacy by the Catholic Church, as the worst crime com-
mitted in the name of religion ^' next to the devilish wickedness of burning
heretics." " What a huge army," he cries out, " of warm, loving hearts
must have been withheld from all the most endearing ties by which life is
VOL. XXI. — NO. XLii. [Neio Series.'] 2 m
530 Notices of Books.
cheered! "(No. 10). As if the so-called enforced celibacy was not self-
chosen, and as if any state, marriage included, would not be misery to
those who were never called to it. We here see the chains thrown by the
deep prejudices of education over a mind that would have been the last to
imagine itself fettered. A measure of the liberalism of liberal minds of
this order is No. 141, where we find an efifort to account for " the perverts
to Popery" believing *^all the fiddle-faddle legends about saints and so
forth." Mr. Buxton finds that the easiest explanation, and partly, he
thinks, true, is that their belief is a sham ; but again, he thinks he has
no right to disbelieve in other people's faith. "They have crawled
thither, step by step, down from some premiss, to which again they had
clambered step by step, out of the plain of good sense. They got to it
[their beliefj by reasoning, however twisted." Side by side with this
thought, we will set the following (No. 214), which will serve to show
that belief in what all devout Protestants like Mr. Buxton accepted unhe-
sitatingly a few years ago. is now treated with just as much scorn as the
mediaeval miracles, the conscientious reception of which he finds it difficult
to understand.
** Is not the fact that such a tale as that of the saving of the animal
creation by Noah's Ark, is still believed wholly, and without any effort, by
nearly all Christians,— is not this fact alone enough to show the vast
stocUlow of human nature ? Let people but fancy that it is a part of their
religion to hold such-and-such a notion, and, whatever the notion is, they
can gulp it down."
Turning to thoughts not belonging to the field of theology or controversy,
we find them singularly uniform ; one is about as good as another. We
will, however, endeavour to select two or three of the shortest, and at the
same time those which most approach to be striking.
"No. 130. An intellectual man is far more cowed by a puppy, than a puppy
by him. No. 151. Silence is the severest criticism. No. 104. In practical
afiairs, it is not deep thought that wins, but the eagk eye. No. 405.
What you most repent of is, a lasting sacrifice made under the impulse of
good-nature. The good-nature goes ; the sacrifice sticks. No. 404. Here
is a person living and acting with intense selfishness, and yet wholly
unconscious that he or she is not the most generous man or woman in the
world. It frightens one to see how bad one may be, and know nothing at
iill about it."
No. C14 is a long article on the connection between the mind and the
brain. It begins well by taking ** a dozen of clear facts " on the subject.
His reasoning lands him in a denial of ^^ the old notion that man was made
up of two distinct parts, his body and liis soul." It is not worth while
discussing the question here. We will conclude by quoting at length an
article of a different class, in which the writer's observation as a country
gentleman of opulence entitles him to be heard with attention.
"No. 377. No life might seem (and in many cases is) more free from
care, more luxuriantly delightful, more advanced on all sides into every-
thing that can make man happy, than that of a country gentleman in one
of * the ancestral homes of England.'
Notices pf Books, 531
" Here are a few examples :—
" One ^county family' consists of an old man, paralytic, imbecile, who
sits in a darkened drawing-room, moaning the livelong day, while no one
speaks but in a whisper. Another squire has six sons and no opening or
capital for any of them. Another has lived to be ninety-two ; his son is a
l)ed-ridden old gentleman, who for seventy years has been the slave of his
father's caprices, and the object of his suspicious jealousy. Another has
ei^ht (laughters and no son. The property is entailed. Another is child-
less. His vast mansion is dull as tne tomb. Another has quarrelled with
every neighbour near him, and his whole talk is made up of oaths and
abuse. Another is a minor, fatherless, sisterless, his mother re-married,
lie drinks. Another is separated from his wife (by her fault). His one
son lives abroad. Another has thirteen children. At his death the ancient
family estate must be sold off, and when the mortgages are cleared,
will not fetch £25,000. Another is at daggers drawn with his
eldest son. The second is a favourite. The whole property must go to
the one he hates. Another is a man of refined taste. The house is a
hideous concentration of all ugliness. It stands in the plainest of plains.
The old trees were all cut down to pay his father's debt. Twenty others,
with delightful homes in the loveliest spots, live abroad, for vice, or economy,
or mere restlessness. Another has three country seats, and all mouldy.
Another can't afford to go to town. He hardly knows any one, and has
no society whatever."
Felices nitnium.
Samons for all Sundays and Festivals of the Year, Vol. II.
J. N. Sweeney, D.D., O.S.B, Burns, London.
A CERTAIN quaint author, Owen Feltham, makes this racy remark :
— •* I never yet knew a good tongue that wanted ears to hear it."
This saying holds good to the present day. The edition of the first volume
of Dr. Sweeney's Sermons is already nearly exhausted. The second volume
which he now presents to the public, and which brings to a close his series
of Sermons for all Sundays and Festivals of the Year, will, we trust, meet
with a welcome equally as hearty. Dr. Sweeney's oratorical genius is of
sufhcient calibre to command an intelligent audience, and his Sermons will
always be popular. He knows how to speak because he has first learnt
how to think. His style — now familiar to so many — is chaste, elegant,
orderly, and clear. He takes care not that the hearer may understand if
lie will, but that he shall understand whether he will or no. Clearness and
precision are not altogether a matter of grammar and diction. The sensi-
tive part of our nature quickens the perceptive. The divine yearning of a
pastor for the salvation of his flock, his knowledge of their wounds, his
anxiety to supply their needs, his tender sympathy and love towards each
one of them personally, fires his imagination and guides him during his
discourse better than many days of laboured study, what to say and how
to say it. His words, accordingly, never fail to be luminous, palpable and
searching. He is never tempted to be led away by the flowery vagaries of
a false rhetoric. His mind is too deeply intent upon rescuing souls to be
taken up with such trifles. His aim is straight, his thoughts piercing.
532 Notices of Boohs.
Now, to this sweet solicitude of the shepherd may be traced much of Dr.
Sweeney's clearness and directness. His Sermons will exemplify that
primary canon of the rhetoricians : — " To address men well, they must be
loved much." Dr. Sweeney's spirit of devotion, which in its largeness,
gentleness, and unction, is truly Benedictine, breathes in his every page
and warms and enkindles the soul of his reader. To those, therefore, who
feel themselves dry, dull, and losing ground in the spiritual life, we com-
mend these sermons. They are precise if not always concise ; simple as
well as instructive. Into the region of abstract thought they seldom or
never venture. Their heights and depths are within the ken of the people.
Our author is not a Philosopher : he is a Preacher, and as such holds up
the mirror to his audience, in which they see such images as these reflected—
the law of Love ; the seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary ; Jesus
weeping over Jerusalem ; the Compassion of God ; the Sacred Heart.
Read in the light of recent events, the following extract from the sermon
on the Sacred Heart will possess additional interest : —
*•' Devotion to the Sacred Heart follows from the doctrine of the Incar-
nation. The Church accepts the Mystery of the Incarnation in all its
reality, its fulness, and its consequences. We believe that our Blessed
Lord was really and truly man ; not in appearance only, as certain heretics
once tanght, but that He was perfect man, as the Athanasian Creed
declares, subsisting of a rational soul and human ilesh. He had a body
with all its organs, a soul with all its faculties ; aud as in us, so in Him,
the soul and body mutually influenced each other. We adore the Sacred
Humanity because of its union with the Divine Nature, from, which from
the first instant of its existence, it never has been separated. We adore
His flesh residing with us in the Blessed Sacrament, and in our adoration
we include all that is implied in the constitution of a human body. We
adore His Precious Blood because it is His, and because it is a part of His
living Body. We adore therefore His Sacred Heart, through which that
Precious Blood circulates, and which was in Him, as in all men, the special
seat of the will . . . Turn for a moment your thoughts upon His Passion,
and von see all through its bitter course the influence aud action of the
Sacred Heart. His Agony in the garden is its flrst act. And what does
that Agony imply ? He has not yet fallen into the power of His enemies,
and no human hand has touched Him. The scourging and the crowning
with thorns and the carrying of His Cross and the Crucifixion have
not yet taken place, but the Precious Blood begins to be shed. He buries
Himself in solitude, and He began to be sorrowful and to be sad. Fear
comes over Him, and He sinks down under the weight which oppresses
Him. He rehearses in that hour of agony all the details of His Passion,
and His Sacred Heart breaks under the pressure which this anticipation
makes to bear upon it. Great as were the physical sufferings to which
He was subjected in the last hours of His life, when His enemies had their
time and he was under their influence, they were nothing in comparison
to the grief, the fear, the desolation, and the anguish wliich reigned within.
All this commenced in the garden : it is continued throughout : it was at
its greatest degree when He called out in a loud voice upon the Cross a few
moments before His death, My God, my God ! why hast Thou forsaken me f
And why was all this ? It was because He became man in order to redeem
us from the punishment due to sin. It is the heart of man which gives
consent, and takes delight in the commission of sin. From the heart o/man.
He Himself has told us, come forth evil thoughts and every kind of sin.
Notices of Books. 533
And therefore He willed that His own Sacred Heart should be the chief
seat of His sufferings at the time that He was so bitterly making atone-
ment for the sins of men. And the last act of the Passion again concerns
His Heart; for just before He is taken down from the cross, His side is
opened with the centurion's spear, and from His wounded Heart pour
forth the last drops of blood and water. Can we then pretend to value the
Passion of our most loving Redeemer, and not value especially the work
done throughout its course by the Sacred Heart? Well, therefore, might
our dear Lord in His vision to S. Margaret Mary, point to His wounded
Heart and say, * Behold my Heart which is so inflamed with love for
men.' "
These Sermons, like some fine mosaic, are put together with much care,
each pai't being duly cut and polished and made subservient to the general
design. They are construction, not growth. For whilst each period in its
turn is neat and pretty, it is by no means always so intrinsically con-
nected with the subject in hand, but that it might be applied with equal
force to any other. Hence the unity is occasionally mechanic rather than
organic, resembling more the unity of a Gothic building than that of a
tree with its branches, leaves, and fruit, which are all the spontaneous
outcome of a common nature and knit together by an inherent force. To
call these discourses simply " pretty," or " innocent little sermons," power-
less for any moral effect, would be to do an injustice to our distinguished
author. To style them grand and sublime would be equally untrue. The
reader who searches them for rapid flights of eloquence, profound views
majestically unfolded, or for those graphic character-sketches which men
such as Newman and Stanley so excel in, will search them in vain. Dr.
Sweeney's style and method remind us more of Charles Kingsley's than
any other modern preacher we know of. However, he scarcely possesses
the Professor's chasteness and variety of diction. There are certain ex-
pressions which he repeats over and over again, as it were mechanically,
until they become in his mouth utterly insipid and meaningless. As an
i nstance we may cite the phrase — " Our dear Lord," and " Our dearest
Lord." In the course of one short sermon this expletive occurs fifteen
times, and it will be found throughout the volume always at hand when a
qualifying word is deemed desirable. If Dr. Sweeney's sermons be some-
times wanting in form, they never lack substance and matter. We
specially commend to our readers his sermon on the Infallible authority of
the Holt/ See, which he expounds with great clearness and loving loyalty.
But we have already transgressed our limits. Of Dr. Sweeney we may
not be able to say what Ben Jonson writes of Bacon — " The fear of every
man that heard him was lest he should make an end; " — ^yet this we may
venture to declare, that no one ever listened to him who did not feel at the
end lifted up and strengthened.
534 Notices of Books.
Manuale sacrarumCceremoniarum in libros octodigestum a Pio Martinucci,
apostolicis ceeremoniis prsefecto. Rom», mdccolxxiii. typis Bemardi
Morini. Romas et Taurini, apud Petrum Eq. Marietti, typographum
pontificium. Paris, apud Victorium Palme, editorem et bibliopolam.
THE mere enumeration of the names of authors who have written upon
Liturgical subjects would fill a large volume, and yet there was
abundant room for this important ceremonial work by Mgr. Martinucci
Prefect, as he is, of the Papal Ceremonies, sub-Librarian of the Vatican
Secretary of the Congregation of Ceremonial, Consultor of the Congregation
of Rites, of Propaganda and of Indulgences, this learned prelate has every
opportunity of knowing thoroughly and of teaching well the theory and
practice of the Church's Ritual. And his book fulfils the expectations
which his important position would naturally raise. Among all the
voluminous works that have preceded his, it does not appear that there is
any that can be compared with it for completeness and minuteness of
detail. Tliere is hardly any possible ecclesiastical function which will not be
found fully treated, and the labour of those who are endeavouring to promote
exactness, decorum, and uniformity in the performance of Divine Worsliip
will henceforth be comparatively easy. The work is the more useful because
the author has not restricted himself to explaining the ceremonies for
Cathedral and large Churches where there is a numerous body of clergy,
but has also given the rules for celebrating the sacraments and other rites
in parochial and small churches. It seems destined to become a standard
authority on the subjects which it treats and thus to promote the much-
desired end of such uniformity in the Liturgy as is possible among the
various nations of the Latin rite. But we must leave the work to speak
for itself, and above all we must refer our readers to the high recommenda-
tion it has received from the Holy Father.
Lectures on Certain Portims of the Earlier Old Testament Historic, By
Philip G. Mukro, Priest of the Diocese of Nottingham, and Domestic
Chaplain to the Earl of Gainsborough. Vol. I. London : Burns &
Gates. 1873.
THIS little work consists of five studies on the first part of the Book of
Genesis, and although not pretending to much originality, is yet
both thoughtful and suggestive. The indirect object of the author seems
to us to be to prove the existence of extra scriptural knowledge of Divine
truth transmitted by Divine tradition from generation to generation. ThuB,
for instance, he says : —
" The knowledge of religious truth which the Patriarchs possessed must
necessarily have been far larger than that which an individual now could
get merely by perusing the pages of the Book of Genesis. There was a
patriarchal body, a patriarchal Church, in wliich there was a system of
religious education, clear and distinct, so far as it went ; a ceremonial and
sacraments, by which men were trained towards God and taught the
knowledge of the truth. That patriarchal Church, simply because it was
Notices of Boohs. 535
God's ordinance, was a guide, sure and infallible, to the extent of the then
revelation. It had all the essentials of a Teacher sent from God— clear,
though partial knowledge, and a distinct, infallible utterance.
*' This is a most important thing to bear in mind, because Infidelity,
nationalism, and heresy in its every form, are always taking advantage of
the brevity of Holy Scripture, its want of explicitness, to the disparagement
of its teaching, and of religion in general. For instance, the circumstance
of tlie doctrines of the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of tlie
body not being explicitly stated in the books of Moses, has been made the
ground for asserting that those truths were not known at that time, and
that all that holy men of old were looking to — all that, in fact, the Church
of Israel desired and hoped for, lay on this side death, and that life and im-
mortality were in no sense brought to light before the coming of the Gospel.
.... It is important, then, to bear in mind that the Patriarchs and the
Patriarchal body generally had a clear, definite, practical knowledge of
religious truth ; that they formed part of a living body, under a living
Teacher, and so had a much wider knowledge of truth than the mere words
of Holy Scripture, had they possessed them, could have conveyed to their
isolated minds. It is quite certain, even from the very words of Scripture,
that this was the case. We know that the Patriarchs had their places of
worship. They did not merely worship God under the vault of heaven.
They had places set apart for divine worship. The phrase * before the
Lord ' frequently occurs, and in a /oca^ sense. Cain and Abel, e.^., brought
their offerings to a certain spot ; and when Cain was banished, he * went
out from the face of the Lord,' which, in regard to God's omnipresence,
would have been, of course, impossible. The reference, therefore, must be
to a local presence, to a place in which God met His worshippers, and made
Himself known to them either by a glory, or by answer to prayer, or some
other sensible means. Again, in the case of Abraham, after the angel had
left him and gone towards Sodom, ' Abraham as yet stood before the Lord.*
Rebecca, when the children struggled in her womb, * went to consult the
Lord.' "
It is clear, therefore, as the author points out, that the Patriarchs
believed that in certain places consecrated to His service, God would be
best served. But there is no clear statement of this in the Book of Genesis.
So again, there must have been priests consecrated for the service of the
Most High, as we may gather from the instance of Melchisedech, and
from the fact that he blessed Abraham, since, ^^ without all contradiction,
that which is less is blessed by the greater."
We cannot say, however, that we agree with all the remarks of the
author in treating upon this point. In pointing out, for example, tlie
J) regnant nature and manysidedness, so to speak, of the words of Holy
Scripture, and in accounting for one of the many wise purposes to which
this peculiarity answered,— that is to say, that they ** were not intended to
tell their whole tale at once, independent of oral instruction, but to reveal
their meaning more and more, according to the study and faith of the
individual, acting under obedience to the living voice of a teacher sent
from God," — he remarks that the Scriptures differ in this respect from all
human writings, which can be understood at once, provided the mind be
applied to them and be sufficiently disciplined to follow the author's train
of thought. Tliere is no such thing as meaning hidden behind meaning in
human writings. Is this so ? . Surely in the words we have marked in
talics our author goes too far. The Holy Scriptures, as directly inspired by
536 Notices of Boois.
Almiglity God, stand of course alone by themselves in an order of their own,
and between them and all other writings there is a mighty gulf. But all
human wisdom, whether it be brought to bear upon the supernatural or
the natural, is derived from Divine Wisdom ; and the higher the wisdom
the deeper and more pregnant will be the inward meaning of its outward
expression. We may illustrate what we mean by two examples. If, for
instance, we take the " Following of Christ," what is it that makes it both
universally read, and at the same time universally appreciated, except
because its words contain meaning within meaning, and this to an almost
infinite extent, corresponding with the ever varying wants of each human
soul. So, too, if we take the writings of Shakspeare, do we not find that
every time we read them they unfold to us some new meaning which
before had escaped us ? There is far more hidden beneath than appears
upon their surface, and the depth of their meaning seems almost unfathom-
able. This is true, we hold, of all works of real genius, — not only in
literature, but also in architecture, sculpture, and painting. Of such
works we hardly ever exhaust the meaning ; for every time we look at
them we discover new beauties, new charms, — beauties and charms of which
it may be the author was himself unconscious. Of course, as we said
above, the divinely-inspired writings which form the written Word of God
stand in an order of their own, nor can any human work be compared with
them ; but to say that there is no such thing as meaning hidden behind
meaning in human writing, seems to us both exaggerated and incorrect.
The lectures in the present volume treat of such subjects as the Creation,
the temptation and fall of man, the sacrifices of Cain and Abel, Lamech,
the early use of the word Jehova, and Henoch, upon which both patristic
tradition and the discoveries of modern men of science are brought
judiciously to bear.
The work has the imprimatur both of his Grace the Archbishop of
Westminster and of the Bishop of Nottingham.
A Daughter of Saint Doininick, By Grace Ramsay. R. Washboume.
rj^IIIS beautiful little work forms the fourth of the remarkable series
JL called " The Bells of the Sanctuary," on w^hich we have already
commented in succession. The bringing of such lives as that of Amdlie
Lautard under the notice of Catholic readers, the calm showing forth of
such miracles of grace, is a task for which the writer is eminently fitted,
by her own enthusiasm and her perfect sympathy. For her the humility
of the holy women, of whom she has now depicted three, has a peculiar
attraction ; it is the grace on which she dwells most, even beyond their
heroic courage and wonderful perseverance ; and in the present instance
she draws the perfume of this great grace out of the character of the
devoted and highly-favoured Amelie Lautard with delightful effect. The
narrative is highly interesting, full of the clash and stir of the great events
which have shaken Europe to the centre of late, and penetrated with tlie
still sweetness of a holy superhuman life, lived very close to God and laid
down for His Vicar.
INDEX.
Address of His Grace Archbishop Manning to the English Pilgrims, rev, 273.
Alberi (Eugenie) II Problema delF Umano Destino, noticed, 270, 510.
Authority and the Anglican Church — Mr. Garbett and Canon
LiDDON, 67-102 : modem Science and Faith, 68 ; all the earlier dis-
coverers were religious men, 68 ; shallow theories of modem material-
ists, 69 ; scientific men before the sixteenth century, 70 ; they were as
energetic in their researches as any of the present day, 71 ; retrograde
tendency of modem thought, 72 ; it has relapsed into the disorder of the
early ages, 73 ; essential agreement of the infidel and sectary, 74 ; pur-
port of the article, 74 ; Mr. Garbett on dogmatic faith, 76 ; the authority
of the Catholic Church he considers a mere usurpation, 76 ; charge
against that Church of teaching unscriptural dogmas, 78 ; Mr. Garbett'a
opinion of the mediaeval ages, 80 ; difficulty of ascertaining what is the
dogmatic faith of the Anglican Church, 84 ; the harm caused to the
Anglican Church by Mr. Garbett's Bampton Lectures, 85 ; rejection of
the Church's authority the cause of modem revolutions, 87 ; Canon
Liddon's Rampton Lectures, 88 ; he defends our Lord's divinity, 89 ;
weak argument against Papal infallibility, 92 ; division in the Anglican
Church, 95 ; connection of Canon Liddon's views and Mr. Garbett's, 99 ;
their common view of the Christian Church, 101.
Austin (Mr. Alfred) Madonna's Child, noticedy 516.
Beale ( Mr. L. S.) Life Theories, their Influence upon Religious Thought,
noticed, 252.
Bentham (Jeremy) A Defence of Usury, reviewed, 323.
Bismarck versfiu Christ, noticed, 272.
Bremen Lectures (The), 102-115 ; character of the Bremen Lectures, 102 ;
the first is unsatisfactory and the second vague, 103 ; extract from the
fourth, 103 ; Dr. Luthardt on the doctrine of the Incarnation, 104 ;
treatment of the Resurrection and Atonement, 105 ; on tme repent-
ance, 107 ; of the Person and Life of Our Lord, 108 ; Professor Tisch-
endorff on the Authenticity of the Gospels, 109 ; Dr. Lange's Lectures
on the Kingdom of God, 1 1 1 ; all the Lectures are tainted by the train
of thought imparted to Protestant theology by Schliermacher, HI; Dr.
Luthardt's Lecture, 113 ; on its significance with regard to miracle, 113
Bremen Lectures (The) on Fundamental Living Religious Questions, re-
viewed, 102.
VOL. XXI. — NO. XLTi. [New SeriesJ] 2 n
538 Index.
Broglie (Due de) Vues sur le Gouverncment de la France, reviewed^ 462.
Burke (Edmund) Reflections on the Revolutions in France, reviewed^ 462.
Buxton (Mr. C, M.P.), Notes of Thought, noticed, 529.
Canon Estcourt on Anglican Ordination, 191-210 : the Consecration
of Matthew Parker, 192 ; its illegality, 192 ; a matter about which the
majority of Protestauts is indifferent, 192 ; Canon Estcourfs researches,
193; the questions connected with Barlow's consecration, 194; it is
doubtful if he were ever consecrated, 197 ; long existence of heresy in
England, 198 ; the denial by the Reformers of the doctrines of the
Mass, 199 ; the Anglican rite of the Lord's Supper, 199 ; Canon
Estcourt's history of Anglican Ordination, 201 ; the case of Ridley and
Latimer, 203 ; Latimer was never acknowledged a bishop by the Church,
205 ; his case similar to that of Photius, 205 ; appointment of bishops
by James I. and Charles II., 206 ; the Nag's Head story, 207 ; the
Church has never authorized Anglican Orders, 208 ; if the Anglican
preachers are priests they are guilty of enormous sins, 209 ; important
service done by Canon Estcourt's work, 210.
Case op Mr. O'Keefpe, 211-238 : origin of the case, 211 ; the Convent
proposed to be founded at Callan Lodge, 212 ; differences between Mr.
O'Keeffe and Bishop Walsh, 212 ; first action against the Bishop, 213 ;
Mr. O'Keeffe's letter to Bishop Lynch, 214 ; the incident of 8th
August, 1869, 215 ; Mr. O'Eeeffe's submission, 216 ; his humility, he
now admits, was all assumed for a purpose, 217 ; second action against
the Bishop, 218 ; action against Mr. Walsh, 218 ; first suspension of.
Mr. O'Keeffe, 219 ; the second suspension, 220 ; the suspension ex in-
fomuUd coiiscientid, 221 ; this latter course quite according to the
canons, 222 ; Mr. O'Keeffe's course of action, 223 ; intolerable situation
in CiUlan, 224 ; the Papal Ordinance in the matter, 225 ; proceedings
before Cardinal Cullen, 226 ; ISIr. O'Keeffe refuses to submit^ and is
sentenced as contumacious, 231 ; his action for libel against the Car-
dinal, 232 ; the Act of the Second of Elizabeth, 233 ; startling character
of the issue raised by that Act, 234 ; argument of the demurrer thereon,
234 ; division of opinion of the Judges, 234 ; trial of the issues in feet,
235 ; rule of the Church in ecclesiastical matters, 236 ; Chief Justice
Whiteside's charge, 237 ; Verdict for the Plaintiff, 237 ; notice of
appeal, 237 ; present state of the case, 238 ; temperate remarks of the
English press, 238.
C'atholic Progress, noticed , 251.
Coleridge (Rev. H. J.), Giving Glory to God, noticedy 498.
Conference (Sketch of a) with Earl Shelburne, rtvie^oed, 50.
Contemporary Review, September, 1873, noticed, 505.
Correspondence de M. le Comte de Chambord, revie^oed, 462.
Cureton (Mr. W., M.A.), Corpus Ignatianum, reviewed, 349.
Defence of the Protestant Association, 1780, reviewed^ 60.
Denzinger (Professor H.), On the Authenticity of the previous Text of the
Ignatmn Epistles, reviewed, 349.
Index, 539
Dods (Mr. M., M.A.), The Works of Aurelius Augustine, noticed^, 239.
EsTcouRT (Canon E., M.A.), The question of Anglican Ordination discussed,
reviewed, 190.
Father Newman on the Idea of a UNnrERSiTY, 403-428: Spirit in
which F. Newman entered on his duties as Rector of the Irish Catholic
University, 403 ; attitude of loyal Catholics towards Papal decisions on
higher education, 404 ; decision of the English Episcopate, 405 ; oppo-
sition of the Holy See to the establishment of a College at Oxford, 406 ;
general character of F. Newman's Discourse, 407 ; on the connection of
religious with other knowledge, 408 ; mutual dependence of the various
branches of knowledge, 409 ; end to be arrived at in higher education,
410 ; intellectual culture one of the Catholic's chief aims, 411 ; F. New-
man on intellectual culture and malformation, 412 ; truth the proper
object of the intellect, 415 ; both religious knowledge and intellectual
culture necessary, 416; danger to Catholics from the spirit of the age,
417 ; mere intellectual culture dangerous, 419 ; F. Newman on the in-
fluence of University education, 420; on the proper scheme of studies,
422 ; on culture in regard to^spiritual interests, 425 ; criticism on F. New-
man's view on this subject, 426 ; conclusion, 428.
Freeman's Journal (The), reviexocdy 211.
Funk (Dr. F. X.), Zins und Wucher, reviewed^ 323.
Garbett (Mr. M. A.), The Dogmatic Faith. Bampton Lectures for 1867
reviewed, 67.
Garside (Mr. C, M.A.), The Prophet of Carmel, noticed, 245.
Hedley (Rev. Canon), The Light of the Holy Spirit in the World, noticed,
513.
Hughes (Mr. Thomas, M.P.), Memoir of a Brother, noticed, 525.
Igxatian Epistles (The) : their Genuineness and their Doctrine, 349-
402 : two ways in which the history of Catholic doctrine may be regarded,
349 ; apparent confusion among the early Fathers on the subject of doc-
trine, 350 ; how it has arisen, 350 ; on the history of doctrine, 351 ; the
doctrine of S. Ignatius the doctrine of the Church generally, 107, a.d.
353 ; results of an examination of the Epistles, 354 ; summary of the
doctrines in them, 355 ; S. Ignatius' contest with the Gnostics, 355 ; S.
Ignatius on the sacrifice of Christian atonement, 358 ; on Justification
by works, 359 ; on the Incarnation, 360 ; on the Real Presence, 361 ;
the sacrament of the Eucharist the bond of union in the Church, 364 ;
on the position of the hierarchy in the visible Church, 367 ; on the
three clerical degrees, 370 ; the necessity for unity in the Church, 371 ;
the Epistle of S. Ignatius to the Romans, 372 ; his reverence for the
Roman Church, 373 ; summary of the controversy on the genuineness of
the Epistles, 374 : Paecus's edition of twelve Epistles in Greek, 374 ;
editions of Usher and Vossius of seven Epistles, 376 ; the authenticity
of these latter questioned by Dallaeus and vindicated by Pearson, 375 ;
2 N 2
510 Index.
Cureton's Syriac version of three Epistles, 375 ; German denial of their
authenticity, 377 ; negative testimony in their favour, 378 ; evidence in
favour of the earlier Greek version, 379 ; omissions from the Syriac
text, 382 ; Bunsen's theory in favour of the Syriac refuted, 384 ; are
the seven Greek Epistles really by S. Ignatius ? 385 ; evidence of
Eusebius and S. Irenscus in favour of the Greek, 385; evidence of
Origen, 387 ; and of Polycarp, 388 ; objections to the latter, 389 ;
three classes of objections to the Epistles, 390 ; character of S.
Ignatius, 390 ; argument from supposed anachronisms and contradic-
tions, 392 ; distinction between the words " Bishop " and " Presbyter,"
393 ; evidence of the epistles as to the Gnostic heresy, 396 ; argument
from internal criticism in their favour, 401 ; their authenticity a cardinal
question in the controvei%y on the origin of the Christian religion, 402.
Irisu Brigade (The), in the Service of France, 145-191 : popular
ignorance of the Irish Brigade, 145 ; history prejudiced as a rule, and
that of Ireland no exception, 145 ; the story of the " White Cockade "
most interesting, 14G ; mUitaiy instinct of the Irish Celt, 146 ; appre-
ciation of it on the Continent, 147 ; character of Mr. O'Callaghan's
work, 148 ; the origin of the Brigade, 149 ; its first embodiment as the
Brigade of Mountcashcl, 150 ; its first campaign in the Savoy,
151 ; disasters to the Jacobite arms in Ireland, 152 ; the Brigade aug-
mented by the arrival of Sarsfield's contingent from Limerick, 154 ;
is destined for the invasion of England, 155 ; its gallant conduct at the
Battle of Steinkirk, 156 ; rancour engendered by the violation of the
Treaty of Limerick, 157; victory of Lauden and death of Sarsfield,
158 ; comparison between O'Neill and Sarsfield, 159 ; the Brigade wins
the Battle of Marsaglia, 160 ; excellence of the Celt as a soldier in
foreign service, 161 ; partial disbandmout of the Brigade after the
Peace of Ryswick, 161 ; death of James 11. 163 ; the War of the
Spanish Succession, 163 ; capture of Cremona by the Austrians, 164 ;
its recapture by the French, through the spirited conduct of two bat-
talions of the Brigade, 167 ; recruiting in Ireland for the Brigade, 169 ;
its behaviour at the Battle of Blenheim, 170 ; its gallantry even under
defeat, 170 ; fighting in Spain, 173 ; takes part in the Battle of Rami-
lies, 174 ; vigorous charge at Malplaquet, 176 ; the Brigade helps to
win the battles of La Gudina and Yillaviciosa, 1V6 ; is disappointed in
its hope to meet the English on Irish ground, 179 ; Battle of Fontenoy,
180 ; faulty dispositions of Marshal Saxe, 180; they are partly re-
trieved by Colonel Lally, 180 ; splendid charge of the British and
Hanoverians, 181 ; the battle is nearly lost when the charge of the
" White Cockade" changes defeat into victory, 182 ; increased renown
of the Brigade, 184 ; it espouses the cause of Charles Edward, 184 ;
takes part in the battles of Prestonpans and Culloden, 185 ; inaction
of the Irish Catholics at home, 186 ; the Brigade helps to defeat Cum-
berland at Laffeldt, 187 ; declines after the Peace of Aix-la-Chnpelle,
187 ; but is of material assistance to France in the Seven Years' War,
188 ; particulary in the battles of Hastenbeck and Rosbach, 188 ; its
Index. 54
incorporation into the British army, 189 ; two striking circumstances
in its history, 189 ; the crown of Erin's martial glories, 190 ; national
pride in its career, 191.
Journey (The), of Sophia and Eulalie to the Palace of True Happiness,
noticed, 271.
Lanigan (Mr. S. M.), A Theory of the Fine Arts considered in relation to
mental and physical condition of Human Existence, noticedj 267.
Liddon (Mr. M.A.), Our Lord's Divinity ; Bampton Lectures for 1866,
reviewed^ 67.
Life and Labours op S. Thomas op Aquin, 429-462 : Archbishop
Vaughan's appointment to the See of Sydney, 429 ; the future of Aus-
tralia, 429 ; position of S. Thomas as a theologian, 430 ; four periods
in the history of scholastic theology, 431 ; the characteristics of each,
431 ; danger of the Christian religion when S. Thomas wrote, 432 ;
fairness which characterises his writings, ,'433 ; the period between
Scotus and the Reformation, 433 ; living in the second period, S.
Thomas was the inspiring genius of the fourth, 434 ; the Popes on
S. Thomas, 435 ; character of the SummOj 436 ; early life of S. Thomas,
437 ; monastic life in the Middle Ages, 438 ; S. Thomas sent to the
University of Naples, 438 ; character of the Emperor Frederick II., its
founder, 439 ; his idea in establishing the University, 440 ; he enters
the Order of S. Dominic, 441 ; growing laxity of monasticism, 442 ;
the Orders of S. Francis and S. Dominic, 443 ; persecution of S.
Thomas by his family, 445 ; he is sent to Cologne, 447 ; influence over
him of Albert the Great, 448 ; specimens of S. Thomas's Commentary,
449 ; their excellent cluuracter, 450 ; his knowledge of Scripture, 451 ;
and of the Fathers, 452 ; his Tractate against the Greeks, 453 ; his
Catena Aurea, 454 ; his Metaphysical Philosophy, 456 ; his studies of
Aristotle, 457 ; his personal character, 460 ; he declines the Arch-
bishopric of Naples, 461 ; Archbishop Vaughan's summary of his
work, 461.
Life of B. Alphonsus Rodrigues, Lay Brother of the Society of Jesus,
noticed, 501.
Lipsius (Dr. K A.), on the Relation of the Text of the Three Syriac Epistles
of Ignatius to the other Recensions of the Ignatian Literature,
reviewed, 349.
MacCabe (Mr. W. B.), Florine, Princess of Burgundy, noticed, 272.
Marshal MacMahon's Government of France, 462-484 : improved
state of France, 462 ; the Pilgrimages, 463 ; favourable impression on
the public mind in France by the movement, 464 ; ridiculous aspect of
the Republic, 464 ; high character of Marshal MacMahon, 465 ; services
rendered to France by Irishmen, 465 ; popularity of the Due de
Magenta, 467 ; position of the Republican cause, 468 ; reappearance in
public aflairs of the great historic names of France, 469 ; the Due de
Broglie, 469 ; the quietness of his early life, 470 ; his first appearance
542 Index,
in public, 470 ;-the National Assembly, 471 ; its peculiar constituents,
472 ; the late Due de Broglie on the goyemment of France, 474 ; his
remarks on constitutional government, 475 ; character of the Count de
Chambord, 475 ; syllabus of his political principles, 476 ; his attention
and devotion to the interests of France, 478 ; summary of his political
principles, 481 ; his views of the constitution necessary for France, 482 ;
the question of the Flag, 483 ; hopeful prospects of France, 484.
Martinucci (Mgr.), Manuale sacrarum Cseremoniarum, noticed^ 534.
Memories of a Guardian Angel, noticed, 251.
Merx (A.), Meletemata Ignatiana scripsit, revieioed, 349.
Meyrick (Rev. F.), Life of S. Walberge, with the Itinerary of S. Willibald,
jwticedj 509.
Mill (Mr. J. S.), An Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy,
revieiced, 1.
, A System of Logic Ratiocinative and Inductive, reviewed, 1.
Mr. Mill's Rbplt to the Dublin Review, 1-49 : prefatory remarks on
the late Mr. Mill, 1 ; one point of sympathy with him, 2 ; comments
in the Fall Mail Gazette on his character, 2 ; his loving temperament, 3 ;
his death a matter of severe controversial disappointment, 4 ; purpose
of this article, 5 ; rule and motive of certitude, 7 ; the scholastic theory,
8 ; the theory of Descartes, 9 ; the shallowness of the phenomenisms
theory, 10 ; Mr. Mill on the motive of certitude, 12 ; his reply to our
former remarks, 13 ; but he replied to a different question to that
asked, 14 ; the sceptic's argument on the motive of certitude, 14 ; two
syllogisms drawn from Mr. Mill's argument, 15 ; his failure to appre-
hend the sceptic's controversial status, 15 ; his protest against the
general belief in a fact being evidence of its truth, 17 ; reply to his
protest, 18 ; Mr. Mill on the rule of certitude, 21 ; his argument with
Sir W. Hamilton that a real fact of consciousness cannot be denied, 22 ;
but many of his arguments tend to a different theory, 23 ; contrast
between primordial and existing certitude, 25 ; Mr. Mill's theory on
mathematical axioms, 26 ; argumentative preliminaries on the matter,
27 ; our status in the discussion, 31 ; direct controversy with Mr. Mill
on the matter, 32 ; denial that what Mr. Mill asserts to be a self-evident
truth is so, 34 ; arguments in support of our case, 37 ; anxiety to do
Mr. MiU full justice, 42 ; Mr. Mill's positive thesis, 43 ; on arithmetical
axioms, 46 ; some subordinate issues considered, 47.
Morley (Mr. John), Rousseau, reviewed, 295.
Munro (Rev. P.), Lectures on certian portions of the earlier Old Testament
History, noticed, 534.
Murphy (Mr. J. N.), Terra Incognita, or the Convents of the United
Kingdom, revieived, 115.
Newman (J. H. D.D.), Essays, Critical and Historical Essay on the
Theology of the Seven Epistles of S. Ignatius, reviewed, 349.
, Historical Sketches, noticed, 493.
, Orate pro AnimA Jacobi Roberti Hope Scott, noticed, 491.
Index. 543
Newman (J. H. B.D.), The Idea of a University defined and illustrated
reviewedy 403.
Noethen (Rev. T.), A History of the Catholic Church, noticed^ 269.
O'Callaghan (Mr. J, C), The History of the Irish Brigade, reviewed, 145.
Palma (F. Luis de la), A Treatise on the Particular Examen of Conscience
according to S. Ignatius, noticed, 263.
Pastoral of his Lordship the Bishop of Salford, on Consecration to the
S. Heart and the Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial, reviewed, 273.
Pilgrimage and Paray-le-Monial, 273-295 : surprise of the worid at the
revival of pilgrimages, 273 ; its mistake in foreseeing what will happen in
the Kingdom of God, 273 ; even Catholics may have been mistaken in
thinking that pilgrimages were no 'longer in harmony with the spirit of
the age, 274 ; but it is by those very things which seem opposed to the
spirit of the age that the Church fights that spirit, 274 ; the beatification
of Joseph Labra, 275 ; changes in the world since thfe early Christian
pilgrimages, 276 ; the practice of pilgrimage natural to the heart of man,
approved by tradition of the Church, and warranted by Scripture, 276 ;
it is justified by God*s teaching, 279 ; the stable at Bethlehem the first
shrine under the new law, 280 ; the spirit of pilgrimage can never die
away in Christendom, 282 ; on the causes of the present revival, 283 ;
address of the Archbishop to the English pilgrims, 284 ; the movement
is so universal that its origin is evidently superhuman, 286 ; the devotion
to the S. Heart peculiarly adapted to the present day, 287 ; reasons why
it should be so, 290 ; faith in divine things was becoming too lax, 291 ;
the desire to share in pilgrimages spreading even to America, 292 ; Pro-
testant criticism on the pilgrimage, 293; answers to those criticisms, 294.
Progress of the Gordon Riots, 50-67 : the chief object of the Protestant
Association, 50 ; commencement of the work of destruction, 50 ; de-
struction of the Sardinian and Bavarian chapels, 50 ; narrow escape of
the Attorney-General, 51 ; apprehension of a few of the rioters, 51 ; a
lull in the storm, 51 ; address of the Lords to the King, 51 ; apathy of
the trading class, 52 ; recommencement of the riots, 52 ; destruction of
Moorfields Chapel, 53 ; inaction of the authorities, 54 ; the riots alleged
by the Protestant Association to be the work of the Catholics, 54 ; the
Protcstiint " Protection," 55 ; half measures of the Government, 56 ; dan-
ger of Lord Sandwich, 56 ; bis rescue by Justice Hyde, and the burning
of the Justice's house, 56 ; energetic proceedings in the Commons, 56 ;
progress of the work of destruction, 67 ; burning of Lord Mansfield's
house, 59 ; the Riot Act read and the mob fired upon, 58 ; irresolution
of the Lord Mayor, 59 ; attacks upon and destruction of Newgate and of
Clerkenwell prison, 59; terror excited by the mob, 60; escape of Bishop
Challoner, 60 ; preparations of the Government to suppress the riot, 61 ;
misery of the Catholics, 61 ; destruction of the Fleet Prison and of
many private houses, 62 ; repulse of thejattack upon the Bank of Eng-
land, 62 ; proclamation of martial law, 62 ; burning of Langdale*s distil -
lory, Holbom Hill, 63 ; the " Thimdcrer,'' 64 ; check to the rioters, 64 ;
5ti Indtix,
severity of the troops, 64 ; from being too apathetic the authorities now
nished to the other extreme, 65 ; fear of the citizens for their liberties,
66 ; proclamation of the Government to allay that fear, 67.
Ramsat (Miss GraceV A Daughter of S. Dominick, noticed^ 536.
Reeves (Rev. F.), Homeward, noticed, 272.
Revue Bibliographique Universelle, noticed, 272.
Rousseau, 295-322 : Mr. Morle/s work deserving of attention, 295 ; differ-
ence between old infidelity and that of the present day, 295 ; Mr.
Morley's criticism on Rousseau's "Discourse on the Origin of In-
equality,'' 296 ; the author an Humanitarian, 297 ; his idea on the
doctrine of the Fall of Man, 298 ; necessity' for Catholic writers to
combat such doctriDe, 298 ; the early life of Rousseau, 299 ; evils of his
early training, 300 ; his introduction to Madame de Warens, 301 ; his
pretended conversion, 301 ; his relapse, 302 ; his illicit connection with
^fadaine de Warens, .304; their separation, 304; he is appointed Secretary
at Vienna, 304; returns to Paris, and forms an acquaintance with Theresa
la Vasseur, 305; obt^iins a prize from the Academy of Dyon, 306; astonish-
ing effect upon Europe of his Essays, 307; analyses of them, 307; the test
of revealed truth sufficient to refute his theories, 310 ; his day-dreams,
313 ; their result in " New Heloisa" and the " Social Contract," 314 ;
in the latter work much indebted to Locke, 316 ; his theories the pre-
lude to Communism, 317 ; probable persecution of Christians should
Communism prevail, 319 ; his treatise on education, 319 ; the founder
of the system of physical education now so nmch in vogue, 320 ; his
exclusion of religion from the education of boys, 321 ; distressing
picture of his declining years, 322.
Shairp (Dr. J. C), Life and Letters of James Forbes, F.R.S. late Principal
of the United College in the University of S. Andrew, noticed, 526.
Smith (Mr. A. S.), Life of V. Anne Maria Taigi, noticed, 503,
Stani (Miss E. A.), Patron Saints, noticed, 269.
Stubbs (Mr.), Memoriale Fratri Walter! de Coventria, noticed, 265.
Suarez (F.), Defensio Fidei Catholica; ad versus Anglicanee Sectae errores,
reviewed, 67.
Sweeney (Dr. J. N), Sermons for all Sundays and Festivals in the Year
noticed, 249, 531.
Terra Incognita, or Convent Life in England, 115-145: exuberant
vitality of our Religious Orders, 115 ; origin of the Religious life, 116 ;
it arises from a perfect love of the Redeemer, 116 ; it has ever been the
same in the history of the Church, and will ever remain the same, 117 ;
return of the Religious Orders to England, 118 ; though banished, their
labours had been unrelaxed, 119 ; their modern works, 120 ; opportune
appearance of the present volume, 120 ; the power for good in woman's
love for God, 121 ; instruction by woman the best and most fitting for the
poor, 122 ; conventual education, 123 ; great increase in the number of
ludiii'. 545
convents, 125 ; testimony of Her Majesty's Inspector of Schools to the
value of the Nuns' Schools, 126 ; the Little Sisters of the Poor, 127 ;
description of one of their houses, 128; the contrast it presents to the
workhouse, 12:) ; Nuns of the Good Shepherd, 129 ; and of Our Lady
of Clinlty of Refuge, 130 ; necessity for the establishment of their
II )i.scs in all our large towns, 131 ; the Mater Misericordio) Hospital
in Dublin, 132 ; Nursing Sisterhoods, 134 ; not to hospitals alone are
the labours of the Sisters confined, 1 34 ; the Times Correspondent on
the Sister of Meroy, 135 ; the power of sympathy and prayer to
redeem, 136 ; on the fear that Government inspection of Convents is
necessary, 138 ; no Catholic ever complains of the conventual rules,
139 ; happiness and freedom of conventual life, 140 ; the vow of
chastity, 141 ; the world does not believe in it, but the Church does,
141 ; great value of Mr. Murphy's book, 142 ; the legal position of
Nuns and their property, l^i2; hope that England may never again
relapse, 144.
Thompson (Mr. E. H.), Life of the Ven. Anna Maria Taigi, the Roman
Matron, tioticed, 502.
Tickell (Rev. F.), Devotions to S. Joseph, voticed, 503.
Todhunter (Mr. J.), The Conflict of Studies, and other Essays on Subjects
connected with Education, noticedy 521.
Twistleton (Hon. E), The Tongue not Essential to Speech, noticed, 520.
UiiLiioRx (Von. G.), The Relation of the Shorter Greek Recension of the
Ignatian Epistles to the Syruic Tnmslation, and the Authenticity of the
Epistles in general, reviewed, 349.
Ullatliorne (Right Rev. Dr.), Discourse delivered at the Opening Session of
the Fourth Provincial Synod of Westminster, noticed^ 497.
Usury, 323-348 : difficulties in the way of a proper understanding of the
question of usury, 323 ; production and consumption describe the
economical activity of man, 324 ; inability of man unaided to produce
anything, 324 ; nature and man's labour the two first factors in produc-
tion, 325 ; they produce the third factor, capital, which in civilized
communities takes the place of nature, 326 ; combination of all three
necessary for production, 328 ; credit, or the system of exchange, also
necessary, 329 ; what is money ? 331 ; is it a productive, a consump-
tive, or undetermined commodity ? 333 ; the meaning of usury, 334 ;
the odious signification given to it in modem times, 336 ; it is really
nothing but payment for the loan of capital or its equivalent, 337 ; the
legal sense of usury and the ecclesiastical, 339 ; gratuitous and onerous
contracts, 340 ; usury when oppressive is unlawful, 341 ; loans are either
commercial or necessitous, 342 ; in the latter case they are more onerous
than in the former, 343 ; usury in general is perfectly lawful, 344 ; the
Encyclical of Benedict XIV. against excessive usury, 345 ; extortion
always abhorrent, 346 ; the abuse of wealth has given to money-lending
its odious name, 346 ; two views on the doctrine of usury, 347.
546 Index.
Vauohan (Most Rev. Dr.), Ecclesia Christi : Words spoken at the Opening
of the Second Session of the Fourth Provincial Council of Westminster
noticedy 497.
Vaughan (Very Rev. R. B.^, Life and Labours of S. Thomas of Aquin,
reviewed, 429.
VindicisB Alphonsianse, noticed, 264 ; reviewed, 485.
Wesley's Popery calmly considered, revieuxd, 50.
Zahn (Dr. Th.), Ignatius von Antiochen, reviewed, 349.
WYMAN AND SONS, PRINTERS, GREAT QUEEN STREET, LONDON, W.C.
^
II
3 9015 03057 8325
^^^^^^'^^'^'"'^'^^'^^mxti^
rm
Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Books to Borrow
Open Library
TV News
Understanding 9/11