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avarice, licentiousness, injustice, uncharitableness, disobedience, impiety, and incredulity, finds an issue through which it can express and exercise at once the whole of its intensity without compromising, it is hoped, any of the temporal interests which those who exercise it regard; and this issue is formed by directing all the hatred resulting from these qualities, against that supernatural or heroic element which involves the views and morals of the Catholic Church: and as it would be absurd to heed a judgment derived from any of these evil dispositions separately existing, so it may be concluded now that their combined testimony is equally worthless; or rather, that the last form which naturalism assumes, constituting this opposition specifically directed against the supernatural or heroic element of Catholicism, is itself incapable of creating an impediment to virtuous men who are advancing towards a recognition of its truth. In the first place, aversion to the supernatural and heroic morals, involving tepidity or indifference in regard to religion, constitutes of itself a character that sooner or later becomes I wish to tell you a odious or contemptible to mankind. great truth," says the Count de Maistre, " l'irréligion est canaille." Impiety confers on some persons the extraordinary privilege of being able to excite at the same time pity and indignation. Here we have only to keep aloof; for, as Guzman says in the old tragedy, " there is no valour in tugging with a man-fiend in arguing with one who abjures all goodness, grows at hate with prayer, and studies curses, imprecations, blasphemous speeches, oaths, detested oaths, or any thing that's ill." There are men as well as trees of good odour. It is a remarkable fact, that Catholics supernaturally and heroically impressed, fervent persons, whether young or old, men or women, lay persons or priests, holy monks and nuns, pontiffs banished for their faith, men calumniated, stigmatized for their heroic supernatural virtue, men robbed, sentenced judicially, outlawed, as barefooted friars and Jesuits, coming by some accident to be personally known, are loved, admired, and respected even by men opposed by circumstances to their faith; whereas lukewarm, worldly, accommodating Catholics, Cisalpines, and by whatever other name they may be distinguished, when equally well known, are disliked, and often scorned by those whose favour they seem to court. The stranger here can speak from experience; for in a conversation which he had once with an English sceptic, this distinguished writer remarked, that one of the worst men he ever knew was a Catholic-naming the individual. The judgment may have been utterly rash and baseless; but it was replied to him, that this ecclesiastic appeared to be as jealous of the Holy See as he was himself; and that he had written on one point of Catholic history as suspi

ciously, disdainfully, and calumniously, as any open foe to Catholicism could have written. Another instance occurred still more recently: "I verily believe,” said an aged and illustrious lady, conversing with the same witness, "that what prevented my embracing the Catholic faith when I was very young, was my hearing on one occasion, a certain English priest"-naming him-" sneer generally at the saints, and ridicule me for admiring the custom of having their pictures in Catholic houses." The reply to her was similar to the former. She was told that this ecclesiastic, though a learned man, had been suspended by his bishop for writings contrary to faith. Both, in fact, had adopted natural views; both were of the compromising school; both members of the Cisalpine club; both supremely jealous of the Holy See, and, indeed, of every thing called holy, which, whatever might be its form, they considered a badge of " Ultramontanism." Catholicism is a climate warmed by charity, and when that heat fails, the effects present an analogy to a forest phenomenon: for it is not without example for trees whose native soil is that of cold savage mountains, and which may have even come originally from the icy zone, to succumb to the cold which sometimes is experienced in temperate or warm climates. The cold of indifference within the Church is more pernicious than the state of the moral atmosphere without the limit of its pale. In fact, than such Catholics, no men are more hardened. It is they who on each occasion when faith and honour are at stake, "utter their opinion with one of those grinning sneers with which the devil marks his best beloved." One who had spent some years with the Saracens, on his return to Florence, hearing preach brother Albert de Sartiano, wept, and replied to those who asked the cause, "I weep for the calamity of the Moors and the ingratitude of the Christians; for if this sermon were preached in Damascus, I believe more than eighty thousand souls would be converted*" It is persons of this class who occasion all that is really calamitous in Christian history, as in present times. Hear Savonarola :-" Posuisti nos in contradictionem vicinis nostris. Who are our neighbours but the tepid, who in externals seem to be Christians? Alas! the enemies would not scorn unless these had contradicted. The enemies would be converted to penitence unless the tepid hindered them. The enemies would become friends and defenders of the truth if the Church had not tepid contradictors. Inimici converterentur ad pœnitentiam nisi tepidi eos impedirent. Inimici denique fierent amici et veritatis defensores, nisi Ecclesia haberet tepidos contradictores †."

* Begerlinck, Apophtheg. Christian.

In Ps. Qui reg. Is.

This hostility to the supernatural element betrays its evil and its error, again, by the inconsistency into which it leads all men who contract it, while continuing to profess themselves Christians. No one denies that there may be an inconsistency, in matters of taste, and even of philosophy, compatible with faith and virtue. Of the latter, perhaps, most instances occur in these later times; but with the former the early ages of Christianity were not unacquainted; for the first Christians sometimes borrowed the pagan style in their mortuary inscriptions, as when they prefaced them with a dedication,- diis manibus.' Thus epitaphs of the following kind are found,—

"D. Ma. Sacrum XL.
Leopardum in pacem. cum
Spirita sancta acceptum
Eumte, Abeatis. innocintem.
Posuer. Par. 9. an. n. vii. men. vii *."

No doubt a benign interpretation is often the wisest, when in
later times analogous incongruities occur in books of philo-
sophy; but still there are instances that would justify the
severest conclusion; for, not to remark that inconsistency in
what appears minute matters may have ultimate consequences
of great practical moment, not to insist on the observation of
the Count de Maistre, that "there is nothing so dangerous as
good bad books, that is to say, bad books written by good men,
blinded by some error t," the inconsistency to be noticed
here is far more often an index that cannot be mistaken, of some
wilful and radical prevarication; for naturalism occasions a prac-
tical contradiction that cannot, for a moment, be reconciled with
any state but that of a virtual apostasy. "Si veritatem dico
vobis," says the Highest Voice, “quare non creditis me?"
is a rule with doctors and masters," adds St. Anthony of Padua,
citing the passage that "each person is to be believed in matters
of his own science, but, alas! here is an exception. Men
believe Priscian in matters of grammar, Aristotle on logic and
syllogisms, and so with others. Alone to Christ belief is re-
fused. Christians alone disdain to believe the Author of their
faith. They believe the world; they believe the demon; they
believe the flesh; they believe sin; but truth they will not
believe ‡."

"It

We see proof, in fact, that as with the accomplices of Cylon, the thread which connected the disciples of naturalism with the temple is broken. "Suffer me to speak here," says a learned Jesuit, we all boast of faith. Alas! many want it.

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* Mabill. Iter Italicum, 71.

You say

+ Lettres, i. 62.

Serm. Dom. in Passione.

He

I am a Christian, a Catholic. I am of the confraternity of the blessed Virgin, and what not? I will defend the Catholic faith to my last breath. Well, this is bravely said, if only you speak from your mind. But let us examine the faith of the man. is tenacious of money. We say to him, 'give this florin, or Philippeus, to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Watch now his countenance. How he contracts it!, He shakes his head. A sparrow in the hand,' he replies, 'is better than an eagle on the roof. Lo, what languid faith! But again. The good man has rivals, who injure him. You exhort him to forgive. No, he would rather die first. Lo, his faith is dead, cadaverous *."

"These men," says

And, accordingly, witness what ensues. St. Bridget in her revelations, "instead of avoiding the conversation and society of those personally excommunicated, are joined with them in familiar intimacy,-eis aliqua amicabilitate conjuncti sunt †." And what is seen on the other side of the medal? A deep-rooted and implacable hatred of the Church. Herodotus, in relating the battle of Platæa, says that "the Boeotians, after making alliance with Xerxes, fought against the confederate Greeks with as much hatred as the barbarians themselves. So do characters of this class join their forces against Rome. Truly moderation is a proof of wisdom, and an index that marks a great advance in Catholic perfection, which, consisting in charity, can never be reconciled with the exaggerated views and language of violent and boisterous zealots; but these men set down every thing essential to the religion which they profess, as arguing what they term Ultramontane opinions, stigmatizing them, perhaps, in Parliament, as being incompatible with loyalty and obedience to the government of the State. The eloquence of such orators, where Catholic interests are concerned, is not a quiet, gentle thing, which rejoices in probity and modesty. To use the words of Tacitus, it is "alumna licentiæ, quam stulti libertatem vocabant, comes seditionum, effrenati populi incitamentum, contumax, temeraria, adrogans, quæ in bene constitutis civitatibus non oritur." From every thing belonging to faith, however noble, generous, and natural, their minds are more or less alienated: the prerogatives of the Holy See confirmed by the language and custom of all ages, which the popular voice of no nation, if not misled by sophists, would ever oppose, the existence of the religious orders to receive those who personally need them, and which interfere with no one who does not need them, confession, which the human instincts recognize, abstinence, which tends to reconcile with justice the unequal distribution of fortune, the invocation * Drex. Rosæ Select. Virt. P. i. c. 4. Lib. iv. c. 33.

of the saints, without which men cannot so much as explain the titles still attached to every ancient Church, the need of a religious education for youth, without which Catholics_grow up worse than the avowed enemies of their faith, worse than open infidels, having interest for honour, and atheism for charity-of which it was supposed they were to be mirrors,—all these things become, in their judgment, the result of Ultramontane opinions, inconsistent with liberality, with the progress of the age in wisdom, perhaps, also, with the constitution of their country. But what need of eloquence, even in the senate, to show the turpitude of their own inconsistency? "Quid opus est longis in senatu sententiis cum optimi cito consentiant?" The result is often the consequence of inconsistency, even in regard to their education from boyhood; for, as the Roman historian says of the schools of the rhetoricians, "deducuntur in scholas, quibus non facile dixerim utrumne locus ipse an condiscipuli an genus studiorum plus mali ingeniis adferant—nam in loco nihil reverentiæ ;-ipsæ vero exercitationes magna ex parte contrariæ."

Men, as if like trees, without power of discrimination, take whatever intellectual food comes in their way. The spongioles at the extremity of the fibres of the roots of trees, have no chemical or mechanical means of rejecting any liquid which flows within their reach, but suck up all indiscriminately; but as, in the ordinary course of nature, no injurious liquids are presented to them, a discriminating power would seldom have availed them. To man, injurious poisons are every where offered, and naturalism, leading him off his guard, teaching him to neglect the powers with which he has been endowed, induces him to imbibe all with equal indifference.

Will it be allowable to add to such grave considerations, a motive drawn from the interests that seem more immediately to effect only the esthetic side of things? Will it be allowable to suggest that it is this opposition to the supernatural element of Catholicity, which renders life at present so monotonous, so unpoetical, so anti-historical, which, after all, leads imperceptibly but surely to its being, so profane?

Some German pilgrims in Italy, with whom Goethe happened one day to join company, complained in answer to his inquiries that no one in that country would believe in their piety,—

"Ye may see by my signs

That sitten on mine hat

That I have walked full wide

In weet and dry,

And sought good saints

For my soul's health."