occupied, be like knocking him on the head?" Wise men will not be weaned from the grave and sober element of Catholicism by the pert objections of one who finds such company congenial to his taste.

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Induiturque aures lentè gradientis aselli."

If they must be subject to the influence of the four points of heaven, it will not be by suffering themselves to be hurried hither and thither with those whom we met on a former road, scattered like the withered leaves of a forest in the first blasts of autumn; but by exemplifying, in their natural tendency, what St. Anthony of Padua says, namely, that "the mind of a just man ought to be oriental, pointing east, by the consideration of its birth, or origin; occidental, looking west, by the consideration of its death; northern, by considering the tempests and miseries of this life; southern, by the consideration of eternal beatitude*." In Catholicism wise men find at the bottom, beneath the most smiling surface, this fourfold direction of mind, favoured, supplied, attainable by all; and they are, in consequence, attracted by its secret power.

From lovers of wisdom, then, Catholicity may expect to obtain a hearing for its profound and lofty themes. Are they by birth or circumstances strangers to it? They will remember that modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise, the tent that searches to the bottom of what they may think worst. Their style is, therefore, that of the poet, replying, "what you have said, I will consider; what you have to say, I will with patience hear, and find a time both meet to hear and ponder such high things." They will not, like the political or sensual sophist, judge of all things without reference to principle or truth,

"We may not think the justness of each act
Such, and no other, than event doth form it."

They will not be turned aside by a name, heeding those who use vituperative words. They reply to such guides, shouting against Popery, "If you can only gain an amphora of the wine of Mamertin, as old as Nestor, give it what name you like—

'Si detur, quod vis, nomen habere potest.'

From the vulgar, however exalted in mind, or famous for their misdirected learning, they will turn aside. They find neither order in their thoughts, nor constancy in their sentiments, nor consistency in their actions, nor connexion in the determina

tions of their will. All is by chance, and caprice, and impulse. The Catholic's mind forms, they discover, a counterpart to these, and it is seldom that the contrast proves ineffectual to lead them further than a barren preference. Difficulties, of course, they too may find in the force of circumstances. They may persevere in perambulating long and diverse roads ere wisdom, aided from on high, can obtain the full victory; but once converted, there will be no cause to apprehend future deviations, or a relapse to the life of passion and of error. They will resemble the oak, which attains to the greatest perfection on soils where it is the longest in coming to maturity.

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Again, the road of wise men presents an avenue to the Church by a consideration of the pacific character of the Catholic mind, with which wisdom necessarily recognizes its affinity. It is true Catholicism, in one sense, seems to present itself to human pride as a system of aggression and intolerance; for being truth, it necessarily excludes error; and having been promu!gated by its Author with the words, He that believeth not, shall be condemned," it unavoidably concludes, as a general proposition, the necessity of acquiescence in what He has required. Therefore those who are resolved to consider no difference on religion as important, will feel that it proposes not peace with them, but war. They will argue, with Lucian, that no one doctrine should be chosen amidst the variety of opinions in philosophyὕβρις γὰρ ἐς τὰς ἄλλας τὸ τοιοῦτον. "But wisdom will soon conclude that, as it is no aggression or insult to maintain truth in astronomy or chemistry, so it cannot be opposed to a pacific disposition, to maintain the holy inviolability of moral and religious doctrine embracing all true ideas when taught on sufficient authority. And after all, it is something very different from an article of the Catechism, or an inviolable attachment to it, which causes men to lose sight of equity, and impartiality, and moderation, in their estimate of others, and to become strangers to such easy calms as sit in tender bosoms. Their intolerance is the result of passion, not of a pure love of truth; their rash judgments are produced by selfishness, not by Catholicity. To use the language of a great man, who with a glance detects the real seat of the disorder, The more any one penetrates into the intelligence and experience of things, of men, and of himself, the more he will feel his general convictions strengthen, and his personal impressions become calm and docile. Equity, rather than tolerance in regard to others, grows and increases along with his tranquillity in his own faith. It is ignorance, and passionate egotism, and preoccupation, which render us exclusive and bitter in our judgments of other men. In proportion as we become detached from ourselves, we enter, without effort, upon a serene and

gentle appreciation of the ideas and sentiments which are not our own. Our Lord has said, alluding, as is generally understood, to the different degrees of virtue in men, which must include their greater or less, their better or more defective use of their intelligence and of their will, that in his "Father's house there are many mansions." "There are also," concludes this author, "many roads here below for virtuous men, through the difficulties and obscurities of life;" and under certain circumstances, we are even taught by Catholicism to believe it possible for them to be united at the end, without having either seen each other on the departure, or met upon the way. Really inspired by Catholicism, men would forget all violence, recoil from harsh jars and rough-voiced war, and find the very cause for their former rage to pass away.

The wisdom of Catholicism must not be confounded with the spirit of man's impatience, when, by recent conversion, or a change of country, either brought for the first time within view of the centre, or placed in a position where it can be seen in a new light by means of contrasts. In both of these situations, the Catholic seems often like Renaud de Montauban in his combat with Roland, when, having received a blow, he was dazzled by the sparks from his own visor. Men newly clad in the impenetrable panoply of Catholicism, or for the first time wearing it in presence of the enemy, can often be observed thus, as if dazzled by the light which it emits when in collision with antagonists. Those who have long worn it are more cautious, and prepared for every thing. It does not seem to them to be an advance in the spirit, either of Catholicism or of wisdom, when they hear of men who see Nineveh without ten just men, and Babylon awaiting fire from heaven, in every strange city that they enter, and who proclaim that there "the devil is seen enthroned, exercising his tyrannical sway over wretched mortals." Human impatience, under both circumstances, is sometimes manifested by expressions which, to wise men, seem but belonging to a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. The road of wisdom leads not by the bursting cataract on the towering Alp, which impresses the beholder at once with the ideas of terror and of sublimity; but it winds through an exquisite, secluded valley, where the delighted wanderer discovers flowering meads, and murmuring streams, and shady groves; and hears the soft, liquid voice of laughing boys, and passes through a region of calm joy, presided over by a spirit which finds good in every thing. On the other hand, for the professed enemies of Catholicism, the way turns in a direction still more counter; for this road of wise men leads far from the angry contentions of hot, fiery disputants, loving singularity and contradiction, who are more disposed to

quarrel with neutrals, than to make peace with enemies, and who, as far as using one of his expressions might be said to have caught the style of Plato, since they are ready to say, at every turn, "This proposition is nothing else to me but a declaration of war *."

Wisdom, secure in the strength of truth and justice, prompts men to act like the enchanter Maugis in the old chivalrous romance, who, when he observed Charlemagne and the peers falling asleep, so as to favour his own escape, kept calling out to him to wake and be on his guard against himself. When the philosopher desires to convey praise, he asks whether any thing could evince more moderation or calm—“ numquid nisi moderate, nisi quiete, nisi ex hominis gravissimi et sanctissimi disciplinat?" It used to be said in La Bresse, that "if any one who had been bitten by a dog were to stop under a service or sorb apple-tree he would suddenly grow mad." Though foresters, like Varenne-Fenille, very properly laugh at this notion, it is certain that not much more is wanting to produce fits of anger resembling madness in some wayfarers through the forest of life. Recur to those we met before on the roads of the four winds, and of the dry tree, who say to one another, like the Jews,-"venite et cogitemus contra justum cogitationes: venite et percutiamus eum lingua, et non attendamus ad universos sermones ejus ‡.”

Το

"Faith, Gospel, all seem'd made to be disputed,
And none had sense enough to be confuted."

escape from them, whither can pacific wisdom turn with greatest security, but to Catholicism; where, if unmixed with human malice, there is nothing more boisterous than the bended knee,

"Nought more ungentle than the placid look
Of one who leans upon a closed book? "

It was a Protestant voice that said,

"The Church of England doth all factions foster,
The pulpit is usurp'd by each impostor;
Extempore excludes the Pater-Noster.
The Presbyter and Independent seed

Springs with broad blades to make religion bleed.
Herod and Pontius Pilate are agreed.

The corner-stone's misplaced by every paviour.
With such a bloody method and behaviour,
Their ancestors did crucify our Saviour!"

* De Legibus, lib. iii. + Pro Deiotaro.

Hier. xviii.

G

The

But look only to the natural side, to the advantages derived by wisdom in regard to human things. There are men with the spirit of that famous charger of Renaud de Montauban, who could not see armed knights without thinking of battle. sight of wisdom and genius, strong in their calm majesty, inflames them with eagerness for contradicting both. They choose to enter their protest against some one thing, or person, or other, every day; they ask questions in order to contradict those who answer them; they cannot breathe if asked to acquiesce in any measure on which the wisest are agreed; they are resolved to agitate the puddle of their blood by running into parties, literary or political, as well as religious, and they espouse a champion's cause with such ardour, that they run against every thing in their way.

How many men are found deficient in true genius, as in wisdom, who, to use Johnson's words, "as rhetoricians have the art of persuading when they second desire, as patriots gratify the mean by insults on the high; finding sedition ascendant, who are able to advance it; finding their nation combustible, who are able to inflame it; who are admired by the multitude for virtues like their own,-for contempt of order, and violence of outrage; for rage of defamation, and audacity of falsehood!" Whither do such spirits turn wise men, but to Catholicity? in which these impetuous zealots would be calmed to life again; in which there are no new theories of society to be supported by angry eloquence, and a reckless disregard of the misery they may entail. There the kernel of all false philosophy, which disturbs the peace of the world, is detected and rejected. For to observe an instance presented to every one's notice now, Catholicity denies that equality is any where a law or principle of nature; sending us to the forest itself to

"Ask of our mother earth, why oaks are made
Taller and stronger than the weeds they shade?"

And it holds the impossibility of either establishing true equality, or even of ascertaining its existence by such rude, superficial, and almost mechanical methods as human legislation has alone at its command. Wise men are attracted by this feature. They acquiesce in the order of human society as instituted by God. They acquiesce in the Catholic view of the social condition of man, and admire the pacific consequences. Similarly, in regard to the detail of private manners, men endowed with wisdom must love the Catholic principles of duty, inculcating peace, order, submission, reverence, and love. "It is an honour for a man," says Solomon, "to separate him