Lastly, there is the whole convert influence; an influence which no reasonable man can overlook, but which has not been exercised apart from other influence, expending its strength rather in lending energy to the rising ideas of the time than in forming the nucleus for a new and distinct phase of Catholic opinion.

It is but natural, indeed, that converts, as a class, should throw themselves heart and soul into those views which they conceive to be the most practically lively and energetic in the body in which they find themselves as it were beginning life anew. It is not, we think, a bad sign in a convert that he sees all things couleur de rose, has more sympathy with zeal than with discretion, and imagines that the new friends among whom he may chance to be personally placed are the only representatives of all that is soundest and most thoroughly Catholic in the whole Church. Of course there is no virtue in exaggeration or extravagance, nor is it a proof of real zeal that a man is hot-headed; but nevertheless, human nature being what it is, it is better to see the infirmities of youth in the spring time of life than the cool wisdom and enlarged views of maturer years. A very old head on young shoulders is seldom a token of a very good heart; and a recent convert who can look on Catholic affairs with perfect philosophic accuracy is at least usually-somewhat hesitating in his conviction that he has really found her who is the only true representative of the power of Jesus Christ on earth. And the same excuse may, we think, be fairly urged for the terms of severity and needless bitterness with which recent converts sometimes speak of Protestantism and Protestants, and for the indiscreet character of the efforts they sometimes make to lead their own friends to follow their example. The manner in which they occasionally speak of all that is not Catholic in England does, it must be admitted, sometimes shock "old Catholics" of the more tolerant and charitable school; and we fear it has roused a degree of needless bitterness in some quarters without the Church, which it will not be easy to obliterate. In many minds, however, this is but a temporary phase of feeling, and gives way to the softening and liberalising effects of time and increased knowledge. Angry as Protestants naturally are with those who leave their communion,-far above what they feel towards those who are brought up Catholics, we cannot but hope that ultimately the general result will be different, and more satisfactory to those who know that truth wins her way through love, and not through fiery indignation. Already, as every one admits, a remarkable change has taken place for the better. The fact that

there is scarcely a family of respectability in the kingdom which does not number among its connections some "convert to Romanism," has told upon the habitual feelings of English society. When the first bitterness of emotion is past, and converts themselves learn that the world is not to be worried into Catholicism, while their friends perceive that they are still much what they always were, old affections resume their sway, old habits of intercourse are revived, charity is discovered to be the greatest of virtues, and in many and many a household Catholics and Protestants are found mingling in friendship and acquaintance, where before the fiercest intolerance reigned supreme.

And we cannot but hope that as time goes on, and the facts of the spiritual and moral world, on both sides, are better known each to the other, the presence of the convert element in English Catholicism will tend to the softening down of many prejudices, and to a union in good-will of those who, if they cannot agree as to what is true in religion, need not be at daggers-drawn in social, political, and practical life.

What will be the permanent result of the general aggregate of influences to which we have recalled attention, we can only repeat that it appears to us impossible to speculate with any certainty. That a change, possibly a reaction, may take place in some matters, is probable, from the known universal laws of human opinion. In the Church, as elsewhere, things which are not strictly of faith rise and fall, spring to life, attain apparent maturity, and then decay. How great is the contrast between the ideas and practices, say, of the south of Italy at this moment, and those of English Catholics fifty years ago; or, again, with those of the patristic period! See how extraordinarily unlike in tone and in their philosophy of the spiritual life, not to mention differences of opinion as to doctrine, are such books as The Imitation of Jesus Christ and The Glories of Mary; Challoner's Meditations and Blessed Henry Suso's Book of Eternal Wisdom; or the writings of Bossuet and those of Bellarmine! How different must apparently be the results of the steady-going sobriety which was content with Peach's sermons, and confession once a quarter, with that eagerness which demands the stimulant of an annual retreat, and the daily use of the various public devotions which London and other large towns now so liberally afford!

We are not for a single instant drawing a comparison between the two; we only point attention to the remarkable contrast of feeling and opinion which may exist in the very same country, in the course of a short period, in connection

with the circumstance that our newer fashions have not yet been sufficiently long in vogue to enable us to judge them by their results, while the practical effects of the elder system are open to the consideration of all who really know the past.

Nor, further, must we forget that when the ideas of one period are compared with those of another not long past, the comparison is really little more than a comparison between two different stages of opinion in the lives of the very same individual men and women. When it is said that the views of the Catholics of to-day are not the same as those of the Catholics of fifteen years ago, it really means much the same as the statement that most Catholics have changed their opinions on many points during the last ten or twenty years. And what is there to be ashamed of in this? And what will there be to be ashamed of, if we go on enlarging our knowledge of facts, and consequently modifying many of our ideas and changing our habits? When a man boasts that he never changes his opinions, we conclude that either he has no opinions to change, or that he is stating what is untrue. A man who at fifty holds precisely the opinions he held at twenty, or at thirty, must be a very offensive specimen of conceit, or something very like a fool. His principles, indeed, a wise and good man rarely changes, many never change them; but his views of men and things, and of the relative importance of distinct facts and distinct truths, his perception of the harmony of nature and grace, his conceptions of the grandeur and goodness of God,-all these things are subject to a daily and hourly enlargement, simply because he began life knowing nothing, and because during every instant of his existence he has been noting fresh realities, comprehending fresh distinctions, and rendering his faculties keener by their frequent and honest employment.

When, therefore, we remember in how many points of detail the religious notions of this present day are dissimilar to those of two or three generations, nay, of one generation ago, we find the explanation in the fact that a variety of novelties has been placed before the eyes of this generation, under circumstances which have loudly called for its earnest attention to them. And when we at times anticipate some further modifications of feelings and ideas in those matters which the Church has left open to private opinion, we merely carry out the same principle of interpretation a little further. A store of practical wisdom is now being laid up on many points by all active, honest, and reflecting Catholics; not that superficial knowledge which rests only on report, or

on theory, or on books, but which is based on experience, and on those facts of human nature which come under a man's personal cognisance. It were, then, unjust to imagine, that after all the experiments which energetic zeal is making for the good of man, we should be no wiser at the end than we are now. And knowing this, and being convinced that in no other part of Christendom are there more elements of sincere piety and honest zeal than those which exist among the Catholics of this kingdom, we cannot but look forward with hope to the future, and believe that, as time runs on, many a difficulty will have worked its own remedy, and many an opinion, towards which we are now feeling our way, will be comprehended and embraced with all the grasp of an enlightened conviction.

Abroad, the prospects of Catholic opinions are full of interest; but they abound with elements whose operation will probably defeat all calculations. Opinions exist under conditions which would seem to portend many an unexpected result. In France alone, it is easy to see sources of many troubles. The relations between the Empire and the Church are of the most delicate description, while French Catholics are utterly at variance as to their views of political science. What practical antagonism can be more intense than that which is represented on the one side by M. de Montalembert, and on the other by the Univers newspaper? The Ultramontanism, too, which now is dominant in France is not the same Ultramontanism as that of the extreme Italian schools. And what is to be looked for from the working of the new Concordat in Austria? Will it bring peace, or only postpone a conflict, all the more fierce in the end for being postponed? What will Belgium do? And what Sardinia? They have no more idea of turning Protestant, or of rejecting the spiritual authority of the Holy See, than the College of Cardinals itself. What, too, will be the results of the past and coming conflicts on Church-property, and kindred matters, on which every Catholic has a right to his private opinion? And what if the Pope is again driven from Rome, and Napoleon no longer alive, and Austria shaken by internal disasters? What, when Naples has at last its moral and political, as well as its physical earthquake? What of the conflicts of opinion between orthodoxy and separatism in Russia and in the East?

Every where are the elements of the strife of opinion, even where there will probably be no strife of arms. Who can say what fire shall be struck out by the collision of elements now cold as flint and steel? Who can say what old

theories will be reproduced under the excitement of new events, what popular ideas will be overthrown, what venerable errors and abuses uprooted, or what venerable institutions laid low? How unlike were men's opinions before and after Constantine! How unlike in the dark and in the middle ages; how unlike before and after the Reformation! Can they remain unchanged in an era of steam-communication, telegraphs, public opinion, newspapers, parliaments, antiquarian and critical research, and a freer personal intercourse between men of all classes, creeds, and countries? One thing alone is certain. Time will flow on; and nothing but that which is the word of God will remain unchanged, whatever be the fate of the thousand new and old ideas which men have invented for themselves, and invested with a sacredness and authority which belongs to the one original revelation from heaven, and to that alone.

THE ANGLICAN PRIESTHOOD.

"IF Barlow was not consecrated," says Courayer, "the English ordinations are ruined past all remedy." But English divines will not allow this; they say that Barlow was assisted by three Bishops, about the orders of one of whom at least (Hodgkins) not a doubt can be raised. Now all these imposed hands on Parker, and all pronounced the words of consecration; if, therefore, any one was a real Bishop, that one consecrated Parker validly.

To this we answer, first, that it is very uncertain whether all did both impose hands and pronounce the words. In the Roman Catholic form of consecration all the assistant Bishops do so. In the Anglican form the rubric is altered, and the Archbishop or consecrating prelate alone pronounces the words. Now it is absurd to suppose that Baptism is conferred by pouring water only, without using the form of words; or the Eucharist consecrated by one who takes bread into his hands, but makes no commemoration of the words of Christ. So neither are orders conferred by one who only imposes hands, but says nothing. In the English ordinal, therefore, the assisting Bishops are only witnesses, but in no sense consecrators. Barlow, Parker's consecrator, was one of the prelates who drew up the English ordinal, and therefore was very unlikely to have changed it. Moreover Parker, or his secretary John Jocelyn (in the short history of Parker's life