"They may be said, also, to comprehend many collateral issues, radiating from this central point-issues affecting jurisprudence, legislation, discipline; the status and rights of the episcopal order in general; the legitimate terms of alliance between a national Church and a Christian State. "Now, these are question, doubtless, of considerable magnitude; but they are not of fundamental or indispensable moment. They are not questions de fide. The systematic exaggeration of their importance by the extreme partizans of Rome is one of the most unfortunate features of modern controversy. It is difficult to see how the cause of religion can be served by insisting on the dogma of Papal absolutism as if it were the corner stone of the whole Christian fabric-the articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesiæ. Such a theory clashed with incontestable facts. If this be an article of necessary faith, how is it that it has never been imposed upon the conscience of Christendom by the authority of any one undisputed Ecumenical Council? How is it that no such definition is to be found among the decrees of Trent? How is it that those who reject it have never in any age been branded with the anathemas incurred by formal heresy?" (Pp. 2-3.) This extract shows accurately the precise point on which Mr. Jervis stands. He does not think that the government of the Church is equally divine with the dogmas of the Faith, as though the revealed truth on Church government were not itself a dogma. He thinks a General Council is above the Pope, so he asks why the Papal prerogatives have not been defined by a Council. He does not regard the Council of Florence as general, and he considers the Council of the Vatican as disputed. In a note he adopts the explanation of the last clause in the Florentine definition which has been ignorantly or unscrupulously maintained by modern heretics after the old Gallicans of the seventeenth century. If Mr. Jervis could be patient with "the extreme partisans of Rome" he would ask fewer questions; for perhaps these have something to say for themselves after all. If Mr. Jervis is surprised that the definitions of the Papal rights made in Rome in 1870 have come so late, it is possible enough that heretics of the Arian type might in the fourth and fifth centuries have wondered also how the definition of Nice could have been so long delayed. Mr. Jervis says the Church is the Kingdom of Christ, but he means something else. With him the Church is not a real monarchy, but a republic, the members of which have a jurisdiction really over their rulers. Thus he writes: "The remedy proposed was that of appeal to a General Council, as the supreme tribunal of Christendom; competent, should the necessity arise, to pass judgment even on the Pope himself. This is commonly quoted as one of the peculiar principles of Gallicanism; but in point of fact it is an original constitutional law of the Church Catholic." (P. 82.) This is what makes Mr. Jervis sympathize so much with a national Church which would not admit him to its communion, and which would look upon him as a layman. This "root of bitterness," common to both, resistance to the Holy See, makes riends of enemies, and reconciles Pontius Pilate with Herod. Mr. Jervis traces all the evils of France to the Concordat of 1516, by which the rights of Metropolitans were suppressed, chapters of cathedrals deprived of the right to elect bishops, and monks to elect abbots. But Frenchmen themselves, Gallicans of unspotted reputation, tell us that the Concordat was a great boon; that it put an end to the intrigues of ambitious clerics, to simony, to the oppression of chapters and monasteries by powerful men living near them, and, not least, to brawling, fighting, and even shedding of blood. The Concordat brought peace in its train, and put an end to a condition which De Maria stigmatizes as schism; but it did not bring all the blessings it might have brought, because the Gallicanism of D'Ailli and Gerson had taken root, and because the lawyers entered into the sanctuary. Mr. Jervis prefers the Pragmatic Sanction to the Concordat which superseded it, so for many years did those men who boasted of the Gallican liberties, of which the Pragmatic Sanction was the most conspicuous monument. But its maintainers were inconsistent men. Gallicans hold that a general council is above the Pope, and that no Pope can dispense with any canons it may make. Well, it is hardly creditable, but it is the fact, the French Church, with the king at its head, did, in its famous assembly at Bourges, in A.D. 1438, modify the decrees of what it held to be a general council, and instead of accepting those decrees as the council passed them, accepted them only as amended by itself. Thus, not only is a general council, according to Gallicans, above the Pope, but the French Church is also above them both. The truth is that the Concordat was an immense boon to the French nation and in particular to the bishops. Before the Concordat the election to the bishops and abbots were generally tumultuous, and few unsuccessful candidates were unable to discover some flaw in the process. The election then became litigious, and the question had to be argued in Rome at grievous expense to the chapters and monasteries, and, as the enemies of the Holy See say, to the great gain of the Pontiff. We may admit that the lawyers gained, but the Pope certainly gained nothing but trouble; and people who thus talk might as well say that the Lord Chancellor gains by the multitude of suitors in his court. If we accept the principle of these men we have another proof of the disinterestedness of their great bugbear the Roman Curia. It would have been a perpetual source of profit to the Roman lawyers to retain the Pragmatic Sanction, for out of that document they would have drawn reasons for endless litigation, and consequently would have drained France of its money. The two men who are commonly regarded as the founders of Gallicanism, D'Ailli and Gerson, were once of another mind; at least the former was, by whom the latter was trained. Pierre D'Ailli, at least in A.D. 1388, held the Supremacy of the Sovereign Pontiff, and Gerson tells us that in his early days any one who denied it would have been regarded as a heretic. Well, these two men prevailed in France, and the new opinions which they taught crept into schools and universities, and chapters and monasteries, and even into the assemblies of the clergy, till at last the French people were generally persuaded that they were more or less independent Christians, and could treat on terms of equality with the Pope. The popular doctors of the nation invented the Gallican libe:ties, and the lawyers then took charge of them to the ruin of the very Church they were supposed to defend. Mr. Jervis very naturally likes these liberties, and especially the oppo sition to the Sovereign Pontiff; but then this liking leads him to be very gentle with the Jansenists, and to believe a good many stories for which there is no proof. He accepts the writings of Dorsanne, and looks on Guetter as an authority on whom he can safely rely; nor is he at all sceptical about the lies which have been told of Cardinal Dubois. The Jesuits of course must be sacrificed, and of the persecution they underwent in France under the Duke of Choiseul and tho provincial parliaments in 1763, Mr. Jervis says, none could deny that they were the victims of a righteous retribution." (Vol. ii. p. 357.) 66 We read this with some surprise, for Mr. Jervis is not under the dominion of all the prejudices of his sect. He is on the whole a very fair man, and we should refuse to believe of him that he has wilfully distorted facts or deliberately made an inaccurate statement. Still he thinks the violent suppression of the Jesuits in France lawful and just, and that the Jesuits deserved it. His sympathy with the Jansenists is not unnatural, for they are enemies of the Holy See, and no doubt, on the same principle, the Jesuits are hateful because they are faithful to that See. Therein we think lies the key to the book which Mr. Jervis has written; it is the record of a long struggle, and of a deadly hate more or less disguised. Gallicanism set itself up as the rival of Rome, and fought for the supremacy. During the troubles caused by the French cardinals, who revolted against Urban VI., the principles which were at a later day known as Gallicanism laid the foundations, and in the Councils of Constance and Basle we saw the building completed; the French took it now into their own safe-keeping, and furnished it with the Pragmatic Sanction, and set the lawyers to keep guard over it and keep it. The result frightened even the French Court, so the king consented to the quashing of the Pragmatic, and the Concordat was granted. But the evil spirit was not exorcised out of France, and erroneous doctrines were maintained. The Sorbonne yielded to the general corruption, and the fountains of learning were poisoned. The law-courts, filled with judges and advocates who held the Gallican opinions, interfered with the discipline of the Church, proscribed true doctrines, and finally insisted on directing the administration of the last sacraments, in defence of the Gallican liberties. In the reign of Louis XIV., so complete was the subjection of the Church to the civil power, that Bossuet, the great defender of the "liberties," found himself under the control of the royal censor of books. The pastorals of the "Eagle of Meaux" had to be corrected and allowed by the king's officer, who had. become by this time a more correct theologian than the "orthodox" Bossuet. The Gallican liberties were wonderful things, for they seem to have made wise men foolish. The Abbé Le Dieu, in his "Journal," vol. i. p. 212, says of his master, Bossuet, that he, Bossuet, on one occasion thought that he had found an important opportunity for suggesting to the Pope what should be believed, and what should be proposed for Protestants to believe, on this matter of infallibility and the deposition of kings; for what he had written intended for the instruction of German Protestants he wished to put forth for the instruction even of the Pope and the Cardinals. Bossuet is, of course, a sort of hero in the eyes of Mr. Jervis, but he is obliged to say things of him that reduce his heroism to very pitiful proportions. Bossuet was a favourite at court, and was more or less indulged ; he therefore had an air of independence about him which might deceive some people, and help them to think that the bishops were not the slaves of the crown that they really were. Bossuet was very respectful to the king, but he was not respectful to the Pope. He did not use bad language, that is true; but he was thoroughly disobedient, and dealt with the Holy See as with an enemy. Gallicanism is gone now the way of all heresies, and Mr. Jervis must regret it in vain. His history of it is well done, and we can hardly find fault with him. He has traced that history down to the civil constitution of the clergy. We can wish for no better refutation of the principle, no clearer light than that which he gives us. He is not pleased, with the Council of the Vatican, but he justifies it all the same. His Holiness now reigning has in one sense done no more than Mr. Jervis. The latter has drawn up the indictment and proved it, the Pope pronounced the sentence. These two volumes furnish the very best reasons that men can desire against Gallicanism, and they come with the more force because they are arrayed by one who thoroughly approves of the Gallican positions. In this sense, we say it heartily, Mr. Jervis has done us a real, and we think a lasting, service. Mary, Queen of Scots, and her latest English Historian. By JAMES F. THE London. HE Memory of Mary, Queen of Scots, is dear to the heart of every Catholic, and every fresh effort therefore to clear up any difficulties that may have arisen as to her life, or the cause from which she suffered, cannot fail to be most welcome to all who love the truth. Mr. Meline therefore has done good service in exposing and refuting the errors of her latest English historian, who has done more perhaps than any other historian to darken the beauty of her character, and to cast a stain upon her fair name. Mr. Froude has himself told us confidently, in his "Short Studies upon Great Subjects," "that it has often seemed to him as if history was like a child's box of letters, with which we can spell any word we please" (p. 7); and certainly he has done his best to put this view of his into practice, for in his own History of England he has spelt whatever word has seemed good to him. Henry VIII., Elizabeth, and Mary, Queen of Scots, are in his pages no more the Henry, Elizabeth, and Mary of history than he himself is an historian. We need not wonder then that in the present volume this author should charge him with gross impartiality; with sublimity of impudence in paradox; with defective knowledge of all history before the sixteenth century, with errors in general and in details, in geography, jurisprudence, titles, offices, and military affairs; with want of grasp of his materials; with inability to discover the value of different state papers, and indiscriminate acceptance of written authorities of a certain class; with being in matters of state a pamphleteer, and in personal questions an advocate, holding a brief for Henry against Mary Stuart; with inserting language of his own between quotationmarks, which are usually supposed to convey to the reader the conventional assurance that they include the precise words of the text with manipulating documents, either by joining together two distinct passages, thus entirely changing their meaning, or by connecting two phrases from two different authorities and presenting them as one, or by tacking on irresponsible or anonymous authorities to one that is responsible, and concealing the first while avowing the last; with insidious insinuations, dropping an allusion or remark, in apparently quite a careless manner, to build upon it afterwards a regular system of attack; nay, with ignorance even of that very sixteenth century of which Mr. Froude tells us, with no little satisfaction in his "Short Studies,' that "he might say that he knows more than about anything else." (Mary Queen of Scots, pp. 2-17.) These are grave charges, as the author owns, but are bound to say that he establishes them. Mr. Meline does not of course profess to follow every step which Mr. Froude has taken, or to spell over again correctly every word which the latter has mis-spelt with his "child's box of letters;" for, as he observes, "proper historical treatment in the case is difficult, not to say impossible, for the reason that he has produced, not so much a history of Mary Stuart as a sweeping indictment in terms of abuse, which few prosecuting attorneys would dare present in a criminal court, and in which he showers upon the Queen of Scots such epithets as "murderess," "ferocious animal," "panther," "wild cat," and "brute" (p. 21). Nor can we ourselves in a short notice attempt to follow Mr. Meline through all his refutations of Mr. Froude. We must content ourselves with placing a few of the most remarkable of them before our readers, first of all, however, calling their attention to the very striking passage which immediately precedes the words last quoted : "Our historian's views of the philosophy of history, of the agency of fate, and of the subordination of morality to the inevitable,' all undergo a radical change after leaving Henry VIII. His partisanship culminates in reaching Mary Stuart, when it comes out with more elaborate machinery of innuendo, more careful finish of invention, unscrupulous assertion, wealth of invective, and relentless hatred. Events, cease to be inevitable. The historian's generous supply of palliation and justification (usually, by faith alone') has all been lavished on Henry, or reserved for Murray. "In no one instance is there fatal necessity of mistake' for Mary; and her sorrows, her misfortunes, her involuntary errors, and the infamous outrages inflicted upon her by others, are, we are told, all crimes of her own invention and perpetration. Authorities cited are mainly her personal enemies, or her paid detractors. Of what she herself wrote there is rigid economy, and nothing is allowed to be heard from what is called 'that suspected source."" Mr. Froude's whole view of the character of Mary may be said to rest |