SCARCELY a week elapses that we do not see in our exchanges accounts of persons of distinction in England becoming Catholics. There is now scarcely a family of importance in England that has not furnished from its members converts to the true faith, and the movement seems to be on the increase. It must be said, too, that of these English converts, that generally they are remarkable for

earnestness and zeal. Many of them have entered the priesthood, or are preparing for it. Among these latter is a nephew of the ex-premier of England, W. E. Gladstone. Those of the converts who continue in secular life devote their talents and, to a great extent, their time, wealth, and influence to the support and propagation of the religion they have embraced.

ALL SAINTS' DAY AND OTHER SERMONS. By Rev. Charles Kingsley. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. Kingsley was a ranter. He rants in his novels, his pamphlets, and above all in his sermons. That such a man could have had a great deal of influence in his time, especially in a common-sense country like Eng

land, must be attributed to his constant and nauseating flattery of the "British workingman." He wrote books about their "wrongs," and as he went through life glorifying everything and everybody, it would be at least poetical justice to see him now in glory. He came to this country and praised us to the skies, and invited every eminent American to a grave in Westminster Abbey. Such a fool of course hated the Catholic Church with an intensity of which he feebly struggled to give adequate expression. We frankly admit that we read only one sermon (that only on All Saints' Day), and such a view of the saints! Well, we hope poor Kingsley's idea of the saints has by this time undergone considerable modifications.

MARY, THE MODEL AND MOTHER OF CHRISTIANS; or, A Series of MeditaTIONS UPON THE GREATNESS, VIRTUES, AND GLORIES OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY. By Rev. F. Gabrim, S. J. Translated by a Catholic Priest. New York: P. O'Shea. 1878.

This is an admirable manual of devotion to our Blessed Lady, marked by exact theological expression and deep devotion. Protestants who object to what they call the "extravagance of Roman Mariolatry," should peruse this book, which clearly and succinctly sets forth Mary's claims to honor and dignity. Mary was no mere instrument, no merely accidental personage, but the willing handmaid of the Most High, blessed among women and pre-elected from all eternity to be the spotless mother of the Incarnate Word. This privilege is so splendid and glorious, that language exhausts itself in the vain attempt to describe it fully. The inspired writers of the Sacred

Scriptures and the Fathers of the Church could find no terms sufficiently strong to express the lofty dignity to which this privilege exalted her. St. Augustine says that when God created the heavens "he fash ioned them with his fingers" (Prov. viii, 4,) but that when "he afterwards formed

Mary, he brought into requisition the might of his arm (St. Luke i, 51). St. Gregory likens Mary to a lofty mountain rising high above all other mountains. St. John represents Mary as illumined with a

crown of stars, the moon as her footstool, clothed with the sun in order to discriminate between her and the other saints who also dwell in an atmosphere of light.

Habitual meditation on the privileges and virtues of one so highly distinguished by Divine favor is one of the surest and most effective means of guarding against temptation and advancing in the spiritual

life.

The work before us is a valuable aid to those who desire thus to advance.

There are a few verbal and grammatical inaccuracies, resulting from too close a following of the Italian.

A MANUAL OF THE ANATOMY OF INVERTEBRATED ANIMALS. By Thomas H. Huxley. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

Whatever we think of Huxley's theology, we have to admit that his abilities as a scientific lecturer are of no mean order. The trouble with Huxley is that he will not keep to anatomy, but must push himself forward as a theologue. He has made himself a standing joke in the profession by his 'Lay Sermons" and his attacks on Moses. This book contains the results of twenty-two years' study and investigation of the Invertebrata. It is gratifying to notice that he finds no "intrinsic force" in Mr. Darwin's theory of the origin of the species (p. 42). Perhaps, after all, we may have Adam and Eve spared to us. We take the Popular Science Monthly for our statement that Mr. Huxley is, barring his theological whims, a very fair and accurate professor.

CATHOLICS have been frequently warned against putting much trust in the foreign "religious" dispatches of the Associated Press. The province of this medium of communication is clearly the transmission of news only; and it transcends its functions when it proffers comment upon the facts which it announces. The telegraphing of foreign news is in the hands of a company, of which Baron Reuter, who, we understand, is a Jew, is the head. The habit of criticism, which is not associated with the idea of a news-carrier, is frequently pushed to extravagant lengths. Thus, prior to the election of the present Sovereign Pontiff, every rumor floating about Rome was telegraphed with appropriate comment; and the impression left upon the public mind was that the information was supplied from the most trustworthy sources. The views of a Roman correspondent are too often deemed of superlative value and importance. A leader in the London Times is considered oracular; and there is often a dull mass of surmise unenlivened by a single spark of trustworthy information. The reader of the public journals

VOL. XIV.-21

may not be aware that the Vatican is the most reticent of courts, and that every cleric is something of a diplomatist, at least so far as ability to hold his tongue is concerned. Even the public allocutions of the Pope are misreported, and conclusions are built on them which the premises do not warrant. It is useless to expect a change in the matter of sending news; for such is the inordinate demand for information, created by our modern modes of thought and life, that the telegraph must flash, if not true, then false fire.

For a thousand mistakes into which the press falls, it makes about one correction. The general intelligence of Catholics, and a safe instinct of faith, enable them to judge pretty surely of the value of a statement. But Protestants are but too ready to accept, with unquestioning and uncritical belief, the most improbable reports. It is a fact that the Vatican issues no bulletins, and has no wish or necessity to manipulate the press, - a practice to which European powers do not hesitate to resort, if they can thereby influence public opinion,-or, what is of more importance, the condition of the stock

market. The general unreliability of foreign intelligence may be shown from the contradictory and absurd news, opinions, and diplomatic moves that were connected with the Eastern war, and the pending questions which have grown out of it. The whole modern system of news-gathering and distributing needs radical change and improvement. There is no means of certifying information. We are helplessly dependent upon news associations, that are not often deeply impressed with the moral responsibility of uttering the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The history of the Franco-German war brings out the fact that the French people were deluded with lying bulletins of victories up to the very hour when the German armies were thundering at the gates of the capital.

As a counter-agent to the misrepresentation of the Church, every Catholic journal should employ a discreet correspondent at Rome, with a special view to transmit correct news, and to furnish the material for the contradiction or the correction of the hostile or indifferent public press. The late Dr. Marshall conducted a special department in the London Tablet, wherein the lying reports, false criticism, and unjust comments of the daily and weekly English press on the subject of the Church were handled with exquisite satire and merciless castigation. The results of his studies in this direction he afterward embodied in a book (Protestant Journalism), which is deeply interesting for more reasons than the obvious one. The average Roman correspondent cannot be expected to know much about the policy of a Church in which he does not believe, and which, perchance, he has been taught to regard as a system of error and irreligiousness. The complicated questions of Church policy tempt his vanity in the way of endeavoring to understand and condemn them; the exclusiveness of Catholic prelates awakens his pique

and resentment; the anti-Catholic spirit of the Italian government seems to him to reflect the real sentiments of the nation at large, and the safety which attends any attack upon the Pope and the Church combines to color his views and statements with the dark hues of hatred, or the negative tints of supercilious criticism and inane philosophizing.

The public should be trained to hold a correspondent or news agent to his point, with the pertinacity of an advocate eliciting or sifting testimony. Hearsay evidence is properly ruled out of court. The private judgment or formed opinion of a witness count for nothing, and are sternly repressed. However valuable to his seeming his impressions and convictions may be, the law regards them as worthless and irrelevant. We should put newsmen in the witness-box, and check their ardent wishes to expatiate upon the items of news they unfold. All that we want is the fact. We can make up our own minds upon its bearings and consequences.

To read the comments of journalists upon the future policy of Pope Leo XIII, their evident desire to regard him as a radical reformer, a liberal, or, in short, anything except the stern and uncompromising champion of the Church, one would suppose that a "gentleman of the press" daily interviews the Supreme Pontiff. Before the election of Cardinal Pecci, we were assured of the hopelessness of his election, from the circumstance of his being Camerlengo, which office was said to practically exclude him from the choice of the cardinals. Now, this we knew to be intrinsically contradictory and absurd. Every cardinal is a potential Pope. No matter what office he fills, no matter what his qualifications or disqualifications may be, his eligibility to the tiara is part of the very constitution of the government of the Church. People who form their ideas of an election from county

conventions and political ward meetings, from the American caucus or the English standing for Parliament, should learn that the system of electing a Pope is as near perfection as any system that ever was or can be framed. There will never be any need of an electoral commission to determine the election of a Pope; and even in the distracted times of the great schism of the West, when there were two and even three antiPopes in the field, there was never any doubt upon the mind of the Church as to who was her properly elected and constituted head. Trained human foresight, impartiality, absence of ambition, and a profound desire to do the best for the Church enter as elements in the cardinalitial choice, and play as mighty influences. When we reflect upon the penalties amounting to excommunication, suspension, and canonical irregularity that are visited upon cardinals that do not comply with the sacred canons regulating the papal election, the charge becomes a very grave one, which represents the sacred college as filled with men who would grasp the tiara with violent, dexterous, or unscrupulous hand. The completest freedom and fairness are aimed at, and aimed at honestly, so we are justified in believing them secured. The precautions taken strike one as very strict, and in many details unnecessary; but they are rigidly carried out. These human measures of themselves would warrant a certainty of fair election, and when viewed as accompanied by the Divine light and assistance, even the suspicion of unfairness or irregularity cannot be reasonably indulged in by a nonCatholic, whilst his faith is dead who would consider a papal election as open to any questionings whatever. One good office the telegraph did for us was its rapid intelligencing the world with the election of Leo XIII, a no inconsiderable good, for in olden times the distant portions of the Church were not apprised of the

election of her head until months and months had elapsed, and this sometimes left far-away bishops in a state of perplexity, and at times resulted in many inconveniences, as the student of ecclesiastical history knows.

The world now busies itself with speculations upon the Pope's policy. There is a widespread impression that he is more "liberal" than his immediate predecessor, and more disposed to accept the loss of the temporal power as an accomplished fact. He is represented as holding broad and modern views, and his new-found admirers are sedulously conveying the impression that Pope Leo is the pope of the nineteenth century, ready to abandon many of the old Church claims. The wildest theory of the newspaper men is that he will virtually forego his doctrinal infallibility, and check the passionate ardor of devotion to the Blessed Virgin, which inferences, say they, are deducible from his consistorial address of March 29th, in which he lays great stress upon the dignity and authority of the sacred college,

etc.

As Catholics, in spite of our warnings to take foreign telegraphic intelligence cum grano salis, will continue to read the papers and consciously or unconsciously modify their opinions by them, it is proper that we set forth some leading and fixed principles of papal action, which result from the position and relation which the Pope sustains to the Church and to the world. These principles are very simple, and when once understood and appreciated, will solve any ordinary question relative to what the Pope may or may not do in his spiritual and temporal intercourse with the world.

The Pope, viewed in his spiritual relations and office, is the visible representative of ecclesiastical unity; the sovereign teacher and custodian of the faith; the supreme lawgiver; the guardian and interpreter of the

sacred canons; the legitimate superior of all bishops; the final judge of councils, an office which he possesses in his own right, and which he has always exercised by presiding over all Ecumenical councils personally, or through his legates, and by confirming the acts of councils as the Supreme Head of the Universal Catholic Church. His infallible magisterium, ex cathedra, though of recent definition, has always been acknowledged by the Church. He has settled controversies in all ages by his own authority. He enjoys a pre-eminence of honor and jurisdiction. These are his spiritual prerogatives inherent in the Primacy. They are inseparable from him as the Head of the Church. The plenitude of authority and jurisdiction, infallibility in teaching ex cathedra, supremacy over all bishops, singly and collectively, and other spiritual powers and functions, inhere in his headship or primacy as the successor of St. Peter, constituted by Christ as the Rock or foundation-stone of the Church.

The possession of these admirable and awful powers and dignities does not, of course, affect the Pope's action in merely personal or temporal matters unconnected with his sublime office. As a private doctor or theologian he is at liberty to hold a difference of views such as is permitted by the liberty of the faith. He is not endowed with infallibility except under the conditions adverted to i. e., when as Supreme Teacher of the Church he defines faith and morals. Mr. Gladstone made a great ado about the meaning of the word morals in the Vatican decrees, claiming that it implied the widest sweep of meaning, and included all the offices of civil and social life. But the sense of the word, as used theologically, is clear to any candid mind. The Pope is not impeccable or exempt from the danger of falling into sin. He is not an arrogant or irresponsible

autocrat, but is bound by the Divine law, from which he cannot derogate, as firmly as the humblest of Christians. Nor can he dispense in graver ecclesiastical law without just cause, at least, not arbitrarily and unreasonably. His life is marked out for him with a particularity of detail which few of us would relish. He engages in no measures without long and frequent consultation with his various congregations, for even the sublime act of proclaiming infallible truth is not prophetic or inspirational, but proceeds per modum divinæ assistentiæ, or through the divine assistance, which does not exempt him from the obligation of most careful and accurate examination and consultation.

His temporal relations, whilst devoutly believed to be under the special guidance of God for the good of the Church, are not attended with infallibility. He may err diplomatically, and his temporal power, whilst highly conducive and most necessary to the welfare of the Holy See, is no part of the spiritual office. The martyred Popes of the catacombs, the exiled Pontiff of Avignon, and the suffering and imprisoned Popes of later times, were just as much the Heads of the Church and the Vicars of Jesus Christ, as if they were seated upon the pontifical throne amid the splendors of the Vatican and the majesty of St. Peter's. The relation of the Pope to the world is defined by strict lines of custom and doctrine. His chief solicitude being the preservation of the purity of the faith and the morality of Christendom, his dealings with the world have always been directed to these ends. can make no compromise with evil. He can give no sanction to views which are in the least hostile to Christian faith and morals. The history of the Papacy is a history of warfare with evil, of opposition to the spirit of lawlessness and lasciviousness, and of stern condemnation

He