True Means of restoring Church Influence.

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adorned it with gestures and action so admirable that but few comedians might not have advantageously taken a lesson from him. Immediately at the close of the sermon, all the congregation, dissolved in tears, without, I think, a single exception, fell on their knees, the alms-box was carried round among them, and the sacred performer reaped a good harvest. To be quite fair, I must say that I am inclined to think that such a sermon would hardly have been heard in Rome. But I have no doubt that it was by no means a singularity in the south.

Machiavelli (continues Father Curci) has remarked, and Aristotle said the same thing long before him, that fallen or falling institutions can only be reinvigorated by those same principles whence they had their beginning and their subsequent increase. The sole means, accordingly (he goes on to urge), of restoring the lost Christian conscience in human civil societies, must be by promoting the study of the New Testament.* In short it is evident that that sovereign monument of the divine providential mercy towards men ought to be the principal object of the study of ecclesiastics, and to be constantly, if not in its entirety, in part at least, in the hands of the faithful, according to the capacity of each individual, and in obedience to the extremely provident rules made for such purpose by the Church. Nevertheless, it is useless to dissimulate the matter. Also in this respect what is, is in direct opposition to what ought to be the case. The ordinary practice is diametrically opposed to that which ought to be our conduct. For the New Testament is the book of all others the least studied and least read among us. So much so that the bulk of the laity-even of those who believe, they have been instructed, and profess religion-is not aware that such a book exists in the world; and the greater part of the clergy themselves scarcely know more of it than what they are compelled to read in the Breviary and the Missal.

This astounding statement would hardly obtain credit if advanced on any less indubitable authority than one in the position and of the quality of Father Curci. On such authority, however, the present writer accepts it as indisputably true; and can only add that his own long knowledge of the country, though he would have hesitated to put forth such a statement on the strength of it, as far as it goes, abundantly confirms it. Speaking of this prevalent neglect of the Bible, and referring to the utter want of all encouragement which had attended his former great work on the Gospels, he says

It was to my mind a very bad symptom that not a living soul was found-I do not say to commend the quality of my work, this was very

* Father Curci expressly excepts the Apocalypse.

It will be observed that the writer does not express himself with his usual clearness upon this difficult point. How is the capacity' of each individual to be decided, and how are the 'rules' of the Church to be applied? Father Curci publishes the entire text of the New Testament (save the Apocalypse), and there can be little doubt that he would fain see it in the hands of every layman in Italy. But it needed much caution in touching on such a point.

poor, and no one knew it better than myself-but to give the slightest sign of approving even in theory the idea of such a work. No one dreamed of any such thing! The five volumes passed almost absolutely unobserved, and for the rest, it was much that I was permitted to write them. Overt manifestations of malice, because I did not sing to the same tune as the others was not wanting; nor were covert grumblings at the novelty of my undertaking-the novelty in the Church of causing the gospel to be read and expounded from the pulpit !-grumbling which went to the length of seeing a Protestant tendency in my work. Such a point have we reached!

After having disapproved of the Protestant practice of putting the entire scriptures unreservedly into the hands of the whole body of the laity, Father Curci proceeds as follows

The Protestants meanwhile, having for the most part laid aside their fantasies respecting private judgment, and the sufficiency of faith alone for salvation-ideas which from the earliest times it was seen could not in practice be seriously maintained—have continued in the study and reading of the Bible, deriving therefrom fruits differing indeed in kind, but of no small value. It is scarcely credible with what activity biblical studies have been cultivated by heterodox scholars, specially during the last half century. And the importance and quality of the works that are coming from the press every day are truly astonishing. And as regards the reading of the scriptures, I please myself with thinking that the perusal, specially of the gospels by simple persons who, knowing little and suspecting nothing about differences between Catholics, and heretics, and schismatics, seek faithfully in them for the truth, may by God's help generate in their minds a true faith in Jesus Christ, by means of which, being gathered to the Church, if not outwardly yet certainly in spirit, they may find themselves in a position to obtain eternal life better than many Catholics, who are such by baptism only.

It will be readily understood and believed that an ecclesiastic undertaking such a work as that of Father Curci, with such ideas as he brings to the execution of it, and arraigning the shortcomings of his Church in the fearless manner he does, has excited a storm of indignation and abuse of the author. But it needs a considerable knowledge of the present condition of matters ecclesiastical at the Vatican to appreciate the intensity of the bitterness of this indignation. It is a bitterness of that special kind which is generated by fear. Very possibly Father Curci, had he been placed in the seat occupied by Leo XIII., would not have given public utterance to the thoughts expressed in this very remarkable preface which we have been examining. But there is very good reason for feeling little or no doubt that Leo, in the position of Father Curci, would have spoken and written as he has done. The ecclesiastical official approval (in foro ecclesia) for publication was given by a competent ecclesiastic specially

Difference Between Pius IX. and Leo XIII.

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named ad hoc by the Pontiff. And when the two first volumes were finished, a couple of copies were presented to His Holiness. Some days after this the Pope caused a number of copies to be purchased, and sent them to the principal ecclesiastical seminaries in Rome. In mentioning this fact, I cannot say in the common phrase that I defy contradiction of it. For the reader, if he were to inquire among the higher Roman clergy, would meet with abundant and indignant denials of it. But it is in my power to assure him that it is true all the same. And indeed the denial would be but a homogeneous part of the constant system of denials which has been provoked at each step of the well-known opposition which has existed at the Vatican ever since the elevation of Leo XIII., by the necessity of concealing (if it were possible to do so) from the outer world the differences prevailing among those whose theory of their position and office requires them to be unanimous. There is little room to doubt that the present Pope would govern and reform his Church entirely in the sense of Father Curci's opinions and teaching, if-with greater or lesser reason and sound judgment-he did not let "I dare not wait upon I would.' The theory of the Roman Church is, as we all know, that the Sacred College is a council for the assistance of the Pontiff in the government of the Church. All the world knows equally well that under very many Popes, and notably under the last, the papal practice did not in the smallest degree correspond with any such theory. Pius the Ninth was an autocrat. The cardinals were, not only according to the letter but in spirit, his 'creatures.' Nor did any one among them dream of attempting an opposition to his will, which would have been utterly unavailing. But Leo XIII., a man of a tender and scrupulous conscience, anxious to do his duty according to the correctest Church theory and tradition, began his pontificate by assembling the cardinals, and telling them that his hope was to find in them true and available counsellors, and his purpose was to rule the Church by and with their cooperation and assistance. The step was hastily taken, and has probably been since no little regretted. The College of Cardinals necessarily consisted at that time almost exclusively of the creatures' of Pius the Ninth; and it was little likely that they should prove desirable assistants and counsellors for the carrying out of a policy in many most important respects diametrically opposed to that of the deceased Pontiff. In fact, Leo XIII. very soon discovered that the counsellors to whom he had appealed were engaged in organizing, by every

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possible means, a systematic, unscrupulous, and internecine opposition to all his measures for the much needed reformation of many matters of political and administrative importance. Of course each new creation of cardinals strengthens the new Pope's hands, and pro tanto lessens the power of the opposition. But it still continues as active and as virulent as ever, if not so powerful. And the Pope, as I have said, is a man of a timid and scrupulous conscience. The secession of the Old Catholics' frightened the rulers of the Church terribly. And to be the occasion of a new schism, which his crafty opponents of the Sacred College are ever representing to him as likely to be occasioned by any of the measures to which they are opposed, would be to the conscience of Leo XIII. the most terrible and awful thing that could happen to him. Nevertheless, he is daily gaining strength, and the natural course of events must necessarily cause a continuation of the above process. Those who watch the course of Vatican events, and the evolution of the papal policy, see perfectly well from day to day the results of this amelioration in the Pontiff's position. And it is probable that he who would obtain a foresight of the direction which may be given to the government of the Roman Church during the immediately coming years, may find it in the indications of opinion which have been culled in the previous pages from the work of Father Curci.

T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE.

ART. III.-Religion and Morality.

WE frequently find Religion and Morality set together in juxtaposition and associated in idea, and it is perhaps generally believed that one represents the theoretical and the other the practical aspect of the same thing. It is desirable, however, to distinguish between them, and to recognise the different if not independent sphere in which each moves and works. We will endeavour, then, to investigate, first, the nature of this difference, and, secondly, to inquire whether it is possible for morality to be so independent of religion as to be secure of preservation without the sanctions of it.

What, then, do we understand by religion? It is somewhat remarkable that the word is only found in the English Bible as being thrice used by St. Paul and twice by St. James. The Greek word so rendered, Opnokela, is the one used by St. Paul

in Acts xxvi. 5, when he says, 'after the straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee;' and in Col. ii. 18, where he speaks of a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels.' In Gal. i. 13, 14, where he twice uses the phrase, 'Jews' religion, it is a rendering of 'Ιουδαισμῷ and not of θρησκεία. The two occasions on which St. James uses Oрnoκeía are in the famous passage ch. i. 26, 27, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion, &c.' It will be seen that in all these cases the use of the word scarcely corresponds to our modern use of the word religion. The Greek Opnokeía more especially implies the outward service or exercise in which religion expresses itself, rather than the inward principle of religion, to which we more commonly restrict the term. St. Paul, moreover, somewhat disparagingly speaks of this outward service of religion in both cases, while St. James affirms that all such outward service is likely to end in self-deception if it be not accompanied with control of the tongue, and that the best expression of all such outward service is to be found in a walk of active benevolence and in purity of personal conduct. There is, in fact, no word, either in the Old or New Testament, which strictly answers to what we understand in our modern ideas by the word religion. It is the result of a more self-conscious and reflective condition of mind and of a greater introspection than was the habit of the writers of the Bible. It is obvious that the elements and foundation of all religion are contained in the Bible, but that which we understand by the thing itself is rather the superstructure of the foundation so laid and the advanced science of the elements therein propounded. In like manner the object contemplated by the moral law must necessarily be morality; but there is no vestige of the word in Scripture, and even the thing as we now understand it is hardly to be recognised in the simple and inartificial language of the law and the Gospel.

Religion may further be defined as the result contemplated by the laws of the first table, while morality is the result contemplated by the laws of the second. Religion is the aspect of human life in reference to God; morality is the aspect it assumes in reference to man and social claims. It would seem, therefore, that morality might legitimately claim to be considered independently of religion, if not to exist independently of it; but from the very nature of the case religion can have no existence without issuing in morality, whether or not we choose to contemplate its nature and existence apart from morality.

By far the most important question that can be raised with