morality, we cannot decide against it without examination. But reason can conclude nothing against a supernatural proposition merely because it is unable to see its truth.

But in the case of the teaching of the Church there is never occasion to apply this negative test. We believe the Church only because we have all the proof reason demands that she is divinely commissioned and assisted to teach the revelation God has made to man. We know she cannot err in teaching his revelation, because we know he has authorized her to teach, and cannot authorize the teaching of error, as he would do if she could err as to his word. We have, for the infallibility of the Church in regard to faith and morals, the endorsement, so to speak, of Almighty God, and that is security good enough for any reasonable man. We know, then, that whatever she teaches is truth, and truth without mixture of error; consequently, it never comes into our heads for our own sakes, for the satisfaction of our own minds, to institute any inquiry as to the fact whether what she teaches agrees with natural reason or not, for we know, à priori, that it cannot disagree with it. Whenever we institute the inquiry, it is to remove the difficulties of those who, in the name of reason, object to her teaching, or else to increase our admiration of the Divine Wisdom by obtaining a more lively sense of the harmony of all the Creator's works.

For our own part, we dwelt at length on the necessity and proofs of authority in the earlier volumes of our Review, and said all that we feel it necessary to say on that head. Latterly, we have been more intent on showing the compatibility of authority with liberty, and the concord between nature and grace. We alienate in our age many minds from the Church, as well as fail to recall those who have gone astray, if we present them the Church only under the aspect of authority, and simply demand, in her name, unquestioning obedience. The Church reasons, persuades, and resorts to her authority to command only when all other means fail; not that she distrusts her authority, or concedes to reason the right to dispute it, but because she is forbidden to lord it over God's heritage, and because she seeks for God a willing obedience. We do her great injustice when we repre sent her only as stern and inflexible authority, saying in imperative tones, "Believe or be damned," although it is certainly true that he that believeth not will be damned. We have felt that, having vindicated the authority of the Church, proved her ability to teach and to govern all men

and nations in all things spiritual, we could not better serve her interests than by showing that her authority by no means abridges our natural liberty or supersedes the necessity of the exercise of our natural reason. Outside of the Church, men are driven by the false supernaturalism of Calvinists and Evangelicals to rationalism and naturalism, while non-Catholics, who do not profess to be orthodox Protestants, very generally suppose that false supernaturalism is precisely what the Church herself teaches. We have believed we could render no better service to religion than to do our best to correct this injurious impression. We have labored for several years, not so much to establish the divinity as the humanity of the Church: in other words, to prove, not so much that our Lord is God as that he is God made man, the Word made flesh, that he is perfect man as well as perfect God. In doing this, we have had not only false supernaturalism, which demolishes nature to make way for grace, outside of the Church, but not a few Jansenistic tendencies among our own friends, to combat, which has led some to suppose we were turning our arms against Catholics instead of the common enemy. We leave it to time to write our vindication. We believe that what is now wanted by the non-Catholic world is not arguments in proof of our religion, but explanations which disabuse non-Catholics of their prejndices against the Church and her doctrines-explanations that shall enable them to see clearly how much of what offends them belongs to Catholic tradition, how much to the traditions of Catholics, which is not of faith, and how much to the invention of the enemies of the Church. To this end Judge Baine's work has been intended by the author to contribute, and no doubt will contribute much. His book is not adapted to all classes of minds; but there is a large class to which it is adapted, and it will sweep away a mass of prejudice from the minds of most non-Catholics who will read it.

ART. VI.-LITERARY NOTICES AND CRITICISMS.

1. In the Review last October, we made some remarks on The History of the Protestant Reformation, by M. J. Spalding, D. D., the highly distinguished Bishop of Louisville, and of ered, apropos of it, some suggestions as to the sort of history of that disastrous event we should ourselves like to see written. Our remarks and suggestions seem not to have met the approbation of the Right Reverend author, and we find the following review of the reviewer in the Louisville Guardian,—a review written, we are assured, by the bishop himself. Presuming him to be the writer, we, out of our profound respect to him as a prelate, our high appreciation of his merits as an author, and our gratitude to him as a friend, transfer it entire to our pages, without other comment than to request all our readers to buy the bishop's valuable and interesting History, read it carefully and critically, and decide for themselves whether our criticisms are well founded or not. It will give us great pleasure to find that we were in the wrong.

"In his notice of Bishop Spalding's History of the Protestant Reformation, Dr. Brownson makes some remarks, upon which we shall offer a few brief comments, but we trust in no unfriendly spirit. We have not been in the number of those who have been denounced by our eminent publicist as having dealt with unnecessary severity in his regard; but we have rather sought to excuse his eccentricities in our admiration for his genius and boldness. What we will now say will be simply in the interests of historic truth and justice.

"The reviewer characterizes the bishop's History of the Reformation as a new, revised, and much-enlarged edition of Essays and Reviews which he had previously published.' This is scarcely correct. About twothirds of the present publication, including the entire second volume and about one-third of the first, are entirely new, while the original Review or Essay (not Essays and Reviews,) has been to a certain extent remodelled.

"The reviewer blames the bishop for dwelling too much on the wickedness of the men who brought about the Reformation, and he alleges that Francis I., of France, was not surpassed, if equalled, in dissoluteness and real depravity by any German prince who sustained Luther or Calvin.' Allow this to have been the case, what does it prove? Francis I. propounded no new creed, and set himself up as the champion of no new reformation, in the name of God, whereas, Luther, Calvin, and the other reformers, did give themselves forth as men divinely called to reform the Church of God, and to inaugurate a new order of things. This makes all the difference in the two cases; as we naturally may look for common decency, if not for superior sanctity, in those who set themselves up as the apostles of a new religion—a reformation oi the old, believed to have been divinely inspired, but to have decayed. The bishop clearly stated and sufficiently unfolded this principle in the very first

chapter of his first volume, in which he treated of the character of the pretended reformers.

"The reviewer had not certainly read the work, or even glanced over its sufficiently comprehensive table of contents, else he would not have censured the author for dwelling too much on the depravity of the reformers. The fact is, that the author of the work devotes but a portion of a single chapter to the development of this argument. The body of the work is devoted to unfolding the causes and manner of the Reforination, and its influence on religion, on morals, on liberty, on literature, and on general civilization. This will be apparent to any one who will but glance over the pages of the work, the scope of which is to discuss, chiefly on Protestant authority, the whole subject of the Reformation, in all its length and breadth, and in its various influences on society.

"It is not true, as the reviewer would seem to imply, that the author 'ascribed the Reformation in Germany to the rivalry of the Augustinians and Dominicans, and to the rapacity of the princes and nobles, bent on grasping the temporalities of the Church, and in England, to the refusal of the Pope to grant Henry VIII. a divorce from his wife.' These motives are, indeed, assigned, the first only incidentally, and the other two more at length; but they are not insisted on as the only adequate causes of the movement. The author takes a much wider view. They are alleged, along with other causes which, combined with them, present an ‘adequate' explanation of the rapidity with which the Reformation extended over a large portion of Europe.

"The reviewer wholly ignores the two lengthy historical Introductions, in which the religious history of Europe and of England, preliminary to the Reformation, is summarily glanced at, with a view to explain how it was that the way was prepared for the movement throughout Europe, and how the rapidity with which it succeeded may be sufficiently accounted for. Yet this is an important, if not an essential element of the publication, which should not have been passed over lightly, much less left wholly unnoticed. This preliminary history, together with the various proximate causes and agencies which were brought to bear at the time upon the Reformation, may be said to contain much of that deeper history and philosophy' of the movement, which the reviewer laments that the author did not think it necessary to furnish. If there be any deeper philosophy' of the Protestant Reformation than that which is based upon the facts of history, we are wholly ignorant of its existence. Speculation, no matter how elaborate and philosophical, without a solid basis of facts to rest on, is, in our view, wholly worthless, if not mischievous, in a historical writer, as it can scarcely fail to mislead. For this reason we do not suppose the author will comply with the reviewer's wish for him to publish a new volume.

"In this connection, we beg to call the reviewer's attention especially to the Introduction to the second volume, in which, if we are not much mistaken, he will find the explanation of the causes which led to the success of the Anglican Reformation, very similar to that furnished by himself in an article on the subject. If he be in the habit of previously reading what he reviews, he can scarcely doubt the accuracy of this remark.

"The reviewer refers to the objection made by Dr. Nevin and others, based on the fact that men so wicked as the reformers are represented to have been, should have been reared up in the bosom of the Catholic

Church, which they are inclined to hold responsible for their depravity. This is scarcely a more valid objection than that which would hold Christ responsible for the treason of Judas! The bishop referred to this very objection in the first chapter, first volume, of the History, the scope of which is to show that Martin Luther was a passably good man while in the Church, but that he changed greatly for the worse after his apostacy. The Church is surely not fairly responsible for the wickedness of men whom she condemns and excludes from her communion. A mother is not responsible for her rebellious children whom she loved and sought to correct.

"The reviewer thinks that Dr. Forbes struck the 'key-note' of Protestant opposition to the Catholic Church, when he alleged that the Church deprived man of his natural liberty; and he expresses a wish that the bishop had taken up this point and answered it to the satisfaction of the Protestant caviller. Had Dr. Brownson taken the trouble to read the work, or even to glance over its table of contents, he would have been spared the trouble of making this remark. The author treats this very subject at considerable length, devoting four or five long chapters to its elucidation. We refer to the chapters in the first volume, on the influence of the Reformation on doctrinal belief, on civil and religious liberty, on literature, and on general civilization. We refer also to the second volume, in which this very view of the Reformation is a prominent element. The author proves, by Protestant authority which cannot be gainsaid, that in every country in Europe the Protestant Reformation, instead of advancing, retarded the progress of liberty, both civil and religious, and thwarted sound civilization; that, in fact, it crushed out rational liberty everywhere, and substituted therefor an unmitigated despotism, with union of Church and state, and this in the name of that very liberty of which it was so loudly boasting! All this he proves by cuinulative evidence. We do not know, indeed, what he could have added on this very subject, which is the one most prominently treated of in the History, and most insisted on.

"In conclusion, we beg to say, that we are great admirers of the ability with which Dr. Brownson writes, of his boldness in maintaining his positions, and of his sincerity, which we shall not willingly doubt. But we fear, from the whole tenor of his last number, that something must have recently occurred to sour his temperament and to disturb his orthodoxy. We confess to a feeling of sadness in perusing several of his articles, especially that most inopportune one-to say the least-on the Rights of the Temporal. While claiming freedom of thought and discussion for himself, within the strict limits of orthodoxy, he should not be so hard on those who venture to differ from him, and he should not allude with so much feeling to the quarterly onslaughts' on his Review. So great an advocate of freedom himself, he should surely allow something of it to others. He is not certainly, and does not claim to be infallible, and he may be, and we believe is, sometimes wrong in his premises and in his conclusions, though honestly wrong. Why may not others attempt to set him right when they honestly consider him wrong? Keeping within the boundaries of the faith, strictly construed, he yet often indulges in speculations which grate harshly on Catholic minds and hearts. He has a knack of stumbling on the most delicate and inopportune subjects, and of treating them as a surgeon, knife in hand, treats the unfortunate subject who falls into his power. Can he be surprised if,