ART. III.-Christ our Life. The Scriptural Argument for Immortality through Christ alone. By C. F. HUDSON. Boston: Jewett & Co. 12mo.

AT another time we might be disposed to give the work, the title of which we have cited, a thorough examination; for though its general doctrine is unsound, its author is a man of no mean ability, and, what is more, a man who ventures to think for himself, and really attains to some glimpses of truth. It is a work which cannot be uninteresting or uninstructive to those who wish to study the varying phases of thought among non-Catholics, or the struggles of a mind brought up in either old-fashioned Protestantism or modern Socinianism to obtain a doctrine which may at least be consistent with itself. But our present purpose is different. We have selected the title of Mr. Hudson's book as a text, or an apology for a text, for some remarks of our own, having only an indirect and remote connection with the subject he treats.

Mr. Hudson's book proves that the old forms of thought in the non-Catholic world no longer satisfy, if they ever satisfied, the non-Catholic intelligence. The active and vigorous minds outside of the Church can no longer rest in the doctrines of Luther and Calvin, or even of Socinus and Gentilis. They are seeking earnestly for some solid ground on which they can stand, and for doctrines which they can reconcile with their own reason and understanding. They seek everywhere for truth but where truth may be found. We Catholics know perfectly well that Catholicity embraces all truth, and that out of the Church there is no truth in its unity and integrity. We know perfectly well that it is only in the doctrines of our Church that the truth they want can be found. Yet our Church is the very last place in which they are willing to seek it, and perhaps many of them, even were they to seek it there, would not find it. Hundreds and thousands of men read Catholic books of theology where the very questions they want treated are discussed with great learning and ability, with clearness, depth, and sincerity, without finding in them anything but unmeaning words, dry technicalities, or antiquated formulas. Why is this so? Is it not because our Catholic writers fail to address themselves to the forms of modern thought, to the idiosyncracies, so to speak, of the age?

May it not be the fact that our words and formulas do not convey to those outside the truth they have for us? May it not also be that we Catholics identify, in some sort, the truth itself with the scholastic forms under which we have received it, and that we should fail to perceive it ourselves if expressed in other forms?

It is true the Apostle admonishes us to "beware of profane novelties," and to "hold fast the form of sound words," but at the same time he tells us he became "all things to all men, that he might gain some," and it is clear that he never designed us to be wedded to the mere symbol, without regard to the thing symbolized. Truth is that which is needed, and he who has the truth has all that he needs. Truth never varies. It is the same in all ages and in all nations. But its expression may vary, and must in some degree vary, in order to meet the peculiar wants of time and place. It would be of little use to speak in Hebrew, Greek, or Latin, to a man who understood only French, German, or English. If the truth is to reach the mind, it must be spoken in a language and expressed in a form that is intelligible to it. The truth spoken is measured by the mind of the hearer, not by the mind of the speaker. No matter how much truth we have in our minds, we tell only so much truth as the mind we address can take in. When we speak we use words, and words are symbols or sensible signs. Whatever meaning we may give them, they have for those to whom we speak only the meaning which their minds give them. The meaning conveyed or the truth symbolized depends on their understanding, not on ours. Is it not the neglect of this great fact that prevents our theological works from having their proper effect on the minds of unbelievers? May it not be that we too often speak without considering whether what is clear and evident to us may not be obscure and unmeaning to them? Is it true that their failure to apprehend, embrace, and follow the truth which we set forth is entirely their fault, the effect of their perverse will?

We have no disposition to apologize for unbelievers and rejecters of the truth; yet, we confess, we cannot wholly approve a widely prevailing notion, that all error presupposes malice, and that all who remain outside of the Church do so through hatred of the truth and love of iniquity. Any man who has once been a Protestant and subsequently reconciled to the Church, knows well that his

greatest difficulty in the way of accepting Catholic truth was in understanding it. He will tell you, and tell you truly, that in proportion as he ascertained the real meaning of the Church he was prepared to accept it, and that he wanted no argument to prove it after he had clearly seen it. The Church to be loved needs but to be seen as she is; the truth to be believed needs but to be presented to the mind as it is in its real relations. This follows from the common doctrine of the scholastics that the object of the will is GOOD, and that the object of the intellect is TRUTH; as also from the doctrine of St. Thomas that all sin originates in ignorance. To convert man it is necessary to enlighten him, and all theologians teach us that the grace which converts illustrates the understanding at the same time that it assists the will. Men reject or refuse to believe our doctrines because they do not understand them, that is, do not understand them in their relations with their own intuitions or rational convictions, which, it seems to them, they cannot give up without a total abandonment of reason common to all men. May not, then, our failure to convert them, be, in great part, owing to the fact that we fail so to present them, that is, fail to present them so that they appear to them consistent with the dictates of reason and common sense? Must there not, then, be fault on our side as well as on theirs?

But here is our difficulty. It seems to be very generally understood in the Catholic community here and elsewhere, that the Catholic controversialist must never concede that Catholics can possibly err in their apprehension of Catholic truth, or in their mode of presenting it; that every Catholic writer or publicist must always proceed on the assumption that, as between them and their opponents, all Catholics are infallible and impeccable, and as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves; that to vary a single word or form of expression adopted by scholastic theologians would be to betray the Catholic cause; and that every attempt to present Catholic truth in a manner to be apprehensible by our age, and to remove the objections to it in the minds of nonCatholics by exhibiting it in a new light, or under new forms, would indicate a restless, uneasy, discontented, and querulous spirit, if not absolute disloyalty to the Spouse of Christ. We are told on every side by those who affect to give tone and direction to Catholic thought and action, that it is our duty as Catholic publicists to defend things as we

find them; to raise no question which may excite controversy among ourselves; to enter into no philosophical or theological discussions not acceptable to all Catholics, whether learned or unlearned; never to criticise the doings. or the sayings of our predecessors among Catholic polemics; never to take any deeper, broader, or loftier views than are taken by the most ignorant or uncultivated of Catholic believers; never to strike out any new lines of argument or to shift the ground of controversy with our opponents. We are required to follow tradition, not only in what is of faith, but in what pertains to the theological expression of revealed truth, and to the mode or manner of defending it. If we would be accounted orthodox, or stand well with the pretended exponents of Catholic public opinion, we must explain the causes of the Protestant rebellion according to the traditions of Catholics, and never deviate from that tradition in our manner of explaining and refuting its errors. We must be content to repeat the arguments stereotyped for our use, although those arguments may rest on historical blunders, metaphysical errors, the misreading of the Fathers, or a doubtful interpretation of the Sacred Text. We are permitted to make no account of the researches of the moderns in the physical sciences, in history, natural or civil, in literary criticism, or Biblical literature; to pay no attention to the present state of the controversy between Catholics and non-Catholics, to the new questions which have arisen, to the new ground that has been taken, or to the new modes of warfare adopted by the rejecters of Catholic truth. We are required to take it for granted that all our controversy must be with Lutherans, Calvinists, or Anglicans, on the ground, we suppose, that error is as invariable as truth. We do not, of course, mean to say that there is any Catholic, cleric or laic, who would expressly maintain this; but this much we do mean to say, that any one who does not conform to the rule here laid down will find that he has severer controversies to maintain with his own brethren than with the avowed enemies of the Church, and there are few men who can maintain their credit for orthodoxy when a considerable number of their own brethren, and especially those who give tone and direction to Catholic action, are opposed to them. No men are more readily distrusted, no men are looked upon with more horror by Catholics than they who become the occasion of domestic controversy. The rule adopted seems to

be not that which was laid down by the Apostle, "Follow after the things that make for peace," but follow after peace, or seek peace at any price.

Whoever is in the habit of reading the Catholic journals of this or any other country will bear witness that we do not state the case too strongly. The only men who have a prescriptive right to find fault with their brethren without having their orthodoxy, their zeal, or their charity questioned, are the oscurantisti, the men who praise the past, laudatores acti, who stoutly maintain all antiquated formulas, hold fast to old abuses, repress all generous aspirations, and anathematize all efforts for progress. These men may be as severe against their brethren as they please, denounce them, vituperate them, vilify them to their hearts' content, and yet gain credit for their disinterestedness, their zeal, and their love of God and our neighbor. Whatever they say is true; whatever they do is right; whatever controversies they excite, whatever intestine divisions they create, are all to be accounted necessary. They may, without censure, alienate half the world from the Church, or throw insurmountable obstacles in the way of the return of those who are already alienated, pursue a policy which renders the Church in her action on the world offensive to the purest and noblest instincts of human nature, without doing any thing for which any Catholic shall have the right to censure them, or to find the least fault with them. The public opinion of the Catholic world sustains them, lauds their wisdom and virtue, and condemns only those rash or froward spirits who venture to question the wisdom of their action, or to deny its salutary influence. Here is the great difficulty under which labor all men who understand their age, and would do something, however little, for the promotion of the Catholic cause. They are at once cried down as the disturbers of Catholic peace, and it is only against the weight of almost universal Catholic public opinion that they can present Catholic truth so as to be understood and appreciated by the non-Catholic world. This is a great discouragement; it takes the life out of a man, deprives him of all strength, energy, zeal, or heart to attempt anything in the cause of God and our neighbor. Something of this has, no doubt, been experienced in all ages, and is inseparable from human frailty; but we doubt if the evil complained of, for evil it is, was ever greater or more depressing than in our own times. No man in our