forever distinct. Everywhere we hear men extolling nature at the expense of grace, or decrying reason in order to exalt faith; nowhere do we find amongst our theologians the distinction and union of the natural and supernatural, of which the type is presented in the Mystery of the Incarnation. The consequence is that we are unable to meet the wants of cultivated intelligence, and to bring back to the Church the learned and scientific among her opposers.

We know these statements will not be received with favor, but we are sure that they are true; not true, indeed, as against Catholic faith, against the revelation of God which the Church has received and maintains in its unity and integrity, but true, undeniably true, as against our modern manner of setting forth, explaining, and defending, in our human systems, that revelation. If, then, we are to carry on successfully our war against the enemies of the Church, convince the unbelieving, subdue the rebellious, recover the alienated, and prepare the way for new and more glorious victories for our religion, we must be allowed to make those modifications in the human elements of the beliefs and doctrines of Catholics which the present state of non-Catholic thought and intelligence render necessary; we must be permitted to show the harmony between rationalism and traditionalism, between the natural and the supernatural, between nature and grace, without separating them, or confounding them, or sacrificing the one to the other. We must rise in our philosophy to the point where in principle they are one, and while we scrupulously maintain their distinction we must take care that we never separate them. We must show that the supernatural, as well as the natural, originates in the creative act of God, and constitutes an order as regular, as uniform, and invariable in its kind as the natural order itself; that miracles, in relation to the supernatural order, are no more isolated or arbitrary than the phenomena of reproduction or growth in the natural; that each order has its own generic principles, its own laws of operation consistent with each other, proceeding alike from God as first cause and tending to God as final cause; that in fact the natural and supernatural, reason and revelation, nature and grace, do constitute but parts of one synthetic whole. They are distinguishable, but not separable. The natural is not contained in the supernatural, nor the supernatural in the natural, but both are contained in the creative act of God, the common link that

unites them. Neither has its reason in the other, but both have their reason in Divine Providence.

When we have found a philosophical or theological doctrine that enables us to show this clearly and satisfactorily to human reason, we shall have removed from the supernatural all character of arbitrariness or isolation, and vindicated for it a generic order of its own; we have thus removed the presumption against it, and rendered miracles as probable and as provable as any facts of the natural order; we have thus brought all of our religion that needs proving within the order of facts provable by testimony, and thus answered all the a priori objections of non-Catholics, the only objections that have not hitherto been sufficiently answered. The rest of the work for the Catholic polemic is either already done or capable of being done without much. difficulty. Now what we ask is not so much that Catholic controversialists should undertake to do this work, as that Catholic public opinion should permit them to do it and sustain them in doing it, provided they attempt it in a proper spirit, with loyal intentions, and without lesion to Catholic faith. It is not liberty to depart from the faith or to construct a faith for one's self that we demand, but liberty to defend the faith "once delivered to the saints," without restraint from mere human traditions, or philosophical, or theological opinions, which it is not necesary to faith that we should respect.

This liberty may be denied; the demand for it may be treated as an indication of a disloyal temper; the exercise of it may be denounced as smacking of Protestantism; but whoever knows the spirit of the age in which we live, the nature of the objections we have to meet, the controversies we have to carry on in the higher regions of intelligence, knows, as well as any thing of the sort can be known, that, without it, it is idle to attempt any thing in the way of convincing or converting unbelievers, that Catholic polemics are entirely useless, and that there remains nothing for us but to fold our hands, close our mouths, and wait in inaction and silence the miraculous intervention of Divine Providence to save the Catholic world from being reduced to a mere handful of women and children. We may boast our present numbers and flatter ourselves that we are making progress, but perhaps it would be difficult to name an epoch, since St. Peter erected his Chair in the city of Rome, when the Church had suffered greater losses than in

that of the last ten years. We are in a crisis or a transition state, and the difficulty is that few among us seem to appreciate the fact, or, if appreciating it, have the nerve to look it boldly in the face. For the most part, we are unable to persuade ourselves that we cannot arrest the present tendency of things, and restore and re-establish that which is past or passing away. Hence our impotence.

We ask no concession to the spirit of our times that may not be lawfully made; we ask no surrender of faith or of sound doctrine; we ask no compromise with error, no abandonment of any claim ever made by the Church under her supreme Pastor as the kingdom of God on earth; we ask no sacrifice of principle to popularity, no alliance of the Church with temporary excitements or popular movements. We seek not popularity even in the state, far less would we seek it in the Church; we are willing to suffer the reproach of our Lord, and we love our Church all the more when she is in affliction, when her enemies every where rise up against her, and the wicked seem to triumph over her. Dearest to us is our Lord when nailed to the cross, and crying out, "My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?" It is not to render the Church popular, to gain for her the applause of the wisdom of this world, or the shouts of the mob, but it is that we may reach understandings, move wills, and gain souls, that we thus speak. God forgive us if we have spoken harshly, falsely, uncharitably, or unnecessarily. But here is a world lying in error and unbelief around us. The great majority, not only of our own countrymen, but of the human race, are living and dying without any true belief in Christ, or any well-grounded hope of entering with him into his kingdom and sharing his glory. And what are they, to whom the word of God and the means of life are committed, doing for their conversion? Where do we see the deep consciousness of the fact that God works by means, makes man responsible for man, and man an instrument in the salvation of man? To us Catholics seem to have lost the sense of their mission, to have become indifferent to the great work of saving souls which God has committed to them, to have become solicitous chiefly about the things of this world, about amassing or retaining earthly goods, laying up treasures on the earth, while suffering souls to perish for the lack of that bread which God has given them to dispense. So thinking and so feeling, what wonder if we, VOL. II.-No. III.

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in some sense, forget ourselves, and use language which would be more appropriate from the anointed priest of God or authorized teacher in Israel, than from one who has no claim to be regarded as pertaining to the tribe of Levi? We speak as we do because it seems to us there are few left who will speak the word the age needs. We speak not in wrath, not in pride, not in disdain or contempt of others, but because our heart is full, and the words will out. Restrain them we cannot. If they are presumptuous we deeply regret it, and hope there is yet in the world Christian charity enough to take what we say in the sense and spirit in which it is intended.

ART. IV.-Political Remarks. By "N." Numbers I—XI. Charleston: 1861. 8vo.

IN the Review for April last, we took a gloomy and somewhat desponding view of the present crisis in the affairs of our country. At the time we were writing the Administration was still in the hands of Mr. Buchanan; the party that had managed to bring the country to the brink of ruin, was still in place; the Republicans, who had triumphed in the election of Mr. Lincoln, were apparently divided among themselves as to the course the new Government should take; there seemed nowhere, either North or South, any decided attachment to the Union; and rebellion was as openly avowed, and almost as fiercely defended in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, as in Baltimore, Charleston, and New Orleans; there was a general distrust of the officers of the Army and Navy; traitors were everywhere; wisdom, energy, patriotism, nowhere. The Gulf States pretended to have seceded, and had formed a provisional government under the name of the "Confederate States of America." North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland, if not Kentucky and Tennessee, it was known were ready to withdraw from the Union the moment that it was clearly ascertained that they could no longer effectually serve the cause of rebellion by remaining in it. Arkansas was pledged to the Confederacy, and there was a strong Secession party in Missouri. A Confederate army was organized, and the Rebels had plenty of arms, taken from the

forts and arsenals of the United States. The Treasury was empty; the credit of the Government was low; and the feeble Federal Army and Navy was so dispersed as to require months to concentrate them, or to render them of any efficiency in supporting the Union. A long peace and a general belief that wars on this continent were no longer to be apprehended, had left our militia without effective organization, and, for the most part, nothing more than the mere raw material of soldiers. The great bulk of the people seemed to be wholly engrossed in trade and speculation, selfish, and incapable of any disinterested, heroic, or patriotic effort. What wonder, then, that we wrote in despondency, without hope for the future?

But since then the whole aspect of affairs has changed, and we are obliged to confess that we had underrated the patriotism and attachment to the Union of the people of the non-Slaveholding States. The Administration has been able to replenish, not on very unreasonable terms, the exhausted Treasury, and the call of the President for seventyfive thousand volunteers to save the National Capital and stay the tide of rebellion, was within three weeks responded to from the several Free States, it is said, with an offer of the services of more than half a million of men. States and municipalities, within the same period, voted, as a free gift to the Government for arming, equipping, and training volunteers or supporting their families, over twenty-three millions of dollars. Party lines were obliterated, divisions were healed, and there was an outburst of patriotism such as the world has rarely, if ever, witnessed, from twenty millions of freemen. The star-spangled banner was thrown to the breeze from every public edifice, from every church steeple, and almost from every house; and from the mighty heart of all the Free States rung out the battle-cry, "The Union must and shall be preserved." Since the fall of Sumter on the 14th of April, up to the 1st of June, an efficient land force of not less, it is said, than a hundred and fifty thousand men has been organized, armed, and equipped, and is either on the frontiers or drilling in the different camps in the several States. Another levy of a hundred thousand men, if made, would be cheerfully responded to, as indeed would be a levy of twice that number. The only embarrassment of the Government thus far has grown out of its inability to accept the numbers of volunteers offering. Ships-of-war have been recalled, a powerful