solve the Union and to set up a separate nationality for themselves, because we believe it our right and our duty to do so, and also because we believe we have the power to make our resistance effectual. Yet, were, which God forbid the Federal arms to be defeated, the powers of the Federal government to be exhausted, the Rebels victorious, and there ceased to be any reasonable prospect of subduing them and preserving the Union in its integrity, we should believe it wise and just and even our duty to cease resistance and to assent to a separation of these States and the formation of a Southern Confederacy as a free and independent state. We may be wrong, but we regard the conservative cause in Europe as a lost cause, and that the longer the struggle to preserve it continues, the more disadvantageous to the conservatives will be the peace or final adjustment of the controversy. We think better terms can be obtained now than after a longer struggle.

Yet in all this we may be wrong, just as those at home and abroad are wrong who advise a peaceable acquiescence in the demands of our Southern rebels and in a final separation between the Slaveholding and the non-Slaveholding States. Certainly our noble friend, Count Montalembert, in whose judgment we place great confidence, does not believe the battle to be as yet finally lost. He believes it still possible to defeat the Napoleon-Cavour policy, to retain the temporal sovereignty of the Holy See, and to re-establish the Holy Father in the full possession of all his temporal rights. He is nearer the scene of action than we are, and knows far better than we do, the agencies at work and the temporal resources of the Holy See. It may be that he is justified in his hopes, and that our fears are groundless, or that we have taken as un fait accompli what not only is not effected, but not likely to be effected. We assure him that we shall be much better pleased to find that he is right than we shall to find that we are right. We love not changes, and, if the maintenance of the temporal sovereignty of the Holy See can be preserved, and preserved in peace, in harmony with the wishes and interests of Catholic Europe, we shall be highly gratified and most grateful to Almighty God. What we want is not that this temporal sovereignty should be abolished, is not that the Holy Father should be compelled again to take refuge in the catacombs of Rome, be an exile or a martyr, is not that he and his Court should be driven out of house and home, but that

the real interests of the Church should be harmonized with whatever is good and desirable in modern civilization.

We will say, in conclusion, that we are far from being convinced that the affairs of the peninsula are either settled, or in train of being settled speedily. In the first place, we have some doubts if Divine Providence will give a final victory to a power that has been so unjust, so iniquitous, so unscrupulous in the means it has adopted, as the Piedmontese government; in the second place, we do not believe that the Emperor of the French really wishes all Italy to be united in one kingdom under Victor Emanuel, or any other Italian prince. If he could count always on the king of Italy for his ally, he would no doubt be favorable to Italian unity, as it would strengthen France against her enemies, and, in some sense, preserve to her the hegemony of Europe; but he knows far better than we do that this is not to be counted upon. Italy once constituted and recog nized as an independent kingdom will follow in its alliances its own interest, and be as likely to ally itself with England, Austria, or Russia as with France. He must see that a united Italy would be followed by the union of the Spanish peninsula under a single government, and by the unity of Germany, which, instead of strengthening France, would really reduce her to a second-class power. If he finds it impossible to carry out the policy of his uncle, and virtually to absorb the Spanish and Italian peninsulas in his own empire, he will most likely return to what for centuries has been the policy of the French government, that of permitting no great centralized Power on the frontiers of France. It has always been the policy of the French government to keep Italy divided, to prevent a union of the Spanish and Portuguese crowns, or the formation of a strong centralized Germany. To this policy it is not unlikely His Imperial Majesty will yet return. If so, the policy of Count Cavour will be thwarted, and the Papal states restored to the Holy See. New wars may also break out between the great Powers, which in their results may bring about, as at the peace of Vienna in 1815, the re-establishment in its integ rity of the Papal government; but, if so, we hope it will be without compelling us to go over again the experience of the last forty-five years. If that government is reestablished, we hope it will be really independent and obliged to follow the policy neither of Austria nor of France, and that Italian patriots will cease to disturb the peace of Europe.

BROWNSON'S

QUARTERLY

REVIEW.

OCTOBER,

1861.

ART. I.- Various Objections and Criticisms considered and answered.

THE following Letter is from a highly revered friend, and really one of the ablest and most learned theologians in our country, whose disapprobation cannot be otherwise than extremely painful. It was written for our private admonition, and by no means intended for publication; but, as it expresses in a brief and summary manner the objections to our views which have reached us from some other quarters, we take the liberty to lay it before our readers, simply suppressing the name of the writer, the place from which it was written, and its date:

"DOCTOR :-I have not very good news to send you to-day. I am not pleased.

"Your philosophy as a system can be maintained. But when you endeavor to make all truths, even the first and clearest principles of reason dependent and resting on it, on your intuition of God, on your primum philosophicum, Ens creat existentias, this is too much. A priori, the attempt to ground whatever we know for certain on a system, which, by the very fact that it is a system, and that it is contradicted by many, is uncertain, such an attempt cannot be successful. Is it not wiser to start from those simple, general principles, which have always been admitted by human reason, and leave room to no doubt or hesitation whatever; and then, as far as we can, connect our systems with them; so that, if we fail, yet those principles remain unshaken, but simply our system is more or less injured by that want of connection? This seems to be more advisable. But enough on that.

"About your as you choose "Also about schools, public schools, Catholic schools,' though I did not lean to your side, yet my knowledge of the country, of the state of public schools, of the resources of Catholics, was too limited to enable me to be either way very positive on the matter; especially, as bishops themselves are divided on that question. And furthermore, as you conceded that if we could get up Catholic schools well supported and managed, it would be highly desirable; and as it was only an affair of opportunity, circumstances, &c., I had not much to say against it.

Home Politics, you are perfectly free to think just and what you choose may be the best.

"About the temporal principality of the Holy Father, you maintained that it was a serious inconvenience, in modern times, to religion itself; that the Pope could do well enough, if not better, without it; that Italians were incensed against the Church itself, as a spiritual and divine institution, on account of that temporality, &c. You maintained, also, that notwithstanding these considerations, no power on earth had a right to deprive the Holy Father; you condemned in the strongest terms the sacrilegious invasion of the Roman states by the Sardinians; you hoped for the Church far better times and nobler triumphs, &c. I said again, at the time, that an honest man can entertain all these notions.

"But since then, I have taken a wholly different view of the case. The atrocities committed by Piedmontese, and of which I sent you some instances from the Civiltà, and the reaction which bursts out in every part of the kingdom of Naples, &c., have convinced me that, in poor Italy, there is to be seen now, what we enjoyed in France, during the blissful years of 1789, et seq., namely, the unmitigated Reign of Terror, and the domination of murderers. I regret deeply having at any time said a word in favor of these basest rabble. I have been thoroughly deceived, and I believe now firmly that, in Italy, the Pope is more than ever the true friend and defender not only of right, but especially of liberty; and that, if he is driven away from Ron e, liberty will go with him, and disappear from where he is not. So I think now, after closer examination. Errare aut errasse humanum est. I should like to know if this be to your taste. I fain persuade myself that you cannot be very far from the same conviction. In fact, I see now in Italy, on the part of the pretended liberals, nothing but falsehood, hypocrisy, iniquity, abominable tyranny and cruelty, which cry to Heaven. And perhaps you yourself do not see much more, as a phrase, or rather the whole page 416 seems to indicate.

"Also you have spoken several times against the Scholastics, and in your last number, pages 287 and 288, you say things rather harsh. Of course, I do not admit that. It would afford me great pleasure to know even one of these subtler errors of the day,' save those based on geology and modern discoveries, any speculative or

metaphysical error, the solution or the principle of solution of which is not to be found in the books of the Scholastics.

"But the article I regret most, and which is the cause of this letter of mine, is the one headed Catholic Polemics.' Assuredly, we must present truth in such a way as to be understood by those whom we address; and who ever denied it? But if we must proceed, as you do yourself when speaking on hell, this is another thing.

66

Really, my dear Doctor, I have been horrified at it. What then becomes of the Ite in Ignem Eternum, of the several passages where this fire is called Inextinguibilis, of this well known text of Isaias: Quis habitabit ex vobis cum ardoribus sempiternis?' and of so many others, and of all catechisms together? To say that the reprobate can be restored to the natural beatitude they might have enjoyed in status naturæ puræ is a heretical proposition. Besides, if they undergo the loss of God, as you concede, and if this be a punishment, how can they feel any amount of happiness; unless you contend that the loss of God is a trifling affair; or unless you put them on the same level as children who have not been baptized; neither of which can be held consistently with the teaching of the Catholic church. But I have no time to argue at length. It would take me a month to explain what came to my mind when reading that article. My dear Doctor, I tell you again I feel a great deal of pain on account of it.

"Besides, how can you say with justice, page 358, that we must be content to repeat the arguments stereotyped for our use, although those arguments may rest on historical blunders, metaphysical errors, &c., and a few lines before, that it is the duty of Catholic publicists never to take any deeper, broader, or loftier views than are taken by the most ignorant or uncultivated of Catholic believers, &c.?'

"I have just done reading the 'Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England,' by Dr. Newman. Nothing can be more original, more deep, and more orthodox, and not only no ignorant Catholic, but even very few among the most learned, could go so deep, and explain so philosophically the origin and causes, &c., of Protestantism in England; and you, yourself, were you shackled and fettered when formerly you wrote so beautifully and vigorously in behalf of the Church? If you were, indeed it is a fact I never suspected in the least. Now your Review is no more the same as before. I do not know why. I cannot account for the change. But change there is, and a striking one. Assuredly, you have still admirable passages. But you have taken the habit of mixing up with them passages of quite a different nature, which grate terribly on the ears of your friends.

"I object also to the beginning of the alinea: In our historical reading,' p. 360. It contains a real offence to the Bishops, and