Professor Park Against Catholicity--Part II

We have made this long quotation partly for the purpose of showing the Professor's method of argument, which consists in following one bare assertion by another, without one particle of proof but what is supplied by the knowledge or the prejudice of his hearer or reader. If that knowledge or prejudice should happen not to be in his favor, he would establish nothing ; and yet the Christian Examiner  a Unitarian periodical, which we have been accustomed to consider at least tolerably fair in its criticisms  says of this Lecture, that it "may be characterized as exhibiting a remarkable vigor and condensation of thought and powerful argument, with copious and apt historical illustrations and references. It is original, profound, and impressive, dealing in subtle analysis, and appealing to great principles of human nature."* (Footnote:Chrislian Examiner, September, 1845, p. 278.-end of footnote)  Nevertheless, the Lecture contains not even the semblance of an argument, from beginning to end ; it has not a single apt historical illustration or reference, for it has not one that is not in a great measure, if not wholly, false ; it has not a single original, striking, or profound remark, and makes not a single appeal to a great principle of either revelation or human nature, nor to any thing else but the ignorance and prejudices of the author's hearers or readers. All the author's strength,, all his merit, lies in his simply saying what those he addresses are previously prepared to receive as truth. We concede to the author the merit of adapting his discourse to his audience, which, when a man's object is, not to vindicate the truth, or to promote the glory of God, but to carry his audience with him, is, perhaps, a merit,  a merit such as may be aspired to by a rhetorician or a demagogue ; but not a merit very strongly coveted by one who has studied in the Christian school, and learned to value truth as " the pearl of great price," and to seek the praise of God rather than the praise of men.

Now, nothing can be more untrue than the general tenor and the particular statements of the extract we have made, so far as they bear on Catholicity; and nothing better can be desired to show how low and unspiritual are the author's own conceptions. In the first place, the bells do not ring nor the organ peal during the recital of the Scripture lesson ; and, in the second place, the lesson for the day, the people, to a great extent, know by heart in their own language, and all have or may have it before them in a language they can understand.

But the passage extracted is worthy of notice as displaying a Protestant's conceptions of religious worship. It is remarkable how studiously the Professor keeps God out of sight. Prayers are offered, not to obtain a blessing from God, but to make the hearer thoughtful and to improve his understanding. They are lectures addressed to the hearers, and are to serve as intellectual exercises. Hence, a newspaper in this city once complimented a prayer offered by a famous Protestant divine, by saying, "It was the most eloquent prayer ever offered to a Boston audience." The sacraments, again, are sermons, symbolical discourses, addressed to the understanding, and their efficacy is in their appropriateness, as intellectual addresses, to enlighten the mind ; and yet, this same Professor makes it a grave charge against the Catholic Church, that she observes, from the earliest antiquity, certain symbolical ceremonies in administering the sacrament of baptism ! (note, p. 459.) The whole thought which runs through the statement is human ; and, according to the Protestant, the whole efficacy of divine worship consists simply in its being an intellectual exercise.

Prayer does not benefit us by calling clown a blessing from God, but by exercising our mind or affections ; the sacraments impart no divine grace, but aid us only as an intellectual exercise. God, strictly speaking, answers no prayer ; the worship he demands of us is the medium or condition of no grant from him, but an exercise, which, if performed, may have a tendency to strengthen the mind and warm the heart. Here is Protestantism ; and it is easy to see that it embraces not a single religious conception, and acknowledges no principle which the veriest infidel might not admit ; and yet it is commended for its sublime spirituality !

Protestant worship is, by the confession of Protestants themselves, mere formality, consists merely in empty ceremonies. Baptism with them is nothing but a ceremony. It imparts no grace, impresses no character, is simply a ceremony of initiation into the Church ; and, in the case of adults, a mere ceremony initiating outwardly those believed to be already initiated spiritually. Ordination, as practised by Protestants generally, the laying on of the hands of the presbytery, is a mere ceremony, for it imparts no grace, no character, and no authority ; but merely witnesses the fact that the recipient takes upon himself the office of teacher, or that the congregation has called him to be its pastor. At least, this is all it is among Congregationalists, of which sect the Professor is a minister. Marriage, again, according to Protestants, is no sacrament, but a contract, and the solemnization by the minister is but a ceremony witnessing or declaring the fact of the contract. Hence Protestants call it "the marriage ceremony." So, also, what they call "the Lord's Supper" is purely a ceremony, the simple ceremony of taking a bit of bread and a sip of wine ; for they insist, and in their case very truly, that it is nothing but bread and wine they partake. It is a shadow, a symbol ; no real partaking of the Lord's body and blood, as they confess and contend. What is it, then, but a form, a ceremony, they observe, without any life or reality in itself ? The Protestant has no altar, no victim, no real sacrifice, and therefore nothing which is distinctively divine worship. He has nothing to offer to God ; and, according to his principles, he could worship God as well, as acceptably, as truly, and with as much benefit to himself, at home in his study, or abroad in the fields, and without a priest, as in the temple of God. But there is no worship of God where there is not a sacrifice, and no sacrifice without a priest, an altar, and the victim.    The sacrifices of prayer and praise and of a contrite heart are, indeed, due to God, and are necessary, if we would have our offering upon the altar profitable to us ; but they are not the distinctive act of divine worship, nor what distinguishes Christian worship from all others. They can be offered by a pagan or a Jew, and, if these were our only sacrifice, there would be nothing positive in Christian worship to distinguish it from the pagan or the Jewish ; and yet the blessed Apostle Paul tells us, " We have an altar whereof they who serve the tabernacle cannot eat."  Heb. xiii. 10.
Now, in contrast with this Protestant view, the Catholic worship presupposes always and everywhere a real presence. Under the form you are always to look for a reality. Baptism is a sacrament ; orders are a sacrament ; marriage is a sacrament ; and the Blessed Eucharist is a sacrament;  and sacraments are not mere forms, insignificant signs, nor mere symbolical discourses, designed simply to shadow forth some moral or intellectual truth to the understanding, but signs significant, which impart to the recipient the reality they signify. The sacrifice of the Mass is not a mere sacrifice of prayer and praise, nor the symbolical offering of the Lamb that was slain for us ; but a real sacrifice, in which our blessed Lord, in a mystical, but in a real, manner, is actually present on our altars, and actually offered to God, himself being both priest and victim. The Communion, again, is not a symbolical communion, not the figurative reception of the body of our Lord, which our faith is to perform the miracle of converting into his real body ; but an actual partaking of the real body and blood of our blessed Saviour. Here all is real, nothing merely figurative ; substantial, not merely formal. The ceremonies usually observed in administering the sacraments, or in celebrating the most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, are few, and only such as are well adapted to dispose the minds and hearts of those who receive the sacraments for their worthy reception, or those who assist at the most Holy Sacrifice to assist with proper affections and recollection. Now, take the Protestant view of Protestant worship, and the Catholic view of Catholic worship, and we ask, which is the least formal, and which presents the "highest standard of thought and feeling ?

" But the genius of Rome has transformed the sacraments into a species of necromancy." This remark betrays the Protestant thought, and shows that in the sacraments the Protestant looks for no virtue, believes in no efficacy, but what is
supplied by the recipient. They, then, do not lead the Protestant directly up to God, nor bring God down to man. That is, they establish no direct communion with God, and therefore, according to the Professor's own principles (p. 456), should be condemned. It shows, too, the infidel thought with which the author writes. To regard the sacraments as channels of grace, through which the Holy Ghost operates for our justification, growth, and perfection, is to "transform them into a species of necromancy !" How completely has the Professor lost sight of God ! How he sneers at the bare thought of expecting any thing from the Holy Ghost ! A moment ago, he accused us of injuring the mind by separating it from communion with God ; and now he accuses us of "necromancy," because we show him that we believe in communion with God !

" But Romanism depends on the mechanical working of rites that supersede our own activity." This is false. The Catholic in no sense believes in, or depends on, the " mechanical working of rites." The efficacy of the sacraments is not mechanical, but divine, and it is not the form, but the Holy Ghost operating through the form, that is efficacious ; nor does this supersede our activity, for it demands the concurrence of our activity with the operations of the Holy Spirit. Yet, so little faith has the Professor, so little does he understand of the genius of the Gospel, that, where any other agency than that of man is presupposed, he concludes it must needs be mechanical! A most learned doctor he, and a most devout believer ! We may see here the real difference between the Protestant and the Catholic thought. According to the Protestant, God is nowhere present in Christian worship, save as he is present in nature, in every commendable affection or true thought; according to the Catholic, he is everywhere in the Christian worship, not only naturally present, but super-naturally present. By it we are brought into his presence in a supernatural manner, and therefore have a much more intimate communion with him than the Protestant even pretends to have. Consequently, according to the principles of the Professor himself, the Catholic worship should have, as it actually has, a more elevating effect on the mind than Protestant worship.

Now, it is this supernatural presence of God that scandalizes our Professor. He depends on the worshipper for the efficacy of the worship, or on the eloquence and skill of the minister, and does not once expect God to do any thing su-pernaturally. The Catholic differs from him in this. The Catholic expects all from God. He worships, that he may pay to God what he owes, and that God may grant him the help he needs. When he prays, he does not pray to himself, or regard the effect which the prayer, as a spiritual exercise, may naturally operate in himself, although this is an effect not to be despised ; but he prays to God, and looks to God's bounty to answer his prayer, and confer on him the blessing he craves or needs. This is an important consideration, and shows that the Catholic believes in God's gracious providence, and that we may go to our God as children to a father, and not be sent empty away, or with no other benefit than the act of asking has produced within us.
Take this thought with you, and, for the "necromancy" of the Professor, understand the grace of God ; for "mechanical working of rites " of which he speaks, understand the operations of the Holy Ghost; and you may see that what Protestants object to Catholic worship is but the effusion of their own infidelity. The priest faces the altar, not the people, because he prays to God, and not to them ; he speaks in a low, inaudible voice, or in a language they do not understand, because he speaks to God, not to them, and because his prayers are to benefit them, not by the edification which listening to them as popular harangues might afford, but by the blessings they obtain from God for them. They are prayers, not harangues,  and for the ears of Almighty God, not for the ears of the people. Here is the point. The prayer, in the estimation of the Professor, appears to be thrown away, if only heard by Almighty God !

The use of the Latin language is no objection, for we may presume our Heavenly Father can understand Latin as well as English. It is used in the Latin Church because originally it was the language of the people, because her liturgy was originally composed in that language, because it is well that the Church throughout the world should speak in one and the same tongue, and because all spoken languages are fluctuating and variable in the sense they give to their words, and, if the service were preserved only in them, the unity and integrity of the faith migRt be sacrificed. But every thing that is addressed to the people, every part of the service which it is necessary they should understand, is addressed to them in their own language ; and, moreover, the whole Missal is translated into English, and the simply English reader can follow the priest whenever he chooses. If he does not choose, it suffices to join his intention with that of the priest, and engage in such special devotions as he finds most for his edification.

The ringing of bells, which the Professor seems to object to, he would soon find, if a Catholic worshipper, is no idle ceremony. The bell does not ring to honor a recital, but to inform the worshippers, who are not presumed to be watching the motions of the priest, and many of whom are so placed as to be unable to see him, at what part of the most Holy Sacrifice he has arrived. Instead of a disturbance or a tumult, it is a very necessary thing. The Professor is extremely hard to please. One moment, he objects that no respect is paid to the understanding of the people, and no pains taken to let them know what is going on ; and the next moment, he finds an objection in what is specially designed to let them know what is going on. Why did he not object right out, that Catholicity is not Puritanism, and therefore is to be rejected ? That would have been manly, and would have at least given a reason for finding fault with Catholicity.

But, after all, the real question to be answered is, Does the Catholic worship, taken as a whole, tend necessarily or naturally to lessen the importance of what is commonly called spiritual worship, that is, prayer,- praise, meditation, and spiritual reading ? Does it substitute for these internal exercises mere outward observances, or does it even tend to do this ? The Professor may say what he will, but to this we answer emphatically, No, and we appeal to experience for our justification. The central point with the Protestant in his public worship is the sermon. We readily admit the sermon does not hold so prominent a place in Catholic worship as it does in the Protestant. The central point of Catholic worship is the most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. We do not go to church to hear Rev. Mr. Silvervoice, Rev. Mr. Prettyman, Rev. Mr. Greatman, or the Rev. Mr. Sonofthunder preach ; but we go to assist at the adorable Sacrifice of the Mass. But there is one means of instruction among Catholics of which the Professor is ignorant, namely, the Confessional. In the sermon the preacher must necessarily confine himself to general instructions and exhortations ; but in the Confessional the instructions, exhortations, or admonitions are particular, adapted to the precise case of the penitent, and therefore much more valuable, and not only because they are more appropriate, but because the penitent must take them to himself, and cannot
distribute them among his neighbours. The Catholic Church, therefore, if she make less use of the sermon than do Protestants, provides, by means of the Confessional, much more amply for the spiritual instruction of her children.

In the next place, those among us who most abound in prayer, praise, meditation, and spiritual exercises generally, are precisely those among us who are most scrupulous in their attention to all external observances. Read the lives of the Saints, those even whom the Professor must admit to have been eminently holy men, and you will find they of all men were the most observant of the very things in Catholic worship which the Professor condemns ; and you may in general measure a man's inward piety by the degree of devotion with which he observes the external worship. Find a man who disdains the external observances, and you may be sure you find a man who is deficient in charity, in good works, and who neglects prayer, meditation, spiritual reading, and mortification. But the reverse of this would be the fact, if the Professor's doctrine were true. Again, as a matter of fact, these exercises are much more abundant amongst Catholics than Protestants, as any one may know who has equal means of observing the practices of both. Take our servant-girls ; the Protestant, if professedly pious, will run much oftener to evening meetings, camp-meetings, revival-meetings, and concerts of prayer ; but the Catholic will spend much more time in private devotion, which, because private, may very often escape your observation. Spiritual or ascetic literature is almost exclusively Catholic. Protestants have no ascetic books worth naming. What is Doddridge's Rise and Progress, by the side of the Exercitia Christianas Perfectionis of Rodriguez,Pilgrim'1s Progress, by the side of De Imitatione Christi, Baxter's Call, by the side of The Sinner's Conversion by Salazar,Scougal's Life of God in the Soul, Hervey's Meditations, Williston On the Sacrament, Upham's Interior Life, by the side of The Spiritual Meadow, The Garden of Roses, The Sinner's Check-rein, by Father Lewis, or the Introduction to a Devout Life, and Treatise on Love of God, by St. Francis of Sales, or the Visits to the Blessed Sacrament, by St. Liguori, or the ascetic works of St. John "Climachus, Pope St. Leo the Great, Pope St. Gregory the Great, or of St. Bernard, and so many others we could enumerate ? But, if the Catholic worship tends to substitute external observances for inward piety, how happens it that the only works really spiritual, which indicate an intimate communion on the part of their authors with the Holy Spirit, and which raise the reader from all that is low and earthly, temporal and perishing, to an intense longing and striving after the spiritual, the divine, the permanent, and the eternal, are by Catholics, and Catholics eminently devout in the Catholic sense ? Then, again, the ascetic books most popular among Catholics, those which circulate widest, and are most prized and most generally read, are precisely the books which breathe the purest spirituality, insist most strenuously on inward piety and intimate communion of the soul with God. How does this happen, if our worship tends to substitute external observances for inward practical piety ? Facts as well as philosophy are decidedly against the Professor. He has not looked so deeply into the subject as his friends seem to imagine. He has been misled by concluding from the effect which external observances, regarded as simple external observances, might have on a man without faith, to the effect they must have on one who has faith and believes in the supernatural presence and providence of God. He may also have been misled by not making sufficient allowance for the fact, that, while Protestants wear their piety on their faces, or hang it up for show, and take no inconsiderable pains to advise us of their devotions, Catholics are accustomed to obey the precept of their Master, to take heed when they pray not to be seen of men, and also to enter into their closet and to shut the door.

V. The fifth charge against Catholicity, as nearly as we can collect it, is, that the Catholic Church is deficient in candor, love of truth, and great philosophers and eminent preachers (pp. 463-465). In this the Professor pretends to establish, by an appeal to facts, the conclusions he had in the previous charges obtained from reasoning.
To the charge, that Catholic writers are generally deficient in candor, it is hardly necessary to reply. The author sustains his charge by no facts. He names, indeed, " Moehler, Klee, and Wisemari as distinguished for ingenuity rather than fairness." Of Klee we cannot speak, for we are not acquainted with his writings. But of Moehler and Wiseman we can speak, and, though not enthusiastic admirers of either, we can testify to their singular candor and fairness towards their opponents. No Protestant writer ever showed so much fairness in treating of Protestant doctrines as Moehler has done ; and though several attempts have been made to convict him of misrepresentation, not one of them, so far as we have seen, has been successful. A writer in The Neio Englander begins by charging him with misrepresenting Calvin, but is forced in the end to admit that he has not misrepresented him. Dr. Wiseman has a mind of singular fairness, and a heart of great tenderness towards those who differ from him. But perhaps the objection is not that these men misrepresent their enemies, but do not state the Catholic doctrines fairly ; that is, do not state them as they have been stated by Protestants.*   (FOOTNOTE:  This is, in fact, thereal objection. "It is difficult," says the Professor, in a note (p. 463), "to mention any modern work more ingeniously fitted to produce an impression which, upon the whole, is incorrect, than Moehler's Symbolik. Its sophistry consists, first, in concealing the more obnoxious phases of the Catholic doctrine ; secondly, in the undue prominence it gives to such truths as have been defended by Romanists [Catholics] against the ill-judged -attacks of Protestants ; thirdly, in its appeal to the writings of individual Protestants with the same freedom as to publicly authorized Confessions of Faith; fourthly, in quoting the impassioned and extravagant remarks of Protestant controversialists, without attempting to modify those remarks by a reference to the circumstances or idiosyncrasies of the men who uttered them ; and, fifthly, tacitly assuming that the creeds and standard treatises of Protestants are as authoritative as those of the Romanists." There is no want of candor, we suppose, on the part of the Professor, in calling us Romanists, a name lie knows we disown, and no insult in apologizing, as he does (p. 452), for now and then calling us by our true name. But this is a trifle. These charges against Moehler are unfounded. The first charge we deny ; he, in no instance, practises any concealment. There are no " obnoxious phases of Catholic-doctrine " to conceal. We do not like Moehler's Germanism, and sometimes he pushes philosophy beyond its province, and his theory of development is too broadly stated ; but he ha3 not stated the Catholic doctrine in too favorable a light, nor concealed any phase of Catholic doctrine which he could, consistently with his purpose, bring forward. He was not writing an exposition of Catholic doctrines in general, but of the particular doctrinal differences between Catholics and Protestants, and, so far as the Catholic doctrines are involved in these differences, he has kept no phase of them out of sight. To complain of him for not exhibiting the Catholic doctrines in the respect in which they did not concern the subject of his book is uncandid and unscientific. That he gives undue prominence to truths Protestants have attacked we should like to see proved. The Professor admits that Protestants have made " ill-judged attacks " on truths. We will try to remember this ; but we should suppose any attack upon truth at all would be ill-judged. The third objectioii is removed by the fifth. The creeds and standard treatises are known not to have the authority among Protestants that the authoritative expositions of Catholicity have for Catholics, and therefore Moehler does not rely wholly on them, but consults also the writings of prominent individual Protestants. But the charges of the Professor are somewhat singular. Pie first accuses Moehler of sophistry, because he consults individual doctors as well as authorized Confessions of Faith, and then accuses him of attributing too much authority to the Confessions of Faith ; that is, of relying too much on them, and holding Protestants too strictly to them. But whoever knows any thing of Protestants knows, that, if individual doctors were not consulted, no fair or just view of Protestantism could be obtained ; and we own we cannot see the sophistry, at least the unfairness, in assuming that Protestants really hold to what they solemnly profess in their Confessions. Do the Protestants regard us as sophistical, when we take them at their solemn profession ? The fourth charge admits the Reformers and Protestant controversialists made impassioned and extravagant statements. But does the Professor forget that the Reformers, Luther, and Calvin, and others, professed to be specially called of God, and to act under the immediate direction of the Holy Ghost, and that it was on this ground alone they attempted to justify their schism and heresy ? When a man puts forth such a claim, and when, on the ground of such a claim, he founds a sect, we submit if his followers have a right to plead in abatement of judgment his idiosyncrasies. We owe something to truth and its slandered friends, and not all to misguided and factious heresiarchs or schismatics.

" Our faith," says the Professor (ib.), " is the Bible." The Bible as you understand it, or as we understand it? As you, of course. Then which of you ? for no two of you agree. How are we to determine what Protestantism is ? How shall we be able to seize and delineate its features, so that every individual Protestant will admit that he sat for the picture ? From your doctors ? which of them ? None, you say. From your Confessions ?  which of them, and which edition ? None of them, you say ; for these must not be assumed as authority. Where then ? Is your Protestantism a definable thing ? If not, why do you complain, if our statement of it, according to the highest authority you acknowledge, does not present it in the precise shape in which it presents itself to each individual Protestant, since in a precise shape or a definite shape it presents itself to no one ?

We will take this occasion to inform the Professor, that Paul Sarpi's account of the Council of Trent cannot be appealed to as authority. His history is denied to be authentic, and the Professor might as well quote against us the recent publications of Hogan and Dowling. If he wishes to know the true history of the Council of Trent, he must consult Palla-vinina. We reply to no argument based on the authority of Paul Sarpi, whose statements the Professor knows, if he is at all acquainted with the
controversy on the subject, are not to be relied on. we give to his charges against the Tridentine Fathers.(END OF FOOTNOTE)

This is probably the complaint. Whenever a Catholic gives a fair and candid statement of Catholicity, the Protestant is obliged to do one of two things,  either admit that he has ignorantly or maliciously misrepresented it, or contend that the Catholic states it better than it is. His self-love and pride of sect, and perhaps his convictions, will not permit him to do the first ; he is therefore compelled to do the latter, and to charge the favorable representation to the Catholic's ingenuity, want of candor, or readiness to sacrifice the truth. We can conceive nothing more uncandid or unjust than this. Protestants misrepresent Catholics ; Catholics expose the  misrepresentation, and set forth their doctrines in their true light, as they are and always have been held ; and forthwith they are charged with a want of fairness, of being ingenious, but uncandid ! This is adding insult to injury.

2. Want of truth means, with the Professor, in this charge, very much the same as want of candor. The charge comes with an ill grace from a Protestant. We have never met with a Protestant writer who states a single Catholic doctrine which he rejects, no matter on what point, correctly,  who in a single instance reproduces a Catholic argument in its full strength, or gives it a fair and logical reply. The unfairness, we will say the untruth, of Protestants, when engaged in controversy with Catholics, has been a constant theme of complaint with Catholic writers from Cajetan and Eck down to the present moment. It is notorious, and, if not notorious, it is really so flagitious that it would be incredible. When we first turned our attention to the controversy, and began to put Protestant statements to the usual historical tests, we were perfectly astounded. It is impossible to imagine grosser falsehood, or more outrageous injustice, than may be found in the pages of Protestant writers generally,  nay, the very best of them, whenever they write against Catholics. It is not merely as a Catholic we say this ; we say it as a fact of which we became fully convinced before we became a Catholic, and from consulting Protestant authorities themselves. Nothing can exceed the ferocity, falsehood, and wickedness of the books against Catholicity even now recommended by respectable religious journals and grave Protestant divines, and hawked about our streets. They are so barefaced, that they would carry their own refutation with them, if Protestants ever thought of pausing a moment to inquire into the internal probability of any thing said against Catholics or Catholicity. Never were a people so deceived, so gulled, as good, honest, simple credulous Protestants are by the getters-up and circulators of anti-Catholic publications. We need but read fora few weeks the anti-Catholic press of the country, to be satisfied of this. An editor lights somewhere upon a " mare's nest," cooks up a " startling incident," or a terrible tale of the " horrors of Popery," publishes it, and forthwith it is copied by all the editors of the same brotherhood throughout the country ; pious deacons have more vinaigre faces than ever ; pious old ladies are sure the end of the world is near ; the politician screams out the country is in danger, and we must defend it against the pope, the cardinals, the bishops, the priests, and the Jesuits ; and the double-distilled hypocrite, with his pockets gorged with the hard earnings wrung from the poor seamstress, the widow, and the orphan, " who puts a penny in charity's box and takes a shilling out," clasps his Bible, with eyes upturned, and a graveyard face, sets up a piteous howl, that the Bible is in danger, cries, " Down with the Pope, the Jesuits, and up with the Bible," and sets the whole community in commotion. A Catholic editor calmly contradicts and refutes the story ; the Protestant editor takes no notice of the contradiction and refutation, but repeats it as before, or silently drops it. An anti-Catholic writer, preparing an obscene book, lights upon it, copies it into his filthy pages as illustrative of " the horrors of Popery," and henceforth it is authentic Protestant history. This is but an unexaggerated statement of what passes before our eyes and in our own moral and enlightened country ; and in this or a similar way Protestant history is manufactured, as some recent Protestant writers themselves, not being immediately concerned in putting down Catholics, have to some extent been forced to admit.* (Footnote: * Consult Ranke's History, not of the Reformation, but of the Popes, Voigt's St. Gregory the Seventh, Hurter's Pope Innocent the Third, and especially Maitland's Dark Ages.   Hurter wrote his work as a Protestant, but we rejoice to learn that he is now a Catholic. End of footnote)

On the other hand, without meaning to defend every Catholic writer,  for there may have been uncandid Catholic authors, although we know no such, Catholic authors are singularly fair and candid towards Protestants. This is no merit in them, for they are required to be so. No Catholic would escape the rebuke of his director, if he should win a victory over an opponent by craft, cunning, evasion, misstatement, or sophistical reply. As Catholics, we are required to write in the presence of God, under a deep sense of responsibility,  not for our own glory, our own puny triumphs, but for the greater glory of God, which permits none but holy ends and holy means ; and we are false to our religion, when we do not. In all the Catholic controversial works we have seen, we have found candid statements, and fair and logical arguments. In any "Course of Theology" we take up, we find the objections of opponents fairly and honestly stated, and not unfrequently with more clearness, force, and point than in the works of the opponents themselves. Take, as a specimen, Bellarmine, Sardagne, Billuart, Perrone, Bouvier.    The man who could accuse such men as these of a want of candor or of love of truth,  of unfair dealing,  would only write his own condemnation.

The Professor's own Lecture is a fair specimen of the Prot-testant mode of discussing the Catholic question. It is not without some cleverness, but, saving a half-candid remark on the Catholic doctrine of indulgences, it has not a single fair, candid, or truthful statement from beginning to end. With the exception named, and which is only half an exception, there is not a point of Catholic doctrine, or Catholic worship, or Catholic history, touched upon, on which the reader, relying on this Lecture alone, would not receive an impression directly the reverse of the truth. The ignorance of the Professor in regard to Catholicity is indeed great, but his Lecture contains evidence enough that his perversions of truth, misstatements, and absolute untruths are not in all cases the result of misinformation or of defective information. Yet he does not appear to blush to come forward in open day and accuse the Catholic Church of being hostile to candor and love of truth. They were the blasphemous Jews, we believe, who accused our blessed Lord of blasphemy.

3. To the charge, that the Catholic Church is deficient in great philosophers and eminent preachers, we have not much to say. But, unless we have been wholly misinformed, the Gospel was not given expressly to make great philosophers or eminent preachers ; but simple, docile, meek, humble, self-denying Christians, who, relying on God's goodness and promises, through the merits of Jesus Christ, hope and labor, by patient endurance and perseverance in well-doing, to attain, at last, forgiveness of their sins and life everlasting. It is better to be a good Christian than a great philosopher, and a true saint than an eminent preacher. The patient watchings, fervent prayers, and daily mortifications of the humble and devoted servant of God, whose name is never heard beyond the solitude in which he lives, avail more, both for himself and for others, than the profoundest treatises of your profoundest philosopher, or the most eloquent sermons of your most gifted divine.

The Gospel is not of man's device and does not stand in human wisdom. '' Quid prodest tibi alta de Trinitate disputare, si careas humilitate, unde displiceas Trinitati ? Vere alta verba non faciunt sanctum et justum ; sed virtuosa vita efficit Deo charum. Opto magis sentire compunctionem, qu&m scire ejus definitionem.   Si scires totam Bibliam exterius, et omnium philosophortim dicta, quid totum prodesset sine charitate et Dei gratia ? Vanilas vanitatum, et omnia vanitas, prater amare Deum, et illi soli servire. Ista est summa sapientia, per con-temptum mundi tendere ad regna ccelestia."* (Footnote: * De Imitalione Christi, Lib. I,, cap. 1.)  The poor nun of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, whom the world knows not and dreams not of, may be doing more, as she recites her rosary, to build up the kingdom of God on earth, and to advance the glory of God among men, than whole armies of your profound philosophers and eloquent divines. God loves the simple, the meek, the humble, who forget themselves and remember only him, and will grant almost any thing to their prayers. He does not need the great, the learned, the profound, the eloquent, and rarely makes use of them as his instruments ; for they are rarely so humble as not to claim for themselves some share of the glory of what be does by them, and he will suffer no flesh to glory in his presence, or to rob him of the glory which is his, and cannot be another's. Videte enim vo-cationem vestram, /nitres, quia non multi sapientes secundum carnem, non multi potentes, non multi nobiles : sed qum stulta sunt mundi elegit Deus, ut confundat sapientes; et injirma mundi elegit. Deus, ut confundat fortia; et ignobilia mundi et contemptibilia elegit Deus, et ea quce non sunt, ut ea quce sunt destrueret, ut non glorietur omnis caro in conspectu ejus."  1 Cor. i. 26-29.

Nevertheless, the Catholic Church has a few men, besides Campanella, Descartes, Malebranche, Bossuet, Fenelon, Bourdaloue, Dupin, Dolinger, Hug, and Van Ess, that are not quite contemptible, and we had rapidly collected a list of several hundred names which we thought of inserting ; but upon closer examination of the Professor's assertions, we saw it would be of no use. He asserts the Church is unfavorable to the mind ; and if we should refute this by showing, that, in every department of mind, Catholics always have taken, and still take, the lead, he would reply, that it is in despite of the Church. " We have no disposition to deny that many illustrious names are enrolled among the scholars of the Church. The human mind will rouse itself to action in despite of all the sedative effects applied to it."  p. 464. What can we say ? If we are deficient in great men, eminent philosophers and preachers, it is the fault of the Church ; if we are not deficient, but abound in them, it is in despite of the sedative effects

  
of the Church ;  nothing is to be said to such reasoning. The argument, post hoc, ergo propter hoc, is conclusive against the Church, but inadmissible if the Church is to be defended. " The themes with which Catholic authors are most intimate are of inferior worth,"  " themes of external interest, seldom of inward dignity."  p. 463. We can reply to this only by a smile, and the recommendation to the author to study the Summam Theologicam of St. Thomas of Aquin, the commentary on it by Billuart, the Moral Theology of St. Liguori, the Theology of the Salamancan divines, the works of Bellar-mine, especially of Suarezius, or of Pope St. Leo the Great, of St. Gregory the Great, Benedict the Fourteenth, of Gerson, Thomas a Kempis, Rodriguez, Father Luis of Granada, Sala-zar, St. Bernard de Clairvaux, St. Anselm of Canterbury, St. Bonaventura, the Prcelectiones Theologies, by Perrone, the volumes published by M. Carriere, of St. Sulpice, Paris, or even an ordinary prayer-book in the hands of our servant-girls, or the catechism we teach our children. The themes with which Catholic authors are most intimate are of inferior worth ! Pray, tell us, what is of superior worth ? Are there loftier themes than God, the sacred mysteries of faith, the Holy Catholic Church, the Spouse of the Lamb, the soul,  its wants, weaknesses, depravities, trials, temptations, recovery, growth in Christian knowledge and virtue, its sanctification, and final beatitude ? These are the themes with which Catholic authors are most intimate, and which they rarely leave, unless it be in condescension to the weakness of some pert objector, or to repel the sophistry and sneers of some scoffer, and even then only for the sake of these.

It is easy to sneer at the "niceties of the Schoolmen " (ib.), but not so easy to comprehend them. This sneer is on the lips and in the tone or the words of no man who has any knowledge or comprehension of the Schoolmen. That the Schoolmen are often " nice," we admit, but it is because they aim at exactness, at truth, and are not willing to favor falsehood by a loose expression. That they want comprehensiveness, or that they ever make a distinction without a difference, or which has no foundation in re, we have yet to learn. We have heard enough of sneers at the Schoolmen,  sneers born of ignorance and the conceit which always accompanies it. Go and master the Schoolmen, and then you may sneer at them, if you can. Saving some few matters pertaining to physical science, in which there may have been some progress since the fifteenth century, we stand ready to defend the Schoolmen, and to prove to you that your sneers at them are the results of your own utter ignorance of them, or rather incapacity to comprehend theological and philosophical reasoning. We deny, positively deny, that in rn ral and intellectual science, properly so called, Protestants have made the least progress, or that their philosophers have ascertained a single fact or a single principle not known and recognized by the Schoolmen. You know nothing of the Schoolmen, if you know not enough not to sneer at them. They may have discussed with great labor and pains some questions of little practical importance, but there is not a single important question they have not also discussed, and well and ably discussed. You talk of " the Dark Ages,"  dark, forsooth, as Coleridge, one of your own number, tells you, because you have not light enough to read them.

We know something of your Protestant philosophers, and there are absolutely only four Protestant names that it is not discreditable to one's own knowledge to call a philosopher, and it is doubtful if any one of these was really a Protestant. We mean Leibnitz, Kant, Hegel, and Hobbes. Bacon was an able man, a man of some knowledge and considerable imagination. He discoursed, often eloquently, about philosophy, as it was said of Cicero, but he did not discourse it. Locke, Hume, Berkeley, Reid, Stewart, Fichte, Fries, Jacobi, Schelling, &c, were in some respects clever men, but no philosophers. Hobbes is the only English philosopher, and he was a downright infidel ; Hegel has done little else than revive Buddhism, and lose himself in Nihilism ; Kant had a true metaphysical genius, but his system, as a system, is totally false, and is already exploded. Leibnitz was a man of a comprehensive mind, a boundless ambition, without, as one must believe, any real religious faith. The only portions of his philosophy which any one can now think of adopting were borrowed from the Schoolmen. Protestants have no philosophy. If I ask, Where is the Protestant philosopher who has produced a philosophy even widely received by Protestants ?  such a confusion of tongues will immediately be heard as will make me glad to stop my interrogatories. No, no, for shame's sake, say nothing about great philosophers.

In theology you are as badly oft* as you are in philosophy. You have no more respectable theological work than Calvin's Institutes, which none of you now accept,  unless with a qualification. There is no such thing as a Protestant systematic course of theology, properly so called. We will not except from this sweeping remark a single one of your famous Glaubenslehren of modern Germany, which studies all things, and some others, speculates, theorizes on all, and on none does more than erect a monument to its own folly, want of faith, and blasphemy. Even the boasted erudition of Germany is valuable only as it indicates the sources to be explored. It can in no case supersede the necessity of exploring them anew. Saving some branches of physical science, in which the progress effected is far less than is imagined, Protestants have really contributed nothing of any real importance to the progress of the human mind. We know the Protestant boasts, and we know what Protestants have done. Not one of the great inventions or discoveries, which have so changed the face of the modern world, with the exception, perhaps, of the mule and jenny, and a few other inventions in labor-saving machinery, all of which we look upon as a curse, are due to them. Every thing degenerates, except material industry, in their hands ; and yet they have the singular impudence to accuse the Catholic Church of injuring the mind.

But who is this Professor who brings this unfounded charge ? He is a Puritan. But what have the Puritans done for the mind ? In this country, including even the Presbyterians and Calvinistic Baptists, they have produced scarcely a single work in any branch of literature or science, that could receive honorable mention in a general history of literature and science for the last three hundred years. We know no Calvinistic work, or work proceeding from a Calvinistic source, produced in this country, which indicates that its author was master of the current literature of his subject, unless we must except Webster's Dictionary, and, perhaps, a geographical work on the Holy Land, by Dr. Robinson. The literature of our country, such as it is, and it is nothing at best to boast of, we owe to authors not of the Puritan or Calvinistic school. The pro-foundest works of the Puritan school in this country are Edwards On the Will, and On the Affections, Hopkins's System of Divinity," and Dwight's Theology. The school does little else than republish from England and Scotland, translate from the German, or compile from foreign scholars. And yet our Puritan Professor, with the tail of a Dutch goose in his cap for plume, steps boldly forward, and gravely accuses Catholicity of being hostile to the mind, and seriously charges the Catholic Church with being deficient in great philosophers and eminent preachers !

" Rome has trained a smaller number of original thinkers, for the last three hundred years, than have arisen from even half the number of Protestant churches."  p. 464. If by original thinkers be meant mere dreamers, rash speculators, theorizers, founders of systems which die before their authors, or do not long survive them, we admit the assertion ; if it be meant men of solid learning, sound judgment, of varied and accurate knowledge, just and comprehensive views of the subjects they treat, able to treat them in a clear, intelligible, and scientific manner, and to sustain their doctrines by profound erudition, and appropriate logical and conclusive arguments, we deny it, and pledge ourselves, after making all proper allowance for the excess of Catholic population over the Protestant, to produce ten Catholics to every one Protestant the Professor will bring forward.

" Why, at the present day, are Lucerne, Friburg, and Uri so much less enlightened than Basle and Berne and Geneva ?"  Ib. We deny that they are. True enlightenment is religious enlightenment, that which enlightens a man in regard to the end for which Almighty God made him,  both because this is the most essential, and because it most elevates the mind. Dare the Professor deny this ? If not, we assert the Catholic cantons of Switzerland are more truly enlightend than the Protestant. Moreover, when the Catholic cantons take measures to extend education, the Protestant cantons, with armed soldiery, attempt to arrest them, or assassinate their patriotic leaders, as in the case of the late M. Leu.

" Why is Spain so much more degraded than Holland, Portugal than Denmark, Ireland than Scotland ? "Ib. We deny the fact. The case of Holland is not fortunate, for half the population of the kingdom are Catholics. Spain is not more degraded than Holland, and her present afflictions are easily accounted for by her internal revolutions, fomented by anti-Catholic influences either from within or from without. The same may be said of Portugal. The influence of the so-called "Liberals," in all cases anti-Catholic, joined with the protection and intrigues of England, will account for what we may have to deplore in either country, without accusing Catholicity. These nations have, indeed, fallen from their former grandeur ; but it must be remembered that they attained their former grandeur under Catholicity, and were greatest, most renowned, when most truly Catholic. If Catholicity be hostile to national greatness and prosperity, how could these nations become so great and prosperous under Catholicity ? And why do they decline, as they become less Catholic, and more affected by infidel and Protestant influences ? If any man wishes to ascertain the true cause of the decline of some Catholic nations, he must seek for it in the causes which have made, first Holland, then England, the commercial centre of the world. Her,e Catholicity will have nothing to dread or to be ashamed of. This is a subject we hope to be able to treat at length soon. Ireland is not so much more degraded than Scotland as the Professor imagines. Blackwood's Magazine has given us some startling accounts of the rapid increase of crime in Scotland, and the Professor may himself have heard of Glasgow lanes. That Ireland is not more degraded is owing entirely to the Catholic faith. It is this alone that has buoyed up her inhabitants, and enabled them to endure the untold sufferings to which they have been subjected. Not to Catholicity, but to the policy of England and the Church by law established, must we look for Ireland's degradation. We would willingly let the question itself turn on the instance of Ireland. We want no better evidence to prove the superiority of Catholicity over Protestantism.

In our turn, we ask the Professor why the laboring classes are so much more degraded in England than they are in Austria, in Italy, or in Spain ? Why crime is on the increase in all Protestant countries, but on the decrease in Catholic countries ? Why Sweden is so much more immoral than Ireland or Belgium, Stockholm than Rome, London than even Paris ? Why /generally in Catholic countries are the provisions for the education of the people more ample than in Protestant countries, and a more advanced civilization found ? Questions can be asked on our side as well as on the Professor's.

" Why are the Austrian clergy so far inferior to the Prussian, the Bavarian to the Saxon, the French to the English ?"  Ib. We deny that they are so in what constitutes the proper qualifications and true dignity and worth of a clergy. That they are inferior in pride, in vain learning, in rash speculation, and blasphemous doctrines, we admit; but inferior in solid piety, solid learning, true science, thorough knowledge of whatever pertains to their vocation, or in the faithful and
diligent discharge of their numerous  and  painful duties, we deny it.    The Professor, here as well as elsewhere, is liable to be deceived by concluding from  Protestants to Catholics. We have no priests who introduce new doctrines, or gain notoriety by leaving old, well-beaten paths, attracting  attention by their  eccentricities.    We  have no Schleiermachers, De Wettes, or Strausses, and do not wish  them.    The  Protestant minister lives in public, acts in public, and his qualities are  displayed before the public, and noted.    The Catholic priest does not act so much in public.    His great duty is not to write books, nor his principal sphere the pulpit.    His labors are chiefly by the side of the sick and the dying, in the hut of poverty, in succouring those who have no friend but God and the priest, and, above all, in the Confessional.    No Protestant is qualified to judge of the  ability, worth, or efficiency of a Catholic clergy.    The Austrian clergy are not inferior to the Prussian, but they suffer, nevertheless, much in consequence of the reformations introduced by the half infidel, half Protestant Emperor Joseph the Second.    To represent the present body of the French clergy, whether of the first or of the second order, as inferior to the English betrays an ignorance or a recklessness that we were not prepared for even in our Andover Professor.    The present clergy of France, of both orders, are a pious, able, learned, and faithful body of men, and their superiors, if their equals, are nowhere to be found. • We love and honor the  present French bishops and clergy. They are Catholic,  and nobly, zealously, and, with God's blessing, successfully, are they laboring for the regeneration of their beautiful France.    To think of comparing these with the indolent English clergy, with their fat livings  and  famished flocks, is an outrage upon common propriety.     The Professor must have been joking, or else he counted largely upon the ignorance and credulity of his countrymen.

The reason assigned by the Professor for the superiority of the Protestant is ingenious ; but, unhappily, he undertook, like a certain philosopher, to account for the phenomenon, before taking the pains to verify the fact. His sneer, that " Romanism is so contrived as to save men the trouble of thinking for themselves," does not greatly disturb us. We would prefer to have our thinking done vicariously, as the Professor suggests, than to think to no better purpose than we have found our Protestant thinkers doing. We would rather look upward and outward for light, than into the depths of our own darkness ; and we prefer to rely on the teachings of God's word, than on our own excogitations. If the Professor thinks differently, perhaps it is not our fault, nor his merit.

VI. We come now to the portion of this Lecture which is specially devoted to the discussion of the moral influence of Catholicity, and, notwithstanding the interest of the subject, we are compelled to treat it with the greatest possible brevity ; for we have but a few more pages at our command. But we have already refuted, in principle, so far as they depend on any principle, the main charges which are urged. We must restrict ourselves to some brief observations on a few only of the Professor's assumptions, misrepresentations, and false assertions.

The charge now before us is, that the Catholic Church injures the heart of man by holding doctrines which have "a peculiar tendency to be perverted."  pp. 465-467. It is not pretended that the doctrines are untrue or unimportant, but they are objected to simply on the ground of the ease with which they may be perverted. But is the injury done by the doctrines themselves, or by their perversion ? If by their perversion, who is in fault, the Church who teaches the truth, or they who pervert it ? The blessed Apostle says,  "We are unto God the good odor of Christ in them who are saved, and in them who perish. To some, indeed, the odor of death unto death, but in others the odor of life unto life."  2 Cor. ii. 15, 16. Were the Apostles guilty of injuring the heart of man, because they preached a doctrine which became to some, through their perversion of it, the odor of death unto death ? And, in order to avoid such a result, was it their duty to withhold their doctrine, to modify it, or conceal some portions of it ? The holy Apostle Paul did not think so ; for he adds, in the following verse,  " We are not as many, adulterating the word of God ; but with sincerity, but as from God we speak in Christ." St. Peter (2 St. Pet. iii. 16) tells us, that St. Paul, in his epistles, has said some things hard to be understood, which the unstable and the unlearned wrest to their own destruction. Will the Professor, therefore, charge St. Paul with injuring the heart of man ? The wicked pervert, undoubtedly, the truth of the Gospel, the best gifts of God, for they pervert every thing ; but the Church cannot confine herself to the merely expedient. The true question for the Christian is never merely, What is expedient ? but, What is the truth ? and the truth he must speak, whether men hear or whether they forbear. To object to the Church because she proclaims doctrines which may be perverted, and which may, therefore, be thought to be inexpedient, is objecting to her for adopting too high a moral standard, and not conceding enough to human weakness and perversity.

Moreover, the Professor reasons on a false hypothesis. He assumes that the Church, like Protestant sects, has full control over her doctrines, and may herself determine arbitrarily what she shall hold and teach, and what not. But this is not the fact. She does not make her own creed ; she receives it, and can hold and teach only what she has received and been commanded to hold and teach. It is her duty to teach the whole word of God, and she must do so. While she is faithful to her trust, the responsibility of effects belongs to Him by whose authority she acts, and the guilt of the perversion of what she teaches belongs to those who pervert it. She cannot withhold the truth, because men may abuse it; nor deny her children the food they need, because perverse minds and hearts may despise it, or derive strength from it for their wickedness. Should she do so, there would be no end to the cry of Protestants against her for her timidity, temporizing, and unfaithfulness.
The Professor falls again into the predicament of the philosopher to whom we have just referred him, of assigning ingenious reasons for facts not verified, and which do not exist. His statement of the errors into which Catholics are liable to fall is rather amusing ; though after all lamentable, for the degree of ignorance of Catholic doctrine it betrays. " When a man," he says, " is bowed down under a thought of his sin-fulness, and is therefore simply commanded to eat no meat for a month, he will not understand the nature of faith, and will misunderstand the nature of Christian works."  p. 460. We remember to have read somewhere of a young girl standing by a beautiful spring of water, bitterly crying and wringing her hands. Her mother came, and asked her why she cried. " I was thinking," said the poor girl, " if I should grow up and get married, and have a child, and the child should come to be able to run alone, and should be playing by this spring, and should fall in, and should be drowned, how very bad I should feel." Whereupon the mother burst out also a crying, and the father came, and heard the story, and he broke out a crying, and the grandmother came, and the grandfather, and the whole family came, and heard the story, and they all set to a crying, and it was truly a crying family. Now, there is this difference between the Professor and the poor girl,  her apprehensions were of an evil which might possibly happen, but the Professor's are of what cannot happen. The case he imagines is not even supposable. Such a command could never be given, and no Catholic could ever be simpleton enough to believe that simply refraining from eating meat can atone for sin. Mortification of the body, as a cure for its disorders, is enjoined by the Scriptures; and he who does not, in some way, mortify the flesh, will make little progress in Christian perfection. But for works of mortification to be worth any thing, they must be preceded by faith and repentance, be done in a state of grace, in a spirit of contrition and humility, and accompanied by charity. A few visits to the Confessional would teach the Professor many things of which he appears to be now ignorant, and correct many of his false notions, as well as relieve him of certain imaginary fears which now affect his repose. It would do him no harm even to consult the instructions for penitents, which he may find in any of our ordinary manuals of piety.

The Professor admits that " there is some truth in the Catholic doctrine of Indulgences," but blames the Church for holding it, because "there is reason to fear that men who have made satisfaction for the temporal penalties of the law will consider themselves as having satisfied its eternal demands." p. 466. The Professor little imagines the ignorance of Catholic doctrine this statement betrays to a Catholic. Every Catholic knows that the eternal demands of the law are satisfied only by the death and sufferings of our Lord upon the cross, and that he must be in a stale of grace, have repented of his sins, and received pardon of them from Almighty God, before his works of satisfaction can be acceptable, or he receive an indulgence.
"If their sins are cancelled for this life, they will presume on the life to come."  Ib. Nonsense ! for there is no cancelling of sins, either for this life or for that which is to come, but through the infinite satisfaction made by our blessed Redeemer ; and no way of escaping the penalty temporal or eternal, but by faith, which is always presupposed, sincere repentance, and the free pardon of Almighty God. It is only he who believes, repents, humbles himself before God, and performs acts of contrition and charity, to whom indulgences or works of satisfaction are available. Every Catholic knows this, and therefore the last blunder he could possibly commit would be the one the Professor so gratuitously imagines. The Professor is quite mistaken in his assertion of a difference between Catholicity " as cautiously and guardedly stated in the standards, and Catholicity as commonly taught and believed." He is equally at fault in his assertions as to what is Catholicity, as commonly taught and believed. He should be ashamed of his misrepresentations. No Catholic teaches, no Catholic believes, that the Blessed Virgin has divine attributes. In her own nature, by virtue of her own essential attributes, she is simply a human being, neither more nor less ; and whatever the exalted rank above all creatures she is believed to hold, she holds it not in her own right, but by the appointment and free gift of God. Does it require rare sagacity, extraordinary powers, such as the Professor seldom finds among his own people, to distinguish between a being holding, by its own nature, an exalted rank, and one holding an exalted rank solely by virtue of the supernatural gifts and graces of Almighty God ? If so, intellectual culture must be sadly neglected among Protestants.

That " indulgences are a legitimate article of traffic," or in any sense an article of traffic at all, is not taught, never was taught, is not believed, never was believed, and never can be believed, by any Catholic. No money can purchase an indulgence ; for an indulgence can be obtained only by faith, repentance, confession, absolution, prayers, and alms-deeds. Why did not the Professor go a step further, and tell us indulgences are permits to commit sin ? This is the general belief of Protestants, who know so little of what they speak as not to know that an indulgence cannot be granted till after the sin has been repented of, confessed, and its eternal guilt pardoned by Almighty God !

VII. " Romanism becomes injurious to the feelings by the mystical working of its machinery."  pp. 467-475. We have already answered this charge, in our remarks on the intellectual influence of Catholic worship. The mystical working here alluded to is the Professor's way of stating the fact, that Catholicity teaches that the sacraments are efficacious through the power of God who instituted them, and the Holy Ghost, who operates in and through them. His first objection, under this head, is, that the Church is held to be necessary as the medium of our relation to Christ. He himself would contend that communion with Christ should be proposed as the condition of communion with the Church, not communion with the Church as the condition of communion with Christ. He therefore regards communion with Christ as the means, and communion with the Church as the end,  placing thus the Church above Christ, and making Christ necessary only as the "way into it. In this, he and the Catholic Church unquestionably differ in opinion. She proposes communion with Christ as the end, communion with her simply as the means of coming into relation with Christ,  thus subordinating herself to Christ, and not Christ to herself. We shall not undertake to say which is the sounder view, for we think St. Paul has done that effectually for all who are not without understanding (Eph. v. 22 - 32). Yet, if we can have full communion with Christ without the ministry of the Church, we confess we see no reason for the Church. Does the Professor object to Catholicity because it is not No-Churchism ?
The second objection, under this same head, appears to be, that the Church proposes Holy Communion as a condition of the Christian life, and not the Christian life as the condition of Communion. " It calls on us not first to live and then eat," but the reverse. The Professor's doctrine, then, is, that we should live in order to eat, and not eat in order to live,  a very general Protestant doctrine. Yet the Professor is mistaken, if he supposes the Church does not demand life before eating ; for a dead man cannot eat, any more than he can perform any other function. The communicant must have been born again, made alive in Christ by the sacrament of baptism, or, if he have sinned mortally after baptism, by the sacrament of Penance, before he can worthily commune. He does not eat, then, as a dead man, that he may become a living man, but that he may have life more abundantly, that he may nourish, sustain, invigorate, and augment his divine life.

The Professor is inexcusable for asserting that Catholicity " represents a sacrament as communicating rather than presupposing the fitness for receiving it," for he knows better ; as also for saying, the only obstacle forbidden to be interposed to its operation " is not sin in general, but only a particular species of it,  sin against the Church, and this is the sin unto death." We will not trust ourselves to characterize this statement as it deserves. The references the Professor himself makes prove that he knew he was stating an absolute falsehood. No sacrament imparts the fitness to receive it, for no sacrament can be received with improper dispositions without sacrilege, and especially is this true of so great a sacrament as Holy Communion. We are everywhere admonished of the danger of eating or drinking unworthily ; for he who does so eateth and drinketh condemnation to himself. In order to receive Holy Communion without eating or drinking our own condemnation, and being guilty of the Lord's body, we must be free, not from one species of mortal sin only, but from every species of it (Cone. Trid. Sess. XIII., can. 11); and in order to receive the plenitude of its fruits, we must be free from even the affection to venial sins, and have a lively faith, a firm hope, and an ardent charity. The effect of the sacrament, indeed, does not depend on these dispositions as the causa cjji-ciens, but it is not produced where these dispositions are wanting. They are not the efficacy of the sacrament, but the conditions without which it is not effectual in the recipient.
The objection, which the Professor urges against Catholicity for teaching that the sacraments produce their effects ex opere operato, is one on which he will hardly dare insist. He himself, in the Andover creed, admits sacraments. The sacrament is intended to effect something, or it is not. If not, let it be dismissed, for it is an idle ceremony. If it is, then it must produce its effect in one of three ways :  1. ex opere operantis ; 2. ex opere suscipientis; or, 3. ex opere operato ; for these are the only conceivable alternatives. The first assumes the efficacy of the sacrament to be in the administrator. If you say this, you make the virtue of the sacrament depend on the priest; that is, you make the priest the efficient cause of the grace received in the sacrament. But this would be to put the priest in the place of the Holy Ghost, and to assert another source of grace than the merits of Jesus Christ, which is inadmissible. Moreover, the priest may be a sinful man, and to suppose a sinful man can be the efficient cause of grace is absurd. If, to obviate this, you assert that none but holy men can be legitimate priests, you fall into the old Donatist heresy of making the validity and efficacy of sacraments depend on the sanctity of the priest,  a fact which God alone can know.

If you adopt the second view, which supposes the virtue to be in the recipient, you deny that the sacrament, as a sacrament, has any virtue at all. If the efficacy of the sacrament depends on him who receives it, as the efficient cause, he, in receiving it, receives only what he gives it, and therefore nothing which he had not before receiving it ; which is to say, he receives nothing at all. Cause, so far forth as cause, receives nothing from its effects. The creation does not react on the Creator, and augment his power. That which leaves us as it found us, or returns to us only what it receives from us, produces no effect in us. One needs to be no very profound metaphysician to know all this. The Professor, we apprehend, is not aware of the consequences of making the virtue of the sacrament depend on the recipient. He contends, that the efficacy of the sacrament is in the faith of the recipient, and that it consists in strengthening faith, and thereby the life which is by faith. But this involves a principle which may lead where the Professor is not prepared to follow. If our faith be the efficient cause of the sacramental effect, to assert that by it there is an increase of faith, or an augmentation of the grace of faith, or of the effects of faith, implies that faith can be augmented from itself and by itself, or that of itself and by itself it can increase its power and fruitfulness ; which implies the principle of self-growth,  an evident absurdity ; for it implies that a given existence can, in and of itself and by itself, make itself more than it is,  that the possible is able to actualize itself,  vacuum to fill up itself and become plenum,  the precise absurdity of the modern Progressists and of the old Buddhists. Is our Professor prepared to accept this absurdity ? If not, he must not say a thing can augment itself, or be augmented, save as it receives and assimilates somewhat ah extra, from a source foreign to itself. Then he must either admit in the sacrament a virtue not derivable from the recipient, or deny that it has any virtue at all.

Nothing remains, then, but the third supposition, namely, the virtue of the sacrament is ex opere operato, non merito operands vel suscipientis ; that is, that the virtue or efficacy of the sacrament is of God, who instituted it, and operates in and through it. The Professor must admit this conclusion, or either assert another source of grace than the merits of Jesus Christ, or deny the sacraments altogether. The last is, in fact, what Protestants generally do.

These remarks on the sacraments contain a sufficient answer to all that the Professor says of the influence of Catholicity on the clergy. The Professor has become so enamoured of the modern German method of finding in human nature or in a philosophic theory the measure of all institutions, that he forgets that the Church is to be judged not as a human, but as a divine, supernatural institution. He forgets, that, as a simple human institution, having its origin and cause in human nature, and operating only by human agencies and means, according to the simple laws of human nature, nobody proposes it, nobody pretends to defend it. His speculations, however ingenious, nay, however true they might be, were it a human institution, and to be judged as we would judge a temporal government, are valueless, and must count for nothing ; because, as speculations, they proceed from a false assumption, and are not in return borne out by facts. To apply a priori reasoning, which might be legitimate to a natural, human institution, to a supernatural, divine institution, is an error which no man of any tolerable scientific attainments would willingly be guilty of.

The Professor's objections all proceed from his overlooking one rather important fact, namely, the gracious presence of God. He reasons as if there was no grace of God. Here is his primal sin. If he chooses to deny that the Church is a supernatural, divine institution, and that the grace of God operates in and through her sacraments, well and good ; but then comes up the Church question we began by stating. But till he does that, and ousts the Church from her possession, by invalidating her claims, his present line of argument is illegitimate ; and when he shall have done that, it will be unnecessary.
VIII. The eighth charge, that Catholicity has a tendency to separate religion from good morals^ and to undervalue morality as distinct from religion (pp. 475, 476), is altogether unfounded. The basis of ethics, according to Catholicity, is theology ; and ethics are uniformly treated by Catholic writers under the head of Tlieologia Jltoralis^ or practical theology. Religion is always presented to us as the basis of good morals. The foundation and motive to the love of our neighbour is in the love of God. We are taught to love our neighbour for the sake of God, and throughout the whole range of morals the propter quern is God, who is our beginning and end ; and every action not referred to him as the end or final cause, for the sake of which it is done, is always sinful, or at least morally imperfect. Here is the closest union between religion and morals conceivable.    It is impossible to say more.

The assertion, that Catholicity places the fulfilling of the law in the external observances of the Church, is false and inexcusable. The Church can dispense from any of her own observances or laws, but she denies that she can dispense from a
precept of the moral law. The Professor knows this, if he knows any thing of the subject lie pretends to treat. Where did he learn that it is, in the estimation of the Church or of her doctors, " a comparatively humble virtue to speak the truth" ? Do Protestants hold, that to speak the truth is a virtue at all ? Judging from the Professor's assertions against Catholicity, we should presume not. Catholic morality denies me the right, in any case, to speak what is not true, or what, in the plain, legitimate sense of my words, is false, though, in some restricted sense of my own, what I say may be true. No intentional falsehood, no intentional deception of any kind, in any case, or for any cause whatever, is allowed. This is Catholic morality. The author's assertions respecting Bossuet, Massil-lon, &c, and especially the general councils, that they divorce morality from piety, authorize pious frauds, teach that no faith is to be kept with heretics, &c, are barefaced falsehoods, and convict him of the very vice he is trying to fasten on others. He knows these charges have been denied and refuted over and over again,  unless his ignorance is more profound than even we believe it. Wherefore, then, does he not blush to reiterate them, and to reiterate them in the same breath in which he is trying to monopolize candor, fairness, and love of truth as Protestant virtues,  born, as it were, with Luther and Calvin ?

" The spirit of mediaeval piety was in too fearful a degree the spirit of robbery, and burnt-offering ; of falsehood, and de-votedness to the Church ; of an Ave Maria on the lips, and carnage in the heart."  p. 476. This from a man who is accusing the Church of a want of candor, fairness, love of truth ! The man is mad, and not "with much learning." The Middle Ages are not without their faults, but who knows any thing of them knows this  when intended to describe their predominating spirit is false, totally false, as prove all the records of that glorious period of human history, on which he who loves God and man lingers, as the traveller on some green oasis in the sandy waste. But, even if true, a descendant of the Puritans, who robbed the Indians of their lands, then massacred the poor savages or sold them into slavery, while saying their long graces or interminable prayers, should, for shame's sake, hold his peace. A descendant of a class of men whose spirit was condensed in Cromwell's famous exhortation,  " Pray to God, my brethren, and mind and keep your powder dry,"  should not talk about Ave Maria on the lips and carnage in the heart.    It is not for one who builds the tombs and garnishes the sepulchres of the canting, hypocritical, sour-visaged, greedy, arrogant, and cruel old Puritans, to accuse others of paying " tithes of anise, cummin, and mint, and of passing over justice and judgment, and the weightier matters of the law." The Professor should know that there are some who have even Puritan blood running in their veins who do not remember to forget what the Puritans were. We know their history, and would be silent; but we may yet be driven to write it. These men of yesterday, these theologians not yet in shorts, who want ancestors, and whom their own children disown, may yet be summoned to answer for their presumption and pride, their cant and hypocrisy, their falsehoods and calumnies, before the bar of a public that will not consent to be for ever duped. They have a terrible account to settle, and it will be no disadvantage to them to settle it now, before the books are opened for the last time.

" No faith to be kept with heretics." Where did the Professor learn that this is a maxim of Catholicity ? It is false. Catholicity knows no such maxim, and Catholic history authorizes no inference that she practically adopts or in the least conceivable manner countenances it. Individuals of bad faith maybe found, no doubt, even among Catholics ; but that Catholicity or Catholic doctors anywhere countenance any thing of the sort is a malignant falsehood. We are taught and required to keep our faith with all men, and faith plighted to a heretic can no more be broken without sin than faith plighted to a true believer. We would that Protestants would observe a tithe of the good faith towards Catholics that Catholics do towards Protestants ; and when they shall do so, we give them free leave to abuse our morals to their full satisfaction.

" The end sanctifies the means." So the Apostles were slanderously reported to teach,  " Let us do evil that good may come."

" If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more they of his household ! " No such doctrine is known among Catholics ; we are not permitted to do evil that good may come. Both the means and the ends must be holy. But on what principle do Protestants themselves act, when they lie about and calumniate Catholics ? On what principle would Professor Park attempt to justify the misrepresentations, distortions of the truth, and downright falsehoods of his own Lecture, if not on the principle, that " the end sanctifies the means " ?    On what principle can your Brownlows, Sparrys, Breckenridges, Bemans, Kirks, Beechers, Powlings, your famous anti-Catholic lecturers, pamphleteers, editors, and colporteurs, pretend to justify their flagitious falsehoods and calumnies, but on the principle that Catholicity is so great an evil, that any means are lawful which will tend to destroy it,  that is, " the end sanctifies the means " ? When have Catholics lied about or calumniated Protestants ? When or where have they even exaggerated their errors, vices, or crimes ? When or where have they combined by systematic misrepresentation and slander to overthrow Protestantism or to build up their own Church ? Facts, names, dates, Gentlemen, if you please,  which we hold ourselves ready to give in return, if those already given do not satisfy you, or if you presume to contradict us. No, no, dear Protestant friends, remember that he that is without sin is the one who has permission to cast the first stone. Your own morals are quite too questionable to allow you to rail at Catholics. Be so good as to practise a morality half as pure as we teach, before you think of reading us moral lectures.

IX. The ninth charge, touching the austerity of Catholicity and its influence on the emotions, we must pass over. The author converses on these matters as a Rationalist who forgets the grace of God may count for something might be expected to converse on a subject of which he knows nothing, and which, in his present state of mind, he is as ill able to appreciate as a blind man is colors, or a deaf man harmony. The Professor evidently has made no study of ascetic theology, or ever devoted much time to prayer, meditation, and mortification ; and this may account, in no small degree, for his hostility to Catholicity.

He might as well charge our blessed Lord with exerting a bad moral influence on the emotions and passions, in choosing his Apostles from fishermen, publicans, and tent-makers, as to charge the Church with a bad moral influence, because no small portion of her clergy are taken from the humbler classes of society. He thinks priests taken from the humbler classes, elevated suddenly to a higher condition of life, and invested with great power, must inevitably become proud, vain, servile towards those above them, and haughty and overbearing towards those below them. If they were to be Protestant ministers, this might perhaps be the case ; for Protestants have not (he grace of God to keep them humble. But we do not observe that the Apostles became proud in consequence of their elevation and authority, nor as a fact is it often so with our Catholic clergy. The effects feared are guarded against hy tho religious training they receive, the influence of their religion on their consciences, and the grace of God imparted to aid them not only as Christians, hut as Christian teachers and pastors. May we request the Professor to remember that the grace of God is not regarded by Catholics as a fiction, and that Catholicity teaches us in all things to seek the glory of God, and to ascribe in all the glory to God ?

X. The tenth charge, that Catholicity engenders an exclusive and persecuting spirit, we throw back on the Professor. The Catholic Church is exclusive in the sense that truth is exclusive, but in no other. She never persecutes, never has persecuted, never authorizes or approves persecution. Legitimate authority may punish, but it cannot persecute. But the Church herself inflicts only ecclesiastical punishments ; and she has never authorized, or even tacitly approved, any civil punishment of heretics, when the heretic did not add to the sin of heresy, which St. Paul classes with murder and other deadly sins, the further sin of offences against the state, or of attacks on the very foundations of moral and social order, as in the case of the Albigenses, Wickliffites, Hussites, &c. The Catholic Church here, as well as elsewhere, is impervious to the shafts of her enemies.

But if you want to find persecution, genuine, unmitigated persecution, you must go out of the Catholic Church, among the Reformers and their numerous bands of hostile sectaries ; and especially among the Calvinists at Geneva, under Calvin's own reign of terror, where it was virtually a capital offence " to speak evil of M. Calvin," and where Calvin kept his grand inquis-sitor, Colladen, who applied the torture to the very point of death to whomsoever Calvin was pleased to designate ; and where Calvin himself, in the coolest and most malignant manner conceivable, procured the judicial murder of the poor poet, Gruet, Michael Servetus, and others. Whoever would become familiar with bona fide persecutions must read the history of the Reformers and their children.

XL That Catholicity accepts the sneer of plume, that " Religion rests on faith, not on reason," we admit, if regard be had to the intrinsic reasonableness of the mysteries ; yet we deny that faith is unreasonable, for nothing is more reasonable than to believe God on his word. The rule the Professor would introduce would be fatal to supernatural revelation. He contends for the principle, that we must judge the speaker by the word, and not the word by the speaker. This is a sound principle within the sphere of natural reason, in matters of which we have in ourselves a full knowledge, and therefore all the conditions of forming a correct judgment. But whoso adopts it in the sphere of religion is already an infidel or on the declivity to infidelity ; for it cannot be adopted in the sphere of religion without first denying that in religion there is any thing to be believed which transcends natural reason ; therefore it cannot be adopted without denying supernatural revelation ; and to deny supernatural revelation is what is meant by infidelity.

We do not like to call a man an infidel, or to be continually telling him that his objections involve a denial of Christianity. We know how easy it is to say such things, and how very suspicious such charges usually are ; but we confess, that, so far as we are competent to judge of the matter, the Professor has not urged a single objection against us, not false in fact, which, if analyzed, reduced to its ultimate principle, does not imply a total denial of all revelation of the supernatural order. We have found in no professedly religious writer in this country, unless it be in Mr. Parker, so complete a rejection, in principle, at least, of all supernatural revelation. The whole Lecture is written from the Humanitarian point of view, and proves that the author is far, very far, gone in German Rationalism ; and unless the Puritans of New England are much changed from what they were when we knew them better than we now do, he will yet be called to an account for his doctrines.

In this Lecture, his tendencies are not fully developed, and they show themselves to the Puritan reader only in their opposition to Catholicity, and therefore are not likely to be at once suspected of their real character. He will be allowed, without rebuke, to pursue a line of argument towards us, which, if he should adopt it in regard to his own creed, would not be tolerated for a moment. But whoso sows error sows dragon's teeth, and they will one day spring up armed men. They who countenance arguments false in principle, when directed against their opponents, will one day find them rebound, and with as much force as they were urged. We do not like Puritanism : we regard it as a deadly enemy to truth and religion ; but we should be sorry to see it overthrown by the introduction of another error still greater, still more destructive. Bad as it is, it is not so bad as German Rationalism, or even German Supernaturalism, as represented by Schleiermaclier, Ne-ander, and De Wette, which is only Rationalism sentimentalized.

We make these remarks with no ill-will towards Professor Park. We see his tendency, for it is a tendency we followed long before he was affected by it ; we have followed it to its termination, and we know where it conducts. Would to God, that on this point the Professor would place some little confidence in our words. We were bred in the same school he was, and we embraced the faith in which he was educated, and made what we thought was our first communion in a Calvin-istic church. We sought, like him, to rationalize our faith, with less learning, less knowledge, and less advantages to begin ,with, we own ; for we were a poor boy cast upon the world alone, to struggle our way as best we could. We wished to have a faith the intrinsic reasonableness of which we could demonstrate. Of the twenty years which followed we need not speak. They are not such as we are proud of, nor such as we can recur to, except for a lesson of humility ; yet this have we learned,  had burnt and scarred into our very soul,  that there is no medium between a simple, meek, unquestioning faith in the sacred mysteries, as perfectly incomprehensible mysteries, on the sole authority of God revealing them, and absolute, downright infidelity ; and that the first step taken for the purpose of rationalizing the Christian faith is a step downwards to the bottomless hell of unbelief.

The Professor charges us with being unwilling to accept, or unable to delight in, goodness not in our own Church. " The treasures of excellence that are spread out before us in Fentlon and Bossuet we, as Protestants, rejoice in ; but when
the amiable sentiments of a Zinzendorf or of a Spangenberg are presented to a Romanist, are they welcomed by him ? "• p. 484. Yes, so far as truly amiable and good ; and the Catholic is ready to acknowledge and does acknowledge and delight in excellence, let him find it where he may.

1. But  and here is a point we beg the Professor to remember  there is a difference between the amiable sentiments which are without grace, and the really amiable sentiments which are by grace. We admit amiable sentiments in men who are out of the Church ; but not that men, who are not, to say the least, virtually in the Church, have or can have any truly meritorious sentiments ; for no sentiments not proceeding from grace are or can be meritorious ; and we know no ordinary means of grace but the sacraments of the Church.

2. The Catholic Church is older than any of the sectaries,
and had examples of all the virtues long before Zinzendorf or
Spangenberg was born, and purer examples than either of these
gives us of any virtue.    We find nothing in these men but
foeble imitations of originals in possession of the Church, and
therefore we neither need them nor can profit by them.

3. These men were heretics and schismatics ; and St. Paul
classes  heresy and  schism with  deadly sins.    Moreover, we
do not think it favorable to good morals to dwell with too much
admiration on the few virtues individuals may have in despite
of their mortal sins.     The tendency to compel us to do this is
the crying sin of modern literature, as witness  The Corsair^
Lucrece Borgia, The Mvcntures of a Younger Son, &c.

4. The blessed Apostle John says, " We are of God.    He
that knoweth God heareth us, and he that is not of God hear-
etli not us.    By this we know the spirit of truth, and the spirit
of error."  1 St. John, iv, 6.     Moreover, he says, again,
Si quis venit ad vos, et hanc doctrinam non affcrt, nolitc re-
cipere cum in domwn, nee AVE dixeritis. 2 St. John,  10.
If the Professor wants any further reply, we will give it, after
he has settled his quarrel with the beloved Apostle of our
Lord.

If the Protestants rejoice in the treasures of excellence spread out in Fenelon and Bossuet, it is well, as far as it goes. They should do so ; it is their duty ; and it is also their duly to go farther, and submit to the Church of Fcnelon and Bossuet, love and obey her as their spiritual mother ; and even then they would have no right to put on airs ; for when we have done our whole duty, our blessed Lord tells us to account ourselves unprofitable servants. We do not, we own, feel bound to be remarkably grateful to the would-be liberal Protestant, who thinks to say a kind thing to us, by saying, UO, yes, the Catholic Church has had some eminent men ; there's Fenclon ; I am a great admirer of Fenelon."- We only do not take this as an insult, because no insult is intended. As well think to compliment a Christian by saying some of the Apostles were very eminent men, that you are a great admirer of the virtues of the Founder of Christianity. Do you receive Jesus Christ as your master ? Bo you own the Church as your mother ? No ? Then you fall infinitely short of your duty.    We are not Catholics because we admire Fenelon, or Bossuet, and we do not regard it as a compliment even to the Catholics you pretend to admire that you admire them, for you deride that to which they owed their virtues, and show your admiration is worth nothing by admiring also Luther, Calvin, Beza, John Knox, and perhaps Cotton Mather. We do not thank you for praising our brethren, while you insult and calumniate our Mother. Speak evil of me, or of them, and I cftn forgive you. But call my Mother hard names, as you do, and nothing you can say in my favor or in theirs will enable me to forgive you. In the one case, you at worst only blaspheme men ; in the other, you blaspheme the Holy Ghost, the eternal God, whose Spouse she is ; and even were I and my brethren to forgive you, it would avail you nothing.

XII. To the twelfth charge, that Catholicity " is fascinating to all classes," we will say not much. It is a charge we cannot retort upon Puritanism. That the Catholic Church is attractive to all men of all classes who would have faith, who feel they are poor, helpless sinners, and would have the sure means of salvation ; to the weary and heavy laden, who seek rest, and find it nowhere in the world ; to those who would have confidence in their principles, and free scope and full employment for their intellectual powers ; to those who are tired of endless jarring, and disgusted with shallow innovators, pert philosophers, unfledged divines, cobweb theories spun from the brain of vanity and conceit, vanishing as the sun exhales the morning dew which alone rendered them visible, and who would have something older than yesterday, solid, durable, carrying them back and connecting them with all that has been, and forward and connecting them with all that is to be, admitting them into the goodly fellowship of the saints of all ages, making them feel that they have part and lot in all that over which has coursed the stream of divine providence, been consecrated by the blood of martyrs, and hallowed by the ebb and flow of sanctified affection, and permitting them to love, venerate, and adore to their heart's content, or their heart's capacity ; to all these, of whatever age or nation, sex, rank, or condition, the glorious, sublime, God-inspired, guided, and defended Catholic Church is full of attractions, we admit, even fascinating, if you will. But in any other sense than this, or to any other than such as these, we deny it, and find the justification of our denial in the fact that the Professor and his brethren are yet without her pale.  The thirteenth charge we shall consider in a separate article, designed to show the necessity of Catholicity to sustain popular liberty.

We here close our protracted review of this Lecture. The unchristian style of writing adopted by the author has prevented us from being briefer. But we have been as brief as we well could be. We have doubtless omitted some points which the author judges important, but we have touched upon all the main charges. For the most part, we have had nothing but assertions, unsupported by fact or argument, to combat. Where these were such as could, from the nature of the case, be met by argument, we have so met them ; where they admitted no argument, we have met them by counter assertions, and put the author upon his proofs. If he shall attempt to bring forward facts to sustain any of his assertions which we have contradicted, or left uncontradicted, he will find us ready to meet him.

In some passages we have spoken plainly, perhaps severely. We are not in the habit of seeking for soft words, nor has the present case seemed to us to demand them. No Protestant can feel or understand the outrageous character of the Lecture we have had to combat. Its real flagitiousness is apparent only to a Catholic ; and it were to be false to our brethren, false to the truth, false to our God, not to rebuke its author in the tones of a just severity. We have spoken calmly, sincerely, conscientiously, but strongly, and we hope to the point, and to the purpose.