dead. He is noble-hearted and true. I know you love him as well as I do myself. I can die contented, now that I leave you to him. You will be happy together; just as happy as you and I have been, Mary; and heaven to me will be doubly bright when I can look down from it and see you gay and contented."

Her sister's words fell like an icy chill on Mary's heart. She knew not what to answer. She dared not mention the fatal promise that shut her out for ever from the happiness the child had planned for her. She dared not again disturb the last moments of that loving heart by telling her that the projects on which she had expended the last efforts of her aching brain could never be realised. She could not do it. She would let the child die in the delusion which would cheer her last moments, and she would trust to MacDermott's generosity for the pardon of the deception she practised out of pity to her dying sister. She suffered her hand to lie cold and passive in his, and answered only with tears Kathleen's prophecies regarding her future happiness.

The child had lived to accomplish her projects for her sister's welfare. The anxiety that had excited at the same time that it consumed her energies was over, and she sank rapidly. Her face lost its excited flush, the light that had burned in her eyes grew dimmer and dimmer, and her respiration became slower and more difficult. For hours her sister and her soldier-friend watched in silence the painful struggles of the frail child in the iron grasp of the monster who had come to bear her away. Mercilessly the grim victor crushed the feeble efforts of that tiny frame. Gradually its struggles became fainter and fainter till it ceased any longer to resist. They thought the end was come; MacDermott leaned over the motionless figure to search for some evidence of life. She was breathing yet, her dimmed eyes were fixed upon his face; she knew him.

"I forgot-Shawn-for my sake

He could hear no more. A low whine of pain broke from a figure that had crept unobserved into the room, and lay crouched in a dark corner. He turned to the spot whence the sound proceeded. When he looked again Kathleen's waxen face was turned towards his; her eyes looked up to him still, but the light of life had gone out within them; poor Kathleen was dead.

The moonbeams streamed in through the window; the Shannon rolled its waters away towards the ocean as unconcernedly as if the eyes that had revelled in their frolics had not ceased to see; the noisy river tumbled as merrily over the ford as if an ear that understood its every word had not closed for ever. The bells of the old towers of St. Mary tolled mournfully forth the closing hour of the last day of freedom of Ireland's last fortress, and were answered by the chimes of many a humbler shrine; but Kathleen Dillon slept on undisturbed her quiet sleep.

They laid her on a white couch. Her long hair fell in glistening waves across the pillow, her hands, folded on her breast, held a crucifix, and lights burned around her; there was a smile upon her face as if she understood all this kindness, and wished to acknow

ledge it; but her eyes were closed, and she still slept on. Sounds of sorrow, smothered or passionate bursts of grief, the low, piteous moaning of her half-witted attendant, were heard around her bed; she smiled her sweet smile as if to cheer the mourners, but she would not be roused from her slumber, nor would she speak to them any more.

"Good night, Mary," said MacDermott, as he stood by the door of the chamber of death. "I must meet O'Neill to-night. I will come as early as I can to-morrow. I claim for myself the sad task of conveying poor Kathleen to her grave. My troopers were favourites with her; they will render her this last service. Good night. God bless and console you."

"Stay! Captain MacDermott," said Mary, laying her trembling hand on the soldier's arm. "Even here, I must tell you the secret that oppresses me. I dared not undeceive Kathleen, I had not courage to spoil her plans, but-my hand is pledged to another. Forgive me if I have pained your noble heart. I did it for the sake of the poor child you loved so much."

MacDermott was utterly confounded by the declaration. He could make no reply. The muscles of his face twitched nervously, and he tore to shreds the fibres of the rough plank under his iron heel. It was several minutes before he could master his emotion. "Pardon this excitement, Miss Dillon," he said, in a low tone. "I was selfish when I consented that your fate should be linked to mine. The wall is down. By to-morrow evening mine may be amongst the corpses that shall choke the breach. I offered you only a hazardous fortune when I asked you to share in mine. I ought to rejoice that you have found happiness more secure than I could offer, and I will try to do so. Good night again. To-morrow I will come to render to Kathleen the last service I can do her."

He descended the stairs with a heavy step, and soon after the furious clatter of his charger's hoofs woke the silence of the dark street. It died away at length, and a sense of desolation such as she had never yet known threw its gloom over Mary Dillon.

THE RELATIONS OF THE CHURCH TO SOCIETY.

BY THE REV. EDMUND J. O'REILLY, S.J.

XXVII. THE POPE'S TEMPORAL POWER.

IN speaking of the Church's concern with politics, I touched, though but incidentally, on the Pope's Temporal Power, the present cessation of which is an accomplished fact. I will now dwell a little on the subject as being of great importance at this time, and falling quite sufficiently under the general heading of these papers, namely "The Relations of the Church to Society." Certainly, the position of the Head of the whole Church as a secular sovereign, constituted such for the sake of the whole Church, is a circumstance which enters into the relations of the Church to Society.

Various questions arise concerning this temporal power. The first is as to the origin and nature of the Pontiff's right to secular dominion over his states. In speaking of the origin of this right, there is no need of tracing in detail the history of the acquisition of the dominion itself. We know that it came to the Popes from princes and people in a natural way, in a humanly legitimate way, that even if there had been any defect in the primitive title-and there was not-this would have been cured by lapse of time, and the acquiescence, which followed, of all the parties who could be imagined to have any surviving claim to object. On this point there is no rational doubt. In truth it would be hard to find any sovereignty so free throughout from any flaw as to mere human title. But we may ask whether the Bishop of Rome, the Vicar of Christ, had any antecedent right to be endowed with this domain, and, if not, whether still the right consequent on the endowment is to be regarded as specially Divine in connection with the Papacy--setting aside the general question of the Divine right of kings. My answer is in the negative. I am not speaking of congruity, of fitness, of expediency, but of right, and I say that the Pope could not originally have demanded temporal sovereignty; that when he received that sovereignty he held it by human and not by Divine right. In other words, the right to hold the states was created by men and not by God. The right may be justly called sacred, and is in reality such; nay, the states are in a true sense sacred, not in themselves, but as consecrated to God by being bestowed on the Church in the person of the Roman Pontiff, the representative of Christ as his Vicar, and the representative of the Church as its Head. Hence it is that the usurpation of these states is reputed sacrilegious.

It does not follow that the Pope's temporal authority over his subjects is different in its nature from that of any other prince or king. The actual relation between sovereign and subject is the same at Rome as anywhere else. Disobedience to him as a civil ruler is just like disobedience to another potentate. But spoliation is quite a different thing. It is wrong everywhere, and it is doubly wrong. with relation to the Pope. The Pope's right to govern his states is

of human and not of Divine origin; it is sacred on account of the end for which it was bestowed by men; but the nature of the jurisdiction is identical with what is to be found in the supreme authority of any other country, whether that authority reside in one person or in many. It is quite true, as I shall have occasion to state later, that the Pope's temporal power is due to a special disposition of Providence; but this makes no difference in the intrinsic nature of the right. Divine right and the action of Divine Providence are two totally distinct things. A power whose existence is merely brought about by God-even if it were miraculously brought about is not different in its inward character, on that account, from what it would be otherwise. No doubt, the peculiar, positive, and, so to speak, approving intervention of God (as contradistinguished to mere permission) commends highly whatever work or system is so promoted; yet the work or system remains human. So much for the first question.

The second question is: Whether there is anything wrong or unfit and improper in the possession of temporal power by the Popes; whether, in one word, their civil sovereignty was not from beginning to end one great moral mistake. My answer to this question shall be very short, partly because there is no need of making it long, partly because my answer to a later question will more than sufficiently comprise a solution of the present one, which I only propose for the sake of fulness and order. I say, then, that no good Catholic can impeach the lawfulness and congruity of the Pope's possessing temporal power, unless so far as he may be excused by inculpable ignorance, the limits of which are not easy to fix. It is quite inconsistent with the sanctity of the Church, and with God's promises to her, that she could have approved and embraced for so many centuries, as she assuredly did, the system we are speaking of, unless it was blameless and thoroughly right. A long series of Pontiffs, many of them saints, a succession of general councils, all the bishops and clergy, and, we may fairly say, all the faithful, adhered to it as a thing that ought to be. Whoever attempts to controvert it on principle, charges the Church with grievous practical error, and sets aside her authority. Among the false propositions recorded in the Syllabus of 1864, the seventy-fifth is as follows: "The sons of the Christian and Catholic Church dispute among themselves about the compatibility of a temporal with a spiritual kingdom." The question, therefore, is not debated among sound Catholics. Indeed, I look upon the condemnation of the Pope's temporal power as constructive heresy. For if it is wrong, the Church, too, is wrong in a way in which our faith forbids us to admit she can be wrong. But I must not lengthen my answer further, after having promised that it should be short.

The third question I propose is: Whether or no the temporal power has been beneficial to the Church. The answer is again short. Undoubtedly, the temporal power has been beneficial to the Church. Were this not so, it could not have been rightly maintained by the Popes and by the Church. It is not of

the number of things that are indifferent. The arguments that are alleged against it, poor as they are, would not be at least some of them-answerable, unless there was a positive good derived from the temporal power, and a good counterbalancing the dangers and inconveniences which are, through human weakness, inseparable from civil administration. Secular interests, though not essentially bad, are not by their nature conducive to piety, and in connection with spiritual government, when they are not wanted, are better away. No one understands this better than the Popes. The same may be said of ecclesiastical property. If it could be done without, if it were not needed, either absolutely or for the more effectual carrying on of religious undertakings, it would be of the two rather an evil than a good.

And this consideration of necessity or need brings me to a fourth question, on which I shall have to dwell at somewhat greater length, and the solution of which will serve to complete that of the three I have just been dealing with.

Is the temporal power of the Pope necessary in any true 'sense, and, if so, in what sense? I can easily understand a well-meaning, intelligent, educated Catholic replying, that as to necessity there is none, and, in his judgment, things would be better otherwise, not exactly as they have been since 1870, but with a different arrangement, still excluding the temporal power. I can understand, I say, a reply of this kind being given through want of accurate knowledge, and through impressions made by reading or hearing false facts and superficial sophistry; but I cannot understand its being innocently persevered in after even a brief explanation of how matters really stand. Reason itself alone-the Catholic Religion being once admitted-is sufficient to show what sort of answer should be given to the question we have on hands. But, for a Catholic, mere argument is not the chief road to truth in things belonging to religion as this does. He must look first to authority, to the declarations of the Church or of the Pope, to the sense of the Church as it is called, that traditional view which prevails among her pastors and people, and which finds expression more or less distinctly, more or less emphatically, as occasion requires; though when it has to be definitely formulated, it is seen not to be feeling or sentiment, but well-founded doctrine.

It is certainly deplorable that professing, and even earnest -Catholics should theorise-for the most part at second hand-on subjects they only half understand, and flippantly pronounce judgment regarding them, discrediting religious truths and those who hold them, misleading other Catholics more ignorant than themselves, and giving a handle to Protestants to pit Catholics against Catholics on points about which we ought all to agree. The worst feature, however, in the proceeding is the unsoundness of the opinions thus advocated. In dubiis libertas-in things that are really uncertain, let every one think and speak as he pleases, or rather let him weigh the reasons and form the best judgment he can, or none at all, if he finds no apparent preponderance, and express his thoughts with moderation and prudence. But there are propositions even short of dogmas

VOL. IV.

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