At the same time we entirely think that the civil ruler should abstain, as far as he possibly can in consistency with higher duties, from enacting any law, which can militate against the conscience of any citizen. And we are thus brought to consider the phrase "liberty of conscience" a phrase vaguely used in a hundred different senses; but of which we cannot understand any grammatical interpretation, except that apparently intended by Dr. Mivart. By "liberty of conscience" then, we understand exemption from militations against conscience. According to this sense of the term, I enjoy greater "freedom of conscience," in proportion as I am less assailed by militations against my conscience. I enjoy greater political "freedom of conscience," in proportion as those militations against my conscience, which are caused by the State's positive or negative action, are fewer and slighter. I enjoy greater social "freedom of conscience," in proportion as those militations against my conscience are fewer and slighter, which are caused by social influence and pressure. But then-if we use the phrase in this sense, there can be no greater mistake than to allege, that freedom of conscience is necessarily promoted by the modern "liberties." And this is a further consideration, to which Dr. Mivart, we think, has not done justice.

For instance. It is frequently said that the substitution of Victor Emmanuel's Roman government for the Pope's-whatever its evils in other respects-at all events conferred greater freedom of conscience on foreign Protestants residing in the Roman States. We might urge in reply, that these Protestants constitute but an infinitesimal part of the residents. But our present point is, that such Protestants themselves, be they more or fewer, have (not more but) less liberty of conscience. now, than they had under the Pope. What single dictate was there of such a Protestant's conscience, against which Papal legislation militated? It will be said perhaps, that he was not permitted to circulate anti-Catholic books, or make antiCatholic speeches, among the native population. Now for all we are here saying and merely for argument's sake-let us concede that this prohibition was tyrannical and unjust: but at all events, we ask, in what possible way did it militate against the Protestant's conscience? Let objectors name if they can those definite acts, which on the one hand his conscience declared obligatory under the circumstances in which he was placed, while on the other hand the Papal law threatened him with grave injury in the event of his performing them.*

* Certainly if some Protestant residing in Rome considered it obligatory to study a vernacular Bible; and if the Papal government inflicted severe

There was no greater militation against his conscience, than there is in England against the conscience of those sectaries. who, though disapproving war, were required to pay the Abyssinian penny. But look at the opposite side. A pious Protestant recognizes the Sermon on the Mount, as setting forth the true standard of Christian morality. Let it be observed then, that now for the first time, while he moves about through the streets of Rome, his eyes are assailed from shop-windows and other localities by licentious pictures and exhibitions, which the Papal police strictly prohibited. His political freedom of conscience, then, is indeed deplorably impaired for the State's detestable laxity on such matters deplorably increases the temptation by which he is assailed, towards transgressing the dictate of his conscience.

Still more clear is it-indeed it is most clear on the surface that a Catholic's freedom of conscience is grievously impaired by the civil tolerance of other religions. We need hardly indeed here repeat, what we have on former occasions so energetically pressed: viz. that in a country where a body of hereditary Protestants are found, no Catholic dreams of wishing for a violent restoration of religious unity. Assuredly it is not from the Catholics of any given country, however predominant in numbers, that any hereditary Protestant need fear any kind of encroachment on his full liberty of public worship and public speech. All we have to say on the other side is which we have also on previous occasions energetically pressed that the necessitated existence of these modern liberties is a deplorable social and political degradation. Even of this however, we are not speaking at the present moment. Here we are only pointing out, how grievously those liberties assail the Catholic's freedom of conscience. There is no more sacred and prominent dictate of the Catholic's conscience, than that it is mortally sinful to entertain so much as one fully-deliberate doubt on the truth of Catholicity. How grievous are the temptations to violating this dictate which attack him on every side, wherever the freedom is permitted of non-Catholic publications! We do not speak of grave controversy; in fact there is much less danger in this. But he cannot open a newspaper, or magazine, or novel, without encountering at every turn some flippant suggestion, or plausible sophism, or penalties on all residents who were found with a vernacular Bible in their possession;-such a Protestant might have had his freedom of conscience seriously impaired: because he might consider himself bound to provide himself with a vernacular Bible, and incur the risk of detection; while the law would offer him a serious inducement, towards transgressing this dictate of conscience. But the Papal government imposed no such penalties.

ingeniously-distorted fact, which inevitably perhaps engenders a momentary indeliberate doubt as to the truth of his religion; and which tempts him to commit mortal sin of the gravest kind, by giving that doubt deliberate harbour. We are not for a moment denying, that on the other hand a sincere Protestant might have his freedom of conscience impaired, under an exclusively Catholic régime. Still less are we implying that the civil ruler acts otherwise than as he is actually bound to do, when he permits liberty of worships in a mixed population. We are only pointing out how profoundly fallacious it is, to identify the civil tolerance of religious error with that most different phenomenon, political freedom of conscience. Political freedom of conscience cannot largely exist, except so far as there is strict civil intolerance of religious diversity.

And this brings us to a further comment on Dr. Mivart: à comment which lands us much more nearly in the heart of our argument, than anything we have hitherto said. We think he most seriously underrates the unspeakable blessings involved in a State's Catholic unity. Let us look at the true issue on this matter. It is supremely certain, that the Church teaches infallibly on faith and morals; so certain, that (as we have just said) it is for a Catholic among the most grievous of sins, to admit one deliberate doubt of her divine authority. The only reasonable state of a Catholic's mind then, is to realize this vital truth; to estimate instinctively and spontaneously every fact, which bears directly or indirectly on human conduct, by the exclusive standard of her teaching; and to carry that teaching forward heartily and ungrudgingly into its fullest legitimate development. We are far from saying that, even in mediæval times, this result was adequately obtained; yet one may see on the surface, that there was an immeasurably greater approximation to it than there is now. M. Périn does not hesitate to declare, that the mediæval "peoples lived by the Catholic Faith as the body lives by the soul." Their moral convictions, it may be said without exaggeration, were penetrated to the very core by the great Gospel verities. This is what has now been so deplorably lost even among Catholic peoples. Of course it cannot be doubted, that the mass of professing Catholics elicit, under the Holy Ghost's agency, due acts of theological faith. But when one looks for instances where this belief in Catholic dogma is supernaturally woven (as one may say) into the very texture of men's nature and instinctive convictions, it is not so easy to light on such instances. They can hardly be found, except either in the few who lead unusually interior and

mortified lives; or else among large portions of Spain, or secluded hamlets of Italy or the Tyrol, where the inhabitants have been saved from that corruption and degradation of thought, which is engendered by habitually living in the midst of misbelievers.

Those who are more or less involved in this degradation, are in general, for obvious reasons, far from sufficiently alive to its extent and calamitousness. We will therefore give an illustration, by help of which we may be better able at least speculatively to appreciate (though we may still not practically realize) the true character of that calamitousness. Every one knows of those serious assaults against the sanctity of marriage, which, in the United States or elsewhere, have obtained some kind of countenance. "Free love," says our author (p. 44) "has not only its advocates, but its avowed votaries; and a hatred of marriage and the family is one of the sentiments common to those political enthusiasts, who claim for themselves par excellence the title of advanced."" Now let us, merely by way of illustration, suppose the purely hypothetical case, that these doctrines came to obtain continually increased acceptance in Protestant England, till they possessed a great majority of the people. As such a process went on, many a Protestant (we may reasonably infer) would take refuge in the one ark of salvation: still Catholics (we will suppose) continue to constitute but a comparatively small part of the population; and mix with externs, and read nonCatholic newspapers or light literature, just as at present. Dr. Mivart will readily admit, how grievous is the calamity in which they would be thus involved. Consider for a moment the effect of freely mixing with and visiting at their homes those, whose family life reposes on some basis different from that of monogamy: consider the effect of this on Catholic maidens; on Catholic youths; in other words, on those who in due course will become parents and educators. Consider, again, the effect on Catholics of a whole abundant literature and circumambient social atmosphere, in which monogamy is not otherwise treated, than as a contemptible superstition of the past; condemned, derided, laughed at, just as men now laugh at the practice of taking the discipline, or at the various details of monastic life.

Under this heavy misfortune, we think Dr. Mivart would derive but small comfort from such topics of encouragement, as he adduces in p. 109 with a view of mitigating a Catholic's grief at the fall of "mediævalism." We might suggest to him, on his own principles, that under the new order there would be diffused among Catholics a far more "free, intel

ligent and reasoned apprehension" than at present, of monogamistic truth; because Catholics would be blessed by "the stimulus of opposition," and thus braced to "greater efforts for the support and extension of" monogamy. We might urge, that under the previous régime a not inconsiderable number of Catholics accepted the Church's doctrine on marriage, in "an unenergetic, tepid, unintelligently apprehensive and morally inconsistent spirit." We might further add, that under the new circumstances many Catholics-who had always had a hankering after licentiousness and had more or less "diffused" their "spirit" "over the whole body "—will now probably apostatize; and thus "by becoming manifestly external to" the Church, "cease to disgrace her or to lower the moral tone of her community." We really think that Dr. Mivart would rather suppose these apologies to be intended as mockeries and insults, than adduced as grave arguments: though of course we are well aware with what thorough and hearty good faith he himself propounds such considerations, as drawbacks from the blessing of "theocratic " "mediævalism."*

It is due to Dr. Mivart, that we quote the passage in full to which we refer in the text :

"During the period in which the Church had full temporal support, and sheltered within its fold whole nations with hardly an avowed dissentient, the following merely natural effects must have inclined to mar its efficiency

"1. Want of the stimulus of opposition, tending to diminish the vigour of efforts for its support and extension.

2. A similarly diminished need for the diffusion of a keen, intelligent, and reasoned apprehension of its doctrines and teachings.

"3. A lowered moral tone from the influence of the indifferent majorityresulting in diminished efforts after a life in accordance with Christian precepts and counsels. This is owing to a diffusion over the whole body of the spirit governing the majority, which spirit in almost every large community is otiose and indifferent. In the days of the Church's temporal prosperity the indifferent were included within the Church, instead of being visibly external to it, and so tended to lower the tone of the whole.

"Thus an unenergetic, tepid, unintelligently apprehensive, and morally inconsistent spirit, may but too naturally tend to diffuse itself over a temporally supported, honoured, and wealthy Church, which has no declared dissidents in the area in which it exists.

"When such a theocratically organized Christian community becomes, by revolution, exposed to the free assaults of enemies the most varied, with disestablishment and disendowment as a result, the first effect must be the falling away from the Church of those who either morally or intellectually, or both, are out of harmony with her.

"Freedom of inquiry, with all other freedom, as it becomes more and more a settled institution, will more and more incline to diminish the effects of mere traditional adherence to family creed, and the passage to and fro will become more and more easy. Thus those with proclivities towards the Church, but who have been brought up from childhood external to her, will more readily find their true level, while those brought up within her pale, VOL. XXVII.—NO. LIII. [New Series.]

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