persons. Man, who possesses the largest share of originating power in nature, cannot do more than, as it were, set the sail of his intent at different angles, so as to catch and use the prevailing force. A boat floats down the stream a passive victim to the general laws of nature; a second boat moves up the stream by means of machinery intelligently adapted to set the resistance of the water against the action of the current. It has the impress of man's purpose; the law of the current's action is not suspended, its force is not directly coerced, it is counterbalanced and overbalanced. A third boat laden with bread, unmanned, without machinery, moves up the stream to a famine-stricken village in deference to a whispered prayer; an intelligent superhuman force is exerted on it pro hác vice for a distinct purpose. What is it that puts this last phenomenon outside the sphere of man's activity? Is it not in the initial non-submission to the forces in possession involved in the neglect of adequate means? No one can deny that such contrariety does in fact form part of the phenomenon of a miracle, and it is surely gratuitous to suppose that our Lord, for instance, was not doing what He seemed to be doing when He raised Lazarus with the cry of "Lazarus, come forth," that instead of exercising an altum dominium over the forces in possession He was only enacting the part of a subtle chemist, and combining them afresh. In one sense, of course, nothing that God does can be "contra naturam," because no created nature has any wall of separation in respect to its Creator. On the other hand, God may act "contra naturam" as originally constituted by making any given nature for the nonce do something more than it was originally qualified to do.

We hardly think men of science will be in any degree conciliated by the line our author has taken. What offends them is precisely the phenomenal non-naturalness which remains just where it was. Again, to make a miracle the immediate result of a combination of existent natural forces, to which, however, natural science cannot attain, has the effect of obtruding the miracle further into the domain of science without lessening its antagonism.

We think then this rejection of the "contra naturam" a failure as a reconciliation with science, and as at least suggesting very imperfect ideas of God's relations to His creatures. For man indeed certain paths are traced amongst the forces of nature outside which he cannot move a step, but to God the whole of nature is pervious.

We have felt ourselves obliged to dwell at considerable length upon these important points of disagreement, but we cannot close our eyes to much that is exceedingly good in this essay. Nothing, for instance, can be better than the very complete and clever exposure of the way in which the scientific opponents of miracles-nominatim Professor Tyndall and the author of Supernatural Religion-play fast and loose with the à priori and sense" philosophies. They oppose, he points out (p. 38), the inference as to the existence of God by dissevering the tie between cause and effect, whereas in dealing with miracles they have "tightened the tie to such a degree as to render miracles impossible."

66

Although we can trace the depreciatory view of the evidential office of

miracles in the formation of the definition, we are disposed to think that an acceptance of the latter might be combined with the common view of the office of miracles. We regard the definition-always excepting the accidental non-exclusion of natural design-as a true presentation, as far as it goes, of the miracle, i.e., as a description answering to the miracle and to nothing else, and so as affording a useful controversial platform. What we have wished to insist upon is that the rejection of the note "contra naturam at least involves an acquiescence in a so far imperfect presentation of the rationale of the miracle.

The Relations of the Church to Society. By F. O'REILLY, S. J., Nos. xxii. xxiii. xxiv. ("Irish Monthly Magazine" for March, May, and June, 1876).

THE

HE March and May numbers of this admirable series are occupied with the Council of Constance. Nothing can be more interesting and more clearly drawn out than F. O'Reilly's view of that much discussed Council, nor more conclusive as against Mr. Gladstone; though it is not in all respects the one which to us appears more probable. The bias of our own view was sufficiently set forth in April, 1875, pp. 469— 477; but our present concern is of course with F. O'Reilly's. He considers that John XXIII. was almost certainly the true Pontiff; nor does any part of his argument turn on a denial, that the Council was ecumenical throughout its celebration. He holds as more probable, that the famous Decrees of the Fourth and Fifth Sessions were never intended as dogmatic definitions, but only as a declaration such as assemblies and committees and courts make as to their own completeness and authority and jurisdiction"; and he further maintains as completely certain, that even had they been intended as definitions, they were not confirmed by Martin V. In considering that utterance of the latter Pontiff which has been claimed as their confirmation, he lays little stress on the word "conciliariter"; but dwells much more emphatically on the "in materiâ fidei." He points out that during the whole Council this phrase was consistently used, in relation to matters connected with the then prevalent heresy of Huss and Wickliff, as opposed to matters connected with the prevalent schism. Considering the triteness of the whole theme, it is very remarkable with how much freshness and life he treats it.

The following paragraph (p. 234) extends over much wider ground, and is worthy of most attentive consideration.

"The great schism of the West suggests to me a reflection which I take the liberty of expressing here. If this schism had not occurred, the hypothesis of such a thing happening would appear to many chimerical. They would say it could not be ; God would not permit His Church to come into so unhappy a situation. Heresies might spring up and spread and last painfully long, through the fault and to the perdition of their authors and abettors, to the great distress too of the faithful, increased by

actual persecution in many places where the heretics were dominant. But that Catholics should be divided on the question of who was Pontiff, that the true Church should remain between thirty and forty years without a thoroughly ascertained Head and representative of Christ on earth, this could not be. Yet it has been, and we have no guarantee that it will not be again, though we may fervently hope otherwise. What I would infer is, that we must not be too ready to pronounce on what God may permit. We know with absolute certainty that He will fulfil His promises; that He will not allow anything to occur at variance with them; that He will sustain His Church and enable her to triumph over all enemies and all difficulties; that He will give to each of the faithful those graces which are needed for each one's service of Him and attainment of salvation, as He did during the great schism we have been considering, and in all the sufferings and trials which the Church has passed through from the beginning. We may also trust that He will do a great deal more than what He has bound Himself to by His promises. We may look forward with a cheering probability to exemption for the future from some of the troubles and misfortunes that have befallen in the past. But we, or our successors in future generations of Christians, shall perhaps see stranger evils than have yet been experienced, even before the immediate approach of that great winding up of all things on earth that will precede the Day of Judgment. I am not setting up for a prophet, nor pretending to foresee unhappy wonders, of which I have no knowledge whatever. All I mean to convey is, that contingencies regarding the Church, not excluded by the Divine promises, cannot be regarded as practically impossible, because they would be terrible and distressing in a very high degree."

In the June number, F. O'Reilly discusses some of the questions about marriage which Mr. Gladstone raised; and throws a flood of new light on them. Our only doubt on the perfect success of his paper would be, whether he did not sketch for himself at starting a somewhat larger outline, than it was possible within his limits to fill in quite satisfactorily.

Short Sermons preached in the Chapel of S. Mary's College, Oscott. London: Burns & Oates.

T is now pretty generally understood, that to write effective sermons

place, "goodyism" or pious platitudes must before all things be carefully avoided; and then, further, one hardly knows whether more harm would be done by placing the standard at an unduly high point, or on the other hand by giving undue toleration to the worldly and heathenish principles with which the mind of young men is sure to be largely infected. Perhaps Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, was the first Christian preacher who took a right measure of what was wanted; and his successor, Dr. Temple, has reaped no contemptible harvest in a similar field.

While the present volume impresses us as bearing unmistakable traces of Dr. Arnold's influence, we need hardly say that its writers have had a singular advantage over him, in the fact of their addressing youths imbued

with Catholic doctrine and placed under Catholic discipline. For our own part we can hardly fancy a more complete success than for the most part they impress us as achieving. One thing in particular strikes us: viz. the great unity of practical thought and principle which the divers preachers represent. We may fairly say that the two funeral sermons, with which the volume concludes, commemorate the very kind of character, which one would expect to be formed by such practical teaching as is contained in the earlier sermons.

Where so much is excellent, it is difficult to make selections. The subjects seem to us on the whole admirably chosen comprising not merely matters of practical piety (though there is abundance also of this), but the Catholic view of such speculative questions as will certainly present themselves to the mind of contemporary youths.

Take e.g. the seventeenth-" Nature the servant of God." We never met with a more satisfactory statement than the following, on the rationale of prayer for change of weather, good harvest, and the like. "Though there be," says the preacher, "not ten but ten thousand links of cause and effect between the emission of the ray from the sun and the ripe grain in the ear of corn, still He, the First Cause, has only to will, and His divine power moves along the whole chain" (p. 183). But if this be so intelligible, why is it that those most given to physical studies are often most bold in denying His Providence? Because "God becomes known to the external world in each soul, only so far as He is known to it in its own inner self." Man must begin by knowing God "as He reveals Himself in the conscience." "If we withdraw ourselves in our inmost souls from God, it is in vain to seek Him elsewhere" (pp. 184-5).

In a different line, the sixteenth, on "England and Rome," will well repay attentive study; and as Catholic youths go out into the world, they cannot but exhibit (one would think) the beneficial effects produced by such instruction.

At last, however, every thing else is insignificant, as compared with the great question, whether youths are really making it the main work of their life to obey and please their Creator. Or rather, the importance of other questions depends on their bearing on this all-important foundation. We are extremely impressed by the thoroughness with which this foundation is laid down, from the beginning to the end of the volume before us.

Rome and Italy. A letter to the Duke of Norfolk, by the Right Rev. Monsignore PATTERSON. London: Longman.

Mgr. Patterson's admirable letter reaches us only on the eve of publi cation; and we must content ourselves, therefore, with one extract (pp. 51, 2), on the proceedings of Victor Emmanuel's Government :

"Let me then briefly recite a few particulars, not mere aspirations or declamations in the Chambers, but legislative enactments and changes

made in the constitution of the country. They may be called anticlerical, but in truth they are simply anti-Christian.

"1. They have introduced civil registration of birth as an equivalent and alternative for Christian baptism.

"2. They have permitted and encouraged civil interment, instead of Christian burial.

"3. They have abolished oaths in courts of law.

"4. They have systematically encouraged the profanation of the Sunday and great Christian festivals of Christmas, Easter, &c. &c., by ordering the prosecution of the Government buildings and other public works on Sundays; by ostentatiously holding their sessions on those days; by ordering public lectures in the universities and higher schools on the Sundays as on week days, &c. &c.

"5. They have established civil marriage as an equivalent before the law for Christian marriage, and as necessary in all cases besides the religious ceremony.

"6. They have established a recognised system of public immorality, with a code of remunerations and rewards, holding out a premium for immorality by indemnities, and deriving from this shameful source a revenue applied to augment the secret service funds.

"These laws are not only an outrage on the conscience of the Italian people, they are an attack on Christianity in its first principles and its hold on human society; nay, on the very sanctions of the natural order which bind men together and make them superior to a horde of savages. In every one of these provisions there is a direct attack upon religion and morals; and still people ask, Why does not the Pope reconcile himself with the system of which they are a part and parcel? Why does not fire reconcile itself with water; why does not day reconcile itself with night, light with darkness, Christ with Belial?"

Five Lectures on the City of Ancient Rome and her Empire over the Nations, the Divinely-sent Pioneer of the Way for the Catholic Church. By the Rev. HENRY FORMBY. London: Burns, Oates, & Co. 1876.

MR.

R. FORMBY seldom writes anything that is not full of thought and originality; and even when we cannot entirely accept his views, his exposition of them is always eminently suggestive, and sure to instruct as well as interest. We well remember the pleasure with which, now many years ago, we read his essays on the Holy Roman (or Germanic) Empire, in whose history of a thousand years he traced the fulfilment of apocalyptic prophecy. We have here another contribution to the Christian philosophy of history. The idea that ancient Rome was in many ways the pioneer of the Church is a familiar one, but Mr. Formby, in his thesis, gives it a more than usually wide extension; and, assuming the historic truth of what we are told of "peaceful Numa's reign," would have us regard the second of the seven kings as the founder at Rome of a theistic national religion, whose ultimate source was the Mosaic revelation, this religion further being the actual basis of all the institutions and relations of the State. He then endeavours to show how Rome, with this constitution, prepared the nations for the reception of Christianity. Were