THE GERMAN PEOPLE.
By Janssen.

Two additional volumes * of the English translation of Janssen's History of the German People have appeared, and surely it would be superfluous to praise them. This monumental work is established among the classical historical writings of the last century, and no one, whether Catholic or Protestant, can in future pretend to a thorough knowledge of the German Reformation, and of the times just preceding, who has not studied it. It would be disgraceful for any Catholic institution of learning not to possess it, and it would be unpardonable in any priest or educated layman, who can afford the price, not to have it on his shelves.

These two volumes cover the period between the years 1550 and 1580. It will be seen at a glance, therefore, how important are the subjects with which they deal. For within those thirty years fell such events as: The religious conference at Worms in 1557, the Diet of Augsburg in 1559, the GrumbachGotha conspiracy for a Lutheran empire, the effects in Germany of the religious wars in France and the Netherlands, the war against the Turks, the establishment and progress of the Jesuits in Germany, and the concluding sessions and general effect of the Council of Trent. These great events and many others of similar moment are treated with Janssen's well known. fulness of detail, abundance of scholarship, and sturdy Catholic spirit. We must not omit a special mention of the chapter on the labors of the first Jesuits in Germany. They were mighty men, learned, holy, zealous, and tactful. To no four men that ever lived in any other single period of her history does the Catholic Church owe more than to Faber, Bobadilla, Jajus, and Canisius. They were marvelously prudent in dealing with the Lutherans. They saw that the age was sick of violent controversy, of calling bad names, and of exchanging ribaldry, and perceived that a calm statement and dispassionate defence of Catholicity, joined to sanctity of life and serenity of temper, were the only efficient instruments for the non-Catholic missions of their day.

See the spirit of Faber in the following words written to

History of the German People. By Johannes Janssen. Vols. VII. and VIII., 1550-1580. Translated by A. M. Christie. St. Louis B. Herder.

Lainez his Superior-General; they contain a lesson even for us: "Those who wish to be of service against the present-day heretics must above all things be distinguished by large-hearted charity toward them, and must treat them with high esteem. We must begin not with what separates hearts in discord and schism, but with all that draws them closer together." These men tell us over and over that the Church can do nothing with the Germans until she understands them and knows how to take them. Says Canisius, writing to Lainez in 1559 "Rome might do anything she wishes in Germany, if only the German character is properly treated"; and then he goes on to declare that the mode of publishing ecclesiastical penalties must be modified, and the severity of the Index of prohibited books mitigated, if Church authority is to be submitted to in Germany. Finally he cautions a sarcastic theologian thus: "Men of distinction and learning agree with me in thinking that much in your writings might be more suitably put. Your witticisms on the names of Calvin and Melancthon and other similar things may be suitable for a platform orator, but conceits of speech do not become a theologian at the present day. We do not heal the sick by such medicine; we only render their disease incurable. In defending the truth we must observe charity, considerateness, and moderation." We have testimony as sad as it is abundant that these counsels of the holy Jesuit of the sixteenth century are acutely needed to-day.

In conclusion we must thank both the translator and the publisher of Janssen's great work for making it accessible to English and American readers.

CATHOLICISM AND
PROTESTANTISM.
By Baudrillart.

M. Alfred Baudrillart, of the Catholic University of Paris, has published ten lectures on Catholicism and Protestantism which make interesting reading, and will doubtless be found useful in popular apologetics. It is already in its fifth French edition, although published much less than a year ago, and we should not be surprised if its circulation among English-speaking Catholics would turn out to be correspondingly large. The book contains three lectures on the Renaissance, and follows them up with chapters on the origin *L'Église Catholique, la Renaissance, le Protestantisme. Par Alfred Baudrillart. Paris:

Librairie Bloud.

and character of the Reformation, religious persecution, and the comparative influence of Catholicity and Protestantism on learning, morals, and general civilization. These are questions which call first for extensive historical information, secondly for wide and philosophical principles, and thirdly for an impartial, uncontroversial, and candid mind. M. Baudrillart possesses scholarship of unusual extent; he often displays a just and critical temper; and to the extent of these two qualities, he has written a creditable book. But in the matter of large views and comprehensive judgments we dare not say that he is so successful. He is apt to look merely at the origins or the originators of historic movements rather than at the movements themselves in their full sweep and mature development. In considering, for example, the influence of Protestantism on civilization, he bases his inquiry chiefly on the opinions of Luther and the other early leaders of the religious revolt. And because he finds Luther an intemperate foe of universities, and Calvin a stern upholder of persecution, he is prone to apply to the movement which began with these men conclusions which can logically be predicated only of the men themselves. Granted that Luther styled reason the bond servant of Satan, and wrote coarse invective against schools of higher learning, what has this to do with the deeper historical problem of the intellectual influence of Protestantism? Every great current of human history flows immeasurably further than those could see who stood at its source and saw it as a narrow rivulet. Islam is more than Mahomet; the Crusades became something vaster than Urban II. foresaw; and who will confine the revolutionary power of the critical philosophy or of evolutionistic science to the personal views of Kant or Darwin?

We are obliged to make one other animadversion upon this generally worthy volume. M. Baudrillart, wishing to score a point against the unwarranted license into which the higher criticism of the Bible has sometimes degenerated, has treated modern biblical science itself with unpardonable lack of fair play. In the two or three pages that are concerned with the matter, he implies that the labors of Scripture-criticism have had no other method or motive than to destroy every definite religious creed. This is another instance, and a peculiarly flagrant instance, of the lack of large and unprovincial views which is

the chief limitation of this book. The critical process, as applied to the Bible, has made blunders, as every one knows, and has produced some men who have been as intemperate in this field as Haeckel has been in the department of evolution. But biblical criticism as such is too momentous a thing to be confounded and condemned with its accidental errors and its unworthy spokesmen. Perhaps no single movement of the human mind has been of such importance for the lives and souls of men. And to despatch it with a gesture of contempt is fatal to any man's claim to wisdom of judgment or breadth of view. The deep tides of history are not to be sounded with a syllogism or swept back with a shibboleth. But in passing these criticisms we would not be understood as disparaging M. Baudrillart's book in substance. For in substance it is good, keen, honest, and to a high degree practically useful. Priests and educated laymen will find it full of fruitful suggestion and profitable information.

CARDINAL ALEMAN.
By Perouse.

A biography of the man who presided over the schismatical council of Basle would have to be poorly written indeed not to be intensely interesting. That wonderful assembly of recalcitrant prelates, monks, and clerks that sat for eighteen years in council defying the appeals and excommunications of the Roman Pontiff, that stood out so stubbornly for the principle bequeathed by Constance, of a general council's supremacy over the Pope, that deposed the lawful Pope and created the last of the antiPopes, and finally dwindled to pitiable insignificance and died out in ignominy, must ever be accounted a momentous event, whose influence continued long after every man who took part in it had passed away. It began its sessions just after Constance had closed its great career, and wrote the last words of its proceedings at Lausanne only half a century before the outbreak of the mighty revolt which was to lose half of Europe to the ancient Church Basle was a proximate preparation for the Reformation. Constance was a preparation for it too, but remoter. At Basle astounded Europe saw mitred churchmen summon to their tribunal a Pope about whose election there had never arisen a shadow of doubt, and when he answered this unheard of impudence with censures, pronounced him a

schismatic and deposed him. The debates-and they were interminable-turned upon the one revolutionary idea that a general council is absolutely autonomous, and that it has power to do what it wills with the chief Bishop of the Church. Such an example was not without profound effect in every State upon the continent. Forty years afterward Savonarola justified his disobedience of Alexander VI. on the conciliar and papal theories of Constance and Basle. And when fifteen or twenty years after Savonarola, another monk preached the utter abolition of the Papacy, he announced a message for which the minds of men were not unprepared. To the historian Basle and Constance are the seed-time;, the Reformation is the harvest.

The president of the schismatical sessions of the council of Basle, whose life has just been conscientiously and ably written by M. Gabriel Perouse,* was Cardinal Louis Aleman, a Frenchman whom Martin V., at the end of the Great Schism, had raised to high honors, but who had fallen into disfavor under Eugenius IV. Aleman stood out pertinaciously in the council for the deposition of Eugenius, and was the means of electing, as anti-Pope, Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, who took the name of Felix V. Aleman was by natural disposition moderate and conciliating. But in pushing on to extreme measures at Basle he was a radical of radicals. This was because he maintained so passionately the supremacy of Council over Pope. To this principle he gave himself up heart and soul, and doubtless held to it as firmly at the hour of his death as at the sessions of the council. Even when the schism had faded almost to extinction, and Felix V. had become a rather ridiculous figure, Aleman gave way not an inch. He was by the side of Felix to the end. Fortunately that end was peaceful; for owing to the efforts of the King of France, Felix abdicated his dubious dignity, and the refractories of Basle acknowledged the real Pope, Nicholas V.

It is astonishing that within seventy-five years from this reconciliation a Pope should have beatified Cardinal Aleman. Yet beatified he was, and he is commemorated to-day in his old diocese of Arles. History has dealt kindly with his virtues, but harshly with his theories. M. Perouse is to be congratulated on his excellent biography.

Le Cardinal Louis Aleman, Président du Concile de Bâle. Par Gabriel Perouse. Paris: Alphonse Picard et Fils.