that belief in the Mosaic authorship was given up by Catholics, he would note the fact as another instance of variation on the part of the Church. It has been given up; for it was a mere exegetical opinion. The composite authorship of the Pentateuch is now looked upon by our scholars as established beyond dispute. In 1900 Father von Hummelauer declared, before a Catholic congress, that even some parts of Deuteronomy were written by the prophet Samuel, that is to say, three hundred years after the death of Moses. The exclusively Mosaic authorship is an opinion that has gone to join St. Augustine's belief about the incorruptibility of the peacock's flesh. Yet the vigilant eye of the High Priest detects no rent in the veil of the Temple; no Jeremias announces that the stones of the sanctuary are scattered at the head of every street. Nevertheless, out of the incident a Draper or a White will manufacture another empty charge against the unchanging Church.

Somebody, commenting on the views presented to the Catholic Congress at Munich by our leaders concerning the composite authorship of Deuteronomy, remarked that, if one wished to take the affair au tragique, one might make over it a fine apostrophe to Bossuet, the gendarme of tradition. Who, however, shall say that there is not a tragic side to the dramą? Literature holds few deeper tragedies than the pages in which Renan relates the loss of his faith-a tragedy not merely of an individual soul, but of countless others who have been inoculated with the virus of unbelief by the arch-rationalist. He has told the world that he lost his faith in the Church because his philological studies led him to conclusions at variance with the opinions held by his teachers upon many biblical points: "It is no longer possible," he said, "to maintain that the second part of Isaias is really of Isaias. The book of Daniel, which orthodoxy refers to the time of the Captivity, was composed in 169, or 170, B. C. The Book of Judith is a historical impossibility. The assignment of the Pentateuch to Moses cannot be sustained. And to deny that several parts of Genesis resemble myths is to commit one's self to taking as rigorously historical the accounts of the terrestrial paradise, the forbidden fruit, and the Ark of Noah." "Now," he goes on, "no one is a Catholic who departs, on even one of these points, from the traditional thesis." How far the man was responsible for this erroneous reasoning, and for the fatal step

which, he says, resulted from it, is not a question for human judges to decide. One thing is certain. If his studies proved to him clearly and convincingly that some theological or exegetical interpretation was erroneous, he ought to have concluded, not that the Church was teaching error, but that the incriminated opinion was a merely human one, for which the Church had never made herself responsible, and that, in due time, the error would be relegated to its proper place. In fact, to-day, understanding the term "resemble myths" in Father Lagrange's sense, there is not one point in the catalogue of instances above mentioned on which sound Catholic exegetes do not accept the view which Renan imagined to be incompatible with orthodoxy.*

The Scriptural interpretations of any particular time resemble theology, which, as the late Father Hogan wrote, comprises a great variety of elements of very unequal value -dogmas of faith, current doctrines, opinions freely debated, theories, inferences, conjectures, proofs of all degrees of cogency, from scientific demonstration down to intimations of the feeblest kind." The work of sifting the chaff from the wheat, in this mass, is carried on incessantly, and with special vigor at present when new knowledge pours in on all sides. In the prosecution of this work the Catholic critic looks primarily to the Church for guidance. When he finds that some obsolete conviction of merely human origin is to be laid aside, instead of saying to the Church, as did Renan, you have misled me, his words are: They shall perish, but thou remain est; and all of them shall grow old like a garment; and as a vesture thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed, but thou art always the self-same, and thy years shall not fail.

We are now close upon the other point on which I promised you some remarks-the opposition of the Church to science. But they must be deferred till another occasion. Meanwhile Believe me,

Yours fraternally,

*The Benedictine scholar, Dom Hildebrand Höpfl, cites, with approval, from Father Christian Pesch, S.J., the following statement: "The question whether Judith and Esther are historical works, or merely didactic and prophetic writings in the semblance of history, is to be decided by the literary critic, and is not to be solved by any theory of inspiration." He says of Tobias, Judith, and Esther: "We should be inclined to regard them as history, out of reverence for tradition; but we should not hold out stubbornly against criticism if it proves that they are not real history."-Das Büch der Bücher. Freiburg im Breisgau, 1904, pp. 162, f.

RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE AND AMERICAN SCHOOLS.

BY THE REVEREND THOMAS MCMILLAN C.S.P.

S a powerful advocate of Home Rule for Ireland, the Right Honorable John Morley, M. P., showed a commendable sense of justice, combined with an accurate knowledge relating to the welfare of the British Empire. For this reason it seems unfair to charge him with a desire to please his non-Conformist friends at any cost by a statement calculated to strengthen them in their unwise and unjust hostility to the law of England, which permits the recognition of Church Schools together with a proportionate share of the public funds. Such an accusation, however, may be fairly put forth in view of the report of his speech to his constituents after his return. from America, published January 18, 1905, in the London Times as follows:

Mr. Morley said there was no country where religion was more genuine or more earnest. The Common Schools of the United States were practically confined to secular instruction, yet nowhere in the world was religious knowledge more general.

This is a sweeping declaration for a man to make who knows fully the meaning of words, and is not a member of any Church. His previous studies at home and abroad have not been in the direction to qualify him for deciding on the requisite conditions to promote religious knowledge throughout the whole world. The facts of the case are against the statement made by the distinguished biographer of Mr. Gladstone; and his constituents, as honest men, should seek elsewhere more reliable information than was given to them by their representative in Parliament.

Some of the facts not discovered by Mr. Morley were stated by the editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, January 29, 1905, who is a sturdy advocate of Protestant ascendancy, though quite willing to enroll Catholics among the supporters of his paper.

Evidently he had in mind abundant material based on present conditions when he wrote these words:

DECLINING FAITH, INCREASING CRIME.

Although the average of men behave better than they used to do, and although the average of right conduct makes the infraction thereof more noticeable and obnoxious, it is not to be denied that in this country, at least, the moralities are less strict than they were half a century ago. If it is objected that few of the many murders are committed by Americans, it is none the less true that a moral obtuseness is shown by Americans of a class that would once have committed suicide if discovered in the plots and rogueries which have been promulgated and shared by men of the highest financial standing. We cannot close

our eyes to those measures in the legislatures of the states, and even of the nation, which have for their object the personal enrichment of men who frame the bills. The revelations of moral rottenness that have been made in New York, Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco, Pittsburg, and Philadelphia have been discouraging to preachers of the ascendant tendencies of democracy, and in our Senate seats have been notoriously bought, and held after their occupants have been repudiated by the entire body.

These manifestations have been attributed to the lax and partial enforcements of the law, but that merely shifts the blame from the wrongdoers to the bar, the judiciary, and the agencies for prosecution, reform, and punishment. The courts will be pure where the people are pure. It is the entire American people that is at fault. But it is observable that as crime has increased Church-going has decreased. This again may not instance the decay of faith, but only of discontent with Church methods, and of concessions to the world's lures that are cast out so freely on Sunday, but that in themselves imply nothing of the irreligious. It is to be feared, however, that religious faith has lost its hold on millions, and that among those millions are many who need the corrective of fear. .

It is hard to believe that men who sincerely believed in the felicity or the pains of a hereafter should go so low as men have done in finance, in politics, in business, for the gain of a few years. Men organize ship building trusts that are swindles, and not one of them is indicted or punished. Manufacturers of food products . injure the health

of the community without a seeming twinge of conscience. Men about to undertake a crime take expert legal advice in advance, and secure expensive counsel with the profits of their undertaking, and it is seldom that public opinion expresses contempt for them. Officials elected by the people prove false to their trusts, and it is impossible to bring them to trial. Graft is everywhere, and the dollar

is above the Deity.

Hitherto the Churches have concerned themselves largely with matters of doctrine. . But now the Church confronts a real evil, and there is need of union to suppress it. Mere lack of faith does not concern the people of a free country, but crime does, whether it arises from this lack or otherwise. We want less killing, less stealing, less of Wall Street, less rowdyism and obscenity, less corruption in politics, less carelessness on moral questions in society. If ethics are a slow growth of the socialized state, their destruction is appallingly facile, and they must be reconstructed at a cost of centuries of effort, unless the moral effects of faith are restored to us. For that restoration the Churches of all faiths should work in harmony.

Similar declarations to the above have been published in previous years by the Brooklyn Eagle, whose editor holds a high position in the educational department of New York State. The most notable was on the occasion of an alarming exhibit of youthful depravity in a select residence district of Brooklyn, which provided the background for the following editorial:

Right and wrong in the affairs of conduct are not matters of instinct; they have to be learned, just as really in fact as history or handicrafts. Is this knowledge being imparted to our children in any efficient way and by any efficient teachers? Is the public school doing it? Is the Church doing it? Are fathers and mothers doing it? We are compelled to say No to all these queries. The truth is, we are taking for granted a moral intelligence which does not exist. We are leaning upon it, depending upon it, trusting to it, and it is not there.

Our whole machinery of education, from the kindergarten up to the university, is perilously weak at this point. We have multitudes of youths and grown men and women who have no more intelligent sense of what is right and wrong than had so many Greeks of the time of Alcibiades.