nothing new in it: but it is an honest affectionate apology by a Dominican, and a fair specimen of a way of thinking now beginning to be common among Churchmen in France. His account of himself in the Introduction, his going to Rome, the constancy of his affections towards France, and so forth, are very pleasing and instructive. A great effort is being made towards a practical revival of the Preaching Friars. It must not, however, be withheld that some of the helpers in this work of reviving Church feeling have exhibited that sad moral obliquity, which was the old stain upon Roman controversialists, and, it is to be feared, still continues to be so, for it cleaves even to persons who deserve our love. Such have been the translators of Voichts' Hildebrand, Hürter's Innocent III., and Ranke's Popes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The latter I read first in the French translation, and nothing but the witness of my own eyes could make me believe the iniquitous manner in which they have dealt with the facts as well as the words of the protestant author.

Another fault has characterized the Catholic movement in France, especially in the parts through which we have been travelling, and towards the Pyrenees. Every one knows that there are a mass of floating beliefs and customs, which move about with the Church of Rome wherever she moves, and yet are not received into the essence of her authoritative teaching. She is not committed to them

synodically. These have perplexed and irritated her controversial champions, and they have not unfrequently declined the responsibility of being sponsors for them; but it is not her génius to go back. Now one would have thought that where the Church had fallen into decay and was being renewed, her missionaries would have rejoiced at not finding, and therefore not having to continue, sundry of these loose opinions and practices, whose defence they have obviously felt so irksome heretofore, and whose propriety whole schools among them have more than doubted. Yet, perceiving education backward in parts of France, and being on that account emboldened to take their own line, they are throwing the revival of religious feeling into devotion to St. Mary, without even refining any of its grossness and dishonorable excess. Has the Church of Rome really borrowed from the Jesuits for ever the principle of stooping to the people, in lieu of raising the people to herself, and through herself to the Lord? It should be remembered that the weight upon the conscience which produced so much infidelity in the priests of Spain was far more from this cumbrous doctrinal and ritual accompaniment, from which, at least, the Church might free herself without sacrificing Trent, than from the Tridentine teaching itself, to which she is really committed.

Another book which was brought before me was an Exposition de Dogme Catholique by M. de Genoude. It is, however, a poor, diffuse, untheolo

gical volume. There are many things in it which are common in the conversations of Roman priests, and even in most of the modern Roman theologians whose works I have read, excepting Möhler's Symbolik, and Döllinger, and others of the Munich school. May such things be fairly taken as symptoms and indices of the effects of their system? One of the least pardonable is the way in which they treat Holy Baptism. Probably, if they were catechized on the point, their answers might come out full and orthodox; but in their books it appears very insignificantly, and that would seem to indicate, that it was not practically uppermost in their minds, that practically it was swallowed up by the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Take M. de Genoude's book as an illustration. M. de Genoude, casting about to see what would be the best means for repairing the shattered edifice of Catholicity in France, hits upon the revival of the Fathers of the Oratory, bound by no vow, and whose office is to be teachers of theology. of this scheme, he first obtains the consent of the ecclesiastical authorities to his plan, and then presents a memorial to the minister, M. Teste, at that time garde de sceaux. By the minister he is favorably answered. M. de Genoude now hastens to Rome, addresses a letter to the Pope, and finally has a personal interview with him. Meanwhile he suspects jealousy and dislike from some influential quarters, as to the teaching of these revived Fathers of the Oratory, its soundness, its exclusively religious

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character, and some other points. He prepares, therefore, an exposition of Catholic doctrine, which is to be at once the complement and corollary of all his former writings, and is to present a full epitome both of Church doctrine and of the proposed teaching of the new Fathers of the Oratory. Feeling that such a work as this ought to come before the public with something like the sanction of authority, he carries it with him to Rome, where it is formally examined and approved by Father Perone, who seems to have authority in these matters. Now this book, be it remembered, prefaced by all this long story, and being a code for teaching, is to be a "faithful exposition of the sublime doctrines of the Church." We find in it a long rambling chapter on the Blessed Virgin; and there is room also, it seems, for one on the rationale of a penal purgatory, and the evidence of God's mercy resulting from such a provision, and yet there is none on Holy Baptism. Nay more, the very mention of Baptism is rarer than one could have conceived it possible in any octavo theological volume, whatever might be its immediate subject; and where the word occurs, it is only some common Christian fashion of speech. This is one of the many points in which the lines of Roman and Puritanical teaching touch. Further, M. de Genoude continually uses the word regenerate to designate the office of the Holy Communion. This surely is defective work. One Sacrament is made to obscure, if not eclipse, the other. The

infinity of ecclesiastical Sacraments, to use old phraseology, is not by them, practically at least, divided into three classes: two which justify; five which have to do with our natural life, as Confirmation sealing Baptism, Penance clearing us of youthful or other sin, Marriage supplying children to the Church, Unction an apostolic rite for the restoration of the sick (now disused throughout the Church), and Orders the source of power to confer all other Sacraments; and a third class, into which are thrown all other symbolical rites, mystical acts in Scripture, and typical uses of material objects in liturgical services. A Roman divine acknowledges these three classes, but, as in the case of the Commandments, divides them differently. The Eucharist alone occupies the first class, Baptism being lowered into the other five. This is a method of theologizing strikingly different from that of English divinity. One might almost fancy, in this divided state of Christendom, that the entire faith was preserved to future and more favored generations, part by one Church, and part by another; each Church having somewhat of a different office to fulfil, and each, as it were, responsible for some particular part of Evangelical Tradition, which is in jeopardy elsewhere from neglect. And, if this be so, perhaps the dignity of Holy Baptism may be one of the charges given to the English Church, just as the respect for Antiquity seems, quite providentially, to have been confided to her.

It is an awe-inspiring privilege, if a man would