to the status of the Indian tribes that Catron repudiated."

As we have before remarked, it was stated by the Governor that Tennessee had been cited to appear before the Supreme Court. No further record of the case appears, nor is any mention of such a case to be found in Peters's Reports. The reason is probably not far to seek. The negotiations of 1835 were in progress, and on December 29, the Treaty of New Echota was successfully concluded. This indicated the speedy removal of the Cherokees, and there was no longer any principle involved." But the passage of the Act of 1833 by a Legislature under the control of the Jackson party, and the closely argued decision of one of Jackson's strongest political supporters, both taking place after Marshall's decision in Worcester vs. Georgia, were aggressive steps which, if the case had come before Marshall, could hardly have been regarded as other than a direct challenge. In a few weeks, John Marshall was dead; a year later, Catron was appointed by Jackson to a seat upon the Supreme Bench.

The University of the South.

ST. GEORGE L. SIOUSSAT.

13 VIII Yerger, pp. 256-337. Justice Green concurred, reaching the same conclusions chiefly on the ground of expediency and intimating that it was a political matter. Justice Peck, dissenting, upheld the treaty-making power. Ibid., pp. 337-353, 353-370. The argument of Yerger, for the State, is in the appendix.

14 Another incident, not essential to this narrative, was the coming across the Tennessee line of the Georgia Guard, which aroused feeling in Tennessee and necessitated an explanation by Georgia.

THE MODERNISTS AND THE CURIA*

High authorities at Rome have defined modernism and would assign alcoves for modernists themselves as heretics, near their prototypes in the Spanish Chapel of S. Mona Novella in Florence. But neither modernism is illuminated, nor are the modernists satisfied with the official attempt to place their work in relation to traditional religious thought. Those who are desirous of examining the cause of their dissatisfaction, may be referred to the recent encyclical and syllabus passim. Both of these documents are examples of curial genius and industry, but there are few who have not had the advantage of a "scholastic" training who possess the key to unlock the stupendous intellectual treasures contained in them. It might be recommended as a suitable amusement for a warm summer afternoon on a green sward, underneath umbrageous trees, amid the harmonious buzzing of insects, to follow these devious paths of scholastic reconstruction under the leadership of the authors of the syllabus and encyclical. We say authors because we believe it is an open secret that more than one hand and more than one mind were concerned in tracking down the modernists and affixing the heretical label to the various items of their workmanship. The patient disciple will be rewarded, not indeed, in the

* For a short but careful review of the literature of Modernism, the reader is referred to Koehler's Bibliography in Die Christliche Welt, 20th of February, 1908. There has been an interesting series of articles discussing modernism by German Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars, such as Hauck, Troeltsch, Eucken, Schnitzer, Ehrhard, in the Internationale Wochenschrift of Berlin, at the close of 1907 and the beginning of 1908. Professor Michelitsch, of Gratz, has published the encyclical and syllabus of Pius X, with the full literary sources illustrating the text from the writings of Loisy, and with the documents dealing with the cases of Schell, Tyrrell and other prominent Modernists. The most significant modernist reviews are in Italian, Il Rinnovamento and Nova et Vetera of Rome. For English readers the best works to consult are Father Tyrrell's books, especially the much-abused "Letter" and the translation of the "Programme" of Modernism published in the Crown Theological Library, Williams's volume entitled "Loisy and Newman" and A. L. Lilley's "Modernism." In French, especially note-worthy besides Loisy's books and pamphlets, are the works of Laberthonnière, Leroy and Houtin.

way he anticipated, for he is certain after his most strenuous efforts in pursuing syllogisms not to increase his store of knowledge on the subject of modernism, but he will come to know what is more valuable perhaps, the traits of mind and the characteristics of temper that are making a bugbear of modernism and shaking to its foundations the magisterium of the Roman See. This result is important to keep in mind, for the student of modernism will not begin to get his bearings unless he winds in and about the rock-bound and precipitous coast of the scholastic terra firma. For this service the two Papal documents we have mentioned are invaluable. Those who have built upon the material they furnish, a systematic method of thought, and can see behind the propositions they contain the personalities from whose brains they were woven, are able to get the best clue of what the programme of the modernists means and the difficulties under which they labor in bringing that programme to acceptance and recognition.

It must be said at the outset that the term modernists is not a happy one. Imagine the movement represented by them continuing for a decade or two; modernism then would be a misnomer, for a modernist then would mean a man who held to a body of doctrine or used methods of thought not exactly modern, but something out of date by ten years at most. This would be an awkward predicament. Really the first thing the modernists ought to do after they have recovered from the terror of Papal condemnation, is to select a more discriptive and accurate title. It is somewhat presumptuous to imply so plainly that the times we live in ourselves are of such extreme importance that they must be divided off and singled out from every other period in the history of thought. Judged by the standards of his own day, St. Augustine was a modernist; St. Thomas Aquinas was a modernist; Pope Sylvester II was a modernist par excellence, for contrary to all precedent he studied Arabic learning and introduced the organ, and in consequence was thought to be possessed of the devil. Any movement in contradiction to a generally recognized method of thought has a right sub specie æternatis to be called modernism. The appropriateness of the title can only be allowed on purely

pragmatic grounds. Modernists are in open revolt against the official teaching of the modern Roman Church, so the word selected for their movement implies that the official authorities of the church are out of touch with the age in which they live and can only be brought in touch with it by sacrificing what they hold so dear.

Of all the modernist writers in English, Father Tyrrell is the best known and most widely read, and deservedly the most influential. It is true that the authors of the encyclical had especially in mind in their condemnations Abbé Loisy, the famous French theological scholar, the man who could meet Harnack on his own ground, and could puncture with an analytical power equal to that of the famous German, Harnack's interpretation of the early development of the Christian Church. Loisy has shown in his recent pamphlet on the encyclical that many of the propositions it condemns are taken almost without change from his writings. But matters have moved rapidly since the publication of these Papal documents. It is no longer possible to say that in order for a modernist to be condemned, he must accept the position of the "much abused letter of Tyrrell," or must agree with the "Gospel and the Church" of Loisy. The authorities at Rome are strict interpretationists, verbal literalists, when the text of Scripture is concerned, but they are the most liberal interpreters of the language of their own documents. Perhaps this liberality may be regarded as settling in a negative sense the much discussed question as to whether the encyclical comes under the conditions of the Vatican decree of infallibility. The admirers of Professor Schell in Germany, a writer whose works never showed the slightest sympathy with the point of view either of Loisy or Tyrrell, have been condemned for disloyalty to their church in the vigorous language which the text of the recent Papal documents has made familiar. It was proposed not many months ago to erect a memorial to Schell who before his death had made his due submission to the authorities of the inquisition according to the recognized formula. He did not die like Professor Mivart under the censures of his ecclesiastical superiors. Yet by Papal direction the memorial had to be given up,

although several German bishops including the Archbishop of Bamberg were among the subscribers. Professor Commers of Vienna, who distinguished himself by an odious attack on Schell's character, had the honor of receiving a personal letter of congratulation on his defense of the faith from the Pope himself. From the very first, German Roman Catholic scholars, those who are teaching in great universities like Munich, Tübingen, Bonn, Strasburg and Würtzburg have been careful to dissociate themselves from the theories and the methods of the modernist school of England, France and Italy. Yet neither their caution nor their sincerity has availed to protect them from the fulminations of the Roman curia. Professor Schnitzer, who has an established reputation as a historian of dogma has been excommunicated. His fault was not modernism in any sense, but that he criticised the encyclical which condemned modernism on the purely scientific ground that it made real scholarship in the Roman Catholic Church extremely difficult by interchanging the relations between assumption and fact. Professor Ehrhard of Strasburg, who enjoys a titular dignity as prelate of the Pope, has also spoken his mind on the bad impression made on academic circles by the curial attempt to test all learning by scholastic precedent. He too, has been made the object of savage attack by the reactionary religious press in Rome and Germany. Even the University of Innsbrück, where the Jesuits have so strong a control, is not without its victim. One of the members of the law faculty who commented in an unfavorable sense on the encyclical, has been recently complained of officially by the Papal nuncio in Vienna and his removal from his chair demanded. But both in Germany and Austria, curial politicians and fanatics have to move with much more caution than they do in those regions where the Church is either disestablished, or only has loose relations with the State. Professor Schnitzer still retains his chair in the University of Munich, Professor Ehrhard's place at Strasburg is equally secure, and a strong demand has been made on the Austrian government that the Papal nuncio should be recalled for interfering in a ministerial department outside of his cognizance.

Germans have been late to enter on the field of this contro