letter, or protest of some zealous Churchman of some one of the innumerable schools about him. Thus stored, and thus armed, he proceeds to write his sermon or prepare his notes. However good his intentions, what can he do but excogitate a "view?" Whether he expounds a text or developes a subject, if he dreads being logically sceptical, and will not be stupidly moral, there is nothing left for him but to throw together, on the spur of the moment, a few texts and ideas, and reduce them, by as rapid a process as possible, to something that seems both consistent and original, comprehensive and analytical, philosophical and scriptural. He cannot do what a Catholic theologian does-take a part of one mighty system, unfold it, dilate upon it, and enforce it on the consciences of his hearers in straightforward, natural language, conscious that he has a sure grasp of the pure truth which Almighty God has revealed, and that what he is now saying is perfectly consistent with what he said a year ago, and will be consistent with what he will say a year hence. His theology is manufactured for the occasion, and his hearers go away with the impression that he is a very interesting, instructive, original, impressive, and scriptural preacher; but with about as accurate theological ideas of any one Christian dogma as a country farmer who travels by railway possesses of the laws which govern the locomotive which whirls him along at racehorse speed.

The most painful instances of the perils of this viewy tendency of modern Protestant preaching are to be found in the manner in which the adorable person of our blessed Lord is habitually spoken of by almost all Anglican preachers. In the Dissenting sects we are less struck by the incessant heretical language of those who imagine that they believe the doctrine of the incarnation of the Eternal Son. We think it but natural that the more awful and mysterious the subject, the more wretched should be the display of human ignorance when it seeks by its own powers for that knowledge which God alone can communicate. It is in the sermons of the Church of England clergy, educated from infancy in the profession of the creeds, including a familiarity with the Athanasian Symbol, that we start to recognise the most fearful of heresies, uttered unconsciously in every variety of shape, on the subject of the divinity of Jesus Christ. It was said, some years ago, by a Protestant Professor of Divinity at Oxford, that a large number of the clergy of his own communion were Nestorians. And almost every Protestant sermon betrays the truth of the charge. Both laity and clergy of the Establishment possess, as a body, nothing more than "views" respecting the nature of our

blessed Saviour. They make and hold theories respecting Him. Almost every sermon shews that the preacher has put together a set of mysterious texts, aided by Catholic terms, and impeded by the helplessness of mortal intellect, and has framed for himself some vague idea, which flits backwards and forwards before his thoughts, and eludes his grasp when he would test its reality.

one.

So, too, on every subject of popular controversy. Let a conscientious Anglican layman go into a Protestant church, hoping to find some clear and intelligent guide to the truth of the Gospel, he finds that every man has his "views," agreeing only in one thing-that the "Roman" doctrine is not the true Of the Anglican clergy of the present day, there are few who, during the last ten or fifteen years, have not held and preached some ten or fifteen views on the real presence, on sin after baptism, on confession, on monasticism, on the union of Church and State, on Bishops, on the Church of Rome, on the Fathers, on private judgment, and on every thing else that has been the subject of debate. Not yet prepared for logical unbelief, abhorring the true Catholic Church, disliking ultra-Lutheranism and Calvinism, and turning up their noses at Dissent, the Anglican clergy, as a body, save those who have adhered to the good old dulness of their fathers, have probably enunciated, since the commencement of the Tracts for the Times, the most astounding collection of "views" ever put forth by mortal man.

That such should be their characteristics during the next ten or fifteen years is, however, impossible. "Viewiness" is but a transient phase in the history of a religious communion. Logic is, in some sort, a necessary of human existence; and logic insists upon progress in thought, if not towards Rome, at least towards unbelief. Men who think and teach religion to others must resort either to St. Thomas and Perrone, or to Voltaire and Hume. The High-Church party are already going back. The Evangelicals have done so long ago. The Independents and Baptists are fraternising with the followers of Socinus. The Socinians are stepping forward and recognising the tenets of Strauss as their own. John Wesley would scarcely know his own again could he revisit the Wesleyans. The "via media" between Catholicism and Infidelity is a conveniently movable path, which, wherever it is placed, is ever supposed to be in the middle between extremes; and even when a man has come openly to deny the inspiration of Scripture, he will still think himself a believer in the Bible. All tends in one direction. The Bishop of Exeter and Mr. Gorham, Dr. Pusey and his nuns, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Dr.

Hampden,-all are hand in hand engaged in the awful work; yielding up one dogma after another before the demands of an imperious logic, till the terrible hour is come when the Catholic Church alone will be even called by the name of Jesus Christ.

Such is the history of those who are not within that body where the science of religion is not only safe, but necessary. They have eaten, in the person of their first father and mother, of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; but their eyes are closed to that transcendently glorious structure of the knowledge of good which the second Adam has vouchsafed to his people. Those fragments of that knowledge with which they have been wantonly sporting are vanishing from their eyes; the knowledge of evil alone remains, and God alone can tell what shall be in the end. Let us, therefore, be more earnest than ever in that one glorious work by which at present we can chiefly aid them, and pray incessantly for the conversion of England.

THE PAPAL STATES: MILEY AND GAUME.

The History of the Papal States, from their Origin to the Present Day. By the Rev. John Miley, D.D., Author of "Rome under Paganism and the Popes." In 3 vols. London, Newby.

Les Trois Rome; Journal d'un Voyage en Italie. Par l'Abbé J. Gaume. 4 vols. Paris, Gaume Frères.

WHEN the glorious temple of King Solomon arose in all its splendour upon Mount Sion, neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron was heard within the sacred precincts during the building. In fitting though humble emulation of the works of the God of nature, its massive walls and airy roof sprang upwards in silence. Though the weakness of man was unable to copy the perfect stillness with which the planets move along their spheres, with which the tides ebb and flow, the trees and plants bud and blossom; still, so far as human ingenuity could aid human weakness, the earthly dwellingplace of the Divine glory was disturbed by no harsh and earpiercing clamours; no mighty sound awoke the echoes of its courts until the voice of praise and thanksgiving came forth from the throng of worshipping Israelites.

Such was the rise of the temporal power of the Vicar of

Jesus Christ. There is no fact more wonderful in the history of nations than the origin of the Papal States, and it is as undeniable as it is wonderful. The secular sovereignty of the Popes arose in silence. Every other kingdom on the globe traces its beginning to some deed of violence. Conquest, spoliation, treachery, bloodshedding in some accursed shape, has laid the foundations and erected the superstructure of every other human kingdom. Spread out the map of the world, and lay our finger where we will, we find no parallel to the origin of the temporal sovereignty of the successors of St. Peter. Like the temple of Solomon, no din of arms disturbed its birth and infancy; and if, like that temple, it has in after ages been defended against aggression by carnal weapons, so that in our own time we have seen it summon into action the last lingering remnants of the old Christian chivalric bravery, its title-deeds, so to say, are stained with no drop of blood.

Yet there is scarcely one educated Englishman out of twenty who is not possessed with the idea that carnal motives have prompted the Holy See both in the acquisition, the extension, and the retaining of its secular dominion. Take any private assemblage of English gentlemen and ladies, of good social position, and favoured with at least the average amount of education, among the upper classes of the country, and ask them how the Popes obtained their present temporal power, and you will find that scarcely one or two of them are aware of the fact that the Papal dynasty is not only by far the most ancient that exists, but that it alone can claim to have originated in the voice of the people. Other monarchs call themselves, and are called by flatterers, the fathers of their subjects. Dreaming speculatists look back upon some imaginary patriarchal age, in which the reigning powers of the world, be they monarchical, aristocratic, or democratic, had their origin in an extension of pure family influence. But without an exception, these speculations are absolutely false; and the chronicles of history declare that blood and violence —whether exercised justly or unjustly-founded every existing kingdom, but one, among men.

Any book, therefore, which attempts to give a complete account of the rise and history of the Papal States is well worthy of recommendation to the general reader, if its author accomplish his task with moderate success. If the thoughtful Protestant can be induced to look in the face even a portion of the great historical facts of Catholicism, the gain to religion is clear. In nothing, perhaps, has the truth suffered in this country more than in the systematic, though sometimes un

malicious, perversion of the history of the Church which has blighted the whole course of English literature since the Reformation. There can be little doubt that an immense proportion of the obstinate prejudices which our countrymen still cherish against the Catholic faith is the result of this startling ignorance of the past in every thing that concerns Catholicism and Catholics. British anti-Popish horror rests far less upon antipathy to Catholic dogmas than upon a belief that in fact Catholics have proved themselves to be bloodthirsty, treacherous, tyrannical, licentious, and the foes of the freedom and peace of the human race. Our countrymen wander through the aisles of York and Westminster and Lincoln, and marvel to think what an amount of priestcraft must have been expended in gathering together the sums of money which those. gorgeous temples cost. They busy themselves in exploring the wonders of Rome, and stare at her ceremonies, and rush half-frantic to listen to the Miserere in the Sistine Chapel, and extol the fairy-like scene of an illuminated St. Peter's, with feelings nearly akin to those with which they would trace the ruins of a Pagan temple in Assyria, or count over the jewels of some hideous Hindoo idol of wood or stone. Of the history of these relics of the past, and these yet living splendours, they are comfortably and cheerfully ignorant. If ever they do dream for a few moments of days long gone by, and wonder how it was that a cunning priest contrived to gain possession of the home of the Cæsars, and to store together the treasures. of the Vatican, they behold in imagination a dim, mysterious vision of dark scowling ecclesiastics looming through the gloom, and practising upon the follies of a deluded age with certain diabolical incantations, like the weird sisters in Macbeth, or any other play of demoniacal horrors. And thus it is that we so often see that a single historical truth is of more avail in softening English animosity than a volume of theological arguments. If the crowds who visit the new House of Lords could only be taught to contemplate the fact, that one of the most prominent of the statues which there are raised in memory of the founders of English liberty is that of a Catholic Archbishop, and that Magna Charta is the work of Catholic barons, and that the odious sovereign from whom Magna Charta was wrung was as odious in the eyes of the Pope as in the eyes of the people of England, they would return to their firesides more ready to believe that there was something to be said for Catholicism, than after hours and hours of listening to elaborate proofs of the "scripturalness" of purgatory, and the Papal supremacy, and the worship of relics and images.

Dr. Miley's History of the Papal States goes far towards