St. Philip Neri, Founder of the Oratory: Lectures de- livered in the Oratory, King William Street, Strand. By F. W. Faber, Priest of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri A SOCINIAN VIEW OF CATHOLICISM.-The Prospective Re- SHORT NOTICES.-Benedict XIV. on Heroic Virtue.-The Complete Works of Monsignor de Pressy, Bishop of Bou- logne.-The Works of De Riambourg.-Chromo-Litho- graphic Drawings of an Irish Ecclesiastical Bell, supposed to have belonged to St. Patrick. - Sermons: Bishop Hughes, of New York, The Church and the World; Bishop Gillis's Discourse on the Mission and Influence of the Popes;-Dr. Wiseman, The Social and Intellectual State of England compared with its Moral Condition ;- Rev. James Stotherd, A Panegyric on St. Margaret, Queen and Patroness of Scotland, pronounced in St. Patrick's Church, Edinburgh.-Dr. Achilli.-The Catholic Annual Register. Rev. J. Berington on the State and Behaviour of English Catholics.-The Catholic Magazine and Regis- ter. The Messenger.-The Lamp.-Mr. Allies' The See of St. Peter the Rock of the Church, the Source of Juris- diction, and the Centre of Unity.-Dr. Russell's transla- tion of Leibnitz' System of Theology.-A Letter to the Editor of the Guardian, by the Author of "One Word on the Existing Constitution of the Anglican Establish- ment."-The Complete Vesper-Book for the Laity, in of Music, and other Poems, by Alfred Lee.-Robson's Constructive Exercises for teaching the Elements of the Latin Language on a System of Analysis and Synthesis. -Music: The Gregorian Tones for the Psalms, arranged for Four Voices, with Organ Accompaniment, as used at St. Edmund's College; - Dr. Crookall's Surge Amica mea; - Mr. Crowe's edition of Wilhem's Method of teaching Singing;-Novello's Part Song Book ECCLESIASTICAL REGISTER.-The Synod of Thurles. -New Catholic Churches at Sheffield, York, and Howden.-The Wednesbury Mission.-The Brothers of Christian Instruc- 365 We have now to inquire whether modern science confirms or invalidates the statements of the sacred writers. And first with regard to the general view of the universe. Humboldt tells us that the most important result of the study of Nature is "a knowledge of the chain of connexion by which all natural forces are linked together,"*"the establishment of the unity and harmony of the stupendous mass of force and matter." Now, by his own shewing, this is the very point of view in which the sacred writers present the world to us. "The poetry of the Hebrews always embraces the universe in its unity; nature is not depicted as a self-dependent object, glorious in its individual beauty, but as in relation and subjection to a higher spiritual power." "It might almost be said that one single psalm (the 103d) represents the image of the whole Cosmos."§ Our attention will, however, be directed not so much to this psalm, and similar passages, where man recounts before God the wonders of his creation in order to glorify Him, but to those where God recounts to man the history of the creation as a sign of his truth; such particularly as the 1st chapter of Genesis and the 38th of Job. Next let us examine the meaning of each particular statement of Moses and Job; and afterwards we will compare the result with the conclusions of modern science. Gen. i. 1. "In the beginning God created heaven and earth." The words heaven and earth are paraphrased by the Church as "all things visible and invisible;"|| and by St. Au * Cosmos, p. 1. + Ibid. p. 3. Ibid. p. 412. gustine, as "the universal, intelligible, and corporeal creation,”* i. e. the spiritual world and the material world. The word heaven, therefore, is not to be taken to mean the visible heaven, which was not yet called into being, but all the spiritual and intelligent beings that were created before the present order of things; earth, not simply as our globe, but as matter in general. Ver. 2. "And the earth (matter) was unsubstantial and void" (inanis et vacua). These same epithets are used together in a line of Virgil, where they are applied to the shadowy realms of the dead: "Ibant obscuri solâ sub nocte per umbram Perque domos Ditis vacuas et inania regna."† The LXX. have "invisible and unfurnished," i. e. unorganised and unarranged. Now, was matter first created in this chaotic state? "It may have been," says St. Augustine; "it is no absurdity to say that God created matter first formless, and then formed." The beginning of Genesis may perhaps be commented on somewhat as follows: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," that is, the spiritual world and the material world; (but after that the first of created spirits had fallen off from God, and had drawn down into perdition a great part of creation with him,§ thus) "the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep." "For," as St. Thomas says, "the angels and the material creation form together one universe, neither being perfect without the other;" the destruction of the latter would therefore be as natural a consequence of the fall of the former, as the malediction of the earth was a consequence of the fall of man. Anyhow, our present order has been produced out of a vague, hollow, unsubstantial, empty state of matter. So says Moses; so says also the chemist, who traces almost all matter to a gaseous form; so says the astronomer, who tells us that the whole universe was once in a state of cosmical vapour. But there was a time when men of science did not suspect this fact; and then the simple faith of the believer was wiser than the wisdom of the world. "Fide intelligimus," says St. Paul, "aptata esse sæcula verbo Dei, ita ut ex invisibilibus visibilia fierent."¶ "And darkness was upon the face of the abyss." The boundless space in which this attenuated matter was contained was in darkness, silence, and inertia. During this period of *Confessions, xiii. § 40. Confessions, ubi sup. This, of course, is but a speculation. † Æn. vi. 268. ¶ Heb. xi. 3. desolation all was still as death; as yet there was no motion, no germ of restoration and re-organisation. "And the spirit of God moved (ferebatur) upon the waters." Here we are told of the commencement of the re-formation of the chaotic universe. David alludes to this when he says, "Thou shalt send forth thy spirit, and they shall be created; and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth."* But what is the meaning of the terms spirit of God and waters? The spirit cannot mean the Holy Ghost, as it is impossible for God to be in any such mechanical relation to matter as is here described, neither could there be real waters when all matter is in the state of vapour. It is probable that as Moses had been led to speak of space under the name of the deep, or abyss, so he called the attenuated matter which was contained therein waters, a name applicable with as great propriety to the fluid cosmical vapour, as "aerial ocean”† is to our atmo sphere. Assuming, then, the term waters to mean the cosmical vapour, the spirit of God would be something having the same relation to it as our atmosphere and winds bear to our seas and oceans of waters. Accordingly Humboldt tells us that, besides the "matter agglomerated into rotating spheres, or scattered through space in the form of self-luminous vapour,.... besides these luminous clouds and nebula of definite form, exact and corresponding observations indicate the exist ence and general distribution of an apparently non-luminous, infinitely divided matter, which possesses a force of resistance:"this spirit he afterwards calls "ætherial." The æther is supposed to be a most subtle and attenuated fluid, reaching to the utmost bounds of the universe, which aids the energies of nature, and, filling all space, is a means of communication with other planets and other systems. Non-luminous itself, it is luminiferous, conveying light, not by local motion, but by vibrations of a certain velocity. It is only by vibrations within fixed limits that light is produced; up to those limits, and beyond them, vibrations may still occur, but they do not produce vision. It is suspected, however, that they produce all the various phenomena of heat and electricity; perhaps also the laws of gravitation and attraction depend on the same cause. It is a question not yet, we believe, decided, whether attraction is a virtue filling all space from the moment of its existence, or whether, like light, it is propagated in time. Now how beautifully does the account of Moses fall in with all this! First we have the dead, dark, unsubstantial chaos; then motion begins in the æther; the spirit of God was moving on the + Cosmos, p. 153. Ibid. pp. 67, 69. *Ps. ciii. 30. |