formed 'more than common miracles, by these symbols and instruments of apostolic charity.

This circumstance has been noticed by more than one Protestant commentator. It is strange that they did not perceive how the same principles would explain why the Catholic Church venerates the Cross of Jesus Christ, and why God has been pleased, through its means, to work so many miracles, as monuments of every age attest. If Christians venerated the handkerchief that imbibed the sweat of St. Paul's toil, how much more would they venerate the Cross that imbibed the Precious Blood of their Redemption?

The things above related are no doubt contrary to the Protestant theory of spirituality in worship and negation of sacramental influences; yet as instinct is often stronger than theory, it would be easy to gather a multitude of illustrations of the Catholic and apostolic principle from Protestant literature and history.

I restrict myself to one or two examples. I have quoted the words of Milton carping at Constantine for his veneration of the true Cross. Time brings its revenges. Among the sonnets of Leigh Hunt, another great scoffer at Catholic faith and practice, is one bearing this title:

ON A LOCK OF MILTON'S HAIR.

'It lies before me there, and my own breath
Stirs its thin outer threads, as though beside
The living head I stood in honour'd pride,
Talking of lovely things that conquer death.
Perhaps he press'd it once, or underneath

Ran his fine fingers, when he leant, blank-eyed,

And saw, in fancy, Adam and his bride

With their rich locks, or his own Delphic wreath,' &c.

Had Mr. Hunt or Milton seen a Catholic bending tenderly over a relic of the Son of God or of a patron saint, no doubt the first instinct would have been to deride the devotion, and the second to question the authenticity of the relic.

Another of our opponents, often quoted in the course of this work, is the Rev. Dr. Cumming, minister of a Scotch church in London. Of course he must throw his handful of

dirt at the Catholic Church on the subject of relics.

We read,

therefore, as follows: The Romish Church must see Christ as with the senses. We are satisfied to see Him by faith. She is not satisfied unless she can touch the hem of His garment. We are content to believe in the unseen. She will only accept that which she can handle. Hence she must have the wood of the true Cross-the very robe that He wore, the holy coat —a visible altar,' &c.4

But the doctor seems to forget these boasted principles of Protestant spirituality when, farther on in the same book, he quotes with approbation a saying of Dr. Chalmers, that, after the Resurrection, instead of being transported to a state of dimness and mystery, so remote from human experience as to be beyond all comprehension, we shall for ever dwell in a place replenished with those sensible delights and sensible glories which, we doubt not, will be most profusely scattered over a new heaven and a new earth. But though a paradise of sense, it will not be a paradise of sensuality. It is not the entire substitution of spirit for matter, but it will be the entire substitution of holiness for sin. It is this which differences the Christian from the Mahometan paradise; not that sense and substance and splendid imagery are absent, but that all that is evil in principle or voluptuous in impurity will be utterly excluded from it.' Thus far Dr. Chalmers. After quoting this passage and developing at some length his own thoughts on the matter, Dr. Cumming continues: In the absence of disproof, it seems to me far more beautiful-not less scriptural-that Calvary, Gethsemane, and Olivet should remain visible for ever, as the shrines of grand recollections; that the air which Jesus breathed should be purified, not annihilated,' &c.5

It would seem, then, that Dr. Cumming hoped to attain in heaven to those pious instincts which he blamed Catholics so severely for possessing already. They are so far more beautiful, and not less scriptural'!

So much, then, on this silly and blasphemous charge of magic. There are men who, in spiritual matters, seem to lose all discernment, and who confound together things the most 5 Ibid. pp. 139, 159.

4 Voices of the Day, p. 81.

K

contradictory, because of some mere external and accidental resemblance. Thus Lord Macaulay classes together the austerities of St. Francis Xavier and the diabolical penances of the Brahmins. Such men would see no difference between St. John Baptist, living in the desert with his garment of camel's hair and leathern girdle, and the demoniac, called Legion, who wore no clothes, and dwelt in sepulchres and in the desert. Such were the men who mocked at the Apostles as 'full of new wine' when they were overflowing with the gifts of the Holy Ghost.

CHAPTER VI.

THE REAL PRESENCE AS REGARDS RITUAL.

SECTION I. PROTESTANT VIEW OF THE REAL PRESENCE.

LORD MACAULAY, after praising Ranke for writing his history of the Popes 'in an admirable spirit, equally remote from levity and bigotry, serious and earnest, yet tolerant and impartial,' attempts an account of the Catholic Church, no doubt in the same 'admirable spirit.' He tells us that, for several reasons, ' he has ceased to wonder at any vagaries of superstition,' even among men of the highest intellects and acquirements; that "in religion there is no constant progress;' that 'we have no security for the future against any theological error.' He brings his illustrations to a climax in these words: 'When we reflect that Sir Thomas More was ready to die for the doctrine of transubstantiation, we cannot but feel some doubt whether the doctrine of transubstantiation may not triumph over all opposition. More was a man of eminent talents. He had all the information on the subject that we have, or that, while the world lasts, any human being will have. . . . We are therefore unable to understand why what Sir Thomas More believed respecting transubstantiation may not be believed to the end of time by men equal in abilities and in honesty to Sir Thomas More. But Sir Thomas More is one of the choice specimens of human wisdom and virtue; and the doctrine of transubstantiation is a kind of proof charge. A faith which stands that test will stand any test.' In other words, according to Macaulay, the undoubted fact that the wisest and best of men have been ready to shed their blood for the truth of the Real Presence can only be explained by despairing altogether of the human race, and

by admitting that in religion at least we are given over by God to error and uncertainty without remedy.

Yet Macaulay must have felt that his brilliant sentences were self-contradictory. For while he maintains that there is no preservative in talent, in science, in virtue, against any error, he himself feels certain that the belief in the Real Presence is an error, 'an absurdity,' so gross an absurdity as to be 'a kind of proof charge' against those who hold it, and to be a vagary of superstition.' What, then, has preserved him and his fellow Protestants from the delusion of those who share Sir Thomas More's faith? Not the grace of God. He lays no claim to it. Not superior science or virtue. He says expressly that no science or virtue can preserve men from any error in religion. Logically, therefore, a Macaulay was as likely to be mistaken, in thinking the Real Presence an absurdity, as a Sir Thomas More in thinking it a divinely revealed Truth. But though Macaulay could declare the human race doomed to endless and hopeless error in believing, he could not suspect the possibility of being in error himself in disbelieving.

Some years later, in writing his History of England, he attempted another solution of the phenomenon that so much perplexed him that wise men have believed, and do and will believe, in the Real Presence. Formerly he had accounted for it by himself despairing of the powers of reason; now he explains it by asserting that it arises from this very despair, when united at least with a wish to believe something, a wish with which Macaulay certainly never betrays any sympathy. 'It is not strange,' he writes, 'that wise men, weary of investigation and longing to believe something, and yet seeing objections to everything, should submit themselves absolutely to teachers who, with firm and undoubting faith, lay claim to a supernatural commission. Thus we frequently see inquisitive and restless spirits take refuge from their own scepticism in the bosom of a Church which pretends to infallibility, and after questioning the existence of a Deity, bring themselves to worship a wafer." Here again Macaulay has no hesitation in selecting 1 History of England, vol. iv. p. 28.