schismatics. It was more than he could stand. Looking back, a short time after, on these acts, he wrote:

"Many a man might have held an abstract theory about the Catholic Church, to which it was difficult to adjust the Anglican, might have admitted a suspicion, or even painful doubts, about the latter, yet never have been impelled onwards, had our rulers preserved the quiescence of former years; but it is the corroboration of a present, living, and energetic heterodoxy which realizes and makes them practical."-p. 185.

But one thing remained to do, and that was to convince himself that the Rome of the fifth century was that of the nineteenth. He could find no flaw in it so far as its Apostolicity was concerned. The sacred "imposition" had descended in an unbroken line. The hands of Leo were upon the head of Pius IX. It but remained to test her Catholicity. In the spring of 1843, he made a formal retraction of all that he had ever said against her. In the autumn of that year, he resigned his living at St. Mary's. Meanwhile, he rested in “Samaria:" i. e., although he had resolved that Anglicanism was not the Church of the Apostles, he thought that she might be subject to extraordinary grace; just as the Samaritans, notwithstanding their schism, and worse than schism, were still recognized as a people by the Divine Mercy. God had sent his holy prophets to reclaim them, without intimating that they must make over to Jerusalem. Might not Anglicanism be reclaimed without making over to Rome? This was his notion of "Samaria."

He lived in it two or three years. But it was a dreadful sort of life. The Bishops kept on charging at him, every day more furiously, After his resignation of St. Mary's, he went down to Littlemore to die in peace. But he was not allowed the privilege. All sorts of lies were told about him; he was in league with Rome, - he was starting a monastery. Everybody took it for granted that he would be a Catholic, sooner or later; and the majority kept whispering or shouting, "Why does he stay?" "Why don't he go over?" But, as he tells us, great events take time; and going over was for him a great event. But when he discovered that Rome was

not less Catholic than Apostolic; that she held no dogma now that might not have been developed from the dogmas of the Primitive Church, then he passed through Samaria, and went up to Jerusalem.

"LITTLEMORE, Oct. 8th, 1845.-I am this night expecting Father Dominic, the Passionist. . . . He does not know of my intention; but I mean to ask of him admission into the one Fold of Christ." p. 261.

And now, in closing up this article, we are in duty bound to say, that no man who believes in an authority other than that which God enthrones in every human breast, has any right to find one word of fault with Dr. Newman's course and final action in this matter. If there is any such authority, then is Dr. Newman nearer right than any who imagine that they have it, though still outside the Roman-Catholic communion. His premises were exactly those which are accepted by the whole of Christendom, unless, as some believe, Christendom is large enough to take in Theists and Transcendentalists: the conclusion which he draws from them is unavoidable. If, as he took for granted, man is so constituted that he never can attain to any knowledge of the truth, and yet cannot be saved in any other way than by a knowledge of the truth, then there must be an authority of some sort set up in the world. As much as this the Protestant believes. Breaking with Rome, he did not give up his notion of authority, nor of infallibility. But he vested them in the Bible, whereas they had been vested in the Church. But Dr. Newman saw that, if the Bible was intended to teach dogmatically, it was not equal to the purpose for which it was designed. He saw no reason why, in course of time, as things were going, there should not be as many sects as there are chapters in both Testaments. The Bible, then, must be interpreted. He found, so far as Anglicanism was concerned, that this had been done in the Prayerbook, in the creeds and articles. But there came a time when his own Bishop said that these might mean something or nothing. And then he knew that there must be a living voice of God, empowered to teach the truth infallibly, and to

VOL. LXXIX.-5TH S. VOL. XVII. NO. III.

31

interpret alike the Bible and the creeds. And thus, deliberately and logically, he went to Rome.

And, so far as logic is concerned, there is no reason why the whole of Christendom should not arise at once and follow him. Of all that curse the human reason in these days, or say that it is cursed, none are so brave, so thorough-going, so consistent, as was he. But even he, with all his intellectual rigidity, with logical acumen such as is not given to ten men in a century, would not perhaps have gone to Rome, if he had not been taunted, scourged, and vilified; if his steps had not been dogged; if men's heated brains had not gone on for ever forging lies. Not that these things carried him there; but they helped to neutralize the forces which would perhaps have kept him in his place but for this counteraction. Not the least beautiful portion of this record is that which proves how dearly Dr. Newman loved his friends. It must have been as terrible as death to part with them. Then, too, he was the recognized leader of the greatest movement that his Church had known for many a day. And he delighted in the exercise of power. It could not have been an easy thing for him to sink at once into the merest nobody. And then there were so many looking to him for help. Alas! if they should think that he had cheated them! In view of all these things, not one man in a thousand would have gone to Rome; no, not though they had been hounded on even more furiously than be.

And, since it was so hard for him to go where logic manifestly led the way, we shall not be surprised if the great body of the Christian world prefer to be illogical, and to stay just where they are. It is the whole man that reasons, and logic is so small a part of us that it is not very often that it has its way. But the rationale of the matter is not changed. It is still true, that, between the premises that we have named and the conclusion in which Dr. Newman now reposes, we cannot logically pause. But is there no alternative if we do not care either to go to Rome, or to convict ourselves of cowardice by deserting, at the last moment, the stately ship in which we have embarked? Yes, one and but one. It is to set our

faces just the other way; to walk with Francis Newman, rather than with John, forward into the realm of freedom, not backward into that of clanking chains. We can go behind the premises which all the world accept, and see if they are worth accepting. Let it be proved, if possible, that man has undergone some "terrible original calamity," by which he has been robbed of his ability to know the truth, and to commune with God. Or let it be shown that these are facts inherent in the human constitution. And then let it be proved that man is only to be saved by truth rolled up into a dogma, and swallowed down as if it were a pill. These are the camels of theology; and, when a man has swallowed them, there is no need of straining out the gnats of miracle and superstition that still remain in the flagon. The Roman Catholic does not care to do this; but Protestants, who pretend to use their reason, are very careful of their intellectual œsophagus. But, to him that believes in miracles, a thousand, more or less, should make no difference. It is absurd to draw a line between the power of St. Paul's body + to work miracles, and that of St. Walburga's bones; to believe in one, and not believe in the other. Nothing is difficult if you can prove the fundamental mysteries of human incapacity and salvation through acceptance of a creed.

But these pretended facts have not a shadow of foundation. The human soul is capable of loving all things beautiful, of doing all things good, of finding out enough of God's own truth to answer all its glorious purposes. So much of intellectual certainty as is needed for our tasks, we can purchase by the modest use of our own powers. There is no need of any oracle outside of the breast. It is there that we must listen for the only words that are infallible. And those there spoken are not infallible for other men, but only for ourselves. And for ourselves to-day, but not to-morrow. Should any ask, "But is this Christianity?" we should answer, "No, if by Christianity you mean the current faith of Christendom. Yes, if you mean the faith which Jesus cherished, and in which he lived and died."

* Apologia, p. 268.

† Acts xix. 12.

ART. IV. - PIONEERS OF FRANCE IN THE
NEW WORLD.

Pioneers of France in the New World. By FRANCIS PARKMAN, Author of the Conspiracy of Pontiac, Prairie and Rocky Mountain Life, &c. Boston: Little, Brown, & Co.

THE written history of North America begins where Henry the VII., "the English Solomon," wrote in his privy-purse account-book, "To him that found the new isle, ten pounds." This was as early as August 10, 1497. Between that early date and 1574, there is hardly a word of America in the archives of England. From 1497 quite down to 1607, when Newport and John Smith at last got firm foothold of Virginia, there is more than a century of adventure, of experiment, and of waiting, a century which is to be called the century of the dawn, to which belongs all the mythic history that we have, — a great store of romance, should civilization ever start up new romances, and of which the general student wonders that so little is recorded or widely known. Before that century was past, Mexico and South America had really passed through the most imposing and eventful crises of their history. The cities and cathedrals were built; Santa Rosa, our one American Saint, was born and had died; and the rivers of gold and silver had overflowed for the destruction of Spain, and had begun to run dry. Yet, of that period, general history tells of the country north of Mexico a most scanty story of a little fishing, and a little quest at the north for India; hints at a little squabbling about title between Spain and England; but, on the whole, lets the century drift by, as if it had as little to do with America as the century before.

Into one of the great halls of history, as empty and dark as this, Mr. Parkman walks boldly; throws open the shutters; brushes the dust off the pictures; shall we say, takes the linen covers from the statues; and shows that the sun was as bright and the world as active-that men were as