"And in the preface of the Jesuits' edition of Newton's Principia, we have the clearest evidence that the editors supposed his system under ban of the Church. This is the language : 'Newton in his third book supposes the motion of the earth. We could not explain the author's propositions otherwise than by making the same supposition. We are therefore forced to sustain a character not our own; but we profess to pay the obsequious reverence which is due to the decrees pronounced by the supreme pontiffs against the motion of the earth.'" p. 477. This would seem to be conclusive; but, unhappily for the Reviewer, this Jesuits' edition of Newton's Principia is a pure fiction. The Jesuits never published such an edition, and the language quoted never was written by a Jesuit. The language betrays at a single glance its origin. There are no decrees, and there never were any decrees, pronounced by the supreme Pontiffs against the motion of the earth. The Jesuits never published an edition of Newton's Principia, except the edition by Father Boscovich, and that is not the edition referred to. The edition cited was got up by a couple of infidel editors, in France, we believe, and was palmed off as an edition of the Jesuits. The extract the Reviewer quotes from the preface bears the living impress of the French infidel of the last century. No Jesuit could ever have spoken thus ironically of what he held to be a decision of the sovereign Pontiff. It would be even more out of character than for the Reviewer to invoke the Blessed Virgin, or to officiate at High Mass.

We here take our leave of the Methodist Quarterly Review, by simply reminding the editor that he is not qualified to be our biographer. His assertion, that there are hundreds of living witnesses who heard our atheistical lectures in the city of Boston," is absolutely and unqualifiedly false; for we never gave an atheistical lecture in the city of Boston or elsewhere in our life. We never were, properly speaking, an atheist, a Transcendentalist, or a pantheist, the assertion of the Reviewer to the contrary notwithstanding. For a few months, some years ago, we had, it is true, some doubts as to the existence of God; but, since the latter part of the year 1830, we are not conscious of having had, even for a moment, a single doubt cross our mind of the existence or the providence of God. It is true that we fell unconsciously into some speculations which had a Transcendental and pantheistic tendency; but, the moment we discovered that they had that tendency, we renounced them, and for the very reason, that they had it.

We have been, ever since we resided in Boston, or for the last ten years, constantly writing and publishing against both Transcendentalism and pantheism. We have had errors enough, without having laid to our charge errors we have never entertained. There are few people living who can write our biography, and if journalists would confine themselves to the discussion of our writings, and let the personal life and history of the writer go, they would show their good sense and discretion. The Methodist Quarterly has always been unfortunate in its attempts to enlighten the public concerning us personally. Will it not learn wisdom from experience?

ART. V. The Roman Church and Modern Society. Translated from the French of PROFESSOR E. QUINET, of the College of France. Edited by C. EDWARDS LESTER. New York: Gates and Stedman. 1845. pp. 198.

THIS work purports to be a publication of M. Quinet's course of lectures on the present state of the Catholic Church. Its design may be gathered from the following extract, taken from the preface, written we presume by its American editor.

"In France, where a strong religious feeling is springing up of late years, a feeling which the Jesuits have endeavoured to avail themselves of for their own purposes, this work has exerted a most salutary influence. By delineating the Roman Church as it actually is, by showing the spirit which actuates it and the hands that direct it, and by the contrast he draws between these and the true spirit of Christianity, the true Catholicism, M. Quinet has rendered a service to the cause of religion in France which cannot be estimated too highly.

"But it is not in France and Italy alone that this work is destined to have an influence. The depth and comprehensiveness of the author's views, the vast scope of his thought, the extent and minute accuracy of his historical researches, and the consummate skill with which he applies the whole of history to his subject, render it a work of universal interest and importance.

"We see here clearly pointed out the elements of the greatness of the Roman Catholic Church in former times, and the causes which have led to its present state of decadence, the means it has

employed in all ages to accomplish its designs of universal dominion, and the reasons of their failure, the agencies it is bringing to bear upon modern society, and the course it is necessary to pursue in order to baffle its designs.

"We see also in what respects it is the antagonist of LIBERTY, though scrupling not to make use of that sacred name, whenever it can subserve its purposes of despotic authority. We see how, instead of sympathizing in that spirit of progress which is the life of modern society, it is ever struggling to preserve that state of utter immobility, or rather to bring about that retrograde movement, which leads to spiritual death. Have not these things an importance and an interest for us on this side of the Atlantic, as well as for Europeans?

"Moreover, this is not an affair of the Roman Catholic Church alone. Every church, every sect of Christendom, may here learn a lesson; a lesson of Christian toleration and brotherly kindness, a lesson of moderation in the midst of zeal, -a lesson of perpetual progress.

"The effects of this discussion in Europe are already apparent. The Jesuits, that powerful association, whose malign influence rested like an incubus upon the clergy, and through them upon the people of France, have already been compelled to abandon her soil. The mode also of their departure is remarkable, as differing entirely from their usual manner of proceeding. They have not waited to be expelled by the government, but they have voluntarily retired. They have given up the contest in France. They have felt that public opinion was too strong for them.

"This result is in a great measure to be attributed to the labors of M. Quinet, and of his friend and colleague, M. Michelet. The work of which this is a translation, and the joint work of both these eminent men upon the Jesuits, have, by enlightening the public as to their real character, been mainly instrumental in relieving France from their presence." - pp. v. – viii.

We

The first question which naturally arises, on reading this, is, What is "the true spirit of Christianity, the true Catholicism," with which M. Quinet contrasts the Catholic Church? cannot well determine the value or importance of an author's judgments, till we know the point of view from which he writes, and the standard by which he judges. Happily, we have not to seek far in order to answer this question. M. Quinet published some time since a work entitled Ahasuerus, from which we translate a few pages, which we find quoted with approbation by M. Pierre Leroux, in the article Bonheur in his Encyclopédie Nouvelle. They are from the Third Day, entitled Death. The scene is laid in the Cathedral of Strasburg.

The dead are represented as coming out of their tombs, and bitterly complaining that our blessed Saviour has deceived them; for they have not found that heaven he promised them, and in which they had placed all their hopes of happiness.

"O Christ! O Christ! why hast thou deceived us? O Christ! why hast thou lied to us ? For a thousand years we have rolled in our tombs, beneath our chiselled slabs, trying to find the gate of thy heaven; we find only the web which the spider spins above our heads. Where, then, are the sounds of the viols of thy angels ? We hear only the sharp saw of the worm that eats our tombs. Where is the bread with which thou wast to nourish us? We have only our tears for our drink. Where is thy Father's house? where his starry canopy? Is it the dry fountain we have hollowed out with our nails? Is it this polished slab against which we strike our heads day and night? Where is the flower of thy vine which was to heal the wound of our hearts? We have found only the lizard that crawls over our marble slabs, and we have seen only the snakes which spit their venom on our lips. O Christ! why hast thou deceived us?

66 CHORUS OF WOMEN.

"O Virgin Mary! why have you deceived us? On awaking, we have sought by our sides our children, our little ones, our darlings, who should smile upon us from their azure nests; we have found only brambles, dead mallows, and nettles, sinking their roots over our heads.

66 CHORUS OF CHILDREN.

"How dark it is in this stone cradle here! How hard is my cradle! Where is my mother, to take me up? Where is my father, to rock me? Where are the angels, to give me my robe, my beautiful robe of light? Father, mother, where are you? I am afraid, I'm afraid here in my stone cradle.

"THE EMPEROR CHARLEMAGNE.

"Christ! Christ! since you have deceived me, give me back my hundred monasteries concealed in the Ardennes; give me back the golden bells baptized in my name, my shrines and chappelles, my banners spun on the wheel of Bertha, my_ciboriums, and my people kneeling from Roncevaux to the Black Forest.

"Give us back our crowns of flowers and baskets of roses

which we have strewed along the path of the priests on Corpus Christi.

66 POPE GREGORY.

"And what avail me now my double cross and triple crown? The dead gather around me, that I may give to each his portion of nothingness. Woe is me! Heaven, hell, purgatory, these were all in my own soul; the hilt and blade of the archangel's sword flamed only in my own breast; the infinite heavens are naught but those my own genius rolled together or spread out as a tent to shelter itself in the desert. But may be the hour is about to strike when the gate of Christ will turn on its hinges. No, no, I have waited long enough. My feet are dried up, kicking against these marble slabs; my eyes have fallen from their sockets, in looking into the dust of my tomb; my tongue is worn out, in calling Christ, Christ; and my hands are empty, always empty. Look, look, my good lords, it is the truth. Let not the dead show me their sores, let the martyrs hide their wounds. I can heal no one. I give but the spider's web in return to those who have given their crowns to Christ, and I bring in the hollow of my hand but a pinch of ashes for those who have looked for a kingdom of stars in the ocean of the firmament."

This is tolerably explicit; but if any doubts remain in the minds of our readers, the following from the work before us will dispel them.

"I follow with my eyes, during forty years, the reign of a man who is the sole spiritual director, not of his country, but of his epoch. From the retirement of his chamber, he governs the kingdom of minds; intelligences regulate themselves every day by his; a word written by his hand in a moment overruns all Europe. Princes love, kings fear him; they do not feel sure of their kingdoms, if he is not with them. Peoples, on their part, adopt without discussion, and repeat with eagerness, every syllable that falls from his pen. Who exercises this incredible power, that had been nowhere witnessed since the Middle Ages? Is it another Gregory the Seventh? Is it a Pope? No, it is Voltaire.

"He shakes with a terrible laugh the gates of the Church, which, placed by St. Peter, were opened for the Borgias. It is the laugh of the universal spirit, which disdains all particular forms as so many deformities; it is the ideal which sports with the real. In the name of the mute generations whom the Church was bound to console, he arms himself with all the blood she has shed, all the stakes, all the scaffolds she has raised, and which must sooner or later be turned against her. This irony, mingled with wrath, belongs not merely to one individual or one question; then mingles