reformed if at once reformed by the grace of God into what they call Romanists, must not laugh at our young friend for his notion of a catholic church, made up of isolated individuals, dispersed over the globe, and bound together by no bond of unity, visible or invisible; for they adopt precisely his doctrine, only they take particular communions for their units, and he simply individuals.

The proper name of the Church is "The Holy Catholic Apostolic Church," and the epithet Roman is added, not to restrict the meaning of Catholic, but simply to mark the visible centre of unity; and since it undeniably must have such a centre of unity somewhere, or not be catholic or universal, it is obvious that the epithet Roman, so far from neutralizing the meaning of the word Catholic, serves to confirm it, and to make the universality or catholicity of the Church more striking and unmistakable. It defines at once to you the Catholic Church by directing you to its centre of unity. One is struck at times with the slender stock in trade of critical and philosophical knowledge on which our Protestant friends attempt to do business. A little reflection, a little sober thought, would save them from many laughable blunders, as well as from the incivility of applying nicknames, and calling us Romanists, a term exceedingly ill adapted to designate our faith or character. Nevertheless the blunders and incivility are theirs, not ours.

5. "The Roman hierarchy, not the faith of Romanists [Catholics], is what I am steadily opposed to," says our estimable young preacher. What would he think of the play of Hamlet with the part of the Prince of Denmark left out by particular request? Not much, we apprehend, of the play itself, and still less of those by whose particular request the part was left out. Very much in the same light as this would strike him does his declaration strike us. "The Holy Catholic Church" is an article of faith in the Catholic's creed, and the hierarchy is not, in his faith, an excrescence of the Church, nor a mere accidental appendage to it, but essential to its very being as the Church. The Catholic faith teaches that the hierarchy of bishops, or pastors and teachers, under their chief, the successor of St. Peter, is of divine institution, and no Catholic can oppose it without opposing his whole faith. The authority on which that rests is the authority on which his whole creed rests, and, if he should admit it to be insufficient for the hierarchy, he would admit it to be insufficient for the other articles of his creed, and then he would have no faith left. No

man, then, can oppose the Catholic hierarchy without opposing directly the whole Catholic faith. Alas! man is a poor church builder, a miserable church reformer. There stands the Catholic Church, as she has stood for these eighteen hundred years, and as she will stand unto the consummation of the world. Either she is the Church of God, or she is not. If she is not, away with her; we have nothing to do with her, and want nothing which is hers. If she is, as she is as certainly as God exists, then you must take her as she is, as a whole; you have no questions to ask, no suggestions to make, no improvements to recommend. Your sole business is to bow down your reason and will to her, as the visible representative of Almighty God, and to believe and do simply what she commands you. If she does not please you, if she does not suit your taste or judgment, it does not follow that she is in fault. The Almighty was not bound to take you or me into his councils, and it is not likely that it would have been of any great advantage to him, if he had actually consulted us. Men are a little too ready to counsel the All-wise, and to inform him how he ought or ought not to do. It is but becoming modesty to presume that he knew as well as we how to constitute his Church, and that it is for us to seek to conform ourselves to her, and not for her to seek to conform herself to us. The objection is a silly one, if the Church be not of God; it deserves a harsher name, if she be of God.

In conclusion, we assure our young friend that we duly appreciate his liberality in not blaming us for becoming a Catholic, and intimating that he can still respect us. We honor his

liberality as it deserves. But, after all, the question is not one of human praise or blame, of human respect or disrespect. Human respect, however pleasant it may be, is of no great value, and should never be suffered to weigh in the balance with the love and approbation of Almighty God. If we have his consent or approbation for what we do, it matters little what men may think or say of us. It is not what we think of our young friend's Liberalism, or he of our Catholicity, that is to decide the character and value of either. The Catholic is not likely to feel that he is the party which stands most in need of commiseration, or that he calls for any remarkable stretch of liberality. His great difficulty is in being sufficiently grateful to his Divine Master for making him a Catholic, when so many others, no worse by nature, are left to perish in their error. If he obeys his Church, he knows he is well enough off; that he has a hundred-fold here, and the promise of the life to come.

Our young Protestant friend may think lightly of all this now; for he is fresh from the schools, in the heyday of life, with his spirits elastic, and his prospects radiant. Youth, health, talents, learning, eloquence, troops of affectionate and applauding friends, - how can he look upon life as he will one day when these disappear or lose their value in his estimation, and, with his ideals all unrealized, he is obliged to look round for something solid and permanent on which he may rest, some safe shelter from the storms and tempests of life? "Beatus qui intelligit quid sit amare Jesum, et contemnere seipsum propter Jesum. Oportet dilectum pro dilecto relinquere, quia Jesus vult solus super omnia amari. Dilectio creaturæ fallax

et instabilis. Dilectio Jesu fidelis et perseverabilis. Qui adhæret creaturæ, cadet cum labili. Qui amplectitur Jesum, firmabitur in ævum. Illum dilige, et amicum tibi retine, qui, omnibus recedentibus, te non relinquet, nec patietur in fine perire. Ab omnibus oportet te aliquando separari, sive velis, sive nolis. Teneas te apud Jesum, vivens ac moriens; et illius fidelitati committe, qui, omnibus deficientibus, solus potest juvare.' "We know the writer well. We know God has once spoken by his grace to his heart, and called his attention to the Church, and, as secure as he may now feel, as secure as all his education has tended to make him feel, the great question, What shall I do to be saved? will one day press upon his heart, and demand an answer. The answer with which he now amuses himself and his people will then appear to him a bitter mockery, a sort of Mephistopheles laugh over the deep agony of the once innocent, now guilty, Margaret. When that question comes up, may the good God grant him to be true to the promptings and inspirations of divine grace!

We have concluded our reply. We have answered our young friend at full length. We have not spared his reasonings, but we trust we have said nothing to wound his sensibilities, or to indicate any want of that esteem for him we began by expressing. We beg him to read and study what we have replied, for it concerns the most momentous question that can possibly occupy the thoughts of man. If what we have said fail to satisfy him, we shall be happy to receive his objections, and pledge ourselves, in advance, to remove, as far as a complete logical reply can remove any objections, whatever objections he can urge, without denying that very reason on the

* De Imitatione Christi, Lib. II., Cap. 7.

authority of which he objects. All we ask is, that he do not repeat his old objections, without undertaking to show that our replies are not to the point, are unsound in principle, or not sustained by the facts in the case.

ART. II.1. Manuel des Confesseurs.

2. Praxis Confessarii, Auctore S. ALPHONSO DE LIGORIO. 3. The Catholic Question in America. New York. 1813. 4. Le Prêtre, et la Femme de Famille, par MICHELET. 5. Entire Absolution of the Penitent. A Sermon preached by Dr. PUSEY, in Christ Church Cathedral. Oxford. February, 1846.

Ir may be allowed us, like the scribe of the Gospel, to bring forth from our treasures old things and new, in treating of a usage coeval with Christianity, but which has recently been assailed with no ordinary violence, whilst it has received the homage of a numerous and distinguished class of the Anglican clergy. A veil of mystery hangs over the confessional. The whisperings of the penitent reach the ear of the confessor, there to die away without impress or echo. The counsels, reproofs, exhortations, and injunctions of the spiritual father share in the privilege of secrecy. As might be expected, persons practically unacquainted with this tribunal view it with vague apprehension; and where prejudice has clouded the mind, distrust, suspicion, and evil surmises are indulged of proceedings dark and foul, defying proof and eluding investigation. For some ages, the training for this function of the ministry partook of its secret character, it being deemed unsafe to commit to writing the sacramental forms, or the rules by which the priest was to be guided in the difficult science of directing conscience, artium regimen animarum, — but that period of reserve has long since passed away. The disciplina arcani is scarcely conceivable, now that the press has divulged and spread abroad, not only the mouldering volumes of the monastic libraries, but even the loose sheets to which confidential communications were sometimes committed; and the Gospel adage, that no secret shall remain unrevealed, is now literally fulfilled in the many treatises which prepare the priest for the exercise of the absolving power. Of these we have noted two at the head of

ars

our list; the first, a French manual for confessors, which the Anglican Bishop of St. David's, Dr. Thirlwall, on occasion of the Maynooth discussion last year, mentioned with commendation; the second, a treatise of St. Alphonsus de Liguori, embodying the principles of his famous work on Moral Theology, and applying them to practice. A glance at this work will satisfy the reader that the holy author was a stranger to the Oxford principle of reserve in communicating knowledge, since he contemplates every imaginable abuse of the ministry, in order to mark its penalties and remedies.

The sermon of Dr. Pusey, recently delivered on his resuming the function of preaching in Christ Church cathedral, at Oxford, after three years' suspension on suspicion of orthodoxy, presents him still laboring for the restoration of ancient doctrine and discipline, which he fancies may be recovered from the ruins of the English Church. He boldly advocates the power of forgiveness, and highly commends the practice of confession, deeply deploring its neglect; but, as if it were not allowed him to see the whole truth, or to proclaim it, from his present position, he spoils his manly advocacy of the forgiving power, by presenting confession as a disciplinary rite, which, although of great advantage, is not of absolute necessity. This is the more surprising, since it appears, from a letter which, a few months ago, he addressed to an inquiring friend, that he recommends the most detailed examination of conscience on the ten commandments, the seven deadly sins, and other particulars, as a preparation for confession; which could not be reasonably hoped to be made so minutely, if no divine precept rendered it necessary. We may, however, congratulate ourselves on the near approach of this distinguished man to correct sentiments, and his high esteem of a practice which generally forms the most serious obstacle to conversion; and we may hope that light will soon be granted him to view it as it truly is, a divine ordinance, in which the mercy and wisdom of our Saviour-God are wonderfully displayed.

In truth, the reasoning of the learned professor on the power communicated to the Apostles should have led him to acknowledge the divine institution of confession; for the power is manifestly discretionary and judicial, to be exercised wisely and justly; consequently, with full cognizance of the cause on which judgment is to be passed. Christ cannot be thought to have sent his Apostles to forgive or retain sins, at their good pleasure, but rather so as to give to the penitent full assurance of pardon,