matics are her rebellious subjects, and she has the same right to reduce them to obedience and to compel them to conform their life to their baptismal vows, that a temporal sovereign has to reduce a rebellious province to submission to his legitimate authority. But she can reduce them only by such means as she possesses, and can inflict on them for their rebellion only such punishments as she has at her command, which are all spiritual. If they make war on her, and attempt to seize her churches, to rob her of her pos sessions, to desecrate her altars, and to suppress her worship or restrain its freedom, as was the case with the early Protestants in every country where they had power enough, and which caused the terrible religious wars of the sixteenth century, and the persecution of Protestants by Catholic princes, she has the right to call in the secular power to her aid, and it is bound to repel them by force; because they themselves then transfer the controversy from the spiritual order to the temporal, and attack the social and civil rights of the church no less than her spiritual rights. But when they themselves restrain their heresy and schism within the limits of the spiritual order, make no attempt to propagate their pestilential errors or iniquity by violence, and attack none of the rights of the church or of the faithful, she, as we have seen, recognizes no right in the secular authority to molest them, unless guilty of other crimes against society,-and then only on principles which apply equally to all classes of social offenders. As simple heresy and schism, she cannot call in the secular authority to aid her in suppressing them. She is therefore reduced to her own spiritual resources, to addresses to their reason and their conscience, and can inflict on them only spiritual punishments, ecclesiastical censures, of which the greatest is excommunication. This, to a believer, is a terrible punishment, we grant; but to those who do not believe, who excommunicate themselves, and glory in being severed from her communion, it is not a punishment too severe to be borne.

But even in inflicting her spiritual censures, and in all of her dealings with her rebellious subjects, the church alwayshas their reformation at heart, and never forgets that her mission is to save men's souls, and not to destroy them. She pleads with them, and leaves no measure untried that is likely to be successful; and she keeps the door always open for the return of the penitent. When she is under the painful necessity of delivering over to Satan those who set at naught

her discipline, it is for "the destruction of the flesh," that' "they may learn not to blaspheme." To the very last, she pleads with all a mother's sweetness, affection, and grief; and if they are finally melted, and willing to return to their duty, she opens wide her arms, and wide her heart, to receive them, and generously forgets their past disobedience. Even the much decried and calumniated Inquisition, which it is possible politicians in some instances have abused, owed its origin to her maternal solicitude, and was instituted no less for the protection than for the detection of the misbelieving. She would interpose the shield of her maternal love between her rebellious subject and the secular arm to the last, till all hope was gone, till all her resources to reclaim him were exhausted. They know little of the church of God who call her cruel, proud, haughty, revengeful, thirsting for the blood of heretics, and rejoicing in their punishment by the civil authority. Long, long does she forbear with them,-long, long does she suffer them to rend her own bosom, before she can endure to withdraw her affectionate embrace, and abandon them to their self-chosen doom.

And here we are admonished of what should be the spirit of our intercourse with our unbelieving and heretical neighbours and fellow citizens. Rousseau asserts that the dogma, Out of the church there is no salvation, is antisocial, and that whoever professes it should be banished from the commonwealth. But he might as well have said, that the dogma, No one who dies guilty of mortal sin can be saved, is antisocial, and he who holds it should be banished from society. We certainly regard infidels and heretics as guilty of mortal sin before God, and therefore, if dying in their infidelity and heresy, as condemned to hell. But they are not the only persons whom we regard as mortal sinners; and all who die mortal sinners, even though they should die nominally in our own communion, must, according to our faith, receive the same doom. There are persons in the church who will talk, write, fight for their religion, do any thing for it but live it, whose doom will be far more severe than that of many heretics and unbelievers; nay, we know not but we ourselves may be of the number, for no man knoweth whether he deserves love or hatred, unless he has received a special revelation from God. We live in a world of sinners, and there may be in our own families, in our bosom companions, sinners for whose salvation we have as little reason to hope as we have for that of the unbeliever

or the heretic. These things are so, and must be so, and our rule of conduct is and should be the same towards sinners of all classes, that is, to conduct ourselves so as, if possible, to win them all to the love and practice of true religion.

It is very true that all who are not joined to the Catholic communion, if they die as they are, will come short of salvation. This we know by infallible faith; but we do not know that all who are not now joined to that communion will die as they are, and have no right to presume that they will. Nothing assures us that their hearts will not be softened, their pride subdued, their eyes opened,—that they will not one day behold, love, and conform to the truth, and enter into the kingdom of heaven, while, perhaps, we ourselves shall be thrust out into exterior darkness, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. It is no less an error to hold that all out of the church will be damned, than it is to hold that they can be saved without being in the church. If we so held, there would be some foundation for Rousseau's charge; our doctrine would be antisocial, and we should be unable to discharge our social duties toward those out of our church. But we hold no such doctrine. There is a place of repentance for them as well as for us, and nothing forbids us to hope and to labor for their salvation. The Lord alone knoweth who are his, and we have no right to presume, as long as there is life, that the doom of any one is sealed. We must, then, treat all men, those without as well as those within, as persons for whom Christ died, as persons. who may be saved, and whose salvation is to be desired by us with an unbounded charity, and for which we are to rejoice to make any sacrifice in our power. Here is the reason why the dogma objected to is not antisocial, and why to profess it is no breach of charity to our neighbour, but if done in the proper spirit, is the very reverse,-is, in fact, the highest evidence we can give of the truth and fervor of our charity.

The object of the church, in all her dealings with those without, as well as with those within, is the salvation of souls. This must be ours, also, as her faithful children. This object we shall be able to further only as we live in accordance with the spirit of our religion. It requires no deep or extensive knowledge of mankind to know that the road to their convictions lies through their affections. If we would be instrumental, under God, in converting them,

we must begin by loving them, and by our love winning their love. Nothing is gained by convincing a man against his will; often the very logic that convinces, where the affections are not won, serves only to repel from obedience to the truth. We succeed in influencing others for their good only in proportion as we set before them an example fit for them to follow,-are meek, gentle, humble, charitable, kind, and affectionate in our intercourse with them. And why shall we not love these neighbours and countrymen of ours, who have not the inconceivable happiness of being in the church of God? Who are we, that we should set up ourselves above them,-that we should boast over them? What merit is it in us, that we are not even as they? or how know we that ours will not be the greater condemnation? Are they not our kinsmen according to the flesh? Has not our God loved them with an infinite tenderness? Does he not proffer them his love with infinite sweetness? And has he not so longed for their love that he has died to win it? How, then, shall we not love them and labor for their salvation with a charity that burns with an intensity proportioned to their danger? Is it not here where we come short? Repelled by the bigotry, fanaticism, and hardheartedness of some, attracted by the sweetness, affection, and kind offices of others, are we not prone to look upon these countrymen of ours who are out of the church, either as persons whose conversion is hopeless, or as persons who need no conversion ;-excusing ourselves from zealous labors to bring them to God by persuading ourselves that their conversion either is not possible or not necessary,forgetful that in either case we sin against faith and charity, and in both show ourselves wanting in true love of our neighbour, and therefore of God? Is not here, in this double error, the reason why so few, comparatively, of our countrymen are brought into the one fold, under the one Shepherd? There is nothing in modern heresies that should discourage us. The world, before this, has been afflicted with as deep, as wide-spread, and as obstinate heresies as it is now. We must not suppose that we have fallen upon peculiarly evil times. Evils, indeed, there are, but our lot is cast in comparatively good times. What is the situation of Catholics now in comparison with what it was under the Arian successors of Constantine? or when the wild and destructive hordes of northern barbarians overwhelmed the western empire? or when the yet more destructive Saracenic hosts,

with the Koran in one hand and the scymitar in the other, shouting "There is one God and Mohammed is his prophet," overran the East, and, over more than half the known world, over the fairest provinces of even Europe herself, supplant ed the Cross by the Crescent? But Arianism has been subdued, and is remembered only in the immortal records of its victors; the barbarians have been civilized; the Saracenic hosts have been checked, their power has been broken, and their once formidable empire retains a fitful existence only by the iniquitous policy of nominally Christian princes, who forget their God and the interests of civilization in a vain endeavour to maintain an ever-varying balance of power, and to arrest the march of destiny. Better the Russian than the Turk at Constantinople. Protestantism itself, which swept away a third part of Europe, as the tail of the Apocalyptic dragon swept away a third part of the stars of heaven, has spent its force, has been driven back far within its original confines, and, for two hundred and fifty years, has made no progress in the Old World, but towards destruction. True, unbelief, indifferency, socialism, communism, revolutionism, are, or just now were, rife ;-true, they held during the last year their carnival, convulsed the greater part of Europe, exiled the sovereign pontiff, took possession of the Eternal City, and for a moment seemed on the point of rising to empire. But defeat follows on the heels of victory, their chiefs have fallen, are in exile or in prison, and they must soon be objects of ridicule and contempt, rather than of fear and dread. They are in the nature of things short-lived. The human race loves order, and must be a believer. It must worship,-must have a religion; and the Catholic religion alone has life, has energy, has power. Even to a superficial observer, all other religions or pretended religions are struck with death, and are in their agony. Appearances indicate that a glorious day is dawning for the church, and that there awaits her a more splendid triumph than she has ever yet enjoyed. The Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us not feel that these unbelieving and misbelieving countrymen of ours-who now, alas! have no hope but in this hollow and transitory life, who are laboring for that which is not bread, and spending their strength for that which satisfieth not-are all doomed to be lost, and that they of all the world are to have no part in the new triumphs reserved for Catholicity. Let us not feel that the time is never to come, when, for their many civic