selves in the way of iniquity and destruction, and have walked through hard ways; but the way of the Lord have we not known. What hath pride profited us? or what advantage hath the boasting of riches brought us? All those things are passed away like a shadow, and like a post that runneth on, and as a ship that passeth through the waves, whereof when it is gone by the trace cannot be found, nor the path of its keel in the waters. So we

also, being born, forthwith ceased to be; and have been able to show no mark of virtue; but are consumed in our wickedness. Such things as these the sinners said in hell. For the wicked is as dust, which is blown away with the wind; and as a thin froth, which is dispersed by the storm; and as smoke, which is scattered abroad by the wind; and as the guest of one day that passeth by. But the just shall live for evermore, and their reward is with the Lord, and the care of them with the Most High. Therefore shall they receive a kingdom of glory, and a crown of beauty at the hand of the Lord; for with his right hand will he cover them, and with his holy arm he will defend them." (Wisdom, v. 1-17.)

Such is the fact. The two systems stand opposed one to the other, the one triumphing naturally and in this world, and the other supernaturally and in the world to come. We must take Catholicity, and with the grace of God struggle as we can, triumph in dying, and reign with the just forever hereafter, or take our side with heathenism, flourish for a moment here, and be depressed hereafter with sinners for ever in hell. There is no other alternative. We must make our election and take our side. There is no compromise possible, no neutral position conceivable. He who is not on the side of the church, let him call himself by what name he may, is by that fact a gentile, a carnal Jew, and on the side of heathenism. Let us understand this, and thus understand that the only enemy we have to fight is paganism, the old enemy which the early Christian saints and martyrs fought before us, and also that, if we take the side of the church, we must do so bravely and unreservedly, and be prepared at all times and in all things to assert her supremacy, and therefore that of the Holy Father, the representative on earth and the personification of the spiritual order.

The real test of a man's Catholicity, the criterion by which to determine whether he is a true Christian, or at best following heathen tendencies, is his position with re

gard to the pope or the papacy. "Where Peter is, there is the church," and where the church is, there is God our Redeemer. Whoso disregards the papacy, or stints his love and reverence for the pope, has little reason to count himself one of the elect of God; and whoso, embracing the cause of the church, yet postpones her claims to those of the world, or seeks to effect a compromise between the spiritual and the secular, is very far from having fought the good fight and won the victory. If we take the Lord's side, we must take it and look to the Lord for support, and trust that he will sustain us while we devote ourselves to his service. We must cease to lust after the flesh or the world. We must trample the world and all its promises beneath our feet, and live for God alone. It is only in this way that we can carry on our war with heathenism successfully, and in dying obtain the crown of victory. If we do so, the world, no doubt, will hate us; the men of the world, the lukewarm, and the liberal, will jeer or denounce us; the' strong will persecute us; and the secular will seek to destroy us; but so let it be. The soldier of the cross has no promise of peace in this world, and he is a poor soldier who fears the face of the enemy. His business is to fight, and to fight bravely, and to die with his harness on,-only the weapons of his warfare are spiritual, not carnal.

Several correspondents, some of them highly esteemed friends and most worthy clergymen, and some of them Protestants or liberal Catholics, have taken exceptions to our statement that "we have yet to see full evidence that any pope, after he became pope, was a very bad man," and have referred us to the concessions to the contrary of certain Catholic historians. The concessions we are referred to we were well aware of, and we protested against them as unwarranted by the facts in the case. We expressly asserted that they were uncalled for, and that they constitute the only real embarrassment of the Catholic in his controversies with the enemies of the church. We therefore refused to accept them as authority, and consequently there was no use in citing them against us. Their justice was the point our correspondents should have proved.

Our readers are requested to bear in mind that we did not say that we had seen no evidence, but that we had yet to see full, that is, conclusive evidence, &c. Nor did we pretend that every pope had been a good man; we simply said, that we had yet "to see full evidence that any pope, after he became pope, was a very bad man." Here is a point which our correspondents appear to have overlooked, and yet it is a point of some

importance. A man may not be very good, may not be a saint, and yet not be very bad, that is, very wicked. The Chevalier Artaud de Montor, in his Histoire des Souverains Pontifes Romains, has given us the history of every pope down to Pius VI., and proves, not indeed that every one was a saint, but very clearly that not one of them is proved to have been a very bad man. Instances of weakness he enumerates, but never of great crimes. He shows us many popes, according to human modes of judging, who committed mistakes, and through weakness or love of peace yielded too much to the tyranny and rapacity of temporal sovereigns, but none who were governed by an unjust ambition, or who were grasping or oppressive. He refutes the calumnies circulated against some of them, and especially those alleged against those particular popes mentioned by our correspondents. He is a respectable authority, and far more reliable than Reeve. We have read him for the first time since we wrote the article to which exceptions have been taken, and are well pleased to find him sustaining us.

We have found in our historical reading that Catholics have not al ways been just to the sovereign pontiffs, and that popular Catholic his torians have been too ready to concede charges preferred by the enemies of the church. They seem always to have written on the principle, that, where there is a doubt, the benefit of that doubt belongs to the enemies of the popes. But as the popes are the party accused, this is to reverse the well-settled rule of both law and justice. The accused is always entitled to the benefit of every doubt, on the principle that every one is to be presumed innocent till proved guilty. These authors throw upon us a burden that we are not bound to bear, and, instead of compelling the accuser to prove his charges, they require us to disprove them. This is being generous to a fault, and carrying candor to an excess. No doubt the concessions we refer to may be made without impeaching the sanctity or the infallibility of the church; yet they embarrass the Catholic controversialist, for the enemies of the church will recognize no distinction between the concession of an unimportant fact and the concession of an essential dogma. Moreover, these concessions, being made by Catholic historians, pass into history, form the popular judgment of history even among Catholics, and thus lead the faithful themselves to regard the facts of history as less creditable to them than they really are, which operates in many to weaken their faith, to diminish their charity, and to damp their zeal. Our rule is to dismiss every charge against either the official or private conduct of a pope that is not fully proved, and we ask other proof than the fact that some writer, who professes to be or really is a Catholic, concedes it. We find concessions even in Baronius that we are far from accepting.

In this same article we said in substance that the popular histories circulating among Catholics, especially in England and this country, have been written by unbelievers, heretics, Gallicans, or lukewarm Catholics. This charge our correspondents deny, though in most respectful

and courteous tones. They refer us to Rohrbacher's popular history of the church recently published in France, as a refutation of our statement. Our statement, if taken literally, may be too sweeping. But we had reference, as was obvious enough, not to the works which have been written and which are known only to scholars, but to the works which circulate among the people, and form the popular judgment of historical persons and events. In this sense we have no reason, when asserted specially of England and United States, to doubt its accuracy. We have not indeed read Rohrbacher's history, but we were aware of its existence, and of its general character. It vindicates the sovereign pontiffs, we are told, and is ultramontane in doctrine, spirit, and tendency. As much, too, may be said of the Ecclesiastical History by Baron Henrion. But, excellent as these works are, they are not in general circulation in England and this country, and have as yet done comparatively little in forming the popular judgments of ecclesiastical and papal history in any country.

It was far enough from our intention to ignore or underrate these and many other recent publications of a similar character. These works we regard as among the first fruits of the reaction which has commenced in our times against the heathenism which has prevailed more or less for the last four centuries, and which we conceded had commenced. We did not suppose it had commenced with us; we did not suppose that we had made a new discovery, that we were telling the Catholic public something no one else had told it, and were to be the father of a new movement. We regarded ourselves merely as engaged in a work with others, and as laboring to help on a Catholic reaction which had been commenced, under the providence of God, by choice spirits in all Catholic countries, and commenced, too, long before we had left the ranks of heresy. We lay no claim to originality, even where a Catholic may be original, and our highest ambition is to be a feeble echo of what we hear from others, at whose feet it is our pleasure and our glory to sit and learn. We are but an humble laborer in a great work in which all good Catholics are engaged, and whoever, from the earnest and positive tones in which we sometimes speak, imagines that we claim to be any thing more, or that we look upon ourselves as destined to start or to effect something new, does us no ordinary injustice. Our article was written to help on the Catholic reaction against paganism in modern society, and, if we failed to give full credit to the labors already accomplished by others, it was because our mind dwelt on the tendencies still predominant among the mass of the people, and because we are accustomed to count nothing done as long as any thing remains to do.

We have departed from our usual policy in making these remarks, because we have felt that something was due to the correspondents who had in a kind and courteous manner called our attention to certain statements which they regarded as unsound. The sneers and denunciations, the cavillings and misrepresentations of the newspaper press, we sometimes glance at, but we make it a rule to let them pass for what

they are worth. But hints and suggestions from friends, or even from those who are not Catholics, made in a courteous manner and with scrious aims, are always welcome, and will never be suffered to pass from us unheeded, whether we formally acknowledge them or not.

For ourselves, in looking around us and striving to form a just esti mation of society in its relations to the church, we see much to afflict us. much that needs amendment, even in the tone and manners of Catholics: but we are far from believing that we of this generation have fallen upon peculiarly evil times. We know no epoch in the world's history in which, had the choice been left to us, we should sooner have chosen to have our lot cast, than the present. The church in this world is always the church militant, and the Christian's life here below is always a warfare. Not till we die can we put off our harness or lay down our arms. But we verily believe that the reaction of heathenism, which broke out in the fifteenth century, has been arrested, and that a decided Catholic reaction against it has commenced, and is proceeding with no little rapidity and force. There is no country where this reaction is more needed, where it has a freer field, or may be encouraged with fairer prospectsof success, than our own. It is needed here, as elsewhere, for the sal vation of souls; it is also needed to mould our people into a uniform national character, to preserve good government, to secure freedom, and even to save society itself.

A noble field opens here to our young Catholics. Here is a spiritual work to be done worthy of their noblest ambition. Hundreds and thousands of them are now wasting their genius and talent, their enthusiasın and strength, in idleness and sensuality, or in the ignoble pursuit of mere worldly wealth or honors. Let them aim higher, and open their eyes and their hearts to the great, the noble, and the enduring. Let them.. each according to his own gifts and calling, give themselves up heart and soul to the work of banishing heathenism from our society, and of reu dering this country, if the youngest, the most beautiful and best bcloved of the children of the church. Never was there a nobler work, never did a more honorable or glorious career open to ingenuous youth. This country must be won to the church. To win it we must labor constantly to cultivate a high and uncompromising, but sweet and gentle Catholic tone among ourselves, and by our prayers and our examples, our words and our deeds, to bring all with whom we have any relation under the pure and hallowing influences of our holy religion. Would that we could speak a word that would reach the heart of every Catholic young man in the country, and make him feel that to this noble work is he called, and that in it he may find an object equal to the largest ambition, and a good that will fill his soul with sweet joy and peace! We are growing old now, and our hair is turning white, and, young men, we look to you to enlist in the grand army of the living God, and to march forth with brave hearts to the battle against ignorance, superstition, heresy, infidelity, irreligion, the implacable enemies of the church, and always in arms against the Lord and his Christ.