truth. They allowed it as an hypothesis, but forbade it as a doctrine, conceiving it contrary to Scripture" (For. Quart. Rev. xxvi. 23). The Syllabus of Pius IX. would make modern science the bond-servant of his Church, and without one particle of the influence of the Summa, though bolstered with the dread assumption of downright infallibility.1

But Rome will never win in such a battle. Lord Bacon (no wonder she hates him) has solemnly and oracularly declared his opinion of the "extreme prejudice which both religion and philosophy have received, and may receive, by being commixed together; as that which undoubtedly will make an heretical religion, and an imaginary and fabulous philosophy" (Works, ii. 129, Montagu's ed.). Da fidei quae fidei sunt,-give unto faith that which unto faith belongeth, says this Angel of our English schools. Science is one

1Even Mr. Vaughan would make Philosophy do homage to Religion, by devoting some hundred elaborate pages to show how Aquinas surpassed Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle; and how, especially, he handed "over Aristotle to the uses of the schools, purified of paganism, divested of Oriental coloring, and conveying the true meaning of their author." The true meaning! As if Aquinas understood Aristotle better than Aristotle himself! (ii. 703.) Doubtless, something besides syllabuses would be tried, if now possible. Says Disraeli, "This monstrous tribunal [Inquisition] of human opinions aimed at the sovereignty of the intellectual world, without intellect" ("Curios. Lit." i. 170).

It is the more remarkable that Bacon should take this stand, when great minds in England had not given up the old idea of recommending Religion under the guise of Philosophy. Thus Milton says, in his "Comus: "

"How charming is Divine Philosophy!

Not harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose;

But musical as is Apollo's lute,

And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets,
Where no crude surfeit reigns."

To understand this precisely, we think a peculiar emphasis is to be placed on the word Divine. To add a single allusion from a modern poet, we may say that Tennyson understands the case better than Milton. This is his verdict:

"Hold thou the good: define it well:

For fear Divine Philosophy

Should press beyond her mark, and be

Procuress to the Lords of Hell."

"In Mem." No. 52.

Bacon, Milton, and Tennyson, all use the same phrase, "Divine Philosophy." It must have been proverbial.

Science is the reason of man, and
They may appear to conflict and

thing, and Revelation is another. Revelation is the reason of God. be antagonisms,-just as the creeping and carping reason of a child appears to come athwart the erect and decretive reason of man. We cannot harmonize and blend the two, till we "put away childish things." When we stand in the open presence of the Infinite, we shall doubtless be astounded, overwhelmed, and stricken prostrate by our petty quarrels with what we call mysteries and miracles. Why, unity amid diversities begins, as we believe, at the summit of the Universe, in the self-existent Godhead, and travels downward through all creation. And so contrarieties and seeming contradictions are always possible, to all minds but the grand central one. There is but a single point where progress terminates its voyage, where change is anchored, and succession never rolls a wave; and that point is God. In God, accordingly, and in God only, is there an everlasting calm. And agitations, differences, and even conflicts, are the sure inheritance of the finite and the imperfect; while faith and patience become to them, not propriety only, but a constitution and a law.

The differences between Religion and Philosophy are like those which exist between the sexes; and it may need a Paradise (as it once did) to blend such differences under a single "bond of perfectness." So we look forward to their sincere and abiding union, beyond all earthly variance and incongruity. Their immortal marriage may be solemnized in that supernal realm where there shall be no night, and they will need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God will give them light from His unveiled counteIn that realm they may be conjointly ascendant forever and for evermore. So mote it be!

nance.

We have omitted much, much, no doubt, which the learned will think too precious to have been passed by. But we must make a conclusion, if not a close, and end this paper with a succinct allusion to the last hours of the most remarkable religious philosopher of the central ages of the Church.

It is more impressive than it is novel, to see his soaring mind, when about to take flight for another existence, depreciate its labors in this. Even a prophet, like Isaiah, could say, "Who hath believed our report?" and despondent Jeremiah mourned that he was born; though, if any one could claim it, he had immaculate conception (Jer. i. 5). And, in a not stranger vein, Aquinas saw all his outspread acquirements dwindle to a speck. He exclaimed, in utter weariness of soul, to an intimate friend who wanted him to toil on,

"I cannot, Reginald; for everything that I have written appears to me as simply rubbish" (ii. 917).

Yet his self-depreciation did not evacuate his confidence in a Redeemer. It is most gratifying to find his last moments untarnished by invocations to the Saints and appeals to the Virgin Mary; while they seemed to have been absorbed and filled by legitimate devotions to the Bishop of Souls. They who surrounded his last couch "heard from the lips of the dying theologian how there is no strength, or peace, or light for man, in earth or heaven, without the charity of Christ and the merits of His Cross" (ii. 924). And we are quite willing, therefore, to say of the scene, in Mr. Vaughan's own language, "See them, then, for the last time, bending over him. See the Prince of Theologians passing out of life, or rather advancing through his labors into rest, to realize, away from the twilight of earth, the one dream of his soul; to see the King in His Glory, and the Blessed adoring before the Everlasting Throne!" (ii. 927.)

And, finally, having shown that Aquinas died, on a journey to the Council of Lyons, in a Benedictine convent, he closes the records of his life in the touching words that follow: "He was taken from exile on the early morning of the seventh of March, in the year twelve hundred and seventy-four, in the prime of manly life, being scarcely eight and forty years of age. It is but natural, it is but beautiful, that he who in early boyhood had been stamped with the signet of St. Benedict, should return to St. Benedict to die. He had gone forth to his work and to his labor in the morning, and he returned home to his brethren in the evening-tide."

P.S.-We had intended to say something about Aquinas's mistakes in his controversy with the Greeks, whom he expected to confront in the Council of Lyons. In his tract against them, he employs, under the sanction of a Pope-he was blind when a Pope wanted him to be-manufactured or false quotations from the Fathers. Time and space are wanting, and we merely add that the fact brought out by Père Gratry, in his tracts published at this office in 1870, is by no means a new one. Thomas James, in his "Corruptions of the Fathers"—a book thought worthy of reprint in 1843— exposed this matter, and a multitude of similar matters, in 1611; the year which gave to the public King James's version of the Bible. In one of the old editions of his book, he shows, e. g., how Aquinas erred grievously in quoting, against the Greeks, sentences from St. Cyril which St. Cyril never wrote (pp. 217-19, ed. 1688); and he adds, "This is not the first wilful corruption or manifest error, by

many hundreds, that he hath committed." The word wilful we are quite disposed to cancel, although Haag, in his history of Christian doctrines, uses even stronger language. Aquinas was honest and honorable. If he erred, he was deceived by those whom he trusted implicitly, as he always did a Pope, through thick and thin. So Gratry maintains, and we are gladly willing to believe him. James had the testiness of a librarian; he was chief keeper of the Bodleian. A book-hacker was with him a regular imp of

Satan.

It may gratify some of our readers to have a specimen of the prayers of Aquinas. We quote the following from the "Christian. Observer," vol. xxiii. p. 535 :

"Ineffably wise and merciful Creator! Illustrious source of all things! True fountain of light and wisdom!

"Vouchsafe to infuse into my understanding, some ray of Thy Brightness; thereby removing the twofold darkness under which I was born, the darkness of sin and of ignorance. Thou that makest the tongues of infants eloquent, instruct, I pray Thee, my tongue likewise; and pour upon my lips the grace of Thy benediction. Give me quickness to comprehend, and memory to retain. Give me a facility in expounding, an aptitude in learning, and a copious eloquence in speaking. Prepare my entrance into knowledge, direct me in my pursuits, and render the issue of them complete. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

This was his prayer before study. The word "learning" should be understood in its old sense of teaching. Thus says Shakespeare, Henry V., " And they will learn you by rote."

WE

E are quite aware of the dangers which beset one who attempts to write on the questions that are connected with the Seventeenth Article of Religion. If he ventures the suggestion that the magic word predestination can bear any other significancy than the Calvinistic one, he incurs the horror and scorn of those with whom the word, wherever found, means just that and nothing else. If he dwells on the structure and phraseology of the Article itself, he is forthwith accused of special pleading. Many whose ears are only open to the clatter of what they are pleased to call "Questions of the Day," no matter how puerile, petty, and ephemeral these may be, regard him as a sort of church-owl, blinking and "moping" in his "ivy-mantled tower," while others still, scorning alike the Articles and their compilers, look down from those lofty heights of theological intuition to which their "fresh-imped" wings have borne them, with contemptuous pity upon one who can waste time or study on things so utterly effete as the Articles of 1562. He runs some risks who dares these dangers.

Nevertheless, the risks must be run. For people will ask, from time to time, whether the Articles are not Calvinistic, and whether they and the Book of Common Prayer do not contradict each other. There are never wanting persons to repeat Lord Chatham's stale witticism about a "Calvinistic creed, a Popish liturgy, and an Arminian clergy." And there have been, and are just now,