mothers, our noblest of queens, MARY! Paganism, by making of woman an idol or a slave, destroyed both her usefulness and her dignity. Christianity made her all in usefulness, but not a slave; all in dignity, but not a goddess. How little inferior to the angels are those myriads of sainted females who, on the great day of triumph, form the crown of the Virgin Mother! The lilies they bear in their hands are emblems of the spotless purity of their souls, the roses with which they are crowned were purpled by the blood of their innocent hearts, freely poured out as the price of constancy in the faith. Let him who delights in examining the tests of highly cultivated civilization try to understand how great must be the depth and healthiness of that society where the influence of woman is characterized by such angelic perfection. Israel foreshadowed the Church, and the Church foreshadows heaven. And as the Synagogue in her palmy days, while making her children as fully as possible Christians, or preparing them to be so, transcended all human schemes of improvement, thus the Church, while rendering the children committed to her care as fit subjects as possible for heaven, renders their society as much like that of the heavenly kingdom as it can possibly become. Here closes our ideal of Catholic society, were it pure and unalloyed, as it ought to be.

O, why will many who are gifted with loving hearts and aspiring souls, and who still speak of happiness for man, refuse to study the secret of that happiness which the Church locks not up in her bosom, but dispenses with the rest of her royal treasures? Why will they waste their time and wear out their spirit in chasing flitting phantoms, which, like the evening mist, glitter for a moment in the rays of the setting sun, but, turning from one fantastic shape to another, pass away and are seen no more? Unhappy, thrice unhappy men! who, in the abundance of their learning, know less than the lisping child who only half understands the prayer he is taught to con. But the loss is theirs, and not the loss of the Church. He who opposes her may succeed for a time in preventing his fellowsufferers from receiving her soothing care; but let him look to history, and learn the fate of those systems of nationality from which she and the God who speaks through her alone were excluded. Let him see how she was then, and how still she remains, while they are only remembered in the dream of the poet, or the schoolboy's tale.

When, on the eve of the banquet of death, she spoke words

of serious warning to the citizen of Solyma, he laughed at her sanctity as folly, and her wisdom as a maniac's dream. But when the angel of Judah took his departure from the desecrated temple, and the national life of the Jewish people was buried beneath its ruins, the Church moved in the vigor of youth at the foot of Mount Olivet and Thabor Hill. The proud Roman, in the days of his greatness, heard her voice, which flattered not the powerful and the wealthy, with disdain, and drove her to breathe her prayer beneath his feet, down amid the sepulchral gloom of the crypt and the catacomb. But where the Tarpeian Rock, once crowned with gilded palaces and glittering fanes, reared its rugged summit again in silence and desolation to the sky, she sat upon the ruins spread around its base, and mourned over the blindness of those who had fallen to rise no more. She spoke in the Areopagus to the Athenian sage of the God unknown to him, and the only one known to her, and he rejected her doctrine as strange. But she still published that doctrine upon the shores of the Ægean, when nothing remained in the temple of Minerva but the ill-omened owl, and the bat flitted in day-time through the desert halls of the Athenian's pride. Byzantium acknowledged her power, and kissed the hem of her royal garment, and rose to be as queen among the cities of the East. It rejected her sway, and scorned to bow to her sceptre, and sunk to be the slave of the barbarian invader. But the steam of her censer continued still to spread in sweetness around, when the son of a robber of the desert sat upon the throne of the Constantines, and the voice of the turbaned muezzin resounded through the air which once thrilled at the peal of festive music that greeted the advance of the Greek emperor's triumphal car. He who made republican France his footstool, and changed the sceptres of European monarchs as playthings from hand to hand, would not receive from an aged pontiff the crown of Charlemagne and St. Louis, and placed it himself proudly upon his brow; but the Church whom he sought to make his handmaid, and whose High Priest he confined in a prisoner's cell, in the person of that aged pontiff, amid the joyful hosanna of all nations, sat again upon the throne of the world, when the self-crowned universal monarch was entombed upon the beach of a desert island, by the hand of a foreign jailer.

Of the triumphs of Mother Church, and of Religion in Society, no more. May we that have known her love her with still increasing devotion. May those who love her not begin to

understand the wonders that exist in their very midst. Let those who are not for her, however, bear in mind, that, whether they oppose her, or pretend to extend to her their patronage, as she cheered the hearts of the great and good centuries before they and their vain systems were born, so will she lead new generations heavenward ages on ages after they and their vain systems are remembered no more.

ART. VI.-LITERARY NOTICES AND CRITICISMS.

1.- Protestantism and Catholicity compared in their Effects on the Civilization of Europe. By the Rev. J. BALMEZ. From the French, by C. J. HANFORD and R. KERSHAW. London: James Brown. 1849. 8vo. pp. 452.

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OUR readers are already well aware of the high estimation in which we hold this admirable work by the late Abbé Balmez, work which will stand the test of the most rigid criticism for lofty eloquence, sound philosophy, solid and various erudition. It does for Protestantism, under a political and social point of view, what the illustrious Moehler has done for it under the point of view of theology. The Symbolik of the German professor may here and there contain statements and views that need some modifications, but it utterly demolishes Protestant dogmatism, and shows unanswerably that it is baseless, incoherent, self-contradictory, and unable to stand a moment before enlightened theological criticism. The no less illustrious Spaniard has done the same with political and social Protestantism. For some time Protestants have very generally ceased to claim any superiority for Protestantism over Catholicity as a religion, as a system of dogmatic truth, or as the means of effecting the salvation of the soul, and have placed its defence on the ground of its having disenthralled the human mind, broken up civil despotism, established civil freedom, and advanced the general civilization and social well-being of the European nations. The Abbé Balmez meets Protestants on this their chosen ground of defence, and proves that it is utterly untenable, and that Protestantism has only retarded, instead of advancing, the cause of liberty and general civilization. In him human reason, the common sense of mankind, sits in judgment on Protestantism in its social and political character, and pronounces a sentence of condemnation which the future will not reverse.

The translation of this work into our language we regard as a

happy event. It is precisely the work which in the present crisis we need, and its influence will be wide and lasting. Mr. Hanford and his assistant, Mr. Kershaw, have done their work well. The work hardly reads as a translation, but has the freedom, freshness, ease, and vigor of an original work, and yet, as far as we have compared it with the French, it is faithful, and even literal. These gentlemen prove themselves very fair translators, and we hope their labors will be appreciated by our countrymen, and that the work, which is published in a cheap but neat style, will find as ready a sale in this country as we learn it is finding in England.

We have no room to give any extended review or analysis of the Abbé's work, and, indeed, no analysis can give a correct and adequate notion of it. The work to be known must be read entire. All we have space to do is to give a single extract, which may serve to give as good an idea of the whole as a single brick from its walls of ancient Babylon. We select the first chapter, en

titled the "Nature and Name of Protestantism."

"There is a fact in existence among civilized nations, very important on account of the nature of the things which it affects, - a fact of transcendent importance, on account of the number, variety, and consequence of its influences, a fact extremely interesting, because it is connected with the principal events of modern history.

"Like a clap of thunder, it attracted at once the attention of all Europe; on one side it spread alarm, and on the other excited the most lively sympathy: it grew so rapidly, that its adversaries had not time to strangle it in its cradle. Scarcely had it begun to exist, and already all hope of stopping, or even restraining it, was gone; when, emboldened by being treated with respect and consideration, it became every day more daring; if exasperated by rigor, it openly resisted measures of coercion, or redoubled and concentrated its forces, to make more vigorous attacks. Discussions, the profound investigations and scientific methods which were used in combating it, contributed to develop the spirit of inquiry, and served as vehicles to propagate its ideas.

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By creating new and prevailing interests, it made itself powerful protectors; by throwing all the passions into a state of fury, it aroused them in its favor. It availed itself by turns of stratagem, force, seduction, or violence, according to the exigencies of times and circumstances. It attempted to make its way in all directions; either destroying impediments, or taking advantage of them, if they were capable of being turned

to account.

"When introduced into a country, it never rested until it had obtained guaranties for its continued existence; and it succeeded in doing so everywhere. After having obtained vast establishments in Europe, which it still retains, it was transported into other parts of the world, and infused into the veins of simple and unsuspecting nations.

"In order to appreciate a fact at its just value, to embrace it in all its relations, and to distinguish properly between them, it is necessary to examine whether the constituting principle of the fact can be ascertained, or at least whether we can observe in its appearance any characteristic trait capable of revealing its inward nature. This examination is very

difficult when we have to do with a fact of the kind and importance of that which now occupies our attention. In matters of this sort, numbers of opinions accumulate in the course of time, in favor of all which arguments have been sought. The inquirer, in the midst of so many and such various objects, is perplexed, disconcerted, and confounded; and if he wish to place himself in a more advantageous point of view, he finds the ground so covered with fragments, that he cannot make his way without risk of losing himself at every step.

"The first glance which we give to Protestantism, whether we consider its actual condition, or whether we regard the various phases of its history, shows us that it is very difficult to find any thing constant in it, any thing which can be assigned as its constituent character. Uncertain in its opinions, it modifies them continually, and changes them in a thousand ways. Vague in its tendencies, and fluctuating in its desires, it attempts every form, and essays every road. It can never attain to a welldefined existence; and we see it every moment enter new paths, to lose itself in new labyrinths.

"Catholic controversialists have pursued and assailed it in every way; ask them what has been the result. They will tell you that they had to contend with a new Proteus, which always escaped the fatal blow by changing its form. If you wish to assail the doctrines of Protestantism, you do not know where to direct your attacks, for they are unknown to you, and even to itself. On this side it is invulnerable, because it has no tangible body. Thus, no more powerful argument has ever been urged, than that of the immortal Bishop of Meaux,- viz. You change; and that which changes is not the truth.' An argument much feared by Protestantism, and with justice; because all the various forms which are assumed to evade its force only serve to strengthen it. How just is the expression of this great man! At the very title of his book, Protestantism must tremble: The History of the Variations! A history of variations must be a history of error.

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"These unceasing changes, which we ought not to be surprised at finding in Protestantism, because they essentially belong to it, show us that it is not in possession of the truth; they show us also, that its moving principle is not a principle of life, but an element of dissolution. It has been called upon, and up to this time in vain, to fix itself, and to present a compact and uniform body. How can that be fixed, which is, by its nature, kept floating about in the air? How can a solid body be formed of an element, whereof the essential tendency is towards an incessant division of particles, by diminishing their reciprocal affinity, and increasing their repellant force?

"It will easily be seen that I speak of the right of private judgment in matters of faith, whether it be looked upon as a matter of human reason alone, or as an individual inspiration from heaven.

"If there be any thing constant in Protestantism, it is undoubtedly the substitution of private judgment for public and lawful authority. This is always found in union with it; and is, properly speaking, its fundamental principle it is the only point of contact among the various Protestant sects, the basis of their mutual resemblance. It is very remarkable that this exists, for the most part, unintentionally, and sometimes against their express wishes.

"However lamentable and disastrous this principle may be, if the coryphæi of Protestantism had made it their rallying-point, and had con