their religion, as a spiritual system, but the nature of their belief in the excellence of poverty, and of the monastic and celibate life, and in the pernicious nature of excessive carefulness, and of a melancholy, anxious spirit, tends to make them sit down contented amidst reverses, and comparatively careless about worldly success, where other men would strain every nerve to struggle against the assaults of fortune, and to provide against every possible future contingency."- pp. 11, 12.

Here, again, with what the author means we fully and heartily agree, but we can hardly accept what he says. How is it possible to regard Catholicity as likely to impede modern civilization, since modern civilization is undeniably the product of the Catholic religion? Indeed, Catholicity is the only thing that can save civilization, and prevent the modern world from lapsing into barbarism and savagism. The author himself holds and proves this, as is clear from the remarks which follow the passage extracted. Why, then, does he intimate that it will impede rather than advance our civilization? Simply because he takes the pains neither to think nor to express himself with accuracy. What he means by modern civilization is not modern civilization, but practices and tendencies in modern nations, especially Protestant nations, directly opposed to it, namely, the neglect of the higher intellectual culture, worldly-mindedness, selfishness, exclusive cultivation of the physical sciences, and excessive devotion to wealth and mere material prosperity. Mr. Capes is quite right in supposing the Catholic religion favors unworldliness, cherishes the intellectual rather than the mere physical sciences, checks the inordinate pursuit of wealth, and reconciles men to poverty; he is quite right, too, in regarding this as one of its recommendations; but by what hallucination he should have been led to regard it for this reason as less friendly than Protestantism to modern civilization, is more than we are able to divine. Certainly, he is too clear a thinker to confound with our civilization the causes in operation amongst us which tend incessantly, as he himself admits, to destroy it.

We regret that he has not expressed himself with more accuracy, for he cannot be ignorant that the question between Catholicity and Protestantism is no longer a theological or religious question. It is now in reality a purely social question. As a religion, as a medium of worshipping God and saving the soul, Protestants, throughout the world, have virtually yielded the ground to Catholicity, and no longer dispute her claims. They feel that, for men who would give their souls to

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God, and live only for heaven, the Catholic is the best religion; indeed, the only religion adapted to their purpose. They shift the question, and now oppose our religion, though excellent in regard to heaven, as abominable in regard to earth. Admirable as a religion, it is execrable as a civilization. They pretend that it enslaves the mind, crushes the spirit, and fits men only to be mere tools and drudges; that it robs man of the nobility of his nature, forbids him to assert his manhood, and unfits him to bear a manly part in the progress of society. They institute comparisons between Protestant nations and Catholic, and tell us that in the former all is life and activity, energy and improvement; industry and commerce flourish, wealth accumulates, social and material well-being are cared. for and incessantly advanced; while in the latter indolence prevails, a general want of thrift is manifest, enterprise sleeps, and every one is contented to remain where and what he was born. All this is false, no doubt, but nothing is more certain than that the notion is entertained by Protestants, and even by some Catholics, that Protestant nations surpass in civilization and temporal prosperity Catholic nations, and that the cause of it is to be sought in the difference between Protestantism and Catholicity. It is on the ground that their pretended religion is more favorable than the Catholic religion to civilization and temporal prosperity, that Protestants now seek to place the controversy with us. It will not do, then, in these times, for us to begin with the apparent concession that our religion is unfavorable to modern civilization. No matter how correct may be our meaning, we must not, even in words, have the least appearance of conceding it, for a candid interpretation of our language is the last thing we are to expect from Protestants. As little value as we set on the earth and things of time, we must not concede even this world to Protestants, although they may be willing to concede us heaven in exchange. They must have nothing, in this world or the next, at our hands, but what they are honestly entitled to, which is just nothing at all; and we must be ready to maintain against them that ours is the only religion favorable to man's true interests, whether for time or for eternity.

If Protestants retained, as a body, any real reverence for spiritual things, if they were not generally ready "to jump the world to come " if they can make sure of this world, we would waive the question they raise, for a religion is not to be tested by its relations to material prosperity, but by its adapta

tion to the end of all religion, namely, the glory of God in the redemption and sanctification of souls; but as they can be made to feel only on the material side of their being, as much as we despise the things of the world, we hold it important for them, not for us, to meet them on their own chosen ground, the last that remains to them, and prove to them that, setting aside all considerations of its advantages in regard to another world, the belief and practice of our religion are the only sure means of advancing civilization, and securing and promoting man's social and material well-being. Mr. Capes has himself proved this unanswerably, and we need but refer the reader to his luminous pages on this subject. That our religion detaches its followers from the world, and tends to make them indifferent to material goods, is, no doubt, true, and it is because this is true that it is favorable to civilization and material prosperity. It checks selfishness and increases charity, and charity makes us solicitous for the welfare of others just in proportion as it renders us indifferent to our own. Hence it is that selfishness. always retards, while charity advances, civilization. It checks eagerness in the pursuit of wealth, and therefore extravagance in expenditures. All the selfish passions tend to overshoot themselves, and too great eagerness in the pursuit always misses its aim. Riches are not to be estimated by the amount produced, but by the amount produced beyond consumption. No matter how many fold you increase the productions of a people; if you increase their expenditures in the same proportion, you add nothing to their riches. Protestantism, by destroying men's faith in a future life, by depriving the people of the relish for simple spiritual pleasures, always to be had at a trifling expense, confines them to sensual pleasures, which are always expensive. Its very worldly-mindedness and craving for sensual gratification induce an expenditure for pomp and show, for feeding pampered appetites, for sustaining rivalries in houses and furniture, places and honors, which brings consumption in Protestant countries closer on the heels of production than it is ever brought in any Catholic country. Even admitting, what is doubtful, that more is actually produced by a Protestant than by a Catholic people, the latter, placing their felicity, not in sensual, but in spiritual pleasures, caring little for worldly show, and contented with a cheaper and more simple style of living, are sure to have always on hand a larger surplus beyond their wants for consumption, and therefore to be always actually richer. This is evinced by the fact, that one can live in the same grade of

society in a Catholic country at less than one half the expense that is required in England or the United States, the two most favorable Protestant instances to be selected.

If from the accumulation of wealth, which is greater under Catholicity than under Protestantism, of course we are not speaking of a Catholic people, like the Irish, ruled and oppressed by a Protestant people, we pass to social and political wellbeing, we shall find the advantage is all on the side of Catholicity. The tendency of all Protestant legislation is to make the rich richer, and the poor poorer, if we may judge from the example of England, and from our own, and the worst form of aristocracy, a moneyed aristocracy, the aristocracy of money-bags, stocks, and spindles, is its favorite. The poor are ground into the dust, the rich escape. The subordinate in villany is punished, the principal usually escapes. In Catholic countries, really Catholic countries we mean, the constitution of the state and society are respected; but legislation and administration, filled with an unworldly and charitable spirit, tend to protect the poor and helpless, and punishment falls with its greatest severity on the proud and lordly oppressor, on the greatest villain. Austria punishes the chiefs of the Hungarian rebellion, but spares the subordinates. Liberty does not consist in fanciful theories, in passionate declamations against monarchy or aristocracy, and the loud vociferation of the words Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, nor in well-planned and successful Jacobinical revolutions, which overturn the throne and altar, and set up the despotism of unbelief and the tyranny of the mob, but in the supremacy of law, in the maintenance of wise and just government, however constituted, and in orderly submission to its authority. That which tends to repress turbulent passions, to wean the affections from this world, to make men unambitious, indifferent to their political or social position, self-denying, disinterested, charitable, contented with spiritual occupations and pleasures, must, then, be that which will most effectually serve the cause of liberty, by drying up the source. of the dangers to which it is exposed, weakening the selfishness from which the disposition to tyrannize or to rebel against legitimate authority arises, and taking from tyranny and rebellion their motive and excuse. As a matter of fact, in liberty and real temporal prosperity the Catholic nations of Europe, notwithstanding the obstacles thrown in their way for three hundred years by heretical neighbours, infidel governments, and infidel mobs, are far in advance of the Protestant nations, and have

in them a vitality, a recuperative energy, that we should in vain look for in any country where Protestantism predominates. This should be so, for it is an irreversible law that the goods of this world always fly those who pursue them for themselves, and overtake those who despise and fly them for God's sake.

Mr. Capes has some profound and excellent remarks on the social crisis that has approached or is approaching in England, and shows clearly that the great social problem of the age, pressing every day more and more urgently for a solution, can be solved only by Catholicity. The great question, which Socialists misconceive and are impotent to answer, and which they conceal under their demand of "the right to labor," is, say what we will, the great social question of our day. It is a fearful question, and cannot much longer be blinked, or left to the management of Socialists and Communists. The Protestant system of industry and economy has predominated in the modern world since the peace of Utrecht, in 1713, and it has brought the greater portion of the civilized world to the very brink of ruin. It has reduced the price of labor to the very minimum of human subsistence, and given us an immense operative class, millions of men and women, able and willing to work for their bread, who are starving because there is no work to be had. Such is the terrible fact that stares us in the face, and affords us so sad a comment on the boasted progress of industry and material prosperity under Protestantism. This fact has to be met and disposed of, or it will dispose of the modern world. Till some practical solution is found, some effectual remedy is applied, we must expect socialist and communist movements to continue, and society to be constantly menaced with total disruption. Nothing renders men more desperate, more ready to make a revolution, than the gnawings of hunger. If you wish to be free from revolutions, take care that the people find employment, and experience no lack of provender. Mr. Capes has not gone into this question at so great a length as we wish he had, but in what he has said he shows that he understands it, has deeply pondered it, and sees whence the remedy is to come. That the Church has in her institutions, if she be cordially accepted, a sure and even a speedy remedy for the evil, he shows conclusively. We feel it necessary to add, to guard against misapprehension, that, though the institutions on which he appears to rely as the institutions of the Church are as highly esteemed by us as by him, yet it is necessary to bear in mind that the Church does not do her work