need? First and chiefly, a refutation of the thousand objections which science has given birth to, such as those, if you please, which I have just now been raising, and which have seemed to us so grave. But, if this task appear too difficult, let some one give us, at least, a good theory of mysticism. The Church will be in danger as long as it shall have failed to make a criticism of criticism, as long as it shall not have shown, on the one hand, that rationalism is itself affected with uncertainty; and, on the other hand, that faith has its own method and its special lights. Science makes certainty depend on investigation: let it be shown to us that the certainty is illusory, and the investigation incompetent; and, as a subordinate work, let us have a renewal of the demonstration of Huet, of Pascal, of Lamennais. Will it succeed? I cannot tell. At any rate it is clear that this is the only chance of saving Christianity as it has been hitherto conceived, the religion which devout souls still maintain. Indeed I cannot comprehend the Orthodox. When I see them waste their time in refuting first one objection, then another, I am reminded of the old woman who thought she could sweep back the rising tide with her broom.

Then, after a pause, he resumed: "You are suffering, and do you think that I too have not suffered?

Is it easy or pleasant to find one's self outside the communion of the Church, past and present? Can one with indifference behold the simple beliefs of his childhood vanish away, or, might I not rather say, the supports of his moral being fall down? Who would not be discouraged in presence of the great problems which rise up, of the darkness which thickens around us? I am sometimes struck with the rapidity with which the most obstinate Orthodoxy is itself carried away by the spirit of the age, and with the concessions it makes, without suspecting it, to the opinions which it abhors. At other times, on the contrary, it seems to me that the Church, society, and all that we call civilization, still rest on beliefs which are no longer mine; and then I feel myself isolated, as a waif which the sea, in retiring, has left upon the shore. I experience in a Christian temple what the Protestant must

experience in a cathedral, when the sacrifice of the Mass and the mystery of transubstantiation are celebrated there. I feel myself an intruder. Oh, how I envy those who can still repeat the Te Deum laudamus, that magnificent hymn to Christ, the God of the Christians, in which the believer associates himself with the company of the apostles, the fellowship of the prophets, the army of martyrs, and the Church universal throughout the world! It has often happened to me to be determined to believe at any cost. I have resolved that I would doubt no longer, that I would know no more, that I would submit henceforward. Alas! the question soon came, Submit? But why? And then I in vain alleged the happiness of believing, the beauty of faith, the virtues of the faithful: virtue, beauty, happiness, are still not truth; and is not truth the proper object of belief? Can he be a serious. and earnest man who believes at will?"

As I did not conceal from him that these words agreed with my own prepossessions, Montaigu continued: "I cannot help thinking sometimes, that the history of humanity goes on somewhat after this fashion, the world commences with religion, and, referring all phenomena directly to a first cause, it sees God everywhere; then comes philosophy, which, having discovered the connection of second causes, and the laws of their action, reduces to that extent the direct intervention of Divinity, and, based upon the idea of necessity (for necessity alone falls within the domain of science, and science is only the knowledge of what is necessary), tends by its fundamental axioms to exclude God from the world. More than this, it proceeds to deny human liberty as it has denied God. The reason is plain. Liberty is a cause outside of the chain of causes,- a first cause, a cause which is its own explanation; and hence, as philosophy cannot explain it, it is irresistibly led to deny it. A rigorous philosophy will always be fatalistic. But, by this very fact, philosophy becomes corrupt, and perishes. When it has no other God than the universe, and no other man than the chief of the mammalia, it is nothing more than natural history. Natural history is all the science to be found in materialistic epochs;

and this, by the way, is our present condition. But 'materialism' is not the last word of the human race. Society, corrupted and enfeebled, is crushed down by immense catastrophes; the iron harrow of revolutions tears open humanity like the clods of the field; new generations sprout forth in the bloody furrows; the tearful soul believes anew; it recovers faith in virtue; it finds once more the language of prayer. To the age of the revival of letters succeeded that of the Reformation; to the Germany of Frederick the Great, the Germany of 1812. It is thus that faith is for ever born anew out of its ashes. Alas! humanity rises again, only to recommence the course which I have just described. Does it, like our globe, while revolving upon itself, advance in space as well; and, if it advances, towards what point does it gravitate?

We

Montaigu ceased. I found no occasion to reply. were both deeply moved, and parted with a pressure of hands. As soon as I had returned to my room, I endeavored to recollect what had passed between us, and to fix in writing a conversation which had left me in an indefinable feeling of sadness. I am not made, as I am well aware, for an epoch of universal transformation like ours. My sympathies are for the past, and yet I feel that "there is a certain declivity. in human affairs, which one never surmounts." Thus I behold myself drawn by the convictions of my intellect towards a future which inspires neither interest nor confidence.

THE Catholic Church holds it better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions on it to die of starvation in extremest agony, as far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one wilful untruth, or should steal one poor farthing without excuse. J. H. Newman.

PROOF OF IMMORTALITY IN CHRIST.

THE Scriptures do not treat the subject of man's immortality as a problem. They offer no arguments in support of it, but simply assume it; just as they assume the being of God. Only "the fool," it is said, "hath said in his heart there is no God." No solution of the difficulties of the subject is attempted. It is amply unfolded and illustrated, but this is all.

There are reasons in support of the doctrine, strong, clear, and independent, in a large measure, of Christian teaching.

For example, man's perfection is an end to which all objects and circumstances in nature and life administer. God has given him dominion over the creatures, the elements and forces of nature. He rules them: he turns them to use; and they perpetually contribute to the development of his capacities and powers. They appear, indeed, to exist for

this sole purpose.

But, if death is the annihilation of his conscious being, no proper end can be ascribed to this wonderful array of means and agencies.

Then, indeed, nothing is permanently accomplished. What life brings forth, death destroys; and no permanent result follows.

Moreover, the human soul predicts its own immortal destiny; as blossoms in spring predict the coming fruit; as the eye predicts light before it is opened to receive it; or as the unfledged wings of the bird predict its future flight. Nature abounds in these analogies; and, true to them, the soul puts forth strong and beautiful prophecies of its immortal being and destiny.

(1) It worships. In some sort, it is ever, in all ages, under all circumstances, a worshipper. But whence this tendency, if it is framed only to a mortal existence? Might we not expect lower orders of beings to be worshippers as well? Must it not, indeed, bear some kindredship to the being it adores,

from which this instinctive prompting springs, — and so share essentially in the permanence of his being?

(2) It hopes. "Hope springs eternal in the human breast," and this hope takes hold on immortality. It beats in every pulse of humanity. It glows brightly in all its consolations, and perpetually feeds the flame of its aspirations. It bears the burden of immortal anticipations. If, then, man is inherently incapable of realizing the ultimate fruition of this hope, why does he hope? Why these unutterable longings and divine anticipations? Can hope have birth and being in natures not equal to its greatness, or capable of its durableness? Can it transcend the soul's capacity? If not, then hope bears strong and beautiful testimony to the soul's immortality.

(3) It expects also "the judgment to come," which means simply the ultimate triumphs of justice; and this also is universal. Wrongs shall finally be righted. Innocence shall not for ever suffer. As well are the darkest forebodings of guilty fear prophetic of a coming judgment, as are the brightest anticipations of virtue. In each human soul is an inborn feeling that it is connected with the verities of another world. Hence its interests in all times, in ages past and to come. Hence men offer their body's life for the sake of the triumph of a cause.

Why, then, these noble promptings and unbidden interests in men, if it is all of life to live here in this "body of death"? Can it be all an illusion, a fancy, a dream? Must they not have a cause, a basis in man's immortality?

(4) Man also is made separate from other orders of being in nature. He multiplies his attainments by permanent acquisitions of knowledge; whereas the animal races do not. They knew as much ages ago as they know now. They never pass a certain limit. The birds sang their different capacities of song as sweetly and well in the centuries past as they will in the centuries to come; but man ever improves upon the past, and no limit may be set to human progress. The best lives even are incomplete, and therefore require another sphere for their perfecting, if ever their capacities are unfolded; if ever their ideal of perfection is attained.