religious meetings, for the purpose of dictating an absolute silence on the matters in dispute between us, or of insisting upon permission to enter there and then upon the full discussion of those matters. In the House of Commons there are forty Catholic members, six representing English constituencies; the Catholic peers are less numerous, but include some of the most wealthy, ancient, and influential noblemen of the kingdom; while among the baronets and gentry, and by means of intermarriages with Protestants, they are much more formidable in number, station, and influence, than their appearance in parliament would indicate. The influence of such facts as these has been to effect a marked change in the tone of Catholicism.

'It is high time,' say the writers in the Dublin Review, for us to shake off the dust of past ages, and to cease considering ourselves as a persecuted or an ill-treated class. Thank God, we are beyond the malice of man. It is time to claim our right to every spiritual advantage that members of the great universal church can possess.'

The same writers add :

Few more pernicious sacrifices have been made to the false divinities worshipped by the age, than that of denying the spirit of proselytism to be inherent in Catholicity. Our faith, though it may remove mountains, is nought without it. Ever since these words were uttered, 'We have found him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write....come and see,' it has been the very essence of the apostolic, and, consequently of the Christian spirit. For our own parts, we have no disguise. We wish for no veil over our conduct. It is our desire, and shall be, to turn the attention of our Catholic brethren to the new forms of our controversy with Protestants, (alluding to certain hopeful appearances recently at Oxford,) in the anxious hope that they will devote their energies to its study, and push the spiritual warfare into the heart of our adversary's country. That in some directions this is begun we are able to assert. There are not wanting those who feel the insufficiency of our controversial endeavours in the past, to meet the exigencies of the present moment. And we are confident that all our excellent seminaries, at home and abroad, will use all diligence for repairing their defects. There is much that weighs heavily upon our breasts in reference to this subject. Time, and, we trust, still more, the Divine blessing, will enable us to develope our meaning, and to effect our design.

Dublin Review, April 1838, pp. 334, 335, 369. The same number contains the Catholic account of the attempt to effect a settlement for the Jesuit missionaries at Tahiti, and sets forth their spiritual conquests in the Gambier Islands, situate in its neighbourhood. One of the missionaries

from those islands,' it is said, 'M. Caret, is now in Europe. He has laid at

What this meaning' is, and what these 'designs' are, it is not hard to divine. Some of our readers may be curious to know what these elated personages think as to the nature and tendency of the present movement by the Oxford tract party. On this subject also they have spoken with the same freedom.

'The tracts,' they say, ' are the production of a well known knot of divines at or from Oxford, the determined foes of Dissent, the inconsistent adversaries of Catholicity, and the blind admirers of the Anglican church. In other words, they are written by staunch assertors of high church principles.

Will they succeed in their work? We firmly believe they will: nay, strange to say, we hope so. As to patching up, by their prescriptions, the worn out constitution of the poor old English Church, it is beyond human power. 'Curavimus Babylonem et non est sanata' (Jer. li. 9) will be their discovery in the end. It is no longer a matter of rafters and partition walls; the foundations have given way, the main buttresses are rent; and we are not sure but that one who has been for three centuries almost deprived of sight, and kept toiling in bondage, not at, but under the grinding wheel, has his hands upon the great pillars that support it, and having roused himself in his strength, may be about to give them a fearful shake. We speak only of moral power, but it is of the immense moral power of truth.

How, then, will they succeed? Not by their attempts to heal, but by their blows to wound. Their spear may be like that in Grecian fable, which inflicted a gash, but let out an ulcer. They strike boldly and deeply into the very body of Dissent, and the morbid humours of Protestantism will be drained out. Let this be done, and Catholic vitality will circulate in their place. They show no mercy to those who venture to break unity in their church, and like all unmerciful judges, they must expect no mercy. Why did you separate from the Roman church? is a question which every reader of these volumes will ask twenty times. He will find, it is true, what is intended for an answer, given him as often but he will be an easily satisfied inquirer if any of these answers prove sufficient for him."

Thus the expectation would seem to be, that the Oxford men, proceeding so far in their way towards Rome, will find no resting place until they take up their abode there; and that the effect of

the feet of his holiness one of the idols of the country, with a letter from King Gregory I., late Massuteo. His holiness sends back by him a magnificent present, a silver representation of the blessed Virgin, with the child Jesus, who is blessing the islands. A new costume, consisting of cloaks, designed by the celebrated artist Cammuccini, has been sent to all the chiefs. The population is entirely Catholic, with the exception of some yet under instruction. M. Caret returns with a reinforcement of labourers.'-Ibid. 373.

Dublin Review, pp. 307, 308.

their labours will be to shut up the Anglican Church to the necessity of following their example. The Catholic Magazine' has spoken once and again to the same effect. The Puseyites, it seems, have found the great clue, which, if they have perse'verance to follow it, will lead them safely through the labyrinth 'of error into the clear day-light of truth. Some of the brightest ' ornaments of their church have advocated a re-union with the 'church of all times and all lands; and the accomplishment of the 'design, if we have read aright the signs of the times, is fast ripening. Her maternal arms are ever open to receive back re'pentant children; and, as when the prodigal son returned to his 'father's house, the fatted calf was killed, and a great feast of joy 'made, even so will the whole of Christendom rejoice greatly 'when so bright a body of learned and pious men as the authors of the Tracts for the Times,' shall have made the one step 'necessary to place them again within that sanctuary where alone they can be safe from the moving sands, beneath which they 'dread being overwhelmed. The consideration of this step will 'soon inevitably come on, and it is with the utmost confidence 'that we predict the accession to our ranks of the entire mass.'* With such facts as these before us, and with such a temper abroad, may we not well ask whether our strife as politicians has not rendered us somewhat insensible to our position as Protestants? But persons who admit the propriety of this question may be ready to ask another-viz., in what way may we acquit ourselves with effect as the adversaries of Popish superstition and tyranny, without betraying our principles as the friends of civil and religious liberty? Not, we are sorry to say, by joining our Protestant Associations, or our Reformation Societies; for, talk as they may, it is clear, that to be a sound Protestant, in such connexions, it is strictly necessary to be a thorough-going Tory. Of their policy, the great aim we fear is, the suppression of the things that are equal,' and the cry of 'no Popery' is put into large request mainly because it is the most convenient engine by which to forward that object. We say not that this is the case with all, but in the conduct of many who are the loudest, and the least wearied in the utterance of this cry, there are not a few things which force this conclusion upon us. To a mind of the slightest moral delicacy nothing can well be more disgusting than the hypocrisy which is at work on this subject, whether as taking the shape of the slanderous falsehood and ruffian insolence of Printing-House Square,' or as betrayed in alliance with more saintly pretensions. The few dispassionate persons who were present in Exeter Hall when the Protestant Association

⚫ Catholic Magazine, March 1839, pp. 165, 175.

was pleased to sing its requiem over the fall of the Melbourne ministry, and of liberalism all the world over, will not soon forget the scene they witnessed. We hate Popery, but there is one thing more that we hate--the temper of the men, yes, and of the women too, who in their hatred of the name, are prostrate in a perfect adoration of the thing. It is, we would fain hope, in ignorance of themselves that they are thus inconsistent. But the inconsistency is not the less real, or the less dangerous, because it is the work, more or less, of self deception. It may be true that the man who tortures me thinks he does God service, but I am not the less a sufferer on that account. If the true Orange temper betrayed by the Protestant Association on the occasion adverted to, were to be regarded as exhibiting the average feeling of the Church of England, we make no scruple in saying, that we should see so little difference between the religion of Canterbury and that of the Vatican, as not to be greatly concerned about which of them might chance to be uppermost. But this is not the real state of things. Such people are worse, and there are myriads in the same community who are better, than their system.

One mode of meeting the present altered position of this controversy would be, that the tutors in all our colleges should make it the subject of more extended and systematic attention than has been the practice in Protestant colleges of any description for the last century. The points on which we are really at issue with our opponents; the sources from which the information bearing with most effect on those points may be derived; and the compass and variety of knowledge and criticism which the subject as a whole embraces-all are matters on which very few Protestant ministers have any just conception. At the same time they are topics which would open an interesting and a most instructive field to the student of theology, and of ecclesiastical and general his

tory.

Next to well-directed efforts with a view to qualify the rising ministry among us for entering with effect upon this controversy from the pulpit, the platform, or the press, would be the importance of endeavouring to secure for the subject more adequate attention among our people generally, particularly among the more educated. Much mischief would be prevented, and much benefit conferred, if such persons could be prevailed upon to acquire some familiarity with the evasions and sophistries of the Catholic disputant, along with a full exposure of their hollowness, instead of being left in circumstances to become acquainted with the poison of such plausibilities apart from their antidote, and with all the disadvantage of a surprise. By such means an interest and circumspection in regard to this subject would be spread as along the frontier of our religious communities, the effect of which would be to render the insinuating progress of this 'leaven

If we

of the Pharisees,' much more difficult than at present. had only a moderate number of men placed in this sense at their post, though large spaces might be left between them, much would be done that is now left undone. Such persons would find many opportunities and means of doing service, and that, if such should be their taste, without noise or obtrusiveness. By the loan of proper books, by the circulation of judicious tracts, by personal influence and conference, the labours of the enemy might be, in this way, more than counteracted in many a direction.

With regard to any more organized effort there is room for misgiving. We are already burdened and perplexed by the number of our societies, and not a few of them are as things 'ready to die,' from the want of effective men to conduct them. Most of our readers, we presume, are aware that the Catholics of Great Britain have recently formed an association which they call The Catholic Institute,' the object of which is, as stated in its prospectus, 'to expose the falsehood of the calumnious charges made against the Catholic religion, to defend 'the real tenets of Catholicity, and the circulation of all ' useful knowledge on the above mentioned subjects.' The In'stitute,' accordingly, provides for the printing, publishing, and circulating of works in explanation and defence of modern Popery; and the committee is empowered to organise local committees, and to solicit and avail themselves of the co-operation ' of individuals in different parts of Great Britain and the colo'nies.' Could we only see half a dozen competent men prepared to pledge themselves to the management of an institute of this sort, based upon the great principles of Protestant nonconformity, we should feel some confidence that great direct and indirect good would result. Churchmen on this controversy, are fastened in the wheels of inconsistency at every step. In a multitude of instances they cannot avoid the fate of the man who is condemned in the thing which he alloweth.'

If we hearken, indeed, to a writer who has indulged in such talk much more freely, we think, than good taste would warrant, we must suppose that the disadvantage resulting in this connexion from avowed principle, would be as great on the side of the Dissenter, as on that of the Churchman; and it has been hinted from the same quarter, that we shall probably deem it wise to be quiet on the matter of some existing controversies, lest the effect of a better acquaintance with ecclesiastical antiquity should be the overthrow of our much loved independency. We can assure the author of Ancient Christianity' and of Spiritual Despotism,' that we know nothing of such fear. That Dissenters have bestowed comparatively little attention on the primary sources of our knowledge concerning ecclesiastical antiquity is admitted: