general smoothness and the jagged character of the Lang Kofel was remarkable. It was quite possible to conceive that the Marmolata glaciers, favoured by cloudy summers and snowy winters, might unite below in one sheet of ice, and fill the basin partly occupied by the tiny Fedaia-See, or, perhaps, even the upper valley of the Avisio, as far as Penia. This fine pass is full of contrasts. Here nature has reserved her fairer mood for the sunny side; for the Alp pastures stretch in long, rich, green sheets up to the summit of the ridge of eruptive ash, bounding the pass to the north, and, in the Padon Spitze, attaining a height of 9,000 feet, or 2,000 feet above that of the pass itself. Nor is this all. The upper basin was a natural flower-garden, where every colour had its representatives, and even the larger blocks, scattered on its surface, became, through the luxuriance and variety of the plants growing upon them, miniature gardens in themselves."—(Pp. 70, 71.)

From our short remarks and the extracts we have made, our readers may gain a general idea of this interesting and instructive volume. The geologist, the botanist, and even the non-scientific reader, will find that such a work is not uncalled for.

The Rise and Influence of Rationalism in Europe. By W. E. H. LECKY, M.A. Two Vols. Longman, Green, & Co.

M

R. LECKY is a very young man ; but his History of the Spirit of Rationalism is certainly one of the most powerful works of its kind that ever appeared in England. He traces the history, not of individual writers and arguments, but of that rationalising spirit which has since the Reformation assumed so prominent a position in Europe. He is himself a Rationalist, belonging to a section of the sentimental school: and he looks forward to a day when the moral and aesthetic influence of Christianity shall be elevated and purified by the elimination of its dogmas and its "superstitions"; or, as we should say, of its intellectual aspect and its practical appliances. His delicate and toilsome task would probably have had but few attractions for him, had he not permitted himself every here and there to subjoin an apology for Rationalism, or an argument or reflection in its favour.

The method which he has very wisely, as far as the interests of Rationalism are concerned, adopted, is, taking advantage of the conception of Christianity now in vogue among English Protestants, to strive to carry it a few steps farther, by pointing out that positive doctrines still held, are bound up with other doctrines and methods of religious conception long since rejected. There are probably no opinions the profession of which at present raises such a storm of invective, and calls down such a flood of pity and contempt, as those on magic and witchcraft prevalent three hundred years ago;* as the ecclesiastical miracles and the "fetishism" of the middle ages; the principle that it is in itself right to inflict temporal punishment on heretics; or that those only will be saved who hold orthodox doctrine; or that religion should have the supreme direction of politics. But these are the very opinions and prin

*We do not here speak of the extent, but of the fact, of magic and witchcraft.

ciples which Mr. Lecky passes in review, and which he endeavours to show to be connected with the ethos and positive doctrines of modern Protestantism. In an indirect manner, therefore, and by semi-historical reflections and arguments bound up with a disliked set of opinions, does he assist this modern Protestantism to its consummation. Careless men will be more ready to accept what is directed against what they oppose; and, once accepted, its tendency will bear them on, even though they never distinctly realize that tendency to their own minds. If any scruples should, however, start up in the minds of his readers, our author directs their attention to some circumstances in the history of opinions, which we do not remember ever before to have seen either so distinctly brought forward or so adroitly used. Opinions which are "contrary to the spirit of the age" may be formally denied; but, he reminds them, they may also cease to be realized, and to exert any influence on the minds of men. They may become mere verbal formulæ to be, indeed, repeated as occasion requires, but of which no oue any longer cares to investigate the meaning, or ponder the bearing. Have not, he asks, the opinions at the destruction of which you scruple, already entered into this dormant state which is the natural prelude to death? Nay, are they not practically dead? And if so, why should we not cast off their exuvia? His historical investigations have, moreover, led him to some conclusions respecting the manner in which opinions are ordinarily formed, which enable him to state, as on several occasions he does with great force, the real nature and logical value of the reasons for which the old beliefs were discarded and at the same time to offer a very powerful apology for the new. The general opinions of a community are, he says, produced, not so much by real argument, as by a process of adaptation, which seeks so to modify them that they may harmonize with the ethos produced by those especially prominent and energizing opinions, which form the centres of thought and action, and give the tone to the community. The obvious corollary is that if we are to have any opinions at all, we must in them follow the tendency of the age, and the tendency of the age is, as Mr. Lecky has but little difficulty in showing, clearly toward Rationalism. And lest any one should dread that a disintegration of dogmatic Christianity may result in consequences injurious to human happiness, he has at the end of his work a chapter on "The Industrial History of Rationalism," designed to prove that Rationalism has as much encouraged industry as Dogmatism has checked it.

But the style of Mr. Lecky's work is one not at all likely to raise scruples in careless readers. He is continually lauding the moral side of Christianity. What in Rationalism would be repulsive to his readers he does not bring boldly forward, but rather keeps in the background, and leaves silently to do its work. We do not blame Mr. Lecky for this; our own controversialists, and all sensible and practical men, do the same; but we give it as a reason for thinking that the book is likely to take, and to have an extensive, though, perhaps, in great measure, an indirect influence. There are other and very influential, though, apparently, minor reasons for thinking this. The two thoughtful and very suggestive volumes before us form a work in every respect elegant. The publishers have not been backward in their office, and the author has adorned the fruit of his labours with an easy and fluent style,

which, at first, seems redundant, but in which every clause really bears its part in there solution of an idea, which seldom fails to impress us. We observe a bigotry of view and a bitterness of tone when speaking of the Catholic Church, which is unusual in writers of his school; and even the occurrence of words-e. g., Mariolatory-and phrases which are both offensive and unnecessary. His method is far from being as perfect as might be desired. With respect to his matter, we shall have to speak of that on another occasion, when reviewing his work at length. This, indeed, we should have done at an earlier period had we not been prevented by press of matter.

The Spirit of the Cure of Ars. Translated from the French of M. l'Abbé MONNIN. Edited by JOHN EDWARD BOWDEN, Priest of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. London: Burns & Lambert.

HOSE of our readers who are already acquainted with the original

English work in which it is substantially reproduced, will gratefully welcome F. Bowden's translation of this beautiful little book; whilst those who gaze for the first time in its pages upon the finished picture of the saintly priest, when ripe for heaven, and listen to his words of inspired wisdom, treasured up by one who lived by his side, and is now treading in his path, will be led to seek a fuller knowledge of the previous steps by which such a height of sanctity was reached, and by which the dull peasant boy, "the keeper," as he himself tells us, "of three sheep and an ass," attained such a mastery over the powers of nature, in the region of inanimate matter, and over the still more stubborn and hidden springs of the perverse and wayward wills of

inen.

There are two sentences in the little book before us, which contain the key to the life and the work of the Curé of Ars. "The priesthood," he says, "is the love of the Heart of Jesus; when you see the priest, think of Jesus Christ." And, again, "It is only the first step that is difficult in the way of abnegation. When once it is entered upon, we go straightforward; and when once we have acquired this virtue, we have everything." It was the path of self-abnegation, early entered, and trodden without faltering or flinching to the end, which led John Baptist Vianney to that state of sublime perfection which realized his own ideal of the priesthood, and wherein his whole being was so spiritualized as to become, to those who knew him best, only a thin veil, shrouding from their eyes the visible presence of Christ.

"The Spirit of the Curé of Ars" is published in so cheap and portable a form as will, we trust, make it the familiar pocket companion of most of our readers. It seems needless, therefore, to give extracts from what, to be appreciated, should be studied as a whole. We rejoice to read in Father Bowden's preface, that "the Holy Father has expressed great interest in the Beatification of the Curé of Ars, and has desired that his cause may be introduced to the Roman congregation as soon as possible."

It is surely not without a lesson for us, that the unerring hand which two centuries ago wrote on one day in her calendar the names of S. Ignatius,

S. Francis Xavier, and S. Teresa, names illustrious alike in the order of nature and of grace, has added to it in these days of overwrought intellectual excitement, and worship of mere intellectual power, that of Benedict Joseph Labré, and is preparing to place beside it the names of John Baptist Vianney and Anna Maria Taigi, the obscure village curé and the humble artizan's wife. It is to teach us what is the might of mere sanctity, in its narrowest and lowest sphere, rendered more intense by its very concentration, of the charity which begins, though it never (as the world reads the proverb) ends at home. The antichrist of our day comes forth big, brawny, and muscular, with brow of brass and hand of iron, to defy the armies of the living God; and the Church, though she has stores of kingly armour in her treasure-house, wherewith in time past she has clothed her chosen champions, and arrayed S. Augustine, S. Anselm, and S. Thomas in panoply of proof, cares not to unlock them now, but stoops in her tranquil majesty for the pebble in the wayside brook, quells the giant once more with the shepherd's sling and stone, or pins him to the earth by the feeble hand of a woman.

In consequence of an accident, we are obliged, with much regret, to postpone until January our notice of Mr. Isaac Butt's truly admirable little volume on Irish National Education, and of Mr. Badeley's learned pamphlet on the legal questions concerning the Confessional.

ERRATA. At page 421 of the present number, under the first sentence of the second paragraph :-" We are now, then, in a position to draw out somewhat more accurately the doctrine which we sketched in a former article on those doctrinal dicta of Popes, which are not definitions of faith"--the reader is requested to note that, of course, we are not speaking of those doctrinal dicta which a Pope may utter merely as a private doctor.-At page 298, note ‡, the quotation ought to be acknowledged as taken from "Maffei's Annals.”

568

APPENDIX TO THE

'JULY ARTICLE ON PUBLIC SCHOOL EDUCATION.

A PROTESTANT gentleman who has had much personal experience in Public School Education has kindly written to us to say, that he has read the first article of our July number "with great interest and considerable sympathy." "In the course of it, however," he says, "I came across one or two inaccuracies, which, perhaps, the author of the article would be glad to have corrected." We are only too delighted to seize the opportunity of receiving some correction from one, whose position entitles what he says to special deference and who expresses himself so kindly and so courteously.

"I have thought it best," says our correspondent, "just to jot down, in the order in which they occur, the few mistakes into which you have not unnaturally fallen, in your article on our Public Schools. Indeed, so complicated is our system, and so unintelligible is it generally considered to be to non-gremials, that the wonder is, not that there are some mistakes in your remarks, but that there are so few.

(a)" First of all, then, the novel 'Butler Burke' enjoys but little reputation at Eton, as it does not represent at all truly our Eton life. It seems to me almost a pity that you dignified it with such special notice.

(6) "Your allusion, in p. 3, to the silence of the Commissioners on the subject of morality, takes it almost for granted that it was not gone into by them. This was by no means the case; only evidence on that point could not with propriety be published.

(x) "On no other ground,' p. 26. Might you not add or substitute, 'because it saves trouble'?

(8) "The description of a flogging, the thuds and groans,' is overstated. The operation is not very formidable. Boys would often prefer submitting to it, to having a long imposition set them to write out. It is very seldom that even a word is heard from the victim.

666

6

(ε) The rest fag' (p. 32), except the V. form, who number over 300: 200 of whom, or more, have the privilege of being able to fag lower boys' (i. e., boys below the V. form): rather less than 100 being in an amphibious state, neither enjoying the power of fagging others, nor being liable to be fagged themselves.

(5) "Cellar' is held, not at the 'Christopher,' as stated p. 20, but at 'the Tap,' which is a beer-shop in another house nearer the College.

() "P. 35. Considerable pains are taken by most tutors in preparing their boys for Confirmation, which is held once every year and a half in the College chapel by the Bishop of Oxford. During the few previous weeks the tutors give instructions on the subject to such of their pupils as are candidates, and see them two or three times separately; during which interview boys not unfrequently open out, and a tutor is able to speak plainly about points in a pupil's character on which he has never previously had an opportunity of dwelling. For myself, I think the training a defective one; still, the period of Confirmation is frequently a crisis in a boy's career. Many take a start