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In view of such declarations as are made in this pamphlet of Manning, and in other publications of the ultramontanist party, the question arises whether the Council of the Vatican is to re-affim the principles on which John Huss and Jerome of Prague were led to the stake. We should be glad to have explicit information on this subject. The question is not whether the form and degree of penalty to be inflicted for opinions which are judged heretical, may not be changed to suit modern ideas of the criminal code. It is to be presumed that neither Pope nor Bishops would wish to have Protestants or other heretics burned at the stake. But the question is, whether the principle that Church and State may rightfully combine, the one to adjudge the degree of their guilt and the other to inflict the penalty upon persevering opposers of the Roman Catholic dogmas, is still held? Ought men to be punished criminally by the Church, or by the State executing the Church's verdict, for heretical opinions? If we seek for an answer to this question in the Pope's Encyclical, we find that the old doctrine of persecution appears to be approved and asserted, and the modern doctrine of toleration appears to be condemned and denounced. The liberty of conscience, which is conceded by modern States, is set down among the damnable errors of the times. What does the Pope mean? If he does not mean that civil governments ought to use force to punish persons who teach doctrines which are pronounced by him or by the Catholic Church heretical, what do these statements of the Encyclical mean? The "bloody tenet of persecution" is not yet abandoned, but, it would seem, is again to be asserted in audacious opposition to the humane and Christian spirit of the age, and in obstinate derogation of the precepts of the founder of Christianity.

The other point of the Pope's infallibility, in which, if the new dogma is carried, the Council of Constance will be flatly contradicted by the Vatican Synod, is one which an enemy of the Catholic Church might wish to see adopted. For ourselves, if the Roman Catholic Church is to act practically upon this dogma, as it has done in regard to the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, we should prefer to have it defined and declared; for then it would be more likely to awaken opposition. But

we should prefer that the doctrine should be neither practically nor theoretically received. We may desire that evil should be manifested, but not that evil should be done, in order that good may come. And we have no hostility to the Roman Catholic Church, except so far as we deem its doctrines erroneous.

One of Manning's arguments in favor of an authoritative proclamation of the infallibility of the Pope is derived from. the need of such a doctrine. Protestants are told that the Church is infallible, but they taunt Catholics with the fact of a division among themselves as to the place where infallibility resides. Persons in quest of a safe harbor into which they can retreat from the agitations of doubt, are exhorted to cast themselves upon the authority of the Church; but when they comply with the counsel, they hear it said by some that the Pope's definitions of doctrine are not irreformable. We fear, however, that if the Ultramontanists were to secure their end, difficulties and perplexities would still remain. What are the bounds and limits of this Papal infallibility? We are told by Perrone and the other Catholic theologians of this school, that his infallibility relates only to matters pertaining to Faith and Morals, and that on these matters he is unerring only when he speaks to the whole Church in his character of universal bishop. The fine distinctions which are made by these theologians remind us of a passage in the "Republic" of Plato, where Socrates, in one of his paradoxical speeches, argues that no physician can err, since when he mistakes he is not in that mistake, or so far as he makes it, a physician; and that no pilot can err, since, if he misleads a vessel, he is not in this act a pilot, and so of the various trades and professions. A thousand questions would immediately arise respecting the metes and bounds of this supernatural prerogative of the Pop, if it were to be authoritatively ascribed to him. Moreover, the historical perplexities in which the champions of the Roman Catholic system would be involved, already great enough to task them to the utmost, would be much enhanced through such a decree.

The Roman Catholic hierarchy assumes to stand, with priestly prerogatives, between the soul and God. This doctrine of a priesthood in the Christian Church, all consistent

Protestants unite in rejecting. It is the first great corruption of Christianity. It is grateful to notice occasional symptoms of a more true and spiritual conception of the Gospel and the Church. Father Hyacinthe, in one of his sermons or addresses, remarks that he cannot look on these great Protestant communities, with all the fruits of religion which they exhibit, as disinherited of the Holy Ghost. The expression is a very striking one. It shows how the very warmth and honesty of Christian feeling may carry one beyond the narrow bounds of sect. It was just this recognition of the fruits or effects of the Spirit, that opened the eyes of the Apostle Peter, and broke down his traditional prejudice. "Forasmuch," he said, "as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, what was I that I could withstand God." (Acts xi. 17). A like argument brought all of the Apostles to give the right hand of fellowship to Paul and Barnabas. They learned that the Spirit was not confined in the channel to which they had limited His operations. A new dispensation had come, which was of a different character from the old. The revival of Judaism in the Roman Catholic Church obscured for ages an essential peculiarity of the Gospel and the Gospel Dispensation. Such words as these of Father Hyacinthe, to which we have referred, indicate, in our judgment, the way in which the Roman Catholic error and all sectarian narrowness will ultimately disappear. Good men will be compelled to acknowledge that a Christianity, as genuine and as valuable, it may be, as their own, is found outside of the borders in which they had supposed it to be confined.

ARTICLE II.-A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S "PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE."

A LITTLE less than eighteen months ago a remarkable address was delivered in Edinburgh, by Professor Thomas H. Huxley, of London, which has been published and extensively circulated, and has attracted much attention. Its author is Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology in the Royal College of Surgeons, and has for some years held a prominent position among English physicists. The striking facts and startling assertions of the writer, and especially the bold and almost defiant manner in which they are presented, are well calculated to excite the attention of thinking men. Professor Huxley did not hesitate in this address to avow himself a follower of David Hume, and to quote with approval this sentiment of that philosopher :

"If we take in hand any volume of Divinity or school metaphysics, let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames; for it can contain nothing but sophis

try and illusion.”

He boldly declared that all inquiries about spiritual things lie "outside of the limits of philosophical enquiry," and cannot be matters of knowledge or faith; and told his hearers that if they accepted his conclusions "they had placed their feet on the first rung of a ladder which, in many people's estimation," and he did not except himself, "leads to the antipodes of heaven." He, to be sure, denies that he is a materialist, and yet affirms that "matter may be regarded as a form of thought, thought may be regarded as a property of matter," and again, "matter and spirit are but names for the imaginary substrata of groups of natural phenomena," leaving his readers in doubt whether to class him among materialists or nihilists.

It is not surprising that such views have been received with satisfaction by those who believe that there is a contest waging between physical science and faith, in which the former is to

gain the victory; and that the offensive manner in which they have been presented has caused them to be regarded by others with suspicion so strong as to prevent their acquainting themselves with either the facts, the arguments, or the conclusions of the essay. We do not sympathize with either of these classes. We do not believe in any necessary antagonism between physical science and religions or Christian faith. We are at times amused, and, it may be, vexed with the arrogance of physicists, as if all knowledge was to die with them, especially when we find one theorist of this sort opposing another; one stoutly affirming what the other denies. Indeed, when we have heard what have been regarded as some of the best established principles of physical science overthrown and again re-established, we have sometimes thought that it was not worth while to interfere in their disputes. But theories and conclusions which are put forth with so much assurance, and in the way of challenge to all the world, and which are accepted by so many as indisputable, ought not to be passed by without notice. We propose, then, to examine the theories and arguments of this essay. If it shall be found on exami nation that the facts do not sustain the theories, it will not be the first time in history that on "the battle fields of science" the performance has not equalled the promise.

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The first thing which strikes us in reading the essay is the loose estimate which the writer puts on language as a means of expressing ideas. He tells us, indeed, "that scientific language should possess a definite and constant signification," yet when it suits one purpose, he says that "matter and life are inseparably connected," and with another object in view he speaks of lifeless matter." He denies that in nature there is anything which corresponds to the metaphysical idea of cause and effect," and notwithstanding this he uses these terms in his essay and makes much of the "powers of matter," and reasons about the "direct results of the nature of matter," as if there could be a power which produces no effect, and a result which is traceable to no cause. In the conclusion of his essay he uses this language, "If we find that the ascertainment of the order of nature is facilitated by using one terminology or one set of symbols, rather than another,

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