private opinion. No one should ever knowingly take part in any such movement. No movement of any sort, not approved by the Prelates of the country, should ever have our countenance, unless it has the express sanction of the Pope, the Bishop's superior, as well as our own,-a sanction never to be counted on against the united voice of the Prelates of any country.

Having made these remarks in reply to feelings and suspicions which we know exist in certain quarters, and which are unfounded, so far as we are personally concerned, and which we trust are not likely to be justified by any movement or tendencies, worthy of the slightest consideration we are acquainted with, we turn to the subject of the conversion of the country. Here it seems to us necessary to be on our guard against crotchets and hobbies, and to take care not to say so much about it as to disgust both those within and those without. The Bishops and Clergy know at least as well what it is necessary to do, in order to convert non-Catholics, as the laity do, and we are not disposed to run in advance of them. There is a great work to be done here before any direct efforts on a large scale can be attempted for the conversion of those who are without. If the souls of non-Catholics are dear to our Lord, the souls of bad Catholics are no less dear. With all that our Bishops can do, they can only partially provide for the spiritual wants of the Catholics already in the country. We have a large Catholic population unprovided for, who neglect, if they do not forget, their religion, and are the greatest drawbacks there can be on the conversion of nonCatholics. The pastor's first care is to those who are of the household of faith, and, we may add, to the children of the faithful. The conversion of bad Catholics, the proper training of Catholic children, the correction of the vice of intemperance, and other immoralities, prevalent in a portion of our Catholic population of this city, and the introduction of morality, good order, sobriety, and economy, into what are now haunts of drunkenness, dens of vice, and petty crimes, would do more for the conversion of nonCatholics than all the books and reviews we can write, all the journals we can edit, or efforts we can make expressly for their conversion, for it would prove to them, what they now doubt, the practical moral efficiency of our religion. We

must provide first for our own spiritual wants, get our own population all right, and then we may turn our attention with confidence and success to those who are without.

The conversion of the country is a thing every Catholic desires, prays for, and to some extent, no doubt, works for, although perhaps not with as much earnestness, zeal, and hopefulness as the impatience of us converts demands. But the conversion of a whole Protestant people, like the American, is a work of magnitude, and not to be effected in a day. We agree with our author that there never was opened a more glorious field to the Church than is opened. here. We believe the Church is destined to reap here a glory that she has never reaped in the conversion of any other country, not because the conversion of this country is more easy than that of others, but because it is more difficult. It was easier to convert the Roman empire, than it is to convert the American republic, and it took the Church six centuries to complete that; it is easier to convert Great Britain than the United States, for her people have more of the habit of obedience, subordination, submission, and retain a stronger attachment to religion. There is scarcely a trait in the American character as practically developed that is not more or less hostile to Catholicity. Our people are imbued with a spirit of independence, an aversion to authority, a pride, an overweening conceit, as well as with a prejudice, that makes them revolt at the bare mention of the Church. In dealing with them the Church has and can have no extrinsic aid. She has to address them as individuals, and can hope nothing any farther than she can convince the individual reason and win the individual heart. Her success here she must owe to herself alone, to her own intrinsic power and excellence. This is no reason why the Catholic should despair of the conversion of the country, or make no exertions to effect it. The post of difficulty and danger is precisely the post the true Catholic chooses. Notwithstanding all the difficulty of the task, we believe the Church is able to accomplish it, and will accomplish it, and in doing so acquire a glory greater than she acquired in converting the Roman Empire.

But we do not believe it is to be accomplished by any new or unusual means. The American people, like every

other people, have, no doubt, their peculiarities, their idiosyncrasies, but their conversion will never be effected by seeking in these our point d'appui. They must be converted very much in the way and by the same means that other nations have been, by addressing that in them. which is common to all men, their reason, their heart, and their conscience, not what is peculiar to them, or what is their local or temporary interest or passion. We shall not do it by appeals to their patriotism, or by favoring their radicalism or their conservatism, their slavery or their antislavery proclivities. The Church leaves to every people their nationality and to every state its autonomy, and in return claims to be free and independent of the temporal order. To induce the American people to become Catholic from patriotic motives would be to make them like the multitude who followed our Lord for the sake of the loaves and fishes." It would be to subordinate the Church to American nationality, as the English did at the time of the Reformation, as the Republicans did, or attempted to do in France in the last century, and to destroy her Catholic freedom and independence. The Church must obey God and follow truth and justice irrespective of nationalities. She cannot be trammelled by nationalities. She is Catholic, not national, and can no more be American, than European, Asiatic, African, or Australian. She is a kingdom in this world, but not of this world. To mix her up with a radical party or a conservative party would be to compromise her Catholicity. Were we to court the North by leaguing Catholic interests with the anti-slavery movement, abolitionists might pat us on the back, call us clever fellows, and profess great respect for our Church. Were we to labor to identify them with the slave interest, Southern politicians would also pat us on the back, call us clever fellows, and profess great respect for our Church. But besides losing as much in the one section as we should gain in the other, we should be trammelled by the section we courted. If the Abolitionists or the pro-slavery men should be disposed to go farther than we could with our Catholic conscience go with them, the party deserted would come down upon us in a storm of wrath, and all the politicians among our own friends would stand aghast, and fear that Catholic interests were ruined, or put back a century. So

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it must be, if in the hope of winning the American people to the Church, we as Catholics form a coalition with one or another political party, or with one or another outside interest. As Americans we have a nationality, political preferences and duties, but as Catholics, we know no nationality, no political party, unless a party is formed for the purpose of depriving us of our Catholic freedom. The Church cannot be involved in the conflicts of nationalities or the squabbles of demagogues.

Moreover, in our country the Catholic population is made up of a variety of nationalities, and one nationality in the eyes of the Church is as respectable as another. These in time will be moulded into one American nationality. We cannot hasten that time by any attempts to force them to Americanize. It is well to bear in mind. that they will Americanize, so that measures may be taken in season to guard against Americanizing becoming apostatizing. The most efficient portion of our Catholic population are of foreign birth and training, and it will be so for some time to come. We cannot serve the interests of religion by throwing our American nationality in their faces, any more than they can by throwing theirs in our faces. Americans have the right to be Americans, and we will defend that right against whosoever assails it, as we would defend our country against the enemy who should invade our shores; but in laboring to promote Catholic interests in the country, the best way undoubtedly is, to lay aside nationalities, to remember only that we are Catholics, and make our appeal to our countrymen as men, as simple human beings, endowed with reason and free-will, having souls that will never die, and capable by a right use of their faculties, assisted by divine grace, to attain to the endless beatitude of heaven.

We must also bear in mind that the instruments Almighty God will use in the conversion of the country are the population with their clergy already Catholic. However we may work for non-Catholics, we must work with Catholics, and carry with us the sympathies and affections of the Catholic body, or effect nothing. No doubt that body has, outside of its religion, its crotchets, its peculiarities, its idiosyncrasies, and, above all, its sensitiveness. We must never run athwart these when it can be helped ;

we must remember we belong to the same body, with our own crotchets, peculiarities, idiosyncrasies, sensitiveness, and therefore must not be too rude upon others. We cannot move much in advance of the public sentiment of our own body. While, however, we say this in reference to those who are thought to be too impatient to Americanize, we hope it will be permitted us to say to others of different tendencies or sympathies, that they must not be too suspicious, too ready to take offence at a word or an expression, or to put a bad construction when a good one is possible. On this point we need not say that some injustice has been done to our Review, and its position and influence very unnecessarily injured. No one seems to have considered the delicate position in which we and every American-born Catholic were placed on the rise of the Know-Nothing party. There was no question that we must oppose that party with all the force and energy we could command; but the difficulty, hard for any one but an American by birth and breeding to appreciate, was to oppose the party without offending the sentiment of American nationality, enlisting it on the side of the party, and thus rendering it still stronger and more dangerous. To oppose it in an anti-American spirit, or on Catholic grounds alone, would have been about as wise as for a man to attempt to bite off his own nose. There was only one ground on which we could offer any effectual opposition, that was the American ground,-to accept distinctly and sincerely the American nationality, and to prove that the spirit and principles, the ends and aims of the party were opposed to the genuine principles and spirit of American institutions. It was necessary to take from the party all chance of appeal to the sentiment of nationality, the sentiment common to every man with regard to the land of his birth, and defend Catholics and foreign-born citizens, not as Catholics and foreigners, but as American citizens, as we well could do. Our misfortune was that, while we were doing all in our power to prevent a false issue from being made up before the public, which would have been fatal to us as Catholics, and deeply prejudicial to the foreign-born portion of our population, whether Catholic or not, we were understood to be working on the side of the Know-Nothings, and sharing their sentiments against foreigners. A great