brought forward to prove the fallibility of the Church, and we leave our readers to judge for themselves whether we have not proved, that, in every instance, they are either unsound in principle or irrelevant, proving nothing but the Professor's own malice or ignorance. The Professor has made numerous assumptions, numerous bold assertions, but in no instance has he done better than simply to assume the point he was to prove. He has declaimed loudly against the Church, he has said many hard things against her, but he has harmed only himself and his brethren. We now take our leave of him. We have done all we proposed. We have vindicated the Catholic argument for the disputed books drawn from the infallibility of the Church, which is enough, without the testimonies of the Fathers, although we have even these. We regret that the task of answering the Professor had not been assumed by Dr. Lynch himself, who would have accomplished it so much better than we have done. Yet it was hardly fitting that he should have assumed it. He could not, with a proper respect for himself and his profession, have replied to such a vituperative performance as Mr. Thornwell's book. We were brought up a Presbyterian, and have been accustomed from our youth to the sort of stuff we have had to deal with, and therefore have been able to reply without feeling the degradation we should have felt, had we all our lifetime been accustomed to the courtesy and candor of Catholic controver sialists.

PROTESTANTISM ENDS IN TRANSCENDENTALISM.*

JULY, 1846.

We have no intention of reviewing at length the book the title of which we have just quoted. Indeed, we have read it only by proxy. We have heard it spoken of in certain literary

* Margaret, a Tale of the Real and Ideal, Blight and Bloom, including Sketches of a Place not before described, called Mons Christi Boston: Jordan & Wiley. 1846. 12mo. pp. 460.

circles as a remarkable production, almost as one of the wonders of the age. The Protestant lady who read it for us tells us that it is a weak and silly book, unnatural in its scenes and characters, coarse and vulgar in its language and details, wild and visionary in its speculations; and, judging from the portions here and there which we actually have read, and from the source whence it emanates, we can hardly run any risk in indorsing our Protestant friend's criticism. The author is a man not deficient in natural gifts; he has respectable attainments; and makes, we believe, a tolerably successful minister of the latest form of Protestantism with which we chance to be acquainted; though, since we have not been introduced to any new form for several months, it must not be inferred from the fact that we are acquainted with no later form, that none later exists.

So far as we have ascertained the character of this book, it is intended to be the vehicle of certain crude speculations on religion, theology, philosophy, morals, society, education, and matters and things in general. The Mons Christi stands for the human heart, and Christ himself is our higher or instinctive nature, and if we but listen to our own natures, we shall at once learn, love, and obey all that our Blessed Redeemer teaches. Hence, Margaret, a poor, neglected child, who has received no instruction, who knows not even the name of her Maker, nor that of her Saviour, who, in fact, has grown up in the most brutish ignorance, is represented as possessing in herself all the elements of the most perfect Christian character, and as knowing by heart all the essential principles of Christian faith and morals. The author seems also to have written his work, in part at least, for the purpose of instructing our instructors as to the true method of education. He appears to adopt a very simple and a very pleasant theory on the subject,-one which cannot fail to commend itself to our young folks. Love is the great teacher; and the true method of education is for the pupil to fall in love with the tutor, or the tutor with the pupil, and it is perfected when the falling in love is mutual. Whence it follows, that it is a great mistake to suppose it desirable or even proper that tutor and

This would be to reverse

pupil should both be of the same sex. the natural order, since the sexes were evidently intended for each other. This method, we suppose, should be called "LEARNING MADE EASY, OR NATURE DISPLAYED," since it would enable us to dispense with school-rooms, prefects, text-books, study, and the birch, and to fall back on our natural instincts. These two points of doctrine indicate the genus, if not the species, of the book, and show that it must be classed under the general head of Transcendentalism. If we could allow ourselves to go deeper into the work and to dwell longer on its licentiousness and blasphemy, we probably might determine its species as well as its renus. But this must suffice; and when we add that the author seems to comprise in himself several species at once, besides the whole genus humbuggery, we may dismiss the book, with sincere pity for him who wrote it, and a real prayer for his speedy restoration to the simple genus humanity, and for his conversion, through grace, to that Christianity which was given to man from above, and not, spider-like, spun out of his own bowels.

Yet, bad and disgusting, false and blasphemous, as this book really is, bating a few of its details, it is a book which no Protestant, as a Protestant, has a right to censure. Many Protestants affect great contempt of Transcendentalism, and horror at its extravagance and blasphemy; but they have no right to do

So.

Transcendentalism is a much more serious affair than they would have us believe. It is not a simple "Yankee notion," confined to a few isolated individuals in a little corner of New England, as some of our Southern friends imagine, but is in fact the dominant error of our times, is as rife in one section of our common country as in another; and, in principle, at least, is to be met with in every popular Anti-Catholic writer of the day, whether German, French, English, or American. It is, and has been from the first, the fundamental heresy of the whole Protestant world; for, at bottom, it is nothing but the fundamental principle of the Protestant Reformation itself, and without assuming it, there is no conceivable principle on which it is possible to justify the Reformers in their separation from the Catholic

Church. The Protestant who refuses to accept it, with all its legitimate consequences, however frightful or absurd they may be, condemns himself and his whole party.

We are far from denying that many Protestants, and, indeed, the larger part of them, as a matter of fact, profess to hold many doctrines which are incompatible with Transcendentalism; but this avails them nothing, for they hold them, not as Protestants, but in despite of their Protestantism, and therefore have no right to hold them at all. In taking an account of Protestantism, we have the right, and, indeed, are bound, to exclude them from its definition. Every man is bound, as the condition of being ranked among rational beings, to be logically consistent with himself; and no one can claim as his own any doctrine which does not flow from, or which is not logically consistent with, his own first principles. This follows necessarily from the principle, that of contradictories one must be false, since one necessarily excludes the other. If, then, the doctrines incompatible with Transcendentalism, which Protestants profess to hold, do not flow from their own first principles, or if they are not logically compatible with them, they cannot claim them as Protestants, and we have the right, and are bound to exclude them from the definition of Protestantism. The man cannot be scientifically included in the definition of the horse, because both chance to be lodged in the same stable, or to be otherwise found in juxtaposition.

The essential mark or characteristic of Protestantism is, unquestionably, dissent from the authority of the Catholic Church, in subjection to which the first Protestants were spiritually born and reared. This is evident from the whole history of its origin, and from the well known fact, that opposition to Catholicity is the only point on which all who are called Protestants can agree among themselves. On every other question which comes up, they differ widely one from another, and not unfrequently some take views directly opposed to those taken by others; but when it concerns opposing the Church, however dissimilar their doctrines and tempers, they all unite, and are ready to march as one man to the attack. As dissent. Protestantism is negative, denies

the authority of the Catholic Church, and can include within its definition nothing which, even in the remotest sense, concedes or implies that authority. But no man, sect, or party can rest on a mere negation, for no mere negation is or can be an ultimate principle. Every negation implies an affirmation, and therefore an affirmative principle which authorizes it. He who dissents does so in obedience to some authority or principle which commands or requires him to dissent, and this principle, not the negation, is his fundamental principle. The essential or fundamental principle of Protestantism is, then, not dissent from the authority of the Catholic Church, but the affirmative principle on which it relies for the justification of its dissent.

What, then, is this affirmative principle? Whatever it be, it must be either out of the individual dissenting, or in him; that is, some external authority, or some internal authority. The first supposition is not admissible; for Protestants really allege no authority for dissent, external to the individual dissenting,— have never defined any such authority, never hinted that such authority exists or is needed; and there obviously is no such authority which can be adduced. In point of fact, so far from dissenting from the Church on the ground that they are commanded to do so by an external authority paramount to the Church, they deny the existence of all external authority in matters of faith, and defend their dissent on the ground that there is no such authority, never was, and never can be.

But some may contend, judging from the practice of Protestants, and what we know of the actual facts of the original establishment of Protestantism in all those countries in which it has become predominant, that it does recognize an exteraal authority, which it holds paramount to the Church, and on which it relies for its justification. Protestantism, as a matter of fact, owes its establishment to the authority of the lay lords and temporal princes, or, in a general sense, to the civil authority. It was, originally, much more of a political revolt than of a strictly religious dissent, and its external causes must be sought in the ambition of princes, dating back from Louis of Bavaria, and in