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divine right of the Church not only in spirituals, but in her own temporals. But this right can never be effectually maintained, unless we assert the supremacy of the spiritual order, and defend for the Pope, not a temporal authority beyond this, but a spiritual authority in all that relates to the assertion and maintenance of a moral basis for society; for, if he have not this authority, how is he to defend the right of the Church to her own temporalities? We recognize the independence of the state in its own order, but we do not recognize its independence of the spiritual, or superior order. It is bound to confine itself within the limits prescribed by the spiritual. What we claim for the Pope is full authority in the spiritual order and what pertains to it, whether naturally or only accidentally spiritual. In order to maintain this authority, he must be created the representative and guardian of all the rights of the spiritual, which necessarily involves the right to keep the temporal in its own sphere. More than this we have never asserted, and as far as this, we think, all the Pastorals, in reality, require us to go.

We have said in this article all that we deem necessary to say on the present complication of affairs in Italy. We have not been disappointed in Louis Napoleon, and we see no reason why any Catholic should ever have expected any thing better from him, in relation to religion or the Church. We have not found him making so many or so fair promises as some have represented; and we never credited any promise he did make, because he made it knowing that Catholics are ready to make almost any sacrifice for the maintenance of authority. He very naturally concluded that they at any rate would support him, and therefore that he had little to do except to conciliate and secure the support of the Revolutionists. If our memory is not at fault, he, as a member of the National Assembly, both spoke and voted, in 1848, against the expedition to Rome for the restoration of the Holy Father. Nobody had any right to expect him to sustain the temporal authority of the Pope any longer than he found it convenient for the

carrying out of his "Napoleonic ideas." We never believed he understood Christian politics, or had the slightest intention of maintaining a Christian political power in France or anywhere else. He adopts, avowedly, the principles of 1789, of which the deeds of 1792 and 1793 only followed as the inevitable "logic of events." He is neither a worse nor a better man than we have always considered him. He is astute, he is inscrutable, mysterious, if you will, but because he is governed by no moral or religious principles,—because he always, instead of controlling circumstances, follows the "irresistible logic of events." We have nothing more to say of him. The Pastorals of the French Bishops have reassured us as to the Church in France, for these bishops would never have spoken as they have, if they had not been strong alike in their faith and their following.

We do not profess to be able to foresee what will be the settlement of either the Italian question or the Roman ques tion, but we doubt not there will be a French question before either is settled. The Holy Father may, for a time, be driven out from his house, but, if so, he will return to it. No Catholic Power ever yet made war on the Pope and prospered, and no one ever will. Much suffering there will be, much sin, and the perdition of many souls; but heresy and schism will gain nothing, and the Papacy, we believe, is really stronger to-day than it ever was before. The present complications and menaces prove, to all who are willing to see, that despots can never be relied on for the support of the Catholic cause, and the suppression of the Univers may teach our journalists the folly of sharpening the axe to strike off their own heads. Liberty and justice go together, and the Papacy is the guardian of both.

Art. IV. The Path which led a Protestant Lawyer to the Catholic Church. By PETER H. BURNETT. New York: Appleton & Co., 1860. 8vo. pp. 741.

THE Appletons have, since the beginning of the year, published the anxiously looked for work of Governor Burnett, of California, giving in full his reasons for becoming a Catholic. The work is a goodly octavo, very well printed and done up, and must rank among the graver and more important contributions to Catholic literature made in this country. It is the work, not of a priest, nor of a professional theologian, but of a clear-headed, strong-minded lawyer, who has not suffered the law to make him forget he has a soul, or to stifle his conscience. It may have some of the defects, especially the prolixity, to which members of the legal profession are occasionally subject, and the objects may not always be grouped according to their relative size and importance; but it is written in a clear, forcible and unpretending style, in a straightforward, earnest manner, and is to be judged not as a mere literary performance, but as the grave utterance of a man who really has something to say, and is pressed by an internal necessity to say it.

What strikes the reader at a glance, in this remarkable volume, is its perfect honesty and sincerity. As you read it you feel that the eminent jurist is honestly retracing the path and detailing the successive steps by which he actually came into the Church; and it has a very high psychological value aside from its positive and conclusive arguments, for the objective truth of Catholicity or the divine foundation and constitution of the Catholic Church. The whole tone and character of the work inspire confidence in the author, as a fair-minded man, as a candid judge, and as one who would be as incapable of knowingly deceiving another as of deceiving himself. He has evidently inquired earnestly and honestly for the truth for his own mind, and he gives the results of his inquiries for

precisely what he found them worth to himself. It is always of great interest to see what has convinced a conscientious mind, intent on saving its own soul, endowed with more than ordinary ability, highly cultivated, strengthened by varied experience, and accustomed to sift and weigh evidence as a lawyer in the most difficult and intricate

cases.

The argument of the book is presented under the legal form, by the judge who sums up the case and gives his decision, rather than as presented by the advocate. To one who is familiar with the pleadings, the law and the evidence, there can be little that is absolutely new in the argument, but the manner of putting it and of grouping the facts which must determine the ultimate decision. These strike us as original, and we do not recollect to have ever seen the argument more forcibly put or more ably and convincingly conducted. It is an argument addressed to reason and good sense, not to passion or sensibility; and we cannot conceive it possible for any fair-minded man to read it and not be convinced, although we can conceive that many a man may read it and not acknowledge himself convinced. The difficulty is, that the mass of nonCatholics, unless already touched by the grace of God, have a mortal repugnance to finding the Catholic Church proved; and the more legitimate and conclusive the argument ad dressed to them, the less legitimate and conclusive will they find it. They are not accustomed to find or to expect certainty in matters of religion, and they feel it a sort of insult to their understandings when you present them a religion which demands and seems to have certainty. The author has a truly legal mind, and he brings every question to the law and the testimony, and insists on a verdict accordingly-whereas the mass of our non-Catholics recognize no law or testimony in the case, and suppose all depends on one's own fancy or caprice. They look upon religion either as a vague speculation or still vaguer feeling. Argue your case in the most conclusive manner, so that they have not a word to say against a single one of your

positions or your logic, and they will reply naïvely, "I do not feel with you;" and with that reply dismiss your reasoning and your subject.

Judge Burnett tells us he was originally a Deist, which is very possible; but his book bears evidence that he had always a very clear and just conception of law, as the expression of the will of a legislator, or as an emanation from an authority having in itself the right to command. He has in this work only applied the principle of law, which he had always held to the facts presented by the Catholic religion. Deist or not, his principles were always sound, -that is to say, whatever the practical conclusions he adopted for the time being, his principles were always those of reason. His law was always right; and if he came to wrong decisions, it was owing to his ignorance or misconceptions of the facts, or, as the lawyer would say, the evidence in the case. He needed supernatural grace, as all men do, in order to be able to elicit an act of supernatural faith; but he never needed any thing more than a simple presentation of the facts in their true light, to believe firmly the Catholic Church with what theologians call human faith, or a firm rational conviction. His mind was always a sound mind. His book recognizes and accepts, in the outset, as the law of the mind, the principle of authority. It presupposes the principle accepted by the reader, and it proceeds by a careful examination, sifting and weighing the principal testimony in the case, to elicit the truth of the Church; and it will satisfy every mind that admits that principle, and is capable of following the argument. The author assumes what is true, that religion, if religion, is the lex suprema for the reason and will; and the question in his own mind was never whether religion is to be obeyed or not, nor, in fact, whether there be or be not a religion, but whether there be a revealed religion, and if there be, what and where is it? What and where is the court to apply it? His book is the answer.

But his mind, though a fair representative of the edu cated mind in its normal development, was not a fair repre

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