ao one can be more sensible of their imperfections than I am, there is this to be said in their favor, that they are the production of no youthful aspirant seeking notoriety by paradox and excentricity, nor of an old man soured by disappointment, and seeking to vent his spite upon an unoffending world. I have lived in the world, and shared its vicissitudes, but I have no wrongs to complain of, no sense of injustice rankling in my bosom. I have no mortified ambition, and have attained to more than in the most ardent dreams of my youth I ever aspired to. I am contented with my lot in the world, and have no desire to change it. Conviction, not desperation, led me into the Church, and I have found a thousand times more than I expected. It is true, in my youth and early manhood I held and published views very different from those set forth in this volume, and this fact will have its weight against whatever i may now say. But it is no crime to grow wiser with years, and to profit by experience or by the grace of God. The deliberate convictions of a man of mature age are worth more than the crude speculations of impetuous and inexperienced youth. But there is nothing in these essays and reviews that rests on my personal authority; they are to be taken for what they are worth, without any reference to the much or little respect due to their author.

Much has been said first and last in the newspapers as to the frequent changes I have undergone, and I am usually sneered at as a weathercock in religion and politics. This seldom disturbs me, for I happen to know that most of the changes alleged are purely imaginary. I was born in a Protestant community, of Protestant parents, and was brought up, so far as I was brought up at all, a Presbyterian. At the age of

twenty-one I passed from Prebyterianism to what is sometimes called Liberal Christianity, to which, I remained attached, at first under the form of Universalism, afterwards under that of Unitarianism, till the age of forty-one, when I had the happiness of being received into the Catholic Church. Here is the sum total of my religious changes. I no doubt experienced difficulties in defending the doctrines I professed, and I shifted my ground of defence more than once, but not the doc trines themselves.

I was during many years, no doubt, a radical and a socialist, but both after a fashion of my own. I held two sets of principles, the one set the same that I hold now, the other the set I have rejected. I supposed the two sets could be held consistently together, that there must be some way, though I never pretended to be able to discover it, of reconciling them with each other. Fifteen years' trial and experience convinced me to the contrary, and that I must choose which set I would retain, and which cast off. My natural tendency was always to conservatism, and democracy, in the sense I now reject it, I never held. In politics, I always advocated, as I advocate now, a limited government indeed, but a strong and efficient government. Here is the sum total of my political changes. I never acknowledged allegiance to any party. From 1838 to 1843, I acted with the Democratic party, because durring those years it contended for the public policy I approved; since then I have adhered to no party. No party as such ever had any right to count on me, and most likely none ever will have. I do not believe in the infallibility of political parties, and I always did and probably always shall hold myself free to support the men and measures of any party, or to oppose

t

them, according to my own independent convictions of what is or is not for the common good of my country.

But after all, this is not a matter worth taking any notice of. I am not anxious to prove that I have always acted consistently, and have never changed my opinions. Charges may be alleged against me that are not true, but the public is not likely to believe anything worse of my life before I became a Catholic than I do myself. I was a Protestant, and had the virtues and the vices of Protestants, and probably was not much better nor much worse than the average of my class. I was, of course, all unworthy to be a Catholic, and in myself am now all unworthy of the confidence of Catholics. There is no question of that; and if the truth or falsity of my writings depended on my own merits or demerits, they would deserve not a moment's consideration. I have referred to the subject only as an act of justice to my Catholic friends, who have so generously given me their hearts. But I certainly had errors, gross and inexcusable errors, and I beg the public to accept this volume as a slight token of my sincere repentance, and of my earnest wish to do all in my power to atone for them.

I respectfully lay this humble volume at the feet of the Venerable Prelates and Clergy of the United States, not as worthy of their patronage, or even of their notice, but as a mark of filial reverence and submission, and of profound and lively gratitude for their kind encouragement, and generous and uniform support my humble labors in the cause of Catholic truth. I would also inscribe it to my Protestant countryThey will find in it many resons why I have ceased to be a Protestant, but none I hope, for believing that I have lost any of my former interest in them,

of

men.

or that their welfare here or hereafter is less dear to me than ever it was. My sympathies with my fellow men, which, perhaps, are livelier and deeper than some suppose, have been quickened and expanded, not deadened and contracted, by my conversion to Catholicity. I have said nothing in the following pages in wrath; I have spoken only in love.

Placing this volume, though all unworthy, with devout gratitude, and tender love, under the protection of Our Blessed Lady, as I do myself and all my labors and interests, I send it forth to the public, hoping that it may contain a fit word fitly spoken for some earnest mind struggling to emancipate itself from error, and to burst into "the glorious liberty of the children of God." THE AUTHOR.

MOUNT BELLINGHAM,

Maanday Thursday, 1852

ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.

THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.*

APRIL, 1845.

THE Journal, the title of which we have here quoted, is the ably conducted organ of the American Unitarians. As a periodical, it is one in which we take no slight interest; for it is conducted by our personal friends, and through its pages, which were liberally opened to us, we were at one time accustomed to give circulation to our own crude speculations and pestilential heresies. We introduce it to our readers, however, not for the purpose of expressing any general opinion of its character, or the peculiar tenets of the denomination of which it is the organ; but solely for the purpose of using the article which appeared in the January number, headed The Church, as a text for some remarks in defence of the Church against No-Churchism, or the doctrine which admits the Church in name, but denies it in fact, so prevalent in our age and community.

All Protestant sects, just in proportion as they depart from Catholic unity, tend to No-Churchism; and the Unitarians, who

• The Christian Examiner and Religious Miscellany, January, 1845.Art. VI. The Church.