get them to listen to what we have to say for our religion. Ki they hear, it will be as if they heard not.

But it is a fact, as clearly demonstrable, in its way, as any mathematical problem, that Catholicity enjoins the only normal life for man, even in this world, letting alone what it secures us in another. Human pride just now takes the form of Socialism, and Socialism is the Protestantism of our times. It is human pride under this form that we must address, and show to the Socialists, not-as some silly and misguided creatures calling themselves Catholics, and sometimes occupying editorial chairs, are accustomed to do—that Catholicity favors them by accepting their Socialism, but that it favors the object they profess to have at heart,—that it is the true and only genuine Socialism, the basis of all veritable society, and the only known instrument of well-being, either for the individual or for the race. We must show, that, under the social point of view, under the various relations of civilization, Protestantism is an egregious blunder, and precipitates its adherents into the precise evils they really wish to avoid. That it does so is evident enough to all who have eyes to see, and is proved by the very complaints Protestants make of their own movements. Their own complaints of themselves show, to use a vulgar proverb, that they always "jump from the frying-pan into the fire," in attempting to better their condition. They could not endure the authority of the Church; they resisted it, and fell under the tyranny of the sect, even in their own view of the case, a thousand times less tolerable. They rebelled, in the name of liberty, against the Pope, and fell under the iron rule of the civil despot; in England, they could not endure the Lord's bishops, and they fell under the Lord's presbyters, and from Lord's presbyters under the Lord's brethren, and from Lord's brethren under the capricious tyranny of their own fancies and passions. In political and social reforms it has fared no better with them. In France, the Constituante were more oppressive than the old monarchy, the Gironde than the Constituante, the Mountain than the Gironde; and the present French government, in order to save society from complete des

truction, is obliged to a lopt measures more stringent than ever Charles the Tenth or Louis Philippe dared venture upon. The overthrow of one tyranny leads to another of necessity more heartless and oppressive, because weaker and possessing a less firm hold on the affections of the people. A strong government can afford to be lenient. A weak government must be stringent. Yet the wise men of the age rush on in their wild-goose chase after worldly felicity, while it flies ever the faster before them. Like the gambler, who has played away his patrimony, his wife's jewels, and pawned his hat and coat, but keeps playing on, they insist on another throw,-though losing all, fancy they are just agoing to recover all, and make a fortune equal to their boundless wishes. If they could but see themselves as the unexcited bystanders see them, they would throw away the dice, and rush with self-loathing from the hell in which they find only their own ruin.

The principle on which Protestants seek even worldly felicity is false, and we can say nothing better of them, than that they prove themselves what the sacred Scriptures would term fools in following it. When was it ever known that pride, following itself, did not meet mortification, or that any worldly distinction, or good, sought for its own sake, did not either baffle pursuit, or prove a canker to the heart? Did you ever see a man running after fame that ever overtook it, or a man always nursing his health that was ever other than sickly? Have you no eyes, no ears, no understanding? Fame comes, if at all, unsought, greatness follows in the train of humility, and happiness, coy to the importunate wooer throws herself into the arms of him who treats her with indifference. All experience proves the truth of the principle, "Seek first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be superadded unto you." Take it as inspiration, as the word of God, or as a maxim of human prudence, it is equally true, and he who runs against it only proves his own folly. "Live while you live," says the Protestant Epicurean. Be it so; live while you live, but live you can. not, unless you live to God, according to the principles of the

Catholic religion. Live now you do not, and you know you do not; you are only just agoing, and not a few of you fear that you are never even agoing to live, as all your poetry, with its deep pathos and melodious wail, too amply proves.

Here comes in to our aid the excellent work before us. It exactly meets the present state of the Protestant world, and makes the only kind of appeal to which, in their present mood, they will listen. Its author makes no apology for Catholicity, he offers no direct argument for its truth; he simply comes forward and compares the respective influences of Protestantism and Catholicity on European civilization, and shows, that, while Catholicity tends unceasingly to advance civilization, Protestantisin as unceasingly tends to savagism, and that it is to its hostile influences we owe the slow progress of European civilization during the last three centuries. He shows that Protestantism is hostile to liberty, to philosophy, to the higher mental culture, to art, to equality, to political and social well-being. He shows it, we say; not merely asserts, but proves it, by unanswerable arguments and undeniable facts. If any one doubts our judgment, we refer him to the work itself, and beg him to gainsay its facts, or answer its reasoning, if he can. The Protestant who reads it will hardly boast of his Protestantism again.

AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY.

APRIL, 1849.

A CRITIC in this city expresses surprise that this book could have been written by a young man born and brought up in Kentucky; but we see no reason why it could not have been written by a young man as well as by an old man, and in Kentucky as well as in any other part of the Union. We suppose

* Remarks on the Past, and its Legacies to American Society. By J. D. NOURSE. Louisville (Ky.): Morton & Griswold 1847. 16mo. pp. 223.

they read and think in Kentucky as well as in Massachusetts; and it is not more strange that a young Kentuckian than that a Bostonian should expend a good deal of thought in elaborating a system compounded of truth and falsehood, common-place and crude speculation. The book certainly indicates some natural and acquired ability, but no ability peculiar to either side of the Alleghanies. The substance of it may be read any day in Schlegel, Carlyle, Macaulay, Guizot, Bancroft, and The Boston Quarterly Review. We have discovered nothing new or striking in the views it sets forth, or if now and then something we never met with before, it is usually something we have no desire to meet with again.

The author tells us, in his brief advertisement, "that it may seem presumptuous for a young backwoodsman ... ... to enter the lists with Schlegel, Guizot, and Macaulay." We think it not only may seem so, but that it actually is so; for Schlegel and Guizot to say nothing of Macaulay-are at least men of varied and profound erudition. They are scholars, and have not derived their learning at second or third hand. Mr. Nourse may rival, nay, surpass them, in his ambition and self-confidence; but he must live long, and enjoy advantages of study which neither Kentucky nor Massachusetts affords, before he rivals them in any thing else, or can do much else than travesty them. Not that we ragard either of them as a safe guide. Guizot is eclectic and humanitarian; and Schlegel is too mystical, and too ambitious, to reduce within a theory matters which by their very nature transcend any theory the human mind can form or comprehend. Mr. Nourse has, if you will, extraordinary natural abilities, an honest and ingenuous disposition; but he has not yet begun to master the present, far less the whole past. He has a vague recognition of religion, concedes some influence to Christianity in civilizing the world; but he is without faith, and has yet to learn the very rudiments of the Christian creed. We doubt, also, whether he is able to give even the outlines of a single historical period, or of a single people or institution, with sufficient accuracy to enable them to serve as the basis of a sin

gle sound induction. One should know the facts of history be fore proceeding to construct its philosophy. He will forgive us, therefore, if we tell him that we do regard him as not a little presumptuous in attempting a work for which he has in reality not a single qualification. He writes, indeed, with earnestness; his style, though somewhat cramped, and deficient in freedom and ease, is dignified, simple, clear, and terse, occasionally rich and beautiful; but this cannot atone for the general incorrectness of his statements, or the crudeness and unsoundness of his speculations.

With sound premises and freed from the prejudices of his education, we doubt not, Mr. Nourse might arrive at passable conclusions; but he is ruined by his love of theorizing, his false philosophy, and his unsound theology. He may have philanthropic impulses and generous sentiments; he may mean to be a Christian, and actually believe that he is a Christian believer; but, whether he knows it or not, the order of thought which he seeks to develop and propagate is neither more nor less than the old Alexandrian Syncretism, as obtained through German Mysticism, French Eclecticism, and Boston Transcendentalism. Radically considered, his system, if system it can be called, is the old Alexandrian system, which sprang up in the third century of our era, as the rival of the Christian Church, ascended the throne of the Cæsars with Julian the Apostate, and fled to Persia in the sixth century, when Justinian closed the last schools of philosophy at Athens. This system was an attempted fusion of all the particular forms of Gentilism, moulded into a shape as nearly like Christianity as it might be, and intended to dispute with it the empire of the world. It borrowed largely from Christianity, copied the forms of its hierarchy, and many of its dogmas; which has led some in more recent times, who never consult chronology, to charge the Church with having herself copied her hierarchy, her ritual, and her principle doctrines from 't. It made no direct war on the Christian Symbol; it simply denied or derided the sources whence it was obtained, and the withority which Christian faith always presupposes. It called