THE UNFINISHED PRAYER.
"Now I lay me"—say it, darling;
"Lay me," lisped the tiny lips
Of my daughter, kneeling, bending,
O'er her folded finger-tips.
"Down to sleep"—"to sleep," she murmured,
And the curly head dropped low;
"I pray the Lord," I gently added,
"You can say it all, I know."
"Pray the Lord"—the words came faintly.
Fainter still, "my soul to keep;"
Then the tired head fairly nodded,
And the child was fast asleep.
But the dewy eyes half-opened
When I clasped her to my breast;
And the dear voice softly whispered,
"Mamma, God knows all the rest."
THE FIRST ŒCUMENICAL COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN.
NUMBER FIVE.
For another month the Vatican Council has pursued the path originally marked out for its labors with a calmness and steady perseverance which no outside influences can disturb. In the beginning of its sessions sensational correspondents described what they saw and what they did not see—praised, mocked, or maligned as their humors led them or as their patrons desired, and poured forth abundant streams of amusing anecdotes, acute guesses, and positive assurances. The correspondence of one week was found to contradict that of the preceding week, and was itself contradicted the week following. Now, though wit, and drollery, and sarcasm may please for a time, human nature, after all, desires truth. And as men saw these contradictions, they came to understand how thoroughly untrustworthy were these correspondents; and the writers, ever on the alert to catch the first symptoms of popular feeling, have, in great part, dropped the subject. The only influence which such writings as these have had on the prelates of the council was to supply them with abundant topics for amusement in their hours of relaxation.
Another class of writers have all along treated, and still continue to treat, of the council and its action with earnestness of purpose, and are making strenuous efforts to guide and control or to check its course on subjects which they believe to have come or which may come up before it. We speak of those who are moved by religious or political feelings. Day after day and week after week, Italian, French, German, and English newspapers are taking one side or the other on these subjects, and write on them, if they do not always discuss them. At times you may find an article learned, well written, replete with thought, and suggestive, perhaps instructive. But generally the articles are only such as may be looked for in a newspaper—superficial and with an affectation of smartness. However their brilliancy, ofttimes only tinsel, may please their world of readers, among the bishops in the council they have, and can have, no weight whatever. It would, indeed, be surprising if they had.
Beyond the papers, there come pamphlets, many of them ably and learnedly written. It is to be lamented that too often the writers have allowed themselves to be carried away by excitement, and to use language which calls for censure. Still, they profess to discuss the questions gravely, and to present the strongest arguments in favor of their respective sides. We will not say that such writings are not privately read and maturely weighed by the fathers, and in fact carefully studied, so far as they may throw light on subjects of doctrine or discipline to be examined. But they certainly have not had the power to accelerate or retard, by a single day, the regular course of business before the council.
Some weeks ago, the papers of Europe were filled with articles announcing the approaching action of several governments, and the measures they would take to influence the pope and the bishops, so as to control their action by the apprehension of possible political results. What precise amount of truth and what amount of exaggeration there was in the vast mass of excited utterances on this subject, we are not yet able to say. Perhaps it may hereafter be discovered in sundry green books, red books, and yellow books. This much is certain: the council was not even flurried by it. We are assured that in all the debates not the slightest reference was ever made to the matter. As we write the whole subject seems to be passing into oblivion. Even those who spoke most positively only a few weeks ago, seem to have forgotten their assertions about the intended interference of this, that, or the other government.
There is a majesty in this calm attitude of the sovereign pontiff, and of the council, which does not fail to command the respect even of worldlings and unbelievers. They can with difficulty, if at all, comprehend the great truth on which it is based and which produces it. The Catholic would scarcely look for any other attitude from our prelates. The bishops of the Catholic Church, assembled in council, are not politicians or servants of the world, seeking popularity or fearing the loss of it. They fear not those who can slay only the body, but Him who can slay both body and soul. They are assembled, in the name of Christ our Lord, to do the work to which he appointed them. They must proclaim his doctrines and his precepts; they must promote the extension of his kingdom, and must zealously and unceasingly seek the welfare and salvation of souls for whom he shed his blood on Calvary. They are men, and, as subjects or citizens, they are bound to give, and each in his own home does give, unto Cæsar all that is Cæsar's. But they are Christian bishops, and they must not fail to give, and to instruct and call on all men to give, unto God the things that are God's. Assembled in the Holy Ghost, they do not seek to discover what is popular—what may be pleasing or what contrary to the opinions, or prejudices, or passions of to-day, whether in the fulsome self-adulation, because of our vaunted progress, or in the intrigues and plans of worldly politics and national ambitions. They stand far above all this folly, and are not plunged into this chaos. They have to set forth clearly the one divine truth of revelation, which has been handed down from the beginning, and which they see now so frequently impugned and controverted, or set aside and forgotten. It is precisely because the world is setting it aside, that this council has met and will speak.
Our divine Saviour himself declared that the world would oppose the teachers of his truth as it had opposed him. The history of the eighteen hundred years of her existence is, for the church, but a continuous verification of that prophecy. The fathers of the Vatican Council cannot lose sight of the lesson thus given. It should purify their hearts and strengthen their souls. For they, of all men, must believe most truly and earnestly in the truth and the reality of Christianity and the greatness of the work in which they are engaged. Hence, when the murmurs or the clamors of the opposition of the world come to their ears, they are not filled with fear or with surprise. Of all miracles, they would look on this as the greatest, that, as the Vatican Council speaks, the passions and earthly interests and prejudices of men should at once die out or grow mute, and that no voice should be heard in opposition, no arm be raised to arrest or thwart, if it could, the work of God. This they do not look for. Opposition must come, and they must not fear it, nor shrink from encountering it while at their post of duty. As they become conscious of its approach, they can but gird themselves the more energetically to their work, and seek the guidance and strength of which they have need from on high.
When we closed our last article, the prelates of the council were busily engaged, in accordance with the new by-laws, in writing out their observations and criticisms on several draughts that had been put into their hands. This work, so far as then required, was finished on March 25th. But on the 18th, the meetings of the general congregations, or committees of the whole, were resumed, and have been held since then on the 22d, 23d, 24th, 26th, 28th, 29th, 30th, and 31st of March, and April 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 12th, and 19th.
The business of the council has entered on a new stage. Our readers will remember that early in December last the first draught or schema on matters of faith was placed in the hands of the bishops; and that after some weeks of private study it was taken up for discussion in the general congregation held on the 28th of December. In our second article we gave some account of the character of this discussion, in which no less than thirty-five of the prelates took part. At its conclusion the draught was referred for emendations to the special committee or deputation on matters of faith, to which were also sent full reports of all the discourses in the discussion. This committee held many meetings, and went over the whole matter two or three times with the utmost care, hearing the authors of the draught and weighing the arguments and observations made in the general congregations. They divided the schema or draught into two parts, and now reported back the first part amended, containing an introduction and four chapters, with canons annexed.
This new and revised draught or schema, so presented to the bishops—in print, of course, as are all the conciliar documents—was again to be submitted to a renewed discussion and examination, first in general on its plan as a whole, and then by parts, first on the introduction, and then successively on each of the four chapters which composed it. A member of the deputation or committee on faith opened the discussion by speaking as the organ of the committee, and explaining and upholding what they had done. Many other fathers took part in the lively discussions which followed. The speeches were very brief and to the point, only one of them exceeding half an hour, and several not lasting more than five minutes. Those who wished to speak sent in their names beforehand to the presiding cardinals, as on former occasions, and were called to the pulpit in their regular order. The spokesman of the committee, or, in fact, any other member, might, during the course of the debate, take the pulpit to give some desired explanation or to reply to a speaker. All who wished to propose further amendments or changes were required to hand them in in writing. This the speakers generally did at the conclusion of their discourses. When at length the discussion on any special part—for example, on the introduction—was terminated, that portion of the schema and all the proposed amendments were referred again to the committee. The amendments were printed, and a few days after, in a general congregation, the whole matter would come up for a vote. The committee announced which of the amendments they accepted. They stated briefly the reasons for which they were unwilling to accept the others. The fathers then voted on each amendment singly, unless, indeed, as sometimes happened, the author, satisfied with the explanation or replies given, asked leave to withdraw it.
This chapter or portion of schema, or draught, was then again printed, introducing into it the amendments that had been thus adopted; and it was again submitted as a whole to the vote of the fathers.
All these votes were taken without unnecessary expenditure of time. When a question was proposed, all in the affirmative were called on to rise, and to remain standing until their number was ascertained. They then sat down, and all in the negative were in their turn summoned to rise, and to remain standing until they were counted.
As there are usually over seven hundred prelates present and voting, it is clear that if the numbers on each side are nearly even, there might be some difficulty in settling the vote. But the evil did not occur. It so happened that on every vote the majority was so preponderating in numbers that an actual count was not necessary. It is said that only on one occasion they were nearly evenly divided. The important question happened to be whether the insertion of a certain comma between two words in the text before them would make the sense more distinct or not. The division of sentiment on so small a matter caused some amusement; but it was evidence of the painstaking care with which even the minutest points are scrutinized and cared for.
When the introduction and each one of the chapters with its accompanying canons had been thus separately passed on, the entire schema as a whole was submitted to the fathers for a more solemn and decisive vote. This was done in the general congregations held on April 12th and April 19th. The vote was taken, not, as in deciding on the details, by the act of rising, but by ayes and noes.
This was first done in the congregation of the 12th, in the following manner: The secretary from the lofty pulpit called the prelates one after the other, according to their ranks and their seniority in their several ranks, naming each one by his ecclesiastical title. The cardinals presiding were called first, the other cardinals next, then the patriarchs, the primates, the archbishops, the bishops, the mitred abbots, and the superiors of the various religious orders and congregations having solemn vows. As each prelate was called, he rose in his place, bowed to the assembly, and voted. The form was Placet, if he approved entirely; Placet juxta modum, if there were any minor point which he was unwilling to approve; or Non placet, if he disapproved. In the second case, he handed in a written statement of his opinion and vote on that point, and assigned the reasons which moved him to this special view. The assessors of the council immediately received these manuscripts, and delivered them to the presiding legates. As the name of each one was called, if not present, he was marked absent; if present and voting, two or three of the officials, stationed here and there in the hall, repeated with clear bell-like voices the form of words used by the prelate in voting, so that all might hear them, and that no mistake could be committed as to any one's vote. The whole procedure occupied about two hours. When it was over, the votes were counted before all, and the result declared. This was in reality the most solemn and formal voting of the bishops on the matter so far before them. Each one's judgment is asked, and he must give it. It was evident the bishops voted after mature study, and with an evident singleness and simplicity of heart before God.
The special matters urged in the written and conditional votes were again, and for the last time, examined by the committee or deputation on matters of faith, they reported the result of their discussion in the congregation of April 19th, and the precise form of words was settled, to be decreed and published in the third public session, which will be held on Low-Sunday.
It thus appears that nothing will be put forth by the council without the fullest study and examination.
1. The schemata, or draughts, as presented to the council, are the result of the studies and conferences of able theologians of Rome, and of every Catholic country.
2. The schema is subjected to a thorough debate before the general congregation or, committee of the whole, or under the by-laws, it is placed in the hands of each one of the bishops, and every one who thinks it proper gives in writing his remarks on it, and proposes his emendations.
3. The schema, and these remarks and proposed amendments, are carefully considered by the deputation or committee to whom they are referred, whose office it is to prepare for the council a revised and amended draught. The twenty-four members of the deputation are picked men, and the examination and discussion of the subjects by them has proved to be all that the fathers looked for—most thorough and searching.
4. Again, on their revised report, the matter is a second time brought before the general committee, and is again discussed by the fathers, who are at liberty still to propose further changes and amendments. As a matter of fact, these turn mostly on minute details and on forms of expression.
5. Again, in the light of those proposed amendments, it is examined and discussed by the committee, who make their final report, accepting or not accepting the several amendments, and assigning to the congregation the reasons for their decision on each point. They thus enjoy the privilege of closing the debate.
6. Then follows the voting. One portion of the schema is taken up. The amendments touching it, so reported on by the committee, are one by one either adopted or rejected, and then the whole portion is passed on. One after the other the remaining portions are taken up, and acted on in the same manner. The amendments are first disposed of one by one, and then each portion is separately voted on. Finally, all the parts as separately adopted are put together, and on the whole schema so composed a more solemn vote is taken by ayes and noes.
This concludes the, so to speak, consultative action of the council on that schema. It is now ready for a solemn enactment and promulgation in the next public session of the council. (This session was held on Low-Sunday.—Ed. C. W.)
The time is approaching when the first portion of the decisions and decrees of the Vatican Council will be given to the world in the third public session, to be held on Low-Sunday. Already enough has come to light, in the better informed presses of Europe, to let us know the general tenor of what we shall soon hear. As it has become a matter of notoriety, we may speak of the subjects so said to be treated of.
The state of the world, and the errors and evils to be met and condemned in this nineteenth century by the Vatican Council, are very different from those which all previous councils were assembled to resist. The heresies then to be encountered denied this or that doctrine in particular, and erred on one or another point. But they all admitted the existence of God, the reality and truth, at least in a general way, of a revelation from heaven through Christ our Lord, and the obligation of man to receive it, and to be guided by it in belief and practice. Now, the world sees but too many who go far beyond that. Then, so to speak, the outposts were assailed. Now the very citadel of revelation is attacked. Schools of a falsely called philosophy have arisen which, with a pretended show of reasoning, deny the existence of God, of spiritual beings, of the soul of man, and recognize only the existence of physical matter. Or if they speak of God, it is by an abuse of terms, and in a pantheistic sense, holding him to be only the totality of all existing things, a personification of universal nature; or else, if they wish to be more abstruse or more unintelligible, God is, according to them, the primal being, a vague and indefinite first substance, by the changes, evolutions, emanations, and modifications of which all existing things have come to be as they are. Many are the phases of materialism, pantheism, and theopantism in which German metaphysicians revel, and call it high intellectual culture. The pith of all of them is atheism, the denial of the real existence of God.
The English mind is, or believes itself to be, more practical and matter-of-fact. It does not wander through the dreamy mazes of German metaphysics. It has no taste for such excursions. But there is a school in England which, under the pretence of respecting facts, reaches practically the same sad results. It tells its disciples of what has been termed the philosophy of the unknowable and unintelligible, and declares that man, possessed only of such limited powers of knowledge as experience proves us to have, cannot conceive, cannot really know, cannot be made to know, any thing of God, the self-existent and absolute, eternal, infinitely wise and infinitely perfect, and that these words are merely conventional sounds, in reality meaningless, and conveying no real thought to the mind. Hence, he is to be held at once the wisest philosopher and most sensible man who discards them altogether, who throws aside all these useless, cloudy, unintelligible subjects, and occupies himself with the immediate and actual world around him, of which alone, through his senses, his experiments, and his experiences, he can obtain some certain and positive knowledge. This they call independence and freedom of science. In many minds it would be pure atheism, if pure atheism were possible; in many others, it has produced and is producing a haziness of doubt, and an uncertainty on all these points touching the existence and the attributes of God, as in practice leads to almost the same result.
The French mind is active, acute, sketchy, imaginative, logical, and practical. On a minimum quantity of facts or principles it will construct a vast theory. If facts are too few to support the theory, imagination can readily supply all that are lacking. The theory, if logically consistent, must be reduced to practice; opponents must stand aside or be crushed down. The theory must rule. From the days of Voltaire, if not before, France has seen men deny religion under the guise of teaching philosophy. The sarcasms, and at times the brilliancy of their writings, have made French authors the store-house from which infidels in other nations draw their weapons. It was in France that a national decree enacted that there is no God, and it is in France and in Belgium that the societies of so-called Solidaires exist, the members of which solemnly bind themselves to each other to live and die, and be buried, without any act of religion. Too full of confidence in their powers of mind to accept the English system, and to acknowledge there is any subject they cannot master; too impressionable and practical to live in the cloud of German metaphysical pantheism, the French philosophers are prone to deify man, instead of universal nature. Whether they follow Comte in his earlier theories, or Comte in the very different theories of his old age, or whether they devise some other theory, it is generally man they place on the throne of the Deity. This worship of man, this spirit of humanitarianism, and this belief in the progressive and indefinite perfectibility of mankind, which they hold apart from and in antagonism to the belief which worships God as the Creator and Sovereign Lord, and places man the creature subject to him, runs practically through many a phase of their character in modern times.
These three systems—of course more or less commingled in their sources—have been extended to every portion of the civilized world. The German system has passed into Denmark, Holland, and Sweden; the French into Italy, Spain, and Portugal, and in some measure through them into Southern America. In the United States, we have been comparatively free from them. We owe it, probably, to the fact that with us all men are so busy trying to amass fortunes that they have little time and less taste for such abstruse speculations. True, through the vast German immigration, we have received some portion of the German system. But so far it has scarcely spread among our citizens of other nationalities. The English system, strange to say, scarcely exists except in its vaguer influences. The French system, introduced years ago, has struck deeper roots, and has a wider influence. But, on the whole, the mass of our people has a firm unshaken belief in the real truth of Christianity as a revealed religion. Although very often men are exceedingly puzzled to know what are the specific doctrines, still they have not lost the traditions of their fathers, and have not fallen into positive unbelief. How long these words will remain true, who can tell? Luxury and the general demoralization becoming so familiar, and the systematic godless education of our youth, will soon perhaps place us in the van of those nations who seem to have been given up to the foolishness of their hearts.
Meanwhile the church knows that she is debtor to all—that her mission is to preach the Gospel of Christ to all nations. Seeing in what manner so many are going astray, so far as even to deny the God that made them and redeemed them, and knowing that he has sent her as a messenger from him to them, she raises her voice, and, in clear, steady, clarion tones that will ring through the world, she proclaims again that he is the one true God, eternal and almighty, the Creator whom all men must know and must serve, and unto whom they will all have to render a strict account. This assembled council is itself evidence, clear as the noon-day light, of her existence, and her office in the world. Men may not shut their eyes to the fact. Her words are clear: "He whom ye deny exists, and speaks to you through me. He whom ye scoff at is your Creator and Lord, from whom ye have received all that ye have. He whom ye deride is long-suffering, and wills not your death, but that ye repent and come to him. Through me he admonishes, he invites, he warns you." Will these men hearken to her voice, or rather, the voice of God through her? Does not the God they would deny give, as it were, sensible testimony of his existence, his power, and his authority, evidence which they cannot ignore or overlook save by a wilful and deliberate effort on their part? They cannot fail to see the church claiming to be his. Her unbroken existence through eighteen centuries and her continued growth and advance despite opposition, and, still more, despite the quiet natural force of all human agency, external and internal, which under the ordinary laws of human things would have sufficed to disrupt and to destroy her a hundred times, an existence and a growth which could have proceeded only from a supernatural power, and which constitute a standing miracle in the history of the world, demand their attention and their respect. Her claim to be divinely founded and divinely supported, they must not scout with flippancy. They must at least receive it with respect, and examine its grounds. The most solemn assembly of that church, the most imposing assembly the world has looked on, an assembly authorized by the organization which he gave to that church, and therefore authorized by him, speaks to them in his name and by his authority. Will they receive the message, or will they turn away? Some there are who would not believe, if one rose from the dead. But we may hope and pray that others will hearken to the words of the Lord, and learn that to know and fear the Lord is the beginning of true wisdom. Above all, we may hope that many who have not yet advanced too far on the dangerous road may become aware of their danger and their folly, and return to the paths of true and salutary doctrine.
Next to those who, following the systems we have indicated, or on any other grounds pretend to do away with the existence of God, come those who admit his existence, but do not admit that he has given a revealed religion to mankind. It is unnecessary to go over the various groups into which they may be divided. There always have been and will be men who will try by one huge effort to throw off the yoke of religion. And what is there for doing which men will not try to assign some reason? In the last century, and the early portion of the present one, men sought such reasons in the alleged contradictions of the Scriptures, in the mysteriousness of Christian doctrine and the inability of the human intellect to comprehend them, in the procrustean systems of ancient history which they invented, or in alleged defects of the evidences of Christianity, or, finally, in their pet theories of metaphysics. At present the tendency is to base the rejection of revealed religion on its alleged incompatibility with the discoveries of natural sciences in these modern days. Geology, anthropology, in fact, the natural sciences with scarcely an exception, have been in turn laid under contribution or forced to do service against the cause of revelation. We have men appealing to this or that principle or fact as an irrefragable evidence by modern science of the false pretensions of Christianity.
To all such the church, the pillar and ground of truth, the organ of Christ our Lord on earth, will speak. It is not her office to enter into the detailed discussion of scientific studies, and to make manifest the errors of fact into which these men have fallen, or the fallacy of their deductions. This she leaves to scholars who, in their pursuit of earthly knowledge, do not cast away the knowledge they have received of divine truth. Such Christian scholars have replied to the sneers, and gibes, and sarcasms of the last century, and have shown the utter worthlessness and absurdity of the arguments then brought forward against Christianity by men who claimed to speak on the part of science; and there are now others answering with equal fulness the more modern objections. The church might, indeed, have left it to time and the progress of learning and science to vindicate her course and to refute the objections raised against her teaching. For, as a matter of fact, the grand difficulties brought forward half a century ago excite but a smile now, as we see on what an unsubstantial foundation they rested. And a very few years to come will, we may be sure, suffice to overturn many a pet theory of to-day, with their vaunted arguments against revelation. New discoveries will lead to new theories, that may or may not give rise to a new crop, a new set of difficulties, for man's mind is limited and cannot reach the truth on all sides, but they will consign the present difficulties to the tomb of the Capulets. To that tomb generation after generation of these so-called scientific objections are passing. The church does not undertake to teach astronomy, geology, chemistry, or physics. Natural sciences are to be studied by man, in the use of his own reason and the exercise of his natural faculties. These things God has left to the disputations of men. The church does not despise these discussions and researches. She does not repress them nor oppose them. Quite the contrary. She has ever protected and fostered science. One of the most beautiful and instructive chapters in her earthly history would be that which tells how, from the school of Alexandria, in the days of persecution, down the entire course of ages, she has ever sought to promote and foster science. She may with pride point to her canons and laws enacted for this purpose in every century. She may recount the long catalogue of schools, colleges, and universities established by her in every civilized land of Europe, and wherever she planted her foot; and to the religious houses of her clergy, throughout the stormy middle ages the chief, almost the only safe homes of learning. Many of the universities which she founded have in the course of ages been destroyed by kings and nobles, who filled their own purses, or repaired their wasted fortunes, by the seizure of endowments given for the free education of all that might come to drink of these fountains of learning; even as this very month the progressive, liberal government of the kingdom of Italy is discussing the propriety of suppressing one half of the older universities they found existing in the portion of the Papal States, and in other parts of Italy, which ten years ago they annexed to the kingdom of Sardinia. When did the church ever do such an act? Never. What university was ever suppressed by any act of hers? None. She encourages science. But at the same time she says, "God has given to man reason and understanding to seek after and to attain knowledge. It is a great and noble gift, to be prized and used rightly, and not turned to an evil purpose. If a father place in the hands of his son, as a gift, a weapon keen and bright, shall that son, with parricidal hand turn the blade against his father? Beware not to turn these gifts of God against God himself. Use them not as pretexts to deny his existence, or shake off his authority, or to impugn his truth when he speaks."
In giving this admonition, the church is acting in her full right. She is in the certain possession of that higher divine truth which her heavenly Founder has placed in her charge, to be carefully guarded and preserved until the end of time, and to be ever faithfully preached. Who ever denies it, she must oppose him. Whatever teaching would make it out to be false, she must condemn. The church, holding with certainty this divine deposit of the revealed truth, must not be compared, either in theory or in practice, with any private individual or society of individuals, who hold and profess religious doctrines on the authority of their own reason and judgment, or of their private interpretation of the Scriptures. In such a case as this, these doctrines are simply beliefs, opinions of men avowedly liable to error in this very matter. They therefore stand on the same level, as to certainty or uncertainty of being true, with the other human judgments in the fields of natural science or human knowledge which may rise up in opposition to them. The two sides are fairly matched, and either may ultimately prevail.
But, on the contrary, the church claims not merely to hold opinions, but, under the guiding light of the Holy Ghost, to have certain and infallible knowledge of the truths of divine revelation. Nothing that contradicts these established and known truths can she admit to be any thing else than error. In the contest between them, the truth must prevail. This is the theory on which the Catholic Church stands, and in which, in reality, all Christianity is involved. The experience of eighteen centuries confirms it fully in practice. Never once in all that period has the church of Christ had to revoke a single doctrinal decision, on the ground that what was believed to be true when uttered has since been proved to be false as the progress of science has thrown fuller light on the subject. In the early days of her existence, Celsus and the other philosophers of that classical period raised manifold objections from reason and such knowledge of nature as they possessed. Their objections accorded well with the public opinion of the time, and were hailed with applause. But the time came when they were felt to be of no force, and now they are entirely forgotten; and the truth they impugned, and were intended to overthrow, stands stronger than ever. The Gnostics, with their varied and fanciful systems of conciliating the power and goodness of God with the presence of evil in the world, and guided, if we listen to their boasts, by the highest light of man's reason, brought forward many objections, then deemed specious. They and their arguments too have passed away, and the Catholic truth stands. So it has been in every age until the present time. One only instance in all history has been alleged, seemingly, to the contrary—the condemnation of Galileo for holding and maintaining the Copernican theory. But there is no real ground of objection here. The facts of the case are misunderstood or misstated. The trial of Galileo, which was in truth more of a personal than a doctrinal issue, was simply before the congregation, or committee, of the Holy Office in Rome, and the sentence was by that congregation and not by the church. The difference between the sentence of such a tribunal and a decision of the church is world-wide. And, as if to mark that difference the more distinctly, that sentence, which, according to the usual course, and at least as a matter of form, should have been countersigned by the reigning pontiff, that it might be put into execution, never was so signed. Why, in that case, the formality was omitted, whether it was not deemed necessary, which, considering the usage, would be very strange, or whether, which we think much more probable, it was in due course of procedure presented to the pontiff for his signature, and he abstained from signing it for reasons in his own mind, cannot now be known. But the original official manuscript copy of the sentence is extant, and there is no signature of the pontiff to it. Even had he signed it, that would not have made the document a doctrinal decision of the church. It would have remained simply the regular sentence of a special tribunal; but the absence of the pope's signature, perhaps its studied absence, entirely and unequivocally removes the objection usually brought forward.[139] Here, as in every other case, Christ has protected his church, so that she shall make no false decision as to faith. It is only in virtue of that protection that she claims the paramount authority to speak. Under it she had been appointed to speak, and must speak, if she would not be recreant to her duty. She does not repress science; she saves it. She does not shackle reason; she preserves it from error and ruin. How often is the way of science a narrow ridge, with deep gulfs on either side! Feeble man walks along the narrow crest with trembling limbs, or crawls on, dubiously and slowly, in the dark. The church of Christ cheers him on. She does not bear him over the perilous path; but holds aloft the torch of revealed truth to guide him as he advances, and warns him to proceed by its light, and not to rush heedlessly on, lest he fall into the abyss. And yet should we not expect that the same spirit of insubordinate pride which leads reason to deny the existence of God, or his Divine Providence, or the fact of divine revelations, or emboldens feeble, ignorant man to measure, as it were, his feeble intelligence against the infinite wisdom of God, should also not refrain from charging the Catholic Church with being an incubus on the human mind, with narrowing the intellect and fettering the reason, with restricting our liberty of thought, narrowing the field of science, and dwarfing the whole intellectual man?
But time does her justice. She can point to Origen, Clement of Alexandria, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, St. Thomas of Aquin, St. Anselm, Duns Scotus, Suarez, Vasquez, and the mighty minds of the past. She may point to her children, clergymen and laymen, now standing in the front ranks of every branch of science. What the past ages gave, what the present gives too, the future will as surely not fail to give.
We add to the communication of our Roman correspondent the report of the peroration of an eloquent speech by Signor d'Ondes-Reggio, in the Italian Parliament, as given by M. Chantrel, in his "Chronique du Concile," published in the Revue du Monde Catholique for April 10th.
"The Council of the Vatican comes to save the imperilled civilization of the world, as the preceding councils, from the one of Nice to that of Trent, have saved it.
"Do you know how the Council of Nice saved the civilization of the world, when it condemned Arius? It prevented the human race from returning to idolatry; for, if the founder of Christianity was not God, but a mere man, the adoration of that man would have been an idolatry like all those of the pagans. The human race would have remained in barbarism, deprived of Christian civilization, of the true civilization, which is the civilization given to men by God himself.
"The Council of Trent saved the civilization of the world; because, when the church condemned Luther, Calvin, and their followers, who denied free-will and confounded good with bad actions, even giving the preference to the bad ones, she prevented the human race from returning to the fate of the pagans and to the domination of evil over good. The church saved the civilization of the world.
"When a council condemned schisms, it condemned the breaking up of the human race into factions and protected the unity of the race; it condemned that paganism which divided the nations from each other and made them mutual enemies, whereas all men are brothers, as the children of the same God.
"When a council roused all Europe to follow the cross into Asia, to rescue the sepulchre of Christ, it saved the civilization of Europe, and guaranteed the civilization of the world against Mussulman barbarism.
"When a council condemned the furious iconoclasts, do you know what it did? It prevented the banishment of the beautiful from the world—the beautiful, which is the complement of the true and the good. If this new race of barbarians had not been repelled by the Second Council of Nice, we should not have had either the 'David,' or the 'Moses,' or the 'Transfiguration,' or the 'Assumption.' Italy would not be the queen of the fine arts in the world.
"When the councils smote and deposed corrupt Cæsars, the oppressors of their peoples, it was human reason, enlightened by faith, which conquered error, sustained by brute force; it was charity which beat down tyranny, and civilization triumphing over barbarism.
"The Council of the Vatican, composed of the venerable fathers of the Catholic Church, extended throughout the whole world, differing in customs, habits, complexion, language, but united in the same faith, the same hope and charity—the Council of the Vatican comes to save, by the bishops, a civilization in peril. Errors the most impious, the most deadly, the most pernicious to the human race, which have been spread abroad during the course of ages, and which have sufficed, taken singly, to turn civil society upside down, are now all assembled together, and united with each other to batter and destroy it. Every thing which is the most true, the most sacred, the most venerated, is attacked; and some persons even go so far as to say that it is lawful to kill, to rob, and to calumniate, in order to attain certain ends. The Council of the Vatican has come, yes, it has come! to condemn these blasphemies and iniquities, to awaken sleeping consciences, to confirm consciences which are wavering; it has come to save civilization in peril.
"O venerable fathers! you who have hastened to Rome from the extremities of the world, at the summons of the successor of Peter, and who are at this moment gathered together in the name of God, at the Vatican, all men of good-will have their eyes fixed upon you; and from you they await with confidence the salvation of the world. You, successors of the apostles, will fulfil the commandment given by Jesus Christ to the apostles and to you, to teach the nations the infallible truths; the commandment given, not to kings, emperors, or secular assemblies, but to the apostles and to you—you will teach the nations these infallible truths, and the nations will be saved."