NEW PUBLICATIONS.
Supposed Miracles: An Argument for the Honor of Christianity against Superstition, and for its Truth against Unbelief. By Rev. J. M. Buckley. New York: Hurd & Houghton. 1875.
Mr. Buckley is a Methodist minister, who seems to be a sensible, honest, and straightforward person, strong in his convictions, ardently religious, and yet abhorring the excesses of credulity and irrational enthusiasm. The substance of his pamphlet was delivered by him as an address before a meeting of Methodist ministers, and is principally directed against some pretences to miraculous powers and wonderful cure-working within his own denomination. So far as this goes, his effort is quite successful, particularly in regard to a certain Rev. Mr. Platt, who professes to have been cured of an obstinate infirmity by the prayers, accompanied by the imposition of hands, of a lady by the name of Miss Mossman. His particular object led him, however, to advance some general propositions respecting real and supposititious miracles, and to sustain these by arguments and appeals to so-called facts, real or assumed, having a much wider range and application than is embraced by his special and immediate purpose. As an argumentum ad hominem, his plea may have been quite sufficient and convincing to his particular audience; but as addressed to a wider circle in the form of a published pamphlet, it appears to be somewhat deficient in the quality and quantity of the proofs alleged in support of its great amplitude and confidence of assertion. It is also defective in respect to the definition and division of the subject-matter. To begin with his definition of miracle: “A true miracle is an event which involves the setting aside or contradiction of the established and uniform relations of antecedents and consequents; such event being produced at the will of an agent not working in the way of physical cause and effect, for the purpose of demonstration, or punishment, or deliverance.” This definition errs by excess and defect—by excess, in including the scope or end as a part of the essence; by defect, in excluding effects produced by an act of divine power which is above all established and uniform relations of antecedents and consequents. This last fault is not of much practical importance in respect to the question of the miracles by which a divine revelation is proved, or of ecclesiastical miracles; because those which are simply above nature, called by S. Thomas miracles of the first order—as the Incarnation and the glorification of the body of Christ—are very few in number, and are more objects than evidences of faith. The first error, however, confuses the subject, and opens the way to a summary rejection of evidence for particular miracles on the à priori ground that they have not that scope which has been defined by the author as necessary to a true miracle. It is evident that God cannot give supernatural power to perform works whose end is bad or which are simply useless. But we cannot determine precisely what end is sufficient, in the view of God, for enabling a person to work a miracle, except so far as we learn this by induction and the evidence of facts which are proved. Mr. Buckley affirms positively that the end of miracles was solely the authentication of the divine legation of Christ and his forerunners in the mission of making known the divine revelation. Consequently from this assumption, he asserts that miracles ceased very early in the history of Christianity. He also professes to have “shown, by the proof of facts, that miracles have ceased. If the great Reformation in Germany, Switzerland, and Scotland, if Methodism, had no miracles; if the missionaries of the Cross [i.e., Protestant] are powerless to work them; and if the best men and women of all branches of the [Protestant] church are without this power, then indeed must they have ceased.” No one will dispute the logical sequence or material truth of this conclusion, so far as it does not extend beyond its own premises. He has made it, however, a general conclusion, and promises to prove it by “conclusive and irresistible proof.” He is therefore bound to prove that miracles had ceased from an early epoch in the universal church, including the whole period before the XVIth century, and in respect to all Christian bodies except Protestants from that time to the present. In respect to the former period, his whole proof consists in a statement that no person of candor and judgment who has read the ante-Nicene fathers will conclude it probable that miracles continued much beyond the beginning of the IId century, and in the assertion “that they have ceased we have proved to a demonstration.” In respect to supposed miracles during the latter period in the Catholic Church, the proof that none of them are true miracles is contained in the statement that “the opinion of the Protestant world is settled” on that head. Very good, Mr. Buckley! Such logical accuracy, united with the intuitive insight of genius, is a conclusive proof that the “assistances which our age enjoys” have amazingly shortened and simplified the tedious processes by which “that indigested heap and fry of authors which they call antiquity” were obliged to investigate truth and acquire knowledge. The reverend gentleman tells us that “I have for some years past been reading, as I have found leisure, that magnificent translation of the ante-Nicene fathers published by T. & T. Clark, of Edinburgh, in about twenty five volumes. To say that I have been astonished is to speak feebly.” Probably the astonishment of Origen, Justin Martyr, and Irenæus would be no less, and would be more forcibly expressed, if they could resume their earthly life and peruse the remarkable address before us. If its author will read the account of the miracles of SS. Gervasius and Protasius given by S. Ambrose, the City of God of S. Augustine, the Ecclesiastical History of Ven. Bede, and Dr. Newman’s Essay on Ecclesiastical Miracles, we can promise him that he will experience a still greater degree of astonishment than he did on the perusal of the ante-Nicene fathers. Mr. Buckley appears to be in bona fide, and is probably a much better man than many whose knowledge is more extensive. The hallucination of mind which produces in him the belief that he stands on a higher intellectual plane than Clement of Alexandria and Cyprian in ancient times, or Petavius, Kleutgen, Bayma, and “Jesuits” in general, is so simply astounding, and the credulity requisite to a firm assent to his own statements as “demonstrations” is so much beyond that which was, in the olden time, shown by believing in the “phœnix,” that he must be sincere, though very much in need of information. We cannot help feeling that he is worthy of knowing better, and would be convinced of the truth if it were set before him fairly. It is plain that he has no knowledge of the evidence which exists of a series of miracles wrought in the Catholic Church continuously from the times of the apostles to our own day, and which cannot be rejected without subverting the evidence on which the truth of all miracles whatsoever is based. The number of these which are considered by prudent Catholic writers to be quite certain or probable is beyond reckoning, though still very small in comparison with ordinary events and the experiences of the whole number of Catholics in all ages. Those of the most extraordinary magnitude are relatively much fewer in number than those which are less wonderful, as, for instance, the raising of the dead to life. Nevertheless, there are instances of this kind—e.g., those related of S. Dominic, S. Bernard, S. Teresa, and S. Francis Xavier—which, to say the least, have a primâ facie probability. One of another kind is the perpetually-recurring miracle of the liquefaction of the blood of S. Januarius. The miraculous and complete cure of Mrs. Mattingly, of Washington, is an instance which occurred in our own country, and which, among many other intelligent Protestants, John C. Calhoun considered as most undoubtedly effected by miraculous agency. We mention one more only—the restoration of the destroyed vision of one eye by the application of the water of Lourdes, in the case of Bourriette, as related by M. Lasserre. We are rather more cautious in professing to have demonstrated the continuance of miracles than our reverend friend has been in respect to the contrary. We profess merely to show that his demonstration requires a serious refutation of the arguments in favor of the proposition he denies, and to bring forward some considerations in proof of the title which these arguments have to a respectful and candid examination. Moreover, though we cannot pretend to prove anything, hic et nunc, by conclusive evidence and reasoning, we refer to the articles on the miracle of S. Januarius, and to the translation of M. Lasserre’s book, in our own pages, as containing evidence for two of the instances alluded to, and to the works of Bishop England for the evidence in Mrs. Mattingly’s case.
Besides those supernatural effects or events which can only be produced by a divine power acting immediately on the subject, there are other marvellous effects which in themselves require only a supermundane power, and are merely preternatural, using nature in the sense which excludes all beyond our own world and our human nature. Other unusual events, again, may appear to be preternatural, but may be proved, or reasonably conjectured, to proceed from a merely natural cause. Here is a debatable land, where the truth is attainable with more difficulty, generally with less certainty, and where there is abundant chance for unreasonable credulity and equally unreasonable scepticism to lose their way in opposite directions. Mr. Buckley summarily refers all the strange phenomena to be found among pagan religions to jugglery and fanaticism. Spiritism he dismisses without a word of comment, implying that he considers it to be in no sense preternatural. We differ from him in opinion in respect to this point also. We have no doubt that many alleged instances of preternatural events are to be explained by natural causes, and many others by jugglery and imposture. We cannot, for ourselves, find a reasonable explanation of a certain number of well-proved facts in regard to both paganism and spiritism, except on the hypothesis of preternatural agency. The nature of that agency cannot be determined without recurring to theological science. Catholic theology determines such cases by referring them to the agency of demons. Mr. Buckley is afraid to admit that the alleged “miracles were real and wrought by devils.” “If so,” he continues, “we may ask, in the language of Job, Where and what is God?” We answer to this that God does not permit demons to deceive men to such an extent as to cause the ruin of their souls, except through their own wilful and culpable submission to these deceits. It makes no difference whether the delusion produced is referred to jugglery or demonology in respect to this particular question.
The Formation of Christendom. Part Third. By T. W. Allies. London: Longmans & Co. 1875.
Mr. Allies dedicates this volume, in very beautiful and appropriate terms, to Dr. Newman, who, he says in classic and graceful phrase, having once been “the Hector of a doomed Troy,” is now “the Achilles of the city of God.” The particular topic of the book is the relation of Greek philosophy to the Christian church. A remarkable chapter on the foundation of the Roman Church, in which great use is made of the discoveries of archæologists, precedes the treatment of the Neostoic, Neopythagorean, and Neoplatonic schools, with cognate topics. One of the most interesting and novel chapters is that on Apollonius of Tyana, whose wonderful life, as related by Philostratus, the author regards as a philosophic and anti-Christian myth invented by the above-mentioned pagan writer, with only a slight basis of historical truth. Mr. Allies has studied the deep, thoughtful works of those German authors who give a truly intelligent and connected history of philosophy, and his work is a valuable contribution to that branch of science, as well as to the history of Christianity. One of the most irresistible proofs of the divine mission and divine personality of Jesus Christ lies in the blending of the elements of Hellenic genius and culture, Jewish faith, and Roman law into a new composite, by a new form, when he founded his universal kingdom. A mere man, by his own natural power, and under the circumstances in which he lived, could not have conceived such an idea, much less have carried it into execution. The most ineffably stupid, as well as atrociously wicked, of all impostors and philosophical charlatans are those apostate Christians who strive to drag Christianity down to the level of the pagan systems of religion and philosophy, and reduce it to a mere natural phenomenon. Mr. Allies shows this in a work which combines erudition with a grace of style formed on classic models, and an enlightened, fervent Catholic spirit, imbibed from the fathers and doctors of the church. At a time when the popular philosophy is decked in false hair and mock-jewels, as a stage-queen, it is cheering to find here and there a votary of that genuine philosophy whose beauty is native and real, and who willingly proclaims her own subjection and inferiority by humbly saying, Ecce ancilla Domini.
The American Catholic Quarterly Review. Vol. I. No. 1. January, 1876. Philadelphia: Hardy & Mahony.
A very large number of the most highly gifted and learned Catholics throughout Christendom, both clergymen and laymen, are at present employed in writing for the reviews of various classes which have existed for a greater or lesser period of time within the present century. Much of the very best literature of the age is to be found in their articles, and a very considerable part of this is of permanent value. In solid merit of matter and style, and in adaptation to the wants of the time, the best of these periodicals have improved steadily, and we may say of some of them that they hardly admit of any farther progress. The advantage of such periodicals is not only very great for their readers, but almost equally so for those who are engaged in contributing to their contents. The effort and practice of writing constantly for the public react upon the writers. Each one is encouraged and instructed in the most useful and effective method of directing his studies and giving verbal expression to their results, so as to attain the practical end he has in view—that of disseminating and diffusing knowledge over as wide an extent as possible. The combination of various writers, each having one or more specialties, under a competent editorial direction secures variety and versatility without prejudice to unity, and corrects the excesses or defects of individuality without checking originality, thus giving to the resulting work in some respects a superiority over that which is the product of one single mind, unless that mind possesses the gifts and acquisitions in modo eminenti which are usually found divided among a number of different persons. To conduct a review alone is a herculean task, and Dr. Brownson has accomplished a work which is really astonishing in maintaining, almost by unaided effort, through so many years, a periodical of the high rank accorded by common consent to the one which bore his name and will be his perpetual monument. That, at the present juncture, a new review is necessary and has a fine field open before it; that in its management ecclesiastical direction and episcopal control are requisite for adequate security and weight with the Catholic public; and that full opportunity for efficient co-operation on the part of laymen of talent and education is most desirable, cannot admit of a moment’s doubt. It is therefore a matter of heart-felt congratulation that the favorable moment has been so promptly seized and the vacant place so quickly occupied by the gentlemen who have undertaken the editing and the publishing of the American Catholic Quarterly. It is probably known to most, if not all, of our readers that the editors are Dr. Corcoran, professor in the Ecclesiastical Seminary of Philadelphia; Dr. O’Connor, the rector of that institution; and Mr. Wolff, who has long and ably edited the Philadelphia Catholic Standard. It would be difficult to find in the United States an equally competent triad. The publishers, who have already the experience acquired by the management of a literary magazine and a newspaper, will, we may reasonably hope, be able to sustain the financial burden of this greater undertaking in a successful manner, if they receive the support which they have a right to expect, by means of their subscription list. The first number of the new review presents a typographical face which is quite peculiar to itself and decidedly attractive. Its contents, besides articles from each of the editors, are composed of contributions from three clergymen and two laymen, embracing a considerable variety of topics. The clerical contributors are the Right Reverend Bishops Lynch and Becker, and the Rev. Drs. Corcoran, O’Connor, and McGlynn. The lay contributors are Dr. Brownson, John Gilmary Shea, and Mr. Wolff. The names of F. Thébaud, Dr. Marshall, and General Gibbon are among those announced for the next number. We extend a cordial greeting with our best wishes to the American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Manual of Catholic Indian Missionary Associations.
The Indian question continues to be one of the most troublesome in our national politics. Its only real solution—and we believe this to be President Grant’s opinion—is to Christianize the Indians. The task is undoubtedly a hard one, but it would be far less so if wolves in sheep’s clothing had not been sent among them. The only successful attempt at civilizing the Indians has been made by Catholic missionaries. But under the administration of the Indian Bureau, the utter rottenness of which has been so recently exposed, missions and reservations have been thrown to this religious agency and that without the slightest regard for the wishes of those who, it is to be supposed, were most to be benefited by the operation—the Indians themselves. In this way flourishing Catholic missions were turned over to the Methodist or other denominations, and the representations of the missionaries, as well as of the chiefs and tribes themselves, were of no avail whatever to alter so iniquitous a proceeding. This little manual gives a brief sketch of the status of Catholic Indians and working of the Bureau of Indian Missions. It contains also an earnest appeal to the Catholic ladies of the United States from the “Ladies’ Catholic Indian Missionary Association of Washington, D. C.,” urging contributions and the formation of similar associations throughout the country to aid in sustaining the Catholic Indian missions.