Short Studies On Great Subjects.
By James Anthony Froude, M.A., late Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford.
Crown 8vo, pp. 534.
New York: Charles Scribner & Co.
Mr. Froude is a very startling instance of the truth of a statement often made during the last few years—and made by men within the Church of England as well by men outside her pale—that the Anglican establishment is rapidly losing all hold upon the most thoughtful and best educated of those who profess to be her subjects. Time, which tries all things, is demonstrating beyond cavil the insufficiency of Anglicanism not only to content the soul but to satisfy the intellect. There are fashions of thought just as there are fashions of dress, and the church which Henry VIII. made to fit as well as he could the prevailing style of mental activity in his day has been getting more and more antiquated ever since, until now it will no more suit the intelligence of the present century than King Harry's hose and doublet would accord with a modern fine gentleman's idea of dress. In the sixteenth century, the mass of men knew very little; and so, when the king's clergy told them to believe this or to believe that, they were ready enough to obey, not because they heard the church as the voice of God, but because it was only the churchmen who had learning enough to know anything about it. Now all this is changed. The relative positions of the Protestant clergy and laity have been reversed. The education of the former is for the most part narrow and superficial. The best class of laymen, on the contrary, receive a broad and liberal schooling; they sound the remotest depths of science, and penetrate recesses of nature to which the clergy, as a general thing, never approach. Taking the average of all the educated classes, the laity know more than the churchmen. The obedience, therefore, which ignorance once paid to learning has vanished. What is there to substitute in its stead? The Anglican establishment claims no direct authority from heaven to teach and direct, or, if she does assert any such prerogative, she asserts it in so loose a manner, claiming and disclaiming in the same breath, that her disciples cannot help feeling themselves at perfect liberty to obey or not as they please.
What is the natural consequence of this state of things? Why, earnest, thinking men are driven away from the English establishment in constantly increasing numbers. In a few years, if matters go on as they are now going, the regular old humdrum Episcopalian or Anglican will be as great a curiosity as the last soldier of the Revolution. Some are taking refuge in ritualism, and trying to supplant their cold and cheerless establishment by a counterfeit Catholicism, which may, and we hope will, lead them ultimately to the one true faith, but which is at present only a pretty sham. Others, and among these is Mr. Froude, rush to the opposite extreme, and profess an extravagant rationalism which is nearly equivalent to no creed at all. Mr. Froude has been regarded as in some sense the champion of the English establishment. He is the admiring chronicler of its infancy, the apologist and biographer of its earliest apostles and prophets, Henry and Elizabeth, Cromwell and Cranmer. He has made the history of its foundation the study of his life, and has told that history in a strain of enthusiasm such as has inspired no other reputable writer. If there is any man from whom we might have expected a vigorous defence of the claims of Anglicanism, a recognition of its right to command our obedience, it is Mr. Froude. Yet he has given us just the reverse of this. His volume is at once a startling indication of the mental unrest which has kept thinking Anglicans disturbed of late years, and a strong protest against the right of the Church of England to seek to quiet that uneasiness by the exercise of ecclesiastical authority or the bold promulgation of clerical dogmas. In his "Plea for the Free Discussion of Theological Difficulties," reprinted in the present volume from Fraser's Magazine, he calls for a reopening of all the fundamental questions of religious belief, a subjection of every article of every creed to the most searching discussion. The clergy, he says in effect, are not to be our instructors in matters of theology. We are quite as competent to judge as they are. Theological truth is not different from any other truth. The Holy Spirit does not guide the Church, and there is no tribunal but public opinion which is competent to decide disputed questions of religious belief. In a word, the great truths of theology are all to be declared open problems, and the world is to be turned into one great debating society for their free discussion.
This is not the place to show the tendency of Mr. Froude's principles, nor to Catholic readers is there much need of showing it. We only refer to them as a remarkable example of a state of feeling which prevails among a large party of the most intellectual members of the Church of England, and what the result of that state of feeling must be it is not difficult to tell.
Of the other essays in this volume we have little to say. The three lectures on "The Times of Erasmus and Luther" are not very pleasant reading for us, but they are counterbalanced by a paper on "The Philosophy of Catholicism," in which the writer pays an eloquent tribute to "the beautiful creed which for 1500 years tuned the heart and formed the mind of the noblest of mankind." His admiration, of course, stops short of its logical term, and is but a coldly intellectual sort of appreciation at best—not that emotional comprehension which must accompany the grace of faith; but, such as it is, we thank him for it.
Life And Letters Of Madame Swetchine.
By Count de Falloux, of the French Academy.
Translated by H. W. Preston,
1 vol. 12mo, pp. 369.
Boston: Roberts Brothers.
New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1867.
It can hardly be necessary to inform our readers who Madame Swetchine was, or what are the claims of her life and career to the interest and attention of the public. A sketch of her remarkable history has been already given in The Catholic World for July, 1865. Her biographer was one of her most intimate friends—a member of the distinguished coterie of French ecclesiastics and laymen with whose aims and aspirations she most deeply sympathized—a witness of her dying hours, and the executor of her last will and testament. He is the Count de Falloux, and that is more than any eulogium we could pronounce on his qualities as a writer. Mr. Alger, under whose auspices this life has been translated and published, has done a great service, and has added no little to the value of the book, in its English dress, by the short preface with which he introduces it to the American public. The following passage shows what has been the intention and the spirit with which he has been animated:
"It may seem strange that a work so eminently Catholic in its quality as this biography should be introduced to a Protestant people by a Protestant translator and Protestant publishers. But, on further consideration, will not this be found especially fit and serviceable? In this country, a traditional antipathy or bigoted repugnance to the Catholic Church prevails in an unjustifiable extreme. Whatever is repulsive in the Catholic dogmas or rule is fastened on with unwarrantable acrimony and exclusiveness. The interests alike of justice and of good feeling demand that the attention of Protestants shall, at least occasionally, be given to the best ingredients and workings of the Catholic system. In the present work, we have the forensic doctrine and authority of Catholicity in the background, its purest inner aims and life in the foreground. We here have a beautiful specimen of the style of character and experience which the most imposing organic Symbol of Christendom tends to produce, and has, in all the ages of its mighty reign, largely produced. If every bigoted disliker of the Roman Catholic Church within the English-speaking race could read this book, and, as a consequence, have his prejudices lessened, his sympathies enlarged, the result, so far from being deprecated, should be warmly welcomed. This is written by one who, while enthusiastically admiring the spiritual wealth of the Catholic Church, the ineffable tenderness and beauty of its moral and religious ministrations, is, as to its dogmatic fabric and secular sway, even more than a Protestant of the Protestants. Finally, this book is especially commended to women as a work of inestimable worth. The character and life of Madame Swetchine, her lonely studies and aspirations, her sublime personal attainments, her philanthropic labors, her literary productions, her sweet social charm and vast influence, her thrice-royal friendships with kings and geniuses and saints, the sober raptures of her religious faith and fruition, form an example whose exciting and edifying interest and value are scarcely surpassed in the annals of her sex."
The translation has been well done, and the typographical execution is unexceptionable. We desire for the book as wide a circulation as possible.