We pause here to ask, Where is this infallibility, thus necessitated, to be found? Is it in Episcopalianism? Reluctantly and slowly the response comes-" It is not in me." Is it in Presbyterianism? Sharply and somewhat crabbedly the answer is-"'Tis not in me." Is it in Methodism? In a smiling but slightly bewildered tone, the reply is the same—“It is not in me." And thus on and on, et id omne genus; and to the whole, if whole there be, I put the same question—is it in you? And the answer is, a deep and absolute— "No."

Still the necessity continues, and grows more earnest with every successive repudiation, and must exist somewhere. Where? And listening, I hear a calm, mild, and gentle voice, saying, "Here-'tis in me;" and, looking up, I find before me all the outlines of the grand old Catholic and Apostolic Church. She stands peerless and alone in her claim to this transcendent grace; and it is so consistent with this a priori necessity for infallibility that it must, in the view of reason, be admitted to be just.

Yes, here it has been from the beginning. Its tones were heard by kings and princes, and they uncovered their heads and reverently bowed before it. They were heard by the rude barbarian, and under them his savage nature warmed and softened into a high-toned civilized Christian man. They were heard among the lowly haunts of the poor and oppressed, and they inspired hope and courage. Truth here received an incomparable majesty and value, and faith an unconquerable life and power. The martyr at the stake or in the dungeon was by them miraculously nerved and enabled to endure the most excruciating torture in the spirit of the grandest heroism. They sounded forth among the rich and powerful, and these, hearing the call as from God, at once abandoned their ambitious pursuits of the world, and dedicated their influence and gold in rearing massive cathedrals, spacious monasteries, and ample asylums for the poor and afflicted. They entered the ears of genius, and at their bidding, as by magic, Christian art sprang into being, which, by its sweet harmony and perfect lines of beauty, allured and lifted the age-thought to heaven. Philosophy and science, and jurisprudence and history entered, by their influence, upon a new and higher mission. Truth, thus made certain, not only ennobled, but also enlarged and truly freed the human mind, gave to it celestial wings, and bade it soar grandly through the universe. Magnificent universities, at its call, were made to dot and cover the whole fair face of Europe. Civilization was led, as by its hand, to its own proper Christian plane, spreading rich blessings by means of ten thousand different conduits through the whole of society, starting the grand march of the races upwards and onwards to their true goal. And from this grand centre of

condensed supernatural power, all over and around the globe, was found to extend a vast and complicated system of spiritual graces, the like of which the world never saw before; here jubilant, and there depressed, now flattered and then persecuted, comprehending all nationalities, races, and tongues, the most lowly and abject of the human family and the most highly gifted and cultured of earth, the king, the philosopher, the orator, the poet, the sage, and the saint,—“men studying everything, disputing in everything, replying to everything, knowing everything, yet always agreeing in unity of doctrine, bending their noble intellectual brows in respectful obedience to the one faith"-a system moving grandly through all time; old, yet with the dew of early morn sparkling upon it, kept all the while in absolute unity and harmony, the surprise and wonder of the world, the standing, speaking miracle of the ages! And how, under God, is all this accomplished? The simple answer is, by the still, calm, but potent voice of infallibility.

Truly, "Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord."

"Do we not here," in the language of a brilliant writer, "seem to behold another planetary system, where globes of fire revolve in their vast orbits in the midst of immensity, always drawn to their centre by a mysterious attraction. That central force allows no aberration, takes from them nothing of their extent, or of the grandeur of their movement; but inundates them with light, and gives to their motion a more majestic regularity."

Now, infallibility, carrying with it, as by an inexorable logic as it seems so plainly to do, all the features peculiar and essential to Catholicity, you may see how and why, sincerely believing it, as I cannot help doing, I am now in this service. I am engaged in it, moreover, frankly to acknowledge that infallibility is stronger than I, and humbly to lay at the feet of the Church, from whose bosom it speaks, this little and poor chaplet, in grateful memory of her victory.*

The writer of the foregoing article is a recent convert. To this the last few

sentences refer.

ARCHBISHOP GIBBONS AND HIS EPISCOPALIAN CRITIC, DR. STEARNS.

The Faith of Our Fathers: Being a Plain Exposition and Vindication of the Church founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ. By Rt. Rev. James Gibbons, D.D., Bishop of Richmond and Administrator Apostolic of North Carolina. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. London: R. Washbourne.

The Faith of Our Forefathers: An Examination of Archbishop Gibbons's "Faith of Our Fathers." By Rev. Edward J. Stearns, D.D., Examining Chaplain of the Diocese of Easton, etc. New York: Thomas Whitaker.

TH

1879.

HE first edition of Archbishop Gibbons's Faith of Our Fathers, appeared in December, 1876, since which time, that is, within the short period of only three years, the book has gone through no less than thirteen editions, equivalent to sixty-five thousand copies. Taking into consideration that it treats exclusively on religious subjects, and mainly, too, on those that are distinctively Catholic, the popularity enjoyed by the Faith of Our Fathers appears quite remarkable. And this popularity furnishes an evidence that there existed, and still continues to exist, a general demand for a Catholic publication of its character. Had it met with an indifferent reception on the part of the reading public, it is safe to assert that Protestants would probably have left it pass unnoticed. But as an eminently successful work, the Episcopal Church of this country has found it necessary to issue a counter publication. Reverend Dr. Edward J. Stearns, "at the earnest request of the Assistant Bishop of Maryland," has written a volume entitled Faith of Our Forefathers, thus clearly indicating by its very name what it is meant to be, namely, a refutation of Archbishop Gibbons's work.

A merely superficial glance at its contents is sufficient to dispel from any intelligent reader's mind the idea that Dr. Stearns's book can even pretend to any just claim to being a refutation. From beginning to end there is visible but one aim; that is, to cast. odium upon the writer of the Faith of Our Fathers, and thereby upon the book itself. Its true character, as a grossly personal assault, is shown in unmistakable language on every page; and though, as a matter of necessity, it also directly attacks the Catholic Church, yet one cannot fail to perceive that it is specially designed to impeach the veracity and orthodoxy of the Archbishop. It is, of course, needless to remark that the attack is no less malignant than gratuitous, and falls perfectly harmless before the exalted dignity of the Primate of the Catholic hierarchy in this country. In

this respect it is vox et præterea nihil. I propose to take as little notice as possible of its character as a personal attack, but, wishing to assign it to its proper place as a literary production, I shall examine and criticise both works with regard to their parentage as well as issue, because a just and critical comparison of two rivals is always the best way to bring their respective merits or demerits into bold relief.

Inquiring, first of all, into the causes which combined to secure an almost phenomenal success to the Faith of Our Fathers, it will be seen that this inquiry will account, to some extent at least, for the vindictive acerbity displayed in the work of Dr. Stearns. A survey of the situation will disclose that its aggressive spirit is a desperate effort to regain lost positions. If we contemplate the attitude of the intellectual world towards religion, as it presents itself to-day, and compare it with what it was even in the recent past, we observe that a remarkable change has taken place. It cannot be said to be merely a change of scenery, a shifting, as it were, from one place to another in the same theatre. Religious strife moves to-day in another sphere altogether from what it did a decade or two ago. There was a time when the burning question of religion was confined more or less within the narrow limits of controversy between Protestantism (with a numerically formidable and steadily increasing array of sects) on one hand, and the Catholic Church on the other. But that time is past. The war then waged has been virtually decided in favor of Catholicity. The decomposition of all religious structures outside the Church of Rome, no matter how skilfully erected, no matter how powerfully supported, ever since the Reformation, goes on visibly before the eyes of men with startling rapidity; and institutions which are awaiting their doom are like falling houses. Ghastly warnings awaken the inmates of the house in the dark of night; the walls quiver, the timbers creak, the partitions can no longer muffle the strange rushing sounds behind them. Protestantism to-day, from whatever side we view it, presents unmistakable signs of having reached that stage which invariably precedes final and complete dissolution. Protestantism itself recognizes that the battle of to-day is in reality a battle between the Catholic religion and atheism, a war between the Church of Rome and infidelity. In this contest Protestantism plays no part. The world of thought shows entire indifference towards it. It treats it with disdain, with undisguised contempt, not even taking cognizance of its existence. It is excluded as a factor of no significance, and that verdict, rendered as it is, not by partisans, but by the intellectual society of the world of culture, is perhaps the most sweeping that has yet been rendered against pseudo-Christianity. If this seems a strong assertion, the move

ment from which modern atheism has sprung may be pointed to as its verification.

The leaders of the schools of "advanced thought," in proposing their claims to our acceptance, appeal directly to reason for the rejection of the supernatural order. They begin by denying the personal Deity as worshipped by Christianity, and by denying the immortality of the soul in man. These propositions of the creed of the nineteenth century, proposed as they daily are to our mental assent, startle every one who is deeply imbued with religious sentiments. But this is not all, something still more startling lies in ambush, namely, inquiry reveals to us that these propositions rest on precisely the same basis as that on which Protestantism has been erected; for the principle of negation,-and to it the principle of private judgment, the most vital element of all Protestant denominations is admittedly reducible,-underlies also positivism, agnosticism, and whatever other systems of similar atheistic tendencies are now in vogue. Only, and this fact deserves special attention, positivism, agnosticism, in short, the scientific infidelity of modern times possess the unquestionable advantage of being at once more logical and consistent, more honest and courageous than the soi-disant religions, the notions of the different Protestant sects, which all draw their main strength from the same source. In the concrete, it may be readily admitted, that it is better for an individual to belong to a Protestant "church" than to no church at all; to profess the ever-changing creed of Luther, or Calvin, or Zwingli, etc., than no creed at all; but, in the abstract, it must be conceded that it is more rational and consistent not to believe in God than to believe in Him and, at the same time, to prescribe to Him what He may wish or command us to believe and what not. And it is this perception, of which numbers are becoming more and more painfully aware, which has acted of late so largely as a disintegrating element. The insufficiency of a religious system, with no better authority than the individual's own bon-plaisir, has become apparent to all thinking men. Reflective minds now acknowledge openly that they have sunk into what Goethe calls Weltschmers; that is, a sense of vagueness, of hopelessness, for which the faint and disturbed semblance of real faith neither knows nor has a remedy. And, turning away from the dearth and barrenness of Protestantism, they find themselves in this position: they must give their adherence to the scientific atheism of our period, or they must turn to the religion which alone possesses the requisite element of real faith, namely, authoritative certainty. It will thus be seen that Protestantism has been the chief loser since the time that modern advanced thought gained ascendency. For numbers of Protestants have given in, and are still giving in, their