age of discretion, must choose a religion for themselves, is frightfully prevalent amongst us. This maxim is about as wise as would be that of the agriculturist who should resolve to permit his fields to lie neglected in the spring season, and to become overgrown with weeds and briers, under the pretext that, when summer would come, it would be time enough to scatter over them the good seed! It amounts to this human nature is corrupt and downward in its tendency; let it fester in its corruption, and become confirmed in its rottenness; and then it will be time enough to apply the remedy, or, rather, human nature will then re-act and heal itself!

Another cognate maxim, equally prevalent, is equally mischievous in its tendency. It is the latitudinarian doctrine, that it matters not what religion a man embraces, provided he endeavor to be a moral man and an upright citizen. As if light and darkness, truth and error, were indifferent to God! As if Christ would have died on the cross to seal His holy religion with His blood, and yet is wholly indifferent whether men embrace it or not! As if the divine Author of Christianity had left His religion vague and undefined, to be apprehended by each one according to his own judgment and fancy, or had made it a jumble of confused and jarring sects!

With all these pernicious maxims current in our community, and silently exercising their malign influence on successive generations, can we wonder at the dreadful and constantly increasing moral disorders which prevail? Can we wonder that our youth, under such training, drink in vice like water, and become the bane of that society of which they should be the ornament and support? Raised without any intellectual or religious restraint, and with but little moral discipline, is it at all surprising that intemperance, quarrels, riots, and bloodshed, are the order of the day? Human nature is corrupt, and, when unrestrained by religion, it naturally runs into excesses of every kind. Unless children are trained up to govern their passions, how will they learn to restrain them when arrived at the age of manhood? Scarcely a day passes,. that we do not read of some dreadful deed of violence, homicide, or murder; and unless the evil be checked, our newspapers will become little better than Newgate Calendars! Alas, for the moral evils of our times!

Such, O Protestantism, are some of the bitter fruits thou hast bequeathed to the world! Such are some of the " fantastic tricks" thou hast played off before high heaven! Thou art fairly responsible for the unsettling of religious faith, for the frightful multiplication of sects, for the wide-spread moral disorders, and for the extensive prevalence of religious indifference and infidelity in our land! And on the great day of the Lord, when the secrets of men shall be revealed by the Searcher of hearts, thou shalt be held strictly to thy responsibility!

With all these mischievous maxims extensively prevalent, and with the canker of sectarianism preying on its very heart-strings, Protestantism can do little more than secure a mere external conformity and a lifeless

formalism, if it can even do that. It may succeed in preserving a fair exterior ; it may "make clean the outside of the cup and of the dish," but decay is at its bosom, and it is powerless for internal purification. It has been weighed in the balance, and has been found wanting. It has strained at the gnat of alleged abuses in the Catholic Church, and it has swallowed the camel of sectarianism. It has wasted its energies on trifles, and has "let alone the weightier things of the law: judgment, and mercy, and faith."' It must return to "its first faith;" it must seek the rock from which it was riven; it must "stand by the way, and look, and ask for the OLD PATHS, which is the good way, and walk in it; "2 else it can find no rest to its soul, and can effect no healing of the nations by its ministrations!

In conclusion, we repeat the opinion, that the great problem of our age will be, to decide between Catholicity and infidelity, and that the sooner this issue is clearly understood and fairly met, the better. Nothing but Catholicity can heal the disorders of the age, and give a wholesome impulse and direction to its tendencies. Protestantism has been tried, and it has failed; it has aggravated, instead of healing, the crying evils of the times.

1 St. Matth. xxiii, 23, 25.

2 Jeremiah vi, 16.

XXII. THE CHARGE OF IDOLATRY-HONOR AND

INVOCATION OF SAINTS.*

The curve and the straight line-The issue of the Puseyite movement-Its benefits-Origin of the controversy concerning Idolatry in the Catholic Church-Palmer and Dr. Wiseman-Charge by the former-How met by the latter-Palmer's criterion applied against himself-His line of reasoning unfair-Three propositions laid down-And proved-Catholic doctrine stated-Testimony by the Council of Trent-The Missal and the Breviary - Why are the Saints honored and invoked?— Passage from the late Pope's encyclical letter explained-Guardian angels-Objected passages explain themselves-Prayer of Cardinal Bona-Incident in the life of St. Alphonsus Liguori-St. Francis di Girolamo-The Pope's encyclical again-Palmer's Italics-The climax of idolatryColdness and enthusiasm in devotion-The devotion to the Virgin-Beautiful passage of Dr. Wiseman-Possible abuse no argument-Palmer's inconsistency-Passages from the ancient fathersHow he explains them-His glaring perversion of authorities-His work of supererogation-Faith and practice of the early Church-Beauty and sublimity of the Catholic doctrine-Devotion to the Virgin-A golden chain.

GEOMETERS tell us of a curved line, which can never come in actual contact with a straight line, to which it nevertheless constantly approximates. This theorem in conic sections forcibly reminds us of the past relative positions of Puseyism and Catholicity. Though the former seemed for many years to be constantly approaching the latter, yet the range of its curvature never actually touched the straight line of Catholic truth. Whether the approximation will yet terminate in contact, in spite of mathematical rules, the future alone can reveal. One thing is certain, that if so auspicious a conjunction should ever take place, the result will be owing to a modification in the laws of the curve, and not to any change in the direction of the straight line; for truth moves always in a straight line, and it can never deflect either to the right or to the left, else it would cease to be truth.

Though the final issue of the Puseyite movement has not entirely been satisfactory, it has nevertheless exercised a beneficial influence on the religious mind of the age. It has awakened inquiry on the great and all important question of the CHURCH; it has aroused the attention of the sober and reflecting to the grievous evils of sectarianism, and to the vast

1. *Letters to N. Wiseman, D. D., on the Errors of Romanism, in respect to the worship of Saints, Satisfactions, Purgatory, Indulgences, and the Worship of Images and Relics. By the Rev. William Palmer, M. A., of Worcester College, Oxford. Baltimore: Joseph Robinson. 1843.

II. The Character of the Rev. William Palmer, M. A., of Worcester College, as a Controversialist; particularly with reference to his charge against Dr. Wiseman, of quoting, as genuine works of the Fathers, spurious and heretical productions, considered in a Letter to a Friend at Oxford By a late member of the University. From the London edition Baltimore Metropolitan Press. 1844. 12mo., pp. 96.

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importance of religious unity; it has learnedly and eloquently set forth, in a new and more favorable light, many of the distinctive doctrines of Catholicity; it has stimulated men's minds to inquire into the principles and institutions of the ancient Church; it has kindled up in the hearts of many Protestants a new fervor to explore the (to them) hitherto hidden treasures of Christian antiquity: and it has thus greatly promoted patristic learning among those who, before, either entirely neglected this useful branch of study, or treated it even with positive contempt. Such have been the principal benefits of Puseyism.

But it has done yet more than this. It has already been instrumental in conducting many ingenuous and learned Protestants to the very portals, and some others into the inner sanctuary, of the venerable Catholic temple. Irresistibly led, by the course of reasoning upon which they had entered, to the conclusion that Catholicity and Christianity are identical, these individuals did not consult their own interests or worldly reputation; they did not confer with flesh and blood; but, spurning all mere human considerations, they straightway embraced what they believed to be the truth in Christ Jesus; they denied themselves, took up their cross, and followed their Saviour in the narrow path that leads to life, in which He had walked.

To check this ever increasing tendency towards Roman Catholicism among their immediate disciples, and to prove their own orthodoxy to their Protestant friends, some of the principal Puseyite leaders published works or pamphlets fraught with bitter enmity against Rome, and filled with declamations of a strong attachment to the "no-popery" principles of the Anglican establishment. They maintained that the Catholic Church. is one thing, and "popery" another; or that there is a broad and clearly marked distinction between Catholicity as unfolded in its official and recognized formularies and standards, and Catholicity as it actually exists at present, with the open sanction of the Church authorities, in Catholic countries on the continent of Europe. The forms of prayer and of worship contained in the Missal and the Breviary, as well as the doctrinal definitions of the Council of Trent, were according to them, almost entirely unexceptionable, or, at least, susceptible of a sense in accordance with their own views; but the interpretation of that worship, and of those doctrinal definitions, and the system of religion embodying or based upon them in Roman Catholic countries, they professed to view with a holy horror, as strongly savoring of superstition, and even of idolatry. They were almost ready to receive the law; they objected to the commentary put upon it by the practice of the Church.

Of all the Puseyite leaders, perhaps the most active and efficient in laboring to establish this distinction between Catholicity and "popery," is the Rev. William Palmer, of Worcester College, Oxford. His letters to Dr. Wiseman on the "Errors of Romanism," have been hailed by Anglicans on both sides of the Atlantio, as a triumphant refutation of the Roman Catholic system. We are not disposed to deny to Mr. Palmer the

credit of some learning, and of considerable ingenuity; we consider him no vulgar or common-place declaimer, but we cannot subscribe to the opinion that he is a very able controversialist, much less a sound or conclusive reasoner. We have already had occasion to show that he is not a correct or safe historian; we shall now proceed to assign our reasons for believing that he is not a good theologian nor a sound logician. We hope to prove that his learning is much more apparent than real, and that his arguments are much more plausible than solid. All that we ask is an attentive and patient hearing; and we request it with the more confidence, as to accomplish our task it will not be necessary to go into any very lengthy investigation or any very tedious details. Mr. Palmer's learning as well as his arguments lie on the surface; and it will not be necessary to penetrate beyond the surface to establish the shallowness of the one, and the sophistry of the other. Strip his learning of all that it has borrowed from our most common-place theological, historical, and liturgical writers, and it will be meagre indeed; strip his reasoning of its false assumptions and glaring sophistry, and it will appear weak and powerless, almost beyond expression.

The immediate occasion which induced the publication of the work under consideration, was the appearance of a letter of Dr. Wiseman to Prof. Newman of Oxford, in answer to certain charges preferred by the latter gentleman against the Catholic Church. For some reason or other, Prof. Newman declined to answer this letter, and Mr. Palmer volunteered his services to answer it for him. He did not, however, confine himself to a mere answer, but he boldly charged the Catholic Church with encouraging and sanctioning idolatry among its members; and with derogating from, and practically denying the atonement of Christ, by its doctrines of satisfactions and indulgences.

To establish the former charge, to which we must confine our attention for the present, he alleged a number of passages from modern standard Catholic writers, and from received Catholic prayer-books; which, according to the interpretation he put upon them, teach that divine honors are given among Catholics to the saints, and especially to the Blessed Virgin. To this train of reasoning Dr. Wiseman replied in his "Remarks," by producing an array of passages from the ancient Greek and Latin fathers containing expressions of reverence for the saints, much stronger and "more offensive" than those to which Mr. Palmer had objected in Catholies of the present day. Mr. Palmer was seriously embarrassed; for he, too, professed an unbounded reverence for the doctrines taught by the ancient fathers, and for the usages of ancient Catholicity.

How did he extricate himself from the dilemma ? He became desperate, and recklessly charged Dr. Wiseman with alleging, as genuine

1 In the Review of his Compendious Church History

2 See, for specifications under this head, and for proofs of Mr. Palmer's barefaced plagiarism, "The Character of Mr. Palmer as a Controversialist," p. 62, note, et alibi passim.

3 It is almost unnecessary to state, that since this was written Dr. Newman has become a fervent Catholic.