own words: "Quòd Ecclesia Orientalis et Constantinopolitana non esset sub Ecclesiaj Romanâ, nec patriarcha Constantinopolitanus esset inferior Romano Pontifice." And the Saint ends by saying that all these three tenets were heretical: "Horum quodlibet est hæreticum."

"The Pope during the Council [of Florence] offering to put the whole question to the vote, for the purpose of deciding, in the words of S. Antoninus, 'what points of Christian truth should be held or abandoned" " (p. 563).

It is repeated again, p. 579, but in p. 342 the portentous statement is assigned to the Greek Emperor, and the Pope there is said to have merely "assented." Even that is strange enough. But as it is something in the way of dirt to fling at the Pope, there is too much reason to think that Mr. Ffoulkes was too ready to put it up, and roll it into a ball, and hurl it. In its origin the matter is innocent enough, but by a little taste and manipulation it could be fashioned into a calumny; and so it was.

S. Antoninus is made responsible for the story, and is represented besides as holding the opinion that certain "points of Christian truth" were to be "abandoned" if the majority wished it. The Greeks are innocent; for we do not hear from their defender that they even accepted the offer. According to S. Antoninus-we are not able to consult the chronicle itself, but there is a long extract from it in Coleti's Councils, xviii. 1296, which we have no reason to mistrust, agreeing with the quotation made by Mr. Ffoulkes, who probably saw it where we see it-the proposal came from the Greek Emperor. But not precisely as it is described. The Emperor asked the Pope to hold a council, wherein doctors on both sides might discuss what is to be held or not touching Christian truth,-quid tenendum respuendumve foret de veritate Christiana. The Pope assented, to what? To the council and the discussion; that is all that can be made of it: and it is incorrect to say that he ever offered to put Christian truth to the vote, or that S. Antoninus ever imagined the object of the council to be anything of the kind.

The Council of Florence seems to be an offence to Mr. Ffoulkes, even though he makes the bishop of Rochester (p. 560) a member of it. There never was a bishop of Rochester called Andreas, and the Andreas of the council must have come from some other see. If Mr. Ffoulkes had been more careful, he would have ascertained from the Latin Acts that Roffensis is a mistake of the copyist. He is also hard upon Cardinal Julian, the most prominent member of the council, who

"A fugitive from the battle-fields, fell pierced by three arrows in the marshes between it and Shumla. This was the sequel to the Council of Florence, on the Latin side; here Cardinal Julian paid the price of the decree he had read out, and of the means by which it had been obtained" (p. 372).

This is surely nothing less than to assert that the decree of Union was an offence to God, which He punished by the violent death of the Cardinal Would Mr. Ffoulkes like us to tell him of the death of Mark of Ephesus.:

God rewarded him in his death a hundredfold, for he died a martyr. The Turkish commander offered him life and honours if he would deny the Faith if he refused, horrible tortures. He was scourged till his skin was in stripes, and iron nails were driven into the quivering flesh. After a time the Turkish surgeons tempt him with life, and promise to heal his wounds. The noble martyr, not yet fifty years old, would not buy his life at the shameful price, and the scourge fell upon him once more till he was dead. If this was "the price of the decree," all we can say is that the decree must have been more than pleasing in the sight of God; and that Cardinal Julian must have gladly confessed that the payment was more than he had deserved, however much he may have desired it. May our soul be with his !

In pp. 481-491 Mr. Ffoulkes repeats some very singular statements on the Florentine definition, which he made in the Union Review for March, 1866. We replied to them fully at the time (April, 1866, pp. 550-555); but Mr. Ffoulkes does not seem aware of our comment. We should have been glad to see some attempt at answering it.

If space permitted, we could point out many other passages in the volume, hardly inferior to those which have preceded in their anti-Catholic and utterly unreasonable character.

Devotion to the Pope, and Devotion to the Church. By the late FREDERICK WILLIAM FARER, D.D., Priest of the Oratory of S. Philip Neri. Third Edition. London: Richardson & Son.

THE

HE Fathers of the London Oratory have done good service in republish ing these two beautiful sermons. They could not have been brought to our recollection at a more opportune moment. It is assuredly not the least precious part of F. Faber's great work in England and Christendom to have taught us to consider our bearing towards the Church and towards the Vicar of Christ as a part of the Spiritual life; to have urged "that devotion to the Pope is an essential part of all Christian piety. It is not a matter which stands apart from the spiritual life, as if the Papacy were only the politics of the Church, an institution belonging to her external life, a divinelyappointed convenience of ecclesiastical government. It is a doctrine and a devotion. It is an integral part of our blessed Lord's plan. He is in the Pope in a still higher way than he is in the poor or in children. A man might as well try to be a good Christian without devotion to our Lady as without devotion to the Pope; and for the same reason in both cases. Both His Mother and His Vicar are parts of our Lord's Gospel" (p. 13). There are many things in these two sermons which greatly need to be said and resaid, and which no one could say so beautifully or so persuasively as F. Faber. As he repeats more than once in the course of them, "The touchstone which God appears to be using for our probation now is devotion to the Church"; and the danger, as he warns us in a beautiful passage is not only from those without but even more from those within: "We must be upon our guard even against Catholic books, periodicals, journals and pamphlets,

however specious they may be " (p. 31). What wisdom in the principle he applies as a test, "In all matters which concern the relations of the Church with the world, the Saints are the only safe doctors" (p. 32). How much, again, do we need to remind ourselves, as F. Faber says, that "This is a day when God looks for open professions of our faith, for unbashful proclamations of our allegiance. It is a day also when the sense of our outward helplessness casts us more than ever upon the duty of inward prayer. This is the other duty. The open profession is of little worth without the inward prayer, but I think the inward prayer is almost of less worth without the outward profession" (p. 17), We cannot forbear mentioning an incident connected with this passage which we have from a very authentic source. Shortly after F. Faber's sermon on Devotion to the Pope was published, the Holy Father himself read it in a French translation. He expressed great pleasure at it, ordered it to be translated into Italian, and himself looked over the proof-sheets. In doing this, he was pleased to make one correction with his own hand. In the last sentence we have quoted, which runs-" I think the inward prayer is almost of less worth without the outward profession "—the Holy Father struck out the word "almost"!

Lives of the Fathers of the Desert. Translated from the German of the Countess Hahn-Hahn. By E. F. B. With an introduction, on the Spiritual Life of the First Six Centuries. By J. R. DALGAIRNS, Priest of the Oratory. London: Richardson & Son.

WE

1867.

E noticed in our last number the learned and interesting preface of F. Dalgairns; and the length of that notice precluded us from speaking of the book itself.

We now redeem the promise we then made, and proceed very briefly to give some account of this most graphic picture of the Saints of the Desert. The readers of Rodriguez are familiar with many sayings of the ancient anchorites, which are one of the many charms of his book on Perfection; and that familiarity is certainly not the familiarity that breeds contempt. E. F. B. has enabled us to learn more of the old Saints, and to see how like they are even to the Saints of modern days. The hard life of the desert was not all the sanctity of a monk; and maceration of the body was not the sole occupation of men who gave up the world. We see that they had to bridle the tongue, to mortify the understanding, just as if they were in a noviciate in our day. The outward mortifications even of S. Simeon on the pillar were a strange sight, but the Saint had been a novice before he was suffered to make himself a spectacle to angels and to men, and his interior mortifications were as many, and as hard to endure, as were those which were visible to the eyes of the world.

There are six chapters devoted to a general view of the primitive times : and then we come to the life of Paul, the first Hermit, who in his youth fled into the desert where he lived forgotten of men and unknown.

"But the remembrance of this holy old man was not to disappear out of the recollection of men. He was a hundred and thirteen years old: his end was approaching, and he knew it and rejoiced. About the same time, Antony, another celebrated solitary, had a temptation to pride: it seemed to him that he was the most perfect anchorite in the whole desert . . . He was now ninety years old, but his strife was not yet over . . . He had a vision in sleep which revealed to him that a patriarch of solitaries lived in the depths of the desert who was much more perfect than himself, and that he was to go in seach of him" (p. 85).

S. Antony journeyed to the cavern where S. Paul of Thebes was dying, but he was not easily admitted to the cell of the old man, who wished even in death to be unknown to men. While the two Saints were speaking together

"A raven came flying to Paul's feet, and gently deposited a loaf of bread. How good, God is,' exclaimed the holy old man; for sixty years a raven has daily brought me half a loaf. Now that thou art here, my brother Antony, behold Christ has doubled the provision for his two soldiers.'"

S. Antony was not allowed to witness the dissolution of the old man : he was sent away to his own cell for a cloak which S. Athanasius had given him, and before he could reach the cell of Paul on his return, he saw him in a vision ascend to heaven.

The next life is that of S. Antony, after which we have most admirable histories of the other hermits, including S. Pachomins, who gave a rule and an organization to the solitaries. We have also the lives of those holy women who had S. Jerome for their director, and wonderful lives they are, Fabiola, among others with the Melanies, women who were more than women, and at the same time women throughout. Nothing can be more interesting than this portion of the book.

The translation is admirably done: for the reader has no difficulty to overcome; that is a sure test of a painstaking and careful work. If the book had been published without notice that it was a translation, no one, unacquainted with the original, could have ascertained the fact.

Lectures on the Nature, the Grounds, and the Home of Faith.
SWEENEY, O.S.B. London: Burns & Oates.

IN

By Rev. J. L.

N these lectures, the ordinary and most convincing argument for the Church's authority is enforced with much clearness and power. Their effect must have been considerable on any Protestant who heard them.

F. Sweeney holds one opinion, shared by him with many theologians, but leading to a consequence which he does not seem to have observed. He holds (p. 24) that "the nature of faith requires" an infallible authority, such as the Catholic Church, proposing what is to be believed; that "it requires for its existence" such an authority (p. 39). From this tenet it would follow at once, that no Protestant, however invincible his ignorance of Catholi

cism, can possess true faith; for he knows of no infallible authority which he accepts as testifying God's Revelation. And further, since without true faith no one can arrive at justification and salvation, it would also follow from F. Sweeney's tenet that no Protestant, however invincible his ignorance of Catholicism, can possibly be saved. We confess that this conclusion greatly indisposes us to the tenet from which it would undeniably result; and that we much prefer the doctrine of those theologians, such as Lugo, who think differently. We have referred to this question in our article on the Archbishop's new volume, p. 112.

The following note is admirable. It is well worth quoting, because it bears on one of those features in Unionism which peculiarly scandalize Catholics. We have put some sentences into italics :

"As a specimen of the way in which the High Church Unionist party regard the episcopal office as exercised in the Anglican Church, we would refer to two articles in the Church Times. In this paper appear correspondence and communications from clergymen of note, who adopt the paper as their organ. In the issue for March 9th, 1867, is a leading article against the proposed increase of the episcopate. The writer says:-'Our objection is, that while bishops are appointed as now, and while they behave as now, the fewer we have of them the better. As matters stand, the mass of correspondence and purely routine business which a bishop has to get through somehow, keeps him fully occupied, and he has but little leisure for doing mischief. But there can be no doubt how he would employ himself if his tasks were lightened one-half. Not in more active visitation, not in theological composition, not in sedulous promotion of practical reforms, but in bullying those of his clergy who belonged to the unpopular school. He then proceeds to give ten qualifications which he deems a bishop ought to have, and says:-We should be very well content with a prelate who united in himself even half of these qualifications, but it is not possible to say so much of any prelate now on the English Bench. Wherefore, we come to the conclusion that the fewer bishops like the present we have, the better. ... What we want is, not more bishops, but better ones; not fresh tyrants, but reins and curbs for those we have.' Thinking that such an article would at once provoke the burst of indignation which would follow, if one of our Catholic papers had written in such a manner, we looked at the next number. Not a word of protest from any one; but to prove that the sentiments expressed on March 9th were not those of the moment merely, the writer returns on March 23rd to the subject, and in a leading article on 'The Situation,' says: 'In point of fact there is probably no class of persons in these realms who enjoy so little public confidence as the right rev. bench. Broad Church utterly contemns bishops, both the office and the men who hold it; Low Church abhors the office, but tolerates it when it happens to have been conferred upon its own adherents; High Church reveres the office, but-well, we won't say how it regards many of those who in these times have come by sundry "bye-path and indirect crook'd way" to the mitre. The notion, therefore, of the bishops asking for more power is really one that we cannot bring ourselves to think of with seriousness.' And the article proceeds with urging resistance to the bishops in case of any law passed by them against the ritualists in a spirit which cannot but call for the indignation of Catholics, when they find that those who use such language against the very persons who ordain their ministers, pretend to identify themselves with us. Here again prevails that unreal and delusive theory of distinguishing between the office and those who bear it. As well might a person who was convicted of high treason for injuring the person of his sovereign, justify himself by saying,