It is not, therefore, for us to bring in the bill. There are however a few general and broad observations which we conceive may be permitted to us.

In estimating our future we own that we are not of those sanguine and happy temperaments, who see no difficulties in any path before them. But then we know that the timid and the slothful always descry "a lion in the road" and "a lioness in the path," and build up mountains out of mole-hills. They never help on any work; they never put their shoulder to the wheel, until the wheel moves on the plain. We feel convinced that innumerable difficulties may be raised against attempting even the first step towards a Catholic University. It will be said that we are too poor,-as though everything was to be begun at once; it will be urged that they who desire University education are too few,-as though there was nothing in the maxim of economy that "the supply creates the demand;" and as though we ought not to plant the acorn because we may not live to enjoy its shade. Rather, we think that they render a greater service to mankind who bring clearly into view the end to be made for, than those do who from the outset morbidly delight to sum up and collect all the difficulties they can find the stones and steeps and "lions" of the way -and so discourage the heart of the multitude which has neither set out nor sees a mile ahead, and is always for sitting down or turning out of the road.

If we do not, therefore, begin by introducing an army of objections, it will not be understood that we are blind to their existence. We believe that each in its own time will be overcome when fairly met. We are convinced that not one is endowed with the privilege of being indomitable. Difficulties may slacken, but will not arrest our course. After these remarks we venture to point out, most briefly, the following broad facts.

The elements of a University are among us :

1. We have twelve or fourteen principal colleges* in England; and it is ascertained that we are giving a liberal education to more than 2,000 students. Many of these for age or advancement correspond to the freshmen and undergraduates of Oxford and Cambridge.

2. We have Religious Orders, who make education their profession and an object of their existence, notably the devoted Society of Jesus, with their resources in learned men to draw from all over the Continent.

* Old Hall, Ushaw, Stonyhurst, Oscott, Prior Park, Downside, Ampleforth, Douai, Beaumont, Edgbaston, Everton, Ratcliffe, S. Beuno's, Belmont, &c., &c.

3. We have communities of Secular priests given up to science and letters at Ushaw, Oscott, and Old Hall, to mention only their principal houses of education. The spirit or the Vow of poverty and the mortified life of the priest are a security against the claims for high remuneration put forth at Oxford and Cambridge.

4. There is also a list of laymen, who could render most efficient service by lectures in their own departments of

5. A Charter and power to confer degrees might be presumed upon from the favour of the Holy See; and there is no reason why these degrees should not come to acquire for their possessors equal honour with those of Oxford and Cambridge.

6. As to degrees recognized by the law of the land, already nearly all our colleges are affiliated to the London University; nor can there be any grave objection to the members of a Catholic University entering in like manner into a similar participation, so long as it may be necessary.

7. But if the Catholics of England founded a University of their own, we might, judging from the example of Ireland, and from the tendency of the times to favour education in all its branches and to erect Universities, expect, in due course, to obtain a legal charter. If Ireland secures such a charter within ten years, why may not we look for one within twenty? But one thing is certain; we must work for it and merit it, if we are to earn it from the sense of justice and love of education in the English people.

Among the advantages to be looked forward to from a Catholic University for our laity we shall confine ourselves to singling out two, which seem special and practical.

1. The establishment of a School of Catholic Philosophy, which may prepare our youth against the intellectual and increasing dangers of the day, and make a front to the rationalistic philosophy of Oxford, Cambridge, London, and the Universities of the North.

In the Roman College there is a School of the Philosophy of Religion and if this is important for the Italian laity, it is ten times more so for the English.

2. Little or no practical attention is given in the Universities to the study of law, though some improvement has taken place in Oxford. Now not only is law a recognised instrument, just as the classical languages and mathematics are, for educing and training the powers of the mind; but it is one of those practical subjects, dealing with the lives,

give interest, power, and influence to all who have studied it. Let our eldest sons and country gentlemen receive instruction on the principles of Christian jurisprudence, of the British constitution and of our common law; let the principal questions of political and social economy, which are at the root of all the upheavings and maladies of our modern society, be brought before them in a harmonious and well-digested form; and you will confer upon them a singular power of influence, and fit them to fill with credit and advantage their social position. We quote from a work of admitted ability, by Mr. Toulmin Smith, on "Local Self-Government," the following passage:

The first and chief point in the secular education of a free people ought to be a thorough knowledge and understanding of the principles on which the institutions and laws they live under are founded. But if there is one subject less studied and less understood than another in England it is this. Neither in our schools, our colleges, nor universities is it taught; nor does the literature of the day help its acquisition.

If this were made a point of attention in a Catholic University, it would soon be found that our Catholic young men would feel a greater confidence in their own powers, and a more intelligent interest in the political and social work of their country. We should cease to hear of the backwardness of our higher classes in public life: they would take their proper place, and exercise their proper influence, in the life and progress of the country.

And, further, if we may refer to the more immediate advantage to be derived by the clergy from such an institution, it might become of inestimable value, by stimulating philosophical and theological studies, by exciting a healthy emulation among students scattered throughout the country, by giving a high standard and constant impulse to the small classes in our seminaries,-through the means of common examinations, public results, degrees, and scholarships.

One caution we ought all to bear in mind. Such a work must begin in humility, and, as it were, from the seed. Palatial buildings, abundant means, imposing array, and large numbers are the result of time and generations. How the beginning should be made, it is not for us to suggest; but this we know, that a very small seed, if duly planted and nurtured, may send up so large and stately a tree, that in due time all the fowls of the air may find rest and nourishment in its branches.

In order to achieve the foundation of a Catholic University, individuals must be prepared for sacrifices for more than one

generation. There must be no slaking of thirst in the great muddy water because the pure stream is small. There should be no murmuring and sadness because the Rhone is not at its source what it is a hundred miles down, or at its mouth. Let every streamlet pour in its quota, and before we think for it we shall be floating on the broad bosom of a river. Few reflect on the reserve of strength which lies hidden within the million and a half Catholics in England when multiplied by fifty years. If any one is discouraged at the prospect of difficulties, let him look into the chapters of the second volume of " Christian Schools." He will there find the indications of how our great seats of learning and the universities began. Sixty-six universities covered Europe before the Reformation; as they were needed they arose -some out of a school of boys, as Cambridge; some by combinations among the religious orders and the clergy, towards a common centre, as at Caen, and, in some measure, at Oxford and Paris; some were the result of a quarrel among professors, as at Padua. Nearly all were initiated by the Church, and all were supported by the clergy and laity together. He will find in how great humility, poverty, trouble, disorder, and without other compass than their faith, these marts of learning were planted. It was in more troublous times than ours that wisdom built herself a home beside the waters of the Isis and the Cam.

The Church is as growing and vigorous to-day as she was eight or eighteen centuries ago. She does not tire of rebuilding the walls that have been pulled down, nor of replanting where the "wild boar" has uprooted. At the Reformation she lost in England 681 monasteries of men and women. During the first half of the present century she has replaced them by 260 religious houses and colleges; and at this proportion, by the close of the century, we shall have nearly equalled the number which were left after 800 years of Catholic sway and royal protection.

If any one is discouraged, we repeat, let him study the history of the Church throughout the world, and he will discover therein the tokens of encouragement for our future. He will perceive that all great works have been achieved against great odds; that their foundations have been laid in the earnestness of self-sacrifice on the part of women and men; and that upon this basis they have been wondrously built up by the Power and Love of God.

We have seen the growth and perfection of our colleges during the past half-century. It is not presumptuous to expect to behold their "crown and flower" arise during the second

ART. VI.-THE FIRST AND THE SECOND MAN.* Ecce Homo. London and Cambridge: Macmillan & Co.

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to us.

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ET us look back on the space which we have traversed, and gather up in a few words the sight which it presents We have man before us as far as history will carry us back, as far as reasoning, planting itself on the scanty traces of history, will penetrate into the cloudland of pre-historic times and the result stands before us exhibited in the manifold records still remaining of the most renowned ancient civilization. Here, then, we see nations whose genius, whether in history, poetry and literature, or in works of art, or in civil government, we still admire, comprising men in many of whom the powers of reason reached their utmost limit; nations inhabiting the most varied climates and countries, and amongst them the fairest in the world, nations formed under the most different circumstances, and pursuing the most distinct employments, some agricultural, some commercial, some inland, some nautical, but alike in this that they were enthralled by systems of a false worship, of which it is hard to say whether it was the more revolting to the reason by its absurdity, or to the conscience of man by its foulness. And this false worship does not lie distinct and apart from the concerns of daily civil and domestic life, but is intertwined with all the public and private actions of men, forming their habits and ruling their affections. Moreover, the polytheistic idolatry described above as existing at the time of Augustus in every province of his empire except one, in almost every country which touched upon it, or was known to it, is the result, the summing up, the embodiment of man's whole history up to that time, so far as we know it: it is that into which this history had run out, its palpable, it almost seemed, its irresistible, form. And it amounts to a complete corruption, first of the relation between man and his Creator, secondly of the relation between man and his fellow, thirdly of the relations of man in civil government, that is, of states and political communities, to each other.

This paper is a continuation of that in No. XVII. entitled "The Gods of the Nations when Christ appeared."

An exception must be drawn in favour of Persia, where the original monotheism was preserved with more or less corruption.