peace and such temporal prosperity as may be the holy will of God; for true peace and concord amongst Christian princes and peoples, pp. 58-9; and (4) for the intention of the Pope, p. 49. In one short form of prayer, p. 59, we read :—

"I beseech of Thy Divine Majesty to hear the prayers of the universal Church, to enlighten infidels, to strengthen the faithful, to convert the heretic, to comfort the sick and sorrowful, to give grace to the dying, to release the poor souls suffering in purgatory, to establish true peace and concord amongst Christian princes and peoples.'

"Bless our dear and Holy Father the Pope, and support him in his many afflictions, by the Divine grace and consolation.'

What is there in this one short prayer that is plainly at variance with the provisions of the Encyclical? What more is wanting to pray for all the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff in granting this Jubilee?

"There is not a theologian living who will agree with your censor in saying, that a prayer for peace and concord among Christian kings and princes is not truly a prayer for peace among Christian people; and if the benefits of a Jubilee are lost to all those who are not up to this sublime distinction, the fewer Jubilees the better."

I may add, that I have the authority of a priest who was present at the Diocesan Synod for stating, that the Most Rev. Dr. Moriarty emphatically condemned the criticism of the RECORD on that occasion; and I have also private letters from his Lordship to the same effect, and upholding the accuracy of my little book.

Thanking you for your kind offer to insert my reply,

Believe, Rev. Dear Sir, yours very respectfully,

SISTER MARY FRANCIS CLARE.

To the Editor of the IRISH ECCLESIASTICAL RECORD.

REV. AND DEAR SIR,

TEMPLEMORE, CO. TIPPERARY, 24th July, 1875.

I have to thank you for sending me Sister M. F. Clare's letter, which, owing to my absence from Maynooth, did not reach me until yesterday.

She may feel assured that before a single line of the criticism to which she objects had been published, every word of of it had been most carefully weighed. I have now read,

with equal care, the defence which has been made for her by the “eminent and professional theologian," extracts from whose letter she has embodied in her own. And as I have not been able to discover in it anything that could lead me even to modify, in the slightest degree, the views which I expressed in your last number, I must still remain of opinion, that the prayers to which I referred "are not in conformity with the provisions of the Encyclical, and that, consequently, they cannot be adopted for use on the present occasion, without, at least, serious risk of losing all the benefits of the Jubilee."

Before proceeding to show how irrelevant is the theological defence on which Sister M. F. Clare relies, I must, in the first instance, endeavour to set her right in reference to a point of some importance, regarding which she labours under a somewhat serious misconception.

She says:-" Personally, I admit my incompetence. The work had been carefully revised by the Very Rev. Dr. M'Carthy, Vice-President of St. Patrick's College, Maynooth.

. . I asked and obtained the favour of a further revision from the Most Rev. Dr. Moriarty, whose name alone should shield the work from such peculiar and hard criticism."

How, I may ask, were such facts as these to "shield" her work from criticism, when no intimation of them was given to the public? If, indeed, the "Kenmare Jubilee Manual" had appeared with a letter of approval from the venerated Bishop of the Diocese in which it was published, however much I should regret the publication, under such auspices, of a work calculated in my opinion to imperil the gaining of the Jubilee in the case of many thousands of our people, I should never have presumed to offer any criticism of it to the public. And if I did so far forget the respect due to so distinguished a prelate, as to be guilty of such an impropriety, I have no doubt that the Editor of the IRISH ECCLESIASTICAL RECORD would most properly have declined to give insertion in his pages to any such criticism.

But no intimation whatever was given of the facts to which Sister M. F. Clare now appeals. For, it may be necessary to inform her, an Imprimatur does not by any means imply a positive approval of the book to which it is appended: it is simply, as the Latin word expresses, a permission granted by the Bishop for the printing of the book. Such a permission, of course, would not be granted if the book were found to contain any error contrary to faith or morals. But I never alleged that the “Kenmare Manual" contained any errors of the kind. Now the Imprimatur of the Bishop of Kerry guaranteed that

the "Manual" was free from such errors. It guaranteed nothing more.

The following extract from the admirable instruction issued by the Bishops of the United States, after their last Plenary Synod at Baltimore, will show Sister M. F. Clare that, in future, if she wishes her writings to be "shielded" from theological criticism, she must procure for them some other testimonial of their accuracy over and above the mere Imprimatur of her respected diocesan :—

"The Council of Trent," say the Fathers, "requires that all books which treat of religion should be submitted before publication to the Ordinary of the Diocese in which they are to be published, for the purpose of obtaining his sanction, so as to assure the faithful that they contain nothing contrary to faith and morals.

"This law is still in force: and in the former Plenary Council its observance was urged, and the Bishops were exhorted to approve of no book which had not previously been examined by themselves, or by clergymen appointed by them for that purpose.

"The faithful should be aware that such approbation is rather of a negative than of a positive character; that it by no means imparts to the statements or sentiments such works may contain any episcopal sanction, but merely guarantees them as free from errors in faith and morals."

Strange to say, the "eminent and professional theologian" who has so chivalrously come to the defence of Sister M. F. Clare seems to labour under the same misconception as she does regarding the significance of an episcopal Imprimatur. Surely it requires no very extensive acquaintance with theological literature to be aware of the fact, that in all parts of the Church, bishops freely grant the permission which this word implies, to works of which they totally disapprove, as regards the precise character of the theological views set forth in them. When he reflects upon this fact, he will, I have no doubt, cease to wonder that the Imprimatur, even of "the most learned Bishop in the Irish Church," did not "shield" the '66 Kenmare Manual from criticism in the pages of the RECORD.

I cannot close my remarks on this topic without expressing my surprise that neither Sister M. F. Clare nor the "eminent theologian" who has undertaken to criticise my paper, seems to have been influenced by the consideration that the RECORD, as well as the "Kenmare Jubilee Manual," is published with an Episcopal Imprimatur. Of course I am not going to do anything so ridiculous as to appeal to that episcopal sanction as

an indication that his Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop of Dublin endorses all the theological opinions and statements published from time to time in the RECORD. The contrary, I have no doubt, is the fact. But it strikes me as strange that considering the view which they take of the significance of an Episcopal Imprimatur, the "circumstance" to which I refer, should not, "in itself," "have restrained" my "censors."

There is one other point which I must clear up before proceeding to deal with this criticism on its merits. My critic writes as if he were not aware of the authorship of the paper to which he is replying. He even treats it as a joint production, for he writes to Sister M. F. Clare about her "censors," and he speaks of "their" charges against her.

Now, my paper was not anonymous. It was signed, as my contributions to the RECORD invariably are, with my initials. I cannot, of course, feel surprised that, for a cloistered religious, these would not be sufficient to identify me as the writer. But it is, I think, strange that a paper so signed would be dealt with by any "eminent and professional theologian” in Ireland as if he were not fully aware of its authorship.

It is, I think, equally strange that you should be asked to publish in reply to such a paper, a criticism which is practically anonymous. For my own part, I have not much doubt as to who my critic is. But, as far as the great majority of your readers are concerned, the description of him given by Sister M. F. Clare-an "eminent and professional theologian, appointed by the Bishop to revise 'her' works"-will form a perfectly impenetrable mask. No intimation has been given to the public of the appointment of any such official reviser in connection with the "Kenmare Publication Office." Until I read Sister M. F. Clare's letter I was not myself aware of the fact that any such responsible official was in existence. Perhaps, even now, I may be mistaken in my conjecture as to who he is. But, at all events, as Sister M. F. Clare has, with special caution, and evidently of express purpose, abstained from naming him, I do not feel myself warranted in writing, as the circumstances of the case would fully justify me in doing, if I were assured that my conjecture, regarding the authorship of this criticism, was correct.

In strictness, I might, indeed, decline to take any notice of what is practically an anonymous attack on views openly and avowedly. put forward by me. I might even ask you to decline giving publicity in the RECORD to any such communication, as, of course, you would decline to publish it, if forwarded to you anonymously by the writer himself. But since Sister M. F. Clare has seen no impropriety in asking

you to publish it, as embodied in her letter, I will waive all technical considerations and deal with this criticism as I find it.

And now, taking the criticism on its merits, I must begin by expressing my regret that my critic has not done me the justice of fairly quoting from my paper the statements to which he undertook to reply. For surely it is not fair to omit from a quotation the clauses which determine its meaning, and then to put forward what professes to be a refutation of it, but what in reality is a refutation only of certain garbled extracts in which the meaning of the original statement is totally perverted.

To make this point intelligible to your readers, I must explain, that Sister M. F. Clare, consulting not merely for the necessities, but also for the luxuries of devotion, has provided three distinct sets of prayers for the use of those who adopt her "Manual." There are prayers for the "First Visit ;" prayers for the "Second Visit ;" and other prayers, in fine, for the "Third Visit."

To the prayers for the "Third Visit," regarding them as fairly satisfactory, I made no reference whatever. Confining my observations to the other two, I said :

"In the prayers assigned for the 'First Visit' and' Second Visit,' instead of a prayer 'for the peace and unity of the whole Christian people,' we find two distinct prayers 'for all Christian kings and princes,' which are not in confor

mity with the provisions of the Encyclical."

This was my statement. What, then, I may ask, does my critic mean by parading in refutation of it the prayer "for true peace and concord among Christian princes and peoples," for which he refers to page 59 of the "Manual?" I make no reference to the statement in which with such elaborateness of detail he reminds Sister M. F. Clare that her "Manual" contains a prayer (1) for the Holy Catholic Church; (2) for the conversion of heretics, of apostates, of all who have strayed from God's Holy Church, and for all the faithful, living and dead; (3) for all Christian kings and princes, peace and such temporal prosperity as may be the holy will of God. For all this is so transparently irrelevant that I am relieved of the necessity of replying to it. But, taking the prayer "for true peace and concord among Christian princes and peoples," which my critic quotes twice over, putting it forward as an unanswerable reply to my faultfinding, what, I repeat, does he mean by parading this prayer in refutation of my statement, or by asking in triumph what there is in it that is plainly at variance with the provisions of the Encyclical; or