the latitude of theological opinion." We believe no single writer can be named, who advocated the existence of that fire as being in such sense certain, as that its denial is theologically unsound.† And as to the Westerns in general, there was most undoubtedly a living tradition among them, that this was no question on which their opinion could legitimately be enforced on the Greeks as a condition of union. The profession of faith to which we have already referred, drawn up in the year 1267 by Pope Clement IV. stated the doctrine of Purgatory almost in the very words afterwards adopted at Florence.

And

at Florence the Westerns made no attempt whatever to introduce any mention of fire; on the contrary, they offered to the Greeks the definition, almost word for word as it now stands, as expressing "the faith of the Roman Church concerning the truth of Purgatory" (Latin Acts).

Indeed, on the very opening of the first private conferences, the difference of the two views was found in principle comparatively trifling. "This, therefore," say the Greek Acts, "was the difference between them. The Greeks assert chastisement, and grief, and a place of chastisement; but not by means of fire : whereas the Italians assert chastisement, and purgation, by means of fire." It is probable enough, indeed, that the prevalent belief among Easterns, on the severity of purgatorial punishment, was considerably short of that which the Church practically teaches; but the one most hopeful course for imbuing them with that full doctrine, was the accomplishment of Union. There was every reason to expect, that thence would result a constantly increasing communication between East and West, and a constantly increasing infusion of Latin ideas into the Eastern mind. But as to any kind of objection or protest raised by Greeks against the Latin practical system -such a protest, e.g., as is raised against it by Dr. Pusey,we have been unable to find, either in the Greek or Latin Acts, the slightest hint, the remotest trace, of any such phenomenon.

We think that, on the whole, a candid study of the Florentine Acts, both Greek and Latin, will lead to the following conclusions, on the respective attitude of the two convening parties. The Easterns arrived at Ferrara with an extremely strong conviction, not merely that the addition to the Symbol was most unwarrantable, but that the dogma which it expressed

* In 3 m., d. 46, s. 2.

+ Our authority for this statement is a friend extremely well acquainted with medieval scholastics, who in vain attempted to find in any of them this latter opinion.

was utterly false and even heretical. On the constitution of the Church, they had no definite theory whatever, which could admit of being scientifically stated. They were, however, fully convinced that they were true members of the Church, though separated from Papal communion; and they undoubtedly held that an Ecumenical Council is infallible. On the other matters at issue, they seem to have had no very decided conviction; except of course that their own use of leavened bread in the Eucharist did not interfere with the validity of the sacrament.* To their unspeakable surprise, as the debates proceeded, they felt more and more that they were wholly unable to contend against the Latins, on those very points which they had regarded as their stronghold; and this circumstance inspired them with a deep distrust of their own theology, and a great readiness to accept the Latin Creed on other matters also. Consequently, as soon as an agreement was obtained on the Double Procession, the main difficulty was at an end.† From that moment the Emperor was the only remaining obstacle; and Easterns combined with Westerns, in labouring to remove prejudice from his mind, and bring the truth home to his apprehension.

As to the Westerns, we do not see how a second opinion is possible on the position which they consistently maintained. On every single point at issue, their view, from the first, was precise, definite, and stable. On the Pope's prerogatives, in particular, they held, not merely that communion with him is necessary to salvation (though this, of course, was included in their doctrine); but also, that his power is, in no respect, limited or circumscribed by any human authority; that he is the one source of ecclesiastical jurisdiction; the one infallible teacher of Divine Truth. To this doctrine the Easterns finally acceded; and such is the true and germane sense of that definition, which originated with the Westerns substantially as it now stands, and to which Latins and Greeks alike subscribed.

* 66

Concerning Purgatory and the consecration of the gifts [the Easterns resolved] to say nothing whatever about them-not knowing, as I think, the true determination of the matter."-Greek Aets, soon after recording the Patriarch's death.

On June the 8th, when this agreement was finally consummated, [the Latins] "rose and kissed us, and there was great joy on both sides." -Greek Acts.

542

Notices of Books.

On the Management of Prisoners. A Paper read at the Academia of the Catholic Religion. By the Right Rev. Bishop ULLATHORNE. London: Richardsons. 1866.

T is very seldom that we are able to speak of any work in terms of such the Bishop of Birmingham's most interesting and masterly essay on the management of criminals. The subject of it is one of extreme and pressing importance, and the bishop is probably the man of all others in England the most competent to deal with it. He is not only familiar with all its bearings as a matter of theory, but has enjoyed abundant opportunities of estimating the effect of various systems in the course of his experience as a colonial missionary. To these qualifications he adds those of an accurate thinker and a powerful writer; and above all is able to treat the subject, as so few men of equal ability and experience are able to treat it, in the light of true religion and of the Catholic Church. There are, of course, men of political knowledge and experience who might have dealt with the merely economic side of the subject as fully as the bishop. There are also Catholics who, by force of instinct, if not as the result of a reasoning process, have long felt the truth of his views, so far as they relate to the religious interests of convicts; but we can think of no Englishman who combines these different conditions in the same excellence as the Bishop of Birmingham. We earnestly hope, and can hardly doubt, that his pamphlet will find its way to the library-tables of Mr. Gladstone, Sir George Grey, Mr. Walpole, and others on both sides of the political world, whose official position requires, or may require, them to look at the subject of prison discipline both in its theoretical and experimental aspects. For we cannot but think that the command of the whole subject which the bishop indicates, must win even reluctant minds (and in this class we by no means wish to include the politicians just mentioned) to feel still more strongly what such men are now beginning to feel, the absolute necessity of, with a view even to their own professional objects, of introducing the light of religion into the moral and spiritual gloom in which our prisoners were long enveloped, and from which they are only now recovering by degrees, and in detached places. But, above all, we trust that the bishop's essay may come extensively under the eyes of the magistracy, who are still too slow to profit by the results of the experiment, admitted to be so successful in the Government prisons, of providing the Catholic convicts with the full advantages of their religion.

In a short notice like the present, we cannot attempt to do justice to a pamphlet at once so comprehensive and so suggestive. The bishop, after

depicting with graphic power the horrors of the old English prison systemthe crowding, the shameful intermixture of the sexes, and of the more confirmed with the more inexperienced criminals; the filth, the vice, the brutality of officials, and the ever deepening demoralization of the inmates, with other similar details in the catalogue of abominations-proceeds to show what improvements have been made in recent times under the influence of a more enlightened and humane policy. We speak of the policy which was first exemplified in the benevolent ministrations of Howard and Mrs. Fry, and has been since expressed in the construction and internal arrangements of our more modern prisons. He proves that the methods, tardily adopted in this country, towards the amelioration of some of these evils, are really, even in their very details, of a Catholic origin, and had previously been in operation in Catholic cities. He compares with one another the different systems of prison management at present in vogue, and points out their several defects and capabilities of amendment. He dwells at some length upon the admitted evils of extreme solitude, in favouring habits of vicious thought, and in weakening both the physical and moral energies of those who are exposed to it. We are particularly interested in that portion of his work in which he describes the advantages which a system of regular hours, appointed work, and modified silence and solitude, would furnish towards the reformation of the criminal, supposing that the influences of religion were duly brought to bear upon it. Protestants are apt to say that our monasteries are prisons. We may well retort, that their prisons should be converted into monasteries. As things are, they possess more than all the restraints of religious houses of strict observance, without the religion, which forms the soul of the ascetic system. We imagine that Canon Oakeley must be pleased to find the proofs of coincidence, obviously most undesigned and independent, between much of the bishop's language and that contained in a lecture published by him several years ago on the Catholic religion in its influence on national morality, in which he is led to speak especially, though but incidentally, on the subject of our prison discipline.

Mr. Oakeley says (pp. 11, 12):

"The prisoners rise and go to rest like monks, at a fixed time. Their occupations, their meals, their exercise, are all regulated with conventual exactitude. They have their infirmary like the inmates of one of our religious establishments, where every comfort which illness can need, or care supply, is provided for them; but still with one great exception. They have also their 'associations,' which require nothing but a religious bond to raise them to confraternities or sodalities. Their keepers, and the officers who attend upon them, never seemed to me to be wanting in personal kindness towards them, or to wish to add to their punishment without absolute necessity. They would occasionally enter the cells (so far like the superiors of a college), not merely for the purpose of keeping a vigilant eye upon the inmates, but in order to relieve the monotony of solitary confinement by a few words of kindly remark. All this, you will agree with me, constitutes, to the life, the machinery and the framework of a Religious house. But it is the body without the soul."

Within a very recent period, Canon Oakeley has witnessed a favourable change in the prison to which he here alludes; and the total darkness

spiritual order which he laments, has been relieved by a ray of light. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is now celebrated at Pentonville prison, as we learn from a paragraph in the Catholic papers, every Sunday and Wednesday.

At Millbank, where the great body of Catholic convicts is assembled, the most complete provision is now made for their spiritual welfare. Mass is said daily, and the Catholic prisoners are assembled at other times for instruction and devotion. The Government likewise provides a Catholic schoolmaster, and has even given an harmonium for the accompaniment of the Catholic hymns. The entire success of this arrangement, under the wise and devoted priest who is appointed to superintend it, has been attested by the published evidence of the authorities to whom this department of the State is committed. All except those who are determined to shut their eyes to all testimony which speaks in favour of the Catholic Church, are now satisfied that men like the Bishops of Birmingham and Southwark, who have for years recommended a complete religious equality between Catholic and Protestant prisoners, as the only effectual means of carrying out the true end of correction and reformatory punishment, are the real benefactors of the civil government.

There can be no greater mistake than that of supposing that the unhappy men who in our convict prisons are paying the protracted penalty of crimes various in degree, and in the amount of moral guilt they presume, are dead or dull to the awakening and soothing accents of religion. Many of them are youths, in the early days of crime, who have not yet forgotten the sweet tones of a mother's voice, or the salutary and parental instruction of their parish priest. Those who know the Irish (and it is the Irish of which the great mass of our Catholic population is composed), know how long their faith will survive the loss of its proper fruits; while, in many cases, a crime which entails the severe penalties of the law, involves a far less aggravated state of moral and spiritual evil, than sins which are habitually committed by men of the world with legal impunity. It is impossible to overrate the effect produced upon the minds, even of the more hardened, and far more of the less experienced criminal, by the ministrations of those who approach them with a tenderness and respectfulness due to their unhappy condition, in the midst of a discipline which, however necessary for coercion and correction, is apt to be administered with hardness, if not with harshness; dealing with men as classes, and nraking little or no allowance for the real distinctions of character and circumstance which exist among them; but upon this subject we commend to the reader the interesting remarks contained in the excellent pamphlet under review.

A Letter to the Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D., on his Recent Eirenicon. By Joun HENRY NEWMAN, D.D., of the Oratory. London: Longmans.

TH

HE patristic argument, contained in this pamphlet, constitutes a most valuable addition to Catholic controversial literature. Nor, again can anything be more masterly, than the vindication to our Lady of the wellknown passage, Apoc. xii. 1-6 (pp. 57-66). The effect of F. Newman's