objected, by way of experiment, to a certain opinion or suggestion, was so overwhelmed by the crowd of authorities by whom he found himself presently confronted, that he inwardly resolved never again to tempt a similar discomfiture. We believe there was hardly a single theological statement in all the works published by Father Faber which he could not have traced in a few moments, at the demand of any disputant, hostile or friendly, to its original source in the writings of some approved doctor. If he wrote quickly, this was because he had never to search for words, and because he had saturated his mind with the whole subject upon which he was engaged before he took up his pen. Even when his work was finished, he had such a distaste for precipitancy, as well as such a deep sense of personal responsibility, that he often allowed a long interval, as we learn from his own assurance, to elapse between writing and printing; so that the most fluent man of our time was also the most cautious, and he who possessed the greatest rapidity of expression was mest on his guard against the use of it.

So much we desired to say about the style and method of Father Faber's compositions. If now we might venture to indicate the special quality of his works, which, in our judgment, constitutes their highest value as far as lay readers are concerned, we should say with confidence that they have done more to familiarize ordinary Christians with theological science and with the intellectual aspects of religious truth than all other spiritual writings in our language. No doubt, the simple and unlearned, who can only investigate truths of the supernatural order mente cordis, acquire from the most elementary catechism and the daily teaching of their pastors, sufficient knowledge to elicit acts of faith in all the doctrines necessary to salvation, and even attain in rare cases, by meditation and the silent teaching of the Holy Spirit, a kind of infused theological science. But this fact, which deserves our grateful admiration, does not tend in the faintest degree to diminish our appreciation of the intellectual methods by which a more exact knowledge of Christian doctrines and of their mutual relation is ordinarily acquired. Without insisting upon the infrequency of the exceptional cases referred to, it seems impossible to doubt that deep loss is sustained by a multitude of souls, to whom no such special and extraordinary graces are vouchsafed, by the inaction of the rational faculty in investigating the highest order of truths. If the indisposition to mental effort in the direction of theological inquiry were generally compensated, as it may be in individual cases, by meditation and prayer, there might be little to regret; but where reason slumbers, conscience is apt to be equally inert. Perhaps it may be added that this danger is more real in the present age than at any former time. When the Church was the sole teacher of mankind, and the clergy the only depositories both of human and

divine learning; when faith was universal, and even civil society was based upon the foundations established by the Incarnate Word; the whole atmosphere was impregnated with the perfume of Christian truth, and wherever the eye turned it saw the evidences of its supremacy. Then, in the words of the poet, there were "sermons in stones," and men learned, so to speak, without effort, doctrines which nothing around them contradicted. Even, now, in some countries, as in the Austrian Tyrol, this condition of things has not wholly disappeared. Moreover, we should eagerly admit that, in less privileged regions, the gift of faith, combined with habitual attendance at the offices of the Church, is everywhere found to constitute a religious education of which we are not tempted to disparage the value. Many a peasant of Italy or Ireland, though unable to read or write, can explain mysteries which would have been too hard for Plato, and appreciate distinctions which would have perplexed Aristotle. Dr. Newman somewhere relates, if our memory does not deceive us, that he once interrogated an unkempt Irish boy, in company with other Anglican ministers, on certain articles of the Creed, and found him to be "the best theologian of the party." In noticing such facts, of which every day produces a fresh supply, while we joyfully admit that they prove faith to be an intellectual gift, and the Church the only effective teacher both of the learned and the unlearned, we find nothing in them to shake our conviction that careful dogmatic instruction carries with it an illuminating power which can be supplied, except by a miracle, from no other source, and is a mighty agent in developing Christian virtue. We have been assured by intelligent priests, that they have found a single sermon on dogma arrest the attention of the humblest hearer, and lead to more practical results than a whole series of moral discourses, a testimony which we received without any surprise. The editor of the French edition of the Summa of S. Thomas relates, and he could have given no more eloquent justification of Father Faber's labours to make theology popular, that he had known people long insensible to all ordinary appeals, and even women of the world who had been wholly given to a trivial and aimless life, led irresistibly to aim at perfection by being introduced for the first time to an intellectual and scientific exposition of the truths of faith. The Bishop of Orleans, in a well-known work, exhorts the laity, with all the weight of his great authority, to give themselves to the study of certain branches of theology, expressly as a means of enlisting the intellect on the side of truth, and confirming their souls in the love of God and His holy law. The advantage of such study is, then, sufficiently demonstrated, and we English owe to Father Faber a new encouragement to enter upon it, since he has placed at VOL. XIV.—NO. XXVII. [New Series.]

I

our disposal a collection of treatises in which the most punctilious theological accuracy is united with all the charms of literary skill.

The works of Father Faber are, then, precious to us on this account, because they convey a mass of theological instruction which it deeply concerns us to possess, in a form admirably adapted to our time and circumstances. "I never knew anything of the theology of the Blessed Sacrament," we were once told by a highly intelligent woman, who had been for twenty years superior of a religious community, "until I read Father Faber's treatise on the subject, and it was from him that I learned to love, because I learned to comprehend, our Lord's sacramental life." Even if we admit that, in this case, there was something of the exaggeration with which exuberant gratitude acknowledges its debts, there are thousands in various countries, and especially in our own, who might repeat the same words with literal truth. But the works of Father Faber have another quality which claims our notice. Few theological writers, we presume to think, have been more successful in defining the true motives of supernatural virtue, none more effective in persuading to the devotional practices by which it is sustained and fortified. The exceeding hatefulness of sin becomes apparent in his writings, by unfolding the august laws which it violates, and by contrast with the loveliness of the virtues of which it is a lawless denial. It is dogma which rebukes the one and determines the other. Hence the connection between purity of doctrine and purity of life. Hence, also, the ease with which a Catholic who has fallen into sin can recover, if God does not refuse the opportunity, the graces which he had forfeited. His faith directs him to the prompt use of means which are simply omnipotent in their efficacy. And it is the knowledge of this fact which explains the tenderness which all the saints, after the example of our Lord and His Apostles, display towards sinners. It was so conspicuous in Father Faber, that Cardinal Wiseman compared him to S. Alphonsus. In his preface to one of the treatises of the Venerable Blosius, the Cardinal writes as follows:

:

"Habemus igitur in Blosio ducem, quem sequamur, inoffenso pede. Quidquid in recentiori Alphonso, non laxi sed moderati consilii in sententiis inveneris, quidquid in Faure de illimitata fere resipiscentium venia, quidquid in Quadrupanio pro pusilli animi erectione (de qua tractatum scripsit ipse Blosius), quidquid denique in FABRO nostro de ardenti Jesu amore, de tenerrima in SS. Sacramentum devotione, de que firma in Maria fiducia, in venerabili Blosio anticipata hic videbis."

In attempting to estimate the immediate and prospective influence of Father Faber's writings, we shall certainly not err in giving a prominent place to his Collection of Hymns. If his other works have contributed, more than all modern productions, to

inform the consciences and stimulate the piety of English-speaking Catholics, his Hymns are a legacy to the most precious portion of the universal Church, the little ones of the flock of Christ. Who has heard them sung, whether in school or in church, by the children of our congregations, to tens of thousands of whom they have been, and will continue to be, both a source of dogmatic instruction and a fountain of tender devotion, without grateful admiration? Who can call to mind that they are sung by the banks of the Potomac and the Ohio, in the plains of Minnesota and the valleys of California, with the same fervour as in the towns and villages of our own land, and not confess that if he had bequeathed to his brethren no other gift, Father Faber would deserve to rank as one of our true benefactors? His hymns have been borrowed, we are told, even by men outside the Church, for whom our heart's desire is that, being called after us, they may one day, by using well the graces which we use imperfectly, be preferred before us. "In Catholic churches," says his biographer, "wherever the English language is spoken, the use of Father Faber's Hymns is almost universal. . . . Many are to be found in Protestant collections. Among others, 'Hymns Ancient and Modern,' contains several, and the Hymnal Noted,' no less than twenty-four."*

The peculiar character of Father Faber's hymns, as of all that he wrote, consists in this, that they are full of theological instruction, while they establish each Christian virtue which they aim at producing on the solid dogmatic basis which is at once its only real motive, and its only secure defence. If we compare them with the vapid and sentimental versification of Protestant authors, in which the doctrine, when it is not openly heretical, is as vague and undefined as an autumn mist, and in which people are feebly invited to practise virtues which are not intelligible for reasons which are not explained, we shall contemplate with fresh indignation that fatal divorce between doctrine and morals which the world owes to Protestantism, and against which every page of Father Faber's writings is an eloquent protest. Nothing more pure, nothing less unworthy of our holy religion, has ever been produced outside the Church than the "Christian Year" of the amiable and gifted Keble; yet even he could handle one of the most practical of Christian doctrines, the mystery which is most intimately connected with the growth of spiritual life, with such deplorable ambiguity of phrase, that his admirers are still debating whether he believed the Anglican sacrament to be received "in the hand" or "in the heart," still uncertain whether he quitted the world with any clear conviction himself about the doctrine which he taught so confusedly to others. Such is the confusion and disorder which cloud

* Life, p. 492.

even the noblest minds in the dark region which lies beyond the frontiers of the Catholic Church. An Anglican clergyman, from whom we received the tale, once asked the Vicar of Hursley if he could show him any point of contact between the established sect and the Church of the Saints. "Show me," he said, 66 any connection, however slight, between this severed branch and the trunk to which you say it is still attached, and I will abide where I am; but if you cannot do this, I dare not peril my salvation, and I must submit to the Catholic Church.' "I do not know," said Mr. Keble, after a long pause, "that I can show any connection above ground, but may there not be underground suckers?" Our friend, who was not attracted by this prospect of subterranean fellowship with the saints, and who reflected that in the darkness of the lower sphere to which he was invited to descend it would be impossible to tell whose hand he was grasping, sought elsewhere the entrance-gate which Mr. Keble failed to discover, and found it.

It is sad to be led to gloomy reflections by the words of such a man as Keble, but the more highly we esteem his gifts, the more momentous is the lesson which his example affords. The guesses and peradventures of Anglican theology, which doubts most when it seems most to affirm, and is never so rashly zealous in adopting any opinion whatever as to exclude its contradictory, are to the immutable faith of Catholics what the shifting sand which every tide displaces is to the rock at whose base it lies. Yet there are men who seem to like the risks and perils of building on sand, as the dwellers on the Pacific coast constantly reconstruct on the same site the shattered tenements which an earthquake has just demolished. Father Faber built on other foundations, and his Hymns, like all which he produced, are monuments of a faith as fixed and stable as the truths which are its object.

Besides the original works with which we have been enriched by Father Faber's fertile pen, it is to his initiative that we owe the series known as the Oratorian Lives of the Saints. It was a

thought worthy of Father Faber, if we may presume to say so, to illustrate the special truths which he was always enforcing, by displaying to us in action the same doctrines and principles which it was his special mission to recommend to our veneration. The attempt, as is well known, did not succeed without encountering a momentary check. The language of some of the saints, to say nothing of their actions, was as new to a certain class of readers as that of Father Faber himself had been. It might suit Spaniards or Italians, who are dreamy and impulsive, but was an offence to the cooler temper of a more northern race. It is surely a melancholy proof of the need of that genuine reformation which Cardinal Wiseman hoped to witness, and which Father Faber lived to accomplish, that the principal opponent of the Saints'