the ultimate rule of faith. For, however he may hold (with the Nonjurors) that all men are bound to "keep whole and undefiled the Catholic Faith," yet he is obliged to ascertain what that Faith is by his individual studies and his private judgment, as there is no Church existing at this day whose teaching he is bound to accept. If it was the object of the writer to illustrate this truth, he has fully succeeded; if not, we have no theory to suggest which will explain what it was.

The Religion of Common Sense. By HENRY JOHN PYE, M.A., Trinity College, Cambridge. London: Burns & Oates. 1870.

THIS

HIS is a remarkably logical and forcible statement of the grounds on which any man who admits Christianity is bound in common sense to submit to the Catholic Church. It is a very strong testimony to the power with which this is done, that we have read it through from beginning to end without finding ourselves at all tempted to be weary of it; for though men may, and often do, like to hear what they believe boldly stated by another, it is not at all the case that they always like to trouble themselves with reading the arguments by which another supports it. As a general rule, it is the reverse.

Mr. Pye begins by a curious anecdote :

"Some years ago a Protestant gentleman happened to travel with a German Rationalist, when, their conversation turning on religion, he found himself repeatedly at a loss to answer the arguments his companion brought forward. One day the Rationalist volunteered the following remark: I know,' said he, that a much better case can be made for Christianity than you make for it: for, as a matter of fact, your position [i.e., as a Protestant] is untenable supposing Christianity to be true, and therefore, in defending your own position, you are obliged to give up the strong points of Christianity. If you wish to defend it in the only way in which you can defend it, you must become a Roman Catholic.' This, as may be supposed, astonished the Protestant gentleman, who up to that time had naturally thought that Christianity could easily be defended in a Protestant form. Experience, however, had now taught him otherwise; and he could not help feeling that what the German had stated might perhaps have accounted for his unexpected defeat. He determined, therefore, to examine his own position as a Protestant, and see how far it was really tenable, consistently with the proofs of Christianity; and the result was, that within a few months he became a Roman Catholic" (p. 4).

Mr. Pye then goes on to show that the grounds upon which men commonly profess to believe Christianity really prove the truth of the Catholic Church. Then he proves (chap. ii.) that men are bound to ask themselves why they believe what they do, and that it cannot possibly be pleasing to God that men should "believe the Gospel on grounds which are seen to be inconsistent with separation from the Roman Catholic Church, and yet remain separated

from the Roman Catholic Church." To do so must be "either mortal sin or practical unbelief"; i.e., it implies either that the man remains separate from the Church, believing it to be his duty to submit to it, or else that he does not really and indeed believe the Gospel itself.

"The person therefore who knowingly, or for want of due inquiry, allows himself to remain in a position which is inconsistent with the grounds of his belief, is living in a state of deliberate mortal sin, or to say the least of it, staking his soul upon a risk; and there are such cases. There are some who have inquired, and who have discovered the inconsistency of a position which they dare not leave; while at the same time the inquiry which thus convicts them has satisfied them of the truth of Christianity. Thus they do really believe; but, alas for them, a part of their belief is, that they themselves are not what God would have them to be. Again. There are some who refuse to inquire, for fear of the inconveniences to which such inquiry might lead. We do not wish,' they say, 'to disturb our minds with questions which have brought others into difficulties.' Thus there are Protestant clergymen who dare not look farther into the matter, for fear of the consequences of being convinced; and not only clergymen, but many others in their different stations of life, yield to the same temptation as it meets them, according to their circumstances. The tradesman, the artisan, and the peasant, in many cases, see what conversion might cost them, and therefore will not run the risk of being converted by making any further inquiry; while they flatter themselves that ignorance will be sufficient excuse at least, if they are found to be wrong" (p. 32).

6

Besides these, there are three other classes of men among us who continue separate from the Church. "The indifferent, the ignorant (ie., those who are excusably so), and the sceptics." The case of the indifferent Mr. Pye meets very forcibly. They are "respectable people," who keep in the religion in which they are brought up, not treating religion with contempt, but merely making it a matter of secondary importance. They take for granted it is all right to be sound Protestants and believers in Christianity at the same time, but they do not care enough about it to inquire. Their state, Mr. Pye says, must be dangerous, "simply because they do thus make religion a secondary matter. God gave them reason that they might exercise it for His glory; and they will not take the trouble to use it, in order to discover whether or not they are what He would have them be."

As to the ignorant. "This class includes a great many who would perhaps be very indignant that such an excuse should be made for them." The great majority of religious Protestants in England, especially among the Dissenters, are "stolen children who have never heard of their mother except as a sorceress whom they must avoid for the love of Christ, and thus, in the very act of avoiding her, they carry out her own main principle, though they do it in an ignorant way;" nay, Mr. Pye believes, with us, that there are among those who believe most nearly the truths which the Church teaches some who may really believe the strange distinctions they draw, and the seemingly unreal reasons they give, for not submitting to the Church. This he puts very well; and certainly it is hard to read his statement of what some of these men profess, still continuing to believe (as we do) that they are sincere in professing it.

But the case of the sceptical is best put-men who, in times past, have had a call to submit to the Church and have resisted it, resolving to keep what they believed; but who have found that impossible, and have gradually slipped back into "natural religion":

"And do not think, my reader, that this is merely an imaginary picture. It is the case of scores in England in the present day... some of whom would perchance have been bright lights drawing others on to salvation, if only they had entered in where many a one, who is deeply thankful for God's undeserved mercy is, unworthy of the city into which that mercy has led him."

Lastly, there is a class of sceptics who have become so by gradually discovering that the system in which they have been brought up is unreasonable and inconsistent with itself. They are not like those Italians and Frenchmen who dislike religion because of its restraints, or for political reasons. They may almost be called in a sense religious men. Sometimes they "dabble in Swedenborgianism or Irvinism, or anything else" which pretends to throw light on their path. Such a man is sometimes led to examine the faith of the Church, and the world is astonished with the tidings that such a one, whom they took for a sceptic, has "gone over to Rome."

Chapter III. gives an outline of positive arguments proving the claims of the Church. The only way to judge is, not to decide à priori that this or that doctrine cannot be true,

"For unless we suppose that man can, by the exercise of his reason, arrive at all truth equally with his Creator, there must be things which are not apparent to our reason, and which yet are true, so that we are not in a position to say whether Christianity itself be credible or not, till we have tested the authority by which it is proposed to us. Our object, then, now will be to test the Roman Catholic Church, with a view of examining into the truth of Christianity, as we should have done if we had lived in the times of the Apostles, for, as a matter of fact, it is by means of the Roman Catholic Church that Christianity is presented to the world at large in the present day, however else it may appear in particular localities " (p. 46).

Mr. Pye then states the evidence to the Catholic Church from what it visibly is in the world. Reason teaches us the existence of God; and conscience testifies that man does not fulfil the end of his creation, that something supernatural is needed to regulate the minds of men in accordance to the will of God. Now, there is one, and only one, society existing on earth, which professes to supply this want, which, with all drawbacks, succeeds in this object as none other does; which extends throughout the whole world, and whose history, from the beginning till now, is an exception to all that is human. The proofs of this, from history in every part of the world, Mr. Pye traces in a striking and forcible manner. And it is plain that the object can be answered only by a society, and by one something like this. He concludes this chapter by saying, "Unless, therefore, there be something in her system which contradicts your reason, reason itself ought to lead you to become a Roman Catholic."

In Chapter IV. he answers objections to this conclusion, and in the last chapter sums up some of the arguments for it from Scripture.

We have been thus particular in our summary, because we wish our readers to form their own judgment. Ours is, that there are many classes among

whom Mr. Pye's little book is likely to be singularly useful. The Scotch, for instance, and the more educated classes of operatives in the manufacturing districts of England, need, not so much eloquence or appeals to the feelings, as hard, dry reasoning. They want, in short, a "religion of common sense"; and they have, we suspect, pretty generally a feeling that religion is merely a matter of sentiment, well enough for rich and luxurious classes, for people of both sexes who loll in easily-swung carriages as they are carried to church, but not for men who have to work their way up in the world and cannot afford to take anything for granted. No work of the same compass known to us seems so well calculated to come home to the minds of this class. We doubt whether it is likely to be extensively useful among the agricultural classes, and the wealthy perhaps need it less.

In conclusion we would express a doubt whether many readers may not be repelled when they find their own religious system labelled x, and another doctrine, a. We can imagine that there are those who will say, "We do not understand mathematics," and turn away from it without giving themselves the trouble to see, whether any knowledge of mathematics is really necessary in order to understand these very simple symbols. Mr. Pye may perhaps, consider this before the appearance of a second edition, which we heartily hope will be called for.

We think, also, that in that edition it may be well to consider, whether the part in which Mr. Pye examines the references to the four Gospels contained in the earliest ecclesiastical writings should not be revised. It seems to us that unacknowledged reference, and that not so much citing the exact words as the general sense, was the manner of those times; and that when this is considered, the references contained in the epistles of S. Clement and S. Ignatius, for instance, may fairly be taken as proofs of the familiarity of the writers with the Gospels. Mr. Pye's argument that we cannot prove the genuineness of the four Gospels without admitting testimony which also proves the authority of the Catholic Church, is most unquestionably valid; but we cannot help feeling that its effect is weakened rather than strengthened, by what may, perhaps, give to some readers, at least, the impression that he desires in any degree to explain away the early testimonies to the Gospels. At any rate, as this is intended not as a book of learned controversy, but as one in which the results established by controversy are brought home to thoughtful men who have not had the opportunity of studying it in its original sources, it would, we think, be better to omit the appendix, and shorten the statement in the text to the mere statement that Irenæus is the first ancient author by whom the Gospels are explicitly quoted, and then to show, as Mr. Pye does, his testimony to the doctrines denied by Protestants. Our high opinion of the value of the little book induces us to make these suggestions.

Manual of the Third Order of S. Francis of Assisi, called also the Order of Penance. With a Preface. By the Very Rev. Father EMIDIUS, Commissary-General of the Capuchin Order in England and Ireland.*

TH

HIS little book professes to be published expressly "to revive, if possible, the Spirit of the Order of Secular Tertiaries in England, to make it, in fact, a reality." And the preface proceeds, after touching upon the comparatively formal manner in which the rule has been embraced in later times, to give a lively description of the lives of heroic Christianity and sanctity which it produced in its first professors.

The description of the spirit of the Third Order of S. Francis, as we meet with it in this little work, strikes us as so beautiful that we will venture to make a few short extracts; and one of the first axioms is such a holy truth that it alone might bear a meditation.

"Simplicity is one of the characteristics of God's works,' and nothing could be more simple and what the world calls commonplace than the first beginnings of the Third Order. . . . . It may not, canonically speaking, be regarded exactly as a religious order, because Tertiaries do not necessarily take the three vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty; but its very name implies a far higher standard than that of a simple religious congregation or confraternity. The Third Order holds a middle place between the world and the cloister. Without compelling its members to abandon their home duties, it nevertheless places them in a totally different position from that of ordinary Christians. . . . . The brothers and sisters of the Third Order, if their vocation be sincere, propose to themselves two things:-1st. To live a life of penance; 2nd. To tend as far as possible to perfection, although living in the midst of the world."

....

It is intended however, as this book sets forth, rather to catch the spirit of its two sister orders, the first and second orders of S. Francis, than to follow their actual rules; for our little work continues :

"To wind up what we have been saying: although the Tertiary takes only one actual vow, yet, at the moment of profession, he or she makes an actual engagement, binding him or her to a closer union with our Lord, to the practice of a far more perfect life than that of the generality of Christians, and to a never-failing charity towards all men, and especially to the sick and suffering members of Christ's body. It is impossible for them to overestimate the importance of this act of profession, neither can they afterwards desert the Third Order by returning to the world and its pleasures. . . . . It tends, in fact, to revive amongst them (the Tertiaries), even in a century devoted to luxury, materialism, and indifference, the touching life of the Primitive Church."

We are told that "the duties and holy exercises prescribed by the rule remind one of the pious usages established by the Apostles; and the simplicity and austerity of their habits bring one back in thought to the first Disciples bound in the links of the same faith, the same hope, the same love.'

*This notice should have appeared in our last number, but was accidentally mislaid.