are taken from the writings of statesmen, lawyers, moralists, poets, philosophers, divines, historians, biographers, critics, and reviewers, who are all laid under contribution by Mr. Bate; and, when these fail to furnish the needful instruction, he himself generously supplies the deficiency. The volume proves him to be an extensive, careful, and judicious reader: yet some of our great writers appear to have escaped his observation; among whom we may mention Dean Field, Anthony Farindon, Bishop Bull, Dr. Waterland, and Bishop Horsley. He has, nevertheless, collected a vast amount of valuable and interesting information, which cannot fail to be highly acceptable to a large class of readers, especially to the young, and to persons whose time is mostly occupied in business, so that their acquaintance with books is confined within narrow limits. The volume relates to the affairs of this life, and to the higher interests and destiny of mankind. The writer of this "notice"

belongs to a family containing some young persons of intelligence and education, with whom the volume is evidently a great favourite. He finds it very difficult to keep it on his own table, such is their eagerness to read it; and they have oftener than once expressed a desire to transfer it to their own book-shelves. That the work will be well received, and be very useful, we doubt not. There are readers, indeed, who affect to despise works of this kind, cherishing an exclusive preference for original compositions. We can only say, from our own certain knowledge, that many works which profess to be original consist mostly of thoughts borrowed without acknowledgment from other men. Here is, at least, an honest man. He confesses himself to be a compiler, and gives to the authors from whom he has made his selections the honour of their own cogitations. Their names he places before his readers at full length, while he claims for himself the humble signature of the letter B.

SELDOM has "the leading journal " uttered its thunder more loudly, or more justly, than in the following paragraphs:

If there be any good Protestants who still believe in the superhuman craft of popes and cardinals, the Encyclical Letter just addressed to all Catholic bishops must surely undeceive them. His Holiness may well boast that he has been instant in season and out of season, beyond the example of his most zealous predecessors, in scolding against the spirit of his age. His public utterances have, indeed, been one long commination against modern society; and he has never lost an opportunity of proclaiming its incurable antagon

ism to the policy of the Holy See. But of all the Allocutions and other apostolic messages which he has yet launched against this evil world none approaches in fatuous presumption this last invective, issued at a season when peace and good-will towards men ought to draw all Christians together. It would seem as though an almost judicial blindness had led this unhappy Pope, already fallen on evil days, dependent on France for the relics of his temporal power, and consciously losing his hold on the faith of Christendom, "vaunting aloud, but racked with deep despair," to out-thunder the Gregories and the Innocents, and where they would have temporized to give his sentence in favour of open war. For this is

the effect of this wonderful document, drawn up, as we are assured, with the advice of "the most erudite prelates of the Catholic Church," and carefully revised by the Pope and his councillors. The letter itself is dull and declamatory enough, concluding with the grant of a plenary indulgence for a month. The appendix, however, is more businesslike, and purports to condemn eighty distinct propositions, comprising, for aught we know, some that are absurd and mischievous, but including also many that no rational being would think of challenging, much less of anathematizing. There is scarcely a political system in Europe, except the Papal Government, that does not rest on principles which are here declared to be damnable errors; and if the Pope be right, we must perforce suppose that not only human reason, but Providence, is wrong.

Let us examine a few specimens of these "false ideas in religion, philosophy, and politics," which true believers are for the future prohibited from entertaining. One of the blackest heresies in the first class is the doctrine that "there is hope of the eternal salvation of those who do not belong to the true Church." Now, to hold the contrary of this thesis is to justify the worst imputations cast by Protestant divines on the Romish Church. The revolting belief that there is no hope for any one-even for those who have never heard of Christianitybeyond the pale of that Church, and that by consequence the Almighty has destined millions upon millions of His creatures to inevitable perdition, has been as earnestly disclaimed by the apologists of Romanism as it has been confidently attributed to them by their opponents. We now know upon authority which, if not infallible, is conclusive against the Pope, that the latter were correct after all, and that this dogma, which

virtually makes all things lawful in propagating orthodoxy, is part of the Papal creed. After this we are the less surprised to find Bible Societies expressly denounced, by no means for the first time. Romanists hardly care to deny that the Bible, without note or comment, is on the side of the Protestants; but this does not explain their reluctance to circulate it, even in a garbled form, among the people. To counteract Protestant Bible Societies it would have seemed natural to organize Catholic Bible Societies for the distribution of the Douay version, with Catholic annotations; but we have never heard of this being done; and until it is, the Pope will never be able to rail down the suspicion that he regards Scripture as an enemy. As to the errors in moral philosophy proscribed by the Pope, we have little fault to find; indeed, he seems here to have borrowed a leaf from Protestant ethics. One of these errors is the maxim that "a happy injustice of fact inflicts no injury upon the sanctity of right,"-a maxim which must be extracted from the works of some Jesuit casuist, so faithfully does it express the theological conception of morality which has made that Order a by word in literature. Another is this: "It is allowable to oppose and revolt against legitimate princes." Why! this is the very position which was upheld by the Papacy for centuries to the scandal of Christendom, and the assertion of which, in a practical shape, at the time of the Reformation, rallied all England round Queen Elizabeth. Again, "Violations of oaths and every act contrary to the eternal laws are permissible in the cause of patriotism." This reminds us of "Papa non potest dispensare,......nisi justá causâ." Who, we should like to know, invented the infamous sophism that perjury and other breaches of moral duty might be justified by the higher law of ecclesiastical interest?

However, as the Pope now seems ready to meet us half way, we have no hesitation whatever in repudiating any such claim on behalf of patriotism, always provided that he shall equally repudiate it on behalf of religion. Not that we are sanguine of obtaining his consent to any such compromise; for in this Index Expurgatorius, not of books, but of opinions, we observe the following sentiment gibbeted for peculiar abhorrence:-"The Pope can and ought to become reconciled to progress, liberalism, and modern civilization." We plead guilty to thinking that he ought, and even to a firm Conviction that, unless he does, the days of the Papacy are numbered; but few would be found to maintain that he can. If such a hope once prevailed, who encouraged it, and ho, having to make his election between temporal dominion and the regeneration of Italy, lost the golden opportunity, and estranged for ever the hearts of a devoted people? No one would now accuse Pius IX. of sympathy with liberty or modern civilization; and yet it was no other than he who granted an amnesty to political offenders, recalled the exiles, liberated the prisoners, mitigated the censorship of the press, relaxed the civil disabilities of Jews, improved the system of taxation, favoured a Customs-union, countenanced the formation of a Roman Volunteer corps, and allowed his name to become the watchword of liberality and reform. The most perverse of heretics now sees the vauity of these expectations, and recognises the incapacity of a Pope, however benevolent and well-meaning, to rise to the measure of true statesmanship. If we ever held the

error in question, we now recant it without reserve.

If this be the highest wisdom of that Church which has clothed herself for so many ages with the mantle of Imperial Rome, then, like that empire, and those on whose ruins it was erected, she is already weighed in the balance and found wanting. Spiritual tyranny may be exercised in subtle ways long after the title upon which it rests has been exploded; and no one appreciating the prodigious tenacity of life exhibited by the Roman Church would venture to predict the time of its dissolution. But the conquests of civilization are permanent, and the great political features of moderu society are absolutely impregnable against such impotent assaults as these. To suppose that the Pope and all the cardinals in conclave can appreciably check that movement of thought which they wildly oppose, is to suppose that they could arrest the force of gravitation by solemnly condemning it. "The proposition that the sun is the centre of the world and immovable from its place is absurd, philosophically false, and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scripture. The proposition that the earth is not the centre of the world, nor immovable, but that it moves, and also with a diurnal motion, is absurd, philosophically false, and, theologically considered, at least erroneous in faith." Such was the sentence of the Holy Office, with the Pope's sanction, on the Copernican theory. The earth, however, as poor Galileo whispered, "moved for all that ;" and so, we suspect, will the human mind, whether the Pope will have it so or not.

from the first have seen that the dispute between North and South

M

can be decided only by the sword. The remarkable unanimity on the question of secession on the part of the Confederates, and the patriotic resolve of the Federals that the great country, in the extent and prosperity of which they delighted to glory, should not be permanently rent in twain, justified this conclusion. Such spectators have received with coldness and suspicion the various projects of European intervention which have been conceived from time to time;-not that they did not value peace, but that they questioned the motives of the promoters of these schemes, and were sceptical as to their success. It was a terrible conclusion to arrive at, (and yet it was one which forced itself on the minds of many thoughtful Christian men,) that from the arbitrament of the sword there was no escape. Thus far these melancholy prognostics have been verified by facts. That the quarrel will be fought out resolutely, and to the end, looks now more likely than ever. The Northerners, flushed with recent and important victories, are not likely to rein up the chariot-horses in midconquest; and the Southerners are so fixed in their determination never to surrender, that in the dark hour of their reverses they are actually meditating the astounding project of arming their slaves to fight for them, with a promise of granting them their liberty! Prolonged sieges, fiercely-contested battles, destructive raids, carnage, and conflagration, may therefore be still looked for. As to the issue, there are some who from the first, in the face of predictions to the contrary repeated with a wonderful pertinacity, have looked upon the defeat of the South as inevitable. The profane saying of a celebrated general, that Providence favours the side of the most numerous battalions, might be used with some qualification, and without the profanity. The days of miraculous

interposition are gone by. The horse and his rider are not now thrown into the sea. Rams' horns are powerless against walled cities. The stars in their courses fight not against Sisera and his host. Νο doubt, there is providential interposition still; but those who expect it in their own favour should have, at least, a righteous cause. Their hands should be clean, while they say, "Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the Lord our God." If the Southern States had a justifiable cause for rending the Union, and thus provoking the war; if they had no voice in the government of the common country, and were taxed without their own consent; if they were the victims of cruel and oppressive laws, and sufferers in regard to their religious and civil rights, their property, their persons; then, surely, they may reasonably look to Heaven for help against the foe. If, on the contrary, for a long series of years, they held possession of the executive power of the United States, sending President after President to the White-House; if they had not only a full share in the representation of Congress, but the strange "right," conceded to them, of polling additional votes in proportion to the number of slaves they had in possession; if, instead of being an oppressed and down-trodden people, they held in bondage under them four millions of men;-then it may be asked, On what ground can they appeal to God for help, or to man for sympathy? Well, with all this, it will be still predicted, that their subjugation is impossible, and that the achievement of their

independence is a question only of time. To those who are determined to have it so, it may be answered, that this at least is certain, come what will,-slavery shall perish!

The Pope's Encyclical Letter has