considerations interfere, to profess a simple deference to its enunciations, and a hearty concurrence in its very suggestions; but how can I deny of your Grace what may almost be called a dogmatic fact, that you are what the Catholic Church has made you?

Evil, however, is never without its alleviation ; and I think I shall have your Grace's concurrence, if in the present instance I recognize the operation, already commenced, of that unfailing law of Divine Providence, by which all events, prosperous or adverse, are made to tend, in one way or other, to the triumph of our Religion. The violence of our enemies has thrown us back upon ourselves and upon each other; and, though it needed no adventitious cause to lead me to aspire to the honour of associating my name with that of your Grace, whose kindness I had already experienced, so abundantly when I was at Rome, yet the present circumstances furnish a motive of their own, for my turning my eyes in devotion and affection, to the Primate of that ancient and glorious and much enduring Church, who, from her own past history, can teach her restored

English sister how to persevere in the best of causes, and can interchange with her, amid trials common to both, the tenderness of Catholic sympathy and the power of Catholic intercession. Begging of your Grace for me and mine, the fulness of St. Patrick's benediction,

I am, my dear Lord Primate,

Your Grace's faithful and affectionate Servant,

JOHN H. NEWMAN,

Cong. Orat.

PREFACE.

IT

It may be necessary to state, that by "Brothers of the Oratory," are meant the members of an Association or Brotherhood of seculars or laymen, attached, but external, to the Ecclesiastical Congregation, to which the Author belongs. These are the persons to whom the following Lectures are addressed, with the view of suggesting to them, how best as Catholics, to master their own position, and to perform their duties in a Protestant country.

The Author repeats here, what he has several times observed in the course of the Volume itself, that his object has not been to prove the divine origin of Catholicism, but to remove some of the moral and intellectual impediments which prevent Protestants from perceiving it. They cannot be expected to do justice to a religion, whose professors they hate and scorn. It has been objected to the Author, as regards both this and other of his works, that he succeeds better in demolition than in construction; and he has been challenged to draw out a proof of the truth of the Catholic Faith. Persons who so.

speak, should consider the state of the case more accurately; that he has not attempted the task to which they invite him, does not arise from any misgiving whatever in his mind about the strength of his cause, but about the disposition of his audience. He has a most profound misgiving about their fairness as judges, founded on his sense of the misconceptions concerning Catholicism, which generally pre-occupy the English mind. Irresistible as the proof seems to him to be, so as even to master and carry away the intellect, directly it is stated, so that Catholicism is almost its own evidence, yet it requires, as the great philosopher of antiquity reminds us, as being a moral proof, a rightly-disposed recipient. While a community is overrun with prejudices, it is as premature to attempt to prove that to be true which is the object of them, as it would be to think of building in the aboriginal forest, till you had felled the trees.

The controversy with our opponents is not simple, but various and manifold; when a Catholic is doing one thing, he cannot be doing another; yet the common answer given to his proof of this point, is that it is no proof of that. Thus men shift about, silenced in nothing, because they have not yet been answered in every thing. Let them admit what we have proved, and they will have a claim on us for proof of more. One thing at a time is the general rule given for getting through business well, and it applies to the case before us. In a large and complicated question, it is much to settle portions of it; yet this is so little understood, that a course of Lectures might profitably confine itself simply to the consideration