to the legislator. The aims of the statesman are purely material. Expediency is his test of right and wrong. The religious element is systematically eliminated from all parts of the public administration, from the throne down to the village school. God is put aside by Governments. But to put God aside is to deny Him. In His place we find Capital more or less openly installed as the centre to which public action is to be referred (pp. 26, 7).

"In proportion as the materialistic conception of the State has prevailed, as a mere machine for protecting person and property, local liberties have disappeared, as incompatible with its even working. The franchises, provincial, municipal, and corporate, which in the middle ages were the guarantees of personal independence and public life, have been swallowed up in modern constitutions.' Hence it has resulted, throughout Europe, that the great class of liberties, associated in England with the words local administration,' has no existence. The State is autocratic: it is ubiquitous, and, uncontrolled by the spiritual order, its hand is heavy upon the individual in every department of life" (p. 27). Next as to the family.

"We have seen that the work of the Catholic Church with regard to the basis of the family-marriage-was to impress upon monogamy a sacramental seal and to proclaim its sacred indissolubility. This is what marriage was in the Christian civilization of the old world -sacred and indissoluble. The civilization of this age denies its religious character and more than threatens its continuity. It regards it, not as a Divine mystery, but as a merely human contract, to be entered into, not under the sanction of religion, but of the State. Its dissolubility or indissolubility it treats purely as a question of expediency-not of the Divine law. But further not only the Christian conception of marriage, but the whole of the teaching with which the Church has guarded the place given to woman in Christian civilization is irreconcilable with the positions of modern thought. The decline of respect for woman, the decline of self-respect in woman, are themes which are, unhappily, only too common" (pp. 28, 9).

Lastly as to the individual.

"There is a general consensus that the contraction of man's sphere by the predominant materialism and the exclusion of the supernatural, has resulted in the dwindling of man himself. This is not the language of some Catholic divine. It is the testimony of those who have most fully caught the spirit of the times, and are most highly honoured as its acknowledged literary chiefs. Mr. Mill finds that the age is not favourable to the production of great men. He laments over the decay of individual energy and the weakening of the influence of superior minds over the multitude.' Mr. Lecky pronounces the age mercenary, venal, unheroic'; it 6 exhibits, he tells us, a decline in the spirit of selfsacrifice, in the appreciation of the more poetical or religious aspect of man's nature.' Mr. Carlyle finds that we have lost even the true conception of human greatness, that 'the great men of this age are lucky or unlucky gamblers, swollen big.' The greatest of modern French poets tells us, in words of terrible earnestness, that the nobler side of man's nature dies in the air of this century. In all conditions of life it is the same. The conception of man as a mere wealth-producing animal is probably the lowest which it is possible to entertain of him, and he has sunk to its level. One would say,' writes Tocqueville, on looking through the records of our time, that man is unable to effect anything,

6

either on himself, or on those around him.' With the conviction of his dignity, which came from the deep recognition of the truths of faith regarding him, have disappeared his moral greatness, his power of selfcontrol, and that true liberty, which always with right reason dwells.'' (pp. 30, 31).

From all this, Mr. Lilly draws an inference of the gravest and most practical kind.

"It is a question of the gravest importance, how far it is possible for the existing framework of civil society to hold together without the principle of cohesion supplied by the truths which it has cast away. The masses are daily increasing in intelligence. And as they increase in intelligence, so do they become less tolerant of the existing division of wealth, and more sceptical as to the rights of property.' They are daily becoming better organized: they are daily acquiring a greater share of political power in every European country. And I think there is every indication that their discontent with the existing condition of things is likely to find active expression.

"And I must take leave to say that their discontent appears to me to be natural enough. Capital is in the hands of a few. The many are condemned, and must be condemned, to lives of unceasing monotonous toil. Their relations with their employers are strictly regulated by money payments, which represent but an insignificant portion of the results of their toil. Money, and the things which money purchases, they see universally recognized as the summum bonum. What is to reconcile them to their lot? Why should they not make a desperate effort for its amelioration?" (pp. 31, 32).

Mr. Lilly concludes by saying (p. 33), that "the days are evil, not for the Church, but for human society; which, in rejecting her, has cast away its palladium." Yet, if we may submit a criticism, surely the evils of society are in a most true sense evils of the Church. Mr. Lilly holds that there are multitudes of men, -and that their number is rapidly increasing-who live in close contact with the Church, over whom nevertheless she now exercises no influence. Surely this is a great calamity to

the Church herself, as well as to society: true though it be on the other hand (p. 34), that "never throughout her long career has she given more proofs of exuberant vitality than at this moment." "Never," adds Mr. Lilly with perfect truth, "did her Supreme Infallible Oracle speak with clearer accents from the Chair of Truth; never was her Episcopate more firmly united to its centre and head; never were her modes of action so varied and so fruitful."

"In this age of the world, as in every preceding age, she addresses herself to her Divine mission, nor does her rejection by the existing civilization cause her to falter in her task. She exposes indeed the true character of that civilization. She seeks out and catalogues the principal errors which it has adopted as its first principles; and as the Prophet of God and the Witness of the Truth, she solemnly reprobates, proscribes, and condemns them. And she receives a 'prophet's reward.' She is hated and persecuted, and her name is cast out as evil. And here is an involuntary confession of her Divinity. Alone, among the multitudinous religions of men, she is singled out by the anti-Christian movement as its irreconcilable foe" (p. 34).

Mr. Lilly is emphatically the kind of literary champion that the Church needs in these days of sore distress. Possessing as he does so firm and comprehensive a grasp of true principles, and such singular power of exhibiting and illustrating them, he will be able (we doubt not) to confer truly invaluable service on the noble cause which he has at heart.

IN

The Religious Life: a Sermon. By REV. DR. TODD.
London: Burns & Oates.

N no other way can we give nearly so satisfactory an account of this excellent sermon, as by exhibiting large extracts. And first as to its

scope

"I have had three objects in preaching and publishing this Sermon :(1) To defend the Religious Orders of the Church against the enemies of the Faith; (2) to explain the Doctrine of the Church relating to Religious Perfection; and (3) to encourage a desire for the Religious Life, in men especially, since the more deeply one studies the constitution of the Church, the more clearly does it appear that her beauty and efficiency fail in their fullest development unless the stability of the pastoral order be sustained and adorned by the fruitfulness of the state of perfection." (Preface.)

Now an objection has been raised against the existence of religious orders, on the ground that no such order existed in the Primitive Church, and that they are therefore not essential to the Church's life. Dr. Todd replies excellently

"The only organic difference between the Primitive Church and the Church of to-day consists in this, that what was in posse at the first is in actu now. For example, the Primitive Church, when confined to the upper room in Jerusalem, was inherently and organically Catholic, though actually it was limited to this "upper room." The moment it had breathing space, if one may say so, it spread and diffused itself, and enlarged its borders by the very necessity of its being. In the same way the Primitive Church organically contained within it the principle of the Regular Life, which naturally developed into the Eremitical, Monastic, and Religious Life, on the earliest opportunity. In a word, in all its essential organism, the Church of the nineteenth century is the Primitive Church drawn out, expanded, and matured." (Page 8, note.)

There are two senses in which the phrase "state of perfection" is used; called respectively by theologians the "status perfectionis exercendæ," and "status perfectionis acquirendæ." In the former sense (p. 9) it is applied to the Episcopate. In the second sense

"A state of perfection' may be defined as a condition into which Christians enter, in order to aim at a close imitation of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and in order to strive after an eminent degree of perfection, through the Evangelical Counsels which they promise and vow for life to follow and carry out. In other words, a state of perfection is a school in which the difficult but attractive science of the saints is taught." (Page 10.)

"But you must observe that a state of perfection' is not 'perfection' itself. It is a condition or state of life in which Christians continually seek after it and endeavour to learn it: just in the same way as 'a state of salvation' is not 'salvation' itself." (Page 11.)

There seems however to be a slight accidental overstatement in page 12, when Dr. Todd says, that "the state of perfection is the condition of life which makes perfection possible and attainable." In its more obvious sense this would perhaps imply, what the author has expressly repudiated in page 9; viz., that perfection is impossible outside the religious state. The following passage contains a magnificent citation from Montalembert :

"It is Montalembert, who, speaking of the nature and results of the monastic life, says that it has two permanent characteristics (1) strength, and (2) manly vigour ;-not that strength which man has in common animals, nor that which demoralizes the world with its contemptible triumphs, but that strength which is a cardinal virtue, and which overcomes the world by courage and sacrifice;' while the manly vigour which is a true note of the Religious Life is moral and intellectual manhood,'manhood in some way condensed by celibacy, protesting against all vulgarity and baseness, condemning itself to efforts more great, sustained, and profound, than are exacted by any worldly career, and by this means making of earth only a stepping-stone to heaven, and of life but a long series of victories.' For monasteries were never intended to collect the invalids of the world. It was not the sick souls, but, on the contrary, the most vigorous and healthful which the human race has ever produced, who presented themselves in crowds to fill them. The Religious Life, far from being the refuge of the feeble, was, on the contrary, the arena of the strong.' (Pages 16, 17).

Dr. Todd also explains very clearly (p. 20) the necessity which exists, that "in all those matters which concern their internal management and duties," religious orders should "not be subjected to the inconveniences of local control." Nor, adds the writer, does the Pope's special jurisdiction "in any way interfere with ordinary diocesan rule; for, firstly, there can be no interference with the divine order of the Church in that episcopal control which especially relates to the care of souls; and, secondly, so far from clashing with one another, or disturbing the harmony of the Church, these two lines of jurisdiction-that of the Bishop over his diocese, and that of Rome exercised immediately over the religious communities—are to each other a mutual support and stay (p. 20).

"And hence it is that in times of difficulty and trial the religious congregations and orders necessarily become the soldiers and the defenders of the Catholic Episcopate. None are more conscious of the intimate connection between the religious and the rulers of the Church than her most violent enemies-so much so, that in their deepset schemes to dethrone the Bishop from his rightful power and authority, they commence by getting rid of the religious orders. The German persecutors first of all removed the religious out of the way, and then they laid their sacrilegious hands upon the Bishops isolated from their defenders (pp. 21-2)."

Dr. Todd further discusses (pp. 23-6; 29-38) the principles which determine the Holy See, as regards permitting any given secular priest, who may have taken the missionary oath, to enter religion. We doubt however

whether this is a matter for serviceable public discussion. As far as we see, no general principle can 'possibly be laid down on the subject; but each particular case must be determined by the supreme wisdom of Rome, according to the circumstances and exigences of the moment. It often happens by absolute necessity, that some individual—who has every appearance of intrinsic vocation to the religious life-is prevented by extrinsic circumstances from all possibility of entering it. And as there are various extrinsic circumstances which quite certainly have this result, so one such circumstance may very intelligibly be his having taken the missionary oath. Nor would Dr. Todd think of alleging that a priest is debarred from the pursuit of Christian perfection by the circumstance of not being a religious. The Bishop of Salford has discussed this subject with singular clearness in his Preface to a work "On the Choice of a State of Life."

However on the whole we heartily thank Dr. Todd for his striking and powerful advocacy of a great truth, which can never be too earnestly impressed on the minds of the faithful.

The Reality of Duty as illustrated by the Biography of John Stuart Mill: By Lord BLACHFORD. ("Contemporary Review" for August). London Strahan.

WE

E heartily recommend this admirable essay to the attention of our readers, as illustrating on more than one side the position we have ourselves assumed, in controverting Mr. Mill's philosophy. We earnestly sympathize with Lord Blachford's general teaching; though, on one or two minor particulars, he impresses us as not having clearly thought out, or at all events not having clearly expressed, his own meaning. We may add that, in our humble judgment,-while most justly appreciating Mr. James Mill-he by no means does justice to Mr. John Mill's more attractive characteristics.

Some of the strictures are expressed with an epigrammatic forcibleness, which we have nowhere seen surpassed. Take this on Mr. James Mill's

moral theory, as set forth by his son :

"He valued his fellow-creatures not according to any conception of intrinsic dignity, nobility, purity, elevation, or tenderness (whatever meaning may be attached to these words), but like a watch or a spinningjenny, on account of their tendency to produce pleasure, and in proportion to that tendency. Ordinary moralists would impute to a man who tortured others for his own personal amusement or advantage, an intrinsic baseness, which would not attach to one who tortured them because he was seriously, though wrongly, convinced that the good of the world or of the man himself required it. Mr. Mill refused to

admit of intrinsic differences; and disliked the zealot more than the knave, because he thought him more likely to be practically mischievous.' In valuing a horse we ask whether he can do our work. If he cannot, we do not care whether it is because he is vicious or because