might be a weapon of Ritualism, I regard it with suspicion, although some Catholics accept all these assertions, and find in this bastard or neo-Catholicism the most important hindrance to conversions. Yet since Ritualists and Catholics assert a fact which provokes enthusiasm on the one side and anger on the other, we must submit to evidence, and confess that it is at any rate partially true.

Some Catholics ask why should we wish to leave the Ritualists in peace? why should we treat them with indulgence, charity, and goodwill, and fail to see the mischief they are doing? They assert that Ritualists arrest a multitude of souls half-way, which, without them and their imitation of Catholic worship, would attain to truth and the Catholic Church. They think Ritualism a hundred times more dangerous than Protestantism, since it is more full of illusion, and more apt to mislead the masses. It should therefore be attacked and harassed without truce or respite, so that its adherents may be driven either to advance or retreat. That they should advance is the object of our wishes, hopes, and prayers, and to this end we would give the last drop of our blood, and our very lives. But it is certain that if the Ritualists will not advance, it is better that they should retreat and fall back into Protestantism. Such are the reasons which inspire the late attack on Ritualism, as it has been made by the press, and by some Catholic writers. Let us inquire into the truth or falsehood of this view, its exact appreciation of the situation, and what our conduct should be with respect to it.

Before I proceed, is it not expedient to ask Catholics if Ritualism is the only cause of this check or retreat, and if they themselves have not in some degree contributed towards it. Is not there one truth which, set forth inaccurately or without reserve, has wounded to the quick a people wbich are loyal and just, but jealous and susceptible on some points ? The innovations in ritual which have been brought forward may have been injudicious, or at any rate unfortunate, and prudence would have enjoined reticence in religious manifestations which, good in themselves and excellent for other nations, astonish, alarm, and irritate a nation unaccustomed to their use for the last three centuries. It might have been possible to go more slowly, to make essentials the first object, and to advance by degrees, leaving it to time and reflection to prepare minds and hearts to accept with joy and gratitude more varied and complete forms of worship. Before we cast a stone at the Ritualists, it would be well for Catholics to examine their consciences, and to see if they have nothing with which to reproach themselves. It seems to me that these questions are not out of place, and that they may provoke more than one reflection salutary to the good of the Church and the salvation of souls.

Perhaps we should not have had to note this momentary check in conversions if Catholics had always followed the line of conduct VOL. III.-No. 12.

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marked out with a clear intuition and firm hand by the late Cardinal Wiseman, of revered and regretted memory; if all Catholics knew how to listen to the teaching and to imitate the examples of those eminent men who, endowed with the purple, the mitre, or the crosier, or in the ranks of the priesthood, or the retirement of the cloister, are devoting themselves to the interests of God and the Church. Unhappily, this has not been always the case, and this is undoubtedly one reason which has suspended for the time the return of Protestants.

But we may go further. Admitting that Ritualism is the true and principal cause of this grievous phenomenon, are there not various lines of conduct to be pursued, and might not the same object be attained without wounding, embittering, discouraging, and finally losing all the eager souls which seek for truth, sometimes at the cost of their fortunes and their lives?

We can understand the grief and impatience which take possession of some minds when they see others faint or fall so near to the haven; but we should consider their circumstances, and judge by them of the souls to come. It is true that Ritualism may arrest half-way some persons who are about to become Catholics, but may not these persons be saved without becoming Catholics, and thus fulfil a great and providential mission ?

The conversion of England as a mass is sometimes spoken of in France, but it is a chimæra, an illusion which three days' journey on the other side of the Channel is enough to dissipate. If England were now converted in a mass, it would be the greatest and most apparent miracle the world has yet seen. Yet if Ritualism continues to spread, as it now does, if it penetrates the whole of society, and effects the slow but immense revolution which insensibly transforms English society, then, and then alone, when minds have been enlightened, and hearts subdued, the conversion of England as a mass will become possible, and may even actually take place. Until that moment arrives, we can only hope for isolated conversions, and, one by one, for many chosen souls. In England itself there are many Catholics who do not wish it to be otherwise.

Ritualism is helping the Catholic cause, even although at this moment it seems to paralyse it. We must never forget that it is working for Catholicism, and if the sight of the souls which lag behind draws tears from our eyes, the sight of the many souls which shall one day be converted ought to console us and make us patient. Let us never forget that God has His own times and seasons.

For this reason perhaps it would be better and more profitable for English Roman Catholics to keep silence. At any rate, silence would not compromise either the present or the future; at any rate, it would not involve the Church in any given course; and if it may be thought undignified to stand by with crossed arms and closed lips, while the

religious parties of the Anglican Church are in angry conflici, yet there is no doubt that it would be advantageous to reserve ourselves for the propitious hour. Whichever side is triumphant, whether the Evangelicals are victorious or vanquished, it is Catholicism which will profit by disasters on the one side and by victories on the other. When the souls which are wearied by the spectacle of these struggles begin to sigh for repose and light, Catholicism need only stretch forth her hands, and they will fall into them like ripe fruit, which the slightest shock suffices to detach from the branch which nourished it. To keep silence, to stand by, not as indifferent spectators of conflicts which have lasted, and will still last, long in England, but as silent and watchful spectators, such a line of conduct is, I think, neither undignified nor useless. The combatants will respect this reserve, and sooner or later Catholics will reap the fruits of it.

Supposing that it is necessary to break this silence—and we can understand how some people think it their duty to do so--nothing can be more injurious to the cause of Catholicism than a tone of ridicule, bitterness, and acrimony. Certainly the Church is not responsible for the errors of her children, but those errors may compromise her in many ways, since men are not always able to distinguish between persons and the cause which they defend. It is in all cases necessary to remember this truth, and it especially concerns English Catholics to do so.

VII.

We must ask, moreover, what there is to fear in Ritualism, and if it is, or is ever likely to be, a danger for the Catholic Church. Surely not.

If Ritualism has any power, it is against Protestantism; it has nothing but weakness in its relations to Catholicism, and its weakness is that of Protestantism with some additions peculiar to itself. For instance, it contains the fundamental error of the Protestant system in relying altogether on the right of private judgment. In whose name are all these achievements of doctrine and ritual effected ? In whose name do Mr. Mackonochie, Dr. Pusey, Dr. Lee, and Mr. Ridsdale, carry out their reforms, and impose their opinions on their people? If in their own names, are they infallible, and, if not, from whom does their teaching derive its authority? Not from their bishops, who disavow, persecute, and condemn them. They themselves admit that they are at open strife with the episcopate. Nowhere else do we find the spectacle of a clergy in absolute revolt against its superiors.

If the Ritualists entrench themselves behind the Anglican Church, we must ask if that church is really with them, if they are in accordance with the bishops, the convocation, the clergy, and the faithful. We might go further and ask if the Anglican Church has any real existence, if the State has ever recognised such a church, and if it be not simply by a moral fiction that the union of the dioceses of England are held to form one and the same society. There is not, and there never has been, what can properly be termed an Anglican Church ; there are Anglican churches, not an Anglican Church.

We must ask the meaning of their loud assertion of Catholic privileges, and if the acceptance of certain dogmas and practices is enough to enable us to attain the truth, and to work out our salvation. Questions of discipline, of hierarchy, of submission to authority, have all a place in the creed, and if these are set at nought, what becomes of the principle of Catholicity ?

Ritualists may make the most careful research without finding at any time, or in any age, a position resembling their own. If belief in a creed is all that is necessary for salvation, the most degraded savage of Oceania, and the rudest colonist of the Far West,' might be saved without the aid of a church or a missionary; he need only glance at the catechisms of the four or five great Christian churches of the world.

Ritualism, like Anglicanism, is deficient in logic; it contains fair and excellent doctrines, noble and salutary practices, but the whole forms an aggregate of fragments, collected together without relation to each other, or any strong bond of union. This fact is so apparent that it is necessary to be an Anglican not to be immediately struck by it, and it is just this which must prevent Ritualism from being dangerous in the future, since the time must come when the people will begin to think and reason for themselves, and when that day comes in England, Ritualism will cease to exist; it must either advance as far as Catholicism or relapse into Protestantism-that is, into Rationalism' and incredulity. Catholicism and Rationalism are intelligible, but all intermediate systems are illogical, and consequently are doomed to perish.

It is perhaps as well to point out the weak points of Ritualism, in order that souls may not be lulled to sleep in a deceitful security. It is well to declare that Ritualism is not logical, even according to its own principles, and that it has only an arbitrary existence : it is well to hold up before it the lamp of truth, which enlightens the road by which it has to travel, and this may all be done with the calmness which befits the Church, with the charity which is a precious jewel of Catholicism, and with the amenity of language which goes direct to the heart, since it shows that everything is prompted by an inspired love of truth, and with the sole object of working out the salvation of that which is only less precious than God Himself-the salvation of a soul.

ABBÉ MARTIN,

a

SPONTANEOUS GENERATION: A REPLY.

Is my capacity as teacher of an important section of the scientific basis of medicine, I felt constrained in 1869 to give an attentive study to the evidence adduced by M. Pasteur in favour of the germ theory of fermentation. It was necessary for me to do this, since his views as to the essential cause of fermentative processes were being widely adopted by many medical men in illustration of the pathology of a most important class of the diseases which afflict the human race-namely, those of a communicable nature, knit together in their diversity by the common characteristic that they are capable of spreading by infection from person to person. I was compelled to endeavour to come to some conclusion as to what should be taught in reference to these new doctrines, which, after the manner of the diseases themselves, were beginning to spread somewhat rapidly.

The restoration of such views, in their modern form, was so new that the occasion had not arisen for my own teachers to impress me with any doctrines in regard to this subject. I came, therefore, with a perfectly open mind to the study of the question, having no party bias in either direction. If I had any bias at all on the general question in regard to spontaneous generation—which was, and always

, must be, that upon which the derivative problem in regard to the pathology of infectious diseases ultimately rests—this was to be found in favour of the view which was adverse to the present occurrence of any such process. It is true I had not specially concerned myself, up to this time, with the evidence bearing upon the question, but neither had I seen any reason for not accepting what was at that time the general under-current of scientific teaching.

But my scrutiny of the evidence in favour of the germ theory and against spontaneous generation, as embodied in the writings of M. Pasteur, did not by any means convince me as to the irreproachable nature of this evidence, notwithstanding all the skill and care with which the experiments had evidently been conducted. It was not, indeed, the experiments themselves, so far as they went, with which I was dissatisfied; but rather that I could not assent to the validity