is entirely different. Then again, Dr. Gillow finds fault with us for changing a statement he had made about the "mere graduate into "all mere graduates." We can see but little difference, in this case, between the general and the universal statement. Does Dr. Gillow mean that he meant only "some mere graduates?” Lastly, we must repeat with emphasis the statement that to make Mr. Pattison say that "the mere graduate"-that is, we suppose, mere graduates in general-are probably either "barbarised athletes" or "foppish exquisites," is a clear and even ludicrous misrepresentation. We have already explained fully enough that Mr. Pattison uses these words of the " young aristocrats " of Christ Church, and a few others like them, not of Oxford graduates or undergraduates in general. Any one at all acquainted with Oxford will know the absurdity of the confusion. Mr. Pattison puts the mere graduates at seventy per cent. of the whole number of students, and considers them as incapable, from their previous want of training, of a real University education. Elsewhere, speaking of the "young aristocrats" of Christ Church, and of a few others, he uses the language about "barbarised athletes" and "foppish exquisites." These "aristocrats" form only a (large) part even at Christ Church, and they are probably ten, or let us say twenty per cent., out of the seventy. To extend his epithets to "mere graduates” in general is exactly what it has been said to be by our correspondent-a strong, even athletic, feat of the imagination. No doubt the "athlete furor affects others besides the "aristocrats ;" it affects classmen as well as passmen, and, we may venture to say, it affects Catholic places of education as well as Protestant. But Mr. Pattison is speaking of the extreme instances of its influence. Dr. Gillow seems to think that he may take the strong expressions he finds quoted from different passages in Mr. Pattison's book, and combine them at will; and this with no more knowledge, as we fear, of the book than a number of quotations in a review article. We venture to affirm that no one will read the book through without, if he knows Oxford, agreeing with us as to the unfairness with which Mr. Pattison is treated, and also that if Dr. Gillow consults that gentleman, he will find his views on the subject at least as strong as ours.

We need hardly add that it is with sincere regret that we find ourselves obliged to meet such charges as have been brought against us by Dr. Gillow. We would much rather hear what he has to say as to the fact to which we have lately drawn attention, that the highest honours at Oxford and Cambridge might be open to Catholic students if residence was once got rid of, without the condition of servitude now imposed on them at London as to philosophy. One thing more he must allow us to say, namely, that if, as he appears disposed most groundlessly to insinuate, we wished to see Oxford in its present state crowded with Catholic students, resorting there against the wish of the authorities of the Church, we should also wish one other thing as a means to bring about that consummation. That other thing would be this that Catholic writers should heap every kind of ignorant and exaggerated abuse upon the manners of Oxford residents, and depreciate in the most unfair possible way the value of the honours and degrees of that ancient University. For exaggerations always serve in the end the cause against which they are used, and when the charges made against a system or a place of education by opponents of standing are found out to be false, people are very likely to jump to the conclusion that nothing true can be said against them.

We do not doubt that there may exist in various parts of Christendom many excellent, learned, and philosophically thoughtful persons, who look forward with some amount of apprehension to what they suppose may perhaps be the result of the deliberations of the Council now assembling in Rome. The fact that the German Bishops, as well as others nearer to ourselves, have thought it well to address explanations on the subject to their flocks, is a proof that they consider apprehensions to exist, not only among the enemies, but among the friends and the children of the Church. Such declarations as that which was issued from Fulda are not addressed to the refractory and insubordinate alone. Moreover, it is easy to see that, on two great subjects which may possibly occupy the attention of the Council, the public mind requires to be disabused of prejudices and to be supplied with accurate information. The dangerous opinions and maxims condemned in the Syllabus of 1864 would not be so dangerous if they had not taken deep root in society in general, and when such errors are influential in society in general, it is morally certain that a considerable number of good Catholics will be affected by them. Again, the ancient doctrine of the Infallibility of the See and the Successor of St. Peter has been, and is still, largely misrepresented, till it has come to be possible for a daring scribe to assert that the essence of Infallibility will come to consist "in the Pope's signature to a decree hastily drawn up by a congregation or a single theologian" a decree, we presume, as no limitation is expressed, on any subject whatever and for whatever purpose. Persons who deserve far greater consideration than the author to whom we have just referred, may see a difficulty in the definition of the VOL XI. DECEMBER, 1869.

N N

Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff when that of the Church herself has not been defined, and, at all events, the conditions which theologians are agreed in requiring for the exercise of Infallibility may not be well understood. These and other reasons might be assigned for the opinion which we have expressed as to the existence of the class of sincere Catholics of which we have spoken.

We must confess that although we by no means share the state of mind of persons of this class, we can most sincerely sympathise with them as to the circumstances under which they now find themselves. What would, we suppose, satisfy them and give them hope, would be that some temperate and respectful method should be adopted of summing up their difficulties, and of laying them before the Council, or as preliminary to that, before the Catholic public. We are far from saying that such feelings as theirs will not be adequately represented to, and considered by, the Council itself; but it must be confessed that they find themselves at present, in this regard, in but poor company. Every document or declaration with the object of which they might sympathise has been such in substance, in spirit, or in circumstances, as to cast discredit on their cause. There has either been palpable intemperance and violence of language, exaggeration of statement, bitterness of tone, or personal conduct on the part of the opponents of the anticipated definition, the transparent disgracefulness of which even the world has been able to recognise. We gladly refrain from specifying particulars. It must be obvious to every one that-if we except the elaborate work of Monseigneur Maret, Bishop of Sura*—there has been wanting in the demonstration of what we may call more anti-Roman party among Catholics, not only weight and force of argument, but temper, respectfulness, mode

* For an admirable review of Mgr. Maret's work we may refer our readers to the Etudes for October and November. The book has called forth strong opposition in France, several Bishops having spoken against it openly. Its tone is moderate, and it is altogether a great contrast to the work with which we are ourselves now engaged. But it is chiefly founded on the Defensio of Bossuet, which has already been more than once refuted. One of Mgr. Maret's proposals, that Councils should meet every ten years, has called forth from the Bishop of Poitiers (Mgr. Pie) the remark-which he is said to have uttered in

ration, and the Catholic spirit. It is not inconsistent with that spirit to hesitate as to the prudence or expediency of a certain possible definition yet unformed. There are many men who may feel thus who will yet joyfully and readily accept the definition should it be made-as joyfully and readily as those who now desire it the most will recognise the supernatural prudence of the Church if it should not be made. What is inconsistent with the Catholic spirit is this to ignore entirely the guidance of the Holy Spirit of God in the proceedings of the highest authorities in the Church, to attribute their measures to the action of party and the influence of low motives, to represent the whole framework of her system as disorganised and incapable of free and vital action, and thus to prepare beforehand for resistance to her most solemn and authentic judgments on the plea which has been used by every heretic since the days of Arius-the plea of the incompetency of the tribunal or of the illicit character of the process.

and translated by Mr.

We sincerely trust that the latest "pronouncement" on the side of which we are speaking may turn out not to be attributable to the authorship with which common report has associated it. We have given some reasons in our last number for hesitation, at least, as to this matter. Unfortunately there are too many persons, in England especially, who, when they hear that an anti-Papal work has appeared in German and has been translated into English, will, without more ado, assert that it has been written by Dr. These two names are as certain to be put in circulation, under such circumstances, as those of Julius Cæsar and Oliver Cromwell with the building up and battering down of every ruined castle. throughout the country, whatever may be its true history, whatever the style and date of its architecture or the manner of its destruction. But whoever the author and a voice choked by emotion and tears—“ A_man_ must be a Bishop in partibus infidelium to think that our Holy Mother the Church will impose every ten years on each one of her Pastors a sacrifice like that which is now asked of us." This remark appears to contain more than a simple and affecting sentiment. If the Bishops generally are to undertake, as a sort of Parliament, the government of the Church as a whole, they must practically give up that intimate union with their respective dioceses which is essential to their office.

whoever the translator of The Pope and the Council, there can be no doubt as to its spirit or as to its object. It can best be compared to Mr. Ffoulkes' pamphlet, of which we heard so much last spring, till the Saurin case came on to furnish the fickle public with a new sensation. When we compare it to the Letter to Archbishop Manning, we mean to say that it is one of those works which owe whatever temporary attention they may gain to the circumstances of their publication and the tone of the public mind at a particular moment, rather than to any novelty of view, any brilliancy of argument, any force of style, or any depth of learning. The great type of literature of this class, the most striking instance of success in leaving a bad impression on bitterly hated enemies, is also one of the most dishonest books ever written-the Provincial Letters. It is only possible to exempt Pascal from the charge of deliberate misrepresentation by believing, as there seems good ground for believing, that he had his quotations furnished to him by others, and the book remains dishonest, whether the fame of the author be cleared or not. But Pascal's work survives only on account of its style and of its wit, and these are happily wanting in the numerous imitations which its celebrity encourages. The Pope and the Council is no exception to the general mediocrity of the class to which it belongs. It has been carefully trumpeted in certain newspapers and reviews, and there has been an attempt made to pass it off on the English public as the fruit of singular learning. It has caused, and will cause, a certain excitement, and, like all short handy confident pamphlets crowded with assertions on subjects with which most men are not familiar, it will lay upon him who may think it worth while seriously to disprove its statements one by one, an amount of labour which may very probably delay the full exposure of its inaccuracies, exaggerations, and misrepresentations till a time at which the book itself is already half-forgotten. But we think that its only effect among Catholics will be to rally them more than ever to devotion to the Holy See, and to make them look with extreme distrust and dislike on all its opponents, as full of the spirit