istically Oriental elements. The doctrines of India and the far East never reached the shores of the Mediterranean. "That awful Oriental theosophy" which is the bugbear of some modern writers is the mere creature of their own imaginations, and will cease to be believed in when more correct notions of the real doctrines once current in Eastern nations come to be generally admitted.

ULTRAMONTANISM.

KNOWLEDGE is treated by the Christian Church not merely as a means, but much more as an end, because it is the only sphere in which her progress is unwavering and subject to no relapse. When in successive ages she defines or surveys anew the system which it is her mission to teach, she has always to record some advance upon the past. Though, amongst the units of mankind, the boundary of her dominion may waver or recede, yet, in the order of truth, she works out a law of inevitable and invariable advance. She must teach all nations; but she has no special promise that any. one will listen to her. She must watch over those within her fold, but she knows not whether her vigilance will avail. No divine protection ensures her against losses by persecution, dogged unbelief, neglect of her law, or apostasy from her creed; and there is no assurance that the means of grace which she dispenses will effect by degrees the moral improvement of our race, or that sanctity will gain in intensity or in extent as time goes on. There may be diminu tion in the area of Christendom, and decline in the virtue of Christians. But there must be some exception to the possibility of retrogression, or Christianity would be inferior to Judaism; nay, if stagnation could paralyse every function of the Church of Christ, His works would be less perfect than the works of men. The divine nature of the institution which He founded must therefore be manifest in some element which is secured against loss or deterioration by the assurance of a constant growth. To refuse to the Church this character of progress is to deny the divinity of her Founder; and if we seek it any where else than in that order of truth which is subject to the immediate guidance of the Holy Ghost, we are contradicted alike by the holiness of the early ages, and by the most memorable lessons of later religious history.

In this growth the Church does not yield to the action of external forces, or simply consent to a change which she cannot impede. Progress is a necessity of her existence, and a law of her nature. She does not passively suffer it, but actively imposes it upon society. Whilst she continually and continuously developes her doctrines, and evolves truth from the inexhaustible tradition of the teaching of our Lord, her action is the ever-present impulse, pattern, and guide of society in the formation of law, and in the advancement of

learning. How great is the influence thus exercised by the example of the Church on civil government, and how close is the parallel between her method and the principles of political science, we do not here enquire. Her more direct and necessary action is on human knowledge. For the full exposition of truth is the great object for which the existence of mankind is prolonged on earth. It may be that individual goodness is not greater, or the proportion of the saved larger, than in earlier times; but Almighty God is more fully known, the articles of faith are multiplied, and the certainty of knowledge is increased. This growth in knowledge is not by new revelations or by a continuance of inspiration, but it is a conquest of the Christian mind in its conflict with the phases of untruth. It is earned by exertion; it is not simply given, like faith itself. The development of doctrine is essential to the preservation of its purity; hence its preservation implies its development; and the intellectual act which accompanies belief is the agent of progress of the Church in religious knowledge. In the course of this process she lays under contribution all human learning, which she exalts and sanctifies by using it. As she does not possess at once the fulness of all knowledge, and as her authority leaves many things uncertain, she must rely on other resources to provide that which is not hers by inheritance; and her demand must necessarily promote the supply of that on which she so much depends. Therefore, by the side of the progressive study of revealed truth a vast intellectual labour continues incessantly, carried on in the presence of authority, on the basis of faith, and within the sphere of unity and charity, in order that all science may become tributary to religion, and that God may be worshipped in the harmony of His words, His works, and His ways.

This duty has been discharged in all ages, except the intervals of corruption and decline, with a zeal commensurate with its importance; and the bitter anxiety which has accompanied each rising doubt and division has equalled that excited by assaults on the faith itself. For in disputes with a hostile religion there is the certainty of belief to guide, and confidence in authority to sustain the combatant. He confesses himself inferior to his cause; he dares not degrade it by the introduction of personal motives or emotions, or allow it to be desecrated by the conditions of human controversy; and he is not tempted to do so, for neither fear nor doubt mingles with his feelings. But in discussions confined within the sphere of religious unity, which do not directly involve fundamental truths, and where private judgment

occupies the place of faith and obedience, the antagonism is necessarily more personal, there is more selfishness in opinion, and less assurance of victory, and the purest motives may become tainted by ignorance, interest, or pride. Disputes which authority cannot decide are an excitement for those to whom its restraint is irksome, and an indulgence for those who are weary of acquiescing in silent unity. The lines of separation are more distinctly marked because the chasm is less wide.

Hence arise two phenomena which vex the Catholic and perplex the Protestant-the number of parties within the Church, and the heat of their dissensions. It is not always easy for a stranger to reconcile these things with the notion of unity, or for a friend to be sure that they involve no breach of charity; and it is very hard for either to discover, when orthodoxy is disputed and authority necessarily silent, the true exponent of the Catholic idea. As the rise of heresies furnished the test which defined Catholicism to be the most perfect expression of Christianity, so the growth of internal controversy requires some further test to ascertain the purest form of thought on open questions within the Church. For the control of religion extends farther than its dogmas; and a view which contradicts no prescribed doctrine may be a more serious symptom of estrangement from the spirit of the Church than some unconscious doctrinal errors. There are certain questions to which the test of orthodoxy does not apply, which yet are more significant than some of those which it decides. The liberty which prevails on doubtful points does not justify a resignation that acquiesces in doubt, and deprecates the efforts by which it may be dispelled. In the absence of the decrees of authority, such points may be settled by scientific enquiry, and an opinion which can never be enforced may claim to be received. Yet, though Catholics may be ready to adopt a criterion which excludes some of those who are in communion with them, they dread what may repel those who are not; and they naturally conceal in the presence of strangers a weapon which they use amongst themselves. It is impossible that varying parties which cannot agree in a common definition should accept a common term.

Protestant observers have adopted a designation to indicate the esoteric spirit of Catholicism, the real essence of the system they oppose. That designation is Ultramontanism. Unquestionably the signification attached to it has a certain reality and truth which ought to overcome the reluctance to admit the term. Ultramontanism stands in the same relation

to Catholicism in matters of opinion as Catholicism to Christianity in matters of faith. It signifies a habit of intellect carrying forward the enquiries and supplementing the work of authority. It implies the legitimate union of religion with science, and the conscious intelligible harmony of Catholicism with the systems of secular truth. Its basis is authority, but its domain is liberty, and it reconciles the one with the other. A Catholic may be utterly deficient in human learning, or he may possess it in such a measure as presents no difficulties to his faith, or he may find a ready and universal solution for all such difficulties in an unhesitating sacrifice either of faith or of reason. In no one of these cases, whether he be a good or a bad Catholic, has he any pretensions to the name of Ultramontane. His religion derives no strength or resources from his knowledge, nor does his knowledge find a principle of unity or a guide in his religion. If neither of them has lost any thing of its integrity and truth, neither has gained any thing from the other. If there is no struggle in his mind, there has also been no combination-no generation of something previously non-existent which neither science alone nor religion alone could have produced. His conscience has obtained no security against the necessity of sacrificing faith to truth or truth to faith, and no impulse to that reflection which recognises the ultimate unity.

It is plain that Ultramontanism, in this acceptation of the word, can only be a fruit of mature civilisation and of a very advanced stage of scientific investigation. Natural science before it was purified by the methods of observation, and historical science before it was regenerated by criticism, consorted better with superstition and error than with religion. But a change took place in their nature at the beginning of this century. There is an interval as it were of centuries which divides Cuvier from Buffon, Niebuhr from Gibbon, with a distinctness almost as great as that which separates chemistry from alchemy, astronomy from astrology, history from legend. A similar change ensued in the political system, and established in almost every country the theory and the desire of freedom. In one of the contests arising from this altered condition of society, about a quarter of a century ago, the term Ultramontane began to be applied to those who advocated the rights and principles of the Catholic Church. In one sense the designation was just in another it was a strange inversion of the meaning which had been hitherto attached to the word.

During the period between the Reformation and the Re