He that there is no more devoted Churchman of his faith than he, says, with energy: "If he denies any dogma of the Church held by every true believer, he is no more pope than either you or I." Council summoned to decree the infallibility of the head of a Church, for there is not the least insinuation in them that if the people do not approve they will go to Hades. The American Bishop pushed his radicalism still further. said that he wanted to know when to obey the THE Easy Chair has received a letter which is pope as an infallible interpreter, and he cited undoubtedly genuine, but which, whether it be two classes of historical illustrations. We are genuine or not, describes a very common situtold, he said, that the popes were always infalli- ation, and asks advice which is often passionate-. ble, although the dogma was never defined. ly sought and utterly disregarded. The letter is Very well; when a certain pope taught that bap- the revelation of a familiar tragedy. A young tism in the name of the Son only is sufficient, mechanic, refined, and, to a certain degree, culwas he infallible? Again, by what right does tivated, marries a woman five or six years older the pope assume to control temporal affairs? than himself, after a year's courtship. He made The power has been distinctly claimed by them; five hundred dollars in the first year of his marit has been exercised. The popes have deposed riage, and saved sixty. He did better the second English kings and queens, and have declared year, and continued to prosper. But, after martheir subjects relieved of their allegiance. "I riage, his wife confessed that she knew nothing find no text for it in the Bible," says the Amer- of housekeeping, and could not cook, and it was ican prelate. And "the entire Council, with one soon evident that she had no talent for managevoice, cried out, Those popes had no authority, ment, nor even personal neatness. For three no commission from God to pretend to any such years he did almost all the work in his house as power.' well as out of it. Then, with greater prosperity, he "hired a girl," and every thing was a hundredfold worse. No wonder that the good Archbishop exclaimed that he thanked God he had spoken, and that the Council had decided that the day had gone by when such things were possible. It is unquestionably one of the most important decisions of the Council, or, more properly, one of the most significant expressions of the present sentiment of the Roman Church. This claim of universal and paramount political authority, which the popes exercised in the great days of their supremacy, was renounced by Pope Pius VI., and by the chief Continental Catholic universities, at the close of the last century; but the expression which Archbishop Purcell has drawn from the General Council is conclusive of the present attitude of his Church upon the subject. During all this time he remonstrated gently and patiently, trusting to time, to affection, to the mother's love of her children, to pride, toany thing. Ten years have passed, and the situation is only ten times more terrible and insupportable. Endless shiftlessness and waste and scolding and disorder make up the daily story, and over all hangs the undimmed ideal of a home to which he wooed and won his wife. "I don't know what to do. If, after years of patient effort, things remain the same, what does the future promise? I am at home always, except when traveling upon my employer's business. All I want is a quiet, peaceful, ordinarily wellHe makes the best of the dogma, like all of his managed home. I can't get it, and God knows brethren who were opposed to it. Their argu- I am in deep trouble." He does not deny that ments were evidently not answered, but they sub- he has become impatient, for he is utterly dismitted to the decision of the Council. Yet it is couraged. "Is it morally right for two people curious how little knowledge or how little har- to live together in such relations? Must a mismony of interpretation upon this subject there is take in judgment cost me the happiness of a lifeamong the doctors of the Church. Thus the Holy time?" That final question is the key of the Patriarch of Jerusalem said that the question had whole position. In all such cases the question long since been decided in a certain Council of is not individual or simple; if it were, it could Lyons and a Council of Florence. But Archbish- be easily answered. The Easy Chair reminds op Purcell states that those Councils, unable to his correspondent that there are four persons confind authority in Scripture or tradition for the cerned-himself, his wife, and two children, and declaration of infallibility, "laid the question that the happiness of the last three is quite as aside. Then comes Bishop Bailey, of New Jer-precious, and as much to be considered, as his sey, telling us that "the Catholic Church has always believed in infallibility; that it is one of its accepted doctrines, and all that it ever needed was to be confirmed by council." That seems to settle the question, when Father Hyacinthe, in his ringing voice, declares that “it is a doctrine unknown to all ecclesiastical antiquity, which is disputed even now by numerous and eminent theologians, and which implies a radical change in the constitution of the Church." And the universities of which we were just speaking, the universities of Sorbonne, Louvaine, Douay, Alcala, and Salamanca, deliver their fire side by side with Father Hyacinthe, and directly into the face of Bishop Bailey. "It is no matter of faith to believe that the pope is in himself infallible, separated from the body of the Church, even in expounding the faith.' And even Archbishop Purcell, who desired the reporters to announce own. There can not be a question that, under the circumstances he describes, if there be any fault, it is his own original fault of judgment. But from that fault new relations have sprung, and from them new duties. His first duty is not to consult his own happiness, which, if lost, is lost by his own act, however innocent. His paramount duty is care for the welfare of his wife and children. He has deliberately assumed responsibilities; and, although rashly and unwisely, he can not evade them. There is no insupportable vice nor disease upon either side. His wife loves him, and would remain. The law, as he truly says, gives him no relief. What relief could it, or ought it to give him? If there were a law that every body who found, or supposed that he found, or said that he found-for all those alternatives must be considered-that his marriage was a mistake could dis solve it by walking away from his wife, the consequences are easy to imagine. One of the great disciplines of marriage, according to all experience, and in the nature of things, is the necessity it imposes of self-sacrifice and infinite mutual forbearance. Its spiritual benefit is nobler character. Its end, indeed, is happiness, but happiness interpreted in the loftiest sense-happiness which may require incessant self-renunciation. These are grave things for an Easy Chair to say; but they are things that should be deeply pondered by its correspondent. Can he honorably, even if he could legally, deprive his wife of her children? Can he honorably leave them to her unchecked influence by abandoning them all? and if not, is not his honorable, however painful and perplexing, duty clear? WHEN Father Hyacinthe was the hero of the hour he wrote a letter saying that if the Great Council of his Church at Rome should not be truly free in its deliberations, he would not accept its declaration of papal infallibility, but would cry aloud and continually for a council which should really represent the Church, and whose voice should indeed be authoritative. Now that the dogma is declared, the father promptly repudiates it, because, as he says, he is a Catholic and a Christian. But his protest is leveled not only at the declaration, but at the dogma. Not only, in his judgment, was the Council not free, and its declaration, therefore, not to be considered binding, but the dogma is in itself monstrous, and therefore to be rejected. The difficulty with Father Hyacinthe's position as a member of his Church is, that it puts him out of it. As we said, upon the publication of his first letter, his position is essentially Protestant. He asserted his own judgment against the decision of his Church. And it is not a valid plea to urge that it was not, in his opinion, a real decision of the Church. For if that liberty of judgment is to be reserved to every member, there is, obviously, an end of unity and harmony. the authority of his Church. The prelates in the Council who opposed the dogma have either assented to it or will assent to it, or they will hold their positions, as it were, under false pretenses. If any bishop, for instance, should say to his people what Father Hyacinthe says in his letter, that the Council had overstepped its powers, that its declarations, consequently, were without anthority, and that he repudiated the doctrine of papal infallibility, he would undoubtedly hear from his official superiors. But the good Father Hyacinthe no longer, as we understand, exercises ecclesiastical functions; and the Church leaves him severely alone. As we said last year, he had but three courses before him. He must either be reconciled to the Church, which would be the last we should ever hear of the former fervid orator of Notre Dame, or he must lead a schism in his Church, or he must leave the fold in which he was reared, and which he loves with the enthusiasm of a sentimental and passionate nature. He has not chosen either, but the choice is made for him. If he remains nominally a member of his old Church, it is as a protestant against its most solemn and universal modern act, and a protestant upon principles which subject the whole authority of the Church to the inquisition of the individual judgment. “Man," he says, in speaking of the Council, "has been powerless to procure the triumph of truth and justice." And he appeals to God. But is not the Church of his affections divinely directed? If in so momentous an act as the declaration of the dogma, if in the Great Council which has brought the ecclesiastical ends of the earth together in the historic capital of his faith, God has not influenced the Church, where can he be expected to do so? And if the father's cry could be heard, if another council should assemble and undo the work of the present, and other fathers, with all the sincerity of Hyacinthe, should, in turn, repudiate its declarations, they must be justified by him as he demands justification, and thus, upon his own principles, the great assumption and authority of his Church would be overthrown. Fa The doctrine of the Church must be authoritatively pronounced by some body or by some person, and in some way. If the pope and the The choice, we say, is made for him. cardinals and the bishops, in universal council, ther Hyacinthe stands upon purely Protestant may not declare the faith, who may? May ground. If he were able to turn his pure and Father Hyacinthe? But if he renounces such a flaming zeal to the leadership of a schism, he claim for himself, does he not immediately reas- would hardly fail to become, like Savonarola, an sert it when he declares the conditions upon historic figure. But he is of too gentle and tenwhich alone he will receive the declaration from der a nature. And as yet it is doubtful if he others? Is he to be the judge of the freedom of sees the scope of his own protest. the Council? May he properly insist that the decree shall be made unanimously, and that the voice of less than the whole is not binding? Or, leaping over all forms and conditions, if the individual Father Ilyacinthe may declare that the doctrine of papal infallibility is repugnant to the spirit of the Gospel and to human instinct, and yet remain a member of the Church, may not every other member do precisely the same thing? And what then becomes of the dogma? And what need then of any council for any purpose? If the individual member of the communion may decide for himself that the doctrine of infallibility is contrary to the Gospel, he may surely decide for himself upon every other declaration which his Church may make. Father Hyacinthe will probably find that when he laid aside the robe of his order he laid aside In the August Number of this Magazine a letter was published from Mr. Fitzhugh Ludlow to the Easy Chair, stating that a remedy had been discovered, which seemed to him almost infallible, for the relief of opium-eaters, a subject in which Mr. Ludlow has been, as is well known, long interested. Mr. Ludlow was just sailing for Europe, and referred inquirers to Mr. Henry Read, of Lowell, Massachusetts. Letters which the Easy Chair presently received, from persons evidently painfully anxious upon the subject, stated that a large sum was required to be paid in advance, and that the whole business had a mysterious and suspicious aspect. The Easy Chair, which had printed the letter of Mr. Ludlow as that of an old correspondent of the Magazine, and an authority upon the subject, wrote to Mr. Read, and received from him a long and de- | but he claims that he is not responsible, being tailed account of the facts. Mr. Read confirms an agent only, and that neither he nor Mr. Ludthe statement of our correspondents, that an low, who both attest the efficacy of the remedy, enormous price is demanded for the antidote; has any control of the price. Editor's Literary Record. WE have never read any novel, and rarely a group of working-men to whom he appealed reany history, with greater interest than that plied, with cruel sarcasm, "Do you think we wish with which we have perused EUGÈNE TENOT'S to be killed in helping you retain your twentyParis in December, 1851, or the Coup d'Etat of five francs a day?" The most dangerous, though Napoleon III. (Hurd and Houghton). M. Té- not the bitterest opposition to Napoleon was not not is an ardent republican. But he does not from the working-men. The greatest slaughter write as a partisan. His circumstances did not was not among the blouses of the Faubourg St. allow it. His book, published in France in 1868, Antoine, but among the "yellow gloves" of the could not be an indictment of the French Em- boulevards. This is one significant fact, a key peror. He has written with singular but neces- to the success of the coup d'état. The other is sary self-restraint. He has confined himself to not less significant, nor less a key to what is recording the history, mainly compiled, too, from otherwise an enigma in history, the wonderful official documents, without note or comment. success, and yet more wonderful and disastrous Whenever a quoted document itself contained failure, of the empire. The coup d'état was the any thing directly derogatory to the Emperor, victory of the military civilization of the past the obnoxious matter has been expunged, and over the peaceful civilization of the present. fragmentary extracts alone been given. The re- The empire was built upon it. "What makes production of Victor Hugo's pronunciamento to the discipline of our army, and consequently its the army, issued at the time, is a curious illus- glory," writes an enthusiastic admirer of the tration of the author's reserve. Notwithstand-coup d'état, "is, that in spite of civilization, of ing the fact that it is an historical document, the newspapers and books, it has never had ideas, page which contains it is about equally divided but instincts." "You," said General Leflo, on between print and asterisks. But this very re- perceiving an inferior officer participating in his serve makes the book more significant, more en-arrest-"you, an old soldier-you consent to tertaining, let us add, more trust-worthy. No become an accomplice in treason, to lay your one will pretend that M. Ténot is an impartial hands upon your chief?" "Go!" was the rehistorian. But he is compelled to be so fair sponse; "we have had enough of lawyer-genand honest that not even Cæsarism could find in erals and general-lawyers." The Prussian camhis book an excuse for its suppression. The at-paign has proved the superior value of an army tentive and unprejudiced reader of this book will reach a conclusion, we think, midway between that of those who have most violently denounced and those who have most energetically defended this crime. He will neither accept the conclusions of Mr. Kinglake nor those of Mr. John S. C. Abbott. The republic which existed in December, 1851, was without republicans. Neither of the three political parties into which France was divided was satisfied with the Constitution. The monarchists wished to overthrow it to restore the Bourbon or the Orleans dynasty. The then President was intriguing to supplant it with a Napoleonic empire. The republicans wished to guard against the double danger by taking from the President the control of the army. A law, taking from three millions of voters the right of suffrage-a high-handed outrage, of which the monarchical party were the authors-followed by an ineffectual attempt to place the military under the partial control of the President of the Assembly, was the pretext upon which Louis Napoleon justified his act. His blow was avowedly on behalf of universal suffrage. The working-men of Paris applauded the act which checkmated the Bourbons and Orleanists, or viewed it with supreme unconcern. M. Ténot's testimony on this point is clear and decisive."Why should we fight?" responded one of the workmen to the appeals of their would-be leaders. "They give us universal suffrage." They had no faith in their own representatives. Just before Baudin's death one of endowed with ideas to one that has only instincts, and the inauguration of the republic is a proclamation by France to the civilized world that she has had enough of generals that despise the laws. The monarchy may be restored; we will not even assert that the age of miracles is wholly past, and that the empire may not be raised again from the dead. But the military Dagon, before which for nineteen years the French people have bowed in superstitious reverence, has fallen from his pedestal, and is broken in pieces, and he can never be restored again. THERE is no American author, we hardly know any English author, whom we would sooner select to write a biography of Charles Dickens than Dr. SHELTON MACKENZIE. For over half century he has lived in familiar fellowship with the literati of his time. He has that peculiar cast of mind which seizes upon significant incidents, treasures them up, and, as needed, reproduces them. He is, too, a literary critic-professionally so-and although his criticisms are not and do not assume to be profound, they are pervaded by a personality, a sympathetic appreciation of the writer's aim and spirit, a knowledge, in short, of the man, which is, in some sense, the first condition of either accurate or interesting criticism. His critical writings, like his conversation, are always lively, entertaining, anecdotical. His Life of Charles Dickens (T. B. Peterson and Brothers) might almost be termed reminiscences. HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. extensive and important subject. A good acTHE American system of government is an ministration of government employed in this count of the organization and methods of adcountry, written in a manner adapted to popular use, would be a valuable contribution to the literature of the day. The years that have elapsed since the close of the war have witnessed a marked advance in the ascendency of the national government in the degree of popular confidence accorded to it, and in the magnitude and importance of its transactions, and have devel a great deal we all knew before. It contains, of course, | a good book now, rather than a better book byparentage, the first captivation of the public by the demand, has not permitted himself the necesThe birth, the and-by. And Dr. Mackenzie, writing to supply "Pickwick," the order in which the subsequent sary time to collect his material or to arrange stories followed each other, their literary quali- what he had collected. His whole book, begun, ties and characteristics; in all this there is no- it is said, on the 14th of June, was finished on thing with which the newspapers have not already the 23d of July. But though it is probable that familiarized us. Of the great novelist s interior some more elaborate and thoroughly digested life and character, of what he was in his family biography will supplant his work in the future, it and with his children, what in society and in is certain that for the present want there is no religious conviction and association, what not biography more entertaining, and probably none merely as an author, but as a man, it tells us more accurate, than that which Dr. Shelton Macbut little. Of that unfortunate but still inex- kenzie has given to the American public. plicable separation between himself and his wife it gives us really no information, except the scanty and unsatisfying information afforded long since by Charles Dickens's public card. the novelist, as a novelist, of his habits of mind But of and methods of composition, of the current criticism of his day, of the praise and blame which his succeeding works provoked from the critics and the public, and especially of the sources from which Dickens obtained his power, Dr. Mackenzie tells us a good deal. One secret of Dickens's success lay, doubtless, in the fact that he made real characters sit for the portraits which he drew, albeit he idealized them in the draw-oped important changes in the administration of ing. This we knew before; but we did not know how to detect the originals beneath the disguise. This, in the most entertaining chapter of the book, Dr. Mackenzie explains to us. was a coachman who used to drive between LonTony Weller don and Portsmouth. Tracy Tupman-a certain Mr. Winters-was a well-known habitué of Hyde Park. The "fat boy" existed in veritable flesh and blood, the servant of a gatekeeper in Essex, between London and Chelmsford. Mrs. Ann Ellis, who kept an eating-house in Doctors' Commons, sat for the portrait of Mrs. Bardell. Mr. Justice Stareleigh was hardly a caricature of Sir Stephen Gaselee. publication of "Oliver Twist," with its sharply The cut portraiture of Mr. Fang, police magistrate, resulted in the removal of A. S. Laing, Esq., from the office which, by his brutality, he disgraced, and from which no previous pressure had sufficed to eject him. All the world knew that the Cheeryble Brothers were the shadows of the brothers Grant, cotton spinners and calico printers near Manchester; but it is a new revelation that the characteristics of Mrs. John Dick-cite his criticism. ens, Charles's mother, are unmistakable in good, poor, doting, foolish Mrs. Nickleby; while traits less amiable, yet that awaken a friendly feeling more akin to pity than contempt, in Micawber and in Turveydrop, were borrowed from his father, who struggled throughout life in perpetual financial difficulty like the one, but, like the other, never failed to maintain the dignity of his probably it may abound in valuable prescripDoubtless it has its good points, deportment. Mr. Bucket, the detective, passes tions, though we apprehend a government that for Inspector Field, under whose protecting escort could bear them all would need a naturally fine the great author made more than one tour of the constitution of its own at the outset. wretched regions he so graphically described. ially invite those who think the American govThe rascally but accomplished Mr. Julius Slink-ernments are in a sick and dying condition, who We cordton, whose crimes in "Hunted Down" surpass belief, is the exact fac-simile of Thomas Griffiths Wainwright, the story of whose incredible crimes, penned by Mr. Dickens himself, forms one of the papers which help to swell Dr. Mackenzie's volume to its goodly size of four hundred and eighty-four pages. Dr. Mackenzie has not altogether done himself justice. The public demand the States. The view of the workings of our with suggestions of evils and remedies; and apprehend a congestion in the Treasury, or general inflammation under the income tax, or boils and tumors in the unreconstructed States, or marasmus among the office-seekers, or general prostration in the army and navy, to "read up" Dr. Seaman's remedies. But, for our own part, we think more favorably of the American government than our author does. We consider the administration of government in the United | pincott's edition of the "Ancient Classics for States to be, at the present day, in pretty fair English Readers." case. The patient has been through a severe illness, has had a rub for his life, but is now fully convalescent, and in a fair way to be discharged cured, without requiring new treatment. It may be necessary to keep the extremities in hot water a short time longer, and to maintain a judicious course of bleeding for a couple of years yet, and, possibly, though we doubt it, to sustain the constitution by a few fresh provisions. But, upon the whole, the American patient is doing well. or novel presentation of the teachings of the great apostle. It is a useful without being a pre-eminent book. DE PRESSENSE, following close upon the track of Renan, continues his history of Christianity by a volume on the Apostolic Era (C. Scribner and Co.). We have read it with some disappointment. Indeed, nearly all that Pressensé writes impresses the reader as being the work of a man who could produce something far better if he were to write with greater thought and more painstaking. This volume is less brilliant in description than Renan's kindred work on St. Paul, less rich in classic lore than the work of HAVING made personal trial of Harper's Hand- Conybeare and Howson, less transfused with poBook for Travelers in Europe and the East (Har-etic sentiment than the author's previous volume per and Brothers), we speak whereof we do know on "The Life and Times of Jesus Christ," and when we say that no man should essay the tour is not characterized by any original conception of Europe without it. Of course he will add, abroad, guide-books of special localities. But for a volume to give him the outline of the whole field there is nothing to equal it published either in this country or in England. Mr. FETRIDGE, the author, resides abroad, and makes it his business to keep himself acquainted with those constantly occurring changes which so greatly affect the traveler, and so speedily render the ordinary guide-book out of date. The present is the ninth annual edition of "Harper's Hand-Book," and is greatly improved, not only by material additions and corrections, but yet more by admirable maps of nearly all the principal European cities. In truth, one might take this volume, and, without going out of his house, acquire by its study during the long winter evenings a better knowledge of Europe than many tourists do in their three months' mad gallop over its chief lines of travel. What need we say of Mr. BEECHER'S Sermons more than that J. B. Ford and Co. issue a third volume of them? These sermons are taken down just as they fall from his lips, and are published without revision and without selection. Greater care would give a volume less open to criticism, but this method does just what it purports to do-opens the doors of Plymouth Church to thousands who can never sit within the sound of the great preacher's voice. There are many sermons that are greater in particular qualities than Mr. Beecher's, but none that are more characteristically helpful to every kind of soul want. The Three Brothers, by Mrs. OLIPHANT (D. Appleton and Co.), is a thoroughly original story in its construction, and very natural, though We have reserved our notice of Lippincott's not strikingly powerful, in its characters and its series of Ancient Classics for English Readers incidents. It is composed of three stories, woven until we should have more than one volume by into one strand, of the brothers Renton, thrown which to judge of them. Four volumes are now upon their own resources by their father's singubefore us-Herodotus, Cæsar, the Iliad, and the lar will, and struggling up to manhood in differOdyssey. Of these the two latter are by the edi-ent quarters of the globe and with diverse expetor, Rev. W. LUCAS COLLINS; the two former riences, each with his own battle to fight and his are by GEORGE C. SWAYNE and ANTHONY TROL-own heart problem to work out in love's school. LOPE, respectively. The idea is an admirable There is no intense villain, there are no hairone. It is to give to English readers, and in a breadth escapes or thrilling adventures. It is small compass-the volumes are about 175 pages the farthest possible remove from the sensationeach-an adequate idea, for the purpose of gen-al; a tale, it might be a true tale, of English life. eral information, of the great writers of antiquity. The books are not criticisms; they are not translations; they are not abridgments; they are a curious combination of the three. Let us take the Odyssey for example. In successive chapters, answering to the successive books of the poet, the editor gives an account of the adventures of Ulysses. He intersperses translations, from various authors, of the more striking passages. He adds hints of criticism, and suggestions of the various schools of interpretation. One may read the book through, lazily, in an afternoon. To a large proportion of readers it will afford a better conception of the poet than they could get from any translation, or even from the exercises in grammar and scanning through which most college students are put, under the shallow pretense that they are studying Homer. To any of our readers who want to know something about the classic authors of antiquity, but have not the time to master them in their original tongues, nor the inclination to read the translations, which are so often only travesties, we recommend Lip We cordially commend it as a healthful and entertaining story.-Just the opposite kind of story, powerfully written in its way (which, however, we do not think is a very good way), is Veronica, by the author of "Mabel's Progress" (Harper and Brothers). Veronica is a proud, vain, and unwomanly girl, who has nothing but her beauty to render her attractive, except as her wretched life and miserable death awaken at last our sympathies for one whose life and character are a sore trial to our patience. The moral is very evident; but whether it is worth while to read the story of so much vice to get, at the end, so slight a lesson of virtue, is questionable.-There is no very ostensible moral to make or mar the interest of A Dangerous Guest (Harper and Brothers), which is the rather attractive title of a very entertaining novel, the “ dangerous guest" being a charming young French girl, and the danger a wedding, which, despite the guardian care of some officious intermeddlers, is consummated at the end of the story. The experiences of the French family in England are |