pamphlet, we will undertake to answer for him in the negative. There is no such dignitary-no such Church, judicially known to the constitution. From the days of Matthew Parker and the Nag's Head Tavern, to our days, they have not been seen amongst us. Their very existence is sometimes doubted. It is only known that the age in which they flourished was, likewise, that of monkery-an age of superstition and fable!

In truth, the only instances, cited by Mr. Urquhart, in which the Church of England appears to have done her duty to the State, are borrowed from Catholic times. When the Church of England existed, —that is, when she was Catholic-such instances were familiar enough. "If we apply ourselves," he says, "to clearing away the encumbrances of latter times, we can have no difficulty in finding them, and no doubt in judging them." (p. 9.) And, accordingly, it is to Catholic times and Catholic examples, that he invites the reluctant attention of the Protestant bishop, to whom his work is dedicated. He has the sense to see, that the men of the new learning, incompetent to improve upon those models, have done their best to forget them. From none of the Pro

testants, indeed, does he seem to expect much amendment in this respect. The Puseyite party he has tried, and found light in the balance. Between these and the subtle Greek Theosophists, of the latter days of the eastern empire, he traces, with much ability and soundness, a strong and strange resemblance. In these days, as in those, the cup of the wickedness and danger, into which an apostate Church has plunged both state and people, is being filled by the ascetic ambition of that Church to place itself above the ruined State, repudiating, at the same time, the duty of censorship, which the Holy See always exercised, over State affairs. In the latter respect, both Constantinople and Lambeth present a strong family-likeness to the rigid dogmatising asceticism of the Puritans: in the former, they preserve, but faintly, the impress of the ecclesiastical spirit of the See, whose authority they renounced. Applied to by the friends of humanity and justice, to examine and denounce the crimes that have made our name a hissing and reproach among the nations, they have whined about the wickedness of the times, which has merited such a retribution; adding," but with these things religion has nothing to do"!-an answer, that is strange in the mouth of any person of piety and learning; but how much more so, when they who utter it are themselves founders of a sect, that holds the Church, in its relation with the State, to be the point that culminates! We cannot blame Mr. Urquhart for the vivacity with which he judges these dreamy, fruitless speculators. To his unprejudiced eyes-(for, apparently, in

:

the wars of the Tractarians and Parkerites he feels not the smallest interest),-"this new sect presents the asceticism of Puritanism, without its freedom; and the despotism of Rome, without its intelligence." (p. 24.) When will these mistaken men derive wisdom from their past experience? They see their sect stricken with barrenness, like the unprofitable fig-tree by the way-side, which, at the same time, if they believe the promises, they know that those who abide in the Saviour should bear much fruit. It is strange that they cannot view these points in their combination. Either the promise of GOD is of none effect, or they abide not in Him at the present moment. They hold it sinful to serve a Protestant cause: and they are right. But then they should not continue to wear the livery, and enjoy the pay, of Protestant officebearers. They desire to further the reconciliation of England to the Holy See ;-a desire which, we are convinced, is most seriously felt by them but which, in their actual position, unless we take the will for the deed, it is out of their power to realise. They that gather not with Rome, scatter their seed abroad-and it perisheth. For all practical purposes, neither Mr. Urquhart, nor any other man, zealous for the resurrection of our country, has anything to hope from Puseyites, more than from Protestants: they are all bastard slips alike, and they shall not strike deep root downwards, nor shall they bear fruit upwards. Not one uncatholic voice has responded to his impassioned appeal. The grave is not more silent to the call of duty and chivalry, than is the heart of that nation which the cold blight of Erastianism has palsied. Piety indeed has denounced the national sin to national execration, and has warned those who reverence her precepts not to become sharers in it by their own acts, and to fly from the colours of the recruiting sergeant, as from the ensigns of the Tempter. But piety is essentially a Catholic virtue, and in her precepts error has no part. Those who have so admonished the faithful, are themselves of the faithful. The archbishop of Tuam and the Very Reverend Superior of the Irish Franciscans have but revived, in these evil days, the lessons which illustrious predecessors had inculcated in the ages of faith.

It is the remark of Grotius, that, throughout the Middle Ages, the ecclesiastical and other writers, who compiled the summaries or digests of cases of conscience, used to treat of the laws, duties, and reasons of just warfare. At the Reformation, observes Digby, these ancient guides were of course abandoned; and from that epoch men seemed to think their consciences but little concerned in military questions. With some of the faults of his age and sect, Grotius possessed a clear judgment and sound heart, and was among the first to denounce the mal

practices which the new learning had introduced. His book, in some measure a revival of the forgotten Catholic morality, was written, as he tells us, to stem the torrent of passion that was now beginning to flow in upon Europe. Through the Christian world, to use his own words, he saw a shameless license of making war; for trifling causes, or for none, men arming for battles, where they shewed no reverence of laws, human or divine, but furiously plunged into every kind of wickedness, as though by public authority. In the ages of faith, on the contrary, the declaration of the confessor of Charles V was universally felt to be true, that, between Christians, there could be no war, so far justified as not to leave ground for scruples. Nor was this sentiment restricted to Christian belligerents in the application. The strange assertion, unworthy of the man who uttered it, and of the noble assembly which admitted it to be true, that it has not been usual among the Mussulmans and the Hindus to observe the formalities required by the international laws of Christendom, and therefore England herself is, as against those infidels, emancipated from their obligation,-would have been scouted in the Middle Age with indignation and contempt. "GOD," says the Arbre des Batailles, in the reign of king Charles V of France, "GOD has made the goods of the earth for all human creatures indifferently, for the bad as well as the good. The sun is not hotter for one than for the other. The land of the miscreants produces as good corn as that of the Christians; and GOD has given them empires and kingdoms. But, if GOD has given them this, why should Christians deprive them of it?" The Crusades were no infringement of the maxim. They were undertaken, either for the recovery of Christian lands and redemption of Christian men oppressed by force, or for the invasion of the lands of such infidels, as were actually commencing aggressive measures against Christendom. But, in no case, were the ordinary laws of war set aside by the Crusaders, any more than by belligerents generally in the Middle Age. These maxims, very different from those urged by Lord Brougham in the Upper House, were publicly enforced before councils and senates. When Nicholas Uzano, in his place in the senate of Florence, spoke upon the question of the war with Lucca, he laid before his colleagues, not the miserable expediency of the war, but the need they had of political purity in that deliberation, the sinfulness of aggression for dominion's sake, the determination of their measures by the rule of God's will, the infamy of the disturbers of Christian peace, the sweetness of tranquillity. His speech against the war may be read in the ninth book of the "Mores Catholici," at the close of the ninth chapter.

Wars were then begun by a careful examination into the justice of their causes. It is now the fashion, to make a virtue of obedience, after the most approved modern style of virtue-making. The military oath, it is supposed, or pretended to be supposed, is a sufficient protection from the consequences of crimes done in deference to the commander. We once heard a young Catholic gentleman of military tastes assert, that, were he a soldier, he should think it his duty to slay his bishop, or his own parents, were he so commanded by his lawful superior. Disobedience, he argued, would, in such a case, be a heinous sin; obedience was always better than sacrifice. This is the true cant of Protestant ethics. The sense of duty is purposely obscured: old duties are obliterated; new ones conjured into existence ;-the stringency of true duty relaxed, by the multiplicity of pretended obligations. Let those who reason with the young Catholic gentleman before mentioned, open the Penitential of Raban Maur. Some homicides had endeavoured to justify their own acts, in a similar manner, as not being voluntary, because they were committed by order of their princes, and in conformity to the judgment of God. But," adds the Penitential, "they must consider, whether, in the eyes of God, they can be excused as innocent, who, through avarice, which is the root of all evils, and for the favour of their temporal lords, despised the Lord everlasting, and, disregarding His commandments, not by accident, but with full intention, committed murder." "If a man die in battle for the Church, or in any just war," according to the Prior who wrote 'L'Arbre des Batailles,' "and is not otherwise in mortal sin, he is saved. But, if it be in an unjust quarrel, he is in the way of damnation, and goes to hell." That it should be just, three things are required by St. Thomas; the supreme authority of the state, a good cause, and a right intention in the combatant. Were the cause ever so just, says Dionysius, that suffices not, unless there be charity and a right intention; viz: the common good, the Divine pleasure, and the hope of heavenly remuneration. Otherwise," he adds, the soldiers "would be in mortal sin." For this end he recommends them to go to confession before battle, with cordial contrition of heart, and then they may go securely to the fight. But even then, they must take care not to admit into their hearts, any hatred of those whom they meet there. They must not cease from the spiritual love of their enemies, whatever they may have done: otherwise, they will be fighting in mortal sin, and be eternally damned if they should be slain.*

*Mores Catholici, book ix. p. 289.

Thus

Henry III of England, amid his many wars with St. Louis, king of France, never broke in upon the brotherly love that reigned between these followers of the Gospel. So far from the successes of St. Louis exasperating his rival,-" in any other matter," says a historian, "not regarding the point in debate, St. Louis was the great friend and adviser to whom he applied himself." It is still the theory of English legists, that nations ought to do to one another, in time of peace, all the good they can, and, in time of war, as little harm as possible.* But in those days, it was also the practice of the nations. When William the Conqueror, says Orderic, lay before Chaumont in France with a great army, and endeavoured to take it by assault, the defenders "did not lose sight of the fear of the Lord, and the duties of humanity. They spared, with care and goodness, the persons of the assailants, and directed all the fury of their wrath against the horses of the enemy, whereof they killed above seven hundred; so that many knights, who had crossed the Epte gloriously, on foaming chargers, were obliged to return on foot with their king." At a conference with his enemy, Hélie, before the citadel of Mons, Gaultier, who defended that fortress, is recorded by the same writer to have told him: "We fear neither you nor your machines; we can hit you with our arrows and stones; because, being on this high tower, we are so much above you. But, through fear of God, and through friendship for you, we spare you.”+

We quote these examples, among a host of others collected in Mr. Digby's ninth book, as showing the tenacity with which the Catholic principle had possessed itself of the public mind. The same principle operated upon the sovereigns of Europé, to restrain them from engaging in any war that was not altogether inevitable. They remembered the beautiful maxim of St. Augustin, that peace should result from the will,-war only from necessity. To keep them in this safe path, they had a holy and enlightened Church ever present with them, for their admonition and control. When they strayed from it, (for even the Ages of Faith had their disturbers and unprincipled political chiefs), the voice of prelates and holy abbots was raised to warn them of their error, and seldom raised in vain. Thus, when king Louis VII had actually convoked his army to the field against the duke of Normandy, without the deliberation that should have preceded the awful appeal to the God of Battles,-the great ecclesiastic Suger, no less renowned for his sanctity of life than for his statesmanship, interposed with firmness, until he brought back his sovereign to sounder and better counsels.