let him enter the portal of the Church, or hear, as I do now, the voice of the minister of the Gospel, and he is present with his own, though alps and oceans may sever them asunder. There is one spot where the pilgrim may always find his home. We are all one people when we come before the altar of the Lord.'

"Such is the spirit in which the Sights and Thoughts are written, and the author solicits a similar condition of mind in his reader. A few years back it would have been difficult to anticipate the publication of such a volume; even in a Catholic tourist, the idea would have required no ordinary hardihood; and perhaps it would not be easy to find a less equivocal evidence of the complete revolution of opinion which has taken place than the phenomenon of an Anglican clergyman, a refined and accomplished scholar, assuming, with affectionate reverence, the character of a pilgrim of the once deemed 'dark' ages, and journeying forth in this spirit and temper, through the kingdoms of modern Europe; where modern wants have clouded the bright past,' sorrowfully comparing what is now, with his recollection of what has passed away; and 'thinking such thoughts as he thought, where places remain unaltered!'"'

Our readers will not fail to recollect Mr. Faber's visionary companion, his "Man of the Middle Ages," with whom he occasionally enters into familiar discussion, sometimes, it may be presumed, with a view of relieving his readers from the formality of a theological disquisition, but more frequently for the purpose of bringing out opinions with a greater degree of frankness than he would venture to express in his own person, the present position of his party considered. Among those confabulations with the "Stranger," is a dialogue on the expediency of the revival of the monastic institute in England. It is appropriately held in the beautiful Armenian convent of San Lazzaro, in Venice. The Stranger speaks :

"Ten years ago it would have been thought in your country the wildest dream to suppose that any wish should ever be entertained by members of the English

Church for the revival of monasteries; and now you see men, wide as the poles asunder in doctrine and habits of thought, uniting in a desire for religious orders, both of men and women; and boldly making that desire public. There is an instance of what I mean by the resurrection of opinions: I call it a resurrection rather than a revival, because it is a more religious word, and more truly expresses my meaning. The theories of the schools revive; the pious opinions of the Church are raised out of their tombs."

"And do you," I inquired, "think it would be well for us to have monasteries among us?""

"Undoubtedly," said he.

"But," replied I, "there is so much involved in such a step, that I should wish to learn more from you about it. I put aside all questions about vows and the like, as details quite unimportant, and easily arranged, when the more important preliminaries are settled. But does not the history of the Church show that these orders have been failures, and, in process of time, have become fountains of corruption? For instance, we find that at the end of the tenth century, a reformation of them became needful; and in the thirteenth again, their corruption was so great that a considerable reorganization of them was made; and once more, at the beginning of the sixteenth, the life was found in a great measure to have departed out of them."

"That," said he, "is an exaggeration. The order of St. Ignatius was certainly a striking modification of the old monastic principle, but neither life, energy, nor utility had passed away from the Dominicans. Still, let us see what there is in your objection. Monastic orders were failures, because they grew corrupt. Well; so was primitive Christianity then. It is a word somewhat overventuresome; yet, in your sense, Christianity itself has been a failure. Of course it has done much for the world in the way of civilization and general beneficent influence; yet how very little does it appear to have done, compared with what it claimed to do. How much less has it improved the world at large. No, my friend,

in these days, when you are given to argue in generals so much, it is important you should remember, whenever you approach Church subjects, that God's providences are thwarted by man's sin, and the merciful intentions of heaven fall short of the mark at which they are aimed. There seems, if we may so say it, to be a mysterious waste of mercy in God's dispensations, like his gracious rain, falling in torrents on the deserts of Africa. Yet, as here and there a knot of palms, or a little rushy oasis round a spring, receive the rain and are enlivened by it, so, in the world of man, does the Almighty Father seem to frame his dispensations of grace for all, the reprobate as well as the elect, and be content that they should find here and there the single souls, the few palms of the desert whom they will lead to salvation. At any rate I see nothing in the general objection that monastic orders have been failures, which will not equally apply to Christianity itself. But, after all, in what sense have they been failures? Date the commencement of monasticism when you will, whether among the recluses of the Thebaid wild, before the Nicene council, or with the rule of St. Basil after it, it was not till the tenth century that they grew so corrupt as to call for the interference of the Church. A space is left of at least six centuries. Now can Catholic doctrine-the Catholic doctrine of the trinity and incarnation say so much? Are not six centuries quite a duration for any thing religious, in a world which turns spirit into matter, and commutes the fine gold into dross so rapidly; a singular duration, I say, for any thing but the visible Church, whose existence is supernaturally secured by her gift of indefectibility? Your next epoch, it is true, is shorter,-somewhat short of two centuries and a half. But then the times were farther removed from primitive purity and strictness, and, consequently, the progress of corruption was more rapid. They were also trying times. It was during that interval that the Church saw fit to take up a very different position from the one she had previously occupied. She was casting herself into a new mould, that of the popedom, and many perils were

naturally attendant upon so extensive a change. Yet it was much for the orders to serve the Church's need for two centuries and a half. Your third epoch is from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century. This was the time of the mendicant orders; and it is scarcely possible to exaggerate the advantage they were of to the Church at first, though they soon degenerated. And as to the modification of the monastic principle, embodied in the order of the Jesuits, you have only to look on the consistent encroachment which Rome has made on the stronghold of Protestantism ever since, in order to understand and estimate the extent of service performed by that order for the holy see. I cannot, therefore, agree with you that religious orders have been failures. On the contrary, a revival of the monastic spirit seems to be one feature in every crisis of the Church, and to bear fruit abundantly."

"But," said I, "the Roman Church herself seems, from time to time, to have regarded the orders with doubt and jealousy."

"Of course," he replied; " she knew their tremendous power, and the great importance of being always able to guide and overrule their movements. The fourth Lateran council, early in the thirteenth century, forbade any new orders, as leading by their multiplicity to confusion; and this was enforced again by the council of Lyons; the Pope alone having power to dispense with this rule. And yet, although a multiplicity of orders would lead to confusion in the Church, there is something very sublime in the idea which religious orders embody. It seems as if the whole mystical body, the Church, penetrated with a deep sense of her various offices towards the world, mortified intercession, illustrated poverty, ministrations to the sick, patronage of the poor, preaching in rude districts, literary labors, burial of the dead, teaching of ascetic penance, and the like, detached off from her centre, various small communities, each specially devoted to some one or more of these offices. They were as legates from her side, representing her in foreign places; and then the principle of obedience to the visible head of the Church circulated among them, encompassing and

embracing them all, and maintaining still the great unity. The Church spoke with many voices, and yet remained one. Each order was a voice, speaking a particular tongue. It was like a mystical Whitsun miracle; and as the life flowed into them from Peter's chair, so to Peter's chair it flowed back again, to be re-inforced and purified. The various unity of the Church Catholic has never been so magnificently represented to the world as by the religious orders."

"But," said I, "is there not some danger of creating a Church within a Church? In looking at the history of the middle ages we see two Churches, not one Church: the monastic Church, and the secular Church."

"Allow me," replied he, "to put a more accurate expression into your mouth,—the monastic clergy and the secular clergy."

"Well," said I, "at any rate there were two elements in the Church in perpetual conflict; and might not that danger be incurred again?"

"You seem to speak," said he, "not very modestly; as if there were no monastic orders in the Church now. You forget that the greatest part of Christendom, east and west, is full of them; and that in this, as in some other things, your own particular Church has not feared to make a very marked distinction between herself and the rest of the Catholic body. However, what you say is very true. .. What, then," I continued," are the advantages which you would anticipate from a revival of monastic orders among the English?"

....

"Why," replied he, my last words will lead you to one of them. I think they would form a safety valve for much to escape that now condenses into dissent. You are a Church without penances, the first the world has ever seen; and there are many penitents whose ill-instructed enthusiasm, in itself laudable, leads them to show openly, by some strong step, and by taking up some obviously new position, their horror of the state of sin from which they are emerging. They become dissenters. And however ignorant they may be, however sad the consequences to themselves, I do not think there is in your Church sufficient

provision for such men; and they are probably not few. Almost any modification of monastic orders would meet this. Again, you have a great deal of zeal for teaching, and visiting, and being actively useful in a Christian way. Such a zeal, however illmannered its bearing may be at times, is surely not culpable. And now, it either separates off from the Church, or thwarts the clergy. To make such persons subordinate clergy, would probably secularise the clergy; and besides that, the case of pious, zealous women would not be provided for. Monastic orders would satisfy this want fully. Indeed, the principle of obedience, developed in its very strongest way, is the life of monasticism; and religious orders would, with God's blessing, be very likely to create that principle among you. This of itself would go far to kill dissent. Men would be monks who now are field preachers. Men would seek to satisfy the cravings of penitent zeal in the strict submission of a monastery, who now seek to do some great things for the Lord in the wild and impure sect of the Independents. How wonderfully has the Roman Church ever embraced and contained in unity every heterogeneous religious element! The monastic orders alone explain this."

"Another advantage would be an ability to cope with the immense manufacturing population of your country. I see no other means by which you can cope with it as a Church should. Picture to yourself the huge moral wilderness of countless souls, who throng the earth around the English factories. What spiritual lever do you apply to these masses of corrupt, yet energetic life? In each district two or three churches, with perhaps four priests, men of soft habits, elegant manners, and refined education. This forms what is called the English Church in the manufacturing district. Surely it is unnecessary to point out the absurd inadequacy, or genteel feebleness, call it which you please, of such a moving power. But set down one or two ecclesiastical factories amongst them in the shape of monasteries; combine in them much of the single, rude energy which now evapo

rates in Chartism or dissent, and you will soon see a very different state of things indeed. Transplant the monastery of Camaldula from the bleak Appenine frontier of Romagna, with its cenobites and hermits; let there be an incessant round of prayer, preaching, education,-roughly, in season and out of season; send the poor monks out among the poor from whom they have been taken, interfere for the weak against the oppressor, let charity and sympathetic watchfulness, which is even more prized than almsgiving, run over exuberantly, and be flowing night and day from the gates of the monastery."

"Ah!" said I," did you but know England, you would see what a dream you are dreaming!"

"A dream, young man," he answered sternly; " am I then to believe what I have been told on many sides, that your Church is but a dream and your Churchmen dreamers, with an unrealised theology, not a branch of the Catholic vine, true, healthy, strong, vigorous, growing, pliable, gifted, tangible, substantial? What! cannot it adapt itself by great turnings and bold measures to altered circumstances? Has its political establishment crippled its powers? Ah! have you not, perchance, made an illuminated transparency, a soothing sight for quiet times, and set before it so long and so complacently, that you now venture to call it a Catholic Church?"

I hid my face in my hands and after a while I said, "What have I done? You have never spoken to me in this way before. How have I made you angry?"

"You put forward," replied he, "the highest possible claims for your Church, often in a tone of pharisaical self-conceit," &c.

acts or Tridentine documents; so neither are you to be esteemed according to a ritual discountenanced and neglected, or by doctrines at best only permitted, and put down when that can be done decently. The measure ye mete to Rome shall now be meted to yourselves better had it been for you, that ye had meted that measure more mercifully."

In another place the stranger is made to rebuke the Church of England in the following strong language.

"Measure your attainments in holiness with the ritual of your Church, and you will find that you have been far from filling out her system, far from equalling her eminence, far from acting out her customs, far from reflecting her full light. Humble yourself and acquiesce. I speak not in severity; but look how you live and act be fore the misbelievers, and then confess yourselves to be dogs unmeet to receive the crumbs that fall from the Master's table. Does it not even seem like a merciful providence that your ritual is not only what it is, considering what your lives are? and furthermore, I put it to you to reflect whether this craving for the beauty of holiness, when you are wanting in the severity of holiness, does not arise from a very disobedient, restless, and unhallowed temper of mind; whether it does not betray a want of humility, of self-knowledge, of affection, of singlehearted zeal and dutifulness; whether it does not betoken rather a love of excitement than of asceticism; and lastly whether circumstances considered, it is not (I speak deliberately) a most awful tempting of Providence."

"It grows late," said he, "and the gondola is waiting. Let us enter. I will there finish what I have to say about religious orders." We glided for a little way quietly over the water, when he resumed: "a third advantage, which I think would arise from such orders among you, does not require many words, and yet it is of considerable importance. They would strengthen the hands of your bishops. . . . Monasteries, utterly and in all respects, and without appeal beneath their control and real visitation, would increase their moral might in the

diocess immensely. They would, by numbers and example control the secular clergy in the exercise of that far too wide freedom conferred upon them by the laws of the land; they would present a perfect company of priests, evangelists, and other laborers ready to go here or there at all hours, and supply chance wants, and those intervals so common in your Church between the growth of a population and the satisfying of its wants,-intervals which schism exhibits an instructive adroitness in occupying. In short religious orders would do for your bishops as much as they did for the Pope, in extending and realizing their government of the clergy."

"But," he added, " you are perhaps not ripe for this. Indeed, there is a cloud over you just now, which, if it fall in hail, rather than fertilizing rain, will blight your expected harvest. I fear me it is charged with something heavier than summer rain. There is, however, an approximation to monastic orders, which is easy of adoption any where, and among poor clergy and a dense population of the utmost service: I mean the cenobitical life of the secular clergy. Four or five, or six or seven, of any unmarried priests, might, by hiring one house, make very small stipends go a great way, and edify each other very much by piety of life and due observance of the rites of the Church. A few bye-laws made by themselves, with the sanction of their bishop, might give somewhat of a collegiate mould to their lives, which would tend to strictness of life, and increase their spiritual influence. The little time left by parochial duties for theological studies might be made the most of by one priest taking one question in hand, and another another. This is that cenobitical life of the secular clergy, of which St. Eusebius of Vercelli is said to be the author; and it was organized and shaped anew by St. Chrodegang of Metz, in the seventh century; and, if my memory does not fail me, it was recommended and enforced by several provincial and diocesan synods from time to time."

In speaking of the accusations brought by the "Man of the Middle Ages," against the Church of England in the above extract,

the Dublin Review has the following just remarks: "It were well, however, if this were all, and if no more grievous impeachment could be preferred against the Anglican Church. But may she not, even on the showing of the Tractarians themselves, be convicted of what they, and all who seek even the shadow of Catholic principles, must regard as a direct and palpable suppression of the truths which they cherish as the very essence of Catholic belief? Has she not, in her articles, hidden and buried these precious truths under forms of words, not only equivocal and indecisive,' but so directly conveying the opposite meaning, that it is only by a process of ingenious torture, which all must deem unnatural, and which the Anti-Tractarians do not scruple to call dishonest, that they can be twisted even into the merest toleration of them? It is not alone that the truth is not professed; it is impossible not to see that it is studiously and wilfully concealed. How few are there who can detect it under the bald and barren phraseology of the articles? Nay, how few to whom they do not produce the effect, not merely of a suppressio veri, but of a plain and irresistible suggestio falsi? Who, for example, is not irresistibly impelled by the tone and tenor of the thirty-first article, to reject altogether the life-giving sacrifice of the altar? Who can persuade himself that it is not intended to exclude altogether every idea of an "offering of Christ for the quick and the dead?" Mr. Faber deals tenderly with this article, when he merely accuses it of "clouding the sacrifice of the altar." Surely it not only clouds, but obliterates every trace of its existence; and surely it is too mild a character of such teaching, to say, that it is "equivocal and indecisive." Can we doubt that it is "decisive upon the wrong side?" And, if we regard such doctrines as forming part of the great deposit of Catholic truth, can we hesitate to pronounce this cowardly and culpable suppression of them, a "detaining of the truth of God in injustice?"

To entertain oneself, therefore, with the idea of such an authority, is but to trifle with an imposing name. May it not well be suspected that the Catholic movement