It were well, however, if among the allies of the Revolution were found none but enemies of the Papacy; but the misfortune is, whether wittingly or unwittingly, Catholics are found who are the advocates of a false subversive liberalism, and the apologists for the destruction of the temporal power of the Popes. Either from want of confilence or want of hope, they surrender at discretion, rights which ought to have been upheld to the last. There is a wide distinction between acknowledging facts which are disagreeable and disheartening about the temporal dominions of the Pope, and drawing from these present facts conclusions hostile to the future permanence of the Papal Power, or against its necessity or the wisdom of the struggle in its defence. These doubtful friends are more mischievous than enemies; they obtain a hearing which they do not deserve, and which, in the present state of Europe, is denied to the advocates of legitimacy, of real freedom, and of the rights of the Papal throne.

If not among the unwilling enemies, Dr. Döllinger must be reckoned at least among the doubtful fainthearted friends of the Papacy. It is but fair, however to the learned professor of Munich to state that he is said to be engaged in preparing a vindication against the imputations which have been cast, to say the least, upon his discretion, by the almost unanimous opinion of the Catholic press of Europe. He complains that his views have been misinterpreted by the newspapers of France and Italy to promote a cause with which he has no sympathy. But Dr. Döllinger has only himself to blame; he had no business to give out an uncertain sound, or even to appear to cast doubts upon the wisdom of the course which the Papacy is pursuing under the present eventful crisis of its history. And why then, if he feel so deeply the injury which his inconsiderate lectures are doing to the Papal cause, allow so

Bonaparte against the Papal Sovereignty, said: "It is one of the most atrocious crimes which has ever disgraced a revolution. This insult offered to a pious and venerable Pontiff, seems to me, Protestant as I am, almost a sacrilege."-Hausard's Parliamentary History, vol. xxxiv., pp. 1316, 1338. These remarks extorted from Mr. Gladstone a denial that the term sanguinary ever passed his lips, and that he had not used mendicant in an offensive sense, and that it was far from his intention to say anything calculated to wound the respect which was due to the Sovereign Pontiff,

long a period to elapse before he disclaims in an effectual manner, the interpretation put upon his views? In a few weeks he will be forgotten; but the statement, or the mis. statement, if he likes, will remain in the public mind that a stone from a Catholic hand has been cast at the Papacy. Not the ignoble diplomacy of England, not the unreasoning hatred of a portion of the people against the Catholic Church, not the perverted judgment, nor the deliberate falsehood of the English press, is half so injurious, or half so disgraceful as the disloyalty of Catholics. "There is something," says Father Faber, in his profound and inspiring discourse on Devotion to the Church, "there is something very horrible in a Catholic's disloyalty to the Church; but there is surely a peculiar horror about it in a misbelieving land." His solemn warning is not out of season. The Papacy is undergoing a sharp trial, its enemies are numerous and triumphant; and for the first time misgiving and symptoms of wavering are perceptible here and there in the Catholic body. "We must beware then," says Father Faber, "of dangers from within, we must be on our guard even against Catholic books, periodicals, journals, and pamphlets, however specious they may be." With a truth and wisdom for which we ought to be grateful, he counsels Catholics against the dangers of a false political and religious liberalism.

"There are times," he says, "in the world when wrong opinions may be as prolific a source of the loss of souls, as wrong conduct may be at other times. To seek the truth, and to hold the truth, to seek it in lowliness, and to hold it in obedience, are as much moral obligations as honesty and chastity. We are apt to forget this, because, through want of prayer, we have such inadequate and indistinct notions of the dominion of God. Thus it is that we allow questions that are part of our piety and matters of our salvation, to be carried off into the field of history, of criticism, of philosophy, or of politics. These undoubted sins get new names, and not only escape our recognition; but craftily obtain our respect and even our allegiance. No one likes to say that he is not liberal. Most men have not the courage to incur such a charge. Yet what is that spirit which modern phraseology honours with the title of liberalism, but the old sin of lawlessness, tempered fortunately for our powers of endurance, with a sort of baseness peculiarly its own? Revolution may mean one thing in history and in political philosophy; but in asceticism it means now what it meant in old

fashioned times, and what it will always mean to saints, simply and undignifiedly, a mortal sin!"

If this mortal sin, this spirit of lawlessness, succeed in striking its roots deep into the heart of Italy, and in darkening by its corruption and pride the judgment of men, it is not difficult to foresee how this Godless revolution may end in driving the Papacy to the Catacombs, in leading it to the Cross again, as the great Pagan persecution did St. Peter; but it will surely fail, not only in its desire to exterminate a Divine Institution, but in its attempt to alter the Providential shaping of the Temporal Papacy. Even the dark and devilish craft of the arch-hypocrite of the Tuilleries will be of no avail in the long-run against a Power which has beaten back an Attila, baffled a Henry, or a Frederick of Germany, and survived in our generation the fierce and arrogant hostility of him whose legions for a time spread dismay and desolation over the Continent of Europe. And in spite of the present state of public opinion in Italy, which has inspired Dr. Döllinger with such misgiving as to the possibility of the complete restoration of the temporal power of the Popes-in spite of the singular success which has hitherto attended the programme sketched out by the hand of the Emperor of the French-in spite of that policy whose aim it is to limit the Sovereignty of the Supreme Pontiff to the single city of Rome, and to make the Head of Christendom a grand Dependant of the monarchy of France-in spite of the vehemence of its enemies and the supineness of its friends, there is no doubt of the ultimate triumph of that power whose losses have been ever gains, and to which persecution always brings fresh access of glory.

With Dr. Döllinger we recognize indeed the melancholy fact that a large portion of the Roman States themselves cherish a rooted aversion against the Papal government, and that no conservative majority rallied round the Papal throne, and that the government itself could reckon with confidence on no class of the popu

* Le Pape, trônant à Rome et Siègeant au Vatican est ce qui grappe le monde. On aperçoit à peine le souverain des etats Romains. Quant à cette possession elle-même, la ville de Rome en résume surtout l'importance. Le reste n'est que sécondaire.— Le Pope et le Congres.

lation, could form no native army, and that in the hour of danger and attack not a hand was raised in defence of the temporal rights of the Pope. We acknowledge that nowhere more than in Italy is the national ambition greater-nowhere keener the vain-glorious desire to count among the Great Powers of Europe. We confess that, not only the public feeling of Italy, but the spirit of the age is opposed to the Papal Sovereignty. But against the spirit of the age we oppose the Spirit of God--the Guardian and Guide of the Papacy until the consummation of time-against the idea of nationality and the passion of the hour-the eternal principles of justice, and against the political and accomplished facts of the day we oppose this other great fact of the development by the Hand of God, through the course of ages, of the Temporal Power of the Popes.

ART. VII.—The Law of Divorce.-A Tale by a Graduate of Oxford. London: T. Coutley Newby, Publisher, Welbeck Street, Cavendish Square. 1861.

CAV

AVOUR and the Italian Revolution, Sir Cresswell Cresswell and the Divorce Court, are subjects uppermost at the present moment, in the popular mind; foreign political troubles and domestic social grievances are accordingly the staple commodities most in request by the reading public. Our novelists are not usually slow in pampering the prevailing appetite, but seldom do they venture to adopt as their theme a popular topic and depict it in a light unpleasing to the majority of the educated public. Such a course requires honesty and courage. We trust, however, that the author of "The Law of Divorce" will meet very many among his readers who will coincide with his views on the miseries and sins which are likely to result from the late Act of Parliament, whereby the dissolution of marriage is made easy by law. The plot of the tale consists in the complications of a novel and startling

character, arising from a divorce, from a hasty marriage of resentment on the part of the injured husband, his speedy regret for his ill-considered step, and a desire to receive back his repentant and divorced wife, coupled with a conscience awakened to the immorality of his second marriage. The interest is instantly fixed on the conflicting claims set up by the divine precept and the human law. The difficult position and the vacillating conduct of the hero, Roland Elsmere, is well and skilfully portrayed, and the real repentance and broken-hearted love of the wife are powerfully shown by her letters to her husband, and by the correctness of her behaviour. The novel opens, not with love, its disappointments and delays, nor with marriage, and its many motives, but with divorce. The letters of Harriet Elsmere, full of shame and poignant grief, like the chorus in the Greek tragedy, answer the purpose of introducing the darker portion of her history, which is thus skilfully removed beyond our immediate cognizance. Our first acquaintance with the guilty wife is in sorrow and suffering, borne with a patient meekness which enlists at once our interest and sympathy. There is no delay in the action of the story, the personages are natural and well grouped. In her sister Lizzy Monteagles, Harriet Elsmere finds a faithful and forgiving friend, a prompt and intelligent adviser under circumstances of no ordinary difficulty.

The second wife, a fine and fashionable woman, trained in all the arts and accomplishments calculated to enhance her value in the Belgravian Marriage Mart, overwhelms her conscience-stricken or passion-led husband with the bitterest invective, and pursues him with the resolute determination of maintaining rights, secured to her by the laws of her country. In the name of society, of worldly honour, and of the law, Catherine, the second wife, denounces with defiance and with the indignation which is natural to her unfortunate position the avowed desire of Roland Elsmere to return to his first wife. In vain he pleads the Divine Precept, too late understood, and the unaltered love with which he regards the mother of his children. Catherine is inexorable, she ridicules with a bitter mocking lip the repentance of Harriet, and threatens Roland-the awkward husband of two wives-with all the public terrors and stringent measures of law if he should attempt to forsake her whom alone the law of England: recognises as his wife. Fearful of incurring the displea