word, I believe you are a Romish priest, perhaps even a Jesuit."

"If either, you must believe me able to keep my own counsel. It is enough at present for you to see in me plain Jack Milwood, your elder brother, who, may be, knows a great deal more about you than you do about him."

"I wish, John, you would give me the history of your life since you left home. It must be full of interest, and I should really like to hear it."

"Rather than exert all your wit and skill in defining Protestantism? But when we have disposed of Protestantism, perhaps,—but at present we must return to the question.'

"No, no, I insist on the life and adventures of John Milwood, eldest son of the late Jeremiah Milwood

"And brother of the distinguished James Milwood, the Reverend pastor of and chief of the Protestant League for the conversion of the pope and the suppression of popery, and who, when questioned, could not tell what he meant by Protestantism. No, no, brother, let us finish our definition of Protestantism first.”

"I have given you definitions enough and more than enough already, and you ought to be able to suit yourself with some one of them."

"But it is not what suits me, but what suits you. Which of these numerous definitions do you finally settle down upon?"

"Protestantism is what and only what is clearly and manifestly revealed."

"And what is that? Is it what you teach or what Mr. Silvertone teaches?"

"Mr. Silvertone is a Socinian."

"What then? Does he not believe all that is clearly and manifestly revealed?"

"No, he does not.'

"He says he does; and why am I to believe you rather than him?"

"Read and decide for yourself."

Then the word is what is clearly and manifestly revealed to me; but why what is clearly and manifestly revealed to me rather than to you, or to you rather than to Mr. Silvertone?"

"Mr. Silvertone, I tell you, is a Socinian, and denies what have always and everywhere been held to be the great fundamental doctrines of the Gospel."

"If you say that, you appeal to Catholic tradition. Is your rule of faith incomplete without Catholic tradition? But if you allege Catholic tradition against Mr. Silvertone, he alleges it against you; for the same tradition that condemns him condemns you. You cannot say he errs because he teaches what is repugnant to Catholic tradition, without condemning yourself and all Protestants."

"But the points on which he is condemned are fundamental points; those on which we are condemned, if we are condemned, are not fundamental."

"You forget Toby and his dog."

"No more of Toby and his dog."

"Honestly, brother, have so-called Protestants ever been able to agree as to what is clearly and manifestly revealed?" "In truth, they have not."

"And are as far from agreeing as ever?"

66

Apparently so."

"Then, in point of fact, they have never been able to agree among themselves as to what Protestantism really is?" "Such, it must be owned, is the fact."

"The great reason, then, why you have found it so difficult to tell me what it is, is that what it is has never yet been determined?”

"Possibly."

"Since I would rather relieve than aggravate your embarrassment, allow me to suggest that you define Protestantism to be what all who assert the sufficiency of the Scriptures, and maintain them to be the sole and sufficient rule of faith and practice, agree to accept as clearly and manifestly revealed. This would make agreement the test of clear and manifest, and then you can say the word is that which is clearly and manifestly revealed, and which nobody disputes, which never has been disputed, and is not likely to be disputed."

"There is, undoubtedly, a tendency among those commonly regarded as orthodox Protestants to say this, and several distinguished actors in the recent movement against Rome have proposed that we should say this and make it the basis of our alliance. It has, I own, some plausibility, and one would naturally say what is disputed cannot, while what is not disputed must, be clear and manifest. But though I am far from being a bigot, and would encourage the largest liberty compatible with essentially religious faith, I cannot accept your suggestion. It is the Socinian ground,

and would place all sects who profess to be Christians on the same level. The Unitarian, who denies the Holy Trinity and Incarnation, would be as orthodox as he who believes them; and the Universalist, who denies future rewards and punishments, would be as sound in the faith as they who believe the righteous will enter into life eternal, but the wicked will go away into everlasting punishment. Nor is this all. I am unable to find any distinctively Christian doctrines which all, who would in such a case be rallied under the Protestant banner, really agree in accepting; for I am not aware of a single one which some professed Protestant has not controverted. So, were we to adopt the suggestion, there would be no revealed truth which would not be abandoned as non-essential, and nothing above mere natural religion to be held to be essential."

"So the various Protestant sects, taken altogether, have denied the whole Gospel, and left nothing but mere natural religion undisputed.'

"Not even that, in fact, for German and American transcendentalists question essential portions of even natural religion."

"It is a hard case, brother, and I do not see that I can help you."

CHAPTER V.

PROTESTANT Controversialists are well hit off in Lessing's Fable of the Poodle and Greyhound. "How our race is degenerated in this country' said one day a far-travelled poodle to his friend the greyhound. In those distant regions which men call the Indies, there is still the genuine breed of hounds,-hounds, my brother, (you will not believe it, and yet I have seen it with my own eyes,) who do not fear to attack the lion and grapple with him.' 'Do they overcome him?' asked the prudent greyhound. Overcome him! Why as to that I cannot exactly say; but only think, a lion attacked! But,' continued the greyhound, if these boasted hounds of yours do not overcome the lion when they attack him, they are no better than we, but a great deal more stupid." Only think, the church attacked! Attack her boldly, with or without success, and you are sure of the admiration of all-the pooles.

When the infamous Danton was asked by what means the pitiable minority he headed were able to maintain their

Reign of Terror and paralyze the millions opposed to him, he answered," By audacity, audacity, AUDACITY." Protestant leaders understand very well the advantages of audacity, and that, if one is only bold and unprincipled enough to throw out grave charges against the purest and noblest cause which ever existed, he will not fail of multitudes to credit him. Groundless objections, if not susceptible of an easy or a popular refutation, are as much to their purpose as any. They serve to attack the lion, to put Catholics on their defence, and that is the same as a victory. A child may start an objection which the ablest and most learned divine cannot answer to the child. A very ordinary man may urge an objection to some article of faith which will demand, in him who is to receive the answer, as well as in him who is to give it, for its refutation, the most rare and extensive erudition, and familiarity with the deepest principles and nicest distinctions of scholastic theology and philosophy. No small part of the objections urged against the sacred mysteries of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Eucharistic Sacrifice, the Real Presence, and Transubstantiation, are objections which an ordinary mind may understand, but which it is impossible to answer to the general reader,-especially if the gener al reader be a Protestant. Such objections are exactly to the purpose of the Protestant controversialists, and gain them the applause of the poodles.

These controversialists it is not to be presumed are ignorant that all the objections of past and present times to the church have been refuted, and unanswerably refuted; but, from the nature of the case, they have, in numerous instances, been refuted only to the professional reader. The nature of the objection, though itself popular, precluded a popular reply. In all such cases, Protestant controversialists have only to deny that any reply has been given, or to assert that the one given is inconclusive, and they come off triumphant. This is their common practice. Nothing is more common than to meet, in Protestant controversial works, objections, which have been refuted a hundred times, reiterated without a hint that any reply has ever been even attempted, and urged in a tone of confidence, as if Catholics themselves conceded them to be unanswerable. The impudence of Protestant polemics in this respect is notorious and undeniable.

That this method of conducting a controversy, on matters in which no one has any real interest in being deceived or in

deceiving, is fair, honorable, or just, it is not presumed any Protestant is silly enough to pretend; but, filled with an inveterate hatred of the church, and having decided that it is the church of Antichrist, Protestant leaders, apparently, regard themselves at liberty to make use of any means for its overthrow which promise to be successful, and have no scruple in resorting to artifices which would shock the moral sense of an ordinary heathen. The Catholic writer who should give a faithful account of their nefarious conduct in their war on the church, would find it harder to sustain himself with his friends than against his enemies; and he would hardly fail to be condemned by his own communion as a calumniator. Their conduct is so foreign to all the habits and conceptions of a simple-minded, honest Catholic, that one needs to have been a Protestant a great part of his life to be able to conceive it possible for beings having the human form, and pretending to some respect for religion and morals, to be guilty of so wide a departure from all that is true, just, and honorable. Hence the great tenderness and forbearance with which Catholics usually treat Protestants, and the undeserved credit they are accustomed to give them for a partial degree, at least, of fairness and candor.

At first view, one is at a loss to account for the sudden rise and rapid spread of the Protestant rebellion in the sixteenth century. Knowing by infallible faith, that the church is of God, the immaculate spouse of the Lamb, and that she has truth, wisdom, justice, sanctity, reason, evidence, on her side, the Catholic is astonished at so singular a phenomenon; but as he penetrates deeper into that mystery of iniquity, and becomes familiar with the character of the rebel chiefs, and the means they adopted, his astonishment ceases, and his wonder is, not that the success was so great, but that it was not greater, that the revolt was so soon arrested and confined within limits that it has not as yet been able to overleap. He sees nothing marvellous in the success of these rebel chiefs, but he is struck with the manifest interposition of divine Providence to confound their language, to divide their counsels, to defeat their plans, to arrest their progress, to protect his church, to show his unfailing love for her, and to augment her power and glory. Protestantism, as relates to Europe, is actually confined within narrower limits than it was fifty years after the death of Luther, while the church has gone on enlarging her borders, and never at any former period was the number of the faithful so great as it is now.