Popular Tales and Sketches. By Mrs. S. C. Hall. (Lambert and Co.) Irish Protestants' writings are not generally such as we can recommend. The "black" Protestantism of Irish Orangemen usually taints every thing they touch. Mrs. S. C. Hall is an exception to the rule, and the volume before us is a favourable specimen of the feminine and graceful tone of her books. The "humorous" sketches are also really humorous.

Colonial Constitutions: an Outline of the Constitutional History and existing Government of the British Dependencies. By Arthur Mills, Esq. (London, Murray.) Mr. Mills makes a dry subject drier, and commands an inattention to matters which every one is too liable to pass over. His meagre introduction shows the reading rather of an Oxford student than of a man of the world; and his mere synoptical outline is lengthened out with schedules of orders-in-council, statutes, and parliamentary documents, which give his book the appearance, though not the utility, of an index or a dictionary.

Diary of the Crimean War. By F. Robinson, M.D. (London, Bentley.) This diary differs from most of its fellows in being a larger book, and in being graced with the portrait of H. R. H. the Duke of Cambridge, to whom it is dedicated. As to its contents, we may content ourselves with a quotation which occurs very often in the text-" nothing new."

The Life of the Rev. Jos. Beaumont, M.D. By his son, J. Beaumont. (London, Hamilton, Adams, and Co.) This is a memoir of a Wesleyan minister who was much respected in his circle, and whose life and death are described in the queer language appropriated to Protestant hagiology; one object of the writers of which branch of literature appears to be to expose certain favourite texts of Scripture to the jests of the ungodly. Take, for instance, the account of the sermons preached on his death. Dr. Dixon, a "distinguished" Wesleyan divine, took for his text the words "an eloquent man, and mighty in the Scriptures;' and," proceeds the author, "fitly chosen was his subject. Many also were the ministers of the Established and other churches, as well as of the Wesleyans, who placed before their congregations, in the shape of funeral sermons, the noble example which his life and death afforded, 'praising the dead which were already dead.' Some of these sermons were preached in quarters where they were least expected," &c.

Now, not to mention the slipshod way in which the author uses the word subject for text-the subject of the sermon we presume was Dr. Beaumont-or the funny idea of a noble example being modelled into a funeral sermon, what can be more offensive than the affected way of lugging in by head and shoulders such very oriental, and, in their isolation, even ludicrous expressions, as "mighty in the Scriptures," and "the dead which are already dead"? In their own poetical framing they are jewels; as they are set in Mr. Beaumont's blurred prose, they are as jewels of gold in a swine's snout,"-to avail ourselves of his license of scriptural quotation. The carnal, judaical, millennarian, sensual character of Protestantism is very distinct in this Wesleyan minister, in whose life, as in that of all ministers of his persuasion

66

"The matin bells, a melancholy cry,

Are tuned to merrier notes-increase and multiply."

"Through the tender mercy of my indulgent God," he says, "I am in the enjoyment of good health, and encircled by kind friends. My present situation is altogether a very desirable one: here I dwell in the

bosom of a family pious, happy, and affectionate, where I have all things to enjoy. The circuit (preaching-district) is very compact; and I am only one night in a month from home."

What Sadducee ever imagined a more complete Mahometan Paradise?

Madeline Clare, or the Important Secret. By Colburn Mayne, Esq. In 3 vols. (London, Hurst and Blackett.) There is one important secret at least on which Colburn Mayne, Esq. throws very little light, and that is, the secret of writing English; we have only read three pages of the three volumes, and are perfectly convinced that a person who can write such a sentence as this (a fair sample) cannot have written a tale that is worth the trouble of reading. He writes of "cottage-gardens, where flourished, with many hardy English flowers, as well those herbs which suited for seasoning or for medicine-to the poor so often supply the place of the apothecary and the cook." Fancy Herb Basil dispensing medicines as apothecary, and Sweet Marjoram officiating as cook! The idea of the sentence is ridiculous; as for the syntax, it passeth all understanding.

Benedictus, adapted to a Quartett from Mendelssohn's "Elijah." By C. J. Hargitt. (Ewer and Co.) We are not generally tolerant of adaptations, disliking them especially when sacred words are put to music originally operatic, and almost equally when a good instrumental composition is turned into a bad vocal piece. Mr. Hargitt's adaptation of this delightful quartett in the Elijah is obnoxious to neither of these objecs tions. The music is fitted for a Benedictus, and we hope it may tempt some of our Catholic singers to make themselves more acquainted with Mendelssohn's music than we fear is the case with many of them at pre

sent.

Correspondence.

-R. P. S. ON THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN AND THE DESTINY OF THE UNREGENERATE.

To the Editor of the Rambler.

DEAR SIR,—I have heard that my last letter to you has been characterised by persons for whom I entertain the sincerest respect as 'theologically unsound, and untenable by any Catholic."

Will you allow me to show, in contradiction to this, that it is held and has been held by many Catholics, and that in spite of the protests of very eminent men, and with the knowledge, sanction, and consent of the Holy See?

The celebrated Abbé Martinet, better known by his nom de guerre Timon (La Science de la Vie, leçon 25), adopts the views of Cardinal Sfondrati on the natural happiness of unregenerate infants (I shall have occasion to recur to these views in the sequel), and clearly lays down the following principles, which are the same as those which I maintained in my first letter in July:

"When Catholics speak of a salvation which cannot be obtained outside the Church, they always mean, not a mere exemption from the torments of hell, and a life naturally happy, but the supreme, immeasurable, and infinite happiness of a close and eternal union with God.

This felicity is so great, that to a Christian, and indeed to any soul that understands any thing of the meaning of the word 'God,' all happiness that does not partake of the clear and direct intuition of Him is as nothing, nay, is relatively a state of misery. No one is saved, in Christian parlance, but the blessed who see God face to face. All the others, however little their misery, however happy they may be supposed to be, are not the less reprobate, damned, lost, when we consider the fundamental idea of reprobation. Damnation is the privation of the sight of God. But the inherent pain of this privation, the sense of this pana damni, will be proportionate to the abuse of light."

This book was published with the approbation of the Bishop of Annecy; in it the author refers with great praise to a work of Father Actorie, priest of the congregation of St. Basil (De l'Origine et de la Réparation du Mal, Paris, 1851), from which I make the following ex

tracts:

P. 54. "Catholics, who know by faith the greatness of the glory of heaven, will always deplore its loss for unbaptised infants, who are restricted to a merely natural felicity. But the heart of man left to himself asks and conceives nothing better. The pagans wished nothing more than Olympus and Elysium."

P. 68. "The first corrupters of nations were guilty: but their successors, who had forgotten the primitive faith, and whose only moral code was established custom, were almost incapable (dans l'impossibilité) of offending God, and of transgressing a law which they knew not."

P. 70. Speaking of these degraded and ignorant pagan nations, he says: "What will you do with these infant peoples? They are guilty of their excesses, for they still have a glimmer of reason; they are not grievously guilty, because they have a limited intelligence, and know neither the law nor its author. Slight faults deserve not an eternal chastisement. One day, therefore, they will be delivered, and will stand before the justice of God with only original guilt upon them, and in the same state as infants not regenerated by the sacrament of adoption.”

P. 71. "If among instructed pagans there are found any just men, faithful observers of the law of nature, and always docile to the impressions of their conscience, God will treat them at least as favourably as unbaptised infants, or He will reveal to them what they ought to believe, in order to be received among the predestined."

It is noticeable that both these clergymen are writing against the same class of heretical and infidel objectors which I had in view in writing my letter.

Perrone, in his tract De Gratia, among many other things that I might quote, says as follows (No. 591):

"If the state of these infants (who die without baptism) is considered relatively to supernatural beatitude, which they have forfeited by original sin, it must be reckoned as punishment and damnation, and such infants are, at least negatively, turned away from God. But if their state is considered in itself, and absolutely, since man has lost nothing of his natural gifts by sin, the condition of these infants is the same as it would have been if Adam had neither sinned, nor had been raised to a supernatural state, i. e. had been in the state of pure nature."

"To the judicium discussionis neither are these infants obnoxious, nor those infidels in whom faith was not the foundation of merit." These two classes, infants and negative infidels, he unites into one, and treats as belonging to but one scheme of providence, "whether in infancy or in the state of perpetual infancy." This appears to me to be the great question: how much latitude are we to give to the term "infants"? What

amount of idiocy, or ignorance, or want of opportunity, is sufficient to make an adult theologically speaking an infant?

Now to go to an older authority-Cardinal Sfondrati, abbot of St. Gall, author of several works (among others a beautiful book on the Immaculate Conception) published at Rome, in 1696, a volume entitled Nodus Predestinationis resolutus, which caused a considerable disturbance. The Jansenists were furious. Bossuet, with two French archbishops and two other bishops, wrote to Pope Innocent XII. a long letter, with propositions extracted for condemnation; but this Pope, and his successor Clement XI., after causing the book to be examined by two commissions, peremptorily refused to censure it. The book itself I have not been able to procure; but I have read Bossuet's letter, and another epistle of one Père Bossu, a rabid Jansenist, in opposition to it. From these letters I will extract the propositions which the Holy See in so marked a manner refused to censure:

"As far as relates to infants who die without baptism, He has excluded them from the kingdom of heaven, as guilty of their fathers' fault, and unexpiated; but He has not excluded them from natural good, and has preserved them from sin and from eternal punishment, which they would have incurred had they grown up. And this is clearly a great piece of grace and love; since the simple preservation from sin is of more value and greater worth than the kingdom of heaven itself, which, if they had the choice, they had rather forfeit than be involved in sin. They cannot therefore be called neglected, who have such a gift, and are delivered from so great an evil.”

"In this matter of infants we must consider that, though God has not admitted them to glory, He has granted them another and much greater benefit, which they themselves would choose far before heaven; and which we, if we had the choice, should think worth much more than heaven. How, then, can they complain of God, or what evil has He done them, if He has granted them, not indeed heaven, but another gift, which is much better than heaven, and which they and all wise men would prefer to heaven? .... Therefore there is no cause of grief or complaining, but rather of joy and thankfulness." "For to be delivered from actual sin, mortal or venial, is better than heaven."... "The gift of personal innocence and freedom from sin is so great, that the infants themselves would a thousand times rather lose heaven than be implicated in a single sin. And there is no Christian but should be of the same mind."

....

These infants, he says in another place, are destined for a natural, not for a supernatural end: "We must confess that God never willed eternal life to those infants who are carried off before baptism: they pertain to another end and class of Providence."

After infants, he considers the case of adults; and Bossuet and his fellow-prelates submit the following propositions to the Pope for condemnation :

"Granting that they (the Indians of Brazil, &c.) had such ignorance of God (invincible), this also is a great piece of favour and kindness.".... "For since sin is essentially an offence and injury done to God, take away knowledge of God, and it necessarily follows that there is neither injury, nor offence, nor eternal punishment."

Bossuet says that this proposition is identical with that of the peccatum philosophicum condemned by Alexander VIII., A.D. 1690, as rash, offensive, and erroneous, namely, that "a sin against moral philosophy, although grave, in one who is either ignorant of God, or is not actually thinking of God, is a grave sin, but not an offence to God, nor a mor

tal sin destructive of the love of God, nor worthy of eternal punishment." However, the Roman theologians did not confirm Bossuet's assertion.

"There

Cardinal Sfondrati also says of these same ignorant pagans: fore, since they would be rendered impeccable by such ignorance, when otherwise, if they had knowledge, they would most assuredly sin, it follows that this also is a favour, according to the words of St. Peter: 'For it was better for them not to know the way of justice, than, after knowing, to turn back from the holy commandment given to them.""

To these authorities I will at present add but one more: Bourdaloue, in his sermon on the Last Judgment, part first, says

"In the judgment of God, there will be an INFINITE difference between a pagan, who has never known the Christian law, and a Christian, who knew it and in his heart renounced it. And God, following the simple dictates of His justice, will treat the one very differently from the other. It is well known that a pagan, to whom the law of Jesus Christ has not been preached, will not be judged by that law, and that God, in His absolute power, will with it observe the natural equity of not condemning him for a law which He has not communicated to him."

I have much more to say; but these authorities, all of them of a period when such questions were in debate, are sufficient to show that the opinions I hold are at least admissible.—I am, &c. R. P. S.

To the Editor of the Rambler.

MR. EDITOR,-Some sensation has been caused by a letter in your Number of this month on the subject of "Original Sin." There cannot be a more important subject. There cannot be a subject on which it is more mischievous to speak incorrectly, more hazardous to speak any thing novel-any thing of one's own. There is not a subject which has been more thoroughly and minutely subjected to theological investigation, from the time of Pelagius to that of Baius and Jansenius. It seems difficult to imagine any large question relating to it which has not been started and discussed, or any statement upon it which has not been received or condemned by divines, tolerated or countenanced, as the case may be.

However, in this well-trodden ground your correspondent considers a certain large field, situated in the very midst of its most prominent portions, as yet unexplored. "He has not found," he says, certain 66 very difficult subjects professedly treated of in the books which he has read;" which must mean, that he believes that they have escaped formal discussion: else of course he would read more before writing. Next, he considers he has found the right and true determination upon them in the poem of Dante, which leads him to "conceive that he has a perfect right as a Catholic, not only to hold it, but to blazon it to the Universalist as THE (sic) Catholic doctrine on the subject."

Considering, then, the importance of his subject, the novelty of his views, and the publicity he wishes to give to them, it is important to your Catholic readers to know whether they rightly apprehend him.

I beg, therefore, to ask him whether he does not, in the article in question, hold the following three propositions :

First Proposition. Man has, in hâc providentiâ, i. e. in the present scheme of Providence, a natural end or destiny, namely, the natural knowledge and enjoyment of God.