be forfeited by abuse; therefore that there may arise cases. in which princes may be justly deposed, and subjects released from their oath or obligation of fealty. Now we claim to have read history, both as a Catholic and as a Protestant, with at least ordinary diligence, and we venture to assert that in no instance in the contests between the two powers have the secular authorities been in the right and the sovereign pontiff in the wrong. Whatever may or may not be said of their title, the sovereign pontiffs have invariably used their power on the side of justice, and never have they deposed a prince who did not for his tyranny, his oppressions, his frightful iniquities, deserve to be deposed. They whom they struck were moral monsters, and the cause for which they struck was that of religion, virtue, and innocence. Those emperors of Germany and those kings of France and England against whom the popes had to exert all their apostolic authority, were not meek, peaceful, wise, and just sovereigns, seeking only the common good of their subjects; they were licentious tyrants, cruel oppressors, for whom no right was sacred, no virtue a protection. They were not patriotic monarchs, seeking to defend their crowns against the arrogance of pontiffs and the insolence of churchmen, as their unscrupulous defenders and traducers of the popes would persuade us; but insolent and ambitious seculars, seeking to usurp the rights of the spiritual order, and to make themselves popes as well as princes, to absorb the spiritual order in the temporal, so as to be able to outrage and oppress the souls as well as the bodies of their subjects. All who have read history with any degree of honesty and discernment now know it, and none but the ignorant or the uncandid pretend to the contrary.

If during eighteen hundred years the popes have never encroached on the just rights of the secular authority, have been in no case guilty of injustice to the representatives of the temporal order, what reason have you to fear that they will change hereafter? You agree at least, we believe, that the church does not change, and that the policy once adopted is the policy she always pursues. The past is a sufficient pledge of the future. True, she asserts the independence and supremacy of the spiritual order, and so do you; true, she asserts the supremacy of the law of God for princes and states as well as for individuals and subjects, and so do you, when you do not turn political atheists; true, she seeks by all the means in her power to maintain the supremacy of

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that law in the practical government of society, and so do you, if you have any reverence for God or respect for morality; true, she aims to do, and where her action is free does do effectually, what every sect professes to have at heart; but this is a reason why you should love her and give her your confidence, not why you should distrust and oppose her. With her, religion, order, liberty, justice, may be maintained in our republic, and without her they cannot. Are the American people so blind, so bereft of common sense, as to fear her, because she is fitted to accomplish their most ardent wishes and the purest and holiest desires of their hearts?

It is not very wise, in opposing a church we happen to dislike, to deny the only principles on which we can defend the one we like. We are not a Protestant, but we will go as far as any Protestant in asserting the freedom and independence of the sects before the secular authority. We cannot in our horror of them consent to throw doubt on the great principles we plead in our own defence. As long as they do not trample on the equal rights of others, as long as they do nothing to disturb the public peace, we will maintain their freedom before the state, and deny in their case as much as in our own the right of the secular authority to interfere with them. It is madness to deny the freedom and supremacy of the spiritual order for the sake of opposing Catholicity. The American people may allege that the church is not the divinely commissioned representative of the spiritual order on earth, and for that reason oppose her; but to oppose her because she asserts her independence and supremacy in face of the temporal power, the very thing she should do, and must do if she is what she professes to be, is to deny the independence and supremacy of the moral order, and to give up the world to the government of lawless passion or brute force.

That a portion of the American people, misled by their prejudices and influenced by the misrepresentations and calumnious charges brought against us by no-popery publications, are violating against us some of their own most deeply cherished principles, and for which in their own case they would fight unto death, is unhappily too true. Of them we may truly say, "They know not what they do." The American mind at the present moment is all out of joint on religious matters, and they are like an army in the dark, thrown into confusion, and unable to distinguish

us.

friends from foes. They fire as often upon the former as the latter, yet at bottom they are a brave people and mean well. Their confusion will not last for ever, we hope, and they will recover themselves when the day, not far distant, begins to dawn. They will then see distinctly that society reposes on the maintenance of the independence and supremacy of the moral order in its practical government, and they will see that there can be no greater madness than that of warring against the only institution which is able to maintain that independence and supremacy. Religion and morality do not hold so high a rank with us, that we can afford to reject any help in their favor offered There is with us a sad want of high moral principle, of strict honesty, of conscientiousness. In public life we look to the expedient rather than to the right, and honor success rather than integrity and justice. In private life we abandon ourselves to the world, forget God and duty, and think only of multiplying sensible goods. We are becoming material, and rapidly falling into practical atheism. One half of our adult population are unconnected with any religious denomination, and probably a still larger proportion have grown up without having even been baptized. Everybody now sees that Protestantism can_neither make nor keep a people practically religious. Lord Shaftesbury stated in the House of Lords not long since, that there are five millions of the adult population of England and Wales that never attend any place of religious worship. To a Christian mind, nothing can be more horrible.

The

All is not as we could wish it in Catholic countries. Owing to the jealousies of the governments, and to the power heresy and schism have given them to oppress the church, she has not even there been able to do all her work. tyranny of despots has restricted her freedom and lessened her practical efficiency. But in no Catholic country is the moral and religious state of the people so deplorable as in Great Britain and the United States. Catholic populations, however far below what they might be and ought to be, have yet a sensibility to moral ideas and to religious considerations that we look in vain for in Protestant populations. They are more under the influence of the spiritual order, and are more easily affected by appeals to conscience. In our own country they almost alone keep alive in practice the memory of religious ages, and whatever may be the

estimate in which a worldly-minded community may hold them, they are the main hope of our country. They have their faults, their vices even, but they are a Christian people, and feel that man's first duty is to God, and his dearest hope is hope of heaven.

UNCLE JACK AND HIS NEPHEW; OR CONVER

SATIONS OF AN OLD FOGY WITH

A YOUNG AMERICAN.

[From Brownson's Quarterly Review for 1854.]

UNCLE JACK, as he is familiarly called, is a hale old man nearly seventy years of age, though in appearance not much over fifty. His form is erect, his step elastic, and his dark, thick hair has as yet no sprinkling of gray. His disposition is mild and gentle, and his feelings are youthful and buoyant. He is not precisely a scholar, but he has travelled, mingled a good deal in society, read some, observed much, and reflected more. He lives now very much retired, surrounded only by a few young persons, of whom he is very fond, and with whom he delights to converse on the various things which he has seen, or of which he has read. He is averse to all display of superior knowledge, but whenever he does chance to open himself, you see that he is well informed on most topics, has a cultivated mind, and a rich and varied experience.

His most intimate companion is a young nephew, the only child of his youngest and favorite sister. This nephew was graduated at the early age of sixteen at the oldest and most renowned of our American literary institutions, with the first honors of his class, and as the general favorite of his classmates. He subsequently spent five years at a celebrated German university, under several famous German professors, and afterwards visited Berlin, Stockholm, St. Petersburg, Vienna, Venice, Constantinople, Jerusalem, and Naples, spent six months at Rome and Florence, and a year at Paris, whence he has returned home to take an active part in the affairs of his own country. He is a tall, finely proportioned young man, with handsome features, an open and manly countenance, and modest and prepossessing manners. As his father and mother are both dead, he for the present lives with his Uncle Jack. He has won the heart of the kind old man, but does not fail, nevertheless, to give him much uneasiness. Uncle Jack is called an old fogy, and

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