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knowledge its dominion, for it is always summoned in as an arbiter whenever science has achieved any result. Science makes wealth. Morality decides upon its distribution and use. Science has made modern war awful in the engines of destruction it is continually manufacturing, but morality enters the Peace Congress at The Hague and determines which of them may be employed. On descending to lesser things even the speed of the automobile, which science has made possible for locomotion, forces the law to step in and say: "So fast shall you go and no faster." The moral element pervades every part of international, civic, social, and individual life.

When Huxley said that man's life was like a game of chess played with an invisible opponent, and that it behooved every one to know the laws of the game, viz.: the powers of nature, which if he made a false move would instantly and remorselessly crush him, he had to add by way of a corrective that a man should also know how to fashion the affections and shape the will. But he did not say how that difficult work was to be done. And yet that is the all-important thing in life. For a man may have a perfect grasp of physiological and biological laws and be a scoundrel. The devil himself could find no exception to such an education, for it would make men like himself. He knows the laws of nature.

The object and end of science and education are essentially different. The object of one is to know facts and natural laws; the other aims at moulding character; and there is a danger at present of teachers losing sight of that. Schools are too often only physiological laboratories for the study of types and for ascertaining the human average and obtaining results in the bulk. Pupils are considered only as so many units for deducing ridiculous generalizations and for building up superficial, false and vicious psychologies. Of course we should endeavor to know and be taught to admire the wonderful discoveries which science has made available for the use and pleasure of mankind, but it should not be forgotten that education is wicked when it does not imply a training in the moral law and a loving care of each individual soul that is committed to the care and fostering influence of the teacher. Science is a means, not an end.

WHO OWN THE CHURCHES IN FRANCE?

In view of the coming obliteration of Catholicity from once Catholic France this question of ownership has to be answered. The victim is already down and the highwaymen are quarrelling for his

clothes. The politicians say the State owns them; buildings, altars, vestments, chalices, and all. What is meant by the State? The people? Evidently not. The "Block" that rules in the Palais Bourbon dare not submit the matter to the people. In spite of their skill in manipulating election returns they fear to be ousted from power on that question, and so the measure of disestablishment is going to be "jammed" through before elections. Is it the Government? That sounds a little too much like the utterance of Louis XIV, "l'Etat, c'est moi," so they answer: The nation is the owner. The nation built all those cathedrals, churches, chapels, shrines, colleges, hospitals, etc. The nation did no such thing. Subsidies may have been occasionally granted, just as here in America there are exemptions from taxes, in consideration of the good resulting from church organization; but as a matter of fact all the splendid religious edifices in France, as in every other country, were built by private individuals or corporations. Neither the general government nor the communes nor municipalities have anything to say to them. urged the government took possession of them all in 1789. It did, but in 1801 admitted it had stolen them and gave part of them back, and for what is kept paid a pittance from the revenues to support the clergy. The so-called salaries doled out since then to ecclesiastics are only an imperfect restitution. I take your fifty-thousanddollar house and pay you fifty dollars a year out of it. But apart from that, what about the churches built since then? Montmartre for example, and Lourdes, and countless colleges, convents, asylums? What right has the Government to take them? Clearly it has none.

The Socialist members of the Government say that even if this property is taken there is no harm done, because the former owners are made joint proprietors of what is henceforth held to be common property. That is like making my next door neighbor joint owner in my house, and telling me not to complain. Other political wits argue that those ecclesiastical possessions were granted for times when the Church was a social institution. As that is no longer to be the case the property lapses to the State; an arrangement which is equivalent to telling a householder who is ejected, you once were an owner, but, now that we have taken your house from you, you are no longer so and the property reverts to us. It is one of the coolest and most audacious robberies in history, and the attitude of the French people is the most supine. The age not only of chivalry but of self-respect is gone.

In olden times the Arian emperor tried expropriation with St. Ambrose. The saint simply camped in his principal church and defied the government; and the government changed its tactics. Some one asks: Is there an Ambrose in France? Nous verrons.

BARRIE'S HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA.

We think it desirable that Catholics everywhere should be put upon their guard against the practice of certain booksellers, who recommend their books under the cover of names they are not authorized to use, and they should not buy subscription books without examining them, or at least without ascertaining how far they are approved by the persons whose names are used to recommend them.

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Last September an agent of George Barrie & Sons asked us to buy The History of North America," by Guy Carleton Lee, offering a circular containing the names of those who had given the editor and publishers" courteous attention, valuable assistance, encouragement or approval." He wished us to purchase the work on the strength of these names, but we insisted on examining it. A glance at the first four volumes satisfied us that the parties mentioned in the circular did not know the character of this history, and accordingly we wrote to ten of them, all men of prominence, only to receive, as we had expected, such replies as:

1. "I have never either spoken a word or written a line for them." 2. "I refused to entertain the proposition of purchasing the book.

I have given no approval to the work and the use of my name to promote the sale of the book is on a par with the spirit of lying to be found in its pages." 3. "So far, I have not seen the volumes and was not aware of their existence. I distinctly protest against the assertion that I have contributed anything to the history or approved of it in any shape or form."

4. "The statement that I gave them aid and comfort is based on the fact that I informed them that I knew of no important historical documents lying around here in New York or in the Catholic Historical Society. The value set upon this 'valuable aid' would make a megalomaniac of any man without rheumatism. . . They put down the name of my assistant librarian just as they did mine, and for the reason, or rather pretense of a reason, that he wrote to Lee that we had not certain documents in our library. This leads me to think that the business was carried on systematically."

5. "I intend to withdraw my name from the list of subscribers to the book. The truth is I have not yet taken the volumes already received out of the packages in which they came."

6. "I have subscribed for a set. This fact I should wish the firm of George Barrie & Sons not to exploit for any unwarranted uses."

7. 8. 9. write that they have instructed Dr. Lee to withdraw their names from all connection whatever with the work, but their names are still on the circulars used by the Barries' agents.

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No. 10 admits that he read the elenchus of the volumes before they appeared, but only once, and he referred them to several rare books in his library, but that they never consulted them or made any request for practical assistance.

We thereupon wrote to George Barrie & Sons, who explained that an "overzealous subordinate considers that a subscription to the work may be considered encouragement. We have, however, destroyed all these circulars." At their request we suggested that they should ask Mr. Condé B. Pallen to revise the errors contained in the volumes already issued, and Dr. Shahan, of the Catholic University, to safeguard them from similar errors in the future. Mr. Pallen. made several revisions, which the publishers referred to us and of which we approved, but it appears that the editor, Dr. Lee, would not accept them all. Thereupon Mr. Pallen instructed the publishers not to use his name in connection with "The History of North America." Dr. Shahan, we are informed, declined to have any part in the work, but his name, like that of Dr. Pallen, appears in their circulars still.

Accepting in good faith Messrs. Barries' promise to revise this work satisfactorily, we refrained from censuring it in the MESSENGER, though we did write to the editors of several Catholic newspapers to give them warning about it. Since the publishers have failed to keep their promise, we are glad that The Dolphin has sounded the alarm, and we trust that those who have been led to buy this work, on the strength of names the publishers were never authorized to use, will insist on cancelling any contracts they have made for it.

THE COMEDY OF HIGHER CRITICISM.

M. Emil Reich has thrown consternation into the camp of the Higher Critics, as they modestly dub themselves, by denouncing their methods and repudiating their conclusions. We have reached, he says, "The Bankruptcy of Higher Criticism. We are in the hands of a set of jugglers." On Professor Hugo Winckler especially he empties the vials of his wrath. Winckler is the originator or propagator of what are known as "the astral myths," a device which is warranted to dissipate into light waves all the distinguished personages of history, especially those who have had anything to do with religious matters. Thus for him even Joseph of Egypt is an "astral myth." "You see," says Winckler, "in Genesis c. 43, v. 5, Joseph comes in at noon. Consequently he personifies the sun. Then he dreamed that the sun and moon and eleven stars bowed to him.

Whom should they bow to but the sun?" He doesn't explain how the sun manages to bow to itself; nor does it matter. "Josue, too, is the sun, for he is the son of Nun, and Nun means fish, and does not the sun issue from the constellation pisces at the spring equinox? Moreover Josue's companion was Caleb. Caleb is Kaleb; and Kaleb is Kelb, and Kelb is dog. So of course Caleb is the dogstar Sirius."

All this seems like a bit of fun from the Fliegende Blätter; but no, he is taken most seriously by the learned world, and Herr Jensen lifts up his mighty voice in the Berliner Philologische Wochenschrift against him for his audacity; not that he objects to the disappearance of these illustrious and hitherto accepted men from the domain of the real, but he does not like the method. He has a method of his own, and by the help of something he calls Gilgamish, or words to that effect, he gets rid of Moses, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob—of every one, in fact, but himself.

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Not only Winckler, but Delitzch is assailed by M. Reich. Delitzch is the man who found out that the Hebrews got their creed from Babylon. "What does your tablet prove?' asks M. Reich. "You have the same similarity with the Scriptural narrative among the African tribes; you have it in far-away Polynesia; you have it everywhere." All this trouble, he says, comes from philological jugglery. Some little professor in an obscure German town devotes himself to deciphering descriptions that nobody else bothers about, or has had time to look at. He invents a theory; no one is able to show its absurdity out of hand, and it passes muster for the moment as a new evangel, and only later the world finds out the hoax.

At this stage of the procedings there enters, with solemn step and slow, no less a personage than a dignitary of the English Church, Canon Cheyne D. Litt., T.B.A., who gravely propounds the question to the readers of the Contemporary Review of March, "Shall we put the clock back on Biblical criticism?" to which most people will reply: "Certainly, if it is going too fast and is telling us it is day, when we are sure it is night."

The Canon is incensed with Reich. He warns him that he is very indiscreet in telling tales out of school, and he implores, moreover, "all fair-minded men to exert their influence over these angry controversialists." In other words, don't trot out the family skeleton. Don't tell the world what shams we are. He assures us that Winckler is too great a man to be irreverently dealt with, and forthwith proceeds to give us the measure of Winckler's magnitude. If Mr.

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