is one thing at Berlin and London, and another at Valladolid or Bologna. The catechism which it circulates in France is not the catechism which it circulates in Portugal. Nor is this owing to policy alone. The force of circumstances, and the existing tone of manners and opinions, circumscribe, snub, and transform it, just as every other institution is modified by the medium in which it subsists. What the Papacy would be, then, if it could, is a question of no practical moment. What would any sect or party be, if unrestrained by adverse parties or sects? Sydney Smith well says: "One does not know the order or description of men in whom he would like to confide, if they could do as they would; our security consisting in the fact that the rest of the world won't let 'em." Now, the rest of the world will not allow the Pope, nor anybody else, to do as he pleases, let him want to ever so badly; and, until the Pope particularly has reconverted the world to Catholicism, which will be a considerable undertaking, he may have as much will to thunder as he likes, but he will thunder in vain.

Consider the history of the papal attempts to exert even a limited temporal authority, during the last three centuries! The Pope rattled away, like a good fellow, against Louis XIV., but Louis was hardly civil to him, kissing his feet, as Voltaire says, but tying up his hands. He was dreadfully angry, again, with Philip V. of Spain; but he could not hinder Philip from going his own gait, nor prevent the Cortes, subsequently, from destroying the monastic institutions and confiscating the Church property. He tried his power on Portugal, and was repulsed from Portugal, just as if it had been Protestant; on Venice, and the Senate disdained his legate; on Austria, whither he went personally, but was complacently bowed home again; and on Napoleon, whe laughed at him and used him afterwards.

At the very moment, indeed, in.which we pen this paragraph, the morning paper, fresh with foreign news, informs us that Spain,-Catholic Spain as she is called, by way of eminence, as she has been called these thousand years,where the Roman Church is the only Church that has ever been recognized by the State, where a numerous and influential clergy are paid from the treasury of the State, where they enjoy VOL V.-42

the highest rank and consideration, where the entire people, in fact, are proud to hail their monarchs as Most Catholic Majesties,-Spain, we say, has just passed a law, releasing property in mortmain, or, in other words, turning into money the consecrated lands and dwellings of the clergy and the religious orders, in the very teeth, too, of the Pope and all his wire-workers and adherents!

Indeed, since the Restoration, when the allies complimented him with devout pretences and apparent obsequiousness, but betrayed him to the State at the same time, not a government on earth, Catholic or Protestant, has treated his temporal holiness with a whit more decorum than is due to an illustrious prince-one among the powers of Europe. They respect his important ecclesiastical position, and the venerable associations by which his See is surrounded, and, as far as their subjects are Catholic, are more or less tender of giving offense; but they do not succumb one tittle to any right or claim of his to meddle with their civil interests. On the contrary, they resent it with instant porcupine irritability. One of the most recent Ultramontane writers, lamenting the desuetude into which the temporal arm has fallen, says, that the worst enemies which the Church has had to contend with, the last two hundred years, have not been either Protestants or Turks, but the professedly Catholic governments of Europe.— "These nominal Catholic sovereigns," he says lugubriously, "professing themselves to be sons of the Church, contributing, it may be, to the maintenance of the clergy, and to the pomp and splendor of worship; perhaps, like Louis XIV., going so far as to tolerate no worship but the Catholic, and using their military force to suppress hostile sects, yet constantly encroaching on the ecclesiastical authority; demanding concession after concession, and threatening universal spoliation and schism, if the Church does not accede to their peremptory demands, backed by the whole physical force of the kingdom, are really more injurious to the cause of religion, more hostile to the influences of the Church, than open and avowed persecutors, even the most cruel. We cannot name a single professedly Catholic State that has afforded, for these three hundred years, more than a momentary

consolation to the Holy Father, whose bitterest enemies have been of his own household; while the only sovereigns in the eighteenth, and the first half of the nineteenth centuries, that treated him with respect, were sovereigns separated from his communion."

This is true: yet not the whole truth; for it conceals the worst feature of the papal degradation that it is the willing instrument and vassal of the kings. If it had been subjected simply by the superior force of its pseudo friends, there would have been reason for it to complain; but it cheerfully accepts the slavery. It is, at this moment, linked in with every despotism of the Continent, lending itself to their most nefarious schemes; blessing the triumphs of their arms over popular hopes, and proffering a servile submission to them in order to divide the ill-gotten gains, wrung from the weakness, the ignorance, and the miseries of the people. Yes; the power, which of old sat in judgment upon the rulers of the earth, and, in its fierce contests with them, became a symbol of the aspirations, and faith of the multitude, is now, divested of its ideal and representative character, and fallen from its own high schemes of superiority and jurisdiction, the passive partner of the secular princes; protesting when it does protest, not against the political absolutism of the oppressor, but against the cries and struggles of the oppressed! It prefers the friendship of the Czar, even, with his foreign religion, to the political emancipation and religious regeneration of the nations; and is greatly more to be feared for the doctrines of abject political submission which it teaches, than for its imputed ambition.

But, if this be the condition of things in nations avowedly Catholic, how preposterous the alarm which is sounded as to the temporal aggressions of Popery in countries which are wholly emancipated. Let us suppose for instancewhat is absurd in itself-that Pio Nono should take it into his head to hurl a bull at Queen Victoria or General Pierce, for some gross heretical malfeasance, or for an insult to Cardinal Wiseman, or the legate Bedini, what would be the effect? A few of the more devout Catholics would be thrown into a flutter, others would mildly hint that the good Father had mistaken his business, while the world in general would explode in fits of

derision. Historians might, perhaps, recall the time when such missives closed the churches, extinguished the sacrifice on the altar, suspended christenings and marriages, covered the images of the saints in mourning, silenced the bells in the towers, left the dead unburied, and dressed whole nations in sackcloth and ashes; but they would recall it as a striking homily on the mutability of human affairs-while the great body of the people would go about their pursuits, eating and drinking, and marrying and giving in marriage, as utterly unconscious that anything had occurred as a deaf man is of the snapping of a pistol

behind his back.

Of all the nations of the earth, ours is the last in which the temporal pretensions of the Pontiff, supposing them to be still cherished, will make any headway. The democratic principle of the right of the people to manage their own affairs, is so thoroughly ingrained in our whole political life, that fire will not burn, nor water drown, it out of us. We should a great deal rather attempt to take Sebastopol with pop-guns than to convert this nation to an acquiesence in the old monarchical and religious tyrannies. Individuals of recusant communions will, of course, now and then take shelter under the wings of the Pope; Catholicism, as a religion, will gain converts from time to time; but, as a political power, it will find the current ever seting more strongly the other way. Rome is far more likely to become American, under the influences at work here, than America Roman. Not a single trait of American character, as it has been thus far developed, harmonizes with the genius of that court-not a habit of thought, or mode of action, peculiar to our people, is cast in its moulds-and there is no point or feature of our civil procedure coincident with the structure of its government or the aims of its polity. We are drifting further and further away, with the current of the years,.not only from Rome, but from every vestige of ecclesiasticism. Our religion is less ritual, day by day, and more and more civic and personal. Our literature, our practical enterprise, our actual political tendencies, in short, all the agencies of our civil and moral life, turn towards a practical humanity, as the flower and fruit of Christ's blessed redemption of us, and will not return. The immense Irish emigration, which was

once supposed to threaten, though it never actually molested our safety, has reached its hight, and now begins to slacken. It is known that already the preponderance of numbers among the emigrants has passed over to the Germans, among whom Popery sits lightly upon those who receive it, and is more than neutralized by the desperate rationalistic bias of the rest. Strauss and Feuerbach, we suspect, are the saints of the Germans, who will give our Puritan theologians more trouble than all the saints of the Romish calendar; and the creed of no-creedism will seduce a larger number of professors than the creed of spiritual submission.

We shall not dwell upon the inexpressible meanness of excluding all foreigners from political life, because a number of them happen to be Catholics,-Catholics from religious association and conviction, and not in the interests of a political propagandism,but we shall urge one simple thought: that, supposing foreigners to be all Romanists, the way to rescue them from their error is, not to enclose them, by an outward pressure or proscription, into a narrow circle of their own, but to tempt them out of the fatal ring, into a freer air. If their communion be haunted by foul superstitions and fanaticisms, as sometimes an old decaying structure is haunted by bats and owls, you will not purify it by closing the shutters and keeping them in darkness. It is in darkness, precisely, that owls and bats live. But let in the light of Heaven upon them, let the brisk wind drink up the clammy damps, let the fresh, warm sun quicken the benumbed and torpid limbs, and the bats and owls will fly away, for the place will be no longer congenial to their habits.

It is a great fact of experience that, where Protestants and Catholics are brought openly together, Catholicism is softened and liberalized-as in all the frontier districts of Europe-while it retains whatever of evil it may possess, in the most unmitigated forms, in the most secluded districts. Nay, both parties are improved by the association. How much in England, France, and Germany have the old hostilities been tempered by the common medium in which they are diffused, while in Sweden, Protestantism, and in Portugal, Spain, and parts of Italy, Catholicism, still ex

hibit the same hard features which they wore a hundred years ago? Just in proportion as Catholics are permitted to share in the civil life of Protestant nations, they have thrown off the old prejudices of creed and begun to identify themselves with the general feelings and tendencies of the rest of the people.

The

In our own country, particularly, the beneficent and beautiful operation of democracy is seen, in the silent and gentle influences by which it removes the old enmities of sect and race. slough of a thousand errors, which once hissed like so many serpents in the bosom of society, has been cast, we scarcely know how; deep hatreds which still burn in Europe, with intensest zeal, dividing classes irreparably, are extinguished here as if by the falling dews; and a genial glow of common sentiment's and feelings warms into a higher, nobler humanity the hearts of men, no longer curdled into petty spites or rancorous animosities by hostile divisions of privilege and interest. Let us beware, then, that we do not arrest or thwart this glorious development! Let us be worthy of the lofty destiny to which we have been called!

If we think the dogma of the Roman Church, while transmitting essential truth, a grievous error in its formula; if we think its policy unfriendly to intellectual freedom, and to republican government; if we should be sorry to see it more generally accepted; let us be sure that its corruptions, whatever they may be, are to be met by argument and the force of opinion only, and not by legislation. Our fathers, with a wisdom as divine as was ever vouchsafed to any conclave or synod, decreed an eternal separation of Church and State, and the best sentiment of mankind is on their side. They forbade the use of religious tests, in the decision of civil rights, and that prohibition is sound in spirit as well as letter. We hope that the American people will never depart from it; we hope that they will continue to exhibit to the world an exalted example of true charity; and, we are assured that, so long as they refuse to allow transient prejudices and local irritations to provoke them from its kindly dictates, the heavenly Father, whose essence is goodness, will richly endow them with every needed blessing.

660

[June,

LITERATURE.

A BATCH OF NOVELS.-Our table this month is covered with novels, which we shall proceed to dispose of as we can. The first we take up, by Miss A. B. WARNER, author of "Dollars, and Cents," "Mr. Rutherford's Children," etc., etc., is well named My Brother's Keeper, for it tells the story of a pretty little saint, who set out to "keep" her brother, and most delectably she performed her duty. The scene opens with Miss Rosalie Clyde, who is rich and handsome, of course, and marvelously proper (which is not of course), in attendance upon the sick bed of a younger sister. This is amiable in her, but she is as melancholy as she well can be-or, as the sailors say, as the jib-cat-because of the recent death of her mother. She is also otherwise unhappy in her mind, because, as we soon learn, of some mysterious shortcomings of a dear brother of hers. We begin to suspect that he has, perhaps, turned pirate, or committed a secret forgery, or wantonly broken the hearts of a half dozen maidens. But he has done neither. He is only a gay young Captain, good-looking and well to do, with an occasional inclination to cards; who prefers the society of his young friends to the lachrymose company of Miss Prim, his sister. In short, the Captain is no better than one of the wicked. When we find how she labors to convert him from his frivolous ways, firing whole volleys of Scripture texts at him every time he makes his appearance, we do not wonder at it, even though they were wadded with sisterly kisses. To be pelted with pious quotations, over your eggs and coffee, and rubbed down every evening with a lecture on your sins, is not the pleasantest kind of entertainment for young men. Thornton Clyde -for that is the suffering brother's namemust have been a miracle of brotherly kindness, to put up with such an incessant hail of preachment. He did lose his temper sometimes; but how he kept it at all is the surprise. His saintly little housekeeper, having made herself responsible for the good conduct of the whole family, will not let them rest till they are dragooned into her methods of thinking and acting. She refuses to go to the theatre with her brother, because the theatre, we

know, is such a naughty place; and when her brother wants to invite some gentlemen to spend the evening at home, (a capital thing for his case,) she insists that she will not assist in entertaining them, if wine or cards are to be introduced to help out the evening. This was an enormous impertinence in Miss Prim, yet the indulgent brother consents to forego his plan. One night, however, he does bring home a few friends a right pleasant company-when little Saint Rosalie deluged the whole set with strong coffee-enough to keep them all awake, as we have no doubt it did, all night. She was excessively amiable the while the cunning little minx— pretending to herself that she was doing her duty! What is worse, Miss Warner approves her intractable conceit. It does not appear that the brother ever asked any body again, and we are sorry for it; for the chapter that describes this gathering is the first pleasant chapter in the book. All that precede are as sad as an undertaker's shop, as well as much that comes after it.

Saint Rosalie, like most young ladies, who are rich, and handsome, and pious, has a lover-one Mr. Henry Raynor-a rather solemn, but not altogether stupid, young gentleman, the son of a nice old Quaker lady-who has a taste for soldiering, and has just returned from a long visit to Europe. He rushes to see his little saint, and she receives him with the iciest purity and decorum-not glad at all, apparently, and the interview consists mainly of a mutual exchange of Scriptural excerpts. He persists in his suit, however, and, after a while, asks her to appoint the day. She falls into his arms! she gives him a rousing smack! she says-next week! you will suppose? not she: she has not yet converted her brother, who prefers remaining out of nights to her long homilies in the chimney corner; and, until she has converted him, her lover may go-break his heart. It is her one duty in life to preach that brother over to her side, and then she will be ready to marry. If Mr. Raynor had been as sensible as he looks, he would have boxed the ears of the selfwilled little jade, and sent for the clergyman. But he gave in to her whims, and, in fact, began himself to try a little

of the same sort of machinery on that deluded young Captain.

At last Rosalie's health gives way, under her incessant anxiety about her brother's lost condition, and she is sent into the country to recruit. But she won't recruit. Instead of scampering off to the woods, or rowing the boat, or dancing with the clodhoppers, or riding the farmer's horses till they foamed again, or giving up her soul to the pure and simple inspirations of Nature she sat down and moped, and nursed her sickly and sultry fancies, and wrote long sermons to her brother, which, the poor fellow, busily engaged in erecting fortifications at Brooklyn, (the scene is laid in 1812,) forgot to answer, or did not care to answer, seeing that they were, probably, like many other sermons, not made to answer. Saint Rosalie became worse: but, finally, Mr. Raynor brought her a little comfort, in the shape of a promise that next day her brother would visit her. The brother, too, had been ill of a fever, and went to the country in a very dilapidated state. There his sister renewed her assiduities, plied him with more texts, whined and beseeched; when lo-presto! "he was a changed man"--as he might have been, by the same means, in chapter 1 or 2. Thus, Rosalie and her texts prevailed; the hunted and baffled sinner saw the error of his life, and repented. She married Mr. Raynor, and the brother married one of Rosalie's old friends--a cousin--and every body was as happy as they could be, under the circumstances.

This is the substance of the story, some points of which are agreeably told, but which, on the whole, is dull and badly constructed. The characters are conceived with more vigor than they are described. Dr. Buffem-a conceited but hearty old Esculapius; Penn Raynor, a talkative and vivacious demi-semi-Quaker; the homely old Yankee Mrs. Hopper, and old Mrs. Morsel, a complaining old lady--might have been worked up with a little more care, into lively and peculiar individualities; but Saint Rosalie and her soldierQuaker husband, Mr. Raynor, are beyond the reach of human nature already, and could never be improved. The reader is relieved when they are married and disappear.

Miss Warner has a talent for narrative, a pretty good perception of character, and

is not without a touch of humour; but her ideas of the religious life are so ungenial and aggressive, (we speak of this work alone, not having read her others,) that we hope in future she will indulge very sparely in "serious" writing.

-Our second candidate for the favor of the romance-reading world appears in the writer of Blanche Dearwood--an American novel, as the advertisements say, the scene of which is laid partly among the Highlands, and partly in this city. It is a novel of passion and sentiment, however, and not of manners or local life. The principal personages might have been called My Lord Walton, or My Lady Blanche, just as well as Mr. Walton, and Miss Blanche, so far as the verisimilitude is concerned. There is nothing peculiarly American in the book, save a few descriptions of scenery, an occasional allusion to New York society, and an old revolutionary veteran, who has nothing really to do with the plot, and whose most remarkable feature is, that he knew the grandfathers of every body.

We do not say this by way of condemnation. Passion is the same everywhere; and the characters of a novel are merely the puppets by which it is exhibited. The book is one of considerable talent. We suspect the writer is a novice, from a certain uneasiness or want of repose he betrays in the management of his materials; but he is a novice who is able to do much better. In the conception of character, he is not deficient, although, we think, he could give more individuality to his figures, by a little more patient study. Miss Blanche, his heroine, is a most lovable young woman, but is like a great many lovable young women that one meets in romances. Mr. Walton is vigorously conceived, but gets a little confused in the making out; and Rodman is a fine young man, not remarkably different from other fine young men. The greatest success of the author, clearly, is Knowlton-not precisely the villain or the Iago of the plot, but the diplomatic manager of it--who is drawn with a strong, even a steady hand; and, but for his getting married in the end, would leave a thoroughly marked and consistent impression. The plot of this novel, turning upon an early separation of a husband from his wife, under mistaken suspicions, and a five or six years' pursuit by