to discharge his liability to the State and have sufficient margin for living? That is a question for the future..

Such is the survey of Irish history as given us in this intensely interesting work by a master of condensation and style. On the whole, it is fair and just and does credit to the author. For that reason, it is all the more to be regretted that Mr. Smith's intensely anti-Catholic prejudices should have greatly lessened the merit of an otherwise fairly just and valuable summary of Irish history. He is wholly unjust in his every reference to the Catholic Church and its priesthood. He makes history to fit in with his own views. He assumes as indisputable what is controverted by historians of the highest characTo take only a few instances: "The Church of Ireland," he writes, "seems in its origin to have been national and neither child nor vassal of Rome. But Rome gradually cast her spell, in time extended her authority over it. Its heads looked to her as the central support of the interests of their order and as their protectress against the rude encroachments of the native chiefs. Norman archbishops of Canterbury served as transmitters of the influence."

ter.

Of the authenticity of the Bull, that Henry II. is said to have obtained from Adrian IV., authorizing him to take possession of Ireland, he has not the slightest doubt, though the weight of impartial historians inclines to the opinion that this document was a forgery. "The Papacy," he claims, "in this and other instances, used the Norman Conquest as the instrument of its own aggrandizement." Writing of the Irish priesthood, and the support it gave to O'Connell in his Repeal movement, he asserts that: "The priests consecrated the meetings and the sentiments by celebrating Mass on the grounds where the monster meetings were held." And he adds: "It is surely idle to contend that a priesthood acting thus, and having its centre in Rome, is only a Christian ministry, not a power of political disturbance." Had O'Connell succeeded, Mr. Goldwin Smith does not hesitate to assure his readers that he would have put Ireland "under the ban of a reactionary priesthood."

Over and over again he raises the false cry, to-day nowhere seriously entertained outside a limited circle of blind bigots and interested place holders, that "Home Rule means. Rome Rule." He reiterates that the Roman Catholic religion.

is mediæval; that the training of its ministers inevitably shuts out light which would be fatal to mediæval beliefs; that the Maynooth priest comes out proof against the intellectual influences and advancing science of his time; that he is "the mental liegeman and the preacher of the syllabus, which anathematizes freedom of thought and claims for the Church dominion, not only over the soul but over the body, such as was hers in the Middle Ages."

And following Sir Horace Plunkett, despite the crushing disproof of the contention by Rev. Dr. O'Riordan, in his book, Catholicity and Progress in Ireland, Mr. Goldwin Smith holds that "in the place of industry and commerce the influence of the Catholic priesthood has generally been the same." In Mr. Goldwin Smith's opinion it is not "the curse of Cromwell," but the curse of a strongly and inherently reactionary priesthood "that lies heavily upon Ireland."

What a pity to find an old man, otherwise sane and highly intelligent, holding such preposterous views. And yet he intimates, in the last page of his book, how this same priestridden people may become a saving element in the social character of the United Kingdom. "Ireland," he writes, "is perhaps happy in having been cut off from the prodigious development of luxury and dissipation which, as social writers tell us, has been taking place on the other side of the channel, as well as from the domination of the stock exchange. She may in this way become a saving element in the social character of the United Kingdom."

He does not venture to tell us how this can be done with her religious and moral ideals of life rising no higher than what he is pleased to style "mediæval superstition." Whatever one may think of Mr. Goldwin Smith's peculiar views on the subject of the Catholic Church and the Irish priesthood, one thing at least is certain-that the time has come when Ireland must be governed in accordance with Irish ideas. The enlightened opinion of the world looks to the new Liberal Government to set the machinery in motion which will bring contentment and prosperity to the people of Ireland. Hence we say the outlook is brighter than it has been at any time during the past decade.

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S

THE CHURCH AND HER SAINTS.

II.

BY REV. JAMES J. FOX, D.D.

I.

PEAKING of the paper which appeared, under the above heading, in THE CATHOLIC WORLD for January, a prudent critic and not uncandid friend of the writer remarked to him: "There is a danger that you will create, in some minds, a false and pernicious impression, if you scatter broadcast the results of critical study contained in that book of Father Delahaye. He accumulates hundreds of instances of gross errors to be found in the Lives of the Saints; and, generally, they are not individual specimens, but types of a numerous class. Now, when the attention of some unreflecting person is fixed upon the aggregate, he may easily come to the conclusion that error is the rule, not the exception, and that consequently the entire collection of Lives of the Saints is untrustworthy." The observation is sufficiently grounded to dictate some precaution against the possible danger. We know how easily we may convey a false impression of a worthy man by recounting only his weaknesses and short-comings. Caricature may be constructed from materials furnished by truth; and there are no more pernicious falsehoods than those that consist of half-truths.

To draw from Father Delahaye's work any universal conclusion derogatory to the whole body of hagiographical literature would be an injustice to him, and an offence against logical reasoning. It would be It would be on a par with the methods of some foreigners who, ignoring all sense of proportion, form their conception of the American people from what they have read of Southern lynchings, the police annals of New York and Chicago, gigantic financial frauds, and divorce court statistics. However unsparingly the critic may apply his winnowing fan, the Lives of the Saints whose authenticity is above suspicion will remain a great granary in which souls will find stored, in bountiful abundance, the wheat of the elect. As long as human nature reVOL. LXXXII. -42

mains what it is, example will prove more efficacious than verbal precept. And while example continues to possess the advantage over preaching, the histories of the men and women, of every condition in life, who in response to the Master's invitation have, in the Master's footsteps, trod the stern, hard path with their cross upon their shoulders, will remain a fruitful source of noblest inspiration, efficacious incentive, and conquering force. When the spurious, the fictitious, the unworthy, are eliminated, by the hands of critics reverent as Father Delahaye, the great body of Christian hagiology will have suffered scarcely any perceptible diminution, and no depreciation of value.

Another possible error is to be prevented. It would be a great mistake to confound the saint with the story; to conclude that, because the latter will not, in its entirety, or in some of its parts, stand the light of criticism, the credit of the saint is in jeopardy. On this point Father Delahaye, towards the close of his work, issues a word of warning: "All our work tends to demonstrate that the glory of the saints is too often exposed to be compromised by the literature relating to it, because the people, on the one side, or the hagiographers, on the other, have sung their praises, not wisely, but too well. There is no direct proportion between the legitimacy and popularity of the worship paid to a saint and the historical value of the writings upon which the worship rests. Such and such a martyr, who has received scarcely any religious recognition beyond the narrow walls of the basilica consecrated to him, lives for us in authentic records of incomparable beauty; another, whose tomb has attracted armies of pilgrims from all parts of the earth, is known to us only by stories of no better historical character, and much less interesting, than the Thousand and One Nights." While he hesitates to go so far as to lay it down, as a general principle, that the authenticity of the documentary testimony concerning the saint's life is in inverse ratio to the popularity of the cult paid to his memory, Father Delahaye does not fear to speak as follows: "It is incontestable that, legend having been most busy with the more popular saints, the task of safeguarding historic tradition has been more difficult in the case of the most frequented sanctuaries than anywhere else. This is just what we observe regarding the great goals of pilgrimage. Except in some very special cases, we possess about their origin and their patron only fanciful data.”

Hence, he concludes, it is quite permissible to distrust a legend, and, withal, retain great confidence in the saint; though, he cautiously remarks, we may not go so far as invariably to admit the saint's existence, no matter what may be the character of the legend. In fact, he cites many cases where the hagiographical story, while wearing the semblance of an authentic document, refers to a purely imaginary personage.

Another caution may not be quite superfluous. Do not infer that because a document or a story, historically viewed, is deserving of little or no consideration, it ceases to have any ethical or spiritual value. Historical worth is one thing; religious and moral worth, another. It must be remembered, too, that, as we shall see, many narratives, or compositions that were cast in the form of a narrative, were never meant by their authors to be taken as historical compositions at all. They were intended, merely, to be a vehicle for moral and spiritual lessons. In the original writer's mind this purpose was entirely independent of the question whether the relations had, or had not, a basis in fact. And here the hagiographer could justify himself by the most august of examples. Our Lord himself conveyed much of his teaching in parables and fables. Who asks whether the story of the prodigal son is a real history of a real man of flesh and blood?

Suppose that some German critic should make his bow with a volume of geographical, topographical, archæological, philological, psychological facts, embroidered on a ground of theory and conjecture, to spell out the proposition that no man ever went down from Jerusalem to Jericho to fall among robbers, and experience inhumanity from the orthodox and tender ministration from the heretic-would the supremely beautiful story, which, for two thousand years, has held up the ideal of Christian charity, have lost one iota of its power? Our biblical critics are, now, unanimous in declaring that the greatest lessons in the inspired writings concerning the problem of evil, are entirely independent of the questions whether or not Satan, in all actuality, one day stood among the sons of God, and impudently argued with the Almighty; or, whether there ever existed an Idumean emir, of exceptional probity, whose name was Job.

If our learned professors should, to-morrow, bring convincing evidence that William Tell was a Swede, or a Dutch