mandment was indeed the supreme commandment; and upon it even the duty of public worship is based. Men are to serve God out of love, as children worshipping a loving parent. So too they are to serve their neighbors, not from desire of personal benefit, as do the heathen, but from simple love of their neighbor, after the example Christ has himself given us. Truly would our Lord have "nothing to do with the purposeful and self-seeking pursuit of good works." That subtle selfishness which infects so many apparently good people, actuating even their "good works" with an intense seeking of their own personal interest, whether in this world or the next, is absolutely opposed to the mind of our Saviour. "To be anathema for the brethren" was St. Paul's desire, and the desire of many a saint, and the phrase does but seek to express by hyperbole the utter unselfishness of Christian love.

There is one other point in Professor Harnack's analysis of the Gospel to which we will call attention, because his treatment of it illustrates his frequent misconception of Catholic teaching. It regards the question of asceticism. There is a widespread opinion," says Professor Harnack-"it is dominant in the Catholic churches and many Protestants share it nowadays-that in the last resort, and in the most important things which it enjoins, the Gospel is a strictly world-shunning and ascetic creed. Some people proclaim this piece of intelligence with sympathy and admiration; nay, they magnify it into the contention that the whole value and meaning of genuine Christianity, as of Buddhism, lies in its world-denying character. Others emphasize the world-shunning doctrines of the Gospel, in order thereby to expose its incompatibility with modern ethical principles and to prove its uselessness as a religion. The Catholic churches have found a curious way out of the difficulty, and one which is in reality a product of despair. They recognize, as I have said, the world-denying character of the Gospel, and they teach, accordingly, that it is only in the form of monasticism—that is, in the 'vita religiosa -that true Christian life finds its expression. But they admit a lower kind of Christianity, without asceticism, as sufficient.' We will say nothing about this strange concession now; the Catholic doctrine is that it is only monks who can follow Christ fully." As opposed to this he goes on to set forth his own By Catholic churches" Professor Harnack means the Roman and the Greek. Lecture V., p. 79.

doctrine that this world is given us "to be made the best of within the bounds of its own blessings and its own regulations, and that if Christianity makes any other claim, it thereby shows that it is unnatural. If Christianity has no goal to set before this life, if it transfers everything to a Beyond; if it declares all earthly blessings to be valueless, and points exclusively to a world-shunning and contemplative life, it is an offence to all energetic, nay, ultimately, to all true natures; for such natures are certain that our faculties are given us to be employed and that the earth is assigned us to be cultivated and subdued." *

Evidently from these passages Professor Harnack fails to understand the nature of Catholic asceticism or monasticism. According to his conception of it, Catholic asceticism is founded in the belief that the present world with all its joys and interests is essentially evil, and therefore to be shunned. He dissociates Catholicism from Manicheism only by the admittance of a sort of "lower kind of Christianity" sufficient for salvation, but not the perfect Gospel.

Was there ever a more entire misunderstanding? We must, however, admit that some of the devotional writings with which the Catholic world has been inundated during the past three centuries do lend color to the statement. Too frequently in these writings is the infection of puritanism evident; the world is spoken of as though it were bad in itself, an utterly evil thing. The most noticeable feature about these writings is the absence of the human feeling and of joy, as though to be human and joyous were to be unrighteous. But these writings do not represent Catholic teaching, but are the outcome of peculiar circumstances and the morbid character of the times in which they see the light. Had Professor Harnack observed the history of the monks sympathetically he might have seen how untrue his statement of Catholic monasticism is to the fact. The monk renounces the world not because it is in itself an evil thing, but because he himself is called to a more intimate communion with the unseen world than is possible in the ordinary paths of the world's life. His renouncement is the result of a special vocation. How utterly opposed Catholic asceticism is to Buddhism, or any other form of dehumanizing religion, is surely evident to any one whose eyes are open to Lecture V., p. 80-81.

see, in the history of European civilization; for who did more to introduce the arts of civilized life among the modern nations than the Catholic monk? And was it not the medieval friaranother representative of Catholic asceticism-who rehabilitated society in the nineteenth century, founding hospitals, fostering learning, encouraging marriage, inspiring the arts? If the Catholic monk leaves the world it is only that he might the more freely and forcibly act on the world. His very renouncement is itself an effective discipline to correct the moral abuses. of society. His vow of poverty rebukes the inordinate love of personal property so common amongst men; his vows of chastity and obedience are a vivid lesson on the possibility and duty of self-restraint.

The monk's life is, in fact, properly understood when we take it in its relation to the whole Christian society. Not all men are called to be monks; yet all are called to be perfect Christians, even though they be owners of landed estates or living in the marriage state. Each man has to follow the divine vocation, whether it be to the marriage state

cloister; and he is made perfect in fulfilling the vocation to which he is called.

Of course to any one who holds by the theory that religion consists wholly and exclusively in individual communion with God, the Catholic monastic ideal can never be wholly intelligible. For the value of the monastic life largely consists in its communion with the wider life of the whole Catholic body. The monk fulfils a function in the organized body of the church he is not a mere world-shunning ascetic. For though separated from the ordinary life of the world, he yet continues to act on the world, and forms part of the world's life in the church.

And yet there is a sense in which every Catholic-be he monk or layman-must renounce the world if he would be a perfect Christian. Professor Harnack, though he has caricatured Catholic asceticism and wrongly classed it with Buddhism, has truly perceived a vital difference between the Catholic asceticism and the form of self-denial which he himself admits as necessary to a Christian life. Christian life. As we have seen, his whole conception of religion is present personal communion with God; he practically denies that fuller realization of religion in eternity, to which Catholics look forward as the ultimate goal

of their existence. This fuller and perfect realization is what animates the Catholic; and in view of this eternity he values less the things of time. He does not deny value to temporal things, but he holds them to be of use only as means to the eternal. Even in regard to his knowledge of God, he knows it to be imperfect now, and looks forward to a more perfect vision in the future. True to the Gospel, the Catholic looks beyond this present world for the realization of the Gospel promise. To Professor Harnack this view is heresy. If he believes in a life beyond the grave, he has such vague and shadowy notions about it, that he seeks the complete realization of religion in present earthly communion with God. And this, it seems to me, is what these lectures teach, notwithstanding their high religious fervor-that there is no certainty of a proper human existence beyond this earth; that life here is all we need therefore be concerned with, and that religion is but a subjective consciousness of a Higher Being than ourselves, whose nature is good and all-merciful, and with whom whilst we live we may have some sort of personal communion, but of whom we know nothing save that He must have the highest moral attributes we find in man. Therefore we attribute to this Being the attribute of love-the highest attribute of man. And in doing this we become His children. Such in brief is the teaching of these lectures: a mere shadowy Theism. But what else can man arrive at, once he rejects the divine authority of the Church? And that is why I said in the beginning that these lectures are the last word of Protestantism.

THE STORY OF THE "MORTE INNOCENTE."

BY E. C. VANSITTART.

VERY visitor to Venice who has come down the Grand Canal disembarks in the Piazzeta, and halts at the foot of the column bearing the winged lion before you stretch the opalescent waters of the lagoons, with a faint girdle of green islands far away; to your left rises the Ducal Palace, to your right the loggie of Sansovino. Memories of all those historic stones have witnessed hold you spellbound, while your eyes feast on the scene which stands alone in its peculiar style. When the sun has gone down in a flood of purple and gold, and the twilight falls, look towards the south-west side of the Church of St. Mark, and just in front of the Madonna in mosaic you will see two little lights suddenly flash out. These lamps are lit at sunset every evening, and burn throughout the night with a steady radiance, like two stars seen from afar, and only go out when the darkness is lost in the full light of day. Any Venetian, high or low, will tell you the reason of their existence-the sad but true story of the "Morte Innocente," or the "Buon anima del Fornaretto," as he is variously termed, in whose memory they burn; a story of love and death, an example of the fallible nature of human evidence, and the danger of hasty judgment.

On a brilliantly clear March morning of the year 1507, though six o'clock had not yet struck, there were already several customers in the Ostoria of the Cappa d'Oro, situated in the Campiello dei Pignoli, facing a canal in the Sestiére of St. Marco. This tavern was largely frequented by workmen, gondoliers, and fishermen inhabiting the neighboring narrow calle, for, besides opening his doors so early, its host, Bartolo, kept a large assortment of the home-made wines and spirits so popular in those days, in which his customers were wont to indulge before venturing out into the air of the lagoons, keen

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