27th April 1605; and he was succeeded on the following 16th of May by Paul V., who continued to guide the Church for sixteen years.

The disputed doctrine, already mentioned, must have been hotly discussed at the time, since we find that before the new Pope was two months on the fisherman's throne, he confirmed on the 14th July 1605 a declaration of the Holy Office, that the doctrine was condemned etiam in sensu diviso, i.e., de confessione vel de absolutione seorsim, (even taken separately, that is, confession or absolution by itself). They must be together in the Sacrament of Penance just as hearing the cause and passing sentence in a judicial act.

The new Pope, of the great Borghese family, had as Cardinal been employed in the various embassies attached to the papacy. He was only 53 years of age. To skill in Canon Law and ecclesiastical polity he added frankness of manner with very great kindness and humility of disposition. From the first, although unhesitatingly condemning the thesis, he had the greatest esteem for the author and desired most earnestly to keep him by him.

Quite soon he had an opportunity to show his opinion of him. The Republic of Venice had passed a law forbidding any new churches to be built or religious houses to be founded without the sanction of the civil authority having been obtained, and declaring that the goods of lay-people could not be devised by will to clerics; besides, it had two ecclesisatics arrested, and handed over to be tried by secular judges.

The Pope demanded the repeal of the law and required that the clerics be given up to be tried by ecclesiastical judges in their proper courts. The dispute became much embittered through the malign influence of Fra Paolo. At this juncture the Pope looked round for an able pen to defend the immunity of the Church, and his choice fell upon Father Suarez, who had by this time left Rome and returned to Spain.

He had been offered positions at the pontificial court; but a man, whose habits had been so fixedly formed, would (it is possible) find it difficult to fall in with its etiquette and requirements. At any rate after a good deal of entreaty he had succeeded in obtaining the Holy Father's permission to

VOL. XLIII.-No. 502.

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forego them; and now his Holiness looked to him as one of the strongest supporters of the Church in this quarrel with the powerful Republic of Venice.

Father Suarez wrote the Defence in three volumes. The contest was of considerable duration, and it was late in the quarrel when he was appealed to; so it happened that before his Defence reached Rome, peace had been happily reached.

The first volume of this Defence was afterwards rendered memorable by the sensitiveness of James I. It is well known how highly the First of the Stuart line prided himself on his biblical and controversial knowledge. He was proportionately hurt when Suarez' learned and incontrovertible work appeared on The Errors of the Anglican Sect. But King James took the easiest way of answering it. Without wasting a drop of ink or consuming midnight oil in study, he handed it over to the common hangman to be publicly burned. The first volume of The Church's Immunity had been incorporated with this work, and suffered its fate.

But the two remaining volumes met with even a stranger treatment, one which gives an idea of the times. Some early copies were obtained. These were put into the hands of Paolo Sarpi of holy Mary's beautiful Order, the Servites, who taking Father Suarez' work, mutilated it and issued a mutilated edition. Luckily the original volumes had reached Rome. The Venetian edition came before the Index, and was condemned by that congregation in August 1606. This condemnation was warmly supported by Pope Paul in a letter, in which he highly extolled the writings of the learned and holy author.

Few children of mankind ever worked as Father Suarez did. The members of all religious houses according to rule rise early; but Father Suarez rose half an hour earlier than the hour when the common bell summoned his brethren. He regularly took a bath-it was the discipline; after which he spent an hour and a half in meditation. The "Small Hours" followed his meditation; and then for two hours he studied, or dictated to his secretary. It was near mid-day when he prepared for Holy Mass. After his long thanksgiving he took his first meal, which served for breakfast and dinner. Then came the Roman siesta, lasting for about half

an hour; after which he went to the church to say Vespers. In the afternoon he again studied or dictated to his secretary, usually for about five hours.

His portraits give the appearance of a shrivelled human being. His biographer tells that he longed for rest-rest and peace for the over-worked body and the over-wrought brain. And yet it was not to be. He had scruples, notwithstanding all his desire of rest, to ask for it. What did God give him body and brain for but to be spent in His service? The night cometh when no man worketh. It was sweet to hold one's beads, kneel before the crucifix or the Tabernacle, and think of the mercy of the Saviour; but-work while there is light; the night cometh when no man worketh. And the night was coming. The air of Lisbon was supposed to agree with him better than that of Coimbra, and thither he was sent. He was released from the duties of professor; but in every other way his life continued the same as before. While he was there a dispute occurred in which it would be supposed he could not be involved; and yet it was the immediate cause of his death.

An ecclesiastic died at Lisbon; the civil authorities claimed the revenues of the vacant benefices; the "Collector," that is, the Pope's representative, interposed. The suit was taken from court to court. At length the "Collector," who was a bishop, was openly insulted; and a cleric, who was carrying out his orders, was arrested, and publicly marched to prison. The "Collector" put the city under interdict. No church bells rang; no church doors opened; no funeral service was read; no public Mass was said; no marriage ceremony performed; nothing but the barest essentials of religion, the baby was baptized, and the dying annealed.

There was at the time no more venerable figure than Father Suarez at Lisbon. Both sides implicitly trusted him. Because of his love for souls the situation appealed to him. He undertook the office of intermediary. It was in the dogdays of August 1617. The civil authorities lived at one end of the city; the ecclesiastical at the other. Bareheaded and slow the venerable figure went from one to the other, while the scorching sun poured down its heat. Great had been the opinion of his sanctity; greater still it grew with all.

He fell sick of fever. His cell was now a rendezvous, one of the parties being at times in the sick room, while the other waited in the ante-chamber. He lived but ten days, and did not see peace established.

But it came after his

death, possibly through his prayers in a better land.

During those days he gave the greatest edification. He took great joy in the Psalms, and constantly repeated to himself--"I am a beggar and in want, but the Lord has care of me." He received the Last Sacraments with perfect simplicity and trust. At one time it was thought he was dead, and the prayers for the departed were recited; but, with a bright smile on his face, he woke up and exclaimed: "I never thought it was so sweet to die." He rested calmly in the Lord on the 26th September 1617, in his 69th year.

"Of the twenty-three volumes," says Father Coleridge, "in which his works were afterwards contained, not much more than half were published during his lifetime. He left the remainder in perfect order ready for the Press. . . . He had a wonderful memory, a calm judgment, and a bright flowing style. Great gifts! but he had others more truly great, which enabled him to keep his charity unsullied, and his devotion ever fresh; to be nothing in his own eyes, while the Church looked to him as her greatest living doctor; and amid the most splendid intellectual triumphs to be as simple and as humble as a child.”

STILL SWEETER

Sweet, to the taste, is bread well earned,
Sweeter, to mind, the Truth new-learn'd;
Sweetest of all that's felt or known
On earth, is sense of Duty done.

But who can tell how sweet in Heaven
The joy of souls to God all given?
Sense does not feel, nor tongue express
The sweetness of its tenderness.

W. L.

A NEW HISTORY FROM MAYNOOTH

WE

HEN Dr. MacCaffrey had completed his History of the Catholic Church in the Nineteenth Century, it was natural that his thoughts should have turned towards such a work as that which now lies before us.* His former work was devoted to a study of the French Revolution and of the subsequent developments in the history of the Church which accompanied the various social and political situations arising from that great upheaval. The Revolution was itself, however, the product of a long train of causes, many of which extended as far back as the changes and unrest of the sixteenth century. In their bearings upon the history of the Church, these causes, and the different phases by which the Europe of 1789 was reached, are set forth in the present work.

This history is decidedly opportune. The disorders of the Reformation are at length bearing full fruit. It is to these that we can ultimately trace the cynical and materialistic modes of thought that are responsible for the calamities of our own day. Hence Dr. MacCaffrey's studies of the Reformation have a peculiar value; they point to modern conditions, and they are undertaken from a frankly Catholic standpoint. Besides this, at a time when irreligion is so prevalent, and when we are menaced by an attempt (through secular education) to separate practical conduct from religion, it is bracing and instructive to review the past triumphs of the Church, to note her bold defence of her own rights, and to understand how, in spite of efforts made to set her aside, she yet remained bound up inseparably with popular life in Europe. She has certainly been no negligible quantity, and she was as much to be reckoned with by the anti-Christian philosophy of the eighteenth century as by the paganism of the humanist movement of the sixteenth.

History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French Revolution. By the Rev. James MacCaffrey, Ph.D. 2 Vols. Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son, Ltd. (Price 12s. 6d. net).