good; whereas heresy, as I have said, is immediately and directly a sin against God. But, though not such a grevious sin as heresy, schism is yet a very grevious sin. Indeed we have the authority of St. Thomas for saying that, of the sins against our neighbour, schism, as being against the spiritual good of the many, seems to be the greatest.

As schism is always a sin, it is evident that it can never be lawful.

It is evident also from the names given to the Church in Holy Scripture-the Body of Christ, the Kingdom of Christ, the Fold of Christ. The Church is the Body of Christ. He is the Head, and we are the members of that body. The Church is the Kingdom of Christ. He is King, and we are His subjects. The Church is the Fold of Christ. He is the Shepherd, and we are His sheep. Schism, then, can never be anything but sinful, as it can never be anything but sinful voluntarily to cease to be members of the Body of Christ, subjects of the Kingdom of Christ, sheep under the fostering care of the Good Shepherd.

Finally, you will try in vain to justify schism from the writings of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church.

To those who are anxious to acquire a far fuller and clearer knowledge of schism, and of many other topics connected with "primitive Ecclesiology," we can very cordially, and quite conscientiously, recommend a careful study of Dr. Maguire's book. The author tells us on the title-page that his book was "presented to the Theological Faculty of St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, as a Thesis for the Degree of Doctor." But, though the writer introduces his book to the world by the modest name of "Thesis," it makes, as a matter of fact, a fairly large volume; a volume highly creditable to those who have had any share in its production; creditable to the great national College of Maynooth of which every Irish Catholic is so justly proud, and to its professors; creditable to the Dublin firm which has published it; and, of course, very especially creditable, to Dr. Maguire.

As we should have expected from the title which he gives. to his treatise, Dr. Maguire views his subject, for the most part, in the light of Scripture and Tradition. After the first three chapters of Scriptural arguments and illustrations, in

which he shows a masterly knowledge of the sacred text, and of its bearing on the subject he is discussing, the author introduces us, in the five chapters that follow, to the teaching of erudite antiquity; to St. Polycarp, St. Justin Martyr, St. Cyprian Martyr, to St. Augustine and others. The last chapter of the book deals with matters theological. It is a very stimulating chapter; for, besides imparting a good deal of useful information, it will, unless we are very much mistaken, excite in the reader a strong desire to read still more about the matters with which the chapter deals.

In a very well known and extraordinarily brilliant passage, Macaulay asserts that there is not, and there never was on this earth a work so well deserving of examination as the Catholic Church. If to a Protestant layman like Macaulay the Catholic Church was so well deserving of examination, how much better deserving of examination ought it not to be to a Catholic layman, especially to a Catholic layman of such a Catholic nation as Ireland, with her long history of suffering and martyrdom, borne for the Catholic Church, and for all that the Church symbolises? Surely, not merely Irish priests, but Irish laymen too, ought to take a lively interest in the history and fortunes of the Catholic Church; in her constitution and policy; in her claims upon their obedience and love. In a short time, please God, we shall have the making of our own laws in our own hands. It is quite essential that our Irish Catholic laymen who are to have a part in the shaping of those laws should have a ready knowledge of the Church and of the inalienable trusts which Our Lord Jesus Christ has committed to her keeping; for example, that she has a right freely to implicate herself in the schools of the country; that to her, and to her alone, God has given the right to make laws regulating the contract of marriage. In one of his very latest speeches, Cardinal Logue exhorted lay Catholics to take an interest in Catholic theology, and to manifest their interest in it by going to hear theological lectures whenever occasion offers. Those who have not the opportunity nor the time for the hearing of such lectures should try, as far as they can, to compensate for the privation. One way of making compensation is the thoughtful and careful reading of such books as the one which Dr.

Maguire offers to us. It is an excellent book, excellently written, and copiously indexed. And, whilst we would wish to see a copy of it on the book-shelves of every priest in Ireland, we should be very sorry if it did not make its way into the homes of the laity also.

After a careful perusal of Dr. Maguire's volume, we have for it nothing but the most sincere admiration and praise. If it be not an impertinence to do so, we would like to offer our warm congratulations to Dr. Maguire himself, in the first instance; to the time-honoured College of Maynooth, at which he received his theological education, and to the ancient and venerated diocese to which he belongs.

EDWARD MASTERSON, S.J.

THE EXCEPTION

I know I have but little while to wait,

And life's dark questions must their answer find.
Their is no circumstance, no hazard blind,
No height or depth that compasses my fate,
But Thou, for each, shalt How and Why relate,
And I, in all, perceive the cause assigned,

What time this mind holds converse with Thy Mind,
Within the City of the Golden Gate.

And but two things shall deeper mystery
Reveal, nor e'er interpretation win,

When Heaven's unshadowed Light I view them in.
Two things, alone, throughout Eternity,
Causeless and reasonless shall seem to me-
Thy love for me, and my own love for sin!

G. M. HORT.

PIGEON-HOLE PARAGRAPHS

There are few poets or literary men concerning whom sơ many enthusiastic praises could be gathered from the conversations and writings of his contemporaries as could be done for Aubrey de Vere. He was most amiable and most attractive. Many affectionate tributes were paid him by Sarah Coleridge, Thos. Carlyle, Sir Henry Taylor, and others. The last that has come under my eye is from John Ruskin, writing apparently to some Catholic friend after de Vere's conversion: " By the way, Aubrey de Vere is the noblest person I have yet heard of your getting hold of. He will do you good; he is one of the very, very, very few religious men living."

One of the most pathetic lines in the whole range of Latin poetry is the famous hexameter of Alvary's Prosody:

Nomina Graecorum certa sine lege vagantur.

Obedience saves us from the melancholy condition of those hapless Greek nouns that wander about without any fixed law. We have plenty of fixed laws and we are not allowed to wander about at our own sweet will-which would so often prove bitter.

It has been asserted that the style of The Lectures of a Certain Professor, certainly one of the most charming books of its kind in modern Anglo-Irish literature, was formed upon the style of Sir Arthur Helps. A young writer might easily do worse than take as his model and master the author of Friends in Council though it is likely that Helps is now but little read, in spite of the purity and lucidity of his English and the fine qualities of his essays-he is called by a writer in Chambers' Encyclopædia " the most delightful essayist since Lamb and Hunt." The following sentence put in the mouth

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It

of one of the characters in his novel Realmah describes, and to some extent realizes, his ideal of a perfect sentence: should be powerful in its substantives, choice and discreet in its adjectives, nicely correct in its verbs; not a word that could be added, nor one which the most fastidious would venture to suppress; in order, lucid; in sequence, logical; in method, perspicuous, and yet with a pleasing and inviting intricacy which disappears as you advance in the sentence; the language throughout not quaint, not obsolete, not common, and not new; its several clauses justly proportioned and carefully balanced, so that it moves like a well-disciplined army organised for conquest; the rhythm not that of music, but of a higher and more fantastic melodiousness, submitting to no rule, incapable of being taught; the substance and the form alike disclosing a happy union of the soul of the author to the subject of his thought, having, therefore, individuality without personal prominence; and withal, there must be a sense of felicity about it declaring it to be the product of a happy moment, so that you feel it will not happen again to that man who writes the sentence, or to any other of the sons of men, to say the like thing so choicely, tersely, mellifluously, and completely."

A correspondent writing over the initials E. J. A. to America indignantly denounces literary prize-contests in magazines and describes how he tested one such competition by playing a kind of practical joke on the judge:

"As contribution to a "Contest about Capital Punishment" I sent in a slightly disguised extract from Dickens' 6 Tale of Two Cities' (Sydney Carton), and as a bid for The best Immigrant I ever knew' a character-sketch of the immortal Mark Tapley in Martin Chuzzlewit,' copied ad litteram. Both were promptly returned with a neatly printed expression of the great interest taken by the editors in my humble efforts and an encouragement not to give up hope: Shades of poor, old Dickens! He would never have won a prize in the sanctum of a modern American magazine. Now if this little incident proves anything it proves either the incompetence of the editors to judge true literary values and to recognize passages from standard authors, or the delectable