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persons who are sincerely devoted to the Church there to be a tendency which must imperil the integrity and r ness of their faith, and lessen their power of resistance t sault. From the temper of current literature and the prev epidemic of magazines they have caught the habit of tre all things piecemeal: of hurrying off with a fragment of and dealing with it in an essay, apart from all considerati its conditions, and in narrow forgetfulness of the vast an ing whole from which they took it. Even the reverent of a fragment thus isolated has some danger of the of disproportion :" the mind and heart may be so concent upon a part of truth that its action overgrows its proper r to the exclusion of some complementary doctrine and t undue development of thoughts and feelings which were meant to take up so much of the soul's entire energy an terest. And meanwhile the truths which are thus stinte their due attention and honour lose their corrective and pensating power in the soul, and when they are recalled distant and unsubstantial; and gradually the theological s undergoes a distortion somewhat like the deformities of ex and defect which mar the work and character of some amon votaries of total abstinence. But if these or like dangers ar curred by the undue absorption of interest in some one fragi of the Catholic faith, by "specialization" in theology, even v the mind is protected by a sincere and reverent desire to r its allegiance to those truths also from which it has withdraw attention, far greater and more ruinous is the peril when safeguard is either neglected or renounced. A self-satisfie presumptuous mind, when it is concentrated upon some deta portion of the creed of Christendom, with the conviction, u cognised or avowed, that itself is the measure of all thing almost sure to falter at the magnitude and solemnity of words which it has thus deprived of their proper setting circumstance. It will shrink either from the tremendous phasis which is laid upon the isolated truth, or from the mand which is made upon the faculty of faith when it has the sustaining power of the entire Creed; or, most proba from the bare, hard result of some course of inference whic

could not have pursued unchecked if it had not forgotten the truths which should have qualified the argument at every stage -if it had not lost the proportion of faith.

Current theology and criticism furnish many illustrations of this fault and peril : but perhaps it has never been more strikingly or more distressingly shown than in the confusion and unreasoning panic which was excited in the recent controversy about the eternal state of the lost. It was a subject upon which emotion was easily called forth, and rhetoric found ample scope; and neither of these forces was neglected. But both emotion and rhetoric gain in vehemence, in freedom, and in effect, in proportion to the simplicity of their object and the narrowness of their concentration and it was inevitable that in a controversy most unhappily popularized they should have this advantage to the full. Those who have not much leisure to read or think, are almost sure to be carried along by inconsiderate emotion and unhindered rhetoric; there is even for some a pleasure in yielding to such influences, analogous to the untutored enjoyment of loud noises : and accordingly the belief of Christendom upon this most mysterious and reverend subject was dragged away from all surrounding and guarding truths, out of all the reserve which gathers round it in a patient, thoughtful mind, and treated almost as though it were the one doctrine of the Church with regard to the issues of good and evil in the world to come.

Among the many debts which the Church of England owes to Dr. Pusey, that great service of his eightieth year should never be forgotten,-the service he rendered when, with that austere humility and gentleness which GOD had given him in so high a degree, he recalled the question to the sphere and temper of thought in which alone it can be approached by us men, in our ignorance and sinfulness. It is both humiliating and instructive to remember how great and wide was the unsettlement which that controversy caused; humiliating, in that it showed how little the minds of English Churchmen were really possessed by the power and greatness of the vast and complex scheme of doctrine which the wisdom and the prayers of many ages have gathered and constructed out of the Self-revealing of

Almighty GOD: instructive if it has shown to any the im] ance of studying and setting forth the Faith of CHRIST as majestic system, in which every part bears a vital and esse relation of mutual dependence and mutual support to each jacent part, while all are held together in the single harmor the whole.

The evidential value of this internal harmony of Christia is indeed most important, not only for the training and we of those who, by God's grace, hold the Catholic Faith, but as a defence against many of its assailants. The list of dest tive essays in a critical magazine will show that those would get rid of dogmatic Christianity have not forgotten maxim "Divide et impera." There may be no better protec against these guerilla tactics than the steady presentation study of the Creed as an organic body of truth, in which life and strength of the whole is communicated to each inte part. The wisdom and necessity of thus regarding the doctr system of the Church has been excellently stated by Nicola his "Etudes Philosophiques," and his words may fitly cl these thoughts. He speaks of “Une vérité capitale, que, se nous, on néglige trop souvent dans la polémique Chrétien c'est que nos mystères ne paraissent si accablants pour la rai que lorsqu'on les isole; et cela doit être, parce qu'alors nous les mesurons qu'avec des termes de comparaison pris en no mêmes, et dès lors hors de proportion avec l'infini ; et parce d'ailleurs les dogmes Chrétiens n'étant que la révélation attributs de Dieu, qui se confondent dans sa Suprême Un les diviser, c'est les dénaturer. Mais si, au contraire, nous prenons, dans leur connexion générale, si nous les mesurons uns par les autres, et avec une échelle de proportion qui soit même nature, alors nous les verrons se correspondre, se p dérer, s'engrener réciproquement, devenir raison les uns autres leur disproportion particulière disparaîtra dans l'h monie du tout, et deviendra même essentielle à cette harmon comme ces larges fresques des coupoles de nos temples qui mandent à être vues d'ensemble, et du point de vue pour leq

1 Vol. ii. pp. 497, 8.

leur effet a été calculé. Il faut, comme le dit Pascal, que la justice de Dieu soit énorme comme sa miséricorde."

II. The purpose of this book is, as has been said, to set forth the outlines of the Church's system of faith and life: it is published with a hope that it may be helpful to all who wish to see and study that system for their own confirmation in the faith and advancement in the life. But it is especially appropriate, and was in the first instance compiled, for the use of those who have the trust and privilege and responsibility of teaching others, whether in Church Schools, of whatever kind and grade, or in that one best school of childhood's faith,-the home.

The great commendation of the book for this use is that it will not save the teacher any trouble: indeed, if the teacher be conscientious and thoughtful, he will probably find that it will lead him to increase the time and labour spent in the preparation of his lessons. It will never play a satisfactory part in that unsatisfactory scene occasionally witnessed in some schools, when the teacher sits with his manual upon his knees, anxiously groping his way through unexplored sequences of thoughts and points, first, second, and third, illumined by so-called illustrations which barely make the darkness visible, while there steals over the minds, even of his most patient pupils, the confidence that they could take his place if only they might have his book. No one can be really helped by such a process as this: but it is open to question whether the teacher suffers more by the humiliating and impoverishing habit of communicating knowledge which he has never appropriated, or the taught by the association established in their childhood between religious instruction and dulness and unreality. In all matters, but plainly above all else in matters of faith, nothing can be taught which has not first been learnt: one can give nothing to others which one has not first gained for oneself: one cannot hope to bear deeply into the minds or hearts of one's scholars any thought, idea, or hope which has not been really, intelligently, appreciatively taken to oneself. This constitutes indeed a great and severe demand upon a teacher: a demand which no one, perhaps, can hope thoroughly and steadily to satisfy. But the ideal which it

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suggests should never be contentedly abandoned: it can only be forgotten with equal loss to both parties in the transaction of teaching. The teacher in such a case grows hard, unsympathetic, and unreal: the learner remains at a distance, and either receives nothing, or fails-if indeed he tries to appropriate what is poured into him: the process thus resulting sometimes in atrophy, sometimes in indigestion.

S. Gregory of Nazianzus, in his wonderful defence of his own flight from the honour of the Priesthood, sets in most vivid contrast, on the one hand, the minute and searching care with which the physician of the body inquires into every detail, every condition, every distant circumstance of his patient's case, neglecting nothing in his life, or temperament, or history, which may bear upon his trouble and its healing, and only after all that can be ascertained has been duly and systematically considered, determining upon a course of treatment; and, on the other hand, the careless confidence with which it is presumed that the very same "medicines of doctrine" are to be administered in the same way and measure to all who seek the healing of the soul. As he who so reluctantly took, so nobly bore, the trust of teaching, enumerates with delicate insight, with accurate discrimination, the subtle grades and tones of difference which sever soul from soul and characterise the needs and the capacities of each, it is impossible not to feel the vast demand which thus is made upon the patience, simplicity, and intelligence even of the most sympathetic teacher : impossible not to exclaim with S. Gregory himself, "Who is sufficient for these things?" No one indeed can hope by his own ability to teach so that all who learn from him may receive that which GOD alone knows to be most fit for their healing and helping : the highest, hardest part of the teacher's work must be entrusted in faith and prayer to the HOLY SPIRIT Who alone can give a right judgment in all things, and to the co-operation of the same Indwelling Spirit in the receptive hearts of the baptized but he who sets himself to so grave a task must at least have realised the truths he undertakes to teach that which he has to adapt he must first have scanned and understood in its living and entire symmetry: and as he looks into the faces of