go she left unfinished. The time approaches when
men must take their choice between quiescent, immobile faith and
ever-advancing Science--faith, with its mediaeval consolations, Science,
which is incessantly scattering its material blessings in the pathway
of life, elevating the lot of man in this world, and unifying the
human race. Its triumphs are solid and enduring. But the glory which
Catholicism might gain from a conflict with material ideas is at the
best only like that of other celestial meteors when they touch the
atmosphere of the earth--transitory and useless.

Though Guizot's affirmation that the Church has always sided with
despotism is only too true, it must be remembered that in the policy
she follows there is much of political necessity. She is urged on by
the pressure of nineteen centuries. But, if the irresistible indicates
itself in her action, the inevitable manifests itself in her life. For
it is with the papacy as with a man. It has passed through the struggles
of infancy, it has displayed the energies of maturity, and, its work
completed, it must sink into the feebleness and querulousness of old
age. Its youth can never be renewed. The influence of its souvenirs
alone will remain. As pagan Rome threw her departing shadow over the
empire and tinctured all its thoughts, so Christian Rome casts her
parting shadow over Europe.

INADMISSIBLE CLAIMS OF CATHOLICISM. Will modern civilization consent to
abandon the career of advancement which has given it so much power and
happiness? Will it consent to retrace its steps to the semi-barbarian
ignorance and superstition of the middle ages? Will it submit to the
dictation of a power, which, claiming divine authority, can present
no adequate credentials of its office; a power which kept Europe in a
stagnant condition for many centuries, ferociously suppressing by the
stake and the sword every attempt at progress; a power that is founded
in a cloud of mysteries; that sets itself above reason and common-sense;
that loudly proclaims the hatred it entertains against liberty of
thought and freedom in civil institutions; that professes its intention
of repressing the one and destroying the other whenever it can find the
opportunity; that denounces as most pernicious and insane the opinion
that liberty of conscience and of worship is the right of every man;
that protests against that right being proclaimed and asserted by law in
every well-governed state; that contem