would be caused
by a Catholic journal persistently labouring to thwart the published
will of the Holy See, and continuously defying its authority. The
conductors of this _Review_ refuse to take upon themselves the
responsibility of such a position. And if it were accepted, the _Review_
would represent no section of Catholics. But the representative
character is as essential to it as the opinions it professes, or the
literary resources it commands. There is no lack of periodical
publications representing science apart from religion, or religion apart
from science. The distinctive feature of the _Home and Foreign Review_
has been that it has attempted to exhibit the two in union; and the
interest which has been attached to its views proceeded from the fact
that they were put forward as essentially Catholic in proportion to
their scientific truth, and as expressing more faithfully than even the
voice of authority the genuine spirit of the Church in relation to
intellect. Its object has been to elucidate the harmony which exists
between religion and the established conclusions of secular knowledge,
and to exhibit the real amity and sympathy between the methods of
science and the methods employed by the Church. That amity and sympathy
the enemies of the Church refuse to admit, and her friends have not
learned to understand. Long disowned by a large part of our Episcopate,
they are now rejected by the Holy See; and the issue is vital to a
_Review_ which, in ceasing to uphold them, would surrender the whole
reason of its existence.

Warned, therefore, by the language of the Brief, I will not provoke
ecclesiastical authority to a more explicit repudiation of doctrines
which are necessary to secure its influence upon the advance of modern
science. I will not challenge a conflict which would only deceive the
world into a belief that religion cannot be harmonised with all that is
right and true in the progress of the present age. But I will sacrifice
the existence of the _Review_ to the defence of its principles, in order
that I may combine the obedience which is due to legitimate
ecclesiastical authority, with an equally conscientious maintenance of
the rightful and necessary liberty of thought. A conjuncture like the
present does not perplex the conscience of a Catholic; for his
obligation to refrain from wounding the peace of the Church is neither
more nor less real than that of professing nothing beside or against his
convic