A STUDY IN APOLOGETICS. This book is a study of the methods of apologetics. This designation of its character is an indication of its timeliness. In what relation to the supernatural act of faith, stand the motives which prompt our belief that God has given a supernatural revelation, and our assent to the truths contained in that revelation ? This problem Father Gardeil considers from the subjective and the objective points of view, and resolves by the principles of St. Thomas. The work, which, considering the scope of the question, is very moderate in size, is divided into three books. In the first the notion of credibility, the degrees of reasonable credibility, and its special character, are expounded. The credibility of faith, Father Gardeil concludes, is usually based on motives which have a relative force. Nevertheless, the second book proceeds to establish the possibility of rigorously demonstrating the fact of a divine attestation of revelation, in accordance with the words of the Vatican Council: cum recta ratio fidei fundamenta demonstrat. In the third book Father Gardeil applies his principles and conclusions to the appreciation of the various methods of apologetics. The existence of scientific apologetic, a type of which is Zigliara's Propedeutica, Father Gardeil argues, is a possibility following from the possibility of having demonstrative proof of the credibility of revelation. His next step is to show that, while the motives of credibility, for the most part, do not in themselves possess demonstrative force, yet, grouped under the hegemony of theology, which may be done without falling into a vicious circle, they are adequate. The author then proceeds to examine the subjective method in general. While he concedes to it some subordinate utility and efficacy, his verdict on it is: "L'apologetique immantiste n'aboutit pas comme doctrine; si il semble aboutir dans des consciences individuelles, c'est en vertu des causes qui ne sont pas du ressort apologetique." In support of this conclusion he examines, successively, the three subjective methods, the pragmatist, the moral, and the fideist. If the pragmatist method confines itself strictly to its own resources, it is incapable of resulting in a doctrine; but if, illogically, instead of building solely on action and life, it assumes the existence of the supernatural in Christian life, it may be granted a limited utility in certain cases. In examining the moral method, which he condemns as either inefficient, or, if it assumes the existence of the supernatural, a mere begging of the question, Farther Gardeil, of course, has his eye on NewHis most significant, direct criticism of the Cardinal's doctrine is contained in a footnote: man. From the very first page of his Grammar of Assent, Newman debars himself from reaching apologetically the specifically Christian assent of faith. That assent, in fact, is essentially propter testimonium. Now the assent of which Newman speaks all the time, in his Grammar and elsewhere, is not an assent essentially relative to veracious testimony, but a belief that is the highest form of opinion, but never transcends the sphere of opinion, which is created by the vraisemblances and internal harmonies between the external world (les choses) and our interior dispositions. At bottom, Newman, through the Kantian Coleridge, whose influence on him he acknowledged, has his views colored by the Kantian idea of faith, which is characterized by the objective insufficiency and the subjective sufficiency of the motives on which adhesion is based. A disciple of Newman would reply to this stricture by contending that for Newman a convergence of high probabilities may, by their cumulative force, beget an assent accompanied by complete certitude. In an appendix consisting of a further discussion on the availability of miracles as a proof of credibility, the author brings his principles to bear on the views expressed by Le Roy, Lebreton, and some other recent writers who have advocated the "phenomenalist" position on this subject. This remarkably logical treatise will repay a thorough study. In a closing note Father Gardeil observes that he was putting the finishing touches to the last lines just as the Pope's Encyclical against Modernism appeared, which document, he continues, confirms the views and conclusions of the book, and, in particular, of the appendix, concerning phenomenist philosophy and apologetics. RELIGION AND HISTORIC If one desires to measure the distance traveled by German Protestantism, under the guidance of individualism, since Luther formulated the principle, Dr. Pfleiderer, and a widely acknowledged leader and light of contemporary English and American Protestant thought, may be accepted as the register. The readings of that index display the fact that this Protestantism has broken with everything that the first reformers considered essentials of Christianity. The present work though comparatively small, and superficial in character, consists of a series of lectures delivered to a general audience in Berlin University, and exhibits the professor's valuation of Christianity. In that estimate the supernatural is rejected as mythical, the dogmatic has no place; Christianity is reduced to its purely ethical element, and its Founder is shorn of all superhuman authority. These are the proportions to which Christianity is reduced in order to meet the needs of the vast mass of people in the various Protestant sects who refuse to believe in the traditional faiths of these bodies and yet desire to keep up some profession of Christianity. This Protestantism, eviscerated of the last traces of supernatural religion, is a mere natural theism which graciously accords to Jesus of Nazareth a primacy of honor among the great moral teachers of the world. And it is this conception of Christianity that is accepted, for the most part, among moral and religious teachers of our American secular universities. No wonder that sincere Protestants who still retain allegiance to the creeds of their fathers, and know the present trend of thought, are beginning to admit that all hope of saving supernatural religion from being utterly swept away by the onflowing tide of rationalism and positivism must be placed in the Catholic Church. If the first half-score of the lectures contained in the collection were issued as a separate volume it might be recommended as a defence of the universality of the religious instinct as manifested in the great ethnic religions of the ancient world. But though, like the curate's egg, parts of it are excellent, the objectionable section is of a character too pernicious to permit any recommendation of the volume. RITUAL. The eloquent Dominican, Father Proctor, after an interval of three years, has given to the public at large the course of sermons on Catholic ritual which he deliv * Religion and Historic Faiths. By Otto Pfleiderer, Professor of the University of Berlin. ered in the Cathedral of Westminster. In five discourses, which are apologetic in tenor, he treats of the use and abuse of ritual, the soul of ritual, the language of ritual, the centre of ritual, and the development of ritual. The ordinary objections of nonCatholics against the elaborate ceremonies of the Church and the display of material wealth in religious worship are taken up in the sermon on "The Soul of Ritual." Father Proctor also answers those who, in their revolt against excessive externalism in religion, would go to the opposite extreme, and deprive religion of the aid which it receives from symbolic embodiment of internal acts and dispositions. The last address is a reply to the prevalent contention that in all things the early Church ought to be the rule of the Church to-day: "It was so, or it was not so, in primitive Christian times, in Apostolic days, so should it be now." Father Proctor replies by showing that the principle of development applies to the whole life of the Church. "As there is development in doctrine, development in worship, there must be development in ritual, the Church's expression of doctrine and cult; there must be development in our attitude towards the developed truth, i. e., in our rites and ceremonies." A logic-chopping critic might be tempted to object that Father Proctor's line of argument proves too much. Sometimes it could be prolonged logically towards the conclusion that the law of development ought to prevent any permanent fixation of ritual at all. Yet in ritual as in dogma, though less rigorously, the Church insists on conformity to ancient tradition. "Truth expands as a tree; so consequently does ritual. Doctrine makes progress, not by change in substance, but by accidental development-so must ceremonial. As Christianity enters more deeply into the hearts, the lives, the minds of men, so it develops greater outward pomp, more exterior worship, more ceremonious demonstration of faith, hope, and love." This principle alone can scarcely account for the development of the ritual of the Mass, without any corresponding doctrinal development; from the simple primitive rite to the elaborate form of subsequent times. It is scarcely fair, however, to expect from an orator the dialectical exactitude of a theological treatise. Ritual in Catholic Worship. Sermons Preached in Westminster Cathedral during the Lent of 1904. By the Very Rev. Father Proctor. New York: Benziger Brothers. A handy, compendious, and accurate little manual of ceremonies proper for ordinary parochial needs is the translation of the German handbook of Father Ganns, S.J. The translation has been carefully made by one Jesuit, and edited by another, a sufficient guarantee that the book is faithful to approved authorities. When, in 1906, Pius X. beatified BLESSED JULIE BILLIART. the foundress of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur,t it was rightly interpreted as another mark of the Holy Father's zeal for the teaching of catechism. For Blessed Julie Billiart's life was signalized by a marvelous devotion to that office. Born in 1751, she was only seven years old when she began to gather her little companions around her to teach them the catechism. At the age of twenty-three she became a helpless invalid; and for years she gathered around her bed the little ones of the village to give them religious instruction. Through her subsequent life, almost to the end, pass the baleful storms of the French Revolution. During the early days she was the chief instrument in preserving religion in and around her native village, where a schismatical priest was in possession. Once she barely escaped from a disorderly rabble, who had invaded her home to kill the "dévote," by being carried, helpless as she was, downstairs and placed in a cart by her friends, and secretly conveyed to a place of safety. Her institute, the Congregation of Notre Dame, was launched during the period of peace established by Bonaparte. Her first houses, situated in Flanders and near the French frontier, suffered sadly during the frequent campaigns which swept across that quarter of Europe in the later Napoleonic wars. Sisters from Gembloux, Fleurus, Jumet, and other towns were frequently obliged to flee to Namur, where they were comparatively safe from military violence. Fugitives in the disastrous flight from Waterloo invaded the Convent of Fleurus. At Jumet a Prussian officer took up his quarters in the convent, and protected the Sisters from annoyance. The Sisters of Gem bloux suffered from the French. *Handbook of Ceremonies for Priests and Seminarians. By J. F. Müller, S.J. Translated by A. Ganns, S.J. St. Louis : B. Herder. The Life of the Blessed Julie Billiart. By a Member of the Sisters of Notre Dame. |