has not its roots in our own mind. What is a man born for but to be a reformer, a re-maker of what man has made?

The poems repeat the same thoughts:

"Thou seek'st in globe and galaxy;

He hides in pure transparency.

Thou askest in fountains and fires;
He is the essence that inquires.
He is the axis of the star;
He is the sparkle of the spar;

He is the heart of every creature ;

He is the meaning of every feature
e;

And his mind is the sky,

Than all it holds more deep, more high."

Before going on to show what results Emerson has reached, let us try to see what his method is :

One thing is a pious reception. Our truth of thought is therefore vitiated as much by too violent direction given by our will, as by too great negligence. We do not determine what we will think. We only open our senses-clear away, as we can, all obstruction from the fact, and suffer the intellect to see. We have little control over our thoughts. We are the prisoners of ideas. They catch us up for moments into their heaven, and so fully engage us that we take no thought for the morrow; gaze like children, without an effort to make them our own. By and by we fall out of that rapture, bethink us where we have been, what we have seen, and repeat as truly as we can what we have beheld. As far as we can recall these ecstasies we carry away in the ineffaceable memory the result, and all men and all ages confirm it. It is called truth.

The same thoughts are expanded in these words from "The Over-Soul: ".

We distinguish the announcements of the soul, its manifestations of its own nature, by the term revelation. These are always attended by the emotion of the sublime. For this communication is an influx of the divine mind into our mind. It is an ebb of the individual rivulet before the flowing surges of the sea of life. Every distinct apprehension of this central commandment agitates men with awe and delight. A thrill passes through all men at the reception of new truths, or at the performance of great actions, which come out of the heart of nature. In these communications the power to see is not separated from the will to do, but the insight proceeds from obedience, and the obedience proceeds from a joyful perception. Every moment when the individual feels himself invaded by it is memorable. By the necessity of our nature a certain enthusiasm attends the individual's consciousness of that divine presence. The character and duration of this enthusiasm varies with the state of the individual, from an ecstasy and trance and prophetic inspiration, which is its rarer appearance, to the faintest glow of virtuous emotion. A certain tendency to insanity has always attended the opening of the religious sense in men, as if they had been "blasted with excess of light."

Such are the fundamental principles which Emerson felt moved to proclaim to the world. He had renounced the pulpit; he was incapable of regular and methodical production, and admission to suitable journals was not easy to obtain. He sought to establish an organ for the new views, but the enterprise always failed. Hence he was more and more driven to lecturing. These lectures were afterward worked up into book form, and aided in creating for him a small but appreciative audience. His writings are full of poetry, with the exception of his poems. He thinks in images. Hence his most illogical essay abounds in beauties which would make the fortune of any writer. His pages bristle and are alive with pictures and allegories. These always please those who do not puzzle themselves with his peculiar doctrines, but give themselves up to his imaginative splendours. For thirty years the poet in Emerson has procured toleration for the philosopher. Curiously enough, too, he has fancied the philosophy the main thing, while the wiser public has humoured his whim for the sake of something far better. In another article we shall show the results to which these doctrines have led, and test their philosophical worth.

[We hope to supply the conclusion of this sketch in our May number.]

ART. II.-IRELAND'S ECCLESIASTICAL CONDITION.

ULTR

LTRAMONTANISM is the presiding genius in all the councils of the Irish Roman Catholic Hierarchy. Half a century ago the priesthood had a measure of interest in Ireland's prosperity as

a nation, and inculcated patriotism on their flocks. But these men are now being rapidly succeeded by ecclesiastics of Cardinal Cullen's type, whose sole object is to establish the Papal supremacy in all matters temporal and spiritual. Hence the Green Isle is the arena on which political agitators are ever trying their skill and success. The temporal and spiritual supremacy of the Popedom is the very genius of Catholicism. This Church is not a spiritual society merely, as her apologists in Protestant kingdoms affirm, but a temporal Monarchy. To effect this sovereign power, her advocates, by means of the co-operation of Liberal Protestants and Liberal Parliaments, under the pretext of soliciting political and religious equality, declare that the Pope's supremacy means only Spiritual direction, not civil jurisdiction. That is, he who sits upon the Seven Hills is merely the world's casuist, not the world's magistrate. It is not as a Dictator, but as a Doctor, he occupies St. Peter's chair, that he may solve all religious doubts respecting dogmas, and heal sin-sick consciences. Such a defence is but special pleading to deceive those unacquainted with the rise and history of Romanism. If the Pope be supreme judge in religious matters, must not kings and subjects bow with implicit submission to his infallible decisions? Should they be disposed to gainsay his enactments, must not the Head of the Church be armed with civil power to crush the rebellious and to give effect to his decisions? Spiritual supremacy, then, necessarily implies the. possession of temporal jurisdiction. And this was the very thing which the French empire acted upon, when its armies, under the late Napoleon, maintained the temporal power of the Pope in Rome, contrary to the express wish of his Italian subjects. This view has been frequently urged to induce the Catholic powers of Europe to overturn the Government of Victor Immanuel, and restore the Pope's temporal sovereignty. This two-fold supremacy has been claimed by all the Roman Pontiffs since the days of Gregory VII. (Hildebrand). Several Catholic writers have expressed the claim in the form of a syllogism :-" Christ is the Vicar of God, and as such possesses all power in heaven and on earth, both temporal and spiritual; the Pope is the Vicar of Christ; therefore the Pope is God's Vicar, and as such possesses all power in heaven and on earth-temporal and spiritual." Now, if the minor premiss be admitted, the conclusion is irresistible, and the chain of ratiocination is composed of links of adamant. Consequently the Pope, as Head of the Church and God's Vicegerent upon earth, possesses absolute dominion over all monarchies and governments in matters temporal and spiritual. The Romish Church, like Daniel's fourth prophetic beast, is diverse from all other Churches in genius, constitution, and prerogative. She is a temporal empire as really as she is an ecclesiastical society. And in

token of this hybrid character the Pope, on certain State occasions, displays the emblems of both jurisdictions by holding the keys in his one hand and the sword in his other. Pope Pius V. attempted to establish this claim on Britain in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. In his Bull against her he officially declares: "We deprive the Queen of her pretended right to the kingdom, and of all dominion, dignity, and privilege whatsoever; and we absolve all the nobles, subjects, and people of the kingdom, and whoever else has sworn to her, from their oath, and all duty whatsoever in regard to dominion, fidelity, and obedience," &c. Under the authority of this Bull, Philip of Spain equipped and sent forth his "Invincible Armada" to depose Queen Elizabeth, to conquer these realms, and to annihilate the Protestant religion. And it was in defiance of this Bull an Act was passed which gave recently to the celebrated Father O'Keeffe a triumphant victory in the Dublin Supreme Courts over Cardinal Cullen. This old statute is not only a bulwark round the throne of Queen Victoria against the Papal aggressions; but has proved to be an impregnable fortress, in which a patriotic Irish priest found protection from the dastardly tyranny of his ecclesiastical superiors. This trial so evinced the crushing power of this old statute, that a Home Ruler, in his place, asked the British Parliament, during the last session of Gladstone's ministry, to take steps for its immediate repeal.

The observance of numerous saints' days prescribed in the Romish calendar destroys, amongst the Irish peasantry and the agricultural classes, all perseverance in industrious habits. The Sabbath of the Lord is desecrated and turned into a day of public games and other amusements. Poverty and discontent are the inevitable results of idleness. Priests and their partisan demagogues avail themselves of the ignorance, poverty, and disaffection so wide-spread in the counties of Leinster, Munster, and Connaught. The public mind is kept in a state of perpetual agitation by the eloquent recitals of Saxon misrule and oppression, and flaunting before the gaze of a people intensely sanguine in their temperament, and immersed in superstition, delusive visions of Home Rule, and Ireland's independency. The towns and villages of these three provinces swarm with priests, monks, and nuns of various orders, and mendicants, evidential of the blighting influence of Popery. Many schools, under the sole control of ecclesiastics, have been organized to prevent parents from sending their children to Protestant mission-schools, or those in connection with the National Board of Education. The reading books used in these schools are filled with legends of saints whose pictures cover the walls of the room, and also contain erroneous and falsified historic accounts of the persecutions endured by the Catholic Church, inflicted by Protestant Governments. The teachers are dressed in the habits of

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their respective religious orders; and the pupils, by ring of bell, or other signal, drop on their knees even in the middle of their lessons, before the image of some saint, and present their acts of devotion. To supersede the colleges and schools of her Britanic Majesty in Ireland, and to obtain from the British Parliament college charters and large fiscal endowments for universities and schools, to be placed under the sole control of the priesthood, is the all-absorbing hope and grand aim of the Romish Hierarchy. No one who looks at Rome's attitude in Germany and in Ireland, but must be convinced that her priests in all countries are working, in dauntless audacity and amazing craft, on a well-conceived plan to seize upon the government of the world.

The following incidents illustrate the gross spiritual tyranny still practised upon the credulity of the superstitious Irish in some districts of their Green Isle:

On a Sabbath, as I was on the way to one of my sub-stations, the roads were so crowded by an excited multitude, vociferating "The holy fathers are come! the holy fathers are come!" that I could not proceed on my journey till the tumultuous wave passed. On reaching my preaching appointment, I was informed that foreign priests, believed to be Jesuits expatriated from Germany, had been holding special services for the three preceding weeks, and this was to be their last day in that locality. They had announced that on this final day they would show the crater of the infernal abyss to all to whom they should grant absolution, and that there would be seen the souls of noted apostates and heretics -as Luther, Calvin, Knox, and Wesley-in the abodes of woe. The souls of deceased Orangemen were to be also seen weltering in the flames. They further promised that to all absolved persons who would pay a prescribed sum of money for the celebration of special masses to release the souls of departed relatives from Purgatory, they would grant the distinguished privilege of shaking hands with the emancipated spirits on their passing from Purgatory to Heaven. It was triumphantly alleged that this vision would be ocular demonstration of the efficacy of masses in conferring happiness upon the dead, which the most obdurate Protestant heretic could not gainsay. To attend the services of these Jesuit Fathers was believed by the Catholic peasantry to be more efficacious than those conducted by the ordinary local priests. Hence the vast crowds that flocked to their confessional-boxes to obtain absolution at their hands, and to behold the stupendous miracle which was announced, acted with the potency of a magician's talisman in collecting from distant parts of the country countless multitudes of superstitious devotees on that Lord's Day.

A brief statement of the arrangements for exhibiting their religious jugglery may not be uninteresting to the reader. I col