presumptuous meddlers when they undertake to construe Roman Catholic teaching. The 'initiated' alone ought to do this; and so ends the matter. This looks very much like placing moral and mental freedom and every personal liberty at the mercy of. another. Of course Cardinal Manning tells us this is the highest freedom, but we are disposed to think it the most abject slavery. The lines of defence adopted by the defenders of Ultramontanism in relation to the Syllabus can only be characterised as subtle trifling. They evidently are strong believers in the credulity of men, and the power of audacity and emphasis.

The leaders of Roman Catholicism positively affirm that the position they have taken up does not in the least invade the proper province of civil authority. That their allegiance and that of their flock to civil government is neither more nor less divided than the allegiance of any Protestant. The Vatican decrees, as Cardinal Manning states, do not touch the question of the relations between Church and State. Nothing has been altered, and Catholic loyalty is as much to be depended upon now as before. The relations of the spiritual and civil powers have been fixed from the beginning, and Dr. Manning devotes a chapter to the exposition of these relations. This exposition states that there is an order of society intended to secure the temporal happiness and welfare of men, and that that order is civil; there is another order of society the end of which is the eternal happiness of mankind, and this order is spiritual. The relative position of these societies must be decided by the importance of their ends. The one is merely temporal in its aims, the other eternal; therefore the latter is the superior and more important. That which is superior fixes the limits of its own jurisdiction; but in doing this it fixes the limits of the inferior, so that the State is virtually subject to the Church. The State is said to possess an independent authority, but it is difficult to see what that authority is, and how it is to be exercised. In so far as States act in harmony with the law of God, the authority and office of the Church are directive and preceptive. When States deviate from this law, the authority and office of the Church then become judicial, so that in all cases, and throughout the whole range of State action, the Church claims the authority and power of a superior. But this authority is only spiritual, not temporal; and it is not direct in its incidence on temporal things, only indirect; that is, 'it directly promotes its own spiritual end; it indirectly condemns and declares not binding on the conscience such temporal laws as deviate from the law of God, and therefore impede or render impossible the attainment of the eternal happiness of man.' There is more here than a claim of independence. The Church is not merely independent of the State, but superior to it. The State, in point of fact, must be

the servant of the Church. The distinction made between direct and indirect power, as if it really expressed a difference, is simply a delusion. Take, for example, recent German legislation relative to the education of priests, ecclesiastical tribunals, and other matters. In the estimation of Rome, this legislation is a deviation from the law of God, and the Pope has declared it null and void, and relieved all Romanists from the obligation to regard it. This is an indirect exercise of authority on the part of the Church, and it is a puzzle to detect wherein it is distinguishable from a direct exercise of authority. This distinction is a mere figment of fancy, apparently devised for controversial purposes. When Bellarmine denied the direct temporal supremacy, Sixtus V. placed his book in the Index. A supremacy absolute and unconditioned, reaching as far over the action of the States as the Pope may please to say, is what Rome claims, and what has been determined to belong to it by the recent Council. And it is not within the limit of credibility that these Conciliar decrees concerning supremacy and infallibility, which enforce, under the pain of anathema, the extravagancies of extreme Ultramontanism, will exercise no influence whatever over the consciences and action of the adherents of Papal Rome. Those who have promoted the present conditions of the Papacy have not been working so purposelessly as the defenders of Vaticanism would have us think.

All allegiance, say Mr. Gladstone's opponents, is divided. No man yields an undivided allegiance to the civil authority. Men are under the régime of conscience, and the requirements of the civil power are checked by its authority. And we are gravely assured that Vaticanism advances no claims in respect to civil rule but what the general Protestant conscience of modern times advances. The only difference being, that in one case the Pope, and in the other the individual, determines when obedience has to be refused; and as the Pope is much wiser than any other individual can be, this difference is favourable to civil government. The parallel instituted between the Pope and conscience is in keeping with the character of Romish dialectics. Conscience is an authority to which a man must give heed, and its coercion is one of the greatest injustices that a man can endure; but conscience is a faculty of the man, and is concerned with questions of right and duty in relation to individuals; that which Romish ecclesiastics impart into the controversy is not conscience, but an obligation to obedience, imposed by external authority, and this is a very different thing to the opposition which springs from within a man against the unrighteous demands of a State. Conscience as a personal faculty may protest through a man against the claims of either the Pope or the State; but the Pope's claim of supremacy, with its correlative obedience, cannot take the place of the

individual conscience in relation to the State. This is simply declaring that an obligation to obey an ecclesiastical authority outside the State, is higher than allegiance to the State itself. It is substituting one thing for another, putting the Pope's claim in the place of the individual conscience. The question between Ultramontanism and the civil power is not a question of conscience at all; but a question between an ecclesiastical corporation and State authority. Liberty of individual conscience is no danger to the State, for there is no combination, and varying judgment amongst men, when they are left free, is a sufficient safeguard to civil government. But Romanism destroys the action of individual conscience; it claims supreme authority here, saps the foundations of personal liberty, and seeks to bring men and their rulers into subjection to itself. Romanists are really expected not to act under the guidance of conscience, but under the guidance of the Teaching Authority of their Church, which Teaching Authority is entirely subject to the Pope. The plea of conscience comes with ill grace from Romish ecclesiastics. Dr. Manning, in conducting his argument against Cæsarism, says, 'The State cannot command man's intellect, it cannot control his conscience, it cannot coerce his will.' Mr. Fitzjames Stephen, in his reply, published in the Contemporary Review, throws the light of history upon this statement of the head of the Romish hierarchy in England. It is a pity for Romanism there should be any history. Throughout the greater part of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the one object of the Roman Catholic Church was to get the Roman Catholic states to do all this '—that is, command intellect, control conscience, and coerce will to the point of extermination, and by the unspairing use of the most revolting cruelties; and to a very great extent it succeeded in its efforts. If the State, as represented by Phillip II. and others, acted within its sphere, what are we to say to Archbishop Manning's principle? If it overstepped its sphere, what are we to say of the Church, at whose instigation and with whose warm approval it did so?? This is an awkward way of putting the case, and the dialectical skill of Dr. Manning will be sorely taxed to parry this home thrust. Ultramontanism does not contend for liberty of conscience as against the State; but for the subjection of conscience to itself as against the State, which is a widely different thing. The voice of conscience has to be but an echo of the Pope's voice. The name of conscience is used, but for its prerogative and power the authority of the Pope is substituted. The State, in relation to Ultramontanism, has not to deal with conscience, but with an authority external to itself, and altogether irresponsible, presuming to fix the limits of civil government, and even to meet the civil power in its own domain, and dispute its supremacy there. No

other ecclesiastical corporation makes such demands, and for Cardinal Manning to say that Rome claims no more than is claimed by other Christian communities is simply to mis-state the matter. There are three theories of the relations of Church and State. First, that the State is subject to the Church. Secondly, that the Church is subject to the State. Thirdly, that the two are independent of each other, and possess co-ordinate spheres. The first is in substance the current Romish theory, the last the theory of all free churches; the other is the theory of all established churches, like that of this country. It does not require lengthened reflection to perceive how widely different the claims of Rome are from those of the free Churches, and from Churches nationally established. And yet Cardinal Manning would persuade us there is really no difference. His theory, however, of the relations between Church and State is grounded upon a very serious difference-a difference no less than the whole extent between mutually independent spheres and the complete subjection of the State to the Church. To quote his own words, The essence of Ultramontanism is that the Church, being a divine institution, and by divine assistance infallible, is, within its own sphere, independent of all powers, and as the guardian and interpreter of the divine law, the proper judge of men and nations in all things touching that law in faith and morals.' Is there any part of either individual or national life unrelated to the divine law? If there be, then over that part Rome claims no control. But over every sphere of individual and national action which the divine law reaches and touches, Rome claims absolute control, a control unaffected by condition, restriction, or limitation of any kind. Faith and morals, which mark the extent of Ultramontane claims, are co-extensive with the life and action of men, whether as individuals or united in national corporations. Every department and function of human life is included here. 'I care not,' says Mr. Gladstone, 'to ask if there be dregs or tatters of human life such as can escape from the description and boundary of morals. I submit that duty is a power which rises with us in the morning, and goes to rest with us at night. It is the shadow which cleaves to us, go where we will, and which only leaves us when we leave the light of life.' And it is the supreme direction of us in respect to all duty which the Pontiff declares belongs to him.' Between these arrogant claims, and the assertion of the rights of individual conscience, the defenders of Vaticanism affirm there is no difference. The leaders of the Romish hierarchy advocating liberty of conscience would be an edifying spectacle, were it real, but it is not; what they advocate is sacerdotal supremacy and the subjection of individual and national life to them as its representatives. The defenders of Ultramontanism really admit all their

assailant has affirmed, and all their skill in sophistry cannot enable them to disguise their admissions. An irresponsible and extraneous sovereign power claiming supreme jurisdiction, within the limits of any State, over every department of action to which divine law relates, cannot but impair the allegiance of the subjects of that State who acknowledge its authority, if they logically give effect to such acknowledgment. This Mr. Gladstone has clearly shown, and this the defenders of Vaticanism have shown with even equal clearness. The action of this power needs to be narrowly watched, though we are persuaded it will never overcome the hearty Protestantism of this land. A. J.

IF

ART. VI. TAULER THE MYSTIC.

F Eckhart is the first and greatest of the mystics of the fourteenth century, Tauler must be held to come next in importance. He had not the great learning of Eckhart, nor his profound speculation, but his lot was cast in more troublous times, when the practical and energetic, as opposed to the speculative and contemplative faculties, found a field for action. Johan Tauler was born at Strasburg in the year 1290. When he was about eighteen years of age, he resolved to devote himself to a monastic life, and entered a Dominican convent. His superiors sent him to Paris to study in the Dominican college of St. Jacques-the college where Eckhart had taught for nine years, and which he had left only five years before. There he began to study the scholastic theology, and soon showed a decided taste for the writings of those schoolmen who were more or less inclined to mysticism. St. Bernard, Richard and Hugo of St. Victor, and the pseudo-Dionysius were his favourite authors in theology, and in philosophy he studied carefully the Neo-Platonists, especially Proclus.

It is impossible to say how far Eckhart influenced Tauler and led him to become a mystic in theology. The memory of the great mystic must have been held in reverence in Paris when young Tauler went there to study at the Dominican college; and later on in life Tauler must have either met Eckhart, or seen and felt the effect of his labours in Strasburg. Tauler, a native of Strasburg, would be surrounded by mysticism from his youth; for that city was a noted centre for various of the heretical mystical sects, more especially for the Brethren of the Free Spirit; and although he altogether repudiated the doctrines of those licentious sectaries, still he could not help being somewhat influenced by them. During the early part of his life, however, the person who had the largest share in forming his