ing their violence by its salutary control. The facility of divorce weakens the mutual desire of pleasing; a neglect of reciprocal attention soon creates indifference; indifference may ripen into disgust and rankle into enmity until the unhappy couple see no hope of release from a cruel bondage, except in mutual separation and the prospect of new nuptials. Behold, then, the consequence: a divorce must be effected; adultery is a necessary step; morality is sa rificed, the nature of law is reversed, and the apprehension, or rather the hope of punishment, operates as an incentive to the commission of the crime. What an unnatural state of society! in which, according to the strong language of Seneca, people marry for the sake of divorce, and divorce for the sake of marriage.

Witness the daily contracts, in which regular provision is made for these disgraceful contingencies. I shall not speak of the wound that is inflicted on national morals by the frequency of their recurrence. For such is now the facility of communication, that the tide of immorality flows through a thousand channels, and soon pene trates from the highest region into the remotest creeks of society. If we were to judge from observation, we could not believe that we lived in a Christian country. In the days of schoolboy innocence, our belief and our delicacy are equally shocked at the pictures of the Roman satirist. Soon, however, the experience of age subdues the virtuous scepticism of youth; we see, in the licentiousness of the times, the most faithful comment on his writings, and are taught to absolve the heaviest strokes of his pencil from the charge of exaggeration. We behold the same shameful vicissitudes of marriage and divorce which marked the degeneracy of Rome, and may confirm our opinion of the baneful influence of the Protestant doctrine, in the words of an eminent Protestant historian: "A specious theory is confuted by this free and perfect experiment, which demonstrates

* Exeunt matrimonii causa, nubunt divortii. Seneca de benef. L. 3.

+ As an instance of our retrocession to the good old times of Seneca and Juvenal, I might mention the fantastic plan of Lady Mary Wortley Montague, who recommended a bill in Parliament, septennial in its operation, for the benefit of married persons. Your Grace will surely smile at the ludicrous licentiousness of the project. However, I have no doubt but it would be as acceptable to many individuals of the present day, as the law of Moses. See Spence's Anecdotes of Books and Men: London, 1820.

that the liberty of divorce does not contribute to happiness and virtue."

What is then, my lord, the prolific source of these abuses?

Unde hæc monstra tamen vel quo de fonte requiris? *

or what can stay the progress of immorality, while the doctrine of divorce is unsettled, and abandoned to the licentiousness of every interpreter? The Catholic doctrine on the indissolubility of marriage is the only remedy a doctrine that is already incorporated with the common law of England. Startle not, my lord, at such a proposition. Some of the ministers of the Establishment have gone farther, and recommended a reconciliation with the Catholic Church. Alarmed at the defection that is daily thinning the ranks of the Establishment, they have seen no hopes of subordination except in such an alliance. Nay, the union of the Churches occupied much of the attention of your predecessor, Archbishop Wake, who, had he lived to witness the dreadful progress of sectarianism, would doubtless have pushed his overtures with greater zeal, and perhaps with greater success. You may dread that the archiepiscopal throne of Canterbury would be overshadowed by the amplitude of Saint Peter's, and gradually shorn of its splendors. No, my lord; it would borrow fresh lustre from such a junction. Such were heretofore the fears of some aspiring prelates, whose ambition made them impatient of the supremacy of Rome. But scarcely did they try the fatal experiment of separation, when they found that the effulgence of their thrones was only reflected. This train of thought uaturally reminds me of Bishop Butler, another ornament of the Establishment. You know with what ingenuity he traced the analogy between natural and revealed religion, and discovered resemblances between physical and moral truth. However, had not his prejudices arrested his speculations, he might have discovered in the condition of his own Church another illustration of this striking analogy. Loosened from the centre of unity, her motions are capricious and irregular: unfed by any accession of light from the fountain, her original stock is constantly diminishing; and like a distant star, still receding from the centre, she casts her lone and

* Whence those grim monsters? from what source they spring?

waning splendor, gradually deepening into that sort of twilight which teems with wayward phantoms more than utter obscurity, and which, though too feeble to light the way, is still sufficient to make the darkness visible.

HIEROPHILOS.

• It is consoling to witness the effect of this truth on the men of Oxford, who . have courage enough to quit the regions of those spectral shadows which they encounter in their inquiries, and are again returning to enjoy the light of the Catholic Church.

TO THE MOST REV. WILLIAM MAGEE, D. D., ETC.,

PROTESTANT ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN.

MAYNOOTH COLLEGE, 1823.

A deceitful balance is an abomination before the Lord, and a just weight is his will. -Proverbs.

Y LORD: Your Charge to your clergy has excited a becoming interest; and if you were ambitious of celebrity, your labors are amply repaid, and your hopes are realized. My former letter was a reply to your address, such as it was delivered or published. This will embrace your authorized edition, improved by the slow retouchings of time, and enriched by further illustrations. Though your Charge provoked the just resentment of those whose feelings were insulted, I still entertained hopes that your grace would explain what was liable to misconstruction, and soften what was offensive. You had it still in your power to retrace your steps with dignity; and the forgiving generosity of your country would have put the obnoxious passages to the account of hasty and inaccurate publication, or to the zeal of an ardent mind, hurried by its own strength beyond the boundaries of discretion. But no: the heaviness of the Charge is still aggravated by the severer harshness of the commentary; and deeming it weakness to recede, with the exception of a solitary word, you glory in being consistent. Had you been content with publishing the Charge, such as it was delivered, you would have been spared the second notice of “ Hierophilos." But since you have presented yourself to the public in another form, we will now examine whether the hasty zeal of the preacher has been corrected and improved by the cautious labors of the commentator.

In delaying my reply to this stage of the controversy, I have obviated the plea put forth by your Grace, of the necessity of " consulting

for a name and station that should be respected, by refusing to come into familiar association" with what you are pleased to call the "scurrilities of a degenerate press." On the style and temper of your Grace's production I shall make no remark; but on a comparison, the public will pronounce whether "Hierophilos" has not deprived you of that convenient subterfuge, by which exalted churchmen have often contrived to hide their weakness under the mask of their dignity.

Your Grace's attempt to strip us of the ancient and envied name of Catholic, and to share in its honors, are almost unworthy of serious refutation. Never in so short a compass have I witnessed so much of that happy ingenuity which labors to reconcile contradictions. In one page you speak as a "sincere Protestant, and glory in giving utterance to those sentiments which a Protestant bishop should never compromise;" and in the next, with wonderful versatility, you would fain transform yourself into a Catholic! Thuɛ your Grace becomes at once a Protestant and a Catholic -- blending in your own person those attributes which were hitherto deemed irreconcilable. On one occasion, your style rises to a tone of indig nation against those politicians who have of late years appropriated the name of Catholics to a certain class of his Majesty's subjects, and familiarized the public ear to its injurious misapplication. In your next address I would respectfully caution you to speak in more measured language of the religion of politicians, lest, irritated by such ingratitude, they might be disposed to prove how much you are indebted to their services for the establishment of your own.

It is not to the courtesy of parliamentary language that we are beholden for the name and honors of Catholic: it is derived to us from a higher source, and rests on more permanent authority. It is a name that is inscribed on the Creed of the Apostles, and which attached Saint Augustine to the faith which we profess — a name which, in every age, marked the rights of primogeniture, distinguishing the lawful heirs from those who were excluded from the divine inheritance a name which has survived the ravages of time, and has never been lost by the true believers, nor usurped by the sectaries. Those who were conscious of the invalidity of their claims, have often attempted to impose on the credulity of mankind by the assumption of the genuine appellation, and by affixing on