a kind word might have made them the best of friends, or at least very tolerable acquaintances.

Something of the temper and the method of Father Tyrrell may perhaps be indicated and find some flavor of suggestion in this brief foreword.

But now, first, what is the problem to which in the main he is addressing himself in these essays?

Concisely: A method of reconciliation of what may be termed the public opinion of the modern world with Catholic truth. And just here, is he not right in the implied assumption that this public opinion is in many ways at odds, and still more widely believes itself to be at odds, with Catholic truth? For public opinion is not simply numbers or mere numbers; otherwise the inexpressive East would constitute the public opinion of the world. We cannot change the meaning of words by wishes. Public opinion is the prevailing opinion of those who choose publicly to express an opinion,—and no quibbling here to express it by public utterance, not by mere conduct or belief. That is what both Catholic and non-Catholic, learned and unlearned, will in the common interchange of speech understand by public opinion.

Is there any candid doubt as to the testimony of prevailing literature, prevailing scientific speech, and prevailing political power? Nor will it do to say that it prevails because it is noisy. There is no supreme canon against noise, and if to be heard require it, let us by all means also make a noise. Or is public opinion simply as such, wrong? Then how explain when Catholic belief was undoubtedly the public opinion of civilization? Or is the modern man from the very fact of his modernity un-Catholic? But that opens a deeper chapter, of which later.

For the little ones of God, who yet incline to fear to face a fact, let us hasten to add: Have they forgotten Christ and His day? Nay indeed, not only in ages past, but most gloriously to-day, millions of devout, honest, God-fearing souls bear Him testimony in their hearts. And man for man, intellect for intellect, who that is honest as ourselves in the recognition of actual truth, dare compare the handful of professed and authoritative unbelievers with the numbers of sincere, professing and

But unfortu

Yes, these are also facts, and consoling ones. nately they do not undo the other fact that the mass of public expression in the ways which give voice and prevalence to opinion, is permeated with an atmosphere which makes it both. in part really at odds, and in part conveying a wider impression that it is at odds, with Catholic truth and Catholic belief.

Again, Father Tyrrell assumes and suggests that this public opinion has adopted a language, a terminology both verbal and mental, and what he terms "presuppositions," different from the accustomed language, terminology and presuppositions of Catholic schools of thought.

Who will gainsay this, when the mere word evolution, without reference to its possibly legitimate interpretations, restrictions, and uses, has practically paganized, directly or indirectly, logically or illogically, a whole generation of men, and I had almost said the entire course and tendency of thought of half the world.

I am leaving aside for the moment the numerous "sophias," osophies," and ologies "-which have a new language of

their own.

But public opinion in the modern world has also said many other and practical words-equality, democracy, tolerance, individual freedom, public education of the masses,-words which in many true senses are new, and in many new senses are true. And with these true senses Catholic truth is in nowise at odds. Yet in some indefinite way it has long been made to appear to be, or to have been, so. Leaders of that public opinion have in a measure associated with and impressed upon the results of those words-upon the living facts-infidel postulates and corollaries, which now roll around the world with them. They have boldly, or by the infinitely more dangerous color of suggestion, in the formulation and utterance of these words, implied or intimated an exile of God from His works as indicated by, or resulting from, the greater knowledge of His works; an absolute exile of church from state and from public education as at once the explanation and the vital requirement of the achievements of political and personal rights and of practical tolerance; and an exile of religion from organic society as the essential suppression of reactionary obstacles to the progress and growing

further possible social and economic adjustments. They have cast upon those new words the squint of irreligion or nonreligion, and into the heart of humanity a hazy fear that the accomplished results are in some way indissolubly linked-or shall we say, nearer of kin-with the oblique postulates and corollaries with which they have thus accompanied them.

But the honest numbers who stand behind that public opinion, and in some tacit way help to hold up its arms, have no real care or attachment for these postulates and corollaries of themselves. What they do intuitively cling to are the just results, the things, the living facts, which the words symbolize for them. Persuade them that those just results are really independent of the false and pernicious assumptions and theories which have barnacled upon them; that they are absolutely safe in the living possession and enjoyment of the resulting facts without those adventitious theories and assumptions-false premises artificially made to lead up to their own rightful and cherished conclusions, to their own uttered and established word-and you will have converted the modern world.

You cannot persuade them that their own words do not mean the living facts which they mean, but you can convince them that these words by no means imply nor prerequire what they have been led to think or to suspect. Attack the language, of which they are after all the arbiters as well as the channelsthe words in which they have symbolized the results; and it is the results and the facts which they will deem assailed.

Restore the name of God and His Christ-the real Alpha and Omega, the supreme standard, and if we may dare to image Him by mere figure of speech: the living, perfect synthesis of divine and human facts, divine and human truth, and you will at the stroke have exorcised the lurking modern demon whose name is Doubt. He is to man the mediatory universal word and voice, for whose divine and final consecration of the facts achieved, enjoyed and cherished, the human heart at bottom, even when half consciously, yearns with unspeakable longings and unutterable hopes.

At least you will have reduced humanity to what, with free will, it normally, simply is: men careful, and men careless, of their higher duties and destinies; but free at least from the blasphemy of a Godless public opinion, and from the distortion

Father Tyrrell approaches these problems, but on a higher plane, in higher categories of thought as he might say, and with the cultured poise and refined utterance to which these lines cannot pretend; but for which these more popular forms and illustrations have been here substituted as perhaps presenting more readily apprehended exemplars of the same general attitude and purpose.

For, as I view it, that attitude and that purpose constitute the most elevating lesson, and most quickening effect, of his message; and furnish the light in which to read, and even if need be to criticise, his method and the substance of his deeper declarations.

The note of difference is intensified, however, by his studied and emphasized object to address the leaders of thought and not the masses; based upon a fundamental assumption and reasoned vindication of what we may call intellectual aristocracy. But I venture here to express the view that the truth in all essential and necessary aspects is democratic; and like the air, as readily naturalized in the common world of humanity as in the subtler regions of daintier introsusception.

However, contact with such a mind as Father Tyrrell's had almost brought us to his way of thinking in that regard. That contact fills us with intellectual delight, made doubly pleasurable by the sense of ease and self-possession of the master-hand.

But much better than this, it sends us back to our prayers, higher men yet humbler men, and let us trust better men; with quickened faith but broadened sympathies; with less angularity and arrogance on our part, and less contemplation of the angularity and arrogance of our fellows; with deeper appreciation of the half truths and glimmerings which guide their feet. While ourselves secure in the arms of Mother Church, our hearts glow with intenser longing that all may share the full radiance of the Gospel and the grace of Him whom it is our privilege to know and to call "Our Lord," and who is The Way, The Truth, and The Life.

A PORTRAIT THAT BURNED.

BY ELIZABETH SETON.

WAS at that time studying art at Munich, and while the recollections of student days are full of pleasant memories, there was one incident which Holy Week seems always to bring back to me. Munich was bedecked for the religious observances. It was toward the end of March, 1874. The market-stands on the Maximilian Platz were like forests of fairy trees; some of the people were intent on shopping, but many of them were busy with their prayers.

I too, a poor art student with not much religion, felt the longing to spend money.

My afternoon was free, and I determined to make use of the short daylight to explore the Old Curiosity Shops on the "Anger" in search of some candlesticks which I fancied were needed to complete the artistic decoration of my apartment.

To one who is a collector of bric-a-brac no need to descant on the allurement of a hunt among the dust-laden articles, heaped on ancient tables, or hid in chests, with here and there a glitter of polished metal; but to one who lacks this quality of acquisitiveness of what is old, and largely for the sake of age, not beauty, to such a one the dingy shops which circle about the prison and quaint church of this old, old square, whose cobble-stones for centuries have drank the blood of breakers of the law, would be but musty, uninviting dens, and most of their contents would go by the name of "junk."

That which I sought I did not find.. The lamps were already lit, yet I lingered, unwilling to go home empty-handed. At last, with a sigh of disappointment, I was about to turn away, when for the third time I found myself in front of a shop kept by a man. Usually these shops are tended by women, who can employ their many idle moments at knitting and other feminine duties. This man sat gloomily before his wares, which, as I glanced beyond him into the shop, were tinged by a dull glow, the reflex of a lamp depending from the gateway of the