iiiiiiiiiiiil 
 
 AT ED
 
 
 MODERN ROMANISM ILLUSTRATED 
 
 IN ARTICLES REPRINTED FROM THE 
 
 VIZ., 
 
 A REVIEW OF LORD BUTE'S TRANSLATION OF 
 THE "REFORMED ROMAN BREVIARY;* 
 
 REMARKS ON THAT REVIEW, BY THE 
 REV. JAMES McSWINEY, S.J.; 
 
 A REPLY TO MR. McSWINEY'S REMARKS, BY 
 G. OSBORN, D.D. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 T. WOOLMER, 2, CASTLE STREET, CITY ROAD, E.C., 
 AND 66, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.G. 
 
 1884.
 
 Printed by Hazell, Watson, and Viney, Limited, London and Aylesbury
 
 LORD BUTE'S TRANSLATION OF THE 
 REFORMED ROMAN BREVIARY.* 
 
 THIS is a publication which would be remark- 
 able for its size and shape, if on no other 
 grounds ; each page contains two columns, and 
 hundreds of the pages are in small, though neat and 
 clear type, which may give some idea of the labour 
 bestowed in preparing it, even after deducting, as 
 we must, the large number of pages which are 
 necessarily the same in both volumes ; thus 3082 
 less by 312 leaves 2770 of unrepeated matter to 
 be provided by the author, which if printed in the 
 customary style might reach to nearly ten thousand 
 pages. 
 
 But before proceeding to examine the book it 
 may be proper to say something as to its specific 
 nature. The Romish Service Books are of several 
 kinds, and differ from one another in regard to their 
 contents, the persons by whom, and the places 
 
 * The Roman Breviary ; Reformed by Order of the Holy (Ecumenical 
 Council of Trent ; Pitblished by order of Pope St. Pius V. ; and Revised 
 by Clement VIII. and Urban VIII. : together -with the Offices since 
 granted. Translated out of Latin into English by John. Marquess of 
 Bute, K.T. 2 Vols., pp. 1522, 1560. London, 1879.
 
 4 A Review of the "Reformed Roman Breviary" 
 
 where they are to be used. A Missal provides 
 forms for the celebration of the Mass, parts of 
 which are invariably the same, while other parts 
 change daily. The Ritual is for the use of the 
 Clergy in the administration of other sacraments. 
 The Pontifical contains such offices as only Bishops 
 or Popes may use. Gradual, Antiphonal, and Pro- 
 cessional will be naturally interpreted of the 
 musical and other adjuncts of solemn worship which 
 the Church uses so freely, and often with so much 
 effect. But the Breviary differs from all these. It 
 is not designed for any particular, sacrament or cere- 
 mony, nor for any particular order of the clergy, and 
 not necessarily for public congregational use at all. 
 But it is a book of devotion and instruction for the 
 daily use of all the clergy. The regulations con- 
 cerning the use of it are both strict and binding. 
 Whoever enjoys any ecclesiastical revenue, all monks 
 and nuns in any of the regular orders, all Sub- 
 Deacons, Deacons, and Priests, are bound to recite 
 in public or in private the whole daily service, and 
 that under pain of mortal sin. They are not 
 even allowed to omit a single day, though they may 
 read together two or more of the seven or eight 
 portions into which each day's office is divided. 
 " The Priest and his book " are therefore necessarily 
 close companions, and in our busy days the reading 
 is often done in places which the compilers little 
 dreamed of : in the social circle, on shipboard, in 
 waiting-rooms and railway carriages it goes on, until 
 the allotted task is accomplished, when the reader
 
 The Canonical Hours. 5 
 
 may sleep in peace. The choirs of churches and 
 the chapels of the so-called Religious Houses are 
 however supposed to be constantly made vocal with 
 the strains of devotion here supplied. The 
 Psalmist's resolution to praise God seven times 
 a day is the (supposed) Scriptural authority and 
 guide for this arrangement. An " office," consisting 
 of psalms, hymns, anthems, lessons, responses, and 
 benedictions, is provided for Matins, Prime, Tierce, 
 Sext, Nones, Vespers, and Compline.* Day and 
 night are thus supposed to be occupied with devo- 
 tion. Many recognise the obligation of rising at 
 midnight to praise God, as the Psalmist speaks ; 
 and without assigning a precise hour, it is held by 
 all that the first four services, together with any 
 mass or masses which may be celebrated, must be 
 concluded before noon, and the remaining three 
 offices before midnight. The idea of ceaseless de- 
 votion thus embodied has great charms for the 
 imagination of not a few, as the poet who after- 
 wards yielded to the fascination witnesses : 
 
 ' ' Oh that thy creed were sound ! 
 
 For thou dost soothe the heart, thou Church of Rome. 
 By thy unwearied watch, and varied round 
 Of service, in thy Saviour's holy home. " 
 
 In like manner his friend and associate, Keble, 
 declares it to be the chief design of The Christian 
 
 * In the Excerptions of Ecgbert, Archbishop of York in 750, seven 
 offices are distinctly enjoined to be used, and that with care and rever- 
 ence. A copy of such offices in Anglo-Saxon may be seen in the 
 Appendix to Hickef Controversial Discourses, Vol. I.
 
 6 A Review of the " Reformed Roman Breviary" 
 
 Year to exhibit the " soothing tendency " of the 
 Book of Common Prayer, although its services are 
 much less full and elaborate than those of the 
 Breviary. Both these great masters of persuasion 
 knew the value 'of devotion as a means of educa- 
 tion ; both learned their lesson from the same 
 teacher ; and both have given fatal effect to their 
 convictions, in turning multitudes from the pure 
 faith of the Gospel. 
 
 But the Breviary is not all devotion. It pro- 
 vides the mental food of vast numbers of persons, 
 and seeks to form the character of the clergy by 
 the teaching it imparts. The entire book of 
 Psalms is to be gone through every week ; and 
 select portions of Scripture, expositions by ancient 
 writers, and biographies of saints and martyrs, 
 whose names and labours it commemorates, com- 
 plete the design of this truly wonderful book, which 
 now for the first time appears entire in an English 
 dress. 
 
 The fact is significant. Taken together with 
 many other things, it betokens a great increase of 
 courage and confidence in the English Romanists, 
 and a determination to avail themselves to the 
 utmost of the liberty they enjoy. Ever since the 
 days of James II. there have been translations of 
 the Vespers or Evening office both for Sundays and 
 week-days. Then some of the offices of the saints 
 were published with the appropriate hymns ; then 
 the Mass-book in several forms was added to the 
 number of Manuals of Private Devotion which " the
 
 English Translations. 
 
 faithful " were encouraged to use. The formation 
 and progress of Bible Societies led to considerable 
 controversy both as to the liberty of reading the 
 Scriptures, and the extent to which the Romish 
 laity availed themselves of it, one happy result of 
 which has been the issue of improved and cheaper 
 editions of the Douay Bible and Rhemish Testa- 
 ment, from which many of the original notes have 
 disappeared. And now we have two thick volumes 
 of one thousand five hundred pages each, published 
 with the view " of laying open to the English reader 
 the whole of the prayers of the Church," and this in 
 the hope that the undertaking " may be grateful to 
 a considerable number of English-speaking Catholics 
 who would wish, at any rate at times, to read the 
 service of the Church, but are debarred from doing 
 so by ignorance of the Latin language ; and more 
 especially so to converts who have been accustomed 
 to the daily office while Anglicans." (Preface, p. i.) 
 
 What follows is still more surprising : " Even to 
 some of the clergy, he (the translator) is not without 
 hope that this version may be of some interest, since 
 he has taken great pains to elucidate difficult 
 passages, to explain the historical and other allusions, 
 and above all to verify the references to the Holy 
 Scriptures." 
 
 Such an attempt on the part of a layman is un- 
 precedented in this country ; and, so far as we 
 know, in any other. The fact of an English noble- 
 man of high rank in the peerage giving nine 
 years of diligent study and labour to such objects
 
 8 A Review of the " Reformed Roman Breviary" 
 
 and uses shows that the days of ignorance and 
 blind submission on the part of the laity, if not 
 already over, are drawing fast to a close ; and that 
 the conflict with Rome is not likely to become less 
 severe in the future. We should have been still 
 more surprised at so bold and extensive an enter- 
 prise on the part of a layman had we not learned 
 from the preface that Lord Bute has had the 
 constant help and supervision of a learned Jesuit ; 
 and that this help has been rendered with the 
 consent of the Superiors of that body, to whom, 
 as well as to the father himself, his thanks are 
 presented. 
 
 And if English Romanism in the nineteenth 
 century, as represented by these two large and 
 costly volumes, challenges our attention by their 
 very appearance, much more by their content?. 
 We notice particularly the great care taken to verify 
 Scripture quotations, to mark the variations of the 
 Vulgate from the original Hebrew, and to gather 
 elucidations from various sources, including Lowth, 
 Gesenius, Dr. Pusey, Olshausen, and Dr. Etheridge, 
 and not least, if last, the Catholic Annotated Bible 
 of the late Archbishop Kenrick, of New York, 
 which Lord Bute speaks of as " a most valuable 
 work, unhappily but little known in this country." 
 Still further breaking away from former custom, his 
 lordship regards himself as " abundantly justified in 
 using any good English at his command, while 
 adhering to the sense of the Latin " ; and informs 
 us that in the recently published Hortus Aniincc,
 
 Bible Reading Urged. 
 
 which bears the imprimatur of Cardinal Manning, 
 some of the Psalms were translated direct from the 
 Hebrew, without any regard to the Latin at all ! 
 
 Another noticeable feature connected with those 
 portions of Scripture which appear in the Breviary as 
 lessons for the day is, that the editor repeatedly 
 recommends his readers not to be content with the 
 lesson given. Students of the English Prayer- 
 Book will remember the objection taken to the 
 fragmentary character of the Romish lessons ; and 
 it is pleasant to see a Romanist agreeing with them 
 in effect, as when, after giving half of Revelation 
 ii., we find in a note, " The reader would do well to 
 read the messages to the other four Churches " ; 
 and after a given part of Acts xxv., " The reader is 
 strongly recommended to read the appearance of 
 St. Paul before Festus and Agrippa and the journey 
 of the Apostle to Rome " ; and again, after a part 
 of Hebrews xi., " The reader is vehemently urged to 
 finish reading this sublime chapter for himself." 
 (Vol. I. pp. 497, 487, 327.) When it is remem- 
 bered that in many cases the Breviary has been 
 practically the Bible of its readers, these exhortations 
 are not a little significant. 
 
 Nor are the Scripture-lessons the only lessons 
 which have been carefully studied by the editor. 
 Appended to various passages we find such notes as, 
 " St. Jerome seems to have been misinformed " ; 
 " Apparently an anachronism " ; " St. Gregory seems 
 to have been misled." " The dates seem uncertain." 
 " After this comes a passage which I omit, as it
 
 IO A Review of the "Reformed Roman Breviary" 
 
 relates to a reading of the Gospel of St. John, used 
 by S. Chrysostom, but rejected by the present Greek 
 and Latin texts." " Probably miscopied into the 
 text of S. John Chrysostom's New Testament." 
 And again most remarkably : " The description in 
 the Latin is a sort of oratorical paraphrase of the 
 account in the Pentateuch, which I have thought it 
 best to represent by two simple quotations." These 
 are, however, small matters in comparison of the 
 instances in which Lord Bute has felt himself com- 
 pelled either to contradict the Breviary, or to 
 intimate his opinion that it is not entitled to be 
 believed. The freedom of his strictures is astonish- 
 ing to those who remember that the book was 
 published by a Pope who is also a canonized saint, 
 and revised by two other Popes successively ; 
 moreover, that the parts which have been added 
 since the last reviser died have all had express 
 sanction of one Pope or another, and some of more 
 than one. Thus (vol. I. p. 250) we are told that 
 the history of Constantine's conversion there given 
 is now rejected by all writers, and the whole account 
 of the saint would probably receive considerable 
 modification at any future revision of the Breviary. 
 " The two (Bishop Urban and Pope Urban) have 
 got confused together." (P. 1075.) "The identity of 
 this Flavia Domitilla has got confused. See Alban 
 Butler, and the Bollandists ; also Gibbon'' In vol. 
 II. p. 1089, we have the wonderful story of the 
 horse which, having been ridden as a quiet one by 
 the owner's wife, and then lent to Pope John I.,
 
 Legends Doubted and Denied. 1 1 
 
 became so restive and violent as to be always 
 throwing off his mistress, " as though he were not 
 content to carry the lady, after having carried the 
 Vicar of Jesus Christ." So the owner was fain to 
 make a present of him to the Pope. Lord Bute 
 annotates this passage as follows : " There may be 
 some doubt whether the present form of the legend 
 of St. John I. will survive the next revision of the 
 Breviary ; however, these marvels are taken from St. 
 Gregory's Dialogues." 
 
 We may well admire also the freedom with which 
 our Translator treats a question of great moment to 
 believers in the doctrine of the Apostolic succession. 
 The Breviary contains commemorations first of St.. 
 Cletus in company with St. Marcellinus (April 26th), 
 and then of St. Anaclete (July 1 3th). Under the 
 latter date he writes : " There are strong grounds for 
 believing that this Anaclete and the Cletus of April 
 26th are both the same as the Cletus named in the 
 Canon of the Mass, and that the real name was 
 neither Cletus nor Anacletus, but Anencletus." 
 (Vol. II. p. 1159.) Under April 26th: "A cloud 
 hangs over both these names. Strong arguments 
 are brought forward to show that both Cletus and 
 Anacletus are a single real Anencletus mentioned in 
 the Canon of the Mass under the name of Cletus, as 
 the successor of Linus. As for Marcellinus, the 
 extraordinary history of him given in the text is 
 now universally, or almost universally, acknowledged 
 as a fiction." (II. p. 1049.) 
 
 With equal freedom we find him contradicting
 
 12 A Review of the " Reformed Roman Breviary." 
 
 what the Breviary says concerning St. Dominick as 
 the Inventor of the Rosary. The lesson for the 
 first Sunday in October affirms this ; and adds, " That 
 this same Dominick was the founder and prime 
 mover thereof hath been said by Popes in divers 
 letters of the Apostolic See." Whether it was so or 
 not, Lord Bute says, " is quite uncertain, " a poor 
 compliment to the writers of Apostolic letters, 
 certainly. But here his lordship is corroborated by 
 Alban Butler, to whom, indeed, he often has 
 recourse where occasion arises to hint a fault, or 
 ventilate a suspicion, or record a denial. That 
 most painstaking biographer of the saints renders 
 him valuable help in unsettling the common belief 
 as to S. Dionysius upon the lesson for his feast. 
 That represents him as having been the convert of 
 St. Paul at Athens, Bishop of Paris, and the writer 
 of several marvellous books, who, after he had been 
 beheaded, walked two thousand paces, carrying his 
 head in his hand. The note is as follows : " See 
 Alban Butler > from whom it will appear, among 
 other things, that the St. Deny honoured on this day 
 flourished and suffered as Bishop of Paris about the 
 end of the third century. His identification with 
 the person mentioned in Acts xvii. 34, and the 
 ascription to either of the writings called after that 
 person, are rejected by most writers." (Vol. II. p. 
 
 1311-) 
 
 A similar reference to the same authority, 
 modifying the account of St. Bridget, occurs on the 
 previous day, October 8th. But these are as nothing
 
 Bold Criticisms, 13 
 
 in comparison of what we find under August I5th, 
 a feast of the most solemn character and highest 
 obligation, entitled, " The Assumption of the Blessed 
 Virgin Mary." On this title the Marquis annotates 
 as follows : " Literally, God's taking the blessed 
 virgin to Himself, i.e., by death (from the Latin 
 assumo, I take to myself). There is a common 
 tradition that her resurrection took place in about 
 forty hours, like our Lord's, and that both soul and 
 body are now where He is ; but such tradition must 
 be carefully distinguished from matters of faith. 
 See Alban Butler, August I5th." 
 
 The boldness of this criticism of the work of 
 three Popes is perhaps equalled, if not exceeded, by 
 one sentence. In the office for St. Katharine's Day, 
 November 25th, there is a prayer in which Almighty 
 God is told that He had marvellously caused the 
 body of this blessed virgin and martyr to be laid 
 by His holy angels on the top of Mount Sinai. But 
 the Marquis does not scruple to annotate as follows : 
 " Alban Butler says that by this- are to be understood 
 monks, as wearers of the 'angelical' habit." (II. p. 
 
 1370.) 
 
 It is somewhat disappointing to find that after 
 these repeated intimations of the questionable, or 
 perhaps we should say unquestionable, character of 
 many of the Breviary Legends, the greater number 
 are allowed to pass unchallenged, and we must 
 therefore suppose them to be devoutly believed. 
 The fable of the Virgin's having been taken up into 
 heaven is by no means out of harmony with the
 
 14 A Review of the "Reformed Roman Breviary. 1 ' 
 
 strain in which Romanists for centuries have written 
 concerning her ; but why those who hesitate at 
 believing it, and absolutely reject the fable of St. 
 Denys, should believe in the other wonders concerning 
 less important persons, which are here recorded by 
 the score, we cannot imagine. Nor can we account 
 for the fact upon any other principle than that 
 fascination which the Church of Rome exercises 
 upon her disciples, and from which none, even of the 
 most gifted, can wholly escape. 
 
 Here is a learned, accomplished, wealthy noble- 
 man, one not absorbed in research or contemplation, 
 or retired from the ordinary pursuits of men, but 
 accustomed to the transaction of business and 
 competent to it, putting into circulation in England 
 in the nineteenth century stories like that of the 
 blessed Raymund of Penafuerte (Jan. 23rd), who, 
 wishing to go from Majorca to Barcelona, spread his 
 cloak on the sea, and passed over the waters on it, 
 accomplishing the whole distance of one hundred 
 and eighty miles in six hours, and finally entering 
 his convent through the closed doors ; or, that of 
 St. Paul the first hermit, which may stand by the 
 side of Raymund. He told Anthony that a raven 
 had brought him half a loaf every day for sixty 
 years, but on the day of his visit Christ had sent 
 His soldiers double rations, as the raven had brought 
 a whole loaf. The next day Paul died, and Anthony 
 proceeded to bury him, but as he had no spade, " two 
 lions came racing from the desert as though to 
 attend the burying, and with their paws scratched a
 
 Monstrous Stones Retained. 15 
 
 hole big enough to contain a man's body, meanwhile 
 showing such signs of grief as their nature alloweth." 
 (I. p. 965.) St. Stanislaus may furnish a third 
 example, though by no means the most profane or 
 absurd that might be adduced. Under date May 
 7th, we read that his head being cut off by the King 
 of Poland, " his body was hewn to pieces and strewn 
 about the field ; but the eagles strangely kept the 
 birds of prey, off it. The Canons of the Cathedral 
 of Cracow soon gathered together the mutilated and 
 scattered limbs, which they were enabled to see by 
 a lightness which overspread the sky at night ; and 
 they fitted them together, each into his place. The 
 reliques immediately so joined themselves one to 
 another that no marks of wounds remained." (I. p. 
 1066.) 
 
 Such are specimens, by no means unfair, of the 
 food which the " Mother and Mistress of all 
 Churches " provides for her children, and which she 
 solemnly avouches to be sound and nutritious ! 
 
 In these volumes we have not the offices of all 
 the Saints whom Romanists worship, but only of a 
 select number whose names appear in the Calendar 
 prefixed. It is important to observe this, because 
 there are so many names in other Calendars which 
 do not appear here, their" owners, although canonized 
 saints, having chiefly a local celebrity. The total 
 number of these is very large. Successive popes 
 have granted the honour of saintship and the worship 
 which follows it, at the request of particular sove- 
 reigns, or religious communities, or monastic orders,
 
 1 6 A Review of the " Reformed Roman Breviary'' 
 
 until one is almost bewildered in the multitude. 
 More than two centuries ago, certain Jesuits under- 
 took to collect the biographies of all the saints. 
 They and their successors have already filled sixty 
 folios of about a thousand pages each with the 
 names allotted to the first ten months of the year, 
 and will probably fill ten volumes more before they 
 reach the names commemorated on the thirty-first of 
 December. 
 
 In former times every diocese was entitled to its 
 own Breviary, and several of the monastic orders had 
 theirs in addition. But after the Council of Trent 
 had entrusted the matter of their reformation to him, 
 Pope Pius V. forbade all local Breviaries which 
 could not plead a prescription of two hundred years ; 
 and the local celebrities are now for the most part 
 found in national Appendices to the Roman 
 Breviary. Lord Bute translates two of these the 
 English and the Irish, but he declines (vol. II. 1474) 
 to translate the Italian or Roman Appendix. 
 Scotland, he says, has no such Appendix, because 
 until 1878 it had no local hierarchy; but now it 
 may be expected to be placed in the same position 
 as other countries. A wide field of remark opens 
 out here ; but it must suffice to note the suggestive 
 fact that Scotland, like England, has now its own 
 Roman Catholic bishops, and is no longer governed 
 by the Holy See through vicars-apostolic. Those 
 who saw the Aberdeen Breviary in the Caxton Exhi- 
 bition will not soon forget it. But Rome will take 
 good care that there will never be another.
 
 French Breviaries less Faulty. 17 
 
 The Reformation superseded all our English 
 Breviaries ; * so we do not know if either Sarum, 
 York, or Hereford could have shown a prescription 
 of two hundred years, and thus maintained its 
 ground against the Bull of 1566. But we know 
 that in France, though more than one Breviary has 
 been in use until lately, the course of events has 
 favoured Ultramontanism ; and the Roman Book is 
 gaining ground, if it has not actually displaced all 
 others. This is on many accounts to be regretted, and 
 not least because the French authorities declined to 
 insert many of those legends of which we have 
 spoken above. The Paris Breviary, for instance, 
 gives a very different history of St. Denys ; it 
 makes no mention of his walking with his head in 
 his hands ; ' and generally contains more instructive 
 matter. The Rouen Breviary is entitled to the 
 same commendation. Both have faults and blemishes 
 enough, yet both compare favourably with the 
 Roman, which, as Jesuitism spreads and prevails, 
 will probably become universal. Whether the local 
 Appendix for Scotland, if permitted and compiled, 
 will resemble that for Ireland, time will show ; but 
 the Irish Appendix to these volumes is short, con- 
 taining about sixty pages, which, for the reputed 
 " Island of Saints," seems but a scant allowance. 
 
 * " Whereas heretofore there hath been great diversity in saying and 
 singing in churches within this Realm, some following Salisbury use, 
 some Hereford use, and some the use of Bangor, some of York, some 
 of Lincoln, now from henceforth all the whole Realm shall have but 
 one use." Preface to the Book of Common Prayer. 
 
 2
 
 1 8 A Review of the "Reformed Roman Breviary" 
 
 It has, however, a redeeming feature : it contains one 
 truly original miracle. Most of these biographies 
 repeat the same or similar wonders to satiety. 
 Even St. Denys carrying his head in his hands is 
 copied by St. Emygdius, a Portuguese saint, honoured 
 on March the 22nd ; St. Raymund sailing on his 
 cloak was imitated by St. Francis of Paula (April 
 2nd), and St. Hyacinth, a Pole (II. 1224) ; but St. 
 Farrell stands alone in his glory. We read (vol. I., 
 Irish Appendix, p. i) : "At a great expense he 
 built the cathedral of Salzburg from the foundations, 
 and brought thither, with great honour and edifica- 
 
 o * o 
 
 tion of the people, the reliques of holy Rupert, the 
 first of his predecessors. Concerning the building of 
 this church we find a miracle mentioned, namely, 
 that the money for the payment of those that were em- 
 ployed was placed in an open vessel for each man to 
 help himself, but that none of them was ever able 
 to take out of it more than was the just due of his 
 labour." 
 
 Surely all builders, architects, clerks of works, and 
 paymasters of all sorts, must envy him, and may be 
 excused for wishing to know some particulars of this 
 perfectly unique utensil ! We greatly doubt if any 
 Scot, however " canny," who may figure in the Scotch 
 Appendix, will compare with St. Farrell under this head. 
 
 But to return to the main matter. Although the 
 Legends and Prayers contained in these volumes 
 are by no means all which have been sanctioned by 
 Papal authority since 1631, the date of Pope 
 Urban's revision, they are sufficient to afford ground
 
 All the Contents on a Level. 19 
 
 for a just estimate of the Romish religious system, 
 considered not so much in its theological, ecclesiasti- 
 cal, or political, as in its devotional and ethical 
 aspects. The question which Lord Bute raises, and 
 as it were forces upon us, by this publication, is, how 
 far the clergy, and through them the people whose 
 characters they are to form, and for the direction of 
 whose consciences they are responsible, are likely to 
 be benefited by the incessant use of these forms. 
 The Scripture lessons for each day need not come 
 into consideration, as they may be said to be common 
 to all Churches, and the only remark we make on 
 this portion of the work is to express regret that 
 the portions chosen are read with so little continuity, 
 being interrupted with responsories, verses, and 
 answers at the end of every ten sentences, if not 
 oftener. Nor need we consider at length the lessons 
 extracted from Popes, Doctors, and Fathers of the 
 Church. Short portions all, and broken into 
 fragments like the Scripture lessons, they still contain 
 some instructive and suggestive passages, along with 
 many that are jejune, and some that are highly 
 objectionable. But the biographies, prayers, and 
 other devotions will abundantly suffice for our 
 purpose. We find all these documents practically 
 put on a level. No man is canonized but by a 
 Pope, nor by any Pope (now at least) but after a 
 long inquiry into his character, teaching, and 
 miracles ; and if the teaching has been sound, 
 the miracles sufficient, and the person proved to have 
 possessed the Christian virtues in an heroic degree, he
 
 2O A Review of the " Reformed Roman Breviary" 
 
 or she is beatified, or declared blessed ; and after an 
 interval canonized, and with great rejoicings enrolled 
 in the catalogue of the Church's mediators with God. 
 The documents upon which the Pope, acting as 
 judge in the matter, proceeds, have been first 
 submitted to various Cardinals who have voted 
 them satisfactory. From these " Acts or Processes " 
 of the proper Court, the various biographers are 
 supposed to select the wonders related here, and 
 those in other Breviaries, all of which the several 
 clergy are enjoined to read daily with due care and 
 reverence that " they may satisfy the duty of their 
 office, and increase their own merit before God." 
 There are many canons of Councils which prescribe 
 a proper behaviour to priests while engaged in their 
 daily task, as may be seen in one of the Paris 
 Breviaries (Ed. 1745, Pars Estiva). In the Sarum 
 Breviary, 1555, these may be said to be summed up 
 succinctly : " Advertat quod in primis animum suum," 
 etc.* (Maskell's Monumenta, ii. xxv.) 
 
 * This curious specimen of Monkish Latin may be thus Englished : 
 " Let him observe that, in the first place, he prepare his own mind, by 
 casting away absolutely vain thoughts. Amidst his praying let him not 
 mix up conversations, laughings, and jokes ; let him not attend to birds, 
 dogs, or other animals ; let him select a suitable place for devotion, free 
 from every hindrance. Let him not draw nigh for the sake of human 
 praise, but with right and good intention, aiming at the glory of God, 
 the satisfaction of the duty of his office, the augmentation of merit, the 
 approbation ot benefactors. 
 
 ' ' Let us read, therefore, most beloved brethren, the canonical hours 
 entirely and exactly, with attention of heart : Entirely and exactly, with 
 distinct elocution ; Reverently, with befitting posture of body and of 
 soul ; Appropriately, at the appointed places and hours." EDITOR.
 
 All the Contents on a Level. 21 
 
 Suppose this done without a doubt indulged or 
 permitted, what a monstrous wrong is inflicted on the 
 too confiding priest who puts on the same level the 
 lions in the den at Babylon and the grave-digging 
 lions of St. Anthony, the cloak of St. Raymund and 
 the mantle of Elijah ! But if doubts arise, will not 
 the Scriptural and the ecclesiastical wonders be 
 rejected together ? We can conceive of no readier 
 way to promote scepticism and infidelity, whether 
 in clergy or laity, than this linking together in 
 " Divine offices " of the momentous and the insignifi- 
 cant, the sublime and the ridiculous. Mr. Charles 
 Butler, indeed, used to say that a man might refuse 
 to believe any miracles but those of the Old and 
 New Testaments, and even disbelieve the existence 
 of the persons at whose intercession these ecclesi- 
 astical miracles are said to have been wrought, without 
 ceasing to be a Roman Catholic. But he, though a 
 learned man, was not by any means an ingenuous 
 controversialist ; and if he had been, he lived and 
 died before the doctrine of Papal infallibility had 
 been defined and decreed as it now is ; and more- 
 over, a Roman Catholic who rejected all ecclesiastical 
 miracles, though he might not cease to call himself a 
 Romanist, would differ little from a Protestant ; and 
 would be perpetually at issue with the highest 
 authorities of his Church. 
 
 It cannot be unfair to lay the responsibility of all 
 these legends upon the present Church of Rome, 
 so long as we find them in a Reformed Breviary. 
 The very title shows that she has the power to
 
 22 A Review of the " Reformed Roman Breviary. 11 
 
 discard or modify them if she will ; and the differ- 
 ence between the book published by Pius V. in 1568 
 and those previously in use shows this still more 
 clearly. Two succeeding Popes have still further 
 revised that publication, and since the date of Pope 
 Urban's revision successive additions to the number 
 of the saints have necessitated the preparation of 
 new Offices ; so that we find here Offices for saints 
 canonized in 1839 as well as in the intervening 
 period ; and extracts from a Bull published by the 
 last Pope in 1854, or the year following. From 
 beginning to end the book is thus the book of the 
 day. That some Romanists criticise it freely does 
 not make it less authoritative. We may wonder 
 at their boldness, but we must also wonder at her 
 hardihood in continuing to put forth what not merely 
 tries the faith, but provokes the contradictions of her 
 own children. Perhaps, however, this defiance of 
 nineteenth-century criticism is based on the fear 
 that revision once begun could not be arrested, and 
 so the too free use of the pruning-knife might 
 damage those claims to infallibility of which we 
 have lately heard so much. Yet as these claims 
 have survived the revision of the Vulgate, when 
 Pope Clement VIII. braved the anathemas of Pope 
 Sixtus V., it is possible that they might also survive 
 that of the Breviary. To Protestants indeed it is 
 inconceivable that two such authorities should con- 
 tradict each other, and yet both be right. But we 
 take the documents as they stand, and ask ourselves 
 what is the influence they are likely to exert.
 
 The Two Gregories. 23 
 
 Suppose the Breviary revised and the story of 
 Pope John I. disappearing from the new edition, 
 what becomes of the credit of St. Gregory I., 
 hitherto regarded as a writer of the highest credit, 
 whose pictures often represent him with a dove on 
 his head * or at his ear, to express the belief that he 
 wrote under immediate Divine teaching, and who is 
 styled Doctor and Confessor of the Church ? Was 
 he mistaken ? or did he fabricate the tale about 
 the restive horse ? 
 
 There is, however, a further portion of Pope St. 
 Gregory's testimony concerning Pope John I. which 
 has not yet been mentioned, and which no doubt 
 Lord Bute may suppose still more in need of revision. 
 It is the statement that a certain hermit saw the 
 Pope and a patrician named Symmachus going 
 down the crater of a burning mountain with the 
 king Theodoric, who had put them both to death, 
 
 * It should be noted that this silly, if not profane, story is told in the 
 Breviary of both the St. Gregories, who were Popes. Of the first, 
 commonly called the Great, we read : " He was the author of many 
 books, and Peter the Deacon declareth that he often saw the Holy 
 Ghost on his head in the form of a dove when he was dictating them." 
 (I. p. 1023.) And of the seventh, whose name was Hildebrand, we 
 read : ' ' While he was celebrating solemn Mass, godly men saw a 
 dove descend from heaven, perch upon his right shoulder, and spread 
 out its wings so as to veil his head, a testimony that it was not 'by 
 reason of man's wisdom, but by the teachings of the Holy Ghost, that 
 he was guided in his rule of the Church." (I. p. 1085.) Readers of 
 history will not need to be reminded that the <; ruler " who was held to 
 have been thus inspired was among the most arrogant assertors of Papal 
 prerogative ever known, and they will not fail to mark that in the col- 
 lect for the day the Church still prays for grace to follow his example.
 
 24 A Review of the " Reformed Roman Breviary." 
 
 " as though they who had been his victims were 
 become the judges of his punishment!" (II. 1089.) 
 A devout believer must be dreadfully perplexed 
 by this narration. If a Pope accompanies his 
 murderer to the place of doom, it cannot be as 
 a companion, still less as a judge, or officer of judg- 
 ment. If St. Gregory received this horrible story in 
 good faith, what shall we think of his taste and judg- 
 ment ? If he did not believe it, why insert it ? And 
 why did Pius V., also a canonized saint as well as a 
 Pope, and two others, Clement VIII. and Urban 
 VIII., allow it to stand ? If all four are deceived, 
 or deceivers, and that on a matter of such solemn 
 moment relating to another Pope, whom may the 
 faithful trust ? 
 
 But suppose that faith triumphs over all the doubts 
 which such a narrative suggests, and the biographies 
 in this book are received with all the reverence due 
 to the testimony of Prophets and Apostles, the 
 reader will learn to venerate St. Dominick, who, 
 whether he invented " the most holy rosary " or not, 
 founded the Order which bears his name, and is 
 responsible also for the holy office of the Inquisition, 
 though not literally its founder. The Breviary 
 celebrates his labours in Toulouse, where " he spent 
 seven years in confronting and plucking up the 
 blasphemies of the heretics " (meaning the Albi- 
 genses) ; and acknowledges in prayers his " worthy 
 deeds and healthful teaching, as a light of the Church " 
 (II. 709, 1194). It also praises St. Raymund for 
 having persuaded the King of Aragon to set up the
 
 The Inquisitors Praised. 25 
 
 Inquisition in his dominions ; and Michael Ghislieri, 
 afterwards Pope Pius V. and a canonized saint, for 
 having " long carried on the work of an Inquisitor 
 with unflinching spirit" (I. 980, 1069). In like 
 manner Ignatius Loyola is declared to have " passed 
 away on July 3ist, 1556, to the embrace of that 
 Lord Whose greater glory had been the constant 
 theme of all his words and aim of all his works " ; 
 and in the collect for that day men are taught to 
 pray that they may " so fight upon earth with his 
 help and after his example, that they may worthily 
 hereafter be crowned with him in heaven." The 
 history of the Order of the Jesuits is the best illus- 
 tration of the effects which the worship of this saint 
 is likely to produce, just as the history of the 
 Inquisition shows the outcome of the honour done to 
 St. Dominick. " By their fruits ye shall know them," 
 is the canon from which there lies no appeal ; and 
 when this rule is applied there is no room for 
 doubt. 
 
 There is no n~ed, however, to travel over so wide 
 a field in search of materials for forming a judgment 
 on the effects of the system which these volumes 
 embody and exhibit, not indeed in a cold and dog- 
 matic, but in a living and operative form. Let us 
 look at the devotional and experimental system of 
 the Breviary. It is calculated that the whole Office 
 for each day cannot be even read through conse- 
 cutively by a person alone under an hour and a half, 
 and when solemnly performed by many with music, 
 it must occupy much more time. To pray without
 
 26 A Review of the " Reformed Roman Breviary T 
 
 ceasing is indeed every Christian's duty, but not, 
 surely, in any such sense as would leave small time 
 for other occupations, for then, to use St. Paul's 
 phrase, he must " needs go out of the world." Yet 
 this, which the Apostle contemplates as an impossi- 
 bility, and uses as a reductio ad absurdum in 
 argument, is the natural tendency of the devotion 
 here taught and exemplified. The persons who 
 have separated themselves by vow from the affairs 
 of common life are the religious ; their dwellings are 
 religious houses ; the names by which they are 
 known among their associates are, not those they 
 formerly bore, but their names in religion, which is 
 thus held up as a thing by itself, a pursuit apart 
 from and higher than those of mankind at large. A 
 false view of Christianity is thus generated and 
 encouraged, and instead of every disciple being 
 taught, enjoined, and assisted to perfect holiness in 
 the fear of God, the universal privilege is in effect 
 restricted to the clergy, and especially to monks, 
 nuns, and hermits. In the numerous biographies 
 contained in these volumes we have but few in- 
 stances of those who have served God in trades, or 
 literary or scientific pursuits, or in politics. The 
 place of honour is assigned to those who have given 
 themselves up to sacred employments and devo- 
 tional exercises, or who have founded " congrega- 
 tions " to induce others to do so. The patterns of 
 piety set forth by the score are recluses and ascetics ; 
 and thus the system acts and reacts. To make 
 religion a separate business you must leave the
 
 Self-tormentors. 27 
 
 world ; and even then, to excel in the practice, you 
 must stimulate flagging attention, and create fac- 
 titious excitement by means of which it is hard to 
 think calmly. 
 
 Assuming the truth of these narratives, we find 
 one saint after another addicted to practices which 
 are either ridiculously absurd or monstrously cruel, 
 and sometimes both. One wears a hair shirt, 
 another weaves thorns or needles into the substance 
 of it ; one girds himself with an iron chain, another 
 fastens nails into the links ; one wears a cross 
 studded with nails pressing against his chest, another 
 adds a second smaller cross worn on the back. 
 Some never lie down, but sleep sitting ; others lie on 
 a hard board, others on the ground ; others collect 
 stones with sharp edges and broken pottery on 
 which to take their rest (?). Some scourge them- 
 selves with whips till they bleed, others load the 
 thongs with lead or iron ! Some eat but once a 
 day, others once in three days ; some mix all their 
 food with disagreeable condiments, and prefer 
 muddy water to sweet. Lest it may be supposed 
 that we exaggerate, let two short examples be 
 given. Some of the particulars named above are 
 extracted from vol. II. p. 1247, where we have the 
 record of St. Rose of Lima, who is described as 
 " the first flower of holiness which came to full 
 blossom in South America." At the age of fifteen* 
 she uttered a vow of perpetual virginity, and after- 
 
 * So Lord Bute writes, but three Latin Breviaries that we have ex- 
 amined give the age a.sfa>e years.
 
 28 A Review of the "Reformed Roman Breviary." 
 
 wards, lest her parents should force her to marry, 
 she polled her head of- all her hair, which was very 
 beautiful. " She passed whole Lents without taking 
 bread, eating day by day only five pips of a lime. . . . 
 She took the habit of the Third Order of St. 
 Dominick, and then doubled her former severities. . . . 
 She wore day and night under her veil a crown the 
 inner side of which was armed with pricks. . . . She 
 built herself a hut in the furthest corner of the 
 garden, where she gave herself up to thoughts of 
 heavenly things, and to punishing her body with 
 often scourging, starvation, and sleeplessness." 
 
 " Perhaps," we have said above, for it is hard to 
 decide between this first flower of South America and 
 the Apostle of Ireland, whose record is (I. 1025) 
 that " he never suffered his spirit to weary in con- 
 stant prayer. They say that it was his custom to 
 repeat every day the whole Book of Psalms, together 
 with songs and hymns and two hundred prayers ; 
 that he bent his knees to God in worship three 
 hundred times every day, and that he made on 
 himself the sign of the Cross an hundred times at 
 each of the seven hours of the Church service. He 
 divided the night into three portions : during the 
 first he repeated the first hundred Psalms, and bent 
 his knees two hundred times ; during the second he 
 remained plunged in cold water, with heart, eyes, 
 and hands lifted up to heaven, and in that state 
 repeated the remaining fifty Psalms ; during the 
 third he took his short rest lying upon a bare 
 stone."
 
 Asceticism depraves Christianity. 29 
 
 Now it is admitted by the authors of the Breviary 
 that this incredible legend is built on hearsay ; but 
 there is no cautionary or qualifying word throughout 
 either from the authors or from the noble and 
 learned editor, and it is set forth to be read along 
 with lessons from Scripture and the Fathers ; so 
 that the Church must be held fully responsible for it. 
 In the case of St. Rose the responsibility is boldly 
 assumed by the prayer or collect for her day, which 
 deserves to be quoted in full : " O Almighty God, 
 from Whom cometh down every good and perfect 
 gift, and Who didst cause the dew of Thy grace to 
 fall early from heaven upon this blessed Rose, 
 making the same to blossom in the Indies, as a 
 flower whose loveliness was virginity and long-suffer- 
 ing, grant unto us Thy servants, who do run after 
 the smell of her perfumes, worthily themselves to 
 become a sweet savour unto Christ." 
 
 We venture to affirm that no greater contrast to 
 the Christian character as depicted in the New 
 Testament can be exhibited among professors of 
 religion, than that pattern which these examples 
 supply. It has indeed " a show of wisdom," as the 
 ancient asceticism had (Col. ii. 23), and those 
 who know no better think that to treat the body as 
 an enemy is itself a virtue ; but true Christian 
 holiness regards the body as a temple of the Holy 
 Ghost, and yielding the members as instruments of 
 righteousness unto God, it finds that godliness has 
 the " promise of the life that now is," as well as " of 
 that which is to come." While it abjures self-
 
 30 A Review of the "Reformed Roman Breviary" 
 
 indulgence, it cannot be less intolerant of self- 
 murder. 
 
 There is another standing and insuperable objec- 
 tion to this system. Not only does it prescribe 
 impossible and even mischievous examples, and thus 
 tend to the distress and degradation of its votaries, 
 but it ascribes to these mistaken and foolish, if not 
 positively wicked, men and women a proper merit 
 before God. We have noted repeated instances in 
 which the Most High is implored " for the sake " of 
 some mortal to hear prayer, but a very few examples 
 must suffice: St. John de la Mata (I. 1006), 
 " Mercifully grant unto us that for his sake we may 
 be delivered " ; St. Faithful (p. 1045), "Be entreated, 
 we beseech Thee, for his sake, and by his prayers, 
 and so establish us," etc. ; St. Devnett (Ireland, p. 
 1 3), " Mercifully grant that Thy blessed handmaiden 
 and witness, Devnett, whose feast-day we are 
 keeping, may obtain help for us from Thee, for the 
 sake of her life, and by her prayers." It thus appears 
 that the Church of Rome not only prays to God 
 that departed saints may pray for us, but that we 
 may be heard on their account. In another place it 
 is perhaps more plainly put (vol. I. p. 849) : " For 
 the sake of him who so nobly served Thee, forgive 
 us our trespasses." If words have meaning, this is 
 to put a fellow-man on the same level with the Lord 
 of glory. 
 
 This is still more clearly and formally done in 
 regard to the Blessed Virgin, who in these volumes 
 is presented to us in so many aspects and relations
 
 Sinful Worship of the Virgin Mary. 3 1 
 
 as almost to oppress and confound the beholder. 
 The man who has formed his ideas of her from the 
 New Testament finds it hard to recognise the poor 
 maiden, afterwards the poor carpenter's wife of 
 Nazareth to whom her Divine Son, after He had 
 left His home, would allow no peculiar privilege, or 
 shadow of authority over Himself in the Queen of 
 Heaven who is honoured with as many feasts* as 
 her Son, and besought to exercise a mother's rights 
 over Him. The development of this devotion in 
 the Church of Rome is among the most marked 
 instances of the subtlety of the great deceiver which 
 the history of this world supplies. At every step the 
 
 * The feasts kept in honour of our Lord are thus noted in the 
 Ecclesiastical Calendar for 1883 : Circumcision, Jan. i ; Epiphany, 6 ; 
 Most Holy Name of Jesus, Jan. 14 ; The Prayer of our Lord, Jan. 26 ; 
 The Passion of our Lord, Feb. 3 ; The Crown of Thorns, Feb. 9 ; The 
 Lance and Nails, Feb. 1 6 ; The Winding-Sheet, Feb. 23 ; The Five 
 Wounds, March 2 ; The Most Precious Blood, March 9 ; Passion 
 Sunday, March 1 1 ; Palm Sunday ; Maundy Thursday ; Good Friday ; 
 Holy Saturday ; Easter Sunday ; Ascension Day ; Corpus Christi. 
 May 24 ; Most Sacred Heart, June 3 ; Transfiguration, Aug. 6 ; The 
 Most Holy Redeemer, Oct. 23 ; The Nativity, Dec. 25. 
 
 Those of the B.V.M. are, Espousals, Jan. 23 ; Purification, Feb. 
 2; The Seven Dolours, March 16 ; The Annunciation, April 2 (from 
 March 25) ; St. Mary, Help of Christians, June I ; Visitation, July 2 ; 
 B.V.M. of Mount Carmel, July 16 ; of St. Maiy of the Snow, Aug. 5 ; 
 The Assumption, Aug. 15 ; Nativity, Sept. 8 ; Our Lady of Mercy, 
 Sept. 24; The Holy Rosary of B.V.M.. Sept. 7; The Maternity of 
 B.V.M., Oct. 14 ; The Purity of B.V.M., Oct. 26; The Patronage of 
 B.V.M., Oct. 30 ; Presentation of B.V.M., Nov. 21 ; The Immaculate 
 Conception of B.V.M., Dec. 8; The Expectation of B.V.M., Dec. 
 18 ; St. Joseph, Spouse of B.V.M., and Patron of the Catholic Church. 
 April 6 ; Patronage of St. Joseph. April 15 ; St. Joachim, Father 
 of B.V.M., Aug. 19 ; St. Anne, Mother of B.V.M., July 26.
 
 32 A Review of the " Reformed Roman Breviary? 
 
 honour of the Saviour is made the pretext for 
 augmenting the claims of the creature, and enlisting 
 the tenderest sympathies of humanity on behalf of 
 the corruption of Christianity, both in doctrine and 
 worship. Down the ages the mischief has been 
 growing, until in these volumes we find the late Pope 
 declaring in a dogmatic Bull that he who does not 
 believe her to have been without sin from the first 
 instant of her conception is cut off from the Catholic 
 Church. He affirms in the same document the 
 notorious untruth that the assertion of this doctrine 
 hath always been one of the most striking features of 
 the Roman Church."" Whereas, in fact, its rise and 
 growth may be clearly traced. It was first a novel 
 speculation, then " a probable opinion " with some, 
 hotly contested by others. It gained the favour of 
 some rhetorical preachers and writers, and having 
 found its way into hymns and prayers, an Office was 
 compiled to embody it, and the devotion propagated 
 the doctrine far more powerfully and swiftly than 
 argument or exposition ; and thus that Mariolatry 
 which for the first thousand years was unknown, 
 before a second thousand years have elapsed bids 
 fair to become, if it is not already, the leading cha- 
 racteristic of the Churches of the Roman obedience. 
 Formerly among divines the question was stiffly 
 debated as to the limitations of worship, Latria 
 being reserved for the Divine Being, while Dulia and 
 Hypcr-Dulia might be distributed among those who 
 
 * On this point, Dean Field on The Church will well repay perusal. 
 See Appendix to his third book, ch. 6 (Third Ed., fo., p. 264-7).
 
 Sinful Worship of the Virgin Mary. 33 
 
 were admitted to be creatures. Protestants con- 
 tended that the distinctions were too subtle to be 
 observed, and that under the most favourable 
 circumstances the danger of being involved in 
 creature-worship was imminent. But the system of 
 devotions now in vogue makes it useless to raise the 
 question, for as we know not how to imagine higher 
 honours and greater prerogatives than are assigned 
 to Mary, the question of name is a mere strife 
 of words. Quotations would be almost endless ; 
 we will content ourselves with a single extract given 
 below. Language is exhausted in her praise ; 
 office after office is said in her honour ; one month 
 in the year is the month of Mary ; and on one day 
 of every week the usual office may be set aside in 
 favour of one expressly composed to set forth her 
 greatness and her virtues. Romanists can no longer 
 plead that individuals of a fervent temperament 
 have outstepped the bounds of discretion in their 
 writings, and must therefore be considered as speak- 
 ing for themselves alone, when we find selected for 
 insertion in the Breviary, and stamped with the 
 highest authority, such words as these : " If we have 
 any hope, any grace, any salvation, it runneth over 
 from her abundance who goeth up overflowing with 
 delights ; with all our hearts, then, let us honour 
 Mary, since this is the will of Him Who hath pleased 
 that it should be through Mary that we should have 
 all things " (II. 1453). A little further on we read : 
 
 " Thou art awe-struck by hearing- the voice of the Father, 
 thou art ashamed to approach Him, and wouldest fain hide 
 
 3
 
 34 A Review of the "Reformed Roman Breviary T 
 
 thyself among the trees of the garden. Lo, He hath given 
 thee Jesus as a Mediator, a Mediator Who will be heard on 
 account of His reverent submission (Heb. v. 7), for ' the 
 Father loveth the Son ' (John iii. 35). But perchance thou 
 shrinkest before the Divine Majesty in Him also, since albeit 
 He be made man, He remaineth still God. Wouldst thou have 
 an advocate with Him likewise ? Have recourse to Mary. 
 There is nothing in Mary but pure humanity . . . human nature 
 and nothing more. And I have no hesitation in saying that 
 she also will be heard on account of her reverent submission. 
 The Son will indeed hear the mother, and the Father will hear 
 the Son. My little children, this is the sinner' 's ladder to 
 heaven; this is my chief est trust ; this is the whole reason 
 of the hope that is in me. For why ? Can her Son thrust 
 her away, or endure that she should be thrust away ? Can He 
 either not hear or not Himself be heard ? Plainly He cannot. 
 The angel giveth her this joyful assurance : Thou hast found 
 grace with God. She will always find grace with God, and 
 grace is all that we need, since by grace we are saved 
 (Eph. ii. 8). What else do we want, my brethren ? Let us 
 seek grace, and let us seek it through Mary, for he that 
 seeketh findeth, and need not be disappointed of his hope." 
 
 Lord Bute seems to doubt if his readers will 
 believe his translation of the passage we have 
 italicised, so he adds the original at the foot of the 
 page : Hcec peccatorum scala, hcec mea maxima 
 fiducia est, hcec tota ratio spei mea. There can be 
 no mistake here, nor any room to charge us with 
 the exaggerations of controversy. The devotion to 
 the Virgin Mary, especially when pursued to so 
 great an extent, lies open to grave objection on the 
 ground of its moral influence. Even if free from 
 doctrinal unsoundness, it brings into needless and 
 unscriptural prominence the miraculous production
 
 And of her Husband also, 35 
 
 of our Lord's human nature. The Evangelists 
 announce the fact and the date of His birth, but no 
 other New Testament writers refer to it, except in 
 the most general terms. They represent the in- 
 carnation as necessary in order to the atonement, 
 and do not deem it needful to do more than record 
 the fact which identifies Jesus of Nazareth with the 
 seed of the woman Who should bruise the serpent's 
 head, and the Immanuel Who was to come of the 
 house of David. They supply no particulars of His 
 domestic life, but speak of His brethren and sisters 
 as well known in His native village. Rome con- 
 stantly asserts that He had neither, and glorifies His 
 mother on that account. A class of subjects not at 
 all conducive to edification is thus associated with 
 devotional exercises, and phrases which modest 
 people use very sparingly, if at all, are perpetually 
 in use both in public and private worship, and that, 
 too, by a large number of persons who have been 
 taught to renounce family life. Nothing but mis- 
 chief can result from singling out Joseph from all 
 the other just men whom we know, and making him 
 the object of peculiar honour on the ground of his 
 relationship to the mother of Jesus. But it is in the 
 nature of false worship to develop unspiritual ten- 
 dencies. The Breviary presents ample proof of this 
 tendency to debase devotion in proportion as its 
 objects are multiplied. Two days in the year are 
 devoted to the honour of the cross on which our 
 Lord suffered ; one commemorates the alleged find- 
 ing of it by Helena, the mother of Constantine, A.D.
 
 36 A Review of the "Reformed Roman Breviary" 
 
 326, and the other its recovery from the power of 
 the Persians, who had taken it captive and detained 
 it fourteen years. Both legends are avouched by 
 miracles, and hymns are sung in honour of the 
 wood and iron ! Another solemn day is given to 
 the commemoration of the crown of thorns, another 
 to the spear and nails, another to the shroud or 
 winding-sheet. 
 
 Now, while it is freely admitted that a certain 
 kind of devotion is thus promoted, it must also be 
 admitted that it is devotion of the lowest type, 
 appealing at every turn to the senses rather than to 
 the intellect, and therefore apt to deteriorate con- 
 tinually. It is neither a tender admiration of the 
 wonderful babe, nor a sentimental sympathy with 
 the suffering man, that transforms and elevates the 
 believing soul ; nor is it the wood of the Cross by 
 which the world is crucified unto us, and we unto 
 the world. The fellowship with His sufferings and 
 conformity to His death which St. Paul coveted is 
 best effected by arming ourselves with the same 
 mind, and ceasing from sin. We die with 
 Him, as we rise and ascend with Him, through the 
 agency of the convincing, renewing, sanctifying, and 
 comforting Spirit, and by that means alone. The 
 material appliances of His passion may assist 
 some minds in apprehending the love that passeth 
 knowledge ; but the effect on the whole is to de- 
 grade the subject they aim to illustrate. The 
 Gospel of the infancy is not the Gospel of the 
 Resurrection or of Pentecost ; and those whose chief
 
 Sensuous and Materialistic Devotion. 37 
 
 attraction is to Bethlehem or to Calvary are in great 
 danger of stopping short of the full blessing of the 
 Gospel of Christ. 
 
 The tendency of Romish devotion, as presented 
 in these volumes, is materialistic and sensuous. 
 The adoration of the Most Precious Blood, for 
 which we find a separate office, and of the Most 
 Sacred Heart (which is just now, alas ! in great 
 favour in England), all minister to this tendency in 
 a lamentable manner. If there be any doubt as to 
 the correctness of this view, the reader has only to 
 examine the numerous instances in which the 
 ardours of devotion are said to influence the 
 physical frame. Some of the saints are rapt into 
 ecstasies and lifted up from their feet into the air ; 
 others are preternaturally illuminated ; others, as a 
 special token of favour, see the Blessed Virgin, who 
 places her Son in their arms, or gives Him to them to 
 kiss ; others have the wounds of Jesus supernaturally 
 inflicted or marked upon their bodies ; one even 
 brands herself with His name. St. Mary Mag- 
 dalene of Pazzi is commemorated on May 2/th. In 
 the prayer for the day we read : " O God, Who 
 lovest virginity, and didst make Thy blessed Virgin 
 Mary Magdalene afire with the love of Thyself, and 
 rich with Thy heavenly gifts, grant unto us, who 
 honour her memory by a yearly feast, the grace to 
 copy the ensample of her purity and of her tenderness. 
 Through," etc., etc. In her biography we learn that 
 she " made a vow of perpetual virginity at ten years 
 of age ... at the command of God ate nothing but
 
 38 A Review of the "Reformed Roman Breviary." 
 
 bread and water for five years, except on Sundays, 
 when she had Lenten fare . . . chastened her body 
 vith hair-cloth, scourging, cold, hunger, nakedness, 
 and all manner of hardships, and after a long and 
 grievous sickness, died at forty-one. The love of 
 God was so hot within her that she was sometimes 
 fain to bathe her breast with cold water to allay the 
 agitation" (I. 1088). 
 
 St. Philip Neri, the founder of the Congregation 
 of the Oratory, to which so many of Rome's recent 
 English converts have joined themselves, is honoured 
 on the 25th of May as a " Confessor" of the Church. 
 In his biography we read, among other wonderful 
 things, that " he sometimes was raised from the 
 ground and appeared all shining. He was full of 
 the love of God, and his heart was so hot therewith 
 that it became straitened in its place, and the Lord 
 was pleased to ease him by the gristle which joined 
 the fourth and fifth ribs [on his left side] breaking, 
 and so allowing more play to the internal organs " (I. 
 1087). The bracketed words are inserted by the 
 translator. 
 
 Here we must stop, though not because the sub- 
 ject is exhausted. It is in fact barely begun. We 
 have not adverted to the general structure of this 
 vast book, nor to its expository teaching, nor to the 
 large collection of hymns which it contains, though 
 on each of these topics there is much to be said 
 which might not be wholly unworthy the reader's 
 attention. But we have restricted ourselves to the 
 Prayers and Biographies as affording the readiest
 
 Sensuous and Materialistic Devotion. 39 
 
 and, on the whole, perhaps the most satisfactory 
 means of showing our readers what we have to 
 expect from Romanism as it is found among us. 
 In the eyes of many cultivated Englishmen it has, 
 alas ! the same attractions as for Lord Bute. But 
 with us it is far otherwise. Jezebel paints her face, 
 and tires her hair, but at her best she is Jezebel 
 still.
 
 REMARKS ON THE PRECEDING 
 REVIEW. 
 
 BY THE REV. JAMES McSWINEY, SJ. 
 
 MY attention has been called of late to certain 
 notices of Lord Bute's Translation of the 
 Roman Breviary, which have appeared in your 
 periodical. Of the many statements of doctrine or 
 of fact calling for correction or modification, I select 
 for the present your contributor's main contention 
 viz., that the several portions of which the Roman 
 Breviary consists are " practically put on a level " 
 (p. 19). Of this I can discover no proof what- 
 ever. As he correctly states, the Roman Breviary 
 is the Book of Common Prayer of the Church 
 of Rome, now adopted by most of the Latin 
 Churches in communion with her. Extract from 
 the Anglican Prayer-Book the Order for the Daily 
 Morning and Evening Prayer, with the Litanies and 
 the Collects, bind together with them the Scripture 
 Lessons, and the result were the exact equivalent of 
 the Breviary. As its history and name imply, it is 
 a compendium^ a reduction to portable* form of the 
 
 * Cf. the old English names, Portuary, Portean, Portfory, Porthus, 
 etc.
 
 What the Breviary consists of. 41 
 
 several elements of the public prayer of the Church 
 as distinguished from the main and central act of 
 worship, the Eucharistic celebration. Of the Book 
 of Psalms and the Pericopes from the Divine Scrip- 
 tures there is happily no question at present. Next 
 in order of dignity come the Responsories, Hymns, 
 and Collects formulating the belief,* hopes, and 
 aspirations of Christian generations as they wend 
 their way along the beaten track of ages to the goal 
 of their pilgrimage, even the bosom of God the 
 Trinity. The excerpts from the Fathers, doctors, 
 and ecclesiastical writers witness to the faith of their 
 contemporaries, and are authoritative so far forth as 
 the Church Catholic adopts them as expressing her 
 consciousness. Last of all, on Saints' Days, we 
 have short biographies of the saints commemorated 
 in the Church of Rome, or in the other Churches of 
 her communion. As your contributor observes, the 
 names given in the (Roman) Calendar at the 
 beginning of the Breviary are selected from a much 
 larger number inscribed in the Martyrologies and 
 Menologies of East and West. But of this " great 
 multitude," gathered not only from the deserts, or 
 the cloister, but from every grade of secular life, by 
 far the larger portion has not been " canonized " (i.e., 
 placed on the authentic roll, or canon, of hallowed 
 memories) " by a Pope." 
 
 As regards the authority attaching to these bio- 
 graphies, it should not be necessary to state that as 
 
 * " Ut legem credendi lex statuat orandi " (S. Coelestini I. Epist. ad 
 Episcopos Gall. c. n).
 
 42 Mr. McSwiney's Remarks. 
 
 resting on historical, i.e., merely human testimony, 
 they cannot claim -the unquestioning assent of Divine 
 Faith, whose sole object and correlative is the 
 Revelation of God in His Christ. What, then, is 
 the authority claimed for them ? Benedict XIV.* 
 treats this very question with his usual clear-headed- 
 ness and exhaustive erudition, under the heading, 
 Of the Roman Breviary, and its Authority, etc. ; and 
 gives a brief account of the revision of the Roman 
 Breviary from its inception by Paul IV. till A.D. 
 1631, the date (until the other day) of its comple- 
 tion. In a quotation from Bartholomew Gavanti, 
 who was on the then two latest commissions of 
 revision, he informs us that Cardinals Bellarmine 
 and Baronius, the famous annalist, strove to avoid a 
 breach of continuity ; casting out what was demon- 
 strably false, they retained such disputed narratives 
 as could claim a certain degree of probability from 
 the authority of some reputable author. The 
 learned Pontiff then traces a middle course between 
 the two extremes of an indiscriminate and, at times, 
 vituperative rejection of the hagiology of the Roman 
 Breviary on the one hand, and the credulous pietism 
 that, contrary to the mind of the Roman Church,']' 
 shrinks from questioning the merely historical 
 details to be found therein. The character and en- 
 dowments of those engaged in the several revisions 
 
 * Prospero Lambertini, Archbishop of Bologna, translated to Rome 
 A.D. 1740. d. 1758. See his great work, De Servorum Dei Beatifica- 
 tione, et Beatorum Canonizatione. Lib. 4, part 2, c. 13. 
 
 f " Adversus Ecclesise Romans sensum." Ubi sup. 7.
 
 How far Authoritative. 
 
 of the Roman Breviary lend no slight weight to its 
 statements of fact, but this is far from implying that 
 competent critics, who discover solid grounds for 
 dissent, may not with due moderation and propriety 
 impart them to the public, or submit them to the 
 Apostolic See, in order to their being duly con- 
 sidered, when the correction of the Breviary is 
 again taken in hand. He approvingly instances 
 cases of learned men questioning without let or 
 hindrance certain narratives of the Roman Breviary, 
 and the authenticity of their sources. Among these 
 we may mention the Bollandists, the Jesuit hagiolo- 
 gists Dr. Osborn refers to at p. 16, and his own 
 immediate predecessor in the Roman Chair, Benedict 
 XIII. , who, while in the See of Benevento, expressly 
 stated, in a work since published in Rome after his 
 translation to that See, that whatever the authority 
 of the Roman Breviary, it may not be pleaded 
 when it conflicts with more ancient documents, and 
 that its frequent revisions plainly show that the 
 Church does not pledge herself unreservedly to all 
 its contents. 
 
 As may be seen, at the several stages of the pro- 
 cess, the revisers sought to bring the narratives in 
 question into unison with contemporary historical 
 knowledge. . Small blame to them for not being 
 ahead of their age, for failing to forecast the then 
 future developments of historical criticism. In more 
 than one instance the timely discovery of monuments 
 justified their cautious conservatism, and made them 
 restore what they had doomed to excision, nor are
 
 44 Mr. McSwiney's Remarks. 
 
 there wanting cases in which " nineteenth-century 
 criticism " (by the way, far more concerned with 
 Prophets, Evangelists, and Apostles, nay, even 
 with the organic laws of thought, than with the 
 legends of saints) has reversed or modified earlier 
 strictures. These oscillations of historical criticism 
 justify, and, in part, account for the seemingly inde- 
 finite adjournment of a complete revision. " Great 
 bodies move slowly," and to those the measure will 
 immediately affect it will be very inconvenient to 
 have a work like this done piecemeal. It can scarce 
 be necessary to add, after what has been said, that 
 " the claims of infallibility " are as little concerned 
 in this matter as in the domestic policy of the 
 Incas. 
 
 Whenever completed, the revision of the Roman 
 Breviary will not silence all carping : it will leave 
 untouched the biographies of later date, which are 
 summaries of sworn judicial processes. As hereto- 
 fore, it will present an order of ideas and facts 
 stamped by popular Protestantism with the seal of 
 reprobation. It will set forth to our reverent wonder, 
 though not indiscriminately to our imitation, the 
 sacred rigours of ascetics in their warfare against that 
 inborn selfishness which, far more than the solicita- 
 tions of the false and perverted agency that seeks 
 among mankind its tools and accomplices, mars the 
 growth of God's kingdom within us. It will record 
 the privations, the sufferings of heroic souls, whether 
 voluntary or lovingly accepted at the Father's hand 
 in the spirit of expiation, and in order to a closer
 
 Future Revisions. 45 
 
 following of the Crucified. No question here of 
 mistaking means for end, of the Pantheistic ascesis 
 that aims at the effacement or annihilation of human 
 personality, or of " self-murder." The revisers of the 
 future, while carefully sifting each miraculous narrative, 
 rejecting some, qualifying, it may be, others by 
 prefixing a " fertur," i.e., the bare statement of com- 
 mon report, will most assuredly not wholly banish 
 the marvellous from the Breviary Lessons. True, 
 beyond all question, that, save those the Divine 
 Records place above discussion, no facts of this class 
 are vouched for by the witness of God, and hence 
 the criteria of historical evidence apply to them, at 
 the very least, as much as to the other data of the 
 relation of the senses we receive on human testi- 
 mony. But at this point the contention involves, 
 together with a question as to facts, a conflict of 
 principles. Catholic teaching reprobates as contrary 
 to the express promise of Incarnate Truth, to the 
 analogy of God's action in history as manifested in 
 the Divine Scriptures, the a priori assumption of a 
 certain school that consigns the ^apicr/xa of mira- 
 culous powers to the tomb of the last surviving 
 Apostle. 
 
 As it were difficult to improve on Lecky's masterly 
 refutation of it, a bare reference to him will suffice.* 
 It does no violence to our reason or sense of fitness 
 to be told of the wondrous mercies of the sole 
 Author of Nature modifying or suspending its laws, 
 that He may secure and honour the triumph of laws 
 
 * See History of European Morals.
 
 46 Mr. McSwiney's Remarks. 
 
 of a higher order in the moral and supernatural 
 sphere, that He may witness to the Christ dwelling 
 and energizing in His saints. Among other purposes 
 we may reverently assign, marvels like these serve, 
 if but by contrast, to set in higher relief the far 
 mightier manifestations of infinite Love in the con- 
 version of a sinner, and in the gracious aid that 
 sustains our failing steps in the path of God's com- 
 mandments. With us the question of their credibility 
 is one of mere fact : we admit, reject them, or sus- 
 pend our judgment concerning them, according to 
 our estimate of the evidence in each case. Hence 
 sneers, which are but feeble echoes of the rostrum of 
 the Secular Hall, are hardly to the purpose. In the 
 story of the horse proving restive after having been 
 mounted by Pope S. John, we have the fact and S. 
 Gregory's hypothetical explanation thereof. Admit- 
 ting the former, we may reject the latter without any 
 reflection on him. So, too, the scene which repre- 
 sented to the hermit Theodoric between his two 
 illustrious victims is, on the face of it, a vision. The 
 dramatis persona were at the time disembodied spirits. 
 Supposing it to have been real, and not a mere 
 figment of the hermit's brain, it symbolized the fact 
 that their blood had been required at the tyrant's 
 hands, and his awful, ay, " horrible " doom. To 
 read a mere hypothesis as a categorical statement, 
 to comment on the details of a vision as if it were a 
 penny-a-liner's report, is a style of criticism that 
 would hardly commend itself to a cultured unbeliever 
 dealing, say, with the visions of Ezekiel or of the
 
 Proper and Vicarious Merit. 47 
 
 Blessed Divine. As regards S. Raymund de 
 Penafuerte's (Jan. 23) miraculous escape from 
 Majorca, the story must be taken in the concrete. 
 From it we learn that his landing at Barcelona was 
 seen by some thousands of eye-witnesses. 
 
 The "standing and insuperable objection," at p. 30, 
 is the logical outcome of the fundamental diver- 
 gence of the Protestant schools from Catholic 
 teaching as to man's relations to his eternal destiny, 
 both before and since the Fall, and consequently as to 
 the economy of his rehabilitation in Christ. Suffice 
 it, then, to state that while assigning to the faithful 
 obedience of the justified a proper merit, the Church 
 Catholic limits vicarious merit, in the strict sense of 
 that term, to the Word Incarnate. But that, con- 
 scious of our solidarity with all the members of Christ, 
 we plead before God the faith and patience of His 
 saints, should hardly surprise those who presumably 
 are familiar with Genesis xviii., or with the exiles' 
 prayer in Psalm cxxxi. 10. We further observe 
 that the Word came forth into time not solely to 
 atone for sin, but to impart to man the life eternal. 
 He is ever drawing from the bosom of the Father, 
 of which " all we " receive from the overflowing ful- 
 ness of the Nature He has indissolubly wedded to 
 His Divine hypostasis, that He might render worthy 
 of acceptance, by making them His own, the ho- 
 mage and supplications of men and angels. The 
 ecclesiastical Christ is one and the self-same with the 
 historical, the evangelical Christ, the Son of Mary 
 Ever Blessed, the Man of Sorrows, the Victim of
 
 48 Mr. McSwiney's Remarks. 
 
 Golgotha, the Risen One, living for ever, taken up 
 into glory, yet dwelling among us to continue His 
 blessed work of redemption and rehabilitation. 
 
 In the strictures on Marian devotion the obvious 
 gradations of religious homage are said to involve 
 distinctions too subtle for the Protestant mind. Our 
 estimate of its powers has never sinned by exaggera- 
 tion ; still we think Dr. Osborn hardly does them 
 justice. As we learned in the schools, " Ab actu ad 
 posse valet consecutio." The followers of Muham- 
 mad pay to him the highest honours, claim for him 
 singular prerogatives ; yet what Protestant writer has 
 ever charged them with " creature-worship " ? But 
 he is " unable to conceive higher honours . . . than 
 are assigned to Mary." He might say as much if he 
 heard us attempt to describe the wondrous work 
 done by God's Holy Spirit in the babe of an hour, 
 whose brows are yet moist with the waters of regene- 
 ration. He has yet to make acquaintance with 
 the service-books of the Greek and other Eastern 
 Churches, or, better still, to learn the a b c of 
 Catholic worship, which deems the unspeakable self- 
 abasement of the Word Incarnate the sole homage 
 adequate to the claims of the Divine Majesty. To 
 own oneself incapable of apprehending the broad 
 distinction between Self-subsistent and imparted ex- 
 cellence, between the Absolute and the conditioned, 
 the finite and the Infinite, is a strange though candid 
 avowal for one who further on descants on the 
 sensuous and materialistic tendencies of " Romish " 
 [qy. Roman Roman Catholic ?] worship. The
 
 Assumption of the Virgin. 49 
 
 Platonist S. Augustin mentions may have inveighed 
 against " the sensuous and materialistic tendencies " 
 of " The Word was made flesh " ; but his admiration 
 of the sublime procemium of which it forms part 
 shows him to have been capable of at least some 
 reflex metaphysical ideas. 
 
 At p. 34 it should have been stated that the 
 quotations there incriminated occur in S. Bernard's 
 first sermon on the Nativity of the B. Virgin. The 
 footnote at August I 5 commented upon by Dr.Osborn 
 was suggested by an observation of Benedict 
 XIV., who, in his work De Festis D.N.I.X. et 
 B.M.V. (Part 2, chap. 8, 23), shows that of itself 
 the word " assumption " grounds no safe inference as 
 to the mind of the Church regarding the exemption 
 of the virginal frame of God's All-holy Mother from 
 the insults of death, as it occurs in S. Gregory of 
 Tours to denote the demise of S. Avitus of Vienne. 
 To say that " This is not a matter of faith " by no 
 means implies doubt. " The half is less than the 
 whole " ; " The battle of Actium sealed the triumph 
 of the plebs over the patricians " ; " The use of an 
 umbrella is to be stolen " ; are propositions assuredly 
 not " of faith " ; indeed, the first never could be, on 
 account of its intuitive evidence, yet no man outside 
 Bedlam would ever question them. 
 
 The date assigned to " Mariolatry " next claims 
 notice ; omitting for the nonce all reference to the 
 dicta of the Fathers, such as S. Cyril of Alexandria's 
 opening discourse at the Council of Ephesus, it lately 
 fell to my lot to help in editing a Litany to the 
 
 4
 
 50 Mr. McSwiney's Remarks. 
 
 Blessed Virgin, which was said or sung by an Irish 
 community A.D. 725. On one of the margins of the 
 St. Gall Priscian, copied in Ireland A.D. 850 at latest, 
 may be seen scribbled a plaintive invocation, which 
 shows that, like their children in the nineteenth 
 century, our forefathers in the ninth sought, as it 
 were instinctively, Mary's aid in times of trouble. 
 The piety of the present is a heritage from the 
 remote past of which the outrage of Protestant 
 ascendency has not availed to rob us. The Bull 
 defining the sinless conception of the Blessed Virgin 
 was drawn up by Passaglia, one of the first divines 
 and patristic scholars of the age. What is therein 
 asserted is amply borne out by the testimonies he 
 has recorded in his three huge volumes, De Imma- 
 culata B. V. Conceptione. The implied inference 
 from the Lord's "brothers and sisters" (p. 35) is a 
 gloss of your contributor unsupported by the witness 
 of the Divine Scriptures, flatly contradicted by 
 Catholic prayer, which in its earliest monuments 
 ever couples with Mary's name the title of 
 'AeiTrapfeVos (= always a virgin),* and which, as 
 recent occurrences in Syria reported to me by an 
 eye-witness prove, would rouse even a Muslim 
 audience to a violent outburst of indignation. 
 
 To conclude, the predicate " Scriptural" and its 
 opposite occur more than once in these Articles. 
 In other words, Dr. Osborn begs the whole question 
 at issue. Under his pen, " Scriptural " can mean no 
 
 * " A virgin unto all times" (Coptic Liturgies passini).
 
 There is already a Pope in Rome. 51 
 
 more than agreement with his construction of the 
 Divine Volumes ; this implies two very disparate 
 factors the words of Inspiration and his private 
 study at best, if not his passive acceptance of 
 the tradition of a school destitute of historical ante- 
 cedents. By the trite rule of logic " Pejorem 
 sequitur semper conclusio partem," such results can 
 claim at most but a subjective value. If more be 
 claimed for them, by slurring over the intermediate 
 process, by eliminating from the equation the mental 
 activity or passive assent involved in its second 
 member, I remind him that there is already a Pope 
 in Rome. The question as between us and those 
 without, who still, thank God, venerate the Divine 
 Scriptures as the oracles of God, is not, " What 
 saith," but, " What means the Scripture ? " and Dr. 
 Osborn will excuse us if we question his competence. 
 Needless to add that neither in the name of the 
 noble translator, nor for my own part, can I 
 accept Dr. Osborn's compliments on our " courage," 
 " boldness," etc. On the maxim Cuique suum, the 
 Bollandists and Rev. Alban Butler * standard 
 authorities with us, by the way might claim the 
 lion's share. " Where there is no law, there is 
 no transgression " ; and the work awaited but the 
 somewhat unusual combination of indefatigable in- 
 dustry and studious tastes with ample means and 
 leisure. Not that it is the first of its kind, as I 
 have lately met with an old French translation of 
 the Roman Breviary. Better than Dr. Osborn can I 
 
 * Lives of the Fathers, Martvrs. and Principal Saints.
 
 5 2 Mr. McSwmey's Remarks. 
 
 feel the pulse of our brethren in the Faith ; he 
 will therefore bear with me when I tell him that his 
 surmises, no less than his compliments, are out of 
 joint with the facts of the case, and that his evident 
 lack of offensive intent acquits him of impertinence 
 in giving them expression. 
 
 P.S. The Sarum Rite (Breviary, Missal, etc.) 
 might have remained till now the " use " of most of 
 the Churches of the three kingdoms, were it not that 
 " ardent " Protestants destroyed every copy of it 
 they could lay hands on, not sparing many a 
 valuable historical monument and repertory of 
 mediaeval learning. As for the other " uses" men- 
 tioned in Preface to Book of Common Prayer, they 
 were restricted to certain localities, nor can I say 
 whether they could have claimed the two hundred 
 years' prescription required by the Bull of S. Pius V. 
 According to the legal maxim, " Accessorium sequitur 
 principale " (Reg. Juris in Vlto), the Aberdeen 
 Breviary, being but a local adaptation of the Sarum, 
 will, of course, never be restored. The resumption 
 of the Roman Service-Books in France is mainly due 
 to the Benedictine Abbot Dom Gueranger.
 
 ' REPLY TO MR. McSWINEY'S 
 REMARKS. 
 
 THE first point that arises in Mr. McSwiney's 
 observations on my paper is the degree of 
 credit due to the various portions of which the 
 Breviary services are composed. Divine faith, he 
 says, is due only to the Holy Scriptures ; the hymns, 
 responsories, and prayers come next in importance, 
 the biographies last of all, as depending on historical 
 evidence merely. He demurs to my statement that 
 they are practically put on a level, and says he " can 
 see no proof " of it ; I contend that the slightest 
 inspection of the Breviary shows it. The Scriptures, 
 homilies, prayers, hymns, and biographies form one 
 service. All are to be read together on the prescribed 
 day ; all are enjoined by the same authority under 
 heavy penalties, and without any distinction of parts ; 
 and, as if to preclude the possibility of any such 
 distinction arising, we find the biography in many 
 cases wrought into the substance of the prayers and 
 hymns, so that they cannot be separated from each 
 other. I will adduce as illustrations and proofs :
 
 54 Reply to Mr. McSwiney. 
 
 1. Raymund, honoured January 23rd, whose story 
 is mentioned (p. 14), and in whose office we 
 read the prayer : " O God, Who didst choose 
 the blessed Raymund . . . and in a wonderful manner 
 didst make him to pass over the waves of the sea," 
 etc., etc. 
 
 2. S. Scholastica (honoured February loth) : " O 
 God, Who, to show the way of the undefiled, wast 
 pleased that the soul of Thy blessed Virgin 
 Scholastica should fly to heaven in a bodily shape 
 like a dove, mercifully grant," etc., etc. 
 
 3. S. Clement, Pope and martyr, honoured 
 November 23rd, whose story is told in three lessons. 
 The last of them narrates that he was drowned with 
 an anchor tied about his neck, and that after it had 
 been done, while the Christians were praying on the 
 shore, the sea went back three miles, and when they 
 followed it, they found a grotto of marble in form 
 like a temple, and therein a stone coffin, wherein was 
 laid the body of the martyr, and hard by the .anchor 
 wherewith he had been sunk. A lesson from Matthew 
 xxiv., and a homily of St. Hilary, are appointed to 
 follow the biography. The third responsory for this 
 office is as follows : " Lord, Thou hast given to 
 Thy martyr Clement a tabernacle in the sea, after the 
 fashion of a temple of marble, builded by the 
 hands of angels. And Thou gavest a way thither 
 unto the people on the land, that they may tell of 
 Thy marvellous works. Lord, Thou didst give unto 
 Thy saints a way in the sea, and a path through the 
 mighty waters."
 
 Biographies Wrought into Devotions. 55 
 
 4. On September i/th, we have an office which is 
 in part common to other saints, and in part peculiar 
 to one. What is peculiar is, first, three lessons from 
 the Epistle to, the Galatians, being parts of the fifth 
 and sixth chapters, in which St. Paul speaks of his 
 bearing in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus. 
 Then three lessons from the life of St. Francis, by 
 Cardinal Buona-Ventura, in which is told the history 
 of his seeing a seraph, " after which vision the body 
 of Francis was outwardly changed into the likeness of 
 Him Who was crucified. From thenceforth there 
 were seen in his hands and feet the marks of the 
 nails. ... In his right side also there was a long raw 
 wound, as though he had been pierced with a spear, 
 from which wound his holy blood oftentimes ran, and 
 stained his shirt and breeches. Thereafter Francis 
 was a new creature, famous for a new and awful 
 sign : the holy marks of the Lord Jesus, whereon 
 living men had not been allowed to look for twelve 
 centuries, were his adornments." There is more to 
 the same effect, and also that though Francis would 
 have kept them secret, they became known by divers 
 miracles ; that all these things were thoroughly 
 witnessed, and that two Popes were parties to the 
 publication of them. The prayer for the office invokes 
 the Lord Jesus Christ, " Who, when the love of many 
 was waxing cold, didst manifest once more the holy 
 marks of Thine own suffering in the flesh of Thy 
 most blessed servant Francis," etc., etc. There is 
 also a Versicle and Answer as follows : " V. Lord, 
 Thou didst mark Thy servant Francis. A. With the
 
 56 Reply to Mr. McSwiney. 
 
 marks of our redemption." And two verses of a 
 hymn in which the same wonder is narrated. The 
 second reads thus : 
 
 " Again returns the sacred day. 
 With heavenly glory bright, 
 When Thou wast pleased upon his flesh 
 Thine own dread marks to write." 
 
 To these let me add two who were mentioned in my 
 former article, to which I beg the reader to turn. 
 
 5. St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzi (honoured May 
 2;th). See p. 37. 
 
 6. St. Katharine (honoured November 25th). See 
 
 P- 13- 
 
 My argument here is greatly strengthened by the 
 fact that the prayer for this office not only recites 
 the legend or biography, but expressly puts it on a 
 level with the Mosaic history (Exod. xix., xx.), 
 thus : " O God, Who didst give the law unto 
 Moses upon the top of Mount Sinai, and there didst 
 cause the body of Thy blessed virgin and martyr 
 Katharine to be marvellously laid by Thine holy 
 angels, grant unto us," etc., etc. 
 
 7. Of St. Theresa (honoured October 1 5th) it is 
 said : " His own love (i.e., the love of God) so 
 blazed in Rer heart that she attained to see an angel 
 run her through with a fiery spear ... It was worn 
 out with the fever of her love, rather than by the 
 wasting of disease, that she sank upon her death-bed 
 at Alva." Two hymns are given in this office. 
 From the first I extract two verses :
 
 Hymns incorporate Legends. 57 
 
 " Thou partest from thy Father's home, 
 
 As herald of the King most high, 
 Eager, Theresa, far to roam, 
 
 And give the heathen Christ or die. 
 
 " But thee a gentler death awaits, 
 
 A sweeter anguish shall be thine, 
 When thou shall sink as penetrates 
 
 The spear- wound made by Love Divine." 
 
 Here, then, are seven distinct instances in which 
 the biographies are interwoven with the devotions, 
 and cannot be separated. More might be adduced ; 
 but I hope my readers will see clearly what my 
 learned censor cannot see at all, that " these docu- 
 ments are practically put on a level " (p. 1 9). 
 What can a man do more with the words 
 of Scripture than turn them into hymns and 
 prayers, and utter them before the Most High ? 
 And as this is repeatedly done in the Breviary, my 
 " contention," though not my main contention, as 
 Mr. McSwiney erroneously calls it, is fully esta- 
 blished. 
 
 Two Popes are quoted by Mr. McSwiney to show 
 that the Church does not set the Breviary above 
 criticism, or pledge herself unreservedly to all its 
 contents. The labour, however, hardly was needed, 
 for the very word " Reformed " on the title shows as 
 much. The bull prefixed to the Breviary of Pius V. 
 is very express as to the changes which had been 
 made-before his time in the Breviary of Gregory VII. 
 But our complaint (p. 21) was and is, that notwith- 
 standing the undoubted right of the Church to 
 revise her own formularies, and the repeated exercise
 
 58 Reply to Mr. McSwiney. 
 
 of that right by successive Popes, the book should 
 still be what it is : that there should be throughout, 
 mixed up with the Holy Scripture, and combined in 
 the same " offices," matter which many of those who 
 use it do not believe to be true ; and more, 
 matter which they do not hold themselves bound 
 to believe nay, which they hold themselves at 
 liberty publicly to contradict. 
 
 On this latter point I own myself to have been 
 mistaken. I did suppose that deference to the 
 authority of three Popes, if not religious reverence, 
 would have forbidden criticisms so free as those on 
 which I remarked, and which I knew would most 
 likely, in other places and earlier times, have secured 
 for their author a place in the prisons of the In- 
 quisition, and his work a place in the Index of 
 Prohibited Books.* But it is now clear that, if there 
 is Papal authority for believing, there is also Papal 
 authority for doubting, challenging, and denying the 
 book as we have it even after the revision of three 
 Popes. I therefore withdraw those ascriptions of 
 courage which the article contained (pp. 11-13), an d 
 would apologize for them if Mr. McSwiney had not 
 truly and justly stated that they were not penned 
 with any offensive intent. 
 
 But I must needs ask, In what a position does 
 the question now stand ? I could almost have 
 
 * There is found in an Index of Prohibited Books published at Rome 
 in 1819 a certain translation into English of a part of the Liturgy and 
 Ritual of the Roman Church by a Romish Priest named Gandolphy, 
 though an earlier and larger one appears to have escaped notice.
 
 What Two Popes Said and Did. 59 
 
 wished, in the interests of common honesty, that 
 Mr. McSwiney had not adduced the conclusive 
 testimony of his two Popes. For it follows from 
 that testimony, taken together with the unchanged 
 ordinances for the use of the book, that thousands 
 of people are under a stringent obligation to include 
 in x their daily devotions matter which they may 
 avow that they do not believe. 
 
 I cannot even stop here. Each of these Popes 
 has, it would seem, published on this very subject 
 one before, the other after his elevation, and both 
 to the same effect. Did either of them revise the 
 Breviary ? Did they remove what Lord Bute con- 
 siders utterly unjustifiable, and describes as " re- 
 jected by all writers " ? I cannot find that they 
 altered a line of it. It is handed on as it was 
 received, and Pope St. John's horse, Pope Clement's 
 tomb, St. Katharine's burial, St. Francis's wounds, 
 St. Anthony's lions, and Raymund's cloak, are all 
 found after the two Benedicts had come and de- 
 parted. None of these things having stirred their 
 critical instincts and powers into action, they must 
 be presumed to have regarded them as safe and 
 wholesome food for the flock they claimed to feed. 
 
 It is, however, doubly and trebly unfortunate 
 that Benedict XIII. has expressed himself so very 
 freely regarding the Breviary. In a passage not 
 quoted by Mr.. McSwiney, but which Dr. Southey 
 quotes from the Bollandists {Acta Sanctorum, 
 August, Vol. I. p. 428), he speaks of it as needing 
 the application of a large and full sponge, which the
 
 Reply to Mr. McSwiney. 
 
 Church will allow the use of. This goes far beyond 
 the Church not pledging herself to all its contents. 
 But what are we to think of the Church which, by 
 the confession of her Head, uses and enjoins the 
 use of such a book of devotion ? And what are we 
 to think of the Pope who, after expressing himself 
 thus, gave his official sanction to the office for July 
 1 6th found in these volumes for " The Blessed 
 Virgin Mary, styled of Mount Carmel " ? I cannot 
 quote it in full ; but the object of it is to promote 
 and encourage the use of " a certain badge called 
 the Holy Scapular, which the B.V.M. delivered to the 
 blessed Englishman Simon Stock, even an heavenly 
 garment whereby this Holy Order [of Carmelite 
 monks] is marked and guarded against all assaults." 
 Those who wear this garment, and belong to the 
 guild of the Scapular, are assured on certain easy 
 conditions of being comforted in Purgatory by the 
 Holy Mother, and going through it to their home 
 in heaven more speedily than others. Upon this 
 and other legends relating to the same subject, a 
 vast superstructure of falsehoods has been reared ; and 
 Benedict XIII. is largely, if not mainly, responsible 
 for them. There lies before me the first edition of 
 this office, dated 1726. It bears traces of some 
 hesitation on the part of the author, for the wonders 
 it narrates are introduced with, " There is a story to 
 the effect," and " Many godly persons believe " ; but 
 when we come to the Papal deliverance there is no 
 faltering : " Our Most Holy Lord Benedict XIII., 
 for the encouragement and perpetual increase of the
 
 Elijah Founded the Carmelites. 61 
 
 worship of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, doth 
 approve of the above printed office for the solemnity 
 of the Blessed Mary of Mount Carmel, and com- 
 mands it to be annually recited by all the faithful 
 in Christ of both sexes, who are bound to recite 
 the canonical hours, on the i6th of July in each 
 year." In Duffy's weekly volume of the Library of 
 Catholic Divinity, No. 19, printed in Dublin, 1844, 
 we have a large collection of miracles wrought by 
 the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, and the 
 author informs us that the Order of the Blessed 
 Virgin was begun and founded on the Mountain 
 of Carmel about nine hundred and thirty .years 
 before the coming of Christ, and the institutor of it 
 was the great prophet Elias, who knew from a pro- 
 phetical notion that the little cloud which he saw 
 rise out of the sea signified the glorious Virgin 
 Mary. 
 
 I need not further illustrate the character of Pope 
 Benedict XIII., to whom Mr. McSwiney appeals as 
 a witness that the Breviary is not to be implicitly 
 believed : a Pontiff who contended for its untrust- 
 worthy character, and yet made it still more un- 
 trustworthy by adding a new office, and bound it 
 upon the consciences of his people, along with other 
 legends which he contended were falsehoods. Can 
 we find a better example to illustrate St. Paul's 
 description of some who in the last days " shall 
 depart from the faith . . . speaking lies in hy- 
 pocrisy " ? 
 
 Mr. McSwiney is disposed to argue about the
 
 62 Reply to Mr. McSwiney. 
 
 legend of the restive horse. We have, he says, " the 
 fact, and St. Gregory's hypothetical explanation. 
 Admitting the former, we may reject the latter 
 without any reflection on him." I answer No ; for 
 it is this same hypothetical explanation on which 
 the so-called miracle depends. But for it the story 
 would have no place here. There would be nothing 
 deserving of a record in a book of devotion in the 
 mere fact that a gentleman gave away a horse he 
 did not like. But the hypothesis implying the dignity 
 and holiness of the Pope and his superiority to the 
 lady changes an ordinary into a supernatural event, 
 and compels us to believe that St. Gregory had a 
 lively imagination, or an easy faith, or both. So of 
 the vision. Mr. McSwiney overlooks that St. 
 Gregory would not have related it had he not con- 
 sidered it for the honour of St. John the Pope ; and 
 I was therefore entitled to show that it was not. If 
 it was the mere brain-sick fancy of an unknown 
 hermit, why preserve it for hundreds of years, and 
 attribute special Divine inspiration to the credulous 
 reporter ? Raymund's miraculous voyage, he says, 
 must be " taken in the concrete." But the circum- 
 stance he mentions is not mentioned in the Breviary, 
 nor, in so many words, in Alban Butler, who only 
 speaks of a crowd, while Mr. McSwiney says 
 " thousands of eye-witnesses," as he speaks else- 
 where of sworn processes. One would be glad to 
 know how many thousands of them were sworn or 
 cross-examined. 
 
 Mr. McSwiney warns us that any future revision
 
 The House of Loretto. 63 
 
 of the Breviary will not produce a book that will 
 please Protestants. We do not expect it. The 
 Church of Rome depends too much upon the credit 
 of alleged miracles, and upon the pecuniary profit 
 which results from their acceptance, to cease from 
 their use as aids and stimulants to devotion. 
 Images, relics, charms, rosaries, scapulars, and the 
 like, will be in vogue wherever her influence extends. 
 For the credulous she will have wonders, for the 
 sceptical she will have reservations, qualifications, 
 sometimes even denials and disclaimers, if by any 
 means she may keep both classes in her fold. In 
 this way, she feeds and nurses a sceptical spirit from 
 generation to generation, to the unspeakable detri- 
 ment of true religion and sound morality. For 
 ourselves, not being of the number of those " who 
 consign the ^ctptcr/xa of miraculous powers to the 
 tomb of the last surviving Apostle," we do not need 
 cautions against rationalism, or help from Mr. Lecky 
 in relation to this subject. It is our dislike to 
 Rationalism, which is sure to be promoted by undue 
 demands on faith, which compels us to protest 
 against grave-digging lions, calculating money- 
 boxes, the house of Loretto,* the blood of St. 
 
 * I have referred above to the House of Loretto. but I cannot find 
 the office for the day of its translation in Lord Bute's volumes. Perhaps 
 it^may be in the Local Appendix, which he does not translate. At all 
 events, the Litany of our Lady of Loretto holds its place in all the 
 popular Manuals of Devotion which I have seen, whether in Latin, 
 French, or English. And in the Breviary prepared for the Franciscan 
 Orders, second edition, Venice, 1785, and approved by Pope Pius VII., 
 I find among the offices Pro aliqtiibus locis the full office for the feast of
 
 64 Reply to Mr. McSwiney. 
 
 Januarius, and the like. How these things may 
 answer the purpose of bringing out in higher relief 
 the work of grace in the conversion of a sinner, we 
 do not care to consider ; for no truly converted 
 sinner would need instruction derived from such 
 sources, or ever think of seeking it there. 
 
 A graver matter must now receive attention. It 
 is wrapped up in many grand words, but for all 
 that may be made plain. Mr. McSwiney affirms 
 that his Church limits vicarious merit in the strict 
 sense of that term to the Incarnate Word. " Proper 
 merit," I suppose, for in contrast with vicarious it 
 can mean nothing else, means desert for oneself, 
 vicarious merit desert on behalf of others. Then, 
 upon what principle are the prayers that I quoted 
 
 the translation of the Holy house of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The lesson 
 affirms that it was miraculously conveyed by angels from place to place, 
 till it rested at Loretto, and there approved itself to be the very house of 
 the Blessed Virgin Mary, in which the Word was made flesh and dwelt 
 among us, by many wonderful miracles and benefits of grace ; so that 
 Pope Innocent XII. was led to institute this solemnity to be observed 
 through the whole province of Picenum. The prayer affirms that the 
 house has been consecrated by the mystery of the Incarnation, and 
 wonderfully placed in the bosom of the Church. 
 
 It is scarcely less wonderful that an English gentleman in the nine- 
 teenth century, once High Sheriff of his county, should be found writing 
 of this place as follows : " The writer of this treatise has made two 
 pilgrimages to our Lady of Loretto, and he had the consolation to bring 
 from that most blessed shrine several precious relics. There is no 
 place in the world where our blessed Lady is so much honoured, or 
 where she so much manifests her power as at Loretto " (Manual of De- 
 votion, by A. L. Phillipps, Esq.). Thus is the Scripture fulfilled : 
 " They shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned 
 unto fables. "
 
 The Vicarious Merit of Saints. 65 
 
 on p. 30, and the many like them' that I might 
 have quoted, framed ? If the merit of the saint is a 
 plea at all, it can only be vicarious merit. The 
 prayer is not for a reward for the saint himself, but 
 for a benefit to the worshipper. The saint is sup- 
 posed to have deserved something that the suppliant 
 needs. The suppliant asks, and is taught to expect 
 it, for the saint's sake, or as it is often plainly 
 expressed, by " his merits and prayers." This 
 doctrine is bad enough, I own. Nor do I attempt 
 to justify it; I only contend that it is the doctrine, 
 and that to deny it to be the doctrine of the 
 Breviary, or of the Church which issues and sanctions 
 that book, is very like denying that day follows 
 night. I should have been astonished at the denial 
 if I had not had some experience in controversies of 
 this nature, and heard notorious facts boldly denied. 
 I will only add here, that though I cannot accept 
 what Mr. McSwiney calls Catholic teaching on 
 this subject, a Breviary reformed according to it 
 would present an aspect very different to the 
 present book. 
 
 Again : if there be no vicarious merit recognised 
 by the Church of Rome, what becomes of that vast 
 store of indulgences, pardons, etc., which the Popes 
 in long succession have pretended to dispense, and 
 by the offer of which they have persuaded Roman 
 Catholics to keep jubilees, and practise pilgrimages ? 
 The world has been told again and again that these 
 merits have accumulated beyond the personal needs 
 of the saints, and are at the disposal of the Church 
 
 5
 
 66 Reply to Mr. McSwiney. 
 
 for the benefit of others. It will surely be hard to 
 distinguish this from vicarious merit.* 
 
 But Mr. McSwiney seeks to anticipate this 
 question. " We plead before God the faith and 
 patience of His saints," he says ; " and this should 
 hardly surprise those who presumably are familiar 
 with Genesis xviii., or Psalm cxxxi. io."f But 
 neither of these are cases in point : Abraham did 
 not plead with God the faith and patience of the 
 Sodomites, nor even of his nephew, but the essential 
 justice and goodness of his Maker ; and the Psalmist 
 pleads, not David's goodness, but God's covenant 
 with David, which he forthwith recites ; and so the 
 psalm is entitled in the Revised Doway Psalter : 
 " A prayer for the fulfilling of the promise made to 
 David." 
 
 In defining what he calls Catholic teaching, Mr. 
 McSwiney exhibits the well-known tendency of 
 sacramental theologians to shift the centre of the 
 Christian system from the Atonement to the Incarna- 
 tion. We have seen some melancholy instances of 
 this tendency among our own English divines, as 
 they have inclined to sacramentalism and sacerdotal- 
 
 * See the Circular Letter of Leo XII., proclaiming the Jubilee of 
 1825. " We have decreed to open as widely as possible that heavenly 
 treasury which, being purchased by the merits, passions, and virtues of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, of His virgin Mother, and of all saints, is com- 
 mitted to us for distribution." No distinction of merits into two 
 classes is recognised here ; but those of Christ and the saints are placed 
 on a level. 
 
 f In Authorized Version cxxxii. 10. Compare also Psalm Ixxxix. 3, 
 Isaiah Iv. 3.
 
 Merit of the One Mediator. 67 
 
 ism ; but here we read : " The Word came forth into 
 time not solely to atone for sin, but to impart to 
 man the life eternal. He is ever drawing from the 
 bosom of the Father, of which ' all we ' receive 
 from the overflowing fulness of the Nature which He 
 has indissolubly wedded to His Divine hypostasis, that 
 He might render worthy of acceptance, by making 
 them His own, the homage and supplications of 
 men and angels. The ecclesiastical Christ is one 
 and the self-same with the historical," etc., etc. See 
 p. 47. The theory is : the man Jesus united to 
 the Godhead receives the fulness, imparts it to His 
 people, and properly deserves to obtain what He 
 asks, because He is one with the Son of God. Of 
 His mediatorial work, His offices, His precious blood, 
 His priestly intercession, there is not a word. How 
 clearly may we trace " another gospel " here ! Not in 
 His Divine character as the Eternal Word, but as the 
 One Mediator, the Man Christ Jesus, Who gave 
 Himself a ransom for all, the Great High-priest 
 Who offered up Himself once for all, and ever lives 
 to make intercession, is He represented in Scripture 
 as obtaining and applying our salvation, or, in Mr. 
 McSwiney's phrase, " carrying on His blessed work 
 of redemption and rehabilitation." As a Person 
 simply Divine, He could not deserve anything, for 
 all was His own. As the God-man, He could not 
 have effected our redemption and rehabilitation 
 merely by the mysterious constitution of His 
 adorable person. It was, we may say, accommodat- 
 ing the words to our purposes, " of necessity that
 
 68 Reply to Mr. McSwiney. 
 
 this Man should have somewhat to offer" or in the 
 Lord's own words : " It behoved the Christ to suffer, 
 that remission of sins might be preached." And 
 therefore, as soon as St. Peter had confessed Him as 
 the God-man, He told him that He must suffer, and 
 indignantly rejected the apostle's remonstrance. 
 And further, as if to anticipate and preclude any 
 such putting of the case as we have here, He said : 
 " I am come that they might have life." " I lay 
 down My life for the sheep." Why ? " This com- 
 mandment have I received of My Father." With 
 what results ? First, to Himself : " Therefore doth 
 My Father love Me, because I lay down My life." 
 Next to us : " Except the grain die, it abideth by 
 itself alone : but if it die, it beareth much fruit." " I 
 will pray the Father, and He shall give you another 
 Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever." 
 Mr. McSwiney represents the eternal Word as 
 presenting the homage and supplications of men and 
 angels. But angels do not need a Mediator or 
 Redeemer ; and in this, as in many other respects, 
 " Catholic teaching " adds to the things written in 
 the Book, as if quite fearless of the penalty upon 
 those who do so. 
 
 The next subject of Mr. McSwiney's animadversions 
 has many parts, which I will endeavour to deal with 
 separately. He holds me up to ridicule for saying 
 that Protestants are unable to conceive higher 
 honours . . . than are assigned to Mary. He omits, 
 however, three words from the sentence he ridicules. 
 Let the reader please to supply after honours " and
 
 Honours and Prerogatives of Mary. 69 
 
 greater prerogatives," and he will have the whole 
 sentence, and will perhaps guess why Mr. McSwiney 
 omitted the phrase. The prerogative of commanding 
 her Son ascribed to the mother of Jesus in the most 
 popular and frequently used hymn, " Ave Marts 
 Stella" might suffice to justify what I have written. 
 The common English version softens down monstra 
 tc esse matrem into " Exert the mother's care " ; and 
 " Sumat per te preces" in like manner, into " To Him 
 convey our prayer " ; so that the mere English 
 reader does not catch the full meaning.* But 
 
 * The oldest English translation, dating say from 1380 to 1410, I 
 have seen is " Show thee to be modir. By thee take He our prayer," 
 which better represents the Latin imperative Sumat. Bishop Andrewes, 
 in his reply to Cardinal Perron, has this remarkable passage : "They 
 say to the Blessed Virgin not only Pray for us, but ' Succurre miseris, 
 juva pusillanimes, refove flebiles. accipe quod offerimus, dona quod 
 rogamus, excusa quod timemus.' All which, and many more, show 
 plainly that the practice in regard to the invocation of saints is far 
 otherwise than the Cardinal would represent ; that to ask for their 
 prayers is not all. but that ' Tu dona coelum, Tu lava. Tu sana, Tu solve 
 crimina, Tu due, conduc. indue, perdue ad gloriam. Tu serva, Tu fer 
 opem, Tu aufer, Tu confer vitam,' are said to them, totidein -verbis, 
 more than which cannot be said to God Himself." Archbishop Ussher's 
 Reply to a Jesuit contains a large collection of instances full to the same 
 point. One shudders to read and recoils from the task of transcribing. 
 A single instance or two shall suffice. Bonaventure prays to her as 
 " Empress and Lady, to command her Son by the authority of a 
 mother " ; and in his Psalter, " Incline the countenance of God upon us, 
 compel Him (cage eum} to have mercy upon sinners " (Reply, p. 489). 
 Bernardine of Sienna saith : " All the gifts, graces, and virtues of the 
 Holy Ghost are by her hands administered to whom she pleaseth, when 
 she pleaseth, how she pleaseth, and as much as she pleaseth ; and this 
 because she is the mother of the Son from Whom the Spirit proceedeth." 
 So much for the reason of the omitted words, "greater prerogatives."
 
 70 Reply to Mr. McSwiney. 
 
 writers in prose go further than this, as Liguori's 
 Glories of Mary (a book easy of access) will show. 
 How far Mohammed's disciples go in honouring him, 
 I do not exactly know, nor am I concerned to 
 inquire ; they may or not be chargeable with 
 creature- worship ; but that is a side issue, and must 
 not be allowed to divert attention from the Church of 
 Rome. Protestants may be dull, or even stupid ; 
 but we do not overlook " the broad distinction 
 between Self-subsistent and imparted excellence, 
 between the Absolute and the conditioned, the finite 
 and the Infinite." We apprehend it as clearly as 
 Mr. McSwiney, and it is just the clearness of our ap- 
 prehension that lays the ground of our quarrel with 
 his Church. We insist that he gives to the finite 
 being what belongs to the Infinite, to the limited 
 and conditioned the due of the Absolute, and to the 
 poor sinful (though highly favoured) child of Adam 
 the glory due to the Eternal God. It is one thing 
 not to understand the distinction itself, and quite 
 another thing to insist that it is practically oblite- 
 rated, though theoretically recognised, by the Church 
 of Rome. 
 
 I have yet " to learn," according to Mr. McSwiney, 
 " the a b c of Catholic worship, which deems " 
 I suppose he means Catholic theology, for I do not 
 understand how worship can deem anything at all, 
 though the theology which worship embodies may, 
 by a figure, be said to do so " the unspeakable self- 
 abasement of the Word Incarnate the sole homage 
 adequate to the claims of the Divine Majesty." If
 
 Mary the Chief est Trust. 71 
 
 this be Catholic teaching, I am sure that Roman 
 Catholic practice is very much out of harmony with 
 it. For the earliest Primer, or elementary Book of 
 Devotion, in my possession, contains the following 
 blasphemous supplication : " Holy mother of God, 
 that deservedst worthily to conceive Him that all the 
 world might not contain, with thy meek beseeching 
 wash away our guilts, that we, redeemed by tJiee^ may 
 mount up to the city of endless bliss"* (MaskelFs 
 Momtmenta, II.' 1 1). 
 
 I should have stated, it appears, that St. Bernard 
 was the author of the exhortation I quoted on pp. 
 33-4 containing the startling profession that Mary was 
 his " chiefest trust," and " the whole reason of the 
 hope " that was in him. By all means let him have 
 the credit of it, and also the several Popes that have 
 adopted the shameful profession as their own. I do 
 not observe that Mr. McSwiney adopts it, though 
 Gregory XVI. and Pius IX. certainly did. But I do 
 observe that he does not answer the question, What 
 higher honours or greater prerogatives could be as- 
 cribed to the Deity ? 
 
 When this shocking " Marian devotion" first came 
 into the Church is another question raised by Mr. 
 McSwiney. He thinks he can trace it back to the 
 year 750 in Ireland. But if so, he is still at least 
 seven hundred years too late. In matters of worship 
 " that which was from the beginning " must be our 
 
 * I have modernized the spelling here, though not in the former ex- 
 tract, and, though with regret, changed the old English " agen boughte " 
 for redeemed.
 
 72 Reply to Mr. McSwiney. 
 
 rule to the end. The very first mark of catholicity 
 supplied by the maxim which he, at least, will not 
 repudiate : " ALWAYS, Everywhere, and By all," 
 is wanting ; and nothing Passaglia may have adduced 
 in his three volumes can set aside the testimonies 
 adduced by Field in the place already referred to. 
 
 Mr. McSwiney also turns to ridicule my astonish- 
 ment at finding that the Assumption of the Virgin 
 was not defide, and supposing that it was consequently 
 open to doubt. He must excuse my simplicity. I 
 really did suppose, and have always supposed, that 
 our faith was to dictate and regulate our prayers. 
 But it seems I was wrong. Here is a whole office 
 provided for a festival of the First Class a holiday 
 of obligation a service extending over nine days, 
 to celebrate what Lord Bute cautions us against 
 supposing we are bound to believe ! It is, he says, 
 " a common tradition " that the Blessed Virgin Mary 
 rose again, and is now body and soul in heaven ; 
 " but such tradition must be carefully distinguished 
 from matters of faith " (August i 5th). " See Alban 
 Butler." Turning to this convenient referee, I find 
 him asserting the distinction between matters of 
 faith and opinion, praising the moderation of the 
 Church which has not made it a matter of faith, 
 arguing for it as a probable opinion, and then 
 declaring that her corporal assumption " is the trutli " ; 
 but were it not so, the object of the present festival 
 is still the same. " It is an opinion which the 
 Church so far favours, as to read from the works of 
 St. John Damascene and St. Bernard an account
 
 The Assumption wholly Improved. 73 
 
 of it (z>., her corporal assumption) in the Breviary 
 as proper to edify, and excite the devotion of her 
 children." 
 
 What, then, are these lessons judged proper to 
 edify ? One of them affirms that all the Apostles, 
 who were wandering to and fro in the earth for the 
 salvation of the Gentiles, were in a moment carried 
 off into the air and assembled together at Jerusalem 
 to witness her death, where they saw a vision of 
 angels, and heard their songs for three days after her 
 burial. That then Thomas came, being three days 
 late. He was fain to worship that body which had 
 held God, and so opened the tomb ; but the body 
 was absent, only the clothes and an unspeakable 
 savour remained. So they were only able to imagine 
 that it was taken to heaven while it was still 
 kept free from corruption. So far is a brief 
 abridgment of St. John Damascene. St. Bernard 
 expatiates with his accustomed fervour on her recep- 
 tion in heaven, and concludes thus : " Who shall 
 declare the generation of Christ, or the assumption 
 of Mary ? So much as she found grace on earth 
 more than others, so much more excellent than 
 that of others is the glory which she hath in 
 heaven." 
 
 The prayer or collect for this office does not affirm 
 the fact of her corporal assumption ; but the 
 responsories are full of it : " Mary hath been taken 
 into heaven ; the angels rejoice, they praise and 
 bless the Lord. The Virgin Mary hath been taken 
 into the chamber on high, where the King of kings
 
 74 Reply to Mr. McSwiney. 
 
 sitteth on a throne amid the stars ; " and much more 
 to the same effect. 
 
 If we ask, Why are all these things not of faith ? 
 the answer is: They are not Divinely revealed. Ask 
 how they are known to be true though not revealed ? 
 the answer must be : They are attested by John 
 Damascene, who died in the eighth century, and 
 Bernard of Clairvaux, who died in the twelfth. Ask 
 again for a primary authority, a contemporary witness, 
 and then are produced the most holy Timothy, Bishop 
 of Ephesus who, however, has left no writing on the 
 subject and Denys the Areopagite. Turn next to 
 October the 9th to inquire concerning Denys, and 
 Lord Bute assures you that the writings attributed 
 to him are " rejected by most writers." Dupin (Hist. 
 Eccles. Writers, I. p. 3 3) goes further still, and proves 
 at length that they are certainly forgeries. 
 
 Yet this shameless fraud is retained in the Breviary 
 for centuries, declared to be conducive to edification, 
 and published and avowed before God in solemn acts 
 of devotion which cannot be neglected without 
 mortal sin. If the priest who says the office believes 
 it, he is duped by his Holiness the Pope ; if he 
 disbelieves it, he lies unto God. What a dilemma ! 
 
 Further, the demoralizing and degrading tendency 
 of this Mar'an devotion is very conspicuous in the 
 certainty with which they seek to invest the legends 
 relating to both her alleged parents, and especially 
 her husband. The Jesuits have always been 
 conspicuous for their attachment to St. Joseph, and 
 their disciples often join his name with thoseof his wife
 
 The Men of Nazareth. 75 
 
 and her Divine Son in their devotions, invoking 
 Jesus, Mary, Joseph in a distressing manner. Mr. 
 McSwiney endeavours to uphold their doctrine in the 
 following sentence : 
 
 " The implied inference from the Lord's ' brothers 
 and sisters ' is a gloss of your contributor unsup- 
 ported by the witness of the Divine Scriptures, flatly 
 contradicted by Catholic prayer, which in its earliest 
 monuments ever couples with Mary's name the 
 title . . . ' always a Virgin,' and which . . . would 
 rouse even a Muslim audience to a violent outburst 
 of indignation." 
 
 I reply : i. I attach no weight to the feelings of 
 " Muslim," i.e., anti-Christian blasphemers. What 
 offends them is more likely to be true than what 
 pleases them, and Mr. McSwiney is welcome to all 
 the support they can give him. 2. I do not admit 
 his assertion as to Catholic prayer. It is wholly 
 unproved, and incapable of proof, if by " Catholic " 
 he means what has been held always, everywhere, and 
 by all. 3. I neither propounded nor suggested any 
 gloss on the words of Scripture. I stated that the 
 men of Nazareth knew [and I might have added 
 named] certain persons whom they called brothers 
 and sisters of Jesus. Concerning this assertion of 
 the Nazarenes, Mr. McSwiney says it is unsupported 
 by the witness of the Divine Scripture. It is 
 difficult to know what this means. The people 
 among whom our Lord lived for nearly thirty years 
 could need no support for their testimony that 
 His brothers and sisters lived there too. If it means
 
 Reply to Mr. McSwiney. 
 
 that His brethren are nowhere else mentioned in the 
 Divine Scriptures, that is an entire mistake, as any 
 Concordance will show. It is the view of Mr. 
 McSwiney which contradicts the testimony of the 
 Nazarenes, which requires Scriptural support. But not 
 all the learning and ingenuity of the upholders of 
 this doctrine exercised for a thousand years have been 
 able to produce a single text, beyond that which 
 is cited from Ezekiel's vision of the rebuilt temple, 
 which can have any relevancy to the subject, or any 
 cogency in argument, unless every canon of sound 
 interpretation is set aside. 
 
 " Scriptural proof," I said. But why do I speak, 
 or what right have I to speak, of Scripture ? 
 " Scriptural" can mean only my sense of the Scripture, 
 or that of the school I follow, " which is destitute of 
 historical antecedents." I am glad my censor has 
 spoken out at last This little history of the people 
 at Nazareth, like the spear of Ithuriel, has disen- 
 chanted him, and the so-called chastity of St. Joseph 
 (Patron of the Catholic Church), and the perpetual 
 virginity of Mary, disappear together, as the celibacy 
 of the clergy disappeared from the view of the poor 
 Irishman who read for the first time that Peter's 
 wife's mother was sick of a fever. There were no 
 historical antecedents needed for the school in which 
 he learned that Simon must have had a wife if the 
 Lord cured his wife's mother ; or perhaps many will 
 believe that the common-sense he inherited from Adam 
 might be held to satisfy the requirement of historical 
 antecedents to the full. So in the present instance.
 
 The Scriptures mean what they say. 77 
 
 The advocates of monkery for ages have pleaded hard 
 for a non-natural sense of the words of the Nazarenes, 
 in total forgetfulness of the fact that St. Paul, a con- 
 temporary witness, was as well able to distinguish 
 between a brother and a cousin as any of themselves ; 
 and by his testimony the historical evidence is 
 carried as far back as possible. " But this begs the 
 whole question." How ? Let my censor answer. He 
 cannot allow that the Scripture says what it means, 
 or means what it most plainly says, and will have me 
 know that there is a Pope at Rome who alone can 
 interpret it, if I want an interpretation that is to have 
 more than " a subjective value." I may, in taking 
 leave of Mr. McSwiney, be permitted to inform him 
 that I have frequently resorted to the interpreter 
 whom he would have me put between this unintelli- 
 gible book and my simple self, and the results, or 
 some of them, may be best seen in a tabulated form. 
 He at various times during the last sixty years has 
 told me, inter alia : 
 
 " The law of the Lord ] i The Bible is a very 
 
 is perfect, converting the I j dangerous book, not to 
 
 soul: the testimony of the > means < be generally used with- 
 Lord is sure, making wise I j out permission and guid- 
 
 the simple," ( ance. 
 
 Add ,hou not unto 1 * 
 
 found a liar, } ( teacher of the truth. 
 
 [ can anord. 
 
 That thou shalt not ) i You may bow down 
 
 bow down to them nor > means < continually, but not too 
 worship them, ) ( low.
 
 78 Reply to Mr. McSwiney. 
 
 called our most 
 
 "Drink ye all of it " ) ( None of you shall 
 
 [this cup], \ "' * \ touch it except the priest. 
 
 " A bishop must be the I j No bishop shall have a 
 
 husband of one wife," j ; s \ wife at all. 
 
 Here are seven specimens of infallible and 
 authoritative interpretations, which might be largely 
 multiplied ; but perhaps your readers may deem 
 them sufficient, and believe that I do more honour 
 to the Divine Scriptures by assuming that they 
 mean what they say, than by submitting them to an 
 interpreter who flatly contradicts them, and always 
 with a view to his own honour and profit. 
 
 Printed by Kazell, Watson, and Viney, Limited, London and Aylesbury.
 
 THE FERNLEY LECTURES. 
 
 THE HOLY SPIEIT: HIS WORK AND MISSION. By the Rev. 
 
 G. OSBORN, D.D. Demy 8vo, sewed 6a. 
 
 THE PERSON OF CHRIST : DOGMATIC, SCRIPTURAL, 
 
 HISTORICAL. With Two additional Essays on the Biblical and Eccle- 
 siastical Development of the Doctrine, and Illustrative Notes. By the Rev. 
 W. B. POPE, D.D. New and greatly Enlarged Edition. Demy 8vo . Js. 
 
 JESUS CHRIST, THE PROPITIATION FOR OUR SINS. By the 
 
 Rev. JOHN LOMAS. Demy 8vo, sewed 6d. 
 
 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF 
 
 SAINTS. With Notes and Essays on the History of Christian Fellowship, 
 and on the Origin of ' High Church ' and ' Broad Church ' Theories. By 
 the Rev. BENJAMIN GREGORY. Demy 8vo, 290 pp., paper covers 
 
 y. 6d. ; cloth, 45. 6d. 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE AS CONTAINED IN 
 
 THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. By the Rev. JOHN DURY 
 GEDEN. Second Edition, enlarged. Demy 8vo, paper covers u. ; cloth, 2s. 
 
 THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST. With Notes. By the Rev. 
 HENRY W. WILLIAMS, D.D. Demy 8vo, paper covers . is. ; cloth, 2s. 
 
 MODERN ATHEISM : ITS POSITION AND PROMISE. By the 
 
 Rev. EBENEZER E. JENKINS, M.A. Demy 8vo, paper covers is. ; cloth, 2s. 
 
 LIFE AND DEATH, THE SANCTIONS OF THE LAW OF 
 
 LOVE. By G. W. OLVER, B.A. Published for the Author. Demy 8vo, 
 paper covers is. ; cloth, 2s. 
 
 LIFE, LIGHT, AND LOVE: THE PRINCIPLES OF HOLINESS. 
 
 By ALFRED J. FRENCH, B.A. Demy 8vo, paper covers . is. ; cloth, 2s. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION. By the 
 
 Rev. JOHN SHAW BANKS. Demy 8vo, paper covers . is. ; cloth, 2s. 
 
 THE DOGMATIC PRINCIPLE IN RELATION TO CHRISTIAN 
 
 BELIEF. By the Rev. FREDERIC W. MACDONALD. Demy 8vo, paper 
 covers is. ; cloth, 2s. 
 
 THE WITNESS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. By the Rev. ROBERT 
 N. YOUNG. 8vo, 96 pp., paper covers . . . . is. ; cloth, is. 
 
 ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PHYSICAL AND MORAL 
 
 LAW. By the Rev. W. ARTHUR, M.A. Demy 8vo, paper covers 
 
 2s. ; cloth, 3J 1 . 
 
 LONDON : T. WOOLMER, 2, CASTLE STREET, CITY ROAD, E.G., 
 AND 66, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.G.
 
 Imperial 8vo, price \2s. 6d. ; half-morocco, \7s. 6d. 
 
 DELINEATION OF ROMAN CATHOLICISM, 
 
 Drawn from the authentic and acknowledged Standards of THE CHURCH 
 OF ROME ; namely, her Creeds, Catechisms, Decisions of Councils, Papal 
 Bulls, Roman Catholic Writers, the Records of History, etc., etc. ; in which 
 the Peculiar Doctrines, Morals, Government, and Usages of the Church of 
 Rome are Stated, Treated at Large, and Confuted. 
 
 By the Rev. CHARLES ELLIOTT, D.D. 
 
 Corrected and Revised throughout, with numerous Important Additions, and 
 
 A SUPPLEMENT 
 
 Containing an Exposition of certain Changes which the Papacy has undergone 
 during the PONTIFICATE OF Pius IX. 
 
 By WILLIAM HARRIS RULE, D.D. 
 
 Contents of the Supplement. 
 
 Appointment of Bishops in England. I Impending Schism. 
 Bishops' Oaths at Consecration. The Council of the Vatican. 
 
 Immaculate Conception of the Virgin I Infallibility. 
 
 Mary. Regular Orders. 
 
 Divine Tradition. Jesuits. 
 
 Canonizations in 1862. 
 Encyclical and Syllabus of 1864. 
 Declaration of Bishops in 1867. 
 Useless Invitations Enforced Silence. 
 
 Spiritual Exercises. 
 
 Heretics and Inquisition. 
 
 Indexes : Prohibitory & Expurgatory. 
 
 The Roman Inquisition in 1851. 
 
 *** The Supplement is sold separately, price 2s. 6d. 
 
 " It is a noble monument of patient, manly toil, more enduring than marble or Corinthian brass. 
 It is the book on the subject which has no compeer in our existing authorship. ... It is a good 
 sign to see such a book in demand just now. We shall rejoice to hear of its selling in 
 thousands. " Irish Evangelist. 
 
 Second Edition, with a new chapter on " Walling Up." Two Volumes. 
 Demy 8vo, with Illustrations, Price \$s. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE INQUISITION, 
 
 By WILLIAM HARRIS RULE, D.D. 
 
 " Dr. Rule has accomplished his task with ability and judgment, and with as much calmness 
 as was possible in so sickening a tale. He evidently desires his style to be historic and scholarly, 
 but his self-control plainly costs him some effort at times. He has preserved his balance in the 
 chapters detailing the Spanish Autos-da-Fe, which bear every mark of research and historic 
 fidelity, without an instance of declamatory impatience. We consider this to be the severest test 
 to winch a humane historian could be exposed." Contemporary Review. 
 
 LONDON : T. WOOLMER, 2, CASTLE STREET, CITY ROAD, E.G., 
 AND 66. PATERNOSTER ROW, E.G.
 
 "BY 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Santa Barbara 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW. 
 
 Series 9482
 
 i I.I