narratives, or of certain alleged miracles, or heroic acts, or speeches, all which are the spontaneous produce of religious feeling under imperfect knowledge. If the alleged facts did not occur, they ought to have occurred, (if I may so speak ;) they are such as might have occurred, and would have occurred, under circumstances; and they belong to the parties to whom they are attributed, potentially, if not actually; or the like of them did occur; or occur to others similarly circumstanced, though not to those very persons. p. 345.

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Such are Mr. Newman's avowed opinions, and how they can be distinguished from the principles and maxims of the Jesuits, it is not easy to disBut if this be lawful now, it was just as lawful eighteen hundred years ago; and those who wrote the Gospels,-with reverence be it spoken,were just as much at liberty to construct "mythical representations," and call them history, as any others can be unless, indeed, truth itself also admits of development. Mr. Newman has here expressly mentioned "miracles" among the matters which may lawfully be ascribed to the hero of a legend, though they had no foundation in fact, because, "if the alleged facts did not occur, they ought to have occurred." But, how can any one say a miracle ought to have occurred, without implying that the Almighty ought to have worked it? And to relate a miracle as matter of fact, merely to embellish a narrative, and give dignity to a hero, is neither more nor less than to state, that the Almighty has done a certain

act, without having any reason for believing that he has-and whether such liberties can be taken with that sacred name without the guilt of profaneness in him who does it, and without undermining his own belief, and the belief of others, in the truths of Christianity, and even in the existence of a deity,—appears to me to be a matter deserving of rather more serious consideration than Mr. Newman or his party seem yet to have given it. But, be this as it

may,it is saying what is untrue;—and why any one should wish to claim a right to use falsehood for the promotion of piety, is not very apparent. In the second number of these Lives of the Saints-the very number in the advertisement to which Mr. Newman states, that these lives are portions of the series "promised under his editorship"-is a preface written by himself, and signed with his initials, in which he says, speaking of the preposterous and goblin-like miracles of St. Walburga,-who, the reader is probably aware, is a sort of ecclesiastical Robin Good-fellow among the German peasantry—

The question will naturally suggest itself to the reader, whether the miracles recorded in these narratives, especially those contained in the Life of St. Walburga, are to be received as matters of fact; and in this day, and under our present circumstances we can only reply, that there is no reason why they should not be. They are the kind of facts proper to ecclesiastical history, just as instances of sagacity and daring, personal prowess or crime, are the facts proper to secular history.

So that this notion, that it is lawful to ascribe miracles to the saints, on any, the slightest foundation, or on none whatever, merely because "they are the kind of facts proper to ecclesiastical history," and if they "did not occur, yet they ought to have occurred," and "belong to the parties to whom they are attributed, potentially, if not actually,"-this notion,-as destructive to piety and religion, as it is incompatible with correct notions of truth and falsehood, --has been distinctly avowed and justified by Mr. Newman himself, and that, not only in a Sermon preached before the University, but in the prefatory matter which he has prefixed to one of the volumes of this series of the Lives of the English Saints. It is Mr. Newman, therefore, who has made himself responsible for these errors and impieties, and not I, nor any other person whatever.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE EVIL OF THE SYSTEM, DISREGARD OF TRUTH-MR, NEWMAN'S RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS.

I SUPPOSE that few unprejudiced persons, who have had the patience to accompany me thus far, can have much doubt of the tendency of Mr. Newman's system, not merely to Romanism, but to Neologianism. And yet, to speak candidly, I do not believe that its tendency to either or both of these particular forms of error, is that which constitutes its chief danger. Nor am I at all sure that many of my readers have either perceived as yet where that danger really lies, or are sufficiently alive to its magnitude if they have. There is no practical error more prevalent, than the measurement of error or untruth by the mischief it seems likely to create. Few, very few persons indeed, have any love for truth for its own sake, or any abhorrence of falsehood or error, except for the mischief it is likely to do, or rather which they see it is likely to do;— for, if the evil effect be not very apparent, or even if it do not threaten to result very speedily, there are not many who have so disinterested an attachment to truth, as to give themselves much concern or trouble in exposing error or contradicting falsehood. The worst error in the world is this-that so few persons love truth and detest falsehood on purely moral and religious grounds. But, how is it

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possible to preserve the church from error, as long as this indifference to the existence of error prevails? Experience proves, that every now and then, errors are introduced, not in solitary and repulsive deformity, but mixed up with truths,-perhaps with truths which appear calculated to promote valuable ends. And so it happens, that those who look at truth and error rather as a question of expediency than of morality, do but too readily suffer themselves to become patrons of error,-or if not patrons, at least to connive at it,—until, under their auspices and connivance, it has gained strength, and access, and currency, and the time for crushing and extinguishing it is lost for ever.

The Romish and Neologian tendencies of Mr. Newman's system must be apparent to any one who will take the trouble to examine it in his own writings, or in those of his coadjutors. But this tendency is rather the operation of the system and its results in a particular direction-than the system itself. The real evil of the system is not that it tends to this particular error or the other-but, that it lays the foundation for error of every sort, by habituating those who embrace it to trifle with truth-and, whether the fruits of this evil habit be found, in explaining away of formularies and in non-natural subscriptions, —or in figurative and mystic interpretations of Holy Scripture,-or in the suppressing of facts that oppose their theory, or in the manufacture of