New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-08-04

the individual and to society, the kinu OF re-
ligion which embraces all the truths outside the
region of party debate" is wholly unconnected
with any idea OF supernatural power:
1t may no doubt produce, perpexity when the
name of religitn is given to that when wants some
of the leading characteristics which, not at some
times or in places only but all over Chrstcn-
dom, and from the primitive times OF the Chuich,
have been supposed TO belong to religion. AS de-
scribed here religion does not brood over future
life but is intensely occupied with the present IL
does not surnise something behind nature, but
contempates nature itself; ii docs not Worship u
Power which suspends natural laws but the rover
which Is exhibited in those laws; ii does not snr,hk
from political organization. but Is itself the soul Oh
all healthy political organization: 1t does not camp
ENJOYMENT but is itself the principle of al rch en-
ioynent; it is not sclf-conscous or elf'absorpeu
aud does not make us anxious about our own is.o
but is the principle which destroys Sell anu So T.
us strength TO Else above personal anA'ctics; w
doubtcdly. If this view be right many nieui',N a. az
saints must have been sadly wrong anu ,nuss Gle
admitted that for long periods strangely loiesn Dr.
mCnts must have been blended with fellgol' .ho
after all not much less than this vas assertea az
Rcformation after all i VIC nave nt ,hat Of the
Hebrew prophets down TO the very Gnu Vi rns
Hebrew period Of religion; For their Ieg,on IVA, M'
social political. historical. ana supcih''
was noe the handspring OF IT,
The reader will naturally ask. when nc mas
reached this point, what has become OF the theory
of development of continuous revelation Dy "hen
we were invited to reconcile The change OF the oiu
religion into the newf We confess that we 40 not
know. 1t is impossible TO conceive OF belief IN Il
Personal God developing into the denial OF
ono belief in the ncorpOreal soul developing INTO
materialism, belief in future life developing into
the negation of everything beyond this life, or the
hcroisn of sef-sacrIice developing into the prlnci-
pie of sefindulgence. 1t is impossible to conceive
of an organized religion enriched by successive
revelations until it develops into nothing at ALL or
of Of of m m
ton that there is 10 such thing as revelation. The
treatise before us will bo read with interest for The
beauty of its style and the ingenuity, not of IFS
argument, but of much of its thought; it will not
affect the philosophy Of the atheist, for it leaves all
his postulates untouched it will not affect the
theist because the only means of accommodating
religion and science which it proposes to HIM is
to throw away everything in religion that Its most
exacting adversary can object to. As Tor the
reasoning by which it seeks to prove that the form
Of belief or negation, of winch tho book treats Is a
Combination Greed in which the sceptc and the
theoogian can worship together, that consists, as
little reecionwill show, only in shifting the mean
ings OF words.
III the July number of The american Catholic
Quarterly Reriec which appears latel Mr. Joseph A.
Nolan continues the series of essays ON certain OF
the old English poets which he began last year by
an interesting paper on Richard Crashaw. The
subject of the present criticism is the Jesuit poet
Robert Southwell, executed at Tyburn in 1885
after three years imprisonment in the Tower Tor
the offence of exercising lis prleStly functions IN
England. Mr.. Nolan gives q readable sketch of the
biography of the poet, whose life was spent in mis-
sionary work and yet q career of adventure for
the priests from beyond seas were hunted with
great zeal IN England in his time, and they sought
safety i'll many strange DISCUSSES. 1t helps in our
appreciation of some of Southwell's poems to know
as we do from the recent researches of Grosart-
that they we're written in captivity. He was not
free from the artificial conccits which were the
fashion of sixteenth-eentury poetry; but Mr. Nolan
does not fail to indicate the vein of true feeling
which underlay his quaint style, and the great
superiority in naturaness and directness of his
poetry TO that of many of his contemporaries.