confident that the Church of Rome owed no more to absolute power than the primitive Church of Christ, or would rise the higher if cut free from its temporalities, they would liave wished nothing better than the sup- port of an organ like L'Avenir. But they would have been unaccountably wanting in the sagacity for which Macaulay gives them credit "had they not penetrat- ed to the fallacy of such arguments at a glance, and drawn a widel}- different moral from the history. They could not shut their ej'es to tlie fact that spiritual su- premacy attained its loftiest pitch in the Dark Ages, and has everywhere declined in proportion to the spread of knowledge." The three apostles of the new ajra, which thej' hoped to inaugurate with the direct approval of an infallible guide, knocked at the gate of the Vatican, were admitted into the presence of " his holiness," but completely failed in their mission. See Lacordaire ; Lamennais. The ver}' Church the}' wished to serve — to whose cause they had consecrated, with such touching earnestness, all their gifts — repu- diated their aid. The court of Rome understood its own mission better than they did. It admitted "their good intentions," but at the same time silenced them as inspired by a zeal without discretion in the treat- ment of "supremely delicate questions!" Indeed, this was but the only consistent course for Rome to take. It could not sutler severely orthodox followers to pro- fess to hold upon essential points the doctrines of ad- vanced modern liberalism without seeing them in di- rect antagonism with the teaching and practice of the Church in all ages ; hence the encyclical of pope Greg- ory XVI, declaring the conviction of the writers of L'Avenir "abominable," and fulminating anathema against the most sacred liberties, declaring that "free- dom of conscience is a mortal pest." This was any- thing but a flattering and brilliant solution, yet the triumvirate meekly submitted. Outwardly all three were equally actuated by that sense of duty which Ro- man Catholics are wont to place as highest — of bowing reverentially and unqualifiedly before the wisdom of the papal incumbent, as "the voice of God in the flesh ;" but in the inner camp there was a terrible struggle. To Montalembert the whole case was a mat- ter of but little moment after all — certainly of much less moment than to the other two. True, his faith was not less sincere or ardent than theirs, but he was as yet merely a young writer ; the other two were priests — Lamennais a preacher whose f^ime had al- read}' reached through the whole Catholic world, and had brought him back many distinctions. In vain did Lacordaire offer to submit quietly, and argue that they should act consistently, as there was only one alterna- tive from the first — "Either we should not have come, or we should submit and hold our tongues." Mon- talembert and Lacordaire forever after acted on this plan, and held their peace ; but Lamennais's submis- sion was hollow and formal, and it wanted only (as was afterwards apparent) an opportunity to be dis- dainfully ignored. See Lamennais. We as Protes- tants, unaccustomed to such " Catholic" submission, find it, of course, difficult even to conjecture by what process of reasoning these men contrived to reconcile absolute submission to the Romish Church with the defence of that which she has again and again emphat- ically denounced and condemned. " The conduct of Lamennais," as the Brit, and For. Ev. Rev. (October, 1863, p. 726) has well said, " was at least more consist- ent than that of his two disciples. The}% proclaiming themselves the faithful and obedient followers of an infallible Church — which says to its disciples, ' I am the truth ; it is in me, in me alone ; to seek it else- where is heres}' and rebellion'— accepted a part of her doctrine and rejected a part. He, finding that his at- tempt to reconcile the Church with the tendencies of the age, to unite Republicanism and Romanism, was condemned by Rome herself, and that he must choose between the two, broke with Rome, and proclaimed
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himself readj' to combat and to suffer for what he deemed, however erroneously, the cause of justice and humanity. He broke with a Church which had lost the germs of life and progress, and sought elsewhere the means of regenerating mankind, while they pro- fessed implicit submission. But his schism was at least logical and consistent ; their submission partial and absurd. He and the Church were thenceforward in direct antagonism ; while they, its submissive sons, for the rest of their lives went on endeavoring to carry out ttie plan which Lamennais had traced in the col- umns ofL'Avenir, which lionie had emphatically con- demned, and which its author had abandoned as im- practicable. He gave up Rome because he found her claims inconsistent with those of humanity ; thej' at- tempted to save her in spite of herself — to reconcile her with the wants and aspirations of the age — to put new cloth into old garments, new wine into old bottles. Yet we cannot but believe that both master and disci- ples were sincere and disinterested in their conduct: the former in his sciiism, the latter in their submis- sion." No one certainly can be believed to know aHything of either Lacordaire or Montalembert who would suppose for a moment that these men were in- fluenced by anj' mere personal considerations. No men ])robably ever acted under a higher sense of duty, only they never thought of dutj-^ in the case apart from the pope. When they saw what the result was likeh' to be, they quietly and without struggle bowed the knee. "The position," saj's a writer in Blackwood (Nov. 18T2, p. G03), "is intelligible, but hardly great or magnanimous. Submission may be heroic in a grave practical crisis which admits of no argument, but it is hardly so in questions of truth and right, which have roused the conscience as well as the judg- ment to vigorous action. We confess to following Lamennais in his disdainful retirement with far more interest than we contemplate the 'Catholic submis- sion' of his colleagues. Duty loses its higher heroism when it loses individuality, and passes into blind self- surrender." Lamennais's publication of Paro/es rf"«» Croyant caused Lacordaire to step forward in defence of the papacy, and this left Montalembert, who had stood liy Lamennais through good and evil report, no alternative but to concur with Lacordaire in separat- ing from him. Hereafter the three men stand apart, Lamennais the propagator of a socialist theor\', Lacor- daire the exponent of papal Christianity, and jMonta- lembert the student of mediajval institutions.