once, and it is unquestionable that the educated classes in this country and France furnish a fair percentage of the criminal population. If we take cases in which crime is connected with political passions, France, from 1789 to the present day, proclaims loudly how little guarantee intellectual culture offers against the most lamentable and criminal aberrations.

A rational self-control, due subordination, and a proper repression of selfish passions often enough fail to be excrcised, even with the aid of religious training; but it is inevitable that such training should tend to such repression, while that the absence of religion tends to occasion effects of an opposite character, is not only plain to the reason à priori, but is made manifest by conspicuous examples.

These truths have lately strongly impressed themselves on the minds of some of our impulsive neighbours on the other side of the Channel. We might have expected a more important reformatory action in France than there yet appears to be any evidence of; but the mischief has been too deeply ingrained by the calamity of a century of vile and corrupting influences. It is consoling, however, that here and there we find evidences of a clear perception of the fundamental and most important truth which we are now endeavouring to inculcate.

M. Le Play, in a recent pamphlet*, recalls his fellowcountrymen to the practice of obeying the Ten Commandments as the only safe and sure road to national prosperity,—and he laments how

La nation se persuade, depuis longtemps, qu'elle s'est assuré l'admiration et le succès par les révolutions qui n'ont fait qu'aggraver les maux de la monarchie absolue, qui n'ont produit au dedans que la décadence, et qui n'ont suscité au dehors que le mépris.

These are wholesome words, and we must earnestly pray that the intimate connexion between religion and social stability and welfare, will soon be generally and effectively, as well as clearly, seen by a nation so logical as the French, and one so rich in recent apostles and martyrs of our holy religion.

It is that religion which has ever the honour of being the first object of attack, as well of the bitterest and most malignant hatred on the part of the enemies of all order; and if such hostility is ever the rule of those who would uproot the first principles of society, and replunge us into barbarism far worse than that existing in any known race of savages, it must surely begin to be evident to all sincere non-Catholic Christians

"La Paix Sociale." Paris, 1871,

that those who defend the Church defend not only her, but the very basis of society itself.

The eloquent Bishop of Orleans said but the plainest truth the other day, when he urged on his fellow-countrymen, with regard to positivists and materialists:

It is not so much my Church which they would destroy, as your home! and I defend it; for all those things which are the supreme objects of your desire, reason, philosophy, society, the basis of your institutions, the principle of your laws, the foundation of your doctrines, the subject of your books, the sanctity of your hearths, the morals of your children-these are the things which I defend, and which you throw away in crowning those who would destroy them.

Unhappily, it is but too plain that similar warnings are called for in England also. In defending religious faith we shall surely, ere long, be seen by all to be, at one and the same time, defending the foundations both of the family and of the State, which are gravely threatened by the propagation of a worship of mere material wellbeing, which calls itself "philanthropy," and a retrograde scepticism which names itself "enlightenment."

It is almost superfluous to say that we, nevertheless, yield to none of those we oppose, in our desire for the temporal wellbeing of the poor. We are, however, convinced that in this matter, as in some others, the apparently roundabout road is really the most direct. It is generally admitted that those who aim directly at pleasure attain it less surely, even considering this world only, than do those whose aim is duty. So also temporal prosperity will more certainly attend the intelligent efforts of a community, the aims of which extend beyond this life, than of one from which such aspirations are excluded. It is far indeed from our wish to discourage or repress philanthropic efforts, but we desire that the objects sought should be classified according to their real worth and dignity, and that— clear and distinct conceptions being formed as to what is really to be aimed at-there should be no waste of generous emotion in stimulating misleading and disappointing efforts.

We emphatically proclaim that it is always good to know a "truth," even of the humblest kind. But all truths are not of equal consequence, and it would be a great calamity if the higher and more important became neglected for the sake of others of a lower order.

The truths of physical science, and all that concerns our material well-being, are of great value considered in and by themselves. When, however, they are contrasted with the truths of religion, all who are not atheists must admit that they

are exceedingly subordinate. Though good in their own station, they become even direfully pernicious when used to discredit those higher truths, and when promoted to a precedence for which they are unfitted.

Catholic philosophers are far indeed from having any dread or jealousy of the physical sciences, and nothing would be more ludicrous in their eyes, were it not pitiable, than the wide-spread delusion on that subject, current in England.

We must here emphatically protest against this delusion, and, on the contrary, assert that it is Catholic philosophers only who can afford fearlessly to welcome truth, of whatever rank or order, and from whatsoever quarter. It is they only who are prepared to push their investigations into every accessible region, instead of shrinking with timidity or awkward simulations of contempt from unwelcome and hostile phenomena. On the other hand, we see men of physical science, whose blatant boast is that they seek truth only, and that they are ready to welcome all truth, - refusing inquiry, meeting asserted demonstrations with mendacious abuse and the grossest misrepresentations-dealing, in fact, with phenomena, which, if true, destroy the very foundations of their whole system, with a helpless imbecility which would excite pity, did not the pretentious arrogance which accompanies it produce disgust.

We see men who give themselves out as the teachers of their race confronted by abundant testimony as to the existence of facts, which, if true, cut the ground from under them, and prove that what they have proclaimed as truth is the most baseless and pernicious of all delusions. Under these circumstances, instead of, as is their most plain duty, putting everything else aside until by investigations (no matter how persevering or prolonged) they have succeeded in verifying or in disproving the alleged facts, they take refuge in dogmatism, and such puny persecution as is at their command. Certainly few of the minor intellectual phenomena of the latter half of the nineteenth century will hereafter appear more contemptible than the conduct of these unhappy physical dogmatists.

Free inquiry in its legitimate field (like freedom of action in its appropriate spheres, and freedom of conscience against the despotism of the State) finds then its uncompromising advocates in Catholic philosophers only. They endeavour to investigate and appreciate at their just value all phenomena, whether natural, preternatural, or supernatural. In psychology they ignore no aspect of man's sensitive and intellectual

*We have a notable example of an opposite method in the psychology of Mr. Herbert Spencer, who very easily accounts for all our intuition "experience," through the very simple process of quietly ignoring highest acts of the human mind.

being, but seek to assign to each power the rank which experience and intuition combine to prove that it possesses.

Asserting the dignity of man's nature and the trustworthiness of his faculties, they maintain the rights and the validity of human reason against its detractors,-the experiential Sophists who now rule over a crowd of credulous believers in the rationality of protoplasm, the emotional sensibility of heat, and the divinity of motion.

The sooner these facts come to be widely appreciated the better for our beloved country. Physical dogmatism, such as that we have endeavoured to exposc, can have but one sad result. "The proper study of mankind is man," and it is the study of his nobler nature, and not merely that of the material universe of which he forms a part, which can alone aid us in our highest needs, or rationally direct our endeavours towards individual, social, and national well-being.

ART. II.-S. MARY MAGDALENE IN THE

GOSPELS.

A Homely Discourse. Mary Magdalene. London: Washbourne.

Articles "Lazarus" and "Mary Magdalene" in "Smith's Dictionary of the Bible." By Professor PLUMPTRE.

Commentary on the Gospel of S. John. By E. W. HENGSTENBERG, D.D. Translated from the German. Dissertation on John xi. 1. Edinburgh : Clark.

NATHOLICS of the present day commonly take for granted,

that S. Mary Magdalene was the sister of Martha, and identical also with the "peccatrix" of Luke vii. 37. The author e. g. of the pleasing discourse, which we name at the head of our article, has evidently never dreamed of doubting the fact; and indeed the Church's whole office for July 22nd is based throughout on the assumption. On the other hand those who are more prominent among Protestants at this moment for the pious spirit, the diligence, the accuracy, with which they study Scripture, are more and more tending to unanimity in the opinion, that Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany, and the peccatrix were three distinct and separate persons. Nor will it be doubted by any one who candidly examines the arguments

adduced for this conclusion, that they carry with them at the first blush much appearance of cogency. The question-not to mention its importance in other respects-is so keenly interesting in a devotional and ascetical point of view, as to be well worthy of consideration.

Our readers will naturally inquire in the first instance, whether, apart from the statements of Scripture itself, there is any historical proof of the received Catholic view: but we are not aware of any Catholic, who even alleges the existence of any such proof. There is a second preliminary question, however, to which the answer is not so simple. It may be asked whether the concurrent judgment of so many holy men in every age, and the sanction more or less explicitly given by the Church to that judgment, should not by itself suffice to secure the assent of loyal Catholics. On this second question we shall say a few words at the close of our article; but our main purpose is to pursue the inquiry on the exclusive ground of Scripture. Even this limited task we are as far as possible from professing to perform exhaustively on the contrary we shall but suggest two or three hints, in the hope that more competent critics may carry them out, or modify and correct them, as the case may be. We will at once express our own firm conviction, that the text of Scripture, considered by itself and in its own light, establishes, not indeed a certainty, but an enormous preponderance of probability, in favour of the received Catholic view.

It will be more convenient to our readers, if we indicate at starting the chief relevant passages of Scripture. We begin them with the peccatrix of S. Luke.

But a certain one of the Pharisees [named Simon] asked Him to cat with him; and entering into the Pharisee's house he reclined [at table]. And behold a woman, who was a sinner in the city, hearing that He reclined [at table] in the Phariseo's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, and stood weeping behind at His feet, and began to moisten His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed His feet and anointed them with ointment, &c. (Luke vii. 36-38.)

Immediately after this narrative S. Luke thus proceeds :

And it came to pass thereafter that He travelled through the cities and villages, preaching and evangelizing the Kingdom of God; and with Him the twelve; and [also] certain women who had been healed from evil spirits and from infirmities, Mary called Magdalene from whom seven devils had gone out, and Joanna, &c. (Luke viii. 1, 2.)

At a later period of S. Luke's Gospel we hear :

But it came to pass as they went that Ho entered a certain village; and a certain woman, Martha by name, received Him into her house. And she had