entered into with her. A preponderancy is secured unto her in the direction of public instruction through the law of January 1873, and she has been able to bring to a standstill the generous movement in favor of obligatory instruction. Jesuitism triumphs along the whole line; devotion excited to fanaticism is their great lever to break down modern society, and it is with a concert of prayers that by mere political manifestations they attempt to bring back the king of the Syllabus. In the theological sphere it has shown itself as sterile, and as cunning as in former days. Its scribes have worked over the most monstrous theses of the Inquisition. A writer visibly inspired by its spirit, the Abbe Morel, has found it ingenious to attack Galileo. This confession, slipped from his pen, is without artifice, and relates to scientific discoveries opposed to the doctrine of the Church: "What do I care for truth if truth is a pest?" The Jesuits have not accepted the exaggeration of traditionalism; they have admitted a certain competency of reason, but they treated it as they did free will; they acknowledged it only in order to ask its immolation before the ecclesiastical authority. It must be recognized also that they have been skillful teachers in positive sciences. They have understood that no other means remained to them to retain their ascendency over the youths of the nineteenth century. They even gave to astronomy a learned man of the first order in the person of Pére Secchi. Their theology, nevertheless, has been either a barren and tormenting scholasticism, apt to mislead the mind, or a flowery and ridiculous mysticism in honor of the immaculate Virgin, or a controversy without good faith, basing its sophisms on falsified texts for the benefit of papal infallibility. Their moral is not better fundamentally, than in the days of Pascal. Dr. Frederick has furnished us with a fearful proof of it in his book on the Council of the Vatican. He has quoted a peremptory text that reveals a strange indulgence of the Fathers for most guilty practices. Their influence is evident in certain wide-spread hand-books of confession. One of these appeared recently, edited by a Catholic printing establishment, on the most delicate question of casuistry. It is treated there without delicacy, in a manner to make any one blush; probabilism rules there as a master. We take the liberty to cite from it one example. The manual of which we speak and which we could quote textually, asks the question if the man who has seduced a young girl must marry her, when he has promised her marriage with an oath. The answer is a "distinguo" not surpassed in the Provinciales. Marriage is obligatory if the young girl could believe in its possibility. She can only do so if she is of the same rank as her seducer; if this is not the case he can violate his oath without committing a mortal sin. Every reflection seems superfluous here. We do not allow ourselves to generalize and to attribute such casuistry to the majority of the directors of conscience. We have signalized that particular fact as one of the most dangerous symptoms of the moral influence of that order in the moral sphere. It has remained what it was in those tendencies which most revolted our fathers. The conclusion of this characteristic of the moral and religious action of the Society of Jesus is impressing itself. At this hour, the greatest danger of modern society comes from the quarter which made papal infallibility triumph in Rome. But our duty is to contend with it by means adapted to its own principles: viz., through free discussion and not through proscription. Jesuits cannot be overcome by applying to them their own maxims of persecution. That would tend to resuscitate and not to suppress them. EDMOND DE PRESSENSÉ. THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST.--666. Of the two Apocalyptic Books of the Sacred Scriptures, the book of the Prophet Daniel and the Revelation of St. John, the latter, being the more recent in time, is fuller and plainer than the former, and is the one that contains as we believe the key for the unlocking of both. All the chief interpretations of Prophecy proceed on substantially one system. The fact that they have all been proven false by the lapse of time, suggests that the system on which they all proceed must be false. In no one of them has the key to the solution been sought in the Apocalypse itself. The beginning of the 1260 years of the Church's testimony in sackcloth has invariably been sought to be identified with some historical event. Various events have been chosen by various interpreters and the time having passed by which they have all assigned for the end of the period, the continued existence of the Papacy demonstrates the falsity of their schemes. "The kingdom of Heaven cometh not with observation." But if the beginning of the period could be identified with any historical event, then the end of it could be certainly known, and the whole world might be in observation and herald the incoming kingdom of Heaven with shouting and clamor, with pomp and pageantry. But inasmuch as the coming of the Lord is to be "as a snare upon all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth,' the time of his coming is wrapped in mystery. And yet "the wise shall understand.” It must not be supposed from any language here used that any attempt is made to designate the time of the final coming of the Lord to judge the living and the dead. For this time "no man knoweth, not even the Son, but the Father only." The coming of the Lord that is here meant, is that coming to judge the nations, the brightness of which shall destroy the man of sin, and which is analogous to that coming in the clouds of Heaven to judge the Jewish nation that was definitely foretold, and accurately accomplished at the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70 of the Vulgar Era. The definite foretelling of this last coming, whilst it was a perfect guide to the believers in the city of Jerusalem, so that they all escaped, came nevertheless as a fear and a snare upon the Jewish nation. So also His coming to judge the nations, whilst it is foretold with sufficient clearness that God's people shall come out of Babylon and be not partakers of her sins, shall none the less flash as the lightning from one end of heaven unto the other upon the guilty world, and fall as a snare on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. The sublimity of the theme is such as may well appal the stoutest heart, certainly those who discuss it should approach the topic with gravity of manner and with a chastened spirit. Where so many great and noble have unavailingly trod before, those who now assume the task must deprecatingly and delicately tread. The two principles under which this investigation was begun and has been prosecuted, are, first-that the beginning of the 1260 years of the Church's testimony in sackcloth must not be identified with any noted historical event; and second-that the key to the solution must be found in the Apocalypse itself. As to the first, the failure of all systems of interpretation based on the opposite idea has been conspicuous. Therefore it was decided to abandon that. It was thought that all had been done in that line that could be done. The field had been ploughed and burned over until the soil was exhausted. Nothing but thorns and thistles could be hoped from it. As to the second-it was a virgin soil. The ground had not been broken. If the first attempt in that line should fail, other attempts might succeed. At any rate it was concluded to try it. We began therefore to feel all over the chamber for the secret spring in the wall that should open the door that would disclose the key. We studied the Apocalypse diligently and pondered every word and phrase. The search was unavailing for a long time. Over and over again we gave up the task in despair. But as often as it was given up, the conviction would arise again that what we sought was there somewhere. And by the grace of God we would find it. Finally light flashed in. There was one verse that challenged particular attention to itself. In the XIII chapter and 18th verse were the words, "HERE IS WISDOM." As much as to say,if you are in search for the key, here is where it lies hid, but it takes wisdom to find it. Even when you know the place you may after all fail to get at the key. The directions, however such as they were, we were determined to follow. "HERE IS WISDOM. LET HIM THAT HATH UNDERSTANDING COUNT THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST: FOR IT IS THE NUMBER OF A MAN; AND HIS NUMBER IS SIX HUNDRED THREESCORE AND SIX." The first thing to be done, of course, was to take St. John's own commentary on the passage contained in chapter xvii, 9: "And here is the mind which hath wisdom, the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sitteth," etc., etc. But all this served only to identify the beast. Nothing was said about the number of his name. This identification had been understood in the Church ever since the days of St. Irenæus, and nothing further had been done since his day. The question stood just where he left it. The difficulty lay not in the identification of the beast, but in understanding the number of his name. Just here the mystery thickened. The problem seemed to be insoluble. The rise of the Papacy was so gradual that Omniscience alone knew when it came to maturity. Was it designed in this mystical number to reveal the date of that maturity, and the consequent beginning of the 1260 years? Then a new diffi culty arose. There are two beasts described in the chapter in which the verse occurs, and no intimation was given to which beast the number applied. But the elucidation of this difficulty brought the solution of the riddle. Both beasts must be in some mystical sense one. They must represent different phases of the same power. The first beast was agreed by interpreters to mean the Political Roman Empire. The second beast was as universally agreed to be the Spiritual Roman Empire, or the Papacy. If the number 666 could serve any purpose further than to |