Vernon Johnson’s book, One Lord, One Faith really needed no reply. It was not a challenge, not controversial : it was itself a reply to innumerable inquirers who sought to know why he had thought it necessary to leave the Church of England and seek reconciliation with the Catholic Church. In explaining why he had so acted, he made a very simple, straight-forward and sincere statement of what had happened in his own soul. His explanation is written with a very rare courtesy and there is not a word which could be seriously interpreted as offensive to his Anglican friends. The Rev. E. Milner-White and the Rev. W. L. Knox are not satisfied with Father Vernon’s explanation. In effect they think hel has acted foolishly; but their object is not so much to convince him of his folly as to warn the many readers of his book from following too rashly in his footsteps. This ‘Reply’ is not studiously courteous nor is there the careful avoidance of giving offence which distinguished Father Vernon’s statement. In fact we have heard the book curtly described as ‘bad temper, bad history, bad theology, bad morals and bad taste’ —a severe indictment, but not entirely unmerited.

Is it good history, for instance, to say that the Churches of England and Rome ‘definitely claim unbroken descent from the Apostles through their similar ministries (a claim which history, that is to say, fact, allows to be equally strong in each case)’? And is this good theology?

The Catholic Education question has been much discussed from many points of view. Religion, politics, common sense, all have contributed their share. Philosophy also has been by no means neglected. Still it appears to me that the purely psychological aspect has not yet received adequate treatment, and although I do not pretend to be able to provide such treatment myself, yet I think it only fair that we should never point out a defect without first doing our best to remedy it. Therefore, having criticised, I boldly subject myself to criticism in turn, by putting forward some considerations which may serve at least as an essay (in the original sense of the word) on this all-important subject.

We have made large sacrifices in various countries for our convictions. In Ireland, naturally one of the most intellectual countries of Europe, the tempting bait of Knowledge was resolutely put aside when Faithfulness was at stake. In America and the British Empire we are paying for our opponents’ schools as well as for our own. Moreover, we cheerfully deny ourselves many educational and social advantages which are open to those whose theories or consciences are easier than ours. For all these sacrifices we are bound to have solid reasons to give; to ourselves on account of our apparent loss; to our people, on account of the burden laid upon them; to our countrymen, on account of our apparent want of patriotism. Reasons, to be solid, must obviously go to the root of things;

The minds of students have sometimes been exercised as to who is the greatest Captain of history. Alexander subduing Asia in his short span of thirty-three years, Hannibal victoriously crossing the Alps and threatening Rome, Julius Caesar over-running the then known world, Charlemagne, Saladin, Ghengis-Khan, Tamerlane, Washington, Napoleon, all have their apologists.

The matter remains undetermined.

In military genius, in strategy, in constructive statesmanship Simon Bolivar was inferior to none of these. In patriotism, in disinterestedness, in Christian forbearance towards his enemies, in considerateness for all who depended on him he can have but few rivals.

From the moment that in Rome, on Mount Aventine, in 1804, he promised his former tutor and friend, Father Rodriguez, to devote himself whole-heartedly to the interests of his country, he never swerved from this determination. Despite his detractors there is no evidence of ambition or self-seeking in any of his acts; rather do they disprove it. A loyal and faithful son of Holy Church we find him ever pointing out and following the path of honour and of duty. He controlled for years the resources of the former Spanish colonies which hailed him as ‘el Liberador’ and as ‘Father of the country’; which voted him time and again large personal subsidies, always steadfastly declined; and he died without a shilling of public money in his possession. Nay, more, nine-tenths of his own splendid patrimony had been expended on public needs, though he was still comparatively young, forty-seven, and well aware of the sectaries plotting against him.

Jeff Peters is a lineal descendant of Mrs. Malaprop; his use of words is even more humorously mal à propos. The introduction of malapropisms is a device much favoured, for obvious reasons, by the authors of humorous literature, and in skilful hands it can result in a high form of wit. In creating Jeff Peters, O. Henry, for example, surpassed Sheridan himself and gave us an even finer subtlety of wit.

It is to be noted, in passing, that when a malapropism is not obvious, it fails to be funny; it fails even to be remarked as a misuse and tends to become accepted in its erroneous or distorted sense. If a panegyrist is reported to have ‘larded his subject with a nice derangement of epitaphs,’ the substitution of words of common speech similar in sound but not in sense is sufficiently obvious to be amusing. But when the substitution is not recognized, ignorance eliminates the sense of the ridiculous. We are not, in short, amused. Thus it is not everyone who will appreciate the humour of ‘fussily decency averni.’

It is curious to remark how frequently a sense of humour, and from another point of view even an appreciation of wit, is the result of a rather snobbish sense of superiority. When a man slips on a banana skin, the cream of the joke goes to his fellow-man who has not slipped but remains proudly upright. A sense of superiority, physical or mental, is a normal condition in the appreciation of humour.

The restoration of the Papal sovereignty, which was happily brought about last year, brings to mind the name of one whose voice was amongst the few in Europe to be raised in sincere and unwavering defence of the Holy See throughout the troubled years of Italian unification. In an age when the flock seemed to be denying Peter, as Peter had once denied his Lord, the ardent crusadership of Louis Veuillot would have sufficiently distinguished an otherwise obscure person; but Veuillot, a man of humble origin, self-educated and self-made in his professional career, has been appreciated as the greatest journalist, and one of the most extraordinary personalities, of the nineteenth century.

He was twenty-five years of age, and had been engaged for eight years in political journalism, when a seemingly chance visit to Rome in 1838 led to his conversion to Catholicism. Now for the first time he found a field for the enthusiastic exercise of his talents. Rome had cast her spell on him and, on returning to Paris, he vowed himself to the service of the Pope and of the Church. Under his direction the Univers, from being an unknown and unimportant journal, became the organ of an articulate Catholic party fighting the anti-clericalism of the reign of Louis-Philippe. Under the Second Empire it stood out as the relentless critic of free thought and religious liberalism, and most of all as the champion of the Temporal Power of the Papacy, already menaced by the Franco-Piedmontese victories of 1859 over Austria, and the subsequent annexation by Victor Emmanuel II of Romagna.

It is generally recognised that the conflict between Alexander VI and Savonarola was political rather than canonical; that political reasons more than zeal for the welfare of the Church and the salvation of souls dictated every move made by Alexander in his dealings with the Friar; and, furthermore, that the Pope’s mind had been poisoned by the false accusations and slanders of Savonarola’s implacable enemies. Both men were strong characters. They clashed, and the general opinion obtains that Savonarola flatly disobeyed the commands of the Supreme Pontiff. Savonarola has been pilloried by some writers as the unique example of grave disobedience to the Vicar of Christ, since no one except heresiarchs ever dared to flout Papal commands as he did yet die in communion with the Holy See. But others are convinced that the Friar did not disobey, and therefore he neither incurred nor deserved censure. We shall examine the question as briefly, yet as fully, as possible, and shall confine ourselves strictly to the query: Did Savonarola disobey the Pope?