light.

Who has the audacity to say that the God who will not aid a mother in
the death-chamber shelters the Queen upon her throne? It is an insult to
reason and a ghastly mockery of justice. The impartiality of Nature is
better than the mercy of such a God.

CARDINAL NEWMAN ON INFIDELITY.

(April, 1882.)

Cardinal Newman is perhaps the only Catholic in England worth listening
to. He has immured his intellect in the catacombs of the Romish Church,
but he has not been able to quench it, and even there it radiates a
splendor through the gloom. His saintly character is as indubitable as
the subtlety of his mind, and no vicissitude has impaired the charm
of his style, which is pure and perfect as an exquisite and flawless
diamond; serene and chaste in its usual mood, but scintillating
gloriously in the light of his imagination.

On Sunday last Cardinal Newman preached a sermon at the Oratory in
Birmingham on "Modern Infidelity." Unfortunately we have not a full
report, from which we might be able to extract some notable passages,
but only a newspaper summary. Even this, however, shows some points of
interest.

Cardinal Newman told his hearers that "a great storm of infidelity and
irreligion was at hand," and that "some dreadful spiritual catastrophe
was coming upon them." We quite agree with the great preacher; but
every storm is not an evil, and every catastrophe is not a disaster.
The revolutionary storm in France cleared the air of much pestilence. It
dissipated as by enchantment the horrible cloud of tyranny, persecution
and want, which had for centuries hovered over the land. And certainly,
to go back a stage farther in history, the Reformation was not a
misfortune, although it looked like a "spiritual catastrophe" to a great
many amiable people. The truth is, Revolutions must occur in this world,
both in thought and in action. They may happen slowly, so that we may
accommodate ourselves to them; or rapidly, and so disturb and injure
whole generations.

But come they must, and no power can hinder them; not even that once
mighty Church which has always striven to bind Humanity to the past with
adamantine chains of dogma. In Cardinal Newman's own words, from perhaps
his greatest and most characteristic book,--"here below to live is to
change, and to be perfect is to have changed often."

We cannot say that Cardinal Newman indicates how humanity will suffer
from the "coming storm of infidelity and irr