140 THE LIGHT OP DAT 



have only ■weakened its hold upon faith. When 

 men helieve without reason, or in defiance of it, then 

 is religion strong and has a career. I can well 

 understand what Cardinal Newman meant when he 

 said, " I do not shrink from uttering my firm con- 

 viction that it would he a gain to the country were 

 it vastly more superstitious, more bigoted, more 

 gloomy, more fierce in its religion than at present 

 it shows itself to be." Is not that the Catholic 

 note, though Newman when he uttered it was not 

 yet a Catholic ? But it was the spirit of dogmatic 

 religion that spoke there, the fierce cry of the spirit 

 of the earlier centuries when the church moulded the 

 world in its own image, and fire and fagots awaited 

 the man who said to it, " Come, let us reason to- 

 gether." In saying that no religion can stand the 

 test of reason, I mean, of course, the reason of the 

 disbeliever, the reason of the man who sees the facts 

 from the outside instead of from within, or objec- 

 tively instead of subjectively. When we once be- 

 lieve a thing, how many reasons we can find in sup- 

 port of our course ! I was lately much interested 

 in reading the sparring match of reason in the " Nine- 

 teenth Century " between Sir James Stephen and 

 St. George Mivart, both clear, logical, trained, and 

 honest minds, and both assuming to be guided solely 

 by the light of reason. Mr. Mivart is a Eoman 

 Catholic, and Mr. Justice Stephen is free from all 

 church ties, and as a matter of course their conclu- 

 sions differ as widely as day from night. What 

 penetrates and convinces one mind glances off the 



