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1868.] Morgan's American Beaver and his Works. 725 



i"^ a lesson to be learned from the Archbishop's portion of the contro- 

 vefsy. From his position in the Church we may safely conclude that 

 he is-"^ man of more than ordinary intellectual vigor, strengthened by 

 careful' training. Yet the result of that training, as here exhibited, 

 shows how the reasoning faculties have been stunted, and how the 

 habit of blindly receiving and dogmatically administering faith without 

 examination has led him to consider arrogant assertion to be equivalent 

 to proof Even, his moral sense becomes dulled, when the reputation 

 or interests of the Church are at stake. As she is infallible, the facts 

 which prove her fallibility must be got out of the way ; and if garbling 

 and misrepresentatioii are necessary to accomplish this, the fault lies 

 with the facts, and not with the Archbishop. The same spirit is shown 

 in his pastoral on the Encyclical and Syllabus of December, 1864, a 

 production which he evidently regards with peculiar pride, as he several 

 times refers to it in the course, of the controversy, and finally prints it. 

 In this remarkable gloss on those celebrated documents, he sophisti- 

 cally endeavors, sometimes by the suppressio veri, and sometimes by 

 the suggestio falsi, to render them- palatable to an American com- 

 munity. It was doubtless honestly done for his own peace of mind. 

 The Syllabus was the utterance of the representative of Christ, and he 

 had to receive it and to believe in it, but its crude medijevalisra was 

 utterly repugnant to his sense of right and liberality of feeling. To 

 reconcile the irreconcilable, therefore, he seems to have sacrificed some 

 of his own convictions, while persuading himself that the words of the 

 Pope meant something very different from their actual and apparent 

 sense. That he intended to deceive his flock we can scarcely believe, 

 and we have no doubt that he succeeded in deceiving himself. 



The Archbishop's frame of mind is thus the best evidence of the 

 truth of Mr. Vickers's thesis. In this point of view, perhaps, the rest 

 of the controversy is surplusage ; and yet the Congregationalist minister 

 plants his blows with so much vigor, and with such evident relish, that 

 we can safely recommend this racy pamphlet to all who may enjoy an 

 exhibition of intellectual digladiation, as well as to those who may wish 

 to know what are the aims and policy of Latin Christianity. Unfortu- 

 nately, those who most need the information will probably be the last 

 to seek it._. , v i .. 



5. 7/f rr (; ! i. 



9. — TTie American Beaver and his Works. By Lewis H. Mor- 

 gan, Author of " The League of the Iroquois." Philadelphia : 

 Lippincott & Co. 1868. 8vo. pp. 330. ^^;jw,J^, 'wxi^ . 



The beaver is of very ancient lineage. Greek and Roman natural- 

 ists and geographers, Pliny, Herodotus, ^lian, and Strabo, have left 



