The Invitation Heeded. Reasons for a Return to Catholic Unity. By James Kent Stone, late President of Kenyon College, Grambier, Ohio; and of Hobart College, Geneva, New York; and S. T. D. Fourth Edition. How the Rev. Dr. Stone Battered his Situation: An Examination of the Assurance of Salvation and Certainty of Belief to which we are affectionately invited by his Holiness the Pope. By Leonard Woolsey Bacon. Lecture on the Vatican Council. By Archbishop Purcell. [pp. 640-649]

iSTO.] Titc I)oj)c'8 Inv~~~io~~
because proved true in its o~vn divine light? Is not liis puci'ile arguing j ust as applicable to lils own doctrine of t}ie selfevidci~ce of liis P~pal inspiration arid infallibility? Is it iiot
donbly trne in this ease tbat all tlie inspiration here is what
his bclief creates-and that here we find tlie real elephant
restilig on tbe tortoise arid the tortoise on iiotliing? llave we
not tlie testimony of God through liis Spint witnessing in his
~~~ord, arid also in our ii carts, opening ()ur eyes to ii iiderstan ci
wondrous things otit of his la~r? And if we receive tlie witness of n~cn, is not the witness of God greater? (1 John, V. 9.)
1)r. Stone fi-ecly admits that the Pontifical chair lias been
disgraced by a number of wicked Popes. I3iit he, with others
of liis school, coiitends that they ii ave been preserved froill
sanctioning error in doctrine. NVe will let our read ci's see
lio~v he tries to parry the suicidal blo~vs which some of the
Popes themselves have dealt a~ainst this claim, in certain
deliverances wliicl~ few Roinanists hardly dare, in this age and
coalitry, pronounce free from ilierrancy or fallibility. The
offlciai sanction of error by any Pope is fatal to the doctrine
of Papal infallibility, arid renders tlie anathemas denounced
ii~)on those wlio dispute it, alike absurd aiid profane. The
rnanner in which lie tries to neutralize these examples displays
at once liis brilliancy as a special pleader and the desperate
ness of liis cause. ~~e give first bis exposition of tlie Inquisition, and tlie persecution of Galileo.
The Spanish Inquisition, as its name implies. was not a Catholic, b~it a
natioual and local tilbunal. It was an institution more pol-tical than religious,
autlio~zed, it is true, by tlie Pope, b~it solicited and maiiit;dned by the royil
power an institution devised to protect the unity of the Spanish kingdom, and
founded upon the principle that heresy was a crime against tlie peace of society,
and. as such, punishable by the civil power. ~Ir. Lecky, and even Llorente
himself, admit that the Roman Pentiffs mere than once endeavored to mitigate
its seventies. and protested against tlie horrible excesses of Torquemada. And
when Charles ~~. and Philip II. attempted to impose the trihuiial upon Italian
cities, the Popes encouraged the Italians in resisting the imposition.
"As for the Roman court. I am not aware that the smallest proof has ever been
given that its proceedings were other than mild and conservative. As Balmes
well observes,`the conduct of Rome in the use which she made of the Inquisition is the best apology of Catholicity against those who attempt to stigmatize her as barbarous and sanguinary.' The records of the Roman Con gregatlen were carried off to Paris by Napoleon, early in the present centnry a