saved; charity and forbearance, for he who hateth or despiseth his brother cannot love God.

Let us examine ourselves first of all, according to the precept of the great Apostle of the Gentiles, to assure ourselves whether we are in the faith. For in default of that living faith which works by love, the most incontestable orthodoxy will only serve for our condemnation. When the false teachers reproach you with the pretended schism of the Eastern Church, and threaten you with your perdition, refer them, as a sufficient answer, to the Gospel, and to the constant tradition of the church, and pray sincerely for our calumniators.

If they persist, reply to them, that for more than a century after the lamentable misunderstandings between the Sees of Rome and of Constantinople, union was still maintained between the two portions of the patrimony of Jesus Christ. Tell them that two sisters, of whom one has preserved the will of their common father uncorrupted, the other has dared to alter and falsify it, remain nevertheless united by the ties of blood.

In our discussions with the heterodox, of whatsoever class, we ought to be modest, to distrust our own wisdom, and above all, never to confound eternal religion with temporal civilization. This last, the legitimate daughter of Christianity, in the progress which we see her making, ceases to be such when she goes astray. All her fruits do not proceed from one and the same sap. Her brilliant glory must not dazzle us, it is not always the light which cometh from God. Civilization is extended by inches; religion cherishes and honors poverty; civilization coldly sacrifices individuals to the seeming prosperity of the masses; religion sees God in man and in nations; civilization thinks she owes nothing to barbarism and to ignorance; religion alone sits down lovingly under the nomad's tents, passes unremittingly from the cradle to the tomb, and from the poor man's hearth to the palace of kings. There are many civilizations; there is only one religion. Be not deceived then, when, in order to conceal the weak places in their cause, the ultramontanes complacently display to your view the picture of their power and their activity. When they

recount to you the good works of Martha, congratulate them; but point them at the same time to her sister Mary, motionless and unnoticed, at the feet of Jesus.

PART SECOND.

Statement of the Controversy between the Orthodox Church and the Reformation of the xvith Century.

The reaction of the great religious schism, though it began in the ixth century, did not make itself fully felt until the xvith. The See of Rome, left to itself and deprived of the wholesome check which Eastern Christianity had always put upon it, rushed on more and more eagerly in the ways of the world, and in the slippery path of the abuse of power. After having passed through the dark ages, the Papacy and the Western Church found themselves all at once, in the xvth century, in the presence of the awakened mind of Europe. The guardians of revealed religion had then no suspicion of the imminent danger with which they were threatened. In the successive attacks of Berengar, Wicliffe, John Huss, Luther, Zwingle, Calvin, and other reformed separatists, the clergy of the West did not recognize the formidable features of a just expiation. This expiation of the first schism and of the outrages perpetrated by the Crusades, in their merciless hatred of the Eastern Church, was to be suffered in the form of reprisals on the pride of an ecclesiastical power, which had always sacrificed every thing to its own ambition, not even excepting the primitive unity of the faith.

The religious reform of the xvith century attacked first the abuses of the See of Rome, but instead of taking for the point of departure and the standard of comparison, the doctrine, the institutions and the sacred rites of the universal Church, as these were preserved in the East, Luther, Calvin, and their adherents, constituted themselves accusers and judges in a question on which they should have appealed to the tribunal of sacred antiquity. Hence so many rash novelties on the one side, so much unyielding resistance on the other: the con

troversy became a deadly duel; the lessons of apostolic times were forgotten or misread; and the only arbiter who could lawfully and naturally interpose in the quarrel (I mean the Greek Church, still neutral, and guarding faithfully her sacred deposit), was rejected by the combatants.

It was not until later, (towards the end of the xvith century), that the Protestant theologians of the University of Tübingen concluded to appeal to the testimony of the exiled and captive church, of that church which alone had the right to apply to itself the touching words of the great Apostle to King Agrippa, in the presence of the Roman Governor; "I would to God that you and all who hear me this day, were such as I am, except these bonds."

The letters of the theologians of Tübingen have come down to us, a monument of the sincerity of some of the learned doctors of the Reformation. The correspondence, begun on their part with the Patriarch of Constantinople, Jeremiah II. (published at Leipzig in 1725), proves that among the Protestants of the xvith century there were some men of good faith, who felt the necessity of connecting themselves with the original stock of Christianity, and of seeking a point of support and stability in the bosom of that Church which had alone remained. catholic, in its order, and in the uninterrupted continuance of time. But it was too latc; and the pious attempt was but a partial movement. Jeremiah II. replied to the letters of the doctors of Tübingen, analyzing the confession of Augsburg, with equal thoroughness and moderation. Perhaps this venerable prelate did wrong in breaking off so suddenly, after several replies from his correspondents, an intercourse which they had been so tardy in commencing. We will not judge him; we only say, that from this time the silence and neutrality of the Eastern Church ceased; that the doctrine of the Reformation was rejected by her, in so far as that doctrine contradicted the teachings of the Ecumenical Councils and of sacred tradition; and that the more recent Councils of Jerusalem in 1648, and of Jassy in 1678, traced between the Catholic Greek Church and the Protestant Communions an unalterable line of separation, which we propose now to examine.

What are the articles of faith and of discipline which separate modern Protestantism from the Church founded by Jesus Christ and his Apostles? Reduced to their simplest and briefest expression, they are the following:

I. Faith and Good Works, regarded as indispensable conditions of our eternal salvation.

II. The Doctrine of the Eucharist.

III. The Doctrine of the Authority of the Church and of the Sacred Traditions.

IV. The Worship of Veneration due to the Holy Cross.

V. The Worship of the Holy Images, and of Holy Relics. VI. The Religious Fasts appointed by the Church.

VII. The Doctrine of the State of Souls after death, and of Prayer for the Dead.

Such are the principal points in controversy. In examining them, we shall follow very nearly the same method which we pursued in our former Parallel between the Churches of the East and of the West. But for the benefit of those of our brethren and sisters in Christ, who desire to consult the original sources, and to understand the details of each question separately, we will refer to the documents. These are, first, the memorable Correspondence of the Faculty of Tübingen with the Patriarch Jeremiah II.; secondly, the Larger Catechism of Peter Moghila, Metropolitan of Kief, adopted and published in 1642; thirdly, the Confession of Faith, addressed by the Patriarchs of the East to the Holy Synod of Russia in 1721; lastly, the very valuable work of Stephen Yavorsky, Archbishop of Rezan, entitled, "The Rock of the Faith," an exhaustive treatise, which embraces all the points contested by the Reformers, and in which the most minute arguments which they urge against the doctrine of the church are reported in full, and answered and refuted one by one.

I. Faith and Good Works as conditions of eternal salvation.

At the period when Luther and his adherents entered upon their strife with the See of Rome, they were moved only by the enormity of the prevailing abuses. In fact, works of outward devotion were considered, in all the West, as essentially

meritorious; and the clergy, the only judges of the merit of these religious practices, had connected with them a multitude of indulgencies partial or plenary, by virtue of the powers conferred by the Papacy. This last preferred to employ, in a service of this doubtful nature, certain monastic orders, who were not subject to the authority of the Bishops. Hence resulted a disgraceful rivalry between the regular and the secular clergy, and between the different monastic fraternities. So the Reformers were led to attack works altogether, without even attempting to make any distinction in their nature; and they appealed exclusively to inward faith, of which no one can be judge. Imbued with the spirit of Augustine's controversial works against Pelagius, Luther undertook to revive his doctrine of efficacious grace; he declared the impotence of the free will of man, and proclaimed the principle of salvation by faith alone. Calvin deduced from this principle extreme consequences, maintaining a predestination by which salvation is secured to those who believe, by an absolute decree, without any regard to their good or bad actions. Observe, now, that all these propositions rest apparently on passages drawn from the Epistles of Paul to the Galatians and the Romans. So great is the danger of an arbitrary interpretation of the word of God, without the aid of a legitimate authority and depositary of revealed truth. We are all saved by grace through faith, says the great Apostle of the Gentiles and this is strictly true; for he says elsewhere, "What hast thou that thou hast not received?" In the meanwhile the church, which embraces the totality of the truths necessary to salvation, teaches us: (1) That" without faith it is impossible to please God;" that there are three kinds of faith; dead faith, which of course cannot give life; the faith of demons, which leads only to terror and despair; "The devils themselves believe and tremble; " they know too much not to fear the things which they know not; finally, the "faith which works by love,” πίστις δὲ ἀγάπης ενεργουμένη; and it is this which procures our eternal salvation: (3) that salvation is therefore in fact gratuitous, in this sense, that our justification before God is by the grace and the merits of our Lord Jesus