disputed—even amongst the Jesuits; the pure and high principled works of George Eliot are condemned unheard—she was an Agnostic and lived with Lewes; Marie Corelli is dangerous, anti-sacerdotal, so are Mrs. Grand, Rider Haggard, Thomas Hardy, &c., &c.; indeed, the poor Catholic is perplexed before the list of modern novelists. So it is with science and philosophy; the best English and German exponents are heterodox, and when the priest pays his visit and sees their works lying about, he not infrequently demands that they be destroyed.
And his conversation is rendered insipid and uninviting by the same dearth of knowledge and narrowness of judgment. On Biblical criticism, sociology, and a host of prominent questions, the priest is either painfully dogmatic on points that the educated world has long since ceased to dogmatise about, or else he is just as painfully confused. But even on a number of questions on which the world has formed a decided opinion years ago, he is strangely timid and conservative. Rome itself showed much caution in responding to an inquiry about hypnotic phenomena, and such eminent modern theologians as Lehmkuhl and Ballerini seem convinced that in its more abstruse phenomena it embodies a diabolical influence. Even table-turning, of which Carpenter gave a lucid explanation ages ago, is gravely called in question by the Roman decree and the casuists, and, naturally, by the majority. In fact, the author whom I was directed
