in two divisions, and the congregation, also divided, might sing alternately. The former plan, however, gives more security, as the voices of the choir-men are of great use in guiding the congregation. So, too, where unison music is adopted for the Mass, the same mode of alternating the clauses may be adopted. In fact, a skilful choir-master, aided by a tasteful accompanyist, can easily devise many agreeable and varied ways of performing even the simplest music, so as to produce an effect little, if at all, less attractive than the more pretentious class of figured music, and certainly far preferable to that music indifferently done.

We have been obliged to occupy two articles in the task which we originally proposed. The subject indeed is an extensive one, and we are aware how inadequately at last we have been able to treat it. Indeed many points, which we have been able to do little more than allude to, would each furnish materials for a separate paper. This necessity of compression has doubtless, too, given a somewhat dry and uninteresting character to our remarks. We trust,

however, that we have at least been able to furnish some practical suggestions, which may prove worthy of consideration by our musical readers, and which may tend to promote unity of feeling and action among those who are labouring in the important field we have traversed. We may add that we have been careful not so much to express individual opinions, as to follow the guidance of a consensus of wise and thoughtful persons who have made these subjects their study. Above all, we have striven to ascertain the mind of the Church on the various points under discussion. And if it be true, as one of the greatest of Popes* has said, that "there is no greater sign of the neglect of religion than the careless performance of the offices of the Church," we shall have done some service if we have in any way helped to bring about a musical celebration of these offices in a manner befitting their high and sacred character, and in a way suited to the wants of the Church in our own time and country.

We concluded our October article concerning this subject, by expressing our agreement with Canon Oakeley's letter in the Month," which appeared in the same number. It is only fair therefore on the present occasion to quote the following satisfactory explanation which appeared in the November number of that periodical :

*Benedict XIV.

Having said thus much with regard to the attacks which our notice of September has elicited, we may be allowed to add a few words of simple explanation on a far more important point. Our readers will readily believe that our remarks were written under the impression that the practical question as to the possibility of attaining success in the training of schoolboys to perform our present Church music-was perfectly open, and had not been ruled one way or the other by any ecclesiastical authority. Under that impression alone could we have ventured to enter on the discussion; and even under that impression we did so with reluctance, and only with the hope of drawing attention to considerations which appeared to us to have been neglected by former writers. Our readers may also be aware that, in the course of last spring, his Grace the Archbishop of Westminster wrote a short letter to one of those who had taken part in the discussion, in which he warmly approved of the line of argument adopted, and the suggestions made, by that writer. We feel bound to say, that, although some passages of the Archbishop's letter were present to our mind at the time of writing, still we did not remember that his Grace had added to the expression of his opinon, that any sudden change in the choirs of our churches would be unadvisable, the further intimation of a very strong desire to see female singers excluded. "The tradition of the Church," his Grace remarked, "excluding women from choirs is so universal and inflexible that it is not easy to understand how it should have been so widely forgotten in this country. I can only conceive that the confusion of all things under the penal laws, the shattered and informal state of the Church in England after its emancipation, our povertynot only of money-but of culture to do better, and finally, the force of custom in rendering us insensible to many anomalies, have been the real causes of our ever admitting, and of our so long passively tolerating, so visible a deviation from the tradition and mind of the Church." His Grace adds, “A sudden order to remove women singers, while as yet we have no boys trained to take their place, would be inconvenient and inconsiderate. I have not thought it right to issue any such order. But all that I can effect by the strongest expression of desire and persuasion, I shall endeavour to effect." Again, "A little time and care will rear in every school a sufficient number of boys; and I trust that we shall before long have a proper and efficient choir in every church." These words of the Archbishop's are more than enough to make us regret having unintentionally-and, indeed, with a directly contrary intention-put ourselves, so far, in opposition to an authority to which we are always glad to bow with perfect and hearty obedience.

We conclude our contribution to the discussion by remarking, that as we have ventured to justify, against what seemed to us undutiful attacks, the tolerance which the Church has hitherto practised in the matter in question, so we are the last to deny the clear obligation of the decree of the Synod of Oscott, or to desire to see the slightest delay in its execution when that delay cannot be justified by grave inconvenience.

ART. VII. THE ORTHODOXY OF POPE HONORIUS.

The Condemnation of Pope Honorius. By P. LE PAGE RENOUF. London : Longmans.

Pope Honorius before the Tribunal of Reason and History. By the Rev. PAUL BOTTALLA, S.J. London: Burns, Oates, & Co.

IT T has sometimes been said that this or that book fulfils the end of its existence, by eliciting some complete and unanswerable reply, and then subsiding into oblivion. We account this to be the case with Mr. Renouf's assault on the orthodoxy of Pope Honorius. After F. Bottalla's answer, nothing more, we think remains to be said. Never was anything more complete and exhaustive. Mr. Renouf's incidental statements indeed, concerning infallibility, are avowedly reserved by F. Bottalla for his future volume on that general subject; but we do not think that there is one single remark made by Mr. Renouf against Honorius's orthodoxy, which is not directly met in the pamphlet before us. It is the more likely to be final, because the author fully accepts as genuine existing documents (p. 141), and his argument therefore in no respect depends on uncertain questions of criticism and philology. For ourselves, we have already once brought the case of Honorius before our readers; viz. last July, soon after the appearance of Mr. Renouf's pamphlet. In reviewing however F. Bottalla's labours, we will avoid, as far as possible, all repetition of what we have already said, and make our second article supplementary to our first.

In regard to Honorius's connection with Monothelism, there are two distinct questions to be considered: first, did he teach heresy or error ex cathedrâ? and secondly, was he himself polluted by any taint of heresy? It is only the first of these two questions which concerns Ultramontanes as such. They only allege, that no Pope is permitted by the Holy Spirit to teach heresy or error ex cathedrâ; and even were it true therefore that Honorius was a heretic, his heresy would not in itself even tend to disprove their doctrine. But in fact no assertion can be made more monstrously and more demonstratively false, than that Honorius had so much as the faintest leaning to Monothelism. And as it is a very important fact indeed that no Pope has hitherto fallen into heresy, no treatment of the Honorius controversy will content

a true Catholic, which does not vindicate that Pope's personal orthodoxy. Moreover, there are the claims of reverence and gratitude due to an illustrious Pontiff; claims peculiarly imperative, as F. Bottalla well points out (p. 138), on the Catholics of England. To Honorius's "paternal endeavours" indeed (p. 140)," after Gregory the Great, England is indebted for its conversion to Christianity."*

In the first place however we will consider the more vital question of the two; viz., whether Honorius taught heresy or error ex cathedrâ. Mr. Renouf indeed has so inextricably mixed up the two different issues, that we must ourselves look through his pages, for the purpose of discovering which arguments are intended for one and which for the other.

Mr. Renouf's first proposition then is, that Honorius taught Monothelism ex cathedrâ. And his first argument for this proposition is taken from the condemnatory sentence of various Popes and Councils. This argument is so wild, that we really think the author would not have alleged it, had he seen clearly in his mind the distinction between the two above-mentioned issues. Whoever reads carefully the language on which Mr. Renouf relies, even as he himself adduces it, will be irresistibly convinced that no such notion even occurred to the imagination either of Popes or Councils, as that of Honorius having taught Monothelism ex cathedrâ. Even as to the Eastern bishops of the Sixth Council, the strongest view which could possibly be taken of their unfavourableness to Honorius would be, that they declared him a heretic in the same sense in which they so declared Sergius, Cyrus, and the rest. But such censure is in a totally heterogeneous sphere, from any which would condemn him of having taught heresy ex cathedrâ.

F. Bottalla adduces a reply on this head which-though no reply is needed to such an argument as Mr. Renouf's-yet is not only conclusive in itself, but has a far wider range of importance than the particular controversy before us. If any inquirer desires to know the true relation which exists between Pope and Council, the one source of information which would most readily occur to him must be their respective demeanour when a Council assembles. No single instance can be named, in which any Pope has so spoken to a Council,

The various triumphs of Honorius's Pontificate are well recounted by F. Bottalla's reviewer in the "Tablet" of Nov. 28. He speaks of Honorius's "successful exertions to make England Catholic, and Rome more than ever a city of perfect beauty"; and mentions also that the same Pope, “had brought to a happy conclusion the seventy years' schism of the Three Chapters in the churches of Istria, and another which had lasted so long in Scotland and Ireland concerning the time of celebrating Easter."

as to imply that its decision could add anything whatever to the irreformableness of a Pontifical judgment already pronounced. In many cases indeed, the Pope begins by laying down the law, enunciating the necessary decision, and requiring the assembled bishops to confirm it. Whenever this claim is put forth, you never find them protest against it as a tyranny or usurpation; on the contrary, they invariably take it as a matter of course. The Sixth Council affords a conspicuous instance of this. Pope S. Agatho, in addressing the bishops,

sets before them the formula of Catholic faith, which is the formula of the Apostolic Magisterium of the Roman See; and he informs them they must believe and confess it, and, on the other hand, condemn and reject every dogma contrary to it. Should they refuse to submit to this rule of faith, they would be in error, in schism, and reprobation. But he could not impose a formula of faith to be believed and confessed, unless his Magisterium was universally acknowledged as infallible. Therefore he repeatedly insists on that capital point of doctrine. He declares that the Roman See has never erred, and that it never shall err. He confirms and explains his assertion, by referring to the promises of Christ, to the example of all the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and of the Ecumenical Synods themselves, which had always received from Rome the paradigm of the doctrine they were to define. (pp. 89, 90.)

And now let us see how the assembled Fathers received his two Letters. Did they lift up their voice in protest against the fundamental doctrine of infallibility, which Agatho attributed to his See, and which he rested on the promises of Christ Himself? Was objection raised to the magisterial tone of the letters addressed to an Ecumenical Council? That large and influential assembly of bishops not only found nothing to censure in the letters of the Pope, but it received them as a whole and in all their parts as if they had been written by S. Peter, or rather by God Himself. The Fathers testified to their admitting the infallible and divine authority of the Letters, in the eighth session, as well as in the Synodical Letter addressed to Agatho; and in the Prosphonetic Letter sent to the Emperor they regarded them as a rule of faith. No sooner did a suspicion arise that four bishops and two monks refused to adhere to them, than the Council ordered them to give an explanation of their faith in writing and on oath. They submitted, and solemnly affirmed that they accepted without reserve all the heads of doctrine contained in the Letters. Again Macarius, Patriarch of Antioch, was, by sentence of the Council, deposed from his dignity and expelled from the Synod, because he refused to adhere to the letters of Agatho.-(pp. 90-92.)

Mr. Renouf at all events is not ignorant of logic. He will not maintain, on reflection, that the bishops first took for granted the infallibility of all Popes in all their ex cathedrâ decrees, and then proceeded to condemn of heresy one particular ex cathedrâ decree of one particular Pope.