closer indwelling, which, we fear, is beyond the ken of the votaries of the new religion, the indwelling of God in the souls of His elect, through divine, supernatural grace. The omnipresence of God is an elementary truth of theistic philosophy, as well as of Divine revelation. But the mode of this omnipresence is the stumbling block of modern Kantian philosophy, which is the basis of the new religion. The philosophy which the schoolmen adopted from Aristotle solves this question, like so many others, in the only way which is consonant with right reason and with Revelation. God is present in everything, since He immediately operates in everything that exists (Isaias xvi.); but He is present not as a part of the essence of things nor as an accident, but as an agent is present in the object of His activity. Every created being is an effect caused by the uncreated, self-existing Being of God; and this effect is caused not only in the first creation of beings, but it continues as long as they continue in existence, just as light continues to be caused by the sun, as long as the atmosphere continues to be illumined. In the same manner God is present everywhere, not as filling space, but as the One who has given being to all things that are in space (Wisdom xi.). God is present in every being by His essence, as the cause is present in the effect; by His power, since all things are subject to Him, just as the sovereign supremacy obtains everywhere throughout the state; by His presence, inasmuch as all things are naked to His eye. Moreover, God is present in a special and intimate manner in the relational soul which is united to Him by knowledge and lovea union which is effected by Divine Grace alone, and which, therefore, exists only in the souls of the just. 26

This rational and, at the same time, Christian view and explanation of God's omnipresence is radically opposed to the doctrine of immanence, which, we are told, is to be the most characteristic feature of the new religion. Immanence, as interpreted by its supporters, from Kant down to the Harvard lecturer, means that God is present in every being, and especially in living beings as part of their essence. In other words, every being is a part of God. This doctrine makes all beings, in their several spheres, especially, of course, humane persons, so many gods. God is what their individual consciousness represents Him to be, and nothing more; their beings and lives and movements are those of God. And this is the perverse meaning they give St. Paul's words to the Athenians: "In Him we live, move and are." (Acts xvii., 28.) There is a fathomless abyss between the omnipresence of God by essence, power and presence, and between even His special presence in the souls of His elect by the knowledge and love which are the effects of His grace, and the

as a horrible blasphemy. After telling us that what he calls "the numerous deities-God the Father, the Son of God, the Mother of God, the Holy Ghost" are to be brushed aside by the religion, that its "scientific doctrine of one omnipresent Energy is fundamentally and completely inconsistent with the dualistic conception which sets spirit over against matter, good over against evil, man's wickedness against God's righteousness and Satan against Christ," that "in the future religion there will be nothing 'supernatural," that "its sacraments will be, not invasions of law by miracle, but the visible signs of a natural spiritual grace" (whatever that means), that "the completely natural quality of the future religion excludes from it the religious consolations of institutional Christianity," that "the future religion will not undertake to describe, or even imagine the justice of God," that "the new religion will teach no such horrible and perverse doctrines" as "the prevailing Christian conceptions of heaven and hell" which, we are told, "have hardly any more influence with educated people in these days than Olympus and Hades have"after telling us all this, the president emeritus of Harvard concludes: "Finally, this twentieth-century religion is not only to be in harmony with the great secular movements of modern society, but also in essential agreement with the direct, personal teachings of Jesus, as they are reported in the Gospels. The revelation he (sic) gave to mankind thus becomes more wonderful than ever."32

Indeed, this gloss on the Gospels and on the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is "more wonderful than ever" was conceived by gnostic or agnostic, by pagan or heretic. It is left for the forty years president of the leading American university to set forth as the only acceptable religion of humane persons the pantheism, and atheism, the self-worship and self-chosen ethics of the pagan past, and clothe them in some of the tattered garments of Christianity.

Dr. Eliot's fellow professors appear to be less squeamish about preserving even the semblance of Christian garments for their religious and ethical theories. They, if we are to believe the statements already referred to, frankly reject Christianity and all its belongings. They rejoice with far more outspoken glee at the overthrow of the beliefs of ages. In reading their rapturous onslaughts on the most cherished tenets of Christianity, one is reminded of what a great English layman, who knew something of the nature and history of Christianity, as well as of paganism, Mr. Gladstone, once wrote in comment on the anti-Christian teachings of a celebrated professor of the dechristianized Sorbonne: “I own my surprise not only at the fact but at the manner in which in this day writers, whose name is legion, unimpeached in character and abounding in talent, not only put away from them, cast into shadow or into the very gulf of negation itself, the conception of a Deity, an active and a ruling Deity. Of this belief which has satisfied the doubts and wiped away the tears, and found guidance for the footsteps of so many a weary wanderer on earth, which among the best and greatest of our race has been so cherished by those who had it, and so longed and sought for by those who had it not, we might suppose that if at length we had discovered that it was in the light of truth untenable, that the accumulated testimony of man was worthless, and that his wisdom was but folly, yet at least the decencies of mourning would be vouchsafed to this irreparable loss. Instead of this, it is with a joy and exultation that might almost recall the frantic orgies of the Commune, that this, at least at first sight, terrific and overwhelming calamity is accepted and recorded as a gain. For those who believe that the old foundations are unshaken still, and that the fabric built upon them will look down for ages on the floating wreck of many a modern and boastful theory, it is difficult to see anything but infatuation in the destructive temperament which leads to the notion that to substitute a blind mechanism for the hand of God in the affairs of life is to enlarge the scope of remedial agency; that to dismiss the highest of all inspirations is to elevate the strain of human thought and life; and that each of us is to rejoice that our several units are to be disintegrated at death into countless millions of organism; for such, it seems, is the latest 'revelation' delivered from the fragile tripod of a modern Delphi."38

Cornwells, Pa.

JOHN T. MURPHY, C. S. Sp.

T

IS MARS INHABITED?

HE question as to whether the planet Mars is actually inhabited by a race of intelligent beings is frequently

brought to our notice by the press. It is a most interesting question, not only in itself, but also in the manner in which it is debated. Victory seems to be uncertain as to which side it shall award the palm, since, as is natural to human beings, each champion will generally unwittingly commit himself to an erroneous or exaggerated statement, and thus expose a weak point to the shafts of his adversary.

Professional astronomers are almost all on the negative side.