The pleasure of criticism is mean; and for my own part I feel none in pointing out faults which I should like to efface. {66} I prefer congratulating the authors of _l'Université Catholique_ on the firmness and fidelity with which they have remained faithful to their name and standard. In their excellent design, and on account of the conciliatory spirit which pervaded it, they encountered a shoal under their prow. They ran the danger of being induced to become effeminate and enervated, to pervert their own doctrines, the Catholic doctrines and spirit, in order to render their accommodation more in accordance with the ideas and spirit of the age. More than once analogous attempts, conceived in the best intentions, have split on this rock. It is thus that we have heard applied to natural religion and the general spirit of religion; these maxims that the dogma is of little consequence, the moral only being of importance, that various creeds must be brought back to those portions which they hold in common, and formulas and prayers be drawn up which may suit all alike: thence the desire to transform the great principles and facts of Christianity into symbols left to the interpretations of philosophy; those strange efforts also to unite the revolutionary with the religious spirit; or, lastly, those attempts to deny, or at least consign to oblivion the past of the Catholic church, her traditions, her customs, which ages and events have united with her, and substitute, under the name of Primitive, a newly invented Catholicism. {67} False conceptions, vain endeavours, from which pious feeling and a certain knowledge of our social state have not always been free, but which denote little knowledge of human nature or religion, and a superficial appreciation of the means by which great institutions, whether religious or civil, are founded and endure. No doubt but that Catholicism has something, has much to do in order to adapt itself to all that is new in the world, and to take in our social system the place and part suitable to it. But let it be true to itself, let it not deny its origin, its history, its doctrine, its law; let it not stoop to cowardice or hypocrisy. It would lose its dignity which is essential to its strength, it would fail in obtaining the new strength which it needs. Were I not convinced that harmony may be re-established between the old religion and modern society with truth and honor to both, I would not counsel the attempt. God does not admit of the possibility of falsehood in such high positions for such great objects.