The work shows no great familiarity with the writings of the later theologians, and no fondness for the style and method of the schools, but it shows a profound study of the Fathers, and a perfect mastery of contemporary theories and speculations. The author is a man of the nineteenth century, with the profound thought of an Augustine, the eloquence of a Chrysostom, and the tender piety of a Francis of Assissium. He has studied the epistles of St. Paul, and been touched with the inspiration of that great apostle's burning zeal and consuming charity. He observes not always the technical exactness of modern theological professors, and some French _abbés_ thought they detected in his _Ensayo_ some grave theological errors, but only because they missed the signs which they were accustomed to identify with the things signified, and met with terms and illustrations with which they were unfamiliar. But he seizes with rare sagacity and firmness the living truth, and presents us theology as a thing of life and love. The principles of the essay are catholic, are the real principles of Christianity and society, set fourth with a clearness, a depth, a logical force, a truthfulness, a richness of illustration and an eloquence which have seldom, if ever, been surpassed. But some of the inferences be draws from them, and some of the applications he makes of them to social and political science are not such as every Catholic even is prepared to accept. The author was drawn to religion by domestic afflictions, which saddened while they softened his heart, and he writes, as he felt, amid the ruins of a falling world. All things seemed to him gone or going, and he looked out upon a universal wreck. His spirit is not soured, but his feelings are tinged with the gloom of the prospect, and while he hopes in God he well-nigh despairs of the world, of man, of society, of civilization, above all, of liberty, and sees no means of saving European society but in the dictatorship or pure despotism acting under the inspiration and direction of the church. He was evidently more deeply impressed by what was lost in the primitive fall or original sin than by what in our nature has survived that catastrophe. He adored the justice of God displayed in the punishment of the wicked, justified him in all his dealings with men, but he saw in his providence no mercy for fallen nations, or a derelict society. This life he regarded as a trial, the earth as a scene of suffering, a vale of tears, and found in religion a support, indeed, but hardly a consolation. The Christian has hope in God, but is a man of sorrows, and his life an expiation. Much of this is true and scriptural, and this world certainly is not our abiding place, and can afford us no abiding joy. But this is not saying that there are no consolations, no abiding joys for us even in this life. Consolations and joys a Christian has in this world, though they proceed not from it. It can