certitude of its great primary truths. The interdependent relations, therefore, existing between reason and Catholicity are essential, and they stand or fall together. The way that Dr. Holmes has put this question is not, we beg his pardon, the right way; he says: “Rome or Reason?” He should have said: Rome and Reason. There can be no rational belief in God, in the immortality of the soul, in human responsibility as against Christianity, as there can be no rational belief in Christianity as against Catholicity. Outside of the Catholic Church there is only nihilism. III.—THE DRIFTS OF FREE-RELIGIONISM. It would be difficult to predict the precise course of these “come-outers” of the latest date, called free-religionists. Some will probably stop after having repudiated Protestantism, rest upon the truths of reason, and, without inquiring further, vainly try to satisfy, with a species of theism, the great aspirations and deep needs of their souls; eventually they may fall back on old Unitarianism. Others will venture to examine, as some before them have done, the claims of the Catholic Church, and finding that these are founded on human reason, that her doctrines perfect the truths of human reason, and that she alone is adequate to satisfy all the wants of the human heart, will become in the course of time Catholics, and save their souls—that is, reach their high destiny. Another section will, during, perhaps, their whole lives, seriously amuse themselves with the study of Brahminism, Buddhism, and every other kind of outlandish religion—not a vain intellectual amusement, except when associated with the absurd idea of concocting a new religion. While the larger section, we fear, will follow the tangent and end in nihilism. For although the main drift of the religious world outside of the Catholic Church, especially in the United States, is towards naturalism; although the face of each free-religionist looks in a somewhat different way, yet the actual movement of the greatest number of these Unitarian dissenters is apparently in the direction of zero.