“The actual power or seal of salvation is made available to believers only through the sacraments of the church—confession, baptism, Mass, and penance—legally administered by her accredited representatives.” There is such an inextricable confusion pervading this statement that it is difficult to discern its meaning. No one, we venture to say, who had mastered the “doctrinal thought” of the church would have ever penned so distracted a sentence on so important a point. One would suppose that, according to Mr. Alger, there were two sacraments, one “confession” and the other “penance”; whereas every Catholic who has learned the little catechism knows that “confession,” the popular term, means, in the language of the church, the Sacrament of Penance. Then what is meant by “baptism legally administered by her accredited representatives”? This is not clear; but the whole statement is so confused in thought and tangled in expression that the only hope of understanding the author’s meaning is to give him an opportunity of trying again. It would be, among ourselves, interesting to read from non-Catholic authors the “doctrinal thought” of the church on what is essential to salvation and what is ordinarily necessary to salvation. It would also, we are inclined to think, clear up many of their misconceptions and do them no little good to have correct ideas on so important a matter. “Those,” says Mr. Alger, “who humbly believe and observe these doctrines shall be saved; _all others lost for ever_.” This sentence follows the preceding one, and the same confusion and error underlie both. When the ingenuous author of this essay has corrected the former sentence by reading up on the point involved, he will, as a matter of course, correct the error contained in the latter. Passing now over several paragraphs containing many charges, we regret to say, in unusually bitter words, we come to the following: “The revival of the Greek learning, the study of the works of Plato, Aristotle, the classic poets, orators, and historians, with their beautiful and surprising revelations of genius, virtue, and piety, _entirely independent and outside of the church and Bible_, exerted an immense force in liberalizing and refining the narrow, dogmatic mind of the Christian world, refuting its _arrogant pretensions to an exclusive communion with God and heritage in Providence_.” If the cultivated writer of this essay had qualified the phrase “outside of the church” _as I understand it_, “exclusive communion” _as I view it_, this sentence might pass; but, as it stands, the position in which the Catholic Church is placed is entirely false, and we refer our readers to what is said on these points under the heading of “The Mission of the Latin Race,” commencing on page 5, in the last number of this magazine.