WM. G. READ, Esq.-This distinguished gentleman delivered an eloquent discourse on the landing of the Catholic pilgrims on the shores of Maryland, before a highly respectable and numerous audience in the Philadelphia Museum, on Wednesday evening, 10th inst. For nearly an hour and a half the audience hung on his lips, whilst in glowing language he pourtrayed the generous character and liberal views of the original colonists, especially of Lord Baltimore. In his description of the kind indulgent spirit of the illustrious Calvert, a convert to the Catholic faith, it was easy to recognize the model of his own enlightened piety. We forbear offering an analysis of the discourse, as we understand that it will be published. On Thursday Mr. Read was entertained at a public dinner, given him by the Catholics of this city, in testimony of their high esteem. His health being drunk, he delivered an eloquent and fervid address. The Bishop of New York, Joseph R. Chandler and Wm. A. Stokes, Esqs., severally spoke with great eloquence in reply to special toasts. The honorable Judges Randall and Campbell, and Clement C. Biddle, Esq., were among the numerous company. [Catholic Herald. ST. LOUIS.-On the 8th of May the new Catholic female free school, attached to the church of St. Francis Xavier, was opened under the charge of three Sisters of Charity of Emmittsburg community. Owing to the want of room, only one hundred and thirty girls are admitted. Great number of applications have been postpened till the new and large edifice, which is rapidly in progress for that purpose, will be finished. On the 19th of May, arrived in this city, Fathers Tarbinatti and Soderini from Rome, Father Toset from Switzerland, and brother Magri from the Isle of Malta - all members of the Society of Jesus, and destined for the Indian missions. On the 25th instant, left this city, Father R. P. Verheyden, S. J., for the Indian missions, among the Pottawattamies, Ottawas, and Chippewas. A letter has been received in this city from Brussels, in Belgium; in which we are informed, that upon the request, both of the Belgian Government and of the Belgian Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, the missions of the new Belgian colony in Guatemala, South America, are entrusted to the Jesuits of the Belgian province. Father C. Waldack, with another father of the same Society, was about to set sail for the American shore. THE ST. LOUIS MEDICAL AND SURGICAL JOURNAL. Nos. 1 and 2. Edited by Professor LINTON, of the Medical Department of the St. Louis University. Published by DINNIES & RADFORD. Monthly: 2 00 per annum. We understand this is the first medical journal published west of the Mississippi. It is devoted to the medical and surgical reports of the St. Louis Hospital, interesting cases in private practice, original essays, concise reviews of new medical works, and selections from medical journals; and is published under the belief it will contribute to the advancement of science and humanity. Among the contributors, we notice the names of the editor, Professors Hall and Prather, and Doctors Fourgeaud, Brown, Reyburn, H. Lane, Adreon, and Hocken. The article on Auscultation, in relation to women and children, translated from the French by Dr. Fourgeaud, is the longest contribution, and we presume the most important. It evinces an intimate acquaintance with the subject, and an ability on the part of the translator, that we hope will be frequently employed in presenting to the public translations of valuable scientific papers. The meteorological observations, by Dr. B. B. Brown, must give the work a circulation among men of science, generally, as well as in the medical profession. It undoubtedly deserves liberal patronage. FULFILMENT OF PROPHECY-THE CHURCH. THE Confident announcement of the approaching end of the world, which forms a prominent feature of what is called "Millerism," excited no little attention during the last few months. While the sober-minded part of the population — including all the Catholics disregarded it as the result of fanaticism or imposture, it awakened very serious apprehensions in the minds even of many who cannot be considered as having adopted it; and those who have attached themselves to the new denomination, have a conviction of its truth, that has, in many instances, led to the most disastrous results. For our parts, we cannot conceive how any rational man can refuse to recognize in this extraordinary fact, a striking proof of the necessity of having some certain authority to guide men in religion. It is to no purpose to say, that Miller's interpretation of the prophecies, to which he so confidently refers, is absurd, and his calculations erroneous; for, however true this is in itself, it would be no very easy matter to persuade either him or his adherents that such is the case. Besides, those who oppose him, supply the very basis on which his calculation is founded; and the operations by which Mr. Miller has arrived at his conclusion, are just as rational as those by which his adversaries have drawn other consequences, not a whit less absurd than his favourite theory. From the beginning of the unhappy schism of the sixteenth century, miscalled "the Reformation," up to the present moment, the prophetic writings of the Old and New Testament have proved a rich mine, from which brainless zealots and learned enthusiasts have dug out theories, and constructed systems, in which not only the extinction of Catholicism, under the polite appellation of "Popery," held a prominent place; but, connected with this event, the end of the world, and commencement of the millenium, were confidently anticipated. How often has not the very year been pointed out, in which all this was to take place; and how often has not the prophet lived to witness the non-fulfilment of his prediction! And yet the mistakes and disappointments of the past have not checked the growth of seers among us, and that for a very obvious reason. The principle from which all these various vagaries sprung is yet maintained; and according to the different temperament of those who act on it, will never fail to lead either to incredulity of various degrees, or fanaticism of every conceivable or inconceivable description. We would wish to see a history of the human mind under the influence of this principle for any quarter of a century since the reformation; for we are satisfied that the best, and probably the only effectual, remedy for the evil will be found in the facts which have resulted from this erroneous principle, as undeniably as the fountain proceeds from the source by which it is fed. It is the property and privilege of truth to derive fresh strength from the efforts made to destroy it; and we are deeply impressed with the conviction that much good will result from all the religious absurdities of which, both to the east and to the west, the land is replete. Error being nothing more than truth disfigured, the arguments by which the former is sought to be maintained, are, for the most part, little else than misapplications of the principle by which the latter is established. Thus, there can be no doubt that the most glorious prophecies of the Old Testament have regard to the Messiah, and to the Church he was to establish on earth; but by a strange infatuation, some men seem to think that Christ either did not establish such a spiritual kingdom, or, if he did, that it was after some time destroyed, or, at least, withdrawn from human eyes; whereas, they defer to the time of his second coming, the fulfilment of those predictions which denote the stability of the society he was, according to the prophets, to form among men. This is a mode of interpretation forced on their minds by the unhappy persuasion in which they are, that the Church he founded did apostatize; that the society which claims to be that established by him, is a synagogue of Satan; and that its officers, who claim to derive their powers from those whom he sent to preach, are so many impersonations of that evil being, so familiar to their ears by the name of Antichrist. This is the true cause of all that misdirected zeal to interpret the prophecies so as to find in them a confirmation of the above theory; and which, by the absurdities it has produced, has gladdened the eye of impiety and reddened the cheek of modesty and faith. If, before looking out for the Pope in the man of sin, or the characteristics of the Catholic Church in the features of "the beast," these deluded people would quietly examine whether or not the great majority of the Christian world, or the most ancient Church in Christendom the scarlet lady of Babylon, they would probably find their success in deciphering the mysterious symbols of the prophets not quite so easy as they at present imagine; but their disappointment would be abundantly compensated for by the discovery, that they had unwittingly condemned those whom, perhaps, they would be now inclined to extol. But as the very prophecies which are so generally misunderstood, to the disadvantage of the Catholic Church, are among the most glorious of her titles to be regarded by men as the tabernacle of God with them, we have thought that it would not be without its utility, especially at the present moment, to give such an explanation of some of them, as may serve to undeceive those who have misconceived their meaning, and at the same time afford an argument for the truth of Catholicism, which, for many of our readers, may have the character of novelty. -- The second and seventh chapters of Daniel, and the seventeenth chapter of the Apocalypse, contain predictions which are generally supposed to relate to the the same events - the rise and fall of four great empires, and the establishment of the kingdom of Christ. We propose, then, to examine these three passages in as many distinct papers, in which we shall endeavour to shew that there is every probability that the true key to their interpretation is rather to be borrowed from the history of the past, than to be expected from the hopes or apprehensions of the future; and that, so far as they apply to the Catholic Church, she has nothing but triumph to expect from their legitimate application. But, lest it might be supposed that we were about to act on the principle we have already condemned in the preceding observations, by giving our own interpretations of the inspired predictions of Daniel and St. John, and claiming for them a preference over the systems of those from whom we dissent, we deem it necessary to state, at the very beginning of our inquiry, that we shall but repeat the language of some of the most distinguished writers of the Church, who lived more than a thousand years before the change of religion in the sixteenth century, and who, as they were removed from the discussions which at present divide the Christian world, cannot be suspected of any bias not resulting from devotion to truth. In the second chapter of Daniel, it is related that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had a dream, in which he beheld a great statue, the head of which was of gold, the breast and arms of silver, the middle part of brass, and the lower part of iron, mixed towards the extremities with clay. While looking on this extraordinary object, "a stone was cut of a mountain without hands, and it struck the statue upon the feet thereof, that were of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. The stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth." This is a summary of the description of the king's vision given by Daniel, as found in the twenty-ninth and thirty-fifth verses of the second chapter of his prophecy. In the thirty-sixth verse, he commences the interpretation of the mysterious vision, which continues down to the forty-fifth verse. The great statue composed of such various materials, is declared to denote four great kingdoms; which are generally believed to be the Assyrian, over which Nebuchadnezzar then reigned; the Persian, which succeeded it; the Grecian power, which destroyed the Persian empire; and the Roman, which swallowed up the Grecian empire of Alexander and his successors. Some interpreters understand the fourth kingdom to be the various dynasties founded by the successors of Alexander, out of the vast dominions which he had acquired; but this opinion is not the one generally received, and is liable to very serious objections. After having thus described the great statue, the prophet continues to shew, what is to be understood by the catastrophe by which it was to be destroyed. His words are" But in the days of those kingdoms, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed and his kingdom shall not be delivered up to another people, and it shall break in pieces, and shall consume all these kingdoms, and itself shall stand for ever. According as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and broke in pieces the clay and the iron, and the brass and the silver and the gold, the great God hath shewn the king what shall come to pass hereafter." A Catholic finds no difficulty in applying this remarkable prophecy. Following the interpretation of the greatest biblical scholar of Christian antiquity, St. Jerome, he sees in the four kingdoms, symbolized by the great statue, the power of man, as exhibited in the four great monarchies of antiquity already enumerated. Great as was this power, it was to pass away like all the works of man. To this highest exhibition of human courage, energy, and wisdom, God was to oppose a kingdom which he himself was to found, which, small and insignificant in its beginning, was to destroy the kingdoms of earth, was to acquire universal dominion, and was never to be destroyed. This kingdom was to be spiritual, because such a kingdom would be alone worthy of God, and because it was to be the kingdom of the Messiah, which he himself has taught us "is not of this world." The Church which Christ established is, then, the kingdom of which the prophet Daniel speaks. Weak and insignificant in its origin its founder, the crucified Jesus its preachers, a few poor illiterate fishermen - its members, for the most part, taken from the poor, the ignoble, and the unwise of this world—it is evidently the little stone cut from a mountain without hands; for, to all human appearance, no adequate cause can be discovered for its starting into existence. Did it not struggle with the colossal power of the world? What else can be called that contest between the Roman empire and the Church of Christ, during which the blood of eleven - million Christian martyrs flowed, who, like their Divine Master, for dying, overcame the power that appeared to crush them? How often did not the Roman emperors raise monuments to commemorate the victories by which they vainly boasted to have extinguished the religion of Christ! What was the result? We shall relate it in the words of a modern writer, whose testimony may derive some additional weight with our protestant readers, from the fact that he does not belong to the Church whose triumph he so eloquently describes. -"'Twas the solemnest epoch in the life-time of man - that, when the civilization of two thousand years, unionized into one gigantic fabric by the power of Rome, so that the whole trust and worth of nations was by compulsion made to rest thereon, began visibly to break down. 'Twas the sultriest hour of time. The sweat-drops of terror fell, and made echo in their fall. The loosing of the chariot-steeds of barbarism was heard afar, and men knew not what it meant, for they had never heard the like before. Vague feelings of their helplessness and danger vague forebodings of unknown evils, overcast their sapless hearts. They had time to fly. but whither? They had hands and brains, but the hands were nerveless, and the formidable pilum, which had subdued the world, dropt from them'. the brains were crammed full of controversial logic, so that there was no room in them for manly thoughts. Men had been bent and bowed for centuries to believe the lie, that one arch of power is enough for all Mankind that it is safest and best for many nations to trust all to one. All rivalry or competition was not only dead, but it was a thing forgotten: it had come to be a rude, uncivilized, unenlightened thing. There stood but one world-spanning arch but one only tolerated or known bridge over anarchy. . . Downward it totters crumbling down, with its multitudinous load. They sink wailing; sink with whatever they possess of valuables valuables as they called them; and doubtless dragging with them much also of true value into the unwritten grave. Yet is not all lost. Christianity remained a refuge for the drowning civilization of antiquity. The Church sank not. Since the unannalled days of the first flood, when the primitive science, art, and knowledge of mankind were destroyed, there had been nought within comparison so appalling to this unsheltered world as this Scythian tide; and, as in the elder tempest, there was no salvation but in an ark of safety of no human providence or contriving. The Church alone outrode the storm. When its surging crest of ruin rose most high, the cross rose with it, and above it still.' The barbarians embraced Christianity; and when the vanquished felt that between them and their conquerors there was one tie that of a common faiththey said within themselves, surely the bitterness of death is passed.' It was the Church that saved whatever could be rescued from the universal wreck in her sanctuary were preserved for subsiding times, the laws, and a few hastily snatched up records of a drowned antiquity. On, on, with force as if forever, the gush of Scythia and Burgundia roars. All political power is overwhelmed in its weltering wave. The Church alone sinks not. It alone presumes to beard and to reprove to rebuke and to restrain its rage. Immortal faith saves human hope from dying. All this is assuredly no scoffing matter. Sceptic sarcastic Gibbon was no man to write its history: when next it shall be written, pray that it fall into far different hands. Can we imagine anything so crushing of all hope of progress, as the state of things that would have been, had antiquity been entirely lost? Can we conceive a more exalting proof of a superintending wisdom in the affairs of men, than the provision whereby religion was made to guard that perilled treasure? Let us recollect, that had the Christian era fallen five centuries later, no common ground of 6 |