RELIGION IN SOCIETY, OR THE SOLUTION OF GREAT PROBLEMS, PLACED WITHIN THE REACH OF EVERY MIND. Antoine TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF THE ABBE MARTINET. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THE MOST REV. JOHN HUGHES, D. D. ARCHBISHOP OF NEW YORK. FOURTH EDITION. VOL. I. NEW-YORK: D. & J. SADLIER, & CO., 161 WILLIAM STREET. BOSTON-128 FEDERAL-STREET. MONTREAL, C. E: CORNER OF NOTRE DAME AND ST. FRANCIS XAVIER STREETS. Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1850, By D. & J. SADLIER, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the VINCENT L. DILL, Stereotyper, INTRODUCTION BY THE MOST REV. JOHN HUGHES, D.D. ARCHBISHOP OF NEW YORK. THE work of which these volumes are a translation has been very extensively read and much spoken of in France, where it was first published. It passes under review a great variety of interesting topics, bearing on Religion and Society, which the author has arranged in an appropriate order, and discussed with more than ordinary tact and ability. His labors in the Catholic cause are not unworthy of being placed next to those of Mochler and Balmez. It has not, indeed, the metaphysical depth of the one, nor yet the tranquil scientific spirit and arrangement of the other. But for the masses, as a popular manual against the discordant but numerous errors of the day, it is perhaps superior to either. It bears in the original the stamp of French national genius, which will not take away from its interest in the translation. No country in Europe has exhibited so desperate and protracted a struggle between truth and error, as that which has been going on in France with almost unabated earnestness during the last seventy-five or eighty years. In no other country have errors of almost every description found such able and enthusiastic advocates. But on the other hand, no nation beside has furnished, during the same period, so brilliant an array of great and glorious men engaged in the defence of truth. Every error whether against faith or morals, against society or humanity has been taken up as soon as broached, examined, exposed and triumphantly refuted. Whoever has paid any attention to the more recent wanderings of |