The Throne of the Fisherman. By Thomas W. Allies. (Burns
and Oates.)—It is beyond our province to discuss the great question which Mr. Allies deals with in this volume. He sees in the supremacy of the Pope "the root, the bond, and the crown of Christendom," and he devotes himself to showing how this supremacy was brought out, and what benefits it conferred on the Church and the world, the reign of Leo the Great being the limit of the survey. He begins, on the other hand, after a rapid survey of the earlier period, with the Council of Nicma. This is doubtless the most important time in the development of the Papacy. But the controversial difficulties chiefly concern an earlier time. The primary assumption of the Com- mission to St. Peter, on which the whole edifice is founded, is denied by many controversialists, at least as bearing this significance. Even the Roman Episcopate of Peter has been doubted with some reason. On Mr. Allies's argument we shall make but one critioism,— that the references are not sufficiently oontinnone. "In one of his letters, St. Augustine speaks of the Principate which has always existed in the Apostolic See." Surely we ought to be able to verify so important a statement.
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