the great men of your country, for instance M

what will you be able to do for their canonization ?" It was most probable, I replied, that we should send them to Rome.

The provincial is a vigorous, intelligent-looking man, of middle age and dark complexion; he wore the black cloth closely-fitting gown, or rather cassock of his order, which contrasts characteristically with the looser attire of the Benedictines, and seems to intimate their perpetual readiness for any enterprise and dispatch in any quarter of the globe at a moment's notice, while the Benedictines have a more quiescent and studious air in their costume and appearance. I observed in his apartment a small faldstool, or prie-Dieu, with a cushion at its feet, for purposes of private prayer and meditation. In the garden were several younger members of the order, walking about one by one in their religious dress, whose dark and ascetic countenance and figures struck me particularly, and the more so after the life and bustle of the Parisian streets.

Walked thence to the Pantheon, which, in interior at least, is a more noble building even than the Madeleine. Alas! that by its cruciform shape it should record that it was once a church, and that now with its bare walls and desolate vacancy, and by the removal of the cross that once crowned its cupola,

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* This was taken down, and a tricolor flag put in its place, which was blown down by the wind, and has not been restored.

it should declare that it has renounced Christianity! and yet, that having so done, it should still be considered by the French nation as a worthy Mausoleum for those whom the national voice delighteth to honour! Alas, that this edifice, which has been compelled to apostatize from a Christian Church into a pagan temple, and which does not even merit its name of Pantheon, for it is a temple rather of no god than of all the gods, should be thought a suitable place for the interment of the departed intellectual, civil, and military heroes of this great country! Alas, also, that among them should be enshrined, in the silent chambers of the dead, beneath this magnificent fabric, and should be honoured with the most distinguished homage of national panegyric as benefactors of France and of the world, the two infidel Philosophers of Ferney and of Geneva! But to return-after visiting the Pantheon we called on our friend M. B, whom we found at home. He showed us a book he had just received from Ireland, being Mr. Cooper's Lectures recently delivered in Dublin, "On the Slavery and Erastianism of the Anglican Church." I asked him what he thought of the Church in France, and of its relations to the State? He replied, that no doubt at present it was in a condition of bondage, but he looked forward to a more favourable era. He said that "the French Church had been made subservient to secular purposes by Louis XIV., that the Ecclesiastics of that period were

of a very obsequious character, and not remarkable for spirituality or virtue, but that now the dissolution of its State connection promised to give the Church more independence, and to augment its religious energy and usefulness."

Whether this result in either of the respects here noticed will ensue is still to be seen. With respect to the former of the two points, viz. the dependent and paralyzed condition of the Church, it may be observed, that it is entirely destitute of any means of synodical deliberation or expression; that no meetings for Church purposes can take place, that even a document signed by five prelates concerning National Education, and forwarded by them to a minister of the Crown, was very recently stigmatized by the minister as an infraction of the law! that the obsolete enactments of revolutionary times are now revived against the Church, as, for instance, the ordonnance against religious orders, which has just been carried into effect against the Carmelites at Tulle, without any previous notification to the Bishop; that the French Bishops cannot correspond with the Bishop of Rome except through the medium of the State ; that the French Church has no churches for her worship, nor parsonage-houses for her ministers, nor cemeteries for her dead, for these all belong to the civil powers!-that she has no schools for her children, nor asylums for her orphans and widows, 5 See note to p. 46, at end.

nor hospitals for her sick and aged, for these are under State control! and thus, though separated from the State, she is under the most degrading subjection to it.

Hence it is that the clergy find themselves in a state of direct opposition to the Government', a condition of things which, instead of rendering them less of politicians and more devoted to their spiritual and pastoral duties, has involved them in the warfare of political controversy. The Bishops not being allowed to address the Crown or the Legislature by any official organs of their own (and there are no Bishops in the Chamber of Peers, nor ecclesiastics in the Chamber of Deputies), this I say being the case, the prelates of the Church appear now in public almost daily, one by one pouring out through the public press violent invectives against the ruling powers; and thus the inferior clergy are brought into the political arena, either in support of their Bishops or else in opposition to them; as, for instance, the Abbé Thions, in his letter just published against his diocesan, the Bishop of Autûn, on the subject of

See Note to p. 47, at end.

7 L'opposition ne se fait pas contre le gouvernement, mais contre les empiètements sur le domaine de la liberté religieuse, ou ses tentatives contre l'indépendance de l'Eglise.

• Il est inexact de dire que le clergé a fait de l'opposition. Le clergé s'est unanimement rangé du côté des évêques. L'Abbé Thions ne saurait représenter la plus petite fraction du clergé, puisqu'il n'a pas rencontré un seul adhérent.

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national education. The parochial clergy, who are all nominated by their Bishops, and a large proportion of whom (that is, the desservants, or incumbents of the parishes called succursales, which resemble other parishes except in the inferiority of the stipend and in the amovibilité of their incumbents,) are amovibles at the will of their diocesans, are, however, whether moveable or immoveable, almost all unanimous in support of their episcopal superiors.

It is not the object of this journal to refer by any direct application or parallel to the warnings which this state of things reads to us in England, but they are too striking and too numerous not to excite the most profound sentiments of gratitude on one hand to Divine Providence, and on the other apprehension as far as respects human agency, in the mind of every Englishman who contemplates with seriousness the condition of public affairs with respect to Education and the Church, first in this country, and then in his own, One of the greatest blessings which it has pleased Divine Providence to confer upon England is, that it has placed before her for her warning the example of France.

I inquired of my friend M. Gondon whether the Pope had recently exercised his veto on the royal nomination of Bishops in France. He replied that there occurred a very notable case a little while ago

See Note to p. 48, at end,