stipulated. The Belgians rejected the project by a great majority. After that, is it not strange, that although this common accord did not take place, the Belgians were nevertheless forced to accept this new constitution, which avowed no Religion? it acknowledged only opinions and Religious communities; the name even of religion is not once found in the new constitution of the kingdom of the Low Countries, now, the only country in Europe in which no Religion is recognized for the State. What also singularly affects me is, that distinguished members of parliament lately said in their place, and nobody contradicted them, that we had given a constitution to Holland. Can it be possible that our country, which prides itself in its wisdom and justice, could have produced so senseless a constitution, and that it could applaud, if it did not contribute to so manifest a violation of the most sacred principles, and see with indifference a people thus yoked, whilst it is proclaiming the freedom of the negroes and slaves? Ah, Sir, ought we not, without ceasing, to repeat that fine prayer which the Church lately addressed to God? 66 Grant, we beseech thee, O Lord! that the world, with regard to us, may be governed in peace by thy provi dence, and thy Church pay her devotions to thee in tranquillity*"

What can we expect from men, when we read, in a discourse put in the mouth of the new king on the 21st September, on the day of his coronation, when he had assembled round his throne the states-general chosen from all the provinces of the Low Countries, that he would fulfil one of the most ardent wishes of his heart? What would one say at a great feast, on hearing the master of it exclaim, whilst raising the cup to put his guests in train, that he was at the height of his wishes; that at the very moment of this exhilerating exclamation the cups of the majority of his guests were full of dregs or puddle? The comparison of course is not to be admired for its elevation; but what was the meaning of this mob of pretended deputies of the Belgian provinces? These provinces, have they accepted the Belgian constitution? It was also said then, "That Charles V. was convinced that the Low Countries, to be happy and independent, ought not only to obey one sovereign, but "to be governed by the same general laws; and that thus thought his Elève William." It may easily be imagined, if Charles V. had been present, how he would have repulsed this association, and how many proofs, he would have shewn of the vices of such a connection. The continuation of the discourse expressed, that a sadness flowed from the separation of those provinces; to which, it added, they were forced to submit ; * Collect of IV. Sunday after Pentecost.

but the august orator was careful to conceal, that this necessity was reciprocally produced by the revolt of the Calvinists and the ambition of the Elève William, so faithful, and, above all, so grateful, whose only desire was, to put himself in the place of

his master.

Charles V. was desirous that all the Low Countries, of which he was the only and lawful master, should be governed by the same general laws; but as he governed his people paternally, and as he had only in view to render them happy; seeing that each province held so strongly to its own constitution, that it would never change it for any other of the neighbouring ones; and that if he persisted in putting his project into execution, he would have produced universal unhappiness instead of the universal happiness he had promised to them, he preferred to renounce his plan. The Elève William, on the contrary, desires nothing so much as to render these fine provinces the accomplices of his apostacy and revolt, and to found on their accompliceship a title for his usurpation. I cannot conceive how that orator could flatter himself that the Belgians should be grateful to the Elève William for his zeal for that re-union; he must have imagined that those to whom he thus addressed himself were very ignorant or very stupid. I will endeavour by the following fact in illustration to make myself better understood. Who is it that does not know what Spain has just done to extricate itself from the yoke of Napoleon, and the succours which England bestowed so nobly to enable it to free itself. Well then! if the day should come that some descendant of Bonaparte would obtain rank among great powers (after what we have seen and still see, nothing appears impossible) and that after a new revolution in Europe, a new Congress of Vienna should decide that the re-union of France and Spain' ought to be intimate and complete under the descendant of Bonaparte, so that the two countries forming but one State, should be governed by the constitution already established in France, excepting with some modifications according to circumstances. How do you believe that they would receive this discourse of the descendant of Bonaparte, which said: "Louis' XIV. head of the Bourbons, desired that Spain and France not only should obey one sovereign, but that it should be governed by the same general laws: so determined the Elève of the Bourbons, Bonaparte?" One may well believe, without fear of being deceived, that not a single Spaniard, nor an Englishman, (all national prejudice apart) who would not revolt at such an association. Now can that of the Emperor Charles V. and his Elève William, be less revolting, if all circumstances are weighed ? and ought it not even to be still more so to the Belgians, who

combated more than sixty years to escape the re-union of their provinces with Holland, who having been reared in their attachment for the Religion of their fathers and their institutions, a wall of separation that the Pyrenees could never have surpassed in strength or duration, but for the fatality of circumstances?

Ought not this question to surprise every informed reader: "At what epoch did they best feel the melancholy effects of that separation? and what generation more than our own have been the witness and the victim ?" Certainly there is not a Belgian that cannot in his turn demand, who is in the fault? and reply immediately, the slowness of the deliberations of the counsellors of the republic; the bad composition of the Dutch army, so badly organized, that, notwithstanding its prince's bra ery, it had neither cavalry nor infantry proportioned to its territory or the extents of its wants, as was then proved by a friend. of your nation, a French colonel at the Hague, &c. The Belgian Catholics had sufficiently shewn that they knew how to defend themselves, and to dislodge the enemy from their territory, whenever they were at liberty to employ their forces.

But who would have thought that this eulogy, given without distinction to both people, to whom are attributed the same respect to the customs and institutions of their fathers, when they know that the Dutch were deserters from their Religion? The attachment of the Belgians to the religion, customs, and institutions of their ancestors, placed them in direct opposi tion to the Dutch, since they always made it their study and their glory to preserve them, without ever sparing for these objects, so dear to their hearts, either their treasures or their blood and how little to the purpose is it therefore to terminate by an appeal to the love of liberty and of the institutions that protect it, a discourse in which, may it not be said, that the seal is put to a constitution that deprives two-thirds of his subjects of their liberty, and of those institutions that protect it?

I will add only a few words respecting the reply of the Count de T*** to the discourse of the new King. We are all surprised to hear this Deputy President-Catholic; we are even scandalized at being reminded as of a glorious fact to Holland, that it conquered its independence under Philip II. that conquest being necessarily connected with its apostacy. He adds, that the Catholic provinces "obtained under the same king the preservation of their laws and usages to which they attached their happiness." He was on his guard not to remark his own efforts for this preservation in the reign of Joseph II. He judged, without doubt, that the contrast would be too striking, if he mentioned the Count de T***, Colonel of the Patriots, fighting

against the sovereign of Belgium for the maintenance of the laws and usages of the province, and the Count de T***, orator under the new king, proclaiming the happiness of these same provinces, even at the moment when they had with the greatest solemnity, cast under their feet their laws and usages.. Desirous of being further heard on this subject, I purpose to return to it again when I may have more leisure and you more room for the insertion. I am, &c.

The EDITOR, to the AUTHOR of the preceding Article.

Sir,

A.

The interest and the knowledge your communication shows you to possess in the Catholic affairs of the Low Countries, entitles it, I conceive, to the most respectful consideration of every friend to ancient Catholic institutions. I am, however, doubtful if any useful result can arise from deploring the ill use made of the reunion of Holland with Flanders; a reunion thus affected did not court the cordial consent of a people who fully appreciate the value of their cherished institutions, and the eye upon them of the people to whom they are now united, under auspices so imperative and imposing, that in all human appearance nothing but the fiat of Omnipotence can remedy or assuage the evils you complain of.

The Christian philosopher may truly define the rights and limits of liberty, of sovereigns, of subjects, of religion, and of humanity; but it is only he who can inspire hope or fear, that can enforce or insinuate the practice of wise and just opinions in the cold-hearted politician; and every man, impressed as you are with genuine Catholic feelings, must be satisfied, that when power is so fully possessed over the fate of the Catholic pro vinces, as it is by their present government, it is hardly of any use to endeavour to excite shame, by exposing the means employed, or the ends proposed. The virtuous Belgians, I trust, will profit by their humility and patience in their adversities. They will find, in a Christian resignation to the divine will, under evils which they did not invite, could not prevent, and perhaps cannot remedy, a resource of consolation, and I may add of physical strength too; for

"He that dwelleth in the aid of the Most High shall abide under the protection of the God of heaven."

I much regret that recent events in Belgium but too well confirm and illustrate the apprehensions you so justly entertain; for on the 10th of May last a royal ordinance was there published, in which the sovereign maintains the principal acts of Bonaparte in regard to the affairs of the Church, including even the organic articles added to the Concordat, although the

Sovereign Pontiff had so often remonstrated against this addition, made without his participation. The King insists also on the necessity, as Napoleon did, of repressing the abuses which ecclesiastics may be guilty of in the exercise of their functions; but he says nothing, as the Journal shrewdly remarks from which I obtained this information, on the necessity of repressing the abuses of which they may be guilty towards the clergy in the exercise of their functions: this we are to hope will be the object of another law, that will not be less necessary than the first, at a time, continues the Journalist, when the civil power tends so strongly, in many places, to hold the priesthood under the yoke. The new ordinance wills that the Catholic Clergy demand authorizations and permissions, as they were forced to do under Bonaparte. This ordinance is expressed in a singular style; it speaks of worship, and never of religion.

The Bishop of Namur thought it his duty to address representations to his Sovereign on the text and spirit of the royal ordinance, and has received from the Director General of the Department of Catholic Worship, an answer, of which a translation will be found in page 39 of this Magazine, under the head of Ecclesiastical Intelligence, as well as the brief but acute remark of the French Journalist, to whom we are indebted for the article. The continuance of your favours will oblige,

Sir, yours, &c.

EDITOR.

The present State of the CATHOLIC QUESTION. BY the late Debates on the Catholic Petitions, it is apparent that the time is at hand when the boon that has been so long and importunately solicited, will at length be conceded, provided the petitioners, to satisfy the distrust of the donors, give the hostages required for the good conduct of themselves and descendants to the latest posterity. Of the nature of these hostages and securities, enough has been repeatedly said, to prove, that what is demanded of the Catholics is of a spiritual nature, and what the Catholics petition for is altogether temporal. it then to be wondered at, that those who have at the baptismal font vowed to despise the pomps and vanities of, at best, a chequered and transient life, should shudder at a proposal which, in the golden language of a learned and pious Prelate,

Is

"Imposes new and disgraceful bands, not indeed on the sacred person of their Redeemer, but on his mystical body; that is his Church, which was ever dearer to him than his life. Does not," continues Abp. M. "St. Paul assure us, that for this mystical body he delivered himself up....that he might present it to himself, a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle....but that it should be holy and without blemish? And could we suppose, that it'