Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 352, 16 January 1880, Page 1

Current Topics

AT ROME AND ABROAD,

In writing a note last week on the condition of Ireland, we remarked that the persuasion of the English masses as to the hostility towards England of Irit hmen," me ins much resorted to for the sup-

The Daily Times ON

port and continuance of a harsh and unjust Government," was likely to be kept alive by any pretence that might offer. We did not, indeed, foresee at the time that we should so soon find an illustration of the justice of our remarks ; but, still, we were not surprised to Eec such an illustration afforded immediately in the leading columns of our contemporary the Otago Daily Times. Our contemporary takes as his text the riots at Timaru and Ohristchurch, which he combines with one that took place the other day at Connemara, whence it is repoited that a number of poor [men, flung out in the midst of an inclement winter on the shelterless mountain-side, turned for a moment on the hand that was dealing death to them, their aged, their sick, and their helpless little ones, and dared 'assert their manhood by offering resistance.— Alas lan impotent but harmful resistance. Hence our contemporary concludes that Irishmen in general are never " entirely amenable to the law." This, we affirm, is an apt illustration of the fact to which we alluded in our last week's issue. These thoughtless riots of a few, deplored by'the many in New Zealand ; this onslaught of desperate men, already heavily suffering and goaded beyond endurance in Ireland, furnishes full proof that the Irish nation are incapable of managing their own affairs, and so the matter goes. We are treated to a long anti-Irish tirade of no particular sense or meaning, but which may serve as an example of the stuff that taken en masse supports, and has for centuries supported, the cruel treatment of Ireland by the English Government. There is an old story told of a certain organist, to whom, one day on the termination of a very fine performance, the bellows-blowpr remarked, '• We played that splendidly." The musician was enraged, and in no measured terms rebuked his subordinate for including himself in the honours won. But the blower had his revenge ; when next the organist sat down to the instrument not a puff of wind would he supply to his needs, and he resolutely refused to ply the bellows until his importance had been duly recognised. The part borne by the illinformed masses, including such journals as the Daily Times, towards the policy of the English Government in Ireland reminds us of the old story. The Government, indeed, are capable of working out their undertaking in a masterly manner, but at the same time they need the support of all the winds of boobydom.

Protestant akd Atheist.

We were much struck a little time ago, when reading certain details of criminal life, to find that the phenomena attendant upon Atheism were closely similar to those accompanying Protestantism. The Protestant masses of England, in a word, display a singular tendency towards vicious practices that prevail amongst the Atheist masses of the French cities. We say we were struck by this fact, but we were not surprised at it, because it has long been our settled conviction that Protestantism has arisen from the same root from which modern Atheism has sprung, and we may naturally expect kindred trees to display a similarity in their f rails, altho' the tree of fuller growth may bear the richer fruit. But, although M. Victor Hugo had a little time ago addressed a Calvinist minister as his brother gin religion, 31. Hugo continuing to cherish his advanced creed, we Jhad hardly expected to find the relationship between Protestantism and Atheism so clearly and boldly expressed as we find it to have been expressed, in November last, by M. Jules Ferry when addressing the represpntatives of "Evangelical" tenets at Paris. M. Ferry, speaking at the opening of the Protestant Theological Faculty, delivered himself as follows:— " Between the State and you, however, how could there be disagreement ? Protestantism has been in modern bistoiy the first form of liberty. Our political gospel is also yours. The Uevolution of 1789, of which our Eepublic is the logical development and necessary conclusion, was partly effected for you. It is the date of your definitive

emancipation. We greet you, therefore, as a friendly power, as a necessary ally, who will not be wanting either to the Republic or to liberty. You may count upon us as we count upon you, sure of meeting from us at a 1 times not merely justice but profound sympathy." Such then s the excellent understanding that prevails between the two great opponents of the Church— Protestantism the parent, and Atheism the offspring ; hand-in-hand they are ready to prosecute the war. Surely Satan, as cunning as of yore, still refuses to sanction the division that must result in the fall of bis Kingdom,

Me. Gladstone and Italy.

Mr. Gladstone -we are told baa been half done to i death by kindness. A correspondent of the Scotsman writes :— " Mr. Gladstone is the hero of the hour in Italy. The leading Italian statesmen hare gone to Venice to visit him, and the minor notabilities of the ' Queen of the Adriatic ' make many inroads on his time, which he would rather devote to the treasures in the library of St. Mark, and in the Academia Belle Arti. The Press (except, of course, the Vatican journals, which cannot bear the mention of his name calmly), overflows with expressions of admiration and goodwill for him. Moderate Radicals and Republicans lay their differences aside in a common welcome to one of the most effective promoters of Italian unity." And well may the "Vatican journals" call out upon the name of whoever it is that is recognised as a chief promoter of Italian unity, considering what it is that that unity has produced. We last week published in our columns the quotation of its list of killed and wounded— 4,ooo of the one 20,000 of the other for one year only, and besides this its f vuits have been public bankruptcies, enormous losses, famine, disease, brigandage, and crime of many kinds. Under its existence the appetite of the people has become depraved. In Borne the other day, for example, there was heard in the law courts a case of exceptional brutality. Its chief feature was a murder, but circumstances of the utmost beastliness were attendant on it, and the degraded people who now occupy the capital of Christendom thronged the court to drink in all the revolting details that were brought forward. A woman, named Antonietta Carrozza, an, accomplice in all the horrors revealed was discharged, and returned at once to her occupation in a circus where she performed on horseback. She was a poor performer, smd on ordinary occasions could draw but few spectators ; now, however, the city crowded to see her Ex- Ministers, Senators, Deputies, Magistrates, men of all positions and countless women thronged to see her, because she had been made a heroine by her participation in bloodshed and filth unspeakable Such are the fruits of Italian unity, of which if Mr. Gladstone has been a chief promoter, it is a blot on his name that time can never efface. Italy, then, is sunk deep in the mire of degradation, but still there is alive in her bosom the spark that yet may, and we believe will, burst up into a flame>right and strong to cleanse her from all impurities. The following passages, albeit, from the flippant pen of M. Emile OlKvier, a nominal Catholic of the Third Empire, will explain our hope : " The Italian even when he loses his faith keeps his superstition. |The noisiest sceptic is by no means sure there is not a hell ; ohi hsa? he must be prepared for whatever may happen. The fieriest enemies of the Papacy are confessed and anointed at the last moment, and die covered with scapulars and rosaries. One of Cavour's anxieties when he began the contest with Rome, was to make sure of the capuchin who absolved him ; Victor Emmanuel would not die a heretic ; and I am aot at all sure that Garibaldi— if they allow a priest to come to his dying bed— will not behave to him as he behaved to the ' million ' which he so long declined, and end by accepting the favours of Holy Church. A nation like this will never let the Papacy perish— tne Papacy which belongs to Italy more than to any other people ; and if strangers keep away from interfering the Italians will free the Papacy." The faith of a Catholic nation then is not a thing to be lightly discarded. However they rebel it will assert its empire ; but we can understand their degradation when we find they are fighting with their eyes open against the truth : what may not be expected from men like thia f Nevertheless their faith is not altogether the faith of devils ; it is not without hope. It may have become so obscured as to allow of ite being called— shamefully called by one who claims for himself the name of Catholic— a "superstition," but siuce God has permit^d o€

their still holding it, despite all their rebellion, there are grounds to believe that the time is approaching, probably after they have suffered long and terribly, when it will once more be obeyed as it was in happier times.

Schools in the Middle Ages.

Chaucbb, then, it would appear, was not altogether drawing on the poetic, imagination possessed oy him when he spoke of a little mediaeval primary school — " a litel scole of Cristen folk." Such schools were common in the middle ages, and multitudes of children frequented them to learn the simple learning taught there,— " That is to say, to sin gen and to rede." That admirable champion of Catholicism, De Montalembert, has, indeed* fully established this, and we lately gave quotations from, one of • his posthumous volumes, in which the matter is placed beyond doubtBut since the subject is one continually harped upon by those who accuse the Church of having favoured ignorance, we think it is never out of place to give prominence to the testimony that may be advanced against their assertions. We arc pleased, therefore, to find in the Revue des Deux JMondes, of November Ist, an article bearing on this topic, and we hasten to publish quotations from it. The writer is M. Brtmetiere, who contributes the JRevve Literalre, and he writes to the following effect :— lt was M. Leopold Delisle who, some thirty years ago, proved that primary instruction, at least in Normandy, had been much more widely spread than it was supposed, and that in the thirteenth century, during the legendary night of the middle age, humble lights had shone in our country parts. In these country schools, doubtless, religious instruction held the first place, but grammar was also certainly taught, and while clerks destined for the priesthood were above all formed there, a certain number of peasants were initiated into the art of reading and writing. Fresh researches made by M. de Robillard de Beaurepaire have, for the diocese of Rouen, confirmed and even extended in a remarkable manner the conclusions of M. Delisle. Finally M. Simeon Luce, in his history of Bertrand dv Guesclin, has found himself in a position to affirm, upon new grounds and with respect to another province that in the Thirteenth Century there was scarcely a rural district that did not own its school. This satisfactory state of things was interrupted by the hundred years of war commenced under Philippe de Valois. One hundred years of war kept up altogether on French soil changed the face of many things. There is no room for astonishment that the education of the people was no more thought of in a kingdom completely occupied by the English. There would be as good cause to be astonished that the revolutionary assemblies had done almost nothing for primary instruction except lay down rules concerning it. Still under the kings of the House of Valois the falling off was not so great but that traces may be discovered of the value set upon teaching. When, for example, a corporation was granted to any town, the right was reserved to the consuls of appointing schoolmasters. There were, then, schoolmasters ; the retrogression was not so great as that the country should forget the benefits of instruction. In 1492 in a Norman village of 350 inhabitants provision was made that the guardians of a certain Marian Boucher who had lost her father, should keep her at school for three years, and provide her with the necessary books. The education even of girls then was looked to. Tt is not to be denied that a gap occurs in the history of primary instruction ; but if to the hundred years war be added the last feudal wars and those of religion, it will easily be understood that we must wait until the end of the sixteenth, or even the middle of the seventeenth, century to see instruction begin to arise from its ruins.

PRIMARY EDUCATION UNDER THE Ancien JRegime

It was not, however, with the object of. throwing light upon the state of education during the middle ages that M. Brunetiere's paper was written. Its design was to vindicate the ancien regime, and to show that under it primary instruction had not been so much neglected as it has for the most part b2en taken for granted. The writer continues, then— At the close of the disturbed period the impulse for the revival of instruction was given by the Church. The Council of Trent appointed that there ehould be attached to evciy church at least one master who should teach grammar gratuitously to clerks and other poor scholars. The primary object of this was evidently religions education and provision for the service of the altar. Not, indeed, as it has been maintained, that the '• spirit of tie Catholic clergy is entirely opposed to the progress of light and reason," and not that the Church has at any time neglected the cause of instruction, but because it was necessary to meet urw attacks by new tactics Luther had publicly said : ♦• I affirm that authoiity is bound to compel those submitted to it to send their children to school. Therefore, I take care, so far as it is possible for me, that every child of school age shall be sent to school by the magistiate." The Council followed Protestantism on its own territory, and turned its own arms against it. The historians of primary instruction will have to inquire on the other hand whether Prokfctanl countries followed the advice of Luthrr as faithfully, and

above all as promptly, as some people are pleased to say. They perhaps will find good reason for doubt concerning the matter. It would further be advisable for them to examine why Protestantism at its birth must needs adopt the cause of popular instruction as something urgent. This utterance of a reformer is recommended to their attention :—": — " The great majority received with warmth the doctrine that teaches that we are justified by faith, and by no means by good works, for which they felt no inclination whatever." It was needful to replace for the " great majority " by the discipline of the school, that discipline of good works which the famous doctrine of imputed righteousness had come to destroy. But let us admit that the intensions of everybody are above suspicion, and say at least if Protestantism imposed on itself the law of abundantly diffusing instruction, Catholicism followed the example thus given without delay. M. Brunetiere, however, seems to overlook the fact already stated by him that primary instruction had always been provided for by the Church. How, then, can he admrt that che Church in reviving the system of old supported by her, W^HW the cessation of war permitted, could possibly have been availing herself oE new tactics against any attacks or copying any example whatsoever 1 He then pursues the course of primary teaching in France. At the meeting of the States General of Orleans in 1568, the tiers etat demanded that provision should be made in every cathedral or collegiate church for the support of a teacher, who should instruct youth gratuitously. The nobility went even further ; they demanded not only gratuitous but obligatory instruction, and that the clergy should levy on the revenue of the benefices a contribution for the purpose o£ paying the salaries of schoolmasters and men of letters in all the towns and villages, and that fathers and mothers should be compelled, under penalty of fine, to send their children to school. Truly there is nothing new under the sun ! Who would have thought of looking back to the nobility of the anoien regime for the origin of primary education free and compulsory ? Three hundred years, howevei', have enabled us to improve upon the matter by the addition — or it perhaps may be subtraction— of all that is implied by the term secular. The demands made at Orleans in 1568 were repeated at Blois in 1576, and in 1588 the clergy asked that in every borough, and even in the villages, the bishops should appoint a schoolmaster, who should be paid a salary by the parishioners for the instruction of their children. Unfortunately, adds the writer, the civil contests of the time, complicated by foreign wars, made circumstances unfavourable for the realisation of such laudable intentions. And here, there opens a period when religious fervour underwent a revival. A period to be dwelt upon by the historians of the people, who shall not content themselves with chronicling date s and facts, but shall write the history of ideas, of religious and moral ideas above all, which is indeed the true history. For while the great actions of kings and statesmen occupied the foreground, a mighty generation was growing up to be the generation of the century of Louis XIV., and whose piety, it is tru?, knew every failing, but was on the whole and when all is weighs 1 so deeply sincere. It was then that those great congregations were founded, almost all of which gave themselves up to the task of teaching. Again during the eighteenth century we find the bishops working with all their strength for the establishment of primary schools. -"We exhort the cures said a bishop of Grenoble, "to apply themselves to the establishment, of primary schools by every means with which charity inspires them." The Bishop of Boulogne expressed himself thus : " Convinced as we are that nothing contributes more to form good Christians than the good education of children, we also believe that nothing merits more our attention and that of the cures than the establishment of schoolmasters. . . . We desire that there may be one in every parish of our diocese, who shall take care to keep a good school." The bishop of Dijon issued tho following order : "If there be in our diocese any parishes which are without a schoolmaster, we order the cures of the said parishes to see that one may be established there." Further, the synodal statutes of Toul and Chalons direct that those persons who desire to make foundations for the benefit of the Church shall be influenced to establish schools. Mention of such foundations is frequent ; sometimes they were made by noblemen, for example in 1660. Louis de Croix, Seigneur de Gourguemez, gives a sum of 28,000 florins for the support and instruction of twelve poor orphan boys. Sometimes they were made by priests : in 1686 Denis Francquet following up the work of Jean Lenglart, canon of Seclin, erects a girls' school in the same form as the boys' school established by the property of the latter. Sometimes they were the work of a female om the middle class : in 1688 Jeanne Eamery, a widow, left a house and yearly income by means of which might be maintained three devout maidens who thould receive poor girls of good character, and who were unable to pay for their schooling, up to the number of one hundred and fifty. Not to exaggerate, it must be allowed that the greater part of these foundations were rather charitable than scholastic. However, there is no doubt that there were taught in them reading, writing, and perhaps a little arithmetic, and, in the large towns, a trade. On the other hand, the inhabitants of the country understood the benefits of instruction, and were very welj

able themselves to transact their business. One of the first cares of an humble commune, free from debt and master of its income, was to obtain a schoolmaster, or to enter into an arrangement with the great teaching orders — the Oratorians and the Jesuits. Towards the middle of the Eighteenth Century they chose by preference the Christian Brothers. But to come to figures ; in 1789, the congregation of the Daughters of Providence directed 116 houses of instruction, which received 11,660 pupils. The Ursulines and the Daughters Of St. Vincent de Paul possessed more than 800 houses. The Christian Brothers had 120 houses with 36,000 pupils. Of 1,159 parishes of the diocese of Eouen, visited from 1713 to 1717, 855 possessed Communal schools. In 1788, of 446 communes, now forming the Department of the Aube, 420 had each its school. It is not, however, pretended that primary instruction was as widely spread under the ancien reginw as it is at present ; but the impulse had been given, J?ie utility of instruction had been recognised, even by royalty, even \, y the Church, and that quite as clearly as by the philosophers. Much remained to do, but much had already been done.

CERTAIN OPPONENTS OF PEIMAEY INSTBUCTIOIf.

Another fact brought to light by M. de Bronetiero and applied by him to the proof of the extension of primary instruction under the ancien rigime, is the opposition offered to the instruction of the people by certain of the apostles of progress, and others of evidently a "liberal" turn of mind. It was objected to by anonymous writers who show by the nature of their objections of what spirit they were possessed. One of these writers complains that no servant can any longer be hired who does not know how to read, write, and cipher ; that since all the children of the labouring class are becoming monks, or fitting themselves for other clerkly work, none remain to marry or cultivate the soil. This, says M. de Brunetiere proves that the schoolmasters actually taught something to the children of the labourers even though it might have been during the intervals between the riiging of the Angelus bell. Another of these writers complains of the multiplicity of public free schools spread throughout the kingdom rendering the sons of the agricultural classes unfit for anything but to swell the number of monks or of those unmarried candidates for office with whom France swarms. It has recently been advanced by a young deputy to the prejudice of Joseph de Maistre, that he had said, " I do not feel any need of having a valet who knows how to read." But others had said so before his time, and amongst them for example, La Chalotais, the famous enemy of the Jesuits, and Voltaire. Eecent publications show that La Chalotais is still celebrated for his "generous intentions" and "liberal spirit ;" nevertheless his " Essay on National Education" contains the following passage :—": — " Are there not too many writers, to» many academicians, too many colleges? There have never been bo many students even the people desires to study ; labourers, artisans, send their children to the colleges of the smaller towns, where living is so cheap," Then passing on from the Jesuits, whom he has just attacked, to the Christian Brothers, he remorselessly adds : " The Brothers have appeared on the scene to finish the matter ; they teach reading and writing to children who should only have learned to design, and to handle the plane and the file. The good of society demands that the knowledge of the people may not extend beyond the sphere of their occupations." Here is Joseph de Maistre surpassed — forty or fifty years before bis utterance escaped him — by the man who had originated the celebrated saying : "The State should bring up the children of the State." Kindred words have also emanated from Voltaire relating to the " canaille" the " ignorant beggars," and the necessity* in a well-ordered society, of maintaining the people grovelling in their ignorance and native abjection. He has, moreen er, spoken gratefully of La Chalotais for having forbidden study amongst the labouring classes, and declared that in cultivating his land he had need not of tonsured clerks but of hod-men. Diderot, indeed, was of a different opinion, but he acknowledges that the men of letters and the nobility disagreed with him — a nobility somewhat changed, we may remark, from that which in 1568 had demanded free and compulsory education for the people. We, however, learn that, while the cbuich sanctioned primary education, and encouraged it in many ways, the men of letters, the infidel writers of the Eighteenth Century, the apostles of progress, in most instances, ridiculed and condemned it- This view of the matter varies somewhat from that which has of kje passed current, but nevertheless it exhibits the true state of the case.

TOUCHING IEELAKD.

Br the San Francisco Mail, which arrived at Auckland on Monday last, we are informed of the lively interest taken in America in the condition of Ireland, and of the active steps carried on there towards its present relief and future prevention. In all the cities of the States, as well as in Canada, meetings have been held for the purpose of relief, and San Francisco is especially mentioned as organising a powerful committee with such a view. Meantime in Chicago a meeting of Irish sympathisers has voted an address asking

the United States Government to assist them in a peaceful revolution against the landlord system. And we are farther told that "A resolution denunciatory of the land system of Ireland, expressing sympathy with the Irish people, and requesting the President to represent to the British Government the wish of the American people in favour of peasant proprietary, has been introduced in Congress." In Ireland the Duchess of Marlborough, a lady who had already shown herself foremost in all that is charitable and beneficent, is making strenuous exertions in aid of the sufferers, and an appeal made by her to England through the columns of the Times has been warmly supported by the journal in question. At the same time the landlords are seizing upon the opportunity to add to the sum of their crimes ; for if murder in any shape or form be a crime, it is one to commit it by casting out of their only shelter the miserable people, hardly- able even under its protection to keep body and soul together but deprived of it exposed, many of them, to certain death. It is a horrible system, calling to Heaven for vengeance, that enables any class of men to come down upon their fellow-creatures thus, in the time of their extreme need, and add, to their misery the last touch of human cruelty. These families thrown upon the roads, endeavouring with a few sticks and an armful of straw to shelter themselves from the wind and rain ; hiding from the weather under the broken arches of disused bridges, and making many a pitiful effort, hardly credible unless witnessed, to replace the roof — often wretcbed^enough God knows — torn ruthlessly from over their heads, are a disgrace to a civilized country. — No country can be justly called civilized, indeed, in which they are to be found ; no Government that permits of their existence — much more no class that enforces it — can be justly named Christian. It is well to find fault with their lawlessness when for a moment they dare forget their abjection, and maddened by the father's, the brother's, or the filial love, that for all their deep poverty and worse than dog's usage, cannot he extinguished in their hearts, turn upon their tormentors, and, more in self defence than vengeance, violently resist them. The martyrs are of all the men who ever lived the most held in honour. But if martyrdom were easy who would honour them ? Yet it is the spirit of the martyr only that can induce a man to suffer peacefully such dreadful things as those we allude to. And in such a spirit multitudes do suffer them peacefully, but let ug not be harsh in our judgments on those who cannot do so. The grace of martyrdom is not given to us all. We hear, then, of riots also in Ireland, and we expect to hear of them, for Ireland is peopled by ordinary flesh and blood. — It was once the island of Saints, but to endure the suffering required of it and show no sign it must be now an island of angels.

A KIGMAEOLE.

The annual session of the Presbyterian Synod of Otago has been opened, and at its opening the Key. the Moderator delivered an address on the state of the religious situation of the world at present. It seems to have been a pretty long address, and we can honestly congratulate the Key. the Moderator, and the Synod generally, on getting through with it, but there our congratulations must end. The rev. gentleman, so far as we can see, has not afforded the Synod any new light or remarkable information on any point whatever, and even our own humble acquirements have received no important increase by the perusal of his utterance. We suppose the Bynod already were aware of almost everything the speaker told them ; and, again, in our own humble degree, we knew almost all the facts mentioned by him. We even knew, for instance, that, if such speakers as this may be believed, the Church was in a very awful ptate at the time of the " Reformation." We knew that they had been in the habit of saying the Word of God had been withheld from the people. We had been acquainted, in fact, with all the assertions contained in the following twaddle : — " The Word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever, and which the Church ought to have sown broadcast like seed, so that it might take root in the hearts and intellects of men, and germinate into holy lives, she kept carefully locked up in a foreign tongue fiom the possibility of access to it on the part of the common people. The faith which she preached was not faith in the living Uod or in the living Jesus, but faith in the relics— often apocryphal — of dead saints and in winking images of the Madonna. The prayers of the Church had degenerated into the vain repetitions of the heathen against which our Lord had expressly cautioned His followers, the mere meaningless mouthing of a hundred paternosters being credited with more spiritual efficacy than the earnest repetition of one. The noise of the chaffering of che moneychangers in the Temple had completely drowned the high praises to God with which alone the sacred fane ought to have resom-Jed. It is credibly reported that a Eomish dignitary of the highest rank spoke of Christianity itself as a lucrative fable. No doubt there were earnest Christians at that time — Eeformers before the Eef -rmation ; but despairing of effecting any good in the existing of the Church and of society, they retired to monasteries, wheu 'bey mourned in solitude over the corruptions of the Church, acl vhere, as from a lonely watch-tower by night, they earnestly looked for the reddening glow of the dawn of the day when God would again have mercy upon Zion

and turn her captivity." We, however, also knew that all this was mere twaddle. The Scriptures had not been with-held from the people. We lately published, on the authority of De Montalembert, a complete denial of any such thing, and we here again quote a portion of it. Says he—" In examining, even superficially, those ages which heresy has dared to represent as -without the knowledge of the sacred •writings, it is easy to convince ourselves that not only churchmen — that is to say, those who made a profession of learning— knew the Holy Scriptures thoroughly, but that laymen, princes, soldiers, even the poor, knew them almost by heart, and could perfectly comprehend the numberless quotations and allusions with which everything that has descended to us from this period— conversations, correspondence, deeds, written documents, historical narratives, and Fermons are filled. Those who have ever opened any volume whatsoever, written by the professors or historians of the Middle Ages, must stand amazed before the marvellous power of falsehood, and the incredible ease with which it lakes root and grows, when they reflect that it has been possible, even in our days, to make a large portion of the human race believe that the knowledge of Scripture was systematically withheld from the men who composed, and from those who read the books of that age." Between the authority of the illustrious French Academician, and that of the Rev. Mr. Watt, of Otago, we find no difficulty in choosing. We do not intend, however, to go through the repudiation of this Tev. gentlemen's stuff systematically ; it is all as rank nonsense as that contained in the clause relating to Holy Scripture. We shall limit ourselves to one or two remarks more. In the first place, then, there seems some slight dulness of perception on the part of the man who sneers at the miracles of the Church, and yet condemns the "higher criticism" as follows :—« lt stretches forth its sacrilegious hand to strike from the head of the author of Christianity the crown of glory which has hitherto encircled it in the eye of the world as a worker of miracles, by attempting to show that the miracles, where there is any basis of reality underlying them, were simply natural facts, exaggerated and embellished by tradition, in whose uvsafe custody they were preserved, and through whose distorting medium they were viewed for some 30 years, till the Gospels were composed in the form in which we now have them." The " winking Madonna," the water made wine, the swimming axe, the talking ass, is nothing in itself ; but the power of God may as well be shown in the one as in the other, and no man can consistently pick out any one of them for the object of his sneers. The Presbyterian who laughs at the ' winking Madonna" is separated but ia degree from the Atheist who laughs at the ass, and the ."profound sympathy" of Atheism for Protestantism is not beyond our understanding