THE CHURCH THE MOTHER OF CIVILISATION AND VIRTUE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 360, 12 March 1880, Page 5

THE CHURCH THE MOTHER OF CIVILISATION AND VIRTUE.

[An undelivered Lecture by John F. Perrin.] (Concluded.) These are all of them remarkable passages, but I desire to direct your attention especially to that in which the historian compares the penitential system of the Church with the ideas of modern philosophy, and points out that tho most enlightened jurists of the century have advocated the reform of European penal legislation on the same principles. The propositions, he says, of Bentham and his fellows, the least devout of philosophers, might have been borrowed from the systemin question. Now, we know, if there is anything in the world belonging to the Church that has, more than another, been made the object of assault, it is her penitential system, and every thing connected with it. Take, for example, that portion of it known as " confession ;" what is there that has ever been so much misrepresented 1 Its very sanctity, and the necessary precautions with which it is guarded, render it especially liable to attack. We Catholics know how salutaiy it is ; in our eyes i o degree of calumny or wild vituperation can blacken it. We recognise it as our safety, out shield, our comfort, — we know that according as we frequent it we are blameless in conduct and pure in mind, and that, when we neglect it, we can answer neither for our acts nor thoughts. Our own experience of it urges us to enjoin its practice from the earliest ago possible on our children ; and we reverence it as that especial gift of our Divine Saviour, which, together with the most blessed Eucharist, has kept pure our purest, and sanctified our holiest. We feel an especial horror at those who blaspheme it, and, if they have unfortunately turned away themselves from its use, we regard them as belonging to the number of those swine before which pearls have been vainly cast, that have miserably failed to value the jewels, and run in blind fury to rend the kind hands that would have strewn their path with beauty. There are many testimonies, which I now might set before you, to the value of confession. I shall, however, content myself with six ; five that arc direct, and one that is indirect. Of my five direct testimonies, then, each of a different class, the first is that of a convert who laments that his boyhood had been allowed to pass without so powerful and wholesome an aid ; the second is that of a nonCatholic who declares that it is necessary for the welfare of Protestant England ; the third is that of a, Catholic defending it against the objections of a Protestant ; the fourth is that of a Catholic lady who eloquently describes what it is to her sex ; and the fifth is that of a Protestant who refutes a slander cast upon it, and shows its effects amongst the Catholic women of Ireland. The indirect testimony to which I shall appeal is that borne by one of the ablest and, at the same time, one of the most anti-Catholic journals published in the United Kingdom. My first witness, then, is the Hon. and Eev. George Spencer, or as we knew him later on in life, Father Ignatius, the Passionist. He was a convert to the Catholic faith, and had renounced a high position, with large emoluments, in the Church of England, and all the prospects of promotion that lay open to the son of a powerful earl and a man of considerable talents. His testimony is as follows : — " But my spirit was bent down at Eton. . . . Oh 1 the happiness of a Catholic child, whose inmost soul is known to one whom God has charged with his salvation. Supposing I had been a Catholic child in such a situation— if such a supposition be possible— tho pious feelings with which God inspired me would have been under the guidance of a tender spiritual father, who would have supplied exactly what I needed when about to fall under that sense of unassisted weakness which I have described. He would have taught me how to be innocent and firm in the midst of all my trials, which would then have tended to exalt, instead of suppressing, my chaiacter. I would have kept my character not only clear in the sight of God, but honourable among my fellows, who soon would have given up the persecution when they found me tteadfast ; and I might have brougLt with me in the path of peace and justice many whom I followed in the daik ways of sin." Such, then, is the testimony given by this convert — once an Anglican minister belonging to the "Evangelical" party. He looks back with deep sorrow on certain passages in his boyhood, and declares., amply taught bycxpeiiencc, that confession would have enabled him to avoid the evils into which he then fell. The lament made by him, and made more or less by all converts, teaches us the treasure that Catholic children possess in the oidinance appointed by God to purify them and ensine their safety. My secend witness is an English non-Catholic, George Cowell, F.E. C.S., who wrote in the Cr.vtivq:vraty Her'um (March, 1879) an earnest paper in which he asaucs us that a lengthened medical piactice amongst the English Protestant masses has convinced him that their salvation depcDds uj.cn the inticduction of the confessional amongst them. He f peaks as fellow f. ard his woids acquire no comment ; —

" I am quite willing to admit that it is an evil for the mind to dwell upon impurity ; but the object of going to confession is to speak of it once and for the last time, in order to cea*e dwelling upon it and to get rid of it once and altogether. Conscience makes men brood over their sins ; but penitence and forgiveness blot them out. It is, of course, painful to the priest to have to listen, as it is often very painful to the physician to hear many things that are said to him. But neither can stop to consider what is good for himself ; each has a duty to perform, from which he cannot conscientiously *£• i ' ' ' Few P eo P le iavo an y adequate idea of the amount of hidden vice that pervades the population of our large towns. But few would give any credence to the ghastly tale that could be told of the amount of moral degradation and depravity which exists in all classes of society, and even at all ages. . . . It no doubt saves an immensity of trouble and anxiety to ignore the evils around us But should we thus fulfil that law of love of which I have spoken, if —conscious of the festering sore in our midst, the wide development of this mysterious taint, this curse of our nature— we yet put forth no voice to dissipate the ignorance, stretched out no hand to help the weakness, held up no hope to promote the cure ? It may be possible to attack open vice in other ways, but hidden sin can only be discerned and cured in private confession. . . . The old saying that ' prevention is better than cure' is quite as true in regard to .sin as it is to disease, and it is the power of confession as a preventativc that makes it so incalculably valuable in the case of children. It is of immense importance to nip sin, as it were, in the bud ; for cure is difficult when growth has taken place. The practice of confession may be said, therefore, to possess a sanitary value. Sir John Forbes, whose book I have already quoted, gives (p. 81) remarkable evidence of this value amongst the Irish Itomau Catholics, and tested his facts by the Poor-law returns."' My third witness is a young French nobleman, entitled Count Albert de la Ferronays ; and that his words are words of weight we know by the judgment passed upon him by one of the most illustrious of his fellow-countrymen who have adorned the century — the Count de Montalembert. Montalembert said, speaking of some of the beautiful thoughts to which he commonly gave expression — '• These are things which, if they were in a printed book, as the poor people say, would be admired by the whole world. So, at least, it seems to me. I know of nothing finer *n Reno, or any of the great writers who have described the workings of tho heart. 'To me there seems something wonderfully satisfactory, and even I think honourable to the human mind, in the knowledge that such beautiful thoughts arose quite simply and spontaneously in the pure anil modest mind of a young man unknown to all literary fame, without the least idea of 'publication, only occupied with God and his love, and never dreaming that passages were flowing from his pen which the greatest genius in the world might have coveted." (•' A Sister's Story :" E. Bowles' trans.) Albert de la Ferronays, then, wrote to an English Protestant concerning confession as follows :— "You say that you cannot understand confession. I will not speak of the happiness it affords., for we must have practised it to appreciate its value. But, my dear friend, do you think that because every man knows, as you say, that he ought to be good, it is useless that he should be reminded of it, and that his own reflections always suffice? There are in words directly addressed to ourselves by a living person a power and fulness which we should seek in vain in books and in our_ own thoughts. The ma~n whose life is a perpetual struggle against his^ passions knows by experience all our miseries and suffering?. He is acquainted with the malady, and the means to overcome it ; he rouses us from apathy, comforts us in affliction, and restores to us hope and trust when we are cast down. You say again that it will not excuse me before God to plead that I have learnt my errors from a priest ; but this is exactly the danger from which we are safe. The priest can neither deceive nor be deceived : for his doctrine is not his own ; he gives us that of which the Church is the keeper, in which we have all one and the same faith, and form one and the same body." (" A Sister's Story :" E. Bowles, trans.) My third witness is a French Catholic lady named Eugenic de Gucrin. Her view of confession was written in her journal intended by her to be read by her brother only. She said of it, " This is not for the public ; it contains my inmost thoughts, my very soul ; it is for ode." The extract I now give you is taken from Mr. Matthew Arnold, the English Rationalist writer. He has reviewed the journal of Mademoiselle de Guerin, and we shall find him comment not unfavourably on this particular part o£ it. But first let us hear him testify to tho nature of the lady who wrote it. "He calls her '_' one of the rarest and most beautiful souls," and again, " this religious and beautiful character," and again he says, "she thus united extraordinary pwer of intelligence, extraordinary force of character, and extraordinary strength of affection ; all these under thecontiolof a deep religious feeling." M. Sainte Beuve also has testified to her nature and called her, (: This pure and innocent spirit, this dove of Cayla (her native place)." Here then is Mademoiselle de Guorin's testimony to the confessional as given to us by Mr. Matthew Arnold :— " But her Catholicism is remarkably free fmm the faults which Protestants commonly think inseparable from Catholicism ; the relation to the priest, the practice of confession, assume, when she speaks of them, an aspect which is not that under which Exeter Hall knows them, but which, unless one is of the number of those who prefer regarding that by which men and nations die, to regarding that by wbich they live, one is glad to study. 'La Confession: oho says twice in her journal < rtest qu'uni; cxpa nsiou dv repeatirdans lammir ; and her weekly journey to the confessional in her little Church of Cahuzac is her ' cher yelerinage ; ' the little church is the place where she has ' laisse tnnt de vriseres: " " This morning" she writes one 28th of November, "I was up befoie davligbt, dressed quickly, and started with Maiie for Cahuzac. When* we got there, the chapel was occupied, which I was not sorry for. I like not to be burned, and io have time before I go in to lay bare my soul before God. This often takes me a long time, because my thoughts are apt to be flying about like these autumn leaves. At ten o'clock I was on my knees, li&tening to words the most salutary that were ever spoken ; and I went away, feeling my3elf a better being. Every

burden thrown off leaves us with a sense of brightness ; and when the soul has laid down the load of its sina at GoJ's feet, it feels as if it had wings. What an admirable thing is confession ! what comfort, what light, what strength is given mo every time after I have said, 1 have sinned.' This blessing of confession is the greater, she says, 'the more the heart of the priest to whom we confide our repentance is like that divint heart which has so loved us.' " Who is it that tells us confession tends to defile the rainds of women ? Let him read here his condemnation 1 All Catholic women are not indeed altogether such as was Mademoiselle de Gnerin. She was an exquisite genius, and owned the rare poetic mind ; but every Catholic woman in her degree will recognise that the description given here is a true one. She also invariably brings back from the confessional some good thing given by God, as this larly in another passage says of herself, and oftentimes leaves many miseries behind her there. My fifth witness also lefutes this most gross accusation. He is an English Protestant gentleman, of high stauding and repute, Sir John Foibes, a physician of eminence. He wrote, although otherwise no friend to the confessional, contradicting the slander referred to ; he said—" So far from such being the case, it is the general belief in Ireland— a belief expressed to me by many trustworthy men in all parts of the country, and by Protestants as well as Catholics— that the singular purity of female life among the lower classes there is in a considerable degree dependent on this very circumstance. No general statement?, however strong, unless supported by evidence o£ the most positive kind, can bo admitted against the testimony of facts like these : and if the confessional is to be condemned— and I am far from saying that it is not— its condemnation must rest on something else than its influence in leading to vice and immorality among the Catholics of Ireland." (Memorandums made m L-elun'd in the Autumn 0f 1852, vol. ii. p. 83.) My indirect witness is the famous, and, sooth to say, formidable, Saturday Ilrrten: The article I quote from appeared in its issue of June 12th, 1879, and was a refutation of certain calumnies advanced against Catholic teaching by the French Deputy, M. Bert. The passages which I consider to bear particularly on my subject are the following :— " Were M. Bert's estimate of the teaching of the Catholic clergy correct every decent Frenchman would long 'ago bavc withdrawn his daughters from their control. He would not have needed to inquire what the teaching itself was like; its character would have been sufficiently displayed in the citoct produced on the scholar*. According to M. Bert the Jesuits are chiefly employed in teaching young men and women how far they may go iv breaking the Ten Commandments without being guilty of mortal sin. It is impossible that some millions of young girls should be consistently trained to deal with the Seventh Commandment in this spirit without their conduct being very plainly influenced by the process. How does it happen, then, that the virtue of Catholic Frenchwomen is at least equal to that of the women who have thrown off all ecclesiastical restraints, and that men who have themselves quarrelled with the Church constantly send their daughters to be educated in convent schools? Neither of these facts can be denied. Even their Radical neighbours will bear witness to the simple lives led by the wives and daughters of the reactionary deputies "who have been resisting the adoption of the 7th clause. It is not they who have made Paris the scene of so many scandals. When the nominal Catholics who composed the Court of Napoleon 111. were running riot in every form of vicious extravagance, the ladies of the Faubourg St. Germain were attending to their children and looking after the poor. And now, when the nominal Catholicism of the Second Empire has given way to the undisguised secularism of the Third Republic, the reaction is not the less fortunate in the contrast." The Catholic woman impure ! The indignation which we Catholic men might justly feel at such an accusation gives way to our astonishment at its insolence, and glaring falsehood. The Catholic woman impure, and made so by" her faith ! It is to the Catholic faith womanhood to-day owes its purity aud the veneration in which it is held throughout all civilization. Again I appeal to non-Catholic testimony for the proof of my assertion, and Mr. Lecky the historian of rationalism, answers my apppnal and furnishes me with all I need. Listen, then, to what he says :— " The world is governed by its ideals, and seldom or never has there boen one which has exercised a more profound, and, on tho whole, a more salutary influence than the medieval conception of the Virgin. For the first time woman was elevated to her rightful position and the sanctity of weakness was recognised, as well as the sanctity of sorrow. No longer the slave or toy of man, no longer associated only with ideas of degradation and of sensual it}--, woman rose in the person of the Virgin Mother into a new sphere, and became the object of a reverential homage of which antiquity had had no conception. Love was idealised. The moral charm and beauty of female excellence were fully felt. A new type of character was called into being ; a new kind of admiration was fostered, Into a harsh and ignorant, and benighted age, this ideal type infused a conception of gentleness anU of purity unknown to the proudest civilisations of the past. In the pages of living tenderness which may a monkish writer has left in honour of his celestial patron, in the millions who, in many lands and in many ages, have sought, with no barren desire, to mould their characters into her image, in those holy maidens who for the love of Mary, have separated themselves from all the glories and pleasures of the world, to seek in fastings and vigil* and humble charity to render themselves worthy of her benediction, in the new sense of honour, in the chivalrous respect, in the softening of manners, in the refinement of tastes displayed in all the walks of society : in these and in many other ways we detect its influence* All that was best in Europe, clustered around it and it is the origin of many of the purest elements of our civilisation." ('• Rationalism in Europe," vol. 1., pp. 213-14.) Here is a picture of i womanhood fostered by the Catholic faith, exalted bj it into purity and dignity, and placed on a pedestal higher than that on which stands a manhood better thon the manhood that of old despised and maltreated it ; a picture, too, of manhood refined and cultured by the j Ctttholic teaching concerning womanhood, of society purified and

rescued from barbarism by it. Surely we can afford to laugh, if it be worth our while, at the ignorance and folly, at best, that presume to accuse the Catholic Church of teaching practices that degrade womanAnd now for a little let us seek another class of testimony. Hitherto our appeal has been to history and the experiences of real life and it has been nobly responded to. Let us now appeal to fiction and see what it can afford us. The creations of the imagination are valuable only as they approach the standard set up by nature. Genius has been well defined as the power a man possesses of seizing on true ideas of things and conveying them living to the minds of others. The hand that fails to give us a true idea of that which it attempts to paint is not the hand of genius, and true genius must ever give us truth. Where, then, in the realms created for us by genius do we find the most exalted purity residing ? In the heart of Isabel, the novice of St. Clare, the virgin of " well-defended-honour." The critics tell us that Shakespeare alone of all the world of artists would have dared to biing a woman scatheless out of the terrible temptation in which he had placed this spotless maiden. That wondrous eye, that with an unerring reading read the human heart in all its phases, saw there was one force and one alone that could give strength in a trial not to be borne by mere flesh and blood,— the force of the Catholic faith. Let us never forget, then, that Isabel— Shakespeare's type of resolute virtue, of unwavering chastity— is the Catholic Isabel, sunported by her faith. Again, take Sir Walter Scott, one of the loftiest minds of modern Europe ; when he desires to depict womanhood in the fulness of its beauty, dignity, and purity ; of the noblest intellect, patriotism, and devotion,— it is the character of a Catholic woman he draws for us. Where, in a word, shall we find anything more simply elevated than is his delineation of the Highland Catholic lady, Flora L +w S . hc + , ww f + very beautiful and her beauty was not only that of the features and complexion, but of the expression as well, that bespoke a gifted mind and exalted nature Her countenance was gentle and pensive and seemed to express pity for those who were not satisfied with the mental superiority of which she herself was conscious. She was prepared to sacrifice every interest and advantage to the cause which she had been taught to regard as that of duty. Her loyalty to the fallen house of Stewart was pure and unmixed with any thought of self. She would as soon have hidden ambitious or interested views under religion as under her patriotism, Life at a royal court, which had bestowed upon her the utmost elegance of manner, had not tainted the reality of her feelings. Her leisure hours were spent in the cultivation of her intellect and her taste and talents were such as enabled her not only to appreciate the literatures of England, France, and £?? y w- Si° to £ scov ? r j£ e beauties of the poetical traditions of the Highlanders. Her kindliness of heart was manifested in the pleasure it gave her to perceive the delight experienced by her dependants at her bestowing attention on their poetry and music ; but, better still, in the anxiety she felt for extending her brother's sway only m order that she might be so placed as to be of more use to the Lcedy members of her clan, and in the fact of her saving her income for the purpose of relieving the sick and old. The description is, indeed, one of extreme beauty, an honour to the immortal author who sketched it, and a testimony to the nobility of character he recognised as to be found amongst ladies who were Catholics, and who had been the pupils of a convent school. The next, and the last, magician of this kind whom I shall summon to lay his creation before you is one inferior, indeed, in genius, but m spotlessness of mind no less, the blameless poet, Longfellow, throughout whose verses there does not occur one sullyin« line. His ideal of purity as well as of beauty is given to us in the picture of Jivangeline. Hear his testimony to the maiden of the confessi on 8.1 ;— "Fair she was to behold, that maiden of seventeen summers. B act votw' Sm aS H thG b f rry grcnvs on the thorn b y thfi *«*&*> mVi or hr If Bteung b * eneath the brown shade of her tresses! Whon l^l breath as the breath of kine that feed in the meadows. iX ™» «f i i she bore t0 the "^l** 3 at "oon-tide te™ h , olue - I brewed gte, ah ! fair in sooth was the maiden. snr Sri~F,?AT ?"' 0U S ? n( ? ay morn ' white the bcU fr ° m "s turret £r v A ° Iy T** the air ' "* the P riest with his hyssop KS, 1 " conffregatwn, and scatters blessings upon them. Wo m« hnr #oorl r retf et A ° P^f *Ith1 th her Cha^ lot of beads nud "<* *****> ■R™f<t£? • « o™*" 1 cap ami her kirtle of blue, nnd the earrings, S n a* olden times from France, and since, as an heirloSm, Handed down from mother to child, through long generations. But a celestial bnghtness-a more etherial beauty— Shone on her face and encircled her form, when, after confession, Homeward .serenely she walked with God's benediction upon her « 'ieu she luid passed it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music." ?^°?t n . on - Catholl c fiction, then, testify to the goodness and beauty of Catholic women. But, after all. fiction must fail to carry with it the conviction Witt which fact necessarily impresses the mind ; let me, therefore, once more appeal to fact. I have already appealed to history and biography for the establishment of general truths ; I shall now call upon them to lay before you certain details of the individual life. Ana since the Church, like her Divine Spouse, is the " same yesterday, to-day, and for ever," I choose for my first example a life made prominent many centuries ago, and whose exceeding purity and loveliness are an everlasting crown of honour, not only to the noble race amongst whom they arose, but to womanhood throughout the •1 • ?•: •«„ i f £ 1S that of Joan of Arc > a ver / Catholic maiden, and it is tue infidel historian Michelet who supplies me with its details. Moreover, it was at the close of the Middle Ages, when some people assert the faith of Christendom to have been most corrupt, that this pure and holy daughter of the Church came forward to testify to the sanctity of the Church's teachings. Joan of Arc, then, the historical maiden, was— like Evangeline, the poet's vision— a maiden of the confessional. Haumette, her earliest friend, has left on record a description of her :— " She was a very good girl, simple and gentle, hhe was fond of going to church and to holy places. She spun, and attended to the house like other girls. . . . She confessed frequently. When she went away from her humble home to command armed men during warfare, her purity and goodness accompanied iT i won the lovo aad rcv ercnce of all those whom she approached ; the people, both men and women, everywhere were filled

with admiration of her ; the historian tells us that her sanctity seized their hearts. The rough men-at-arms were conscious in her presence of a purifying influence ; their very thoughts assumed a higher tone when she was near. The wild Armagnacs, brutalised by long-enduring war, reformed their lives at her bidding. And still she continued pre-eminently the maiden of the confessional, for she knew- its sacred powers. To confirm her converts in their reformed life she insisted on their frequenting it. In the pride of her first victory she wept because so many had fallen unconfessed, and her immediate care was to obtain the benefit of confession for herself and her retainers. But let M. Michelet sum up for us the story of her life. " Jehanne was gentle in the roughest struggle, good amongst the bad, pacific in war it-self; she bore into war (that triumph of the devil's) the spirit of God. She took up arms when she knew 'the pity for the kingdom of France.' She could not bear to see 'French blood flow.' This tenderness of heart she showed towards all men. After a victory she would weep, and would attend to the wounded English. Purity, sweetness, heroic goodness— that this supreme beauty of the soul should have centred in a daughter of France may surprise foreigners who choose to judge of our nation by the levity of its manners alone. We may tell them (and without partiality, as we speak of circumstances so long since past) that under this levity, and in the midst of its follies and its very vices, old France was not styled without reason the most Christian people. They were certainly the people of love and of grace ; and whether we understand this humanly or Ohristianly, in either sense it will ever hold good."— (Michelet's History of France, book x., chap. 4 : Smith's trans.) My second example, which is also the last witness I shall call upon, I have chosen from the course of out- own half century. We find it in the testimony borne by a Protestant lady to the lives of certain Catholic women, whose generation has not as yet wholly passed away. I have already spoken of Albert de la Fcrronays ; the ladies mentioned in the following extract were his widow and sister : — " Those who stood round Albert's deathbed, each in his or her several way illustrated the tonic value of the doctrine of immortality. His wicow grew to be a type of that broad charity to rich and poor which is so sorely needed in our over-individualised world. Eugenic, who seems to have felt a special attraction towards her ' high-born kinsman ' (death), and who was early taken away by him, was a tender wife and devoted mother to sons who are now ' gospellers ' among the working men of France, as their mother would have loved. Count Albert de Mun's name becoming known even to English newspaper readers as the young officer who had done so much good work among the Homes. Of Pauline (Mrs. Craven), the time is not come to speak, but of those she reveals to us it were hard to say whether Alexandrine or Eugenic, best illustrates the beauty of holiness and that religion, which is the open', blossom of universal law, and the effect, of which, as was nobly said in a former number of thi3 Review, is to suffuse with a divine light relations and duties which before were simply personal and social."— (" Mrs. Craven and her Work," by Mrs. Jtf. 0. Bishop, Nineteenth Century, May, '79.) I have now brought before you a considerable body of testimony, for the most part that of Non-Catholics aud Protestants, to the nature of the Catholic clergy, to the work performed by the Church, to the wholesomeness of confession, and to the womanhood formed and nourished by Catholic doctrines, and practices. I claim, therefore, to rejoice like the spirit in " Comus "—" — " Now my task is smoothly done, I can fly aud I can run." I rejoice because having undertaken to refute most " tenebrous calumny," I have not found it necessary to return insult for insult, or in any way to touch that which defileth. I have gone along trippingly, with the soft golden light of the grand old Catholic Church making glad my eyes upon the way. Dante gives a description of the first angel encountered by him in his progress through the worlds unknown, which strikes me, Lord Macaulay notwithstanding, as at least amongst the most sublime pictures of a supernatural being that we find in poetry. It is that of one who has gone down into hell and found God there also. Evidently full in the light of the Beatific Vision he passed across the pestilential marshes wafting from his path the foul reek that continually sroes up there. He executed with a stem dignity the duty required of him, " Then he returned along the miry road, And spake no word to us, but had the look Of one whom other care constrains and goads, Tlian that of him who iv his presence is."— -LOHGFELIiOW. The man who is called upon to vindicate Catholic doctrines or practices may, in his own measure, find himself similarly favoured with this angel. He, too, may go down into the midst of unfathomable foulness, unoff ended and untouched ; for the glory and inexpressible beauty of the Church will fill his heart and glow before his eyes, and for her he will have sight and feeling only. Testimony to her loveliness and grandeur will shut out from his senses the reek of the infernal pit, and thus her raging, bitter, foes will be they to fully glorify her for him.

John Dunn has published the conditions upon which missionaries will be allowed to settle in his district, the principal of which arc that they shall not be allowed to acquire any personal title to land or to trade in cattle at their stations. Messrs. Ivens and Capello, Portuguese explorers, have arrived ill at Loanda after two years' travel, suffering from fever and almost without clothes. They have completed a general map of Loanda, and explored the rivers Quango and Qnanza. Senor Capello appears quite old and hardly recognisable. Nearly all their followers deserted them. According to official statistics, there were, from 1833 to 1855, no fewer than ninety-four persons buried alive, through accident or ignorance, in various parts of France. Dr. Thouret, while disinterring bodies from a graveyard converted into a public square, observed many skeletons in such strange and difficult postures as to convince/" him that they had been buried before life was extinct,