PROTESTANTISM IN i-RANCE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 380, 30 July 1880, Page 11

PROTESTANTISM IN FRANCE.

THE dismissal— for it is nothing less — of M. Guilluume Guizot from the directorship of the non-Catholic branch of the Ministry of Worehip has less significance than might be supposed. Appointed by M. Emile Ollivier in 1869, M. Guizot has been held responsible by the Liberal section of the Ileformed Church for the manipulation of electoral divisions to which they attribute their defeat in the Synod of 1872, and for the constant impediments since offered to their consistorial and presbytcrial proct odings ; but, while charged with partisanship by the Liberals, he has of late been but feebly supported by the orthodox section, who fancy he might have done much more on their behalf. Hence, when attacked by the Liberals, who have not scrupled in his own presence to atk the Minister of Worship to dismiss him, he has cited the complaints of the orthodox section in proof of an impartiality displeasing to both parties. His fall is the natural result of such a position, especially as his chief prottctor, M. Jules Simon, has suffered a kind of political eclipse. His successor, M. Eugeno Hepp, is connected with the Confession of Augsburg, and this deviation from tbe practice of selecting a member of the Reformed Church is the chief feature of the change. The Lutheran Churcn, though necessarily comprising different theological tendencies, is free from the conflict which has ior eight years disturbed the Reformed Church ; so that M. Hepp will bs exempt from party bias, and his own leanings being moderately orthodox, the orthodox section of the rcfoimed Church will not resent his appointment, while the Liberals regard him as a jurist incapable of subterfuge or evasion. M. Guizot, as son of tbe venerable statesman who persuaded M. Tbiera to convoke the Synod and thus brought on this protracted crisis, hap, of course, many friends who will warmly espouse his cause ; but the change is purely personal, and will have no immediate effect on the fortunes of the rival sections of Protestants. M. Guizot" a classes at the College de France will evidently be gainers, and he him=elf , though, after serving under a dozen ministers, he probably counted on fixity of tenure, may on reflection resign himself to the loss of a post in which his very name inspired distrust on the one hand and unreasonable expectations on the other, — Times.