Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 382, 13 August 1880, Page 1

Current Topics

AT HOME AND ABROAD.

POMBAL, FBKBTHOCGHT.

No : it won't do. Qvi faclt per alivni facit j'cr se. Ponibal in the person of his brother, as Grand Inquisitor, found Father Malagrida guilty of . . heresy on forged documents, and Pombal then, in £ o o S °™P e f°V sheadof the secular power, strangled and burned Father Malagrida. The Inquisition did not burn him ; it simply handed him over to the secular power, which dealt with him according to the laws of the land and not of the Church. Pombal was notably a Freethinker ; an over-zealous disciple, as we said, of Voltaire and the Eneyclopsedists. He was not one of » those Freethinkers who remain Catholics." It is impossible, in fact, to be a JJxeethinker and yet to remain a Catholic, and such a statement is a contradiction in terms, that it is marvellous to find proceeding from any man with a head on him, not to speak of a wig. Yes, indeed, it is a thumping big Irish bull ! It puts us in mind of what a man once told us m Dublin : « There's two Frenchmen living over there," says &LE? ° D !!u themsa Hungarian." Meanwhile we learn that Free thought is not the invariably ennobling system we bad been led to supP^lt appears, it is consistent with hypocrisy, and, when so acconaSSSiS. i* lttedtobees P ecia^"fittoburn people." There are hZfjT ?S !l- Wh ° d ° DOt " tMnk much "of ih ™ other hypocritical Freethinkers, but that is of little account, for « no Freebythe ° Pini ° nS ° f hiB eo-FreethinkeWandcon-So^Sfn? 8 hy + PP f ntes ma y with im PP u *"ty laugh in the faces of those who are not hypocrites, but who, it may be, are rashly inclined to carry a heart affected by fatty degeneration on their sleeve, and 3,??/ P enn y.for their thoughts-that is, at least, twice as Sftß^Tf^ Hypocrisy then and murder are consistent with Fieethought, and the panacea has been acknowledged a failure

THE FKEKCH REVOLUTION,

The Tablet quoted a passage from Micheletto prove that the writer in question believed the origin of the Revolution to have been in Free™,™«c O tt i thoughfc ' and the passage was sufficient for the show tWT, als ° a P as6a S« «w« Sir Archibald Alison to show that he considered the atrocitie 3 of the Kerolution to have been nnmf SPn n g^l F r thoUght ' and the P assa e e was suffi «ent for the taSw Bu< L tbe I TAB f T might ' have quoted stronger f romTr ?' P aC6> 6Xample ' that ° f Michelet ' * tfee f o»owfng STfl * * m % & matenalist P h^opher of the present day. and you rlfer?ed^ c "n^i 8 " 11 -"** &S the f ° Under of tbe Movement Snninf .T ly & w leaven been infused among the effect v M lmaSSeS ' aQd the neW ideas are P'oducin/their and affi^ f °^ emen ' at their toilettes ' scofPed at ChristLity, and affirmed the rights of man before their valets, hairdressers purveyors, and all those that are in attendance upon them M en of ST rS ' a f attOrneyS have ™l ( * ted in the W««w* tone the same diatnbes and the same theories in the coffee-houses and in the restaurants, on the promenades and in all public places. They have spoken out before the lower class as if it were not present, anc{ from besoriile rT Cc P T?v d ° Ut With ° Ut P rccauti^» some bubbles bespnnkle the bram of the artisan, the publican, the messenger the shopkeeper, and the soldier. Hence it is that a year suffices to DuTndrtf *■««*> P°*-l passion." (" The EevofuU n " LSSfii^ 8 "' ,, P * ° Again replace our q«otation from Sr M Taini^T 1 ! 7th< ; f°lloWingf ° lloWing Pa3SagGS ' and -ill find that M.Taxne also beheves the atrocities of the Devolution to have been B enlf ? vI" PrOfCSS ° rS ° f Ffeet^ht.-We italicise those sentences to whxch we desire to call especial attention. « Through a singular reversion of things it is *he majority which undergoes persecution, and the minority which practises it. . . . Those who beheve, or who recover their belief, are ranged around the old cure. '• ;V * aud ' tors of the new cur « consist of teeptie; deists, the ■indifferent f, members of the clubs, and of the administration, who resort to the Church as to the HGtel-de-Ville, or to a popular meeting, not through religion but through political zeal, and who support the

intruder , m order to sustain the constitution. All this does not secure to him very fervent followers, but it provides him with very zealous defenders; and, in default of the faith which theydo n 7t possess they gtve the fo. - which is at their disposal. All Jean, ar] pioper against an mtra .able bishop or cure ; not onl* the law whick hey aggravate through thdr forced interpretation of" it and through their arbitrary verd lC ts, but also the riots which they stir up by their instigations and which ; ,ey sanction by their toleration. He ! driven out of hig parish, consigned to the country town, and kept in a safe place. The Directory of Aisne denounces him as a disturber of the pub/ie peace, and forbids him under severe penalties from admimstcnng the sacraments. The municipality of Oahors shuts ,p particular churches, and orders non-juring ecclesiastics to leare the town in twenty-four hours. The electoral corps of Lot denounces them publicly as 'ferocious brutes,' incendiaries, an <l provokers o f civil war. The Directory of the Bas-Rhin banishes them to Bb£ bourg, or to fifteen leagues from the frontier. At Saint-Leon the bishop ,s forced to fly. At Auch the archbishop is imprisoned ; at Lyons M. Boisbowel, Grand Vicar, i, confined in Pierre Kncrce, for having preserved an archiepiscopal mandate in bis house ; brutality "if^itaV*? miniSter °f tolerance. A certain cure of Ai«ne who, m 1789, had fed two thousand poor, having presumed to read from his pulpit a pastoral charge concerning the observance of Lent the mayor seizes him by the collar and prevents him from goin* to the altar ; 'two of the National Yeomanry ' draw their sabres on him and forthwith lead him away bareheaded, not allowing him to return to his house, and drive him to a distance of two leagues by beat of drum and under escort. At Paris ia the Church of St Eustache, the cure is greeted with outcries, a pistol is pointed at his head, h« is seized by the hair, struck with fists, and only reaches the sacristy through the intervention of the National Guard. In the church of the Theatins rented by the orthodox with all legal formality, a furious band disperses the priests and their assistants, upsets the altar and profanes the sacred vessels. A placard, posted up by the department, calls upon the people to respect the law. • 1 saw jt,« says an eye-witness, ' torn down amidst imprecations against the department, the priests, and the devout. One of the chief haranguere, standing on the steps, terminated his speech by stating that tehUm ought to he stopped at any cost, that no ivors7tip but M« should be allon-ed, that women should be whipped and priests knocked on the head.' And in fact, 'a young lady accompanied by her mother is whipped on the steps of the church/ Elsewhere nuns are the sufferers, even the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul ; and from April 1791 onward, the same outrages on modesty and against life are propagated from town to town. At Dijon, rods arc nailed fast to tLe doors of all the convents ; at Montpellior, two or three hundred ruffians, armed with large iron-bound sticksi murder the men and outrage the women.— Nothing remains but to put tU malefactors under the shelter of an amnesty' which is done by the constituent Assembly, and to legally sanction the animosity of local administrations, which is done by the Legislative Assembly. Henceforth the non-juring ecclesiastics are deprived of their sustenance; they are declared • suspected of revolt against the law and of eril intentions against the country." Thus, says a contemporary Protestant, 'on the strength of these suspicions and these intentions, a Directory to which the law interdicts judicial functions, may arbitrarily drive out of his house the minister of a God of peace and charity, grown grey in the shadow of the altar.' Thus, ' every where, where disturbances occur on account i of religious opinions, and whether these troubles are due to the frantic scourgers of the virtuous Sisters of Charity or to the ruffians armed with cowhides who, at Nismes and Montpellicr, outrage all the laws of decorum and of liberty for six whole months, t>e non-juriof priests are to be punished with banishment. Torn from their families whose means of living they share, they are sent away to -wander on the highways, abandoned to public pity or ferocity the moment any scoundrel chooses to excite a disturbance tbat he can impute to them.' Thus we see approaching the revolt of the peasantry, the insurrections of Nismes, Franche-Comte, La Vendee and Brittany, emigration, transportation, the guillotine or drowning for two-third* of the clergy of France, and likewise for myriads of the loyal, for husbandmen, artisans, day-labourers, sempstresses, and servants, and the humblest

among the lower class of the people." (Tbid, p. 183.) Such, then, are the deeds of " sceptics, deists, the indifferent ; in short, of Freethinkers generally during the Revolution as we have them described by M. Tame, a Preethinking philosopher of the present day. Lt is absurd to say the actors in these frightful saturnalia did not act as Freethinkers, that their murders and outrages were committed " in a civil war in which, as in other wars, both sides tried to kill their opponents," or that they were not committed on those whom they accused of holding " incorrect religious opinions." No such assertion is worthy of a reply. But it is in excuse of these atrocious deeds and in explanation of the principle upon which they had been based that M. Victor Hugo places in the mouth of Cimourdain those words which we have already quoted :— " The Revolution extirpates royalty in the king, aristociacy in the noble, despotism in the soldier, superstition, in the prieH, barbarity in the judge, in a word, all that constitutes tyranny in all those who act the tyrant. . . . The Revolution devotes itself to its fatal work ; it mutilates but it saves." When royalty is extirpated in the person of the king, who is guillotined, does religion enter into the question ? Not necessarily. When aristocracy is extirpated in the noble, despotism in the soldier, barbarity in the judge, need there be also a question of religion 1 Not of necessity. But when superstition is visited in the person of the priest, who is banished, guillotined, or drowned, the question is one of religion altogether, and of nothing else. The priest is banished or murdered for "holding incorrect religious opinions," and no one who has the least regard for truth will refuse to acknowledge it. If the Freethought of the Revolution committed other crimes ; if it extirpated royalty, aristocracy, despotism, barbarity, each in its place, without any question of religion, that did not absolve it from the crime of having persecuted religion also under the name oE " superstition," it did but add to its guilt, and by no means wiped it out. If M. Victor Hugo, and other Freethinkers with him, excuse the Revolution and uphold its principles, while we may feel convinced they would willingly again extirpate superstition in the priest, there is no reason why we should absolve them from the will also to extirpate royalty in the king, aristocracy in the noble, despotism in the soldier, barbarity in the judge, should the need or the opportunity for their so doing seem to them to arise. The Revolution did not dispense with either judges or soldiers, it only put to death those of either class who were obnoxious to it, but all priests were obnoxious to it and all kings : They continue so to this day. We are aware that the book of Victor Hugo's from which we quoted is a kind of romance,— there is indeed a great deal in it that is only excusable by its being put forward in the shape of romance, but it also contains the writer's opinions on a cause of which he is an apostle and a violent partisan. There are two poles of the truth, he says, of which Cimourdain represents the severe and Gauvain the mild. But Cimourdain, the severe, comes with the authority of " Bobesperre, Danton, Marat," to supervise and counteract the mildness of Gauvain. The mild pole is the weakest, thus Cimourdain cuts off Gauraiu's head. Gauvain « lTavaitjtonr ltd que cette force laj?itte." It is evident, then, that Victor Hugo understands the Revolution to excuse and explain the persecution, the banishment, the murder of the priests, which had actually taken place, by the words of Cimourdain, and our quotation from blm was made for the purpose of showing, as we said, that he believed the Revolution had persecuted on principle. But where are the marks of Gauvain, the pole of light, in whom consists a large part of M. Hugo's romance ? Tne fruits of his sentiments are no where discernible ; we search in vain for them during the fury of the Revolution, a period of which M. Tame again writes—" Nothing like it ever occurred in history ; for the first time we sco brutes gone mad, operating on a grand scale, and for a long time, under the leadership of blockheads, who have become insane." (« The Revolution." p. 353.) In conclusion, then, when we are informed that the « motto of the Catholic Church is not t.iat of Progress, or Liberty, or Brotherhood, or Equality ;" that it is not m a word, composed of those cant expressions which we may mall* ° g * ? UDder thC SUitaWe beadin = " Shlff '•" and **» we are asked, - Need we point to history to say what it is?" We rcplv • Don t for pity's sake, point to history until you have acquired some somlsfufv nf S, I" - yy ° U aW t0 P ° int t0 : Undei>take some study of th, subject m question, before you presume so much as wiS Tf' 1 Butit " a 6Ubj ' eCt that musfc *» undertaken with a clew head, unobstructed by conceit, and, therefore, we despair iLTr ***?**? Church ' s ™*to discovered in history ly'the scholar who has interrogated u 2 .

CRAZY BABIES.

We have, been recommended to confine our attention to the "miracles at Knock, the godless schools," and the Latin of the pious, and we shall in part comply mrf, tho r,,,. emendation. The miracles at Knock we find extremely interest!^ • ihey interest us as much, perhaps as, for example, those at Lomdcs in their early days interested M Lasscrrcawell educated lawyer, or M. de Freycinet, the present Frcmier of the French Republic, although, unlike them, we have not ourselves parsoually been happy enough to witness any miracles We

shall also continue to attend to the godless schools. It is a strict duty for us to do all we can in order to preserve Catholic children from present demoralisation and future damnation, and we shall continue to fulfil our duty, so far as in us lies. It is possible also that we shall occasionally attend to the Latin of the pious, as we have been wont to do hitherto, but we shall not do so to such a degree as to divert our attention altogether from the philosophy of the ribnpious. That is for us also a subject of much interest ; we find it, in fact, even more amusing than the Latin in question, for its stamp of originality is even more deeply marked. And then it is besides portentous and prodigious. Our pious friends have never asserted that their Latin was as " old as their tongues and a little older than their teeth," but the philosophy of our non-pious friends, as we know on the infallible world of our antipodean Socrates, dates from the hour of their birth. Instead of coming into the world mothernaked like all reasonable babies, they arrived on the scene clad in the vesture of the Academy, and never from the moment they first dropped into their cradles, to drive their nurses frantic with philosophic whining, have they gained any addition to their learning* a fact which accounts to us for much that we observe in their various utterances. We shall, indeed, reserve some remnants of our attention for this wonderful philosophy then, but not so far as to endanger our sanity, for it must be acknowledged there is a good deal that tends towards craziness connected with it.

EASY JOURNALISM AGAIN.

" Atticus," of the Melbourne Leider, appears to have been hard up for a paragraph a few weeks ago, and in consequence he composed the following :— " The uncertainty of fame is strangely illustrated in the case of Miss Louise Lateau, the young lady who, eudowed with the rare faculty of performing miracles, has been for some little time regarded as the Saint of Belgium. Blood exades from the forehead, hands, and side of Miss Lateau in prodigious quantities. The bishop of the diocese, a learned and pious gentleman, wrote a thick book, in which he proved, entirely to his own satisfaction and that of many other people, that this sanguinary perspiration was a token of the truth of some events spoken of in the New Testament. Miss Lateau was therefore on the high road to comfort, both spiritual and mundane, when something prompts his Holiness the Pope to dismiss from the diocess of Tournai Bishop Dumont— on the not unreasonable ground that he is an uncontrollable and confirmed maniac— and to appoint in his stead a clergyman of less complicated physiological infirmities. Miss Lateau, however, declines to give up her allegiance to the lunatic, and the Holy Father excommunicates her. The miraculous appearance', however, continue just as usual, so that Miss Lateau must be regarded as an awkward instance of conceit in religious matters. The worst of pious women is that they never know when to gracefully resume secularity." This paragraph, it will be seen is not by any means a very remarkable one ; it is not even remarkable because it contains exaggeration and falsehood for these are things that we find almost every day in the week appealing in many paragraphs. Nor is it a vvilty paragraph, its sole attempt at wit seem* to consist in prefacing the name of Louise Lateau, the humble Belgian seamstress, by theladylise title " Miss," and that is but a poor attempt at wit in a part of the world like Australia, where "equality" is supposed to be observed, where every unmarried female claims to be considered a " young lady," and where the man who should use the word 'girl, 1 if he he were not held guilty of employing opprobrious language, would at least ba looked upon as having proved himself a boor. Let us, however, not deprive Atticus of his attempt at wit : " Miss" Lateau then has not been excommunicated and has not refused to obey Mgr. dv Rousseau who now administers the affairs of the diocese of Tmrnai, or to fecognise the necessaiy consequences of the malady that has, unhappily, overtaken Mgr. Dumont. Father Neils, the curi of Boh d'Haine, the parish in which Louise Lateau resides, has contradicted the report on which Atticus founded his paragraph in a letter to the editor of the London Tablet, for the paragraph has not even the merit of original invention, its basis proceeded from the Belgian Radicals who have been in the constant habit of calumniating la Vonne Louise. As to Mgr. Dumont it is unfortunately true that he has betrayed symptoms of mental derangement that have obliged the Pope to remove him from the administration of his diocese, whose title and emoluments ho, however, continues to retain. We may add that we were not aware he had written a book on the phenomena nresented by Louise Lateau. and we should not have thought it likely he had done so, nor do we remember to have seen it mentioned in any notice of the extatica, or included in any catalogue of Catholic books which we have looked through, but such a book nevertheless there may bt». That which we have read, and from which we gave extracts in the Tablet was written by Dr. Lcfebvre of Louvain, a man of European reputation, and scientific men have acknowledged its ability, whatever the demi-monde of science may conclude to the contrary. As to the r33t of the statements or comments contained in the paragraph to ■which we refer, they may rank with the easy journalism of a man who writes on a subject ho knows nothing about for the information

or aniusement.ofjpeople who, he is aware, know nothing of the bu bject he writes on.

A STUPID CALUMNY,

THE'late venerable Father O'Keilly, it i.ppears, did not die a Catholic. It has been "rumoured" in Dunedin that "he died professing religious principles analogous to those held by Protestants." Did any of our friends in Wellington, then, hear him say on hi? d».atb-bed tbnt Moses did not write Deuteronomy, or that eternal punishment was a fable, or any thing to giv<j evidence that advanced Protestantism had attracted his attention ? For if a mat) is bent on dyiito in any newly adopted system, he may as well die in the latest fashion assumed by it ; it would be almost as well for him to stick to his old creed until the end, as to fall in with any of the cast off modes of his new one. No one would of course expect Father O'Reilly to curse the Pope in his last moments ; he was far too much versed in charity, meekness, and humility to abandon them in a moment, but without such a cursing there is no saying how he could be understood to die in " Evangelical " principles, unless he were heard to give expression to some of the oddities we have alluded to, and which might identify him with them. Meantime we learn that all that is necessary for us is to profess Protestant principles on our death-beds ; it is not necessary for us to endure the horrors of the " Evangelical pulpit in order to secure our salvation ; and, were ye at all inclined to Protestant principles at present we should be heartily glad to hear it. It is not necessary for us to read any tracts, or sing Moody and Sankcy, or observe the the "Lord's Day, or calumniate our neighbour, or do anything, in fact, but " profess religious principles analogous to those held by Protestants," on our death-beds, and we should say, for the most part, Catholics are fully resolved, that, if ever they do profess such principles, it shall be on their drath-beds ; and there only under the influence of delirium, a most suitable condition in which to profess them. But how stupid a falsehood is this that^has been '• rumoured " in Dunedin ; how frail are the straws to which a false and dying system clings. Protestantism is not the hope of death-beds. We Lave known it renounced there by those who had professed it all their lives, but who eagerly sought for permission to die Catholics. We have known it also renounced there by some who had for a time embraced it instead of the Catholic faith in which they had been educated ; but, never, including a long experience of a neighbourhood where a virulent Protestant Propaganda was maintained, have we known of one case in which a Catholic desired to die iv Protestant principles. We dismiss, then, as.the idlest falsehood, this calumny on the venerable memory of a mo6t faithful piiest.

THE FREKCH GOVEBKMKKT AND RELIGION.

The following view of the war on the Jesuits and and other unauthorised Orders in France as proclaimed by the decrees of March 29, shows us what is the opinion of Frenchmen, who, although not Catholics, are of fair, far-seeing, and moderate dispositions. "We take it from M. Charles de Mazade's usual fortnightly article on current politics in the Revue des Devx Monies for May Ist. He writes to the following effect : The fact is that if there be any danger for the Republic, it proceeds from the Republicans •lone ; if there be any embarrassment for the Ministry, it comes from the Ministerial party, and to serve the purpose of some members of the Ministry. If, in truth, the political and parliamentary situation be troubled, difficult, and little in harmony with the general condition of the country, it is the fault of those who, through a sectarian •pirit, or through weakness, have been pleased to raise formidable questions by driving the Government upon a path whence there is no issue, and where it now stands struggling. Without having fully made their calculations they were involved by party prejudice, or to satisfy certain party prejudices, in the religious question. It has been made a Republican question, and it is, perhaps, a very serious danger gratuitously created ; in any case it is a source of difficulty, and of embarrassment inherent in the decrees of March 29tb, which sprung from a mistake already perceptible. We cannot doubt that the chiefs of the Government bad made up their minds not to depart in the execution of the decrees from a certain measure of conduct The President of the Council has not failed to testify to his moderate intentions ; he has borne witness to them anew in a circular addressed to all our diplomatic agents, and by which he reserves to France the right, as in the past, to extend her protection to Catholic missions in the East and all parts of the world. Nothing can be better. The Pre»ident of the Council has been careful to determine the si^^fcjation of the decrees at home, and, even within these limi^^Bdisavows all thoughts of interfering with the individual rightsoJrmemberß of congregations, much more of inaugurating a religious persecution. Such is his avowed and undisputed intention. As Minister for Foreign Affairs, he, more than tiny other, feels the danger of a war declared against the Orders that go out, and carry the name of France, together with religious influences, to the extremities of the world. The moderation of his mind is a guarantee

of the sincciity of his intentions ; but is it sure that these somewhat subtle distinctions can be maintained to the end, or that matters will not be drawn on beyond that which has been desired for them 1 Can vrc be always master of the consequences of an act yielded altogether as a formidable incentive to contrary passions. A policy like that interpreted by the decrees of March 29th does not lie complete in a man's intentions ; it necessarily derives its character from a combination of circumstances, from the provocations which have produced it, from those who have been its promoters or accomplices, and it is precisely heio that the mistake is revealed, the dangerous mistake which weighs upon the situation, and to which the Government so to speak is enchained. These melancholy decrees, which were as useless as the seventh clause, and which have been passed as an atonement for the defeat of the seventh clause, these decrees, no one will deny, are a party satisfaction, a concession made to certain ideas, certain passions. They have been devised in order to respond to prctetded parliamentary necessities, to the impatience of the most advanced fractions of what they call the Republican majority. They remain as the official expression, more or less measured, of old Republican prejudices, of a design of reaction, or of combat against the "clerical peril" — that terrible peril that M. Dufaure has declared b.e never distinctly perceived when he was in power. It is possible that there is no question for the Government of a religious persecutior , of a war carried out to the end against the Catholic religion, against the Church. But where are their supports and defenders ? What allies have they in the unfortunate campaign that they have begun ? It cannot be misunderstood, their true allies are all those who, in the Chambers, in the Press, in the Municipal Council of Paris, do not conceal that they see only in the decrees of March 29th the first act of hostilities, the beginning of the war against clericalism. Now we are not ignorant of tbo meaning of all the^e expressions of war against clericalism, of demands, of " laicism." We know well that all this means antipathy against the priest, that where the Government speaks of Jesuits, others understand Catholicism, that under a certain diplomacy of language sectarian passions are surging which tend to nothing less than the exclusion of all religious influences. The Municipal Council of Paris, for their part, do not make such bones about the matter. Of their own authority they establish the censure of books of instruction in which the Bible is mentioned : they would, at need, lay hands on the churches, to consecrate them as clubs ; they laicise to extinction. They apply in their n»anner the seventh clause, which has not been voted as well as the decrees of March 29th. Let there be explained to us, then, this phenomenon of a Government that pretends to remain moderate in the application of exceptional measures, and which is reduced to have for its allies only those who think they serve the Republic in leading it to a combat against all religious influence, against what they call the " cures." The President of the Council has set himself to solve a rather difficult problem. If he wishes to continue moderate to the cud, if he wishes to resist pussions in which he does not share, he is very liable to be left alone swme day, and without the army that he thought he could rally by these imprudent decrees of March 29th. If he lets himself be carried away by the heat of action, what becomes of the moderate intentions he has publicly proclaimed 1

THE FRANCE OP FRKETHOUGHT.

We have seen, then, that M. de Mazade, has pronounced that the steps taken by the Republican Govennent against the Jesuits and other unauthorised Orders were not the result of anything that could reasonably be objected to in the teaching, rules, or conduct of the Orders in question, but^a doubtful concession made by the more moderate members of the Government to their extreme confreres, to the party _of irreligion, and sectarian passion generally. It is on May Ist we find him writing as we have already qu -ted, aud on June Ist he seems to have become if possible st;cngthened in his opinion. It is not only the direct suppoiters of the religious Orders, who are looked upon as enemies of the Republic, he tells us, every one who has not agreed to the treatment rcc.ived by them is included under the same name. You are held to be an enemy of the Republic, he says, at once, if you take the liberty of thinking that there is neither foresight, liberality, nor ability in throwing a new system ef government into this •• war of violence and puerility against religious matters." But let us see a little of what ia the nature of the war that has been thus begun legally, of what a nature is the Freethought, to whose passions the religious Orders. have been sacrificed, what are its liberality, its tenderness for those whom it considers to hold " incorrect religious opinions," and the moral atmosphere amongst which it begins once more to set up ita imperious reign, In the Church of the Sacred Heart at Agen, then, on May 26th, a religious service is disturbed by intruders who cry out, A bag Isspretres! Mart Ala Calotte ! At Toulouse, about the same time the Abbe Isadore belonging to the Church of St, Nicholas while walking quietly through the streets, is attacked, beaten, and thrown to the ground by a ruffianly fellow. When he gets up and goes away without returning the violence done him, a crowd that

looks on jeers and hoots him. At Cazoules a young man who is at •service in the house of a Radical fulfils his Easter duties ; two of his ■fellow-servants, in consequence, seize hold of him, and amongst lhorrible blasphemies, fill his month with the moßt abominable filth. A procession is being held at Marseilles within their own walls by a religious confraternity composed of apprentices and young workmen ; a mob of roughs appear on the roofs and at the windows of the neighbouring houses ; hiss, hoot, and abuse. Finally they begin to pelt stones also, and a priest receives a severe cut on the head. At Fontans, in Haute-Lozere, the parish priest, who is more than seventy 2^ears old, in coming out of his church is struck on the head by a stone, which, it turns out has been thrown at him by a Radical teacher of the plaoe. The priest is badly hurt and falls to the ground senseless. At Havre, on the night of June 7, a band, consisting of some eight or ten individuals, comes into a street where there is a school belonging to a community of nuns, and fires six shots into its windows. Two priests are walking in the forest of Evreux ; they fall in with a party of students who hoot, and insult them disgracefully. But there is poor promise for the future of students if we may judge of it by the conduct of professors. In Paris the University Professor Amagat delivers erotic lectures to his medical students, without falling under censure of the authorities : it is another cause that leads to his course of lectures being closed. At Dijon there is a University Professor of pronounced radical principles, and the terror of all Catholic students obliged to encounter him ; he flies suddenly to Switzerland for the gravest reasons connected with a criminal breach of morality ; at Chateaudun a lay teacher is not so fortunate ; he is arrested for a similar reason before he can make good his escape, or attempts to do so. The literature of the country also reeks with filth ; even the Republican Press complains of it. " Those who have for some time followed with attention the course of our literature" says Le Parlement, " are truly tenor-stricken at the progress it makes every day in the path of audacity and indecency." A certain book, he says, condemned for immorality twenty years ago, falls far short of those now published with impunity ; he desires the Government to prevent the exposure to youth and even children of printed indecency of all kinds. At every window it is to be seen, he says, at the door of the school, within reach of the children. But he complains in vain ; such is the taste of the day, and the government he calls on have done their utmost to remove far off the means of cleansing it. Filth will have filth to feed on, and it will reign in every heart where religion is not found to exclude it. Such, then, are the conditions of " progress" and Freethought as we find them now in France. The facts we have recorded were reported of by the French papers during only come ten or eleven days of June ; had we searched further we have no doubt much more would have come under our notice.

ASTONISHED OP COTJBSE.

Some one or other of those small prints that represent the " Evangelicalism " of the colonies, and over which we looked the other day, considers that the Rev, Father Gibney was engaged iv some mysterious and inexplicable mission in the neighbourhood of Glenxowan at the time of the conflict with the Kellys. We are not surprised to find a rev. editor of the calibre we refer to astonished at the presence of the priest there. None of the cloth our editor represents would have been at all likely to have been found so far from home just then, and so exposed to the risk of chance shots. It would have been almost as incongruous to have found them hanging rotind that burning house as it would have been to have encountered them travelling southward during the last fever season in the United States. Neither of these incongruities was, however, perceptible.

A NOBLE AMBASSADOK.

The Univers furnishes us with the following attrac- ] tive portrait of M. Cballemel-Lacour, the ambassador recently sent to represent the French Eepublic at the Court of England : The name of Challemel-L&cour is only too well known. It is one of those which, like the tocsin, have a sinister sound. His proconsulate oE Lyons remains attached to his person like the shirt of Nessus. It is not merely a vexatious memory for him : it shows what may be expected in difficult circumstances from his wisdom and presence of mind. M. Challemel-Lacour had been preceded at Lyons by this significant recommendation from Delescluze : "You are very f jitunate ; the choice of Challemel-Lacour is the best the provisional Government has made." Denying the danger in order to escape from providing *" ngainst it, refusing to the last moment to combat it ; then, when the * riotous crowd were yelling around the walls of his hotel, when they were forcing open the door of his room, turning livid, "sweating fear," said Cluseret, stammering some explanations, and always winding up by giving way. Finally, when a moment's reflection permitted him to take a reckoning of his shortcomings, feeling the colour mount into his face und-^r the triple feeling of pusillanimity, humiliation, and anger, growing ferocious, not against the riot, but against the victims of the riot : •' Shoot all those people for me I"

There you have M. Challemel-Lacour. Listless while they were sacking the religious houses, he only came out of his torpor to become an accomplice of the pillagers. By virtue of a series of decrees all signed by him, b. 3 had private property taken possession of and gold. When the troop of bandits whom he had set loose had left off drinking, eating, and destroying, he had what remained put up to anction, and the product of the sale was deposited with a committee of women of the Croix-Rousse, under the patronage of a Masonic lodge. M. Challemel-Lacour signed everything, approved of everything, ratified everything. Neither his conscience, nor the decisions of justice restrained him. There was for him no other justice than the will of the sectaries whom he obeyed. The Univers adds that his conduct was most despotic, as was amply proved by his flagrant treatment of General Mazure whom he sent to prison. He has gone to London as the henchman of M. Gambetta, and blindly te serve as a tool for him. He does not represent France, but the policy of revolution, — a strange policy let us add to be worthily represented at a court where dignity is still held in eEteem.

THE LATEST THING IN STOMACHS.

It appears that was a very weak kind of a horse that died when its master who was training it to live upon nothing at all had reached the allowance of a straw a day ; it was indeed no better than an ass to give way so stupidly and, had it " made an effort," it might be still living to rejoice the economical mind of its owner. It appears, in fact, that food is a mere superfluity, at least, in anything like the quantities we have been used lo ; it is a mere habit ot eating too much that has produced the liorrible results of famine in various places, and we have all been stuffing and cramming oui-selves, even the most abstemious of us, beyond the due requirements of our nature. There is a gentleman in New York who seems to have diecovered that a meal about once a month ought to be sufficient for all our needs. His name is Tanner ; he is a medical doctor, and we learn that he has just completed with success a fast of 40 days. This, the fasting stomach, is about one of the most useful inventions that has yet reached us from the United States, that land of clever inventions, and we can only regret that it was not made known to the world a few hundred years earlier. What an amount of stupid suffering it would have saved the human race. Mrs. Chick, indeed, was quite right. Dickens, by a fluke, has announced through her mouth the true philosophy of life to us. and all that seems needed to overcome everything is to " make an effort." Had not this doctor in New York made an effort we should never have known half our capabilities. Henceforward there is to be no commiseration felt for the famine-stiickcn : soup-kitchens, and every kind of provision made for the free supply of food to the needy may be abandoned ; when all the world has come to live on a meal a month, and enjoy life upon it, there will be abundance for everyone. And as for all those stupid people everywhere, who imagined from time to time that they must die because they had eaten little or nothing for a few days, and did die accordingly, we must only look upon them as the victims of their own stupidity and weakness of mind. The failure of corn in Joseph's days should have been regarded as a mere bagatelle, and Jacob and his sons may rightly be considered as gluttons in having had a desire for bread : the famous scene in the Tower of Hunger need never have taken place ; Ugolino and his sons should have come out alive and left no room for Dante's harrowing picture of their agony ; those who were buiied alive in ancient times with a pitcher of water and a loaf to sustain them a few days should have continued to survive when their supply was exhausted ; there need never .again be felt the lea3t throb of piiy for any who have died fiom hunger, they died only because they would not " make an effort." But, perhaps, we are wrong, after all ; the power of fasting may have been arrived at in the due course of evolution. We are able to mark nothing of this outside, but it may be making " progress" all the time within us, in oar entrails, r.ud that is, moreover, about the most fitting place it could settle down in. We shall awake by-and-bye to the consciousness, without any effort at all, that we hare reached that point at which food has become an abomination to us. But what will the effects be upon the course of human life ; will it become prolonged ? Once this was a question that would have bad considerable interest for us, but now we should look upon the man who should make any speculation of this kind, much in the light in which we have been wont to regard him who formerly bought a raven to see if it would live for one hundred years. There is no chance now for us ever to know whether human life would become prolonged beyond its present term or not ; the coming comet will effectually dispose of all that. Meantime what are we to think of those gentle* men who watched Dr. Tanner lest he should convey any morsel of food to his advanced stomach ; are they guilty of conniving at probable suicide, or did they try to avoid the danger of committing manslaughter by supplying the doctor now and then with the " least as is ?" We await the details with curiosity ; it will be interesting to learn if this stomach may be introduced with safety into the families of those amongst us blessed with many olive branches, —

there is already no doubt that it might be so introduced with much profit, and if the parents of the colony contine to be fleeced as they are for the purpose of filling their children's heads it will be very grateful to them to find they can take it out of the youngsters in the middle, By all means let us have the advanced stomach as soon as possible.