Current Topies

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 42, 12 February 1886, Page 1

Current Topics

AT HOME AND ABROAD,

"It costs a rery peculiar kind of raftering to conduct a controversy . . . with tb» one man in all England on whose lips the words of the dying Polycarp sit with equal truth and grace. Not that Cardinal Newman hai been either a hesitating or a soft-speaking controversialist. He has been a man of war from his youth, who has conquered many adrersariea— amongst them the most inveterate and inTindble of English prejudices. He was one who not only changed aides when the battle was hottest, but led a goodly company with him ; yet the change, so far from lessening, increased the honour and admiration in which he was held. He has, as scarcely any other teacher of our age, made us feel the meaning of life, the evil of sin, the dignity of obedience, the beauty of holiness ; and his power has been due to the degree in which men hate been constrained to believe that his words, where sublimest, have been but the dim and imperfect mirrors of his own exalted spirit. He has taken us into the secret places of his soul, and has held us by the potent spell of his passionate sincerity and matchless style, while he has unfolded his vision of the truth, or his quest after it. He has greatly and variously enriched the religions life of our people, and he lives in our imagination as the last at once of the fathers and of the saints. Whatever the degree of our theological and ecclesiastical difference, it does not lessen my reverence for the man, or my respect for his sincerity.' 1 Snch is the testimony borne by Principal Fairbairn, in the Contemporary Review for December, to the nature of the great man against whom he has for some time been engaged in controversy— into which, however, it is needless for us to enter, as the matter i 8i 8 ■omewhat deep for the ordinary reader and has not yet reached its conclusion. But the testimony thus borne is very remarkable, and no one can call its truth in question. Cardinal Newman has done a marvellous work in his day, and so brought the Catholic religion. and the nature of the men who are its faithful adherents, before the eyes of Protestant England as to force upon it the truth that the Church is the mother of saints. Cardinal Newman, nevertheless, has not been alone in breaking down the great wall of prejudice that for' three hundred years the enemies of the truth had been building up. His brother Cardinal, the Archbishop of Westminster, has also had his share in this noble work, and his name mast likewise go down to fature generations as that of one who has done much to restore among Englishmen the true reputation of the Catholic Church. A non-Catholic writer, describing the Cardinal in the New York Times, compares him with Mr. Gladstone and Governor Seymour and gives us a very interesting sketch :— " Sitting in the crowded centre aisle of the Kensington Pro-Cathedral last Sunday," he says, M watching and listening to his Eminence, it seemed to me" that there is no more remarkable living Englishman than he. It was an awkward and uncomfortable position that I had, almost under the pnlpit, and to see the speaker at all it was necessary to twist the head backward and side-ways in a most painful attitude. I know n« other speaker in the world for the sake of hearing whom I would have subjected myself to this physical torture. Yet the thought of taking my eyes from the Cardinal never occurred to me. It was the concluding one of a series of three sermons on Christian education which he preached last Sunday and I had heard them all. It wf ■ not particularly moving or convincing preaching. There was no rhetoric, no phrase making, no attempt at pathoe or pictureßqueness. From first to last there was not a touch of poetry on the one side, or of lightness— l wont say levity— of treatment on the other. There was not even that charm of artistic arrangement which so often renders an otherwise commonplace sermon effective, for the discourse had no apparent form, and might have begun or ended anywhere. Yet an American gentleman who was with me said as we paused out : It wa s the finest sermon I ever heard in my life," and there was no disposition to dissent. It would be most difficult to say wherein the exact cbarm lay. No doubt most of it is in the wonderful face and form of h% man himself, and in the reflections which the sight of these

tWO OBBAT UMB.

impels. Watching him, with the lanlight filtering through the rich altar window upon his red cape and cap— a light, bright, vivid red, bj the way, altogether unlike the colour which hosiers and milliners know as 'cardinal '—and studying his face and gestures, a curious likeness in him to two other famous sld men grew upon me. The trio were put into chronological relation with each other by dame nature nearly four-score years ago, for Manning was born in 1808, Gladstone in 1806, and Horatio Seymour in 1810. They have the same strange sort of resemblance to be seen sometimes in three brothers. Put the middle one between them, and he serves as a connecting link of likeness ; you see at once that all three look alike. Cardinal Manning is the very dream of emaciation physically and of seal mentally. His face is more than gaunt ; it is spectral in its thinness The ridge of cheek bone from ear to ear stands out like a finger laid upon the flesh. The hollows about the drawn, thin lipped mouth are cavernous. The deep, weird eyes looked oat from caverns. The upper forehead bulges as if it would force apart th« tight-etretched skin. It is a face which a painter would seek foi utmost impressiveness of effect in a death-bed jcene." "Yet,* continues the writer, " this wonderful old man is the hardest working clergyman, publicist, and administrator ia Great Brilian. He reads writes, thinks, collects statistics, audits accounts, studies current utterances, schemes out lines of action, organises societies, prepares articles, preaches sermons, superintends publication!!, watches politics, addresses social and temperance meetings, receives hosts of visitors, personally distributes great charities — in a word, is the most terribly active man of his generation. Mr. Gladstone, who is a year younger, has been compelled to withdraw from the more exacting dutieß of public life. Governor Seymour has withdrawn altogether. But the Cardinal is doing more work this year — his seventy-seventh —than he ever did before. Mr. Gladstone's face is Cardinal Manning's minus the protuberance of the upper forehead and plus a decent covering of flesh. His expression of eyes and features is in some rare moments of excitement extremely like the Cardinal's, but ordinarily the eyes are more sombre and meditative than eager and the face more reposeful. Governor Seymour again presents this same face, rounded out by generous lines of flesh, with kindly eyes which are indeed sometimes meditative, but which are rarely eager, but never sombre. These differences reflect the natures of the men. Cardinal Manning is all fervour, activity, restless zeal, dragging his frame relentlessly through an endless day of toil. Mr. Gladstone likes to work, but he also likes to rest. He rarely feels anything so fully, not to say fiercely, that he is not alive to the qualifications which the other side may urge. Cardinal Manning has no doubts about things, and uses all his great ar9en.ll of weapons masterfully and untiringly against the adversary ; but Mr. Gladstone looks upon all sides of most things, and argues with himself as much as with opponents. Governor Seymour does not like work for work's sake, and does like rest a great deal. Bo the gamut runs from the eager, self-consuming zealot, through the many sided statesman, earnest by spells, to the easy-minded philosopher, who gets excited about nothing and thinks charitably about everything. Take the work of the three men. Cardinal Manning is single-minded, intent upon one view of life. If in bis limitless activity he discusses and work" on education, or temperance, or social morals, or politics, it is still with the one aim ever before him, with the single purpose. He never does a thing simply because he likes to do it, because the labour is a .diversion. All bis tasks are to accomplish some direct object, and that object is always in the straight line of bis life's mission."-— The character of this description differs essentially from the testimony borne by Principal Fairbairn. The one is the light writing of a newspaper correspondent, the other is the grave utterance of a learned philosopher — both, nevertheless, agree in insisting upon the sincerity of the churchmen of whom they respectively treat — and it is this characteristic that of all others recommends itself to Englishmen. The deep but transparent truth which forms so prominent a feature in the characters of these Princes of the Church, in union with their other great and admirable qualities, could not fail to influence the minds of their fellow-countrymen in favour of the system which they so devotedly obey, and they have been exceptionally endowed to form witnesses befoie the face of the English people to the nature of the Catholic faith. Their place in the Listory of the Church mv J prove a high one.

RELIGION AHD POLITICS .

Of the great necessity that still exists for Irish legislation to be conducted by the friends of Ireland and those who thoroughly understand the needs of the country, we hare found of late no more striking proof than that which is furnished us by an account of the Island of Aohill given by a special commissioner of the Dublin Weekly Freeman. The condition of the Island when he visited it last December was worse than what it was in the terrible famine years of 1879 and 1880* The potatoes bad failed again and were almost at an end.— No price could be obtained for the few heads of sheep and cattle that the people possessed, — and even that which was a sign of hope to the rest of Ireland, — the uncertainty of the landlords as to their future, was to the unfortunate islanders an additional source of want. For no land-owner of the neighbourhood would expend any money on the improvement of his estate, and consequently there was no employment for the people. — The state of Achill, moreover, is one that must prove interesting to Catholics in every part of the world, for it is distinguished even in Ireland as being especially a land of confessors, if not of people who may justly be looked upon as martyrs for the faith. — It was one of the earliest scenes of the exploits of the Irish Church Missions —as the attempt to pervert the faith of the people was called— which, excepting the penal laws, of all attempts was the most persevering and determined, a< perhaps it was also the most outrageous, heartless, and detestable— all its circumstances being duly considered. — Of the particular attempt made in Achill with its results the Freeman 1 * commissioner gives the following description. — " The principle landowners on the Island are the Trustees of the Achill Mission, Captain Pike, the Earl of Cavan, Rev. Mr. Weldon, London ; and Patrick M'Hugh, a middleman to Lord Sligo. I find the names of the Trustees of the Achill Mission property set forth as plaintiffs ia a process for a year's rent, and tbey are — Thomas Fulton Caldbeck, Eaton Brae, Loughlinstown ; Captain B. Wade Thompson, Cloonskeagh Castle ; Paul Askin, 40 Lower Sackvilie-street, Dublin, all in the country of Dublin ; and William Pigeoa, Athlone, with Mr. Bindon Platt, solicitor, Dublin, as agent. The very name the property is known by tells the object for which it was purchased. The Mission was intended to spread the light of the Gospel amongst the Catholic people of the island, and its agencies while famine and the plague held a deadly grip of the land in the, bad years, were soup, clothing, good houses, tracks of land free of rent, and grants of money. In a bulky volume recently published in London, entitled, "The Life of the Rev. Edward Nangle, Apostle of Achill ; by the Rev. Henry Skeddal, L.L.D., Vastina, Meath," I find that the Mission was established by the subject of the biography in 1834, when he was given a large tract of land as a beginning by Sir Richard O'Donnell, Bart, the then proprietor of Achill. Some years previously Mr. Nangle — who was a native of Athboy, county Meatb, dan had served for a long time in the army before entering the Protestant ministry — visited the island as an agent for a relief committee to distribute food and clothing to the starving islanders, and was then impressed by the fine field for apostolical labour among the Romish people afforded by Achill. I was pointed out, while driving over the road, a larg e number of houses erected by the mission for the manufacture of soup, each of which, though fast tumbling to decay, is still equipped with its huge boiler ; and several school houses of the mission in a similarly woeful plight were also shown to me. If ever there was a life's labour lost it was that of the Rev. Mr Nangle, who was gathered to his fathers a few years ago at the ripe old age of eighty-five. There are not on the Island now a half-dozen native " jumpers " (as the perverts are called), and the entire Protestant congregation numbers about twenty-four ia a population of six thousand. Even the author of Mr. Nangle's biography says— " The Achill Mission certainly did not realise all that its enthusiastic friends and supporters looked forward to, • and few who know the facts will disagree with him. The servants of the Mission appealed not to the peoples' conscience but to their stomachs." It appears, however, that the seekers of souls were by no means discouraged by their complete failure, as thus narrated, and we find further on a rather funny description of an attempt made at a more recent date to rescue the unhappy children of Rome. This passage also is worth quotation. " One of the shining lights of the Plymouth Brethren is the Earl of Cavan ; and though the Rev. Mr. Nangle and his mission turned out a complete failure, notwithstanding the thousands of pounds expended on its support, still the earl believes that there is yet a field for spreading 'the Gospel light' in the Island of Achill For example, I quote the following announcement from the Christian Herald (London) of Saptember 16th last :— ' The Gospel for Ireland' — Rev. H. Jones, known to many as the secretary of the Turkish Mission Aid Society, lias mi lertaken to go to the far West of Ireland and endeavour, as God may enable him, to win the poor priestridden people of that dark region to the truth, as it i 9 in Jesus, and to the faith and hope of the Gospel. Mr. Jones has a small but insufficient income tf bis own. The Lord Cavan has kindly offered him the use of his furnished house on the Island of Achill. Mr. B.C. L. Beven has promised £10, and to expend the same next year if it should bo required. We earnestly corameml the cause of our brother, whom we

believe well suited for the work, and shall be glad to receive any contributions tbat may be sent to as for the promotion of this good object.' Sare enough, towards the middle of October the Her. Mr. Jones (who happens to be a very old gentleman) turned up at Acbill , accompanied by his wife and daughter, and has since resided in the Earl of Cavan's house ; but the Christian Herald will be surprised to hear he has as yet done nothing towards the object for which he came over from London ; and I think Mr. Beven's ten pounds next year shall not be reqaired, for the'last I heard of the Rev. Mr. Jones is that he was about to quit the island." The consequences nevertheless, of their rejection of the gospel of soup by the islanders were of serious import to them. The mission property had been acquired for the benefit of the elect, and the reprobate could not be suffered to eD joy its comforts :—": — " Well, this property, purchased by the contributions of ' the old maids of Exeter Hall ' for the object I have stated, extends over 19,280 statute acres of the 46,000 which the island contains ; and its valuation is only £1,100. I have referred already to the fact that in times past the Achill tenantry were driven from the reclaimed bog to the unreclaimed bog, and the Mission property proves no exception to the rule, though it might be expected, the owners being so anxious for the well-being of the people's souls in the next world, would give their bodies a little consideration and ease in this. The fat of the Mission property lies round a little settlement of Protestants called ' the Colony.' This village presents a very pleasant sight indeed amid its surroundings of heath and bog. It contains the only hotel on the island* and as there are also several lodges in the village, tourists stop there during the summer months. The sr irien plots and fields attached to the houses are well laid out, and the soil looks rich and productive here, for on it were expended the toil and sweat of generations perhaps, of the islanders, the descendants of whom are now to be found huddled together in a cluster of mud hovels called the village of Dugort, and as they toil from morning till nigbt to win their humble sustenance from the niggardly soil they now hold, they can look down on the fertile lands their fathers once held and made fruit • ful. The other chief villages on the mission property are Keel and Dooagh. Bach consists of over a hundred cabins, and a population of six hundred ; and if one wants to see under what an extremity of misery and wretchedness human life can be sustained let him visit either. If starvation adds its honours, I doubt if then the lot of a human being on this earth could reach a deeper depth of misery than that of some of the unfortunate inhabitants of Keel and Dooagh." Meantime, one anecdote related by the writer in particular contains a most bitter satire on the. system of Government hitherto carried on in Ireland, and well and sufficiently explains the hatred of England that obtains among the Irish people. The Lord Lieutenant, as the writer tells us, visited the place a few months ago, the men being all away at the time cutting the English harvest and the women not understanding His Excellency's presence. ' Ah, then, sir.' said one intelligent old dame to me when questioned about the visit. ' we tried to bow to him as well as we could. And, sure, was it the Lord Lieutenant ? Well, now, I never heard of the Lord Lieutenant before but in hanging men.' It appeared strange to the simple old soul that a man against whom an outcry so great had been raised because of his hanging propensities, that it had reached even the out-of-the way island of Achill, though in a very confused form, Bhould go amongst the people in such a fashion as did Lord Carnarvon during his visit here." The connection between religion and politics which is so close in Ireland, and which many very well meaning people completely misunderstand and some vilify, may have considerable light thrown upon it by a visit to Acbill— and the need seen there for the defence of the people against the cruel mercies of the proselytigers. It is not surprising to find that the guidance of this people's parish priest also takes a political direction. " Men of his kidney," says the writer speaking of the ex-light of the Tuaks, •*shall not find their work so easy in the Achill of the future if they ever attempt it, which is doubtful— as they had in the past difficult enough as it was then. The Rev. P. O'Connor, P.P., since his appointment to the parish two years ago, has considerably raised the status of the people, mentally and politically. I have seen during my stay in the island many evidences of the whole-souled devotion he displays in the advancement of their interests, and the affection in which they regard him and the confidence they repose in him in return. The people are no longer the willing serfs they had been— fifteen hundred of the men have votes— there is scarcely a man in the parish that is not a member of the National League. They know their power, and the days of quiet submission to the oppression and exactions of landlords, and agents, and baliffs are for ever at an end in Achill." But if they are at an end, and with them the renewal of the attempt to pervert the people from their faith by bribery as contrasted with starvation and misery, what may bej thanked for this bnt the successful agitation conducted by Mr. Parnell ? Achill as we said is a land of Catholic confessors, and' almost of martyrs, but it is also a land where a continuance of religious persecution has been made impossible by a successful political campaign— opposed and decried by many pious people.

AQVUB ▲MJAJTCB.

quotation made by evangelical papers of M. Paul Bert's article in the Voltaire on the revocation of the Bdict of Nantes. The second centenary of this event took place, as we know, last October, sad wu made the occasion of many celebrations. Bigotry wm furbiihed np in many quarters, and the whole anti-Oatholic world eajoyed fresh satornalia. The descendants of the Huguenots met together here and there in most countries where they are to be found, and made commemoration among themselves of an event concerning which probably the greater number cared not one whit •nd many, perhaps, had possessed but very hasy ideas. The spirit generally prevalent, we need hardly say, was one of thankfulness for the deliverance of their fathers from the thraldom of Borne, and the generation that now exists bUndly rejoiced OTer the grievous misfor* tone and lamentable error of that former one. No one wants to «MM»d the action taken by King Louis XIV. It was a tyrannous meamre carried out by an autocrat with whom no one dared to remonstrate. Baint-t»mon affirms that it was the cause of sincere •orrow to all the humane people of France, and that the bishops who were real churchmen, and not the mere occupants of sees into which they bad been intruded for the sake of the emoluments, were very "* U S!l? iCtedbyit * There WMf morßOW t T «y little excuse that cooM be urged for it. It is true the Huguenots had ever been ready to side with the enemies of France, and there was always sou* degree of danger to the welfare of the country from their sympathy with foreign nations, but there were no special indications at the time that anything harmful was likely to occur, and there was every wason to secute and improve the patriotism of these people by forbearance and just government Their particular privilege*, wherever they were at variance with the general good of the kingdom, might ™™ b * en repealed or fallen into abeyance in course of time as they became better citisens, and nothing was to be gained by their expulsion at all oommeosurate with the ills to arise from it, aud the injustice committed. As to the advantage, however, of rubbing up old sores at the present time, it is more than doubtful, and, if Protestantism be the great institution that it claims to be, surely it can •fford to rest upon its merits without any attempt to enhance them by the recalling of past sufferings. The commemoration that is made, moreover, by the aid of the leaders of the atheistic party of the d«y v especially doubtful, and does much to discredit the religion which it pretends to glorify. M. Paul Bert is a strange champion of those who suffered for their fidelity to any form of Cbristianity-who himself is a notable persecutor, and the sworn foe of the Christian »*me. M. Paul Bert rebuking persecution, indeed, can only be compared, as the saying is, to Baton rebuking sis. We see, however with what strange allies our Evangelical friends find themselves associated, and, therefore, we may judge as to the genuine character of the Christianity they pretend to practise.

FACTB IN CONTRADICTION.

The author of the Greville Memoir* hardly eeems to bare agreed with that view of things which gires to Protestant countries the superiority in every respect and to England the highest rank of all.— H« testimony, for example, aa to what came under his notice in Badtn is somewhat at variance with the commonly received opinion to which we allude. "My companion in the carriage, Mr. de Porbeck, an officer in the Baden army," he Bays, writing of a tour in Germany in 1843," a well-conditioned and intelligent man, expressed with tome pride his satisfaction that while they bad nothing of the grandeur of English opulence to boast of, they bad not the afflicting spectacle of English misery and destitution. The subdivision of land (the effects of which I saw in the minute stripes of cultivated land on the hill sides) caused all the agricultural population— much the greatest part of Baden— to be removed from want ; and he assured me that the whole of the people are tolerably educated. No soldier, for instance, is allowed to enlist without beiDg able to read and write. There is certainly a degree of social equality which is very foreign to our babit*,and yet it is not subversive of the respect which is due from persons in one station to those in another. There is something of independence, mixed with kindness, which quite reconciles one to what anybody, thoroughly imbued with English customs and prejudices, would probably be affronted and provoked at. As far as 1 can ascertain, nothing can go more harmoniously than the Catholics and Protestants do here. Two thirds of the people are Catholics ; the reigning family Protestants ; clergy of both persuasions paid by tae State ; education in common : and the schools open to teachers who give separate religious instruction. Go where one will, it seems to me that one finds a more satisfactory and harmonious state of things with regard to religion than in England. There is more intolerance, bigotry, obstinacy, and diraiton, at home than in all the world besides." This is strikingly at variance with the usual Protes. tant testifying as to the exceptional ignorance, bigotry, and vileneai in general to^be found among Catholic populations. Another fact of a similar nature is that one also recently published to the effect that

of the yonng men whose eduoatton entitles them to exemption under the German conscription— and who on examination are admitted to serve as one year volunteers, the best answering is made by those who come from the the western or Catholic provinces, while in the Eastern or Protestant districts the deficiency is remarkable. Theories, then, as we see are occasionally one thing, while facts are quite another and tbis happens especially often with regard to Catholic affairs. '

AM KNCOUBAGIIfG ABTICLB.

The Daily Kme§ which as * Liberal organ may fee understood to point to the direction in which the party it represents ii inclined to proceed gives in its edition of December 14, a sketch of Irish affairs and a proposal for their amendment which, if they leare something to be desired, are still very encouraging*— The writer begins by describing the relationships that exist between the sister kingdoms, explaining at the same time certain fallacies in the ex. planations given of them. - More than seven hundred years," he says, " have pasted since the political connection of England with Ireland began. There have been now eigbty-five years of Parliamentary union. The two countries are apparently as far oil as ever from real unity. They feel towards each other as foreigners. It is absurd to see in this phenomenon an unquenchable hostility of race. Some of the most disaffected parts of Ireland are by no means purely Celtic. They are those inherited by the old Englishry and by the desoendants of Cromwell's soldiers. The Celts of Wales, of the Scotch Highlands, and of Cornwall, are by no means difficult people to govern. Nor can we trace the alienation of Ireland to differences of religion. The Roman Catholics of Holland and Germany have their squabbles with the Government, but on the whole they live peaceably and in goodwill with their Protestant rulers and fellow-subject* The evils under which Ireland suffers are agrarian, political, and ■ocial; and the instruments ofjcure and reconciliation must be of the same character. The settlement cf the Cburch question has removed many of the grievances of which Ireland complained. But the sense that things have been done for them which they ought to have had the right to do for themselves, that they have been extorted from what they regard as a foreign Legislature by a sort of Parliamentary and social war, oftem coming dangerously near to civil war, has prevented the material redress from bringing with it a moral appeasement and reconciliation. A nation does not relish being kept in a state of childhood and tutelage, and it rebels even against benefits conferred upon it from without. Ireland has not had much cause, we must admit, for any rebellion of ingratitude. The most that English legislation has done for her has been partially to redress wrongs which ought never to have been inflicted ; and which it is much easier for the author than for the victim of them to forget." He goes on to review the Parliamentary experiments tried in Ireland, finding them all inadequate, and giving the following as the result of his examination :— " It cannot, therefore, be said that Ireland, as a nation, ever had a Parliament of her own. She has been governed by Parliaments of the foreign garrison in Ireland, men who spoke of themselves always as English and as settlers, never as Irish." " It is not the fact, therefore," he continues, whatever may be presumed, that the Irish nation has shown its uafitness for a Parliamentary system. The experiment of domestic legislation, or, to employ short instead of long words, of Home Rule, has not failed. It may fail, but np till now it has never been tried. Just as little we fear, can it be said that the Parliamentary Union in the form in which it has been tried has succeeded, until lately the representatives of Ireland have been a powerless foieign minority in the House of Commons. Acquiring strength they have been strong chiefly for mischief. The principle of Parliamentary Union is absolutely unassailable. It is necessary to avoid the dangers which were inherent in the Irish Parliament of 1782. But the Union has been effected in the wrong way It has been established on tbe suppression of local self-government. The infusion of Irish members into the Imperial Parliament has not prevented its being an English Parliament legislating for Ireland. The experiment which has not been tried is a Parliament or National Council, really representing the whole people of Ireland, and not the Protestants only, as before and after 1782 ; with real powers such as the earlier Parliament did not possess, to legislate on purely Irish questions, but without the absolute independence which Grattan's Parliament wrung from the English Government." If the Daily Nent, then, represents the views of the Liberal majority, we may conclude that the battle of Irish independence has been as good as won. The slight restriction made with regard to Grattan's Parliament ig wholly immaterial, and such as must necessarily disappear before the demands of the Nationalists in Parliament.

TAX POWBRB OF THK CHURCH.

The wonderful manner in which the Church has regained strenth under the pressure put upon her in our own times has of late been the subject of a good deal of remark and has aroused the admiring attention of even some who are by no means friendly to her. The notion entertained by many people that the Catholic religion had become effete, and was destined to die out before the march of modem

BTAvaniOaxjUf is oertaicly advancing every day towards its final and rational goal of atheism. The latest indication of tbis that we have seen is the

mprorenientj being especially incapable of accommodating itself to the democratic tone of the century, has received a notable contoidlo. tion, and those who are best informed most clearly see that the exact contrary bids fair to prevail. An excellent article on tbe subject for example, has lately appeared in the lteiehnettu% \ German newspaper from which we take the following as we find It quoted by another continental journal :-The more the ?i? Ur s •«!** , Oppr f 88ed and Persecuted by Governments the more the fajtbful and the clergy become bound togethor and to the Apostolic See: It is not in the mouueby nor in the bureaucracy that the power of the Church consists. This power finds all its origin in the Tolnntarv submission of the people to tbe Holy See. Under thi> point of view no period of history is so consoling as that which we ue now traversing. In the sixteenth century an apostate bishop could pronounce these tyrannical words-" I am of the religion of mj country. And he was followed by his flock in his apostasy. Some decades of years ago an apostate parish priest would have been able to f£VTr 7 £ hh T nOTB *" ° f hi " P arißh ™ers. A few years before nl Ka !^ ani P f «* irreverent and satirical expressions at the ex. pense of tbe Pope or the clergy would havemade people laugh: but now thow times are past. The popular sentiment of Oatholicfsm i*JZ EUted everywhere, and it is in this that the strength of the Church ami the Papacy consists. Like the giant Anteus who, in contest with Hercules, regained new vigour when he touched the earth, so the Pope attains to his power not in the great ones of this world, but in the popular masses and in the force of supernatural idea.. The Catholic ideas may well be arrested for some time by brute violence Very soon however, with their innate power they strike down all the obstacles placed in their path. The future of Europe, according to all pre-visions, will be rather democratic than monarchical But God is already preparing his Church for this condition of thines by causing her present power to be foand in the chains that bind peoples and nations to the Apostolic See.-So far the German oaoer -but, for our own part, we may remark that the voluntarysubxmssion of the people to the Holy See, of which this writer speaks andmost truly speaks, is that above all thing, which those who are without the Church are unable to comprehend, and hence arise many mistakes and mis-statements among them. But, as the writer ahio says, in this consists the real power of the Church, and the secret of her influence. While this lasts, the Catholic religion <Z never become effete, and, as we see, it is immortal and beyond the reach of injury— being strengthened by persecution.