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New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 15, 9 January 1891, Page 31

In consequence cf 'be enforced French military service for ecclesiastical students in France, there is to be estab iabed in all large garrison towns a kind of seminarists' home, in which they will have all the advantages of club life, combined with religious routine. The home will be available for the guests of tbe cleric soldiers, and by tois means a religious group will be created in every company. So far from weakening vocations to tbe priesthood, it is nearly certa n that military service will increase the number of candidates for Holy Orders. Few people bave been aware that the " National Protestant Congress," a email and feeble imitation of the ''Church Congress," held i's first sitting last week in London. The reports of it in the Protestant papers make no attempt to estimate the numbers present, either because the a tendance was so large as to defy all attempts at counung, or so small that to have mentioned the figure in scores or hundreds would have given the public too clear an idea of the value of the demonstra'ion. However, this Congress at least knows its own mind. Sir Arthur Rlackstone, who was in the chair — it is significant that a sufficiently eminent clerical chairman could not be found — asserted that the encroachments of Borne are unprecedented i^ih^ir successes — which, by the way, is exactly the opposite of what £ur Ritualistic friends say. He also said lhat there is scarcely to be found a church belonging to the Establishment where a "simple Go.-ptl " was proclaimed. We had suppos-sd that the text, " Come out of hi-r, my people," was exactly apphciib'e to t'ie9e circumstances. There must be seme very Btroug reason, surely, which compels these good Proteotan s \o lemain members of a body so entirely given over to idolatry and superstition a.s is the modern Church of England. — Lnt q>ool Catholn lv»' -.