The Project Gutenberg eBook, Journal in France in 1845 and 1848 with Letters from Italy in 1847, by T. W. (Thomas William) Allies

CONTENTS.

{1}

INTRODUCTION.

Of the vast number of English men and English women who have travelled on the Continent in late years, comparatively few, I imagine, have deemed it worth their while to give much thought and attention to the action of the Church in the countries they have visited. Doubtless all have entered the material fabrics of Roman Catholic worship, but generally it has been to treat them as public monuments, rather than as "the house of prayer for all nations." But how many of those travellers who enjoy leisure and independence have made it their study to understand those manifold institutions for the education of the clergy or the laity, for the consolation of the suffering, for the instruction of the poor and outcast, or for the advancement of the interior life, by which the Church christianises the world, and lays hold of the heart of humanity? I am not now expressing an opinion whether the whole Roman system be true or {2} false, pure or corrupt; I am looking at it simply as a fact. And in this view, perhaps, there is no object on the face of the earth so worthy of contemplation by the thoughtful mind as the Roman Church. As an English Churchman, I do not think it truthful, honest, christian, or safe, to shut my eyes to such a fact existing in the world. It seems to me that one ought to endeavour to understand it. Those who strive to rekindle ancient animosities, those who take not the trouble to understand doctrines as taught by their professors, but wilfully misconceive and mis-state them; those even who rest contented in a state of separation, do they not sin against Him, who in the days of His humiliation prayed to His Father, "that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us; that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me." Do they in the least realise the fact that the Church of England considers the Church of Rome to be quite as truly a part of the Church Catholic as she is herself?

Thus it is that between the two communions there has grown up a prodigious ignorance of each other's true state. I have found well informed Roman Catholic ecclesiastics ignorant that we possess a ritual, use fixed prayers, have a regular hierarchy; while scarcely any one is aware that we have a form of absolution as categorical as their own, and one {3} which presupposes special confession. They are in the habit of taking for granted that we have no succession, besides asserting that our orders are invalid through defect of the formularies. The present Pope, conversing lately with an English clergyman, seriously inquired of him, whether we administered, what, in condescension to the supposed feelings of his auditor, he termed "la cena," once a year; and whether we passed the cup from hand to hand? Two notions, I imagine, which must have given him the poorest impression of the Anglican communion which a Roman Catholic could have. And in conversing with theologians, they ordinarily direct themselves against merely Protestant feelings and arguments, such as touch the Lutherans and Calvinists abroad, or dissenters here, but which have nothing to do with English Churchmen.

But Roman Catholic ignorance of us is, I think, almost exceeded by our ignorance of them.

Would that I could be in any degree instrumental to the removal of a prejudice, or the clearing up of a misconception. My means of observation have not been large, my time very limited; but I have seen enough to be convinced, that those who hate and denounce the Roman Church most violently, do not hate and denounce her more than she would that thing which they suppose to be the Roman Church.

If both sides knew each other well, if all had been {4} done which could be done for a reconciliation, and the present state of enmity and opposition still subsisted, it would indeed be a grievous prospect for the future; but when ignorance and misapprehensions make up so much of the difference between the Churches, are we not to hope for better things? Is not Providence teaching us, by what is taking place on both sides, that the Church of God in all lands must unite against the common foe? Is He not removing on both sides the impediments to that union?

Moreover, an English Churchman conversing with a Roman Catholic will find, in proportion as both are earnest-minded, that they have generally the same friends and the same enemies, the same likings and the same antipathies, which, if the great heathen philosopher be correct, is a strong proof of an inward identity.[1] Very rarely indeed will they differ in principle, though sometimes in facts; the inward character will be the same in both.

The only merit of the following journal, if it have any, is the attempt to see things as they are in the Roman Catholic system; to put off all preconceived prejudices, not condemning that which is contrary to what one is accustomed to meet, but endeavouring to understand the principle on which it rests. It is {5} nearly restricted to France, but perhaps that country is for more than one reason the most interesting part of the Roman Catholic communion at present. There the divorce, which all the governments of Christendom are now enacting on the Church, has been accomplished with the most harshness, contumely, and tyranny. The ample estates surrendered by the French clergy, in noble reliance on the generosity of their country, have been taken possession of by the state, which, admitting that the vast majority of its people are Catholic at least in profession, has recompensed this surrender by a grant to the clergy, yearly repeated, not a dotation once for all, and that in amount so unspeakably mean and inadequate, that every Frenchman of honour and feeling must blush for his country as he thinks upon it. The immense majority of curés throughout France receive from the state a stipend of 32l. a year, in larger populations this is extended to 48l., in the largest of all to 60l. Moreover, in France the state has done or is doing, what in England it will also do if it can; it sets up in every parish a schoolmaster without a creed, to teach children all kinds of useful knowledge, from which only a definite creed is excluded, and to be an antagonist to the clergyman in his proper sphere. Then the existing generation of Frenchmen has been brought up since the tide of infidelity swept over their land; in too many cases they are {6} not only infidels in present practice, but even their childish thoughts and associations were not Christian. The full harvest of the terrible convulsion of 1789 is being reaped—alas, it is far from being yet gathered in! Infidelity not only stalks openly through the land, but bears open sway in it. There is nothing on which all those with whom I spoke were more agreed than that "le respect humain" was against the Church and against religion. What a fact is this alone, whereby to estimate the state of a country. If "hypocrisy be the homage which vice pays to virtue," where stands that country whose public opinion requires no hypocrisy in the open profession of unbelief? For these and other reasons, then, I conceive that the Church of God is best seen in France working by her own intrinsic powers, not only unaided by the world, but most cruelly afflicted by it, and so externally oppressed and degraded, that nothing but the irrepressible life of the Gospel could penetrate and leaven society under such conditions. God grant that such a state of things be not preparing in England—and if it be, God grant likewise that the Church, in the day of her need, may have servants and handmaidens, priests, teachers, and sisters of charity, as disinterested, laborious, patient, and zealous, as He has raised up for her in France. This further may be said, that, if France as a nation be ever brought afresh under the yoke of her Saviour, {7} no condition of human society need be despaired of; nor the capacity of the Church of Christ to overcome any amount of obstacles doubted.

Of course the institutions mentioned in this journal are but samples of a multitude. None will feel more than the writer its great incompleteness. Still this is a field of observation which has been little worked; so that the mere partial breaking of its surface may produce fruit.

It may be as well to put together here the five congregations in France mentioned in different places of the journal, which are engaged in missionary work. They are "la Congregation des Prêtres de la Mission," or, "les Pères Lazaristes," Rue de Sèvres, 95.; the "Séminaire des Missions Etrangères," Rue du Bac, 120.; the "Congrégation des Sacrés Cœurs" (Séminaire de Picpus), Rue Picpus, 9.; the Jesuits, and the Maristes. The "Congrégation du Saint Esprit," for forming priests for the colonies, Rue des Postes, 26., I did not visit. These, with the "Congrégation de la Miséricorde," form all the French missionary establishments. I think no one can give even a transient look at the course of life pursued by the St. Sulpiciens for the education of the clergy, without admiration of the astonishing care of the interior life taken by them, and the pains they are at to ascertain the due vocation for so special a work.

{8} The chief establishments of the Church for education are the grands séminaires in each diocese, for preparation for holy orders; and the petits séminaires, both under the direction of the bishops, the latter receiving boys for all sorts of professions. In these two classes of establishments alone, as a general rule, is strict attention paid to the religious training of the pupils. The royal colleges, which extend all over France, have been by all described to me as in the most corrupt moral condition, and as suffering their professors to instil systematic infidelity into their pupils. Of course the vast majority of the youth of the country is educated in these colleges. The result is seen in their lives. For the female sex, the chief congregations devoted to education are "Les Dames du Sacré Cœur," in Paris, Rue de Varennes; "Les Dames de Notre Dame" (couvent des Oiseaux, Rue de Sèvres); "Les Dames de la Visitation." Each has a great number of houses through France and elsewhere. For the poorer classes, "Les Frères de la Doctrine Chrétienne," and the various sisters of charity, are of incalculable benefit: they are very numerous, and widely spread. Their disinterested and loving labours would be the greatest of blessings to our parish priests, engaged in conflict with a hard practical heathenism on the one side, and on the other, with various forms of dissent, the essence of which may be said to consist in a {9} complete negation of the Church's office in the scheme of redemption, and, generally, of all objective belief beyond the sacrifice of our Lord for the sins of men, and the operation of the Holy Spirit.

It will be seen throughout, that I do not consider non-appreciation of the good in the Roman Catholic faith and practice a necessary ingredient of the English Churchman's character. I am quite convinced that the reunion of the English Church with the Church of Rome would be an incalculable blessing to the whole Church of God, and to the whole human race. Whoever made the separation, we need not despair of such a reunion; the right accomplishment of which good persons, on both sides, may earnestly hope and pray for.

{10}

JOURNAL.—1845.

Tuesday, June 24.—Reached Southampton from Oxford in good time, and left by the packet at 10 P.M. We passed the experimental fleet off Portsmouth, had a very fair passage, and were at the mouth of Havre about ten: but for two hours we could not enter; the swell was considerable. At Havre, took our places to Ivetot, which we reached about half-past-nine. The country rich but uninteresting.

Ivetot, June 26. 1845. Thursday.—We called on M. Labbé a little before ten, and were with him till half-past-three. His brother is Supérieur of the Petit Séminaire, in which are 225 youths. The whole payment, on an average, is 360 francs per annum for board and instruction; some paying as little as 200 francs, some as much as 500, but no difference whatever is made between them. The children are evidently on the most affectionate terms with the masters. "There are twelve priests, a deacon and sub-deacon, and three clerks in minor {11} orders."—M.[2] They attend confession once a month, and it is very rare that they fail in this: this is the rule of the house; but should any avoid it much longer, his confessor would not speak to him authoritatively at all, or send for him, but rather take an opportunity of referring incidentally to his absence. This hardly ever fails. "They generally thank him for doing so, the reason being something about which they were unable to get themselves to break the ice."—M. They live entirely with their pupils; sleeping, eating, playing, teaching: in the centre of a large dormitory, with beds on both sides, was a bed, nowise distinguished from the rest save that it had a chair beside it; here the Supérieur sleeps. His salary is 1000 francs a year; that of the others about 600. They said, laughing, that it was hardly what a servant in England would receive. The Supérieur has a very pleasing and paternal aspect. We heard him catechise the children in the chapel for some time; their answers were good. Several were on the sacraments, and the reply to them definite and precise:—'Which is the most indispensable sacrament?' 'Baptism.' 'How many sorts of baptism are there?' 'The baptism of water, of blood, and of desire.' 'Can any sacrament {12} be administered by other than a priest?' 'Yes, baptism in case of necessity.' 'Can any other?' 'None, Sir.' 'What conditions are necessary to receive the sacrament of Penance?' 'Five.' 'Are there any of those more indispensable than others?' 'Yes, fervent sorrow for sin past, and a resolution not to offend God by sinning any more.' 'If a priest conferred absolution on a person who gave no outward sign of penitence, from his state of sickness, would it benefit him?' 'If he was able to make interior actions of the soul, it would; not otherwise.' ('The Church,' said M. Labbé in explanation, 'would prefer bestowing a sacrament often inutilement, to denying it once where it might benefit.') 'Which are the three chief Christian graces?' 'Faith, Hope, and Charity.' 'Which is the most perfect?' 'Charity.' 'Why?' 'Because it presupposes the other two' (I think); and, again, 'because it will last for ever.' 'Will Faith last for ever?' 'Non, Monsieur.' 'Why?' 'Parceque, quand nous verrons Dieu, nous n'aurons pas besoin de le croire.' 'Will you see God?' 'Oui, avec nos propres yeux.' 'You have just received confirmation; what does it make him who receives it?' 'Un parfait Chrétien.' 'Etes-vous donc un parfait Chrétien?' With hesitation, 'Oui, Monsieur.' 'Etes-vous un Chrétien parfait?' 'Non, Monsieur.' 'Quelle est la différence?' 'Un parfait Chrétien est celui qui a tous les moyens pour {13} parvenir au salut—un Chrétien parfait est celui qui est sans péché' 'En y-a-t'il?' 'Non, Monsieur' (with hesitation). 'Non, mon enfant, il n'y en a pas.'

"The chapel is a pretty and simple building of the early decorated character, designed by Père Robert, who was formerly an engineer. The windows and buttresses are in excellent taste; and the ceiling, though of sham stone, is so well done that I doubted whether it were not real, though a look at the buttresses, after seeing the interior, would convince one of the contrary. There is a subterraneous chapel, or rather a crypt which will be one, which I like particularly. Père Robert showed us his design for ornamenting the east end of the chapel, which is in excellent taste."—M.

We dined with them at twelve "in the refectory. There was a crucifix at one side, in the middle of the long room; and before it stood the Supérieur while we said grace."—M.; and we supped with them at seven, in the midst of 180 boys. Absolute silence was kept, and a youth at a tribune in the middle read first a verse or two of the Gospels, and then some of 'Daniel's History of France.' Nothing could be more simple than their dress; the masters were distributed at intervals down the tables. The school was to educate laymen and ecclesiastics together, and they showed with pride a young man who had become priest out of their house, just twelve years {14} after his first communion. This is generally in the twelfth year, but earlier or later according to the state of the individual. They take their first communion after special confession, and before confirmation; we narrowly escaped seeing this sacrament conferred by the archbishop, who had only left two days before. Confession begins at seven according to rule, but generally before that age in fact.

Study commences always with the hymn beginning "Veni Sancte Spiritus," the collect for Pentecost, and "Ave Maria." One half holiday, Thursday. "Afterwards we walked in their little garden and play ground. It being Thursday, the boys went out to walk with some of the clerks. Some, however, {15} remained about the premises, doing some of the painting, &c. that was required. Much of the work has been done by them. They carried all the bricks and mortar while the chapel was building, &c. &c. They seem to be quite a family."—M.

We talked on many subjects respecting the Churches of Rome and England. In their opinion we are utterly heretical and dead. But M. Pierre Labbé, who was chief spokesman, and a very clever talker, admitted, that in case of invincible ignorance, that is, where the person was, with all his endeavours, unable to see that the Church of Rome was the only true Church, (supposing we had the succession, which he more than doubted,) such person might receive the grace of the sacraments. And this he also applied to the Eastern and Russian Churches. He said, if things should ever come to a large, or anything like a national, accession from England to the Roman Catholic faith, the question of Anglican orders must be settled, and the Pope "se gratterait la tête" what to do.

The point we remarked in this school was the intimate terms on which the masters appeared to be with the boys; it was not only that their presence during lesson time served to keep order, but that their influence was everywhere at all times. Confession, doubtless, is the root of this. Thus the Supérieur at catechism gave, as rewards, small pictures, which each boy receiving kissed him on the cheek. {16} There was the greatest hilarity and cheerfulness, mingled with respect, in presence of the master. We left these good people with great admiration of their zeal, and appreciation of their kindness to us.[3] M. Robert would take us on our way to Caudebec on Friday morning. He conducted us in a cab belonging to the house, for the homeliness of which he apologised. We passed a rich and occasionally diversified corn country to Caudebec, over one of Henri Quatre's battle-fields; there were no signs of it now. I asked him if Louis Philippe had brought about a revolution, or only slipped in to prevent a republic: he replied, "Quand on jette une pierre par la fénêtre, il faut bien qu'elle tombe."

Rouen, June 28. Saturday.—The church of Caudebec is of great beauty, of the 15th century, covered in every part with rich sculpture, especially the western façade, which the Calvinists greatly injured. I went over every part of it with the curé, and up the tower, which is terminated by a curious flêche, something like Strasburgh, formed into crowns, marvellously rich. The height about 180 feet. The view from the top is very striking. The great defect of the interior is that the east end has two windows {17} instead of three, or one, at the apse; the nave is very narrow. There was over the jubé, now removed, a rood with Adam at the bottom of it receiving the Blood in a cup, representing the fallen humanity restored by our Lord. A north and south aisle without transept. Caudebec is in a very pretty situation, within the cleft of the hills, with the river flowing at its feet; on each side rises the wooded amphitheatre formed by the banks of the Seine: there is a plain on the other side of the river; it might serve for the site of a great city. The church is equal to a small cathedral.

The curé has a pleasant presbytère to the north; he treated us with the greatest kindness. The government allows 1000 francs yearly to the restoration of the church; so it goes on bit by bit. There is a remarkable pendant in the Lady Chapel, said to be fourteen feet long: the curé assured me that he had ascertained it was not supported by anything. There is in the chapel to the south a sepulchre with exceedingly rich canopy, and a gigantic figure of Christ, "by which a woman seemed to be praying with great devotion. I can fancy it a great help to meditation."—M.

We set out in an indifferent cabriolet for Rouen by Jumiêges, and St. Georges de Boscherville; a fine road in parts. Jumiêges is a mournful ruin, the nave with its western towers and the arch to the {18} east standing still; the latter of gigantic proportions, the arch being at least eighty feet high, is grievously cracked, and may fall any day. To the east of this little remains; it has been almost entirely carried away, being the most beautiful part of the church, of early or decorated character. To the south are the walls of an elegant decorated chapel of St. Peter; the ruins are covered with brushwood or trees, the arches daily threatening to fall. The garden has a very fine view of the high banks of the Seine; there is a pleasant wilderness. M. Caumont has made himself a very picturesque residence of the old gateway and adjoining buildings. The western façade, with its two towers of equal height and nearly similar form, is very simple but grand. I mounted rather more than 200 steps to the top of the northern: unluckily it had been raining, and there was no sun. It commands the high banks of the Seine for a considerable distance.

St. Georges de Boscherville is indeed a most stately and majestic Norman church, bearing its burden of nearly 800 years as if it had been built yesterday. Its west front, with two stories of three windows, each over a fine recessed door, and turrets of singular beauty and later style, is very imposing. There is a massive central tower with a high spire of Norman, slated, I suppose near 200 feet high. The interior offers all the simple and solemn grandeur of which {19} that style is capable; the one idea is perfectly carried out from top to bottom, as in St. Ouen the Decorated, so here the Norman. I should imagine it to be a perfect model of the style.

We got into Rouen not till after dark Friday night; went to the Hotel de Normandie; not a nice house, dreadfully noisy, being in the street where the two diligences, by the most wondrous evolutions, contrive to worm themselves through the lanes of Rouen into their dens.

Saturday, June 28.—After breakfast M. set off with our letter to the curé of the cathedral, to whom M. Labbé had recommended us. He was going away in the afternoon, but asked us to dine at twelve; this is one of the few fast days in the year out of Lent, and we only agreed to go on condition that he should change nothing of his usual fare. He gave us potage maigre, fish, omelette. He was going to leave Rouen in the afternoon for a few days, so we left very early; and we much regretted this, for I have heard that he enjoys a very high reputation as confessor and spiritual guide.

"It being a fasting vigil with them, they dine without meat at twelve, and are allowed to take a snack in the evening, not a full meal. He asked questions about the course of studies at Oxford, and whether there was not in England an inclination 'to imitate their ceremonies.' I told him I hoped the {20} tendency was something more than that, &c. &c. We asked him about philosophy in the French Church. He said they used chiefly that of Aristotle, and that one could only find particular branches well worked out. They were much occupied in fighting Cousin. He and his four vicaires have a parish of 15,000 souls to look after. They have also many confessions to receive from other parishes; but for the Easter communion every one is expected to go to his own parish priest, or at least to communicate at his own church. He says Rouen is rather a religious place. I did not ask him the proportion of communicants, for fear I should seem to be inquiring for criticism. He was obliged to leave us soon after dinner, but sent us on to one of his vicaires, who took us to the house of the Frères des Ecoles Chrétiennes, and introduced us to one of them, who showed us the chapel, dormitory, &c. The founder of the order, the Père de la Salle, is buried behind the altar. There are seats for the brethren, and there is a room or gallery looking in at the west end for the boys, who only enter the chapel on Sundays and saints days for the Salut du St. Sacrement. They use this gallery for their morning and evening prayers, which, I believe, are those at the end of the Catechism. The brethren are laymen, but they have two aumoniers who say mass in their chapel twice a day. They have not the breviary services to say, being occupied {21} all day with their schools, but they hear mass, use the rosary, attend the salut, &c. There are thirty-nine brethren, and they have a normal school, i.e. a training school, of forty young men. They do not admit them under seventeen. Their course is about three years. They prepare them for 'l'instruction primaire' of the superior kind, that is, extending to a little history, chemistry, and the like, (and some of them learning also modern languages,) but not comprising Latin or Greek. Twenty-seven of the brethren, however, are occupied in schools about the town, in which, if I understood right, there are as many as 2500 children. We could not see the cabinets of mineralogy, &c. or the chemical laboratory. There were two or three little organs for music lessons. The dormitories had separate cells, with a passage along the line of them. One of the brethren sleeps in each dormitory, and stays up till all are gone to bed, to be sure that good order is kept. They are licensed by the university, and some of the scholars are supported or helped by the government."—M.

Yesterday, June 29. Sunday, St. Peter's day.—We went to high mass in the cathedral at ten, but though we had looked out the service as well as we could, and were just on the outside of the higher gate of the choir, we could not in general follow; only at the Gospel and the Creed we regained our {22} footing. Certainly the words of the service, incomparably beautiful as they are, must be in the main lost. We could not, even by observing the gestures, with the book before us, follow them; the priest's voice is hardly ever heard. A poor woman beside me chaunted through the Nicene Creed in Latin, and at vespers at St. Ouen many female voices were doing the same with the Psalms. The really edifying thing is the devotion of the people, who look upon it as a sacrifice, and do not seem to require that perpetual stimulating of the understanding as among us. For there was no sermon either at the cathedral or St. Ouen, save after the Gospel a very short address, as it seemed, in the nave, but nobody moved from the choir. This service lasted an hour and a half; then we had our own service in private. We next went to the Musée d'Antiquités, where there is a small series of stained glass windows, some very good. We had a fine view of Rouen, north of the Boulevard. At 3 o'clock vespers at St. Ouen, chanting of Psalms, followed by the exposition of the H. Sacrament. A good many people, chiefly women. They took part generally. Here again some Psalms we could find in the Paroissien, and others not. This too lasted an hour and a half; the singing was very good, and the organ came in with great effect. The whole tone of this service, as simply devotional and thanksgiving, without instruction or exhortation, {23} struck us much. After this, dinner at five at the table d'hôte. We have frequent occasion to think with approbation of the Emperor of Russia's edict, "It is forbidden to wear a beard after the manner of ourang outangs, Jews, and Frenchmen." After dinner we walked to the top of St. Catherine's, and enjoyed the beautiful view over Rouen, and also went on to Notre Dame de bon Secours. This is a new church, of the style of the 13th century, of extraordinary purity and grace; the eastern end already finished, and full of stained glass windows. It has ten bays, and three windows in the apse. It quite surpasses any modern church I have seen in beauty. All the vaulting, both of nave and aisles, is in stone or brick. It has many ex-votos,—plain slabs let into the wall: I copied some.

{24} There is a very beautiful tower surmounted by a pretty spire. The church stands on the edge of the hill, near 400 feet above the Seine.

June 30. Monday.—M. and I went over St. Ouen inside and outside to-day. The more I see of this church the more I am struck with its singular grace and beauty, and the mode in which prodigious strength is veiled. Within, it appears of unequalled lightness, while without, the eye may discern the enormous counterbalancing weight of buttress and flying arch, which enabled the architect to rear the centre, pierced as it is with windows, to such a height. The disposition of the whole choir and eastern end internally is especially graceful; for instance, the view sitting behind the high altar facing the Lady Chapel. We attended a low mass in the Lady Chapel. After {25} dinner M. P. Labbé unexpectedly came in, and talked a couple of hours. He endeavoured to explain to us the idea with which the Roman Catholics regard the Blessed Virgin, the occasion of which was my reading to him the ex-votos cited above. The communion of saints, as a practical doctrine, has had so little power among us, and assumes so very important a place in Roman theology, that we seem to be unable to understand each other on this point. And thus what is the most natural feeling of his heart to a pious mind in the Roman Communion wears the appearance of idolatry to a pious mind in the Anglican. "We talked with him on the system of particular devotions. He said it was carried to excess by some trying to exalt one practice, another another; but that a good confessor would keep it very much in check, by recommending people not to charge themselves with fresh observances."—M.

Tuesday, July 1.—I assisted at M. Labbé's mass in the Lady Chapel of the cathedral, and was able to follow him pretty well; but almost the whole Canon is pronounced secretly. At present, certainly, I cannot help regretting that one cannot hear and follow words so very grand and touching. He breakfasted with us, and then took us to boys' and girls' schools in the old aitre (atrium) of S. Maclou, "round which was a cloister ornamented with figures of the Dance of Death. The rooms {26} round it are now used for schools for the poor of S. Maclou. One of the Frères des Ecoles Chrétiennes showed us his class, who answered M. Labbé pretty well on the catechism. One of them then wrote on a black board at his dictation: 'J'espère, mes chèrs enfans, que vous vous montrerez, toute la vie, dignes des soins que les bons frères ont pris de vous;' which sentence they were made to discuss grammatically. Some of them were puzzled by the place held in the sentence by 'toute la vie,' and it was some time before they made out that it was governed by 'pendant' understood, and held the place of an adverb. They showed us some maps they had drawn, which were neat enough. Their manner to their teacher was very pleasing. We then went on to the girls' school, which is very numerous, and kept in the same set of buildings, chiefly up-stairs, by some réligieuses who are not of any regularly established congregation, but are under a vow, and are recognised and encouraged by the Church. Some of them were at work, others reading. We could not judge of them further than that they seemed to be in good order, and that it was pleasant to see them taken care of by persons devoted to the work simply for charity. We went on, through some narrow and dirty streets, to the Hôpital Général, where they take in all manner of sick people. It is a government institution, but is {27} under the care of certain sisters, who are devoted to that work. I believe they have not any very strict rule besides. We saw the Supérieure, and a good many of the others; and the sick people seemed to be kept very clean and comfortable. There is an altar in each infirmary ward, but they have not the little marks of religion at each bed's head, which one would find if the thing were wholly in the hands of the Church."—M. He then took us to a convent of Benedictine Ladies de l'Adoration du S. Sacrament. The peculiarity of their rule is, that day and night there is always some one in adoration of the Holy Sacrament. Their night office is from half-past one to three. They eat maigre all the year. "They have only two hours in the day when they are allowed to speak, except upon matters of strict necessity."—M. The Supérieure spoke with us from behind a double grating, which was besides veiled; at M. Labbé's request she withdrew the veil, that we might see her costume; but her face was entirely covered, though doubtless she could see us, herself unseen. The whole dress was black. "She spoke very quietly and simply. The congregation was instituted after a time when many altars had been profaned, to make a kind of reparation for the insults that had been committed against our Lord through His blessed sacrament."—M. In the schools and the infirmary, I was struck by the {28} prodigious advantage of their being entrusted to professed religious persons. In the evening we went round the cathedral: it is in every respect inside inferior to S. Ouen, and not particularly graceful; but outside its northern and southern fronts are not to be surpassed for beauty and elegance of design, while its western one will be of great grandeur and exceeding richness when completed; walked once more round S. Ouen with fresh admiration.

Wednesday, July 2.—At twelve we started by railway for Paris; stopped at Mantes four hours: went over Notre Dame; much delighted as in 1843. The west front up to the gallery one of the most elegant I know. They are building the last stage of the northern tower. Reached Paris at 8 o'clock: got a "modeste appartement" at the Hôtel d'Espagne.

Thursday, July 3.—We called on Miss Young at l'Abbaye aux Bois, and sat talking some time. She gave us an introduction to a sœur de la charité, by whom we were partly taken and partly shown over their large establishment in the Rue du Bac. The chapel is neat, and has a series of nice pictures: this is pointed out as the place where the Blessed Virgin appeared to one of the sisters or a novice; her image at the appearance is represented on the miraculous medal: it was before the picture over the altar on the right hand. The name of the {29} sister is kept secret, and will be so till she is dead; but the other circumstances have been disclosed by the priest who received her confession, M. Aladel, one of the Pères Lazaristes, who direct the Sisters of S. Vincent de Paul. They have 300 sisters, who are dispersed hence all over France, and continually replenished; they are erecting a very handsome building, which will accommodate 300 novices. The vows are not perpetual, but for terms of years; but it is rare that any who have once taken them fail to renew them. Went to Toulouse—curious bookshop; he has sometimes 100,000 volumes in his possession. M. found Justinianus there. Notre Dame outside struck me very much; its west front only wants lofty spires on its towers to be perfect. The interior, with all its spaciousness, is deficient in grace, and after S. Ouen we felt quite discontented with it. S. Germain des Près is a fine church, especially the choir and apse—Norman work. In the evening we saw M. Bonnetty, and had some talk with him. We were running about nine hours to-day.

Friday, July 4.—Went to breakfast with Miss Young, and had a long talk with l'Abbé Carron, formerly secretary to the archbishop. He was very polite and cordial, and offered us every thing in his power. From him we obtained an account of the day's occupations in the Séminaire de S. Sulpice, which I took down from his mouth as follows, {30} incorporating with it some further information given me by M. Galais, professor of canon law therein:—

{32} Special Lectures.

OBSERVATIONS.

There is much sickness: (the building has not gardens or sufficient space for recreation attached to it).

Not time enough for study.

The vacation is from Aug. 15. to Oct. 1.

The cassock is always worn.

They confess themselves every week, ordinarily in the morning during the meditation. They choose their own confessor among the masters, who are at present twelve, but the number is not fixed. As to communicating, they are free; but are exhorted to do it often. Often is all the Sundays and festivals. Some communicate besides two, three, four, five, times a week, especially as the time of their ordination {33} draws near. The priests every day. After the communion twenty minutes "action de grâces." On entering the seminary a general confession of the whole past life is made. At the commencement of each year, after the vacation, in October, a confession of the year is made. At the beginning of each month there is a retreat for one day, ordinarily the first Sunday. Direction is twice a month. It is intercourse between each young man and his director for the purpose of making known his inward state. There is a general retreat after the vacation for eight days; in this no visits allowed; no letters received; no going out into the city. There are recreations, but the rest of the day is consecrated to prayer, to confession, and to sermons. Each has his own rule (règlement particulier), which he draws up in concert with his confessor.

The day, the hour, and the mode of using the following exercises, to be determined on with the director.

What has been determined on by the director, relatively to the preceding exercises, is to be written in the "règlement particulier" of each.

The main resolution necessary to insure the fruits of the seminary is fidelity to the "règlement," and especially to silence at the prescribed times, and to the holy employment of one's time.

The virtues to be studied are, collectedness, the thought of the presence of God, modesty and good example, charity and humility, religion and fervour in the exercises of piety.

The order of exercises for a day in the annual retreat is as follows:—

The following means are recommended for profiting by the "retreat."

There are, moreover, retreats for eight days before each ordination. Exposition of the pontifical is given. Before the ordination of any individual is decided on, there are two "appels" to be gone through; 1st, that of outward conduct; 2d, that of inward conduct, decided by all the masters in common. If these are passed there is a third examination of himself and his fitness for the ministry to be gone through by the pupil in private. Fourthly, if he is thoroughly persuaded of his vocation, his confessor finally decides whether he shall be accepted for the ministry or rejected. The ordinary payment made by each pupil is 700 francs a year, but this, in case of necessity, or of promising persons, especially when recommended by bishops, is reduced to 400.

In Lent one meal and one collation (a half meal) are allowed: the first at mid-day. Meat is permitted on Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, by the archbishop's "mandement." Fridays and Saturdays are maigre days through the year, but not fasts. The other fasts of the year are very few, the greater number having been abolished by the {37} Concordat. They are Christmas Eve, Whitsun Eve, St. Peter's Eve, the vigils of the Assumption and All Saints.

M. Gaduel told me that the good professors of S. Sulpice receive no salary whatever. They live, he said, as children in a father's house, provided with everything they want, but they are not given money. If one has need of a coat, he asks for it, and has it. Should they be taken ill, and be unable to continue their functions, they will be supported and tenderly provided for all their days. They take no vows, and can leave when they please; and they retain whatever private property they may possess. Those who have none receive 100 francs a year for their charities; for you know, he said, they cannot go into the city without a sou. Thus their life is entirely detached from the cares of this world, from the desire of wealth, and all that attaches to it. Yet is it, from its sedentariness and severely abstract pursuits, as well as from the continued pressure on the heart and conscience, a trying life. Health, I imagine, is only maintained by the weekly relaxation of Wednesday, and the annual vacation of two months in August and September.

We talked on many other subjects with M. l'Abbé Carron. He was very desirous to explain the honour paid to the Blessed Virgin Mary. One and all reject with horror anything like adoration being offered {38} to her, or that she is anything more than the most favoured channel of grace.

At two we went to M. Bonnetty, who took us to the house of the Benedictines, then in Rue Notre Dame des Champs, where we saw the Abbé Guéranger, a very pleasing person. Talked of editions of the Fathers, the labours of the Benedictines, the movement in England. He struck me as very mild and charitable. In the library M. de Montalembert was sitting writing. We did not know who it was at the time.

On the opposite side of the street, through a private door, we entered into a most beautiful little chapel just erected in the style of the thirteenth century. It belongs to some religious garde-malades, connected with the sisters of charity, who were saying their office as we came in. The architecture is exceedingly rich: all the windows of painted glass. I have never seen anything so exquisite as this chapel. The apse was richly painted and decorated. Afterwards we set off for S. Denis, but gave it up. Looked into S. Eustache, an imposing church of the renaissance, very lofty and spacious. Also S. Germain l'Auxerrois, which is interesting. It has been restored since the riots, and is being filled with painted glass.

Saturday, July 5.—Set off for S. Denis: the abbey has been wonderfully restored since I was {39} there, and is now exceedingly imposing and interesting. The aisles round the choir have been most richly painted and decorated, the central roof not yet. All the windows are of stained glass, forming a complete sketch of French history, wherein Dagobert and S. Louis, Napoleon, Louis XVIII. and Louis Philippe, strangely figure. The tombs of François I. and Louis XII. are very beautiful. The western front resembles Mantes in character; very beautiful; pinnacles of the spire curious and most pleasing. We went to drink tea with Miss Young, her mother, a French lady, and an Irish priest, M. Macarthy, who assists at S. Sulpice. He said the seats there were let to a woman for 35,500 francs per annum. The chief duty of a Catholic is not to go to mass, but to confess and receive absolution. Before marriage every one is compelled to confess, but they do not necessarily receive absolution. This priest's conversation gave one a notion that to common minds the confessional would often be as it were wiping off an old debt, and beginning a new score. "He said there were about 14,000 or 15,000 communicants at Easter in that parish out of a population of 50,000. He seemed to think many might be people who would fall back again into grievous faults, but nearly all at the time had good intentions. I rather thought he made too little a matter of the probability of many falling back: but I may have {40} been mistaken. He said, however, that S. Sulpice was not a measure of Paris, being the most pious parish in the city. He said also, that there was very little temptation to hypocrisy, religion being rather at a discount in public opinion. I should hope from this and other accounts, that there was a very considerable leaven of true piety in this place, bad as it is."—M.

Sunday, July 6.—The heat excessive. We went to Bishop Luscombe's chapel: many staid to the Holy Communion. "There was a discontented French priest there, who, I fear, is going to set up for himself. I had a little talk with the Bishop between services. He has, if I am not mistaken, a totally false view of the position of the French Church. He thinks it is falling to pieces, as a man might think Oriel was coming down, if he did not know there was a live Provost and Fellows inside to repair it when necessary. The discontented go to him and tell him their tale, as the college weapons might fall on the head of any one in quad; and of course they do their best to make him think that all is as rotten as they are. The Roman Catholic clergy, I believe, do not know much of him, or he of them, and he is shut out from the sight of what is best among them."—M.

At five dined with M. Bonnetty. We found there two priests, one of whom, M. D'Alzon, was going to {41} preach at Notre Dame des Victoires that evening for the archiconfrèrie du sacré Cœur de Marie. He seemed an able man, was vicaire general of Nismes, a person of property, who was bent on taking orders. He could not understand how we could preach with a book before us; said no one would listen in France. The other priest, M. Jacquemet, was a very pleasing modest person. We adjourned to the garden of the missions étrangères; met there M. Drach, who had been chief rabbin. He has written a book on the harmony of the Synagogue and the Church; seemed to think he could settle the difficulty concerning the day of the Passover by Jewish traditions.

M. Bonnetty took us to Mrs. Ryon's in the Place belle Chasse. The heat excessive.

Monday, July 7.—We called on M. Defresne; much struck by his conversation. He said all that was best in religion was at Paris: out of a million of inhabitants there were 300,000 going to mass, and 50,000 practising Christians; this was the kernel of religion in the country, the pure gold. He justified the shops being left open by the government on Sunday, for the people generally being without belief, it would be an act of sheer tyranny to shut them. Louis Philippe was now employing against the Jesuits the same arbitrary power he had used to expel l'Abbé Châtel. On religious matters he did not seem to understand how an instructed person could {42} remain with good faith out of the Roman Church. The Puseyites, he seemed to think, did not belong to the Establishment. M. Defresne speaks with remarkable energy; we both wished to have another talk with him. Thence we went to the Pères Lazaristes; M. Aladel received us, gave us the rules of the sisters of charity. Their chief work being the relief of the sick, &c. they have no office, properly so called, and their hours are subject to variation. They rise, winter and summer, at 4 to 4½; 4½ to 5½ meditation, prayer, a subject for meditation given the evening before; 5½ hear mass—this is the ordinary time, but it varies: for instance, they would attend the church in their immediate neighbourhood at whatever hour it might be. Every day spiritual reading,—the Chaplet: it lasts a long half hour; has many special prayers added by their founder, which cannot be seen. In the evening a second meditation for half an hour, always before six o'clock. Vocal prayers before bed time, at half-past eight. Subject of meditation given. These exercises of piety are never given up, as in cases of extreme sickness the sister attending waits till the others have done, and is then relieved by them. They do not go out after nightfall. Dinner at half-past eleven. Supper at six. Their duties are, 1. visiting the sick; 2. attending hospitals; 3. dressing the sick at their own house; 4. keeping schools {43} at their own house. Each school belongs to a sister, who is generally the same; one takes care of the linen, another of the kitchen, and so on. M. Aladel then attacked us on matters of controversy; could not conceive persons of intelligence and good faith remaining out of the pale of the Roman Church. Indeed, this is universally the first thing with them—to be in communion with Rome. Without unity they can conceive no holiness, nor self-devotion, nor even sincerity. We said we admitted the primacy of Rome, but not an absolute power; and referred back to the times of the early Patriarchs, as St. Athanasius. His reply was, that the Pope allowed them to institute their own Bishops, and where this permission was not openly expressed it was implied; a mode of assumption which soon puts an end to all difficulties. The Greeks and Russians were schismatics, but far nearer than we. To him, as to every other Roman Catholic with whom we conversed, the English Church is simply a mass of heresy and schism. We regretted the controversial language of this conversation. Called on M. Labbé, and had a friendly talk with him. He describes the actual state of the Colleges of the University as horrible in point of morality. He is now, at forty-five, sitting down to the study of Greek, to pass his degree of M.A. at the University, in order that he may be privileged to teach under it. At Lady Elgin's in the {44} evening, whither M. Bonnetty conducted us, we found a lively party in the garden. The chief conversation was on magnetising, there being a young man of great powers that way present, but he declined giving us any specimen of his power: he said it took too much out of him, and sometimes bestowed on him the maladies he relieved others from. Thus, he succeeded in transferring a lady's headache to himself. The heat very great to-day.

Tuesday, July 8.—We called on M. Théodore Ratisbonne, a man of about forty-two, with striking Jewish physiognomy, gentle and pleasing in manner. I was very much struck with his conversation. We said we came to learn as much as we could of Catholic institutions. 'As for Protestantism,' said he, 'I believe it has produced good fathers of families, good morals, kindly social feelings, and so on; but as for perfect devotion of the heart to God, it seems to me quite barren. But the soul should not walk, she should fly.' On the worship of the Blessed Virgin, so called, he said, 'Place yourself in the presence of Jesus Christ, for He is ever present, He is always the same. You would see beside Him the Blessed Virgin and the Apostles. You would throw yourself at his feet; but having done so, would you have no thought for His mother? Would you turn your back upon her? Would that be a way of gaining His favour? Or, place yourself at the foot of the {45} Cross, remember His last words, and how can any Christian have other than filial feelings towards her? But there is not a child of the poorest Catholic peasant who would for an instant confound the reverence paid to the mother of his Lord with the worship due only to God. C'est une horreur. Elle est une simple créature, une fille d'Adam, notre sœur; mais elle a réçu la grace d'être mère de Dieu. Moi, je baise un tableau de ma mère, de mes sœurs, de mes amis; et je ne baiserais pas celui de la Sainte Vierge? Je fléchis le genou devant les rois de la terre; je ne le fléchirais pas devant elle?' He took up a book by a Protestant minister, I think of Geneva, and read to us with great indignation the account he had made up of a Roman priest's sermon on the Blessed Virgin—the adoring her, and so on. He said the Protestant remarks on that subject were full of bad faith, and were in the highest degree shocking to Catholics. I asked him about his brother's conversion: he said, over and above the printed account which I had seen, 'My brother, two hours after his conversion, was seen by Cardinal Mezzofanti, who was ready to throw himself on his knees in adoration to God. Nothing was known of my brother at Rome, and at first great apprehensions were entertained as to what his character might turn out to be. He had never read two pages of the Bible, never received any religious instruction whatever, was {46} altogether of a light and superficial character. The Blessed Virgin appeared to him as close as I am to you; she made a motion to him that he should remain quiet under the divine influence. On rising out of his ecstacy he had received intuitively the knowledge of the Christian faith. He came and lived three months with me; I never talked with him as to what he should do; I carefully abstained from exercising any influence over him. I had, indeed, great apprehensions of him, as to what his future life would be. At the end of that time I said to him, I am going to offer mass for you, to know what your future vocation will be. He replied, without the slightest hesitation or emotion, I am in no doubt about that. Two courses are open to me: one is to become a priest and live here with you; we should be two brothers together,—that would be, indeed, a delightful life: the other is to enter the Company of Jesus. I do not know what that is, but I shall become a Jesuit. I was very much astonished. As tu bien réflechi, je lui dis?—Je n'y ai pas réflechi, mais la S. Vierge me l'a dit.—Alors je me tus, je ne dis plus une parole. He knew so little what the Jesuits were; he had so great an apprehension what would happen to him, that when he left me he agreed that, if he was unhappy, he would put a certain mark in his letter for me to come and see him. I went after a time to see him: I found him engaged {47} in cleaning the dirtiest parts of the house. They had put him on the severest trials to test his resolution; he surmounted them all, and now, since he has been three years among them, he has never had even l'ombre de peine. I believe that he has more than once received a repetition of the grace he had at Rome, but I have never asked him on the subject. His vocation has been marked out by the Blessed Virgin for the conversion of the Jews. My uncle is worth from six to seven millions of francs: he has disinherited my brother, who has renounced every thing. He built a small church near here: before going into the order of the Jesuits he distributed all his property to the poor, as is their custom; previous to his conversion he had never had vision or anything of the kind.'

M. Ratisbonne, seeing we were greatly interested in all he said, warmed in his manner, and before parting he gave each of us a small book; mine is a Catechism. I told him how much I had liked his life of S. Bernard. 'Ah,' he said, 'you have had the patience to read that.' I begged him to allow me to call on him again before leaving. We then went to Miss Young's, where I wrote down as much as I could remember of our conversation, which had greatly moved me. Thence M. Carron took us to several booksellers; we also called on M. Galais at the Séminaire S. Sulpice, and delivered our letter; {48} as he had a class shortly after, we proposed coming again on Thursday. We then adjourned to the church a short time, to various libraries, and did not get home till late.

Wednesday, July 9.—Called on M. Martin Noirlieu, Curé of St. Jacques; we found him very affable, and desirous to oblige. Talked about the state of things in England, and said we were most desirous to see things as they were, and to get rid of all prejudice. I said the culte of the Blessed Virgin was that which stood most in our way; and remarked, how in their litanies to her, after a simple address to the different persons of the Holy Trinity, there followed a reiterated invocation of her under many various titles, throwing, as it were, into the shade the Godhead. He excused this, because in those litanies her intercession was especially requested, and spoke of other litanies to Jesus, &c. He also said the Church was in no way committed to those popular devotions of the Archiconfrèrie, &c. He, for example, had had nothing to do with them at all; but lately he had had occasion to preach severely against the idea of any virtue being supposed to reside in images themselves. He strongly recommended Bossuet's Exposition, as being a faithful account of the Church's doctrines. There was strict unity as to dogma, but within that limit there were a vast number of things which might or might not be true. He has been {49} curé since 1836; about 300 communicants every Sunday in his parish, which has 15,000 people. Among them are many Jansenists. At Easter rather less than half the people communicate; he excused there not being more by their having severe notions on the subject. Spoke favourably of his people. Walked with us to S. Etienne; a strange mixture of Gothic and Renaissance, with some fine features; the tomb of S. Geneviève, which he said was of the fourth century. Thence to S. Gervais, a fine church of the latest Gothic, the Lady Chapel of which has been most beautifully restored and decorated; there are five painted windows, and four very interesting frescoes by Delorme, of incidents in her life. The whole church is to be done after the same manner. The government, too, are going to spend 80,000l. in thoroughly restoring Notre Dame: all the windows are to be of painted glass. There is a curious pendent crown, wrought in stone, in the roof of this chapel. M. Noirlieu invited us to be at a "conférence," which he would hold with some of his parishioners on Saturday, who assisted him in the instruction of the poor. He left us, and we went to see la Sainte Chapelle, but were disappointed, as a ticket from the architect is necessary. Here, too, scaffolding is up, and restoration in full progress. We then mounted the towers of Notre Dame, and enjoyed for some time that noble view of the stateliest of modern cities. {50} I never felt more admiration of this magnificent city than on this visit: one is ever painfully contrasting the meanness of our public buildings, and the wretched appearance of our brick houses in London, with the noble quais and palaces of Paris. These towers themselves are of wonderful solidity, and evidently built for spires; in truth, they ought to be double their present height. Here is, however, a great want of towers and spires in this view, such as there must once have been at Paris. We took a peep also at the great bell,—an immense creature. At five o'clock we went to dine with Bishop Luscombe: found him in his picture gallery, which he took great delight in showing us. We met here a Mr. Parkes, an American clergyman, who was elected Bishop of Alabama two years ago, but declined on the score of health. He is an interesting person. I had a long conversation with him on the state of the Church in England, America, and France. He, too, has a strong notion of Roman corruption, but is quite ignorant of their practice and services, having never read even the Mass. I endeavoured to persuade him, on the ground of the Church's decided voice, that the validity of baptism did not depend on the administrator; but he seemed to think there was equal authority for the doctrine of Transubstantiation. I said, as to that there were really only two Ideas on the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist: the {51} one was a real true objective presence of our Lord's Body and Blood; and the other no presence at all, but an impression produced by faith on the individual,—a commemoration, or what not. If we agreed, as we did, with the Church of Rome in the former view, it was better not to fight about the mode in which she has stated it, her real intent being to force a shuffling and evasive party to accept or reject the truth distinctly. The Church of England, rejecting the Roman definition, has not herself fenced the truth on the Protestant side, which may make us more forbearing as to condemning the Roman mode of statement, being, as we are, entirely of accord with her as to the real truth, which lies at the bottom of the controversy—the Christian's highest and inconceivable blessing. He thought that high and low in the Church of England could not long go on together, and heartily wished we might get rid of state interference and control at any cost. 'Meet in convocation,' said he, 'and if you are turned out of doors, adjourn to the street; suffer anything and everything, but do not let the state control you.' We walked home with Mr. Parkes: he seems a most sincere and candid person.

Thursday, July 10.—M. Galais took us over the Séminaire de S. Sulpice. There is nothing remarkable in the building. The pupils are rather more than 200: their appearance is very devout; they seem {52} of low rank in life generally, and this is no doubt the case, but with exceptions; for instance, we heard today of the son of M. Ségur, who is there. Each pupil has a small room to himself, which opens on the corridor; it has a bed, table, little stove, and hardly anything more, with a crucifix and little statue of the Blessed Virgin, belonging to the house. They make their own beds: they are not allowed to enter each other's rooms at all, but, if they wish to speak to one another, the stranger stands in the passage, and the occupant at his door. The whole is under the inspection of the archbishop, who has a chamber here, but does not often come. There are twelve masters. The state of instruction as regards the Church is as follows in France generally. In each diocese there is one or more petits séminaires, which are for children, not only such as are to be ecclesiastics, but laymen also. These are the only schools in which morals and religion are made a primary consideration; and, therefore, though they have nothing to do with the university, and are excluded from all privileges, they are sought after by the sounder part of the community. To these succeeds, for ecclesiastics alone, the grand séminaire for each diocese; this of S. Sulpice is the most eminent in France. The studies are for five years; two in philosophy, three in theology. They are {53} thus arranged, as we took them down from the lips of M. Galais.

Sometimes, perhaps in half the dioceses of France, these two years of philosophy are contracted to one. The three years of theology are thus arranged:—

A course of Holy Scripture twice a-week, exclusive of private study of it.

Authors used:—

These three years of theology are sometimes expanded to four.

For the dogma of the Roman Church, M. Galais said, the canons of the Council of Trent, with the acts of the councils generally, were the only authentic or symbolic sources; next to this comes catechismus ad parochos. Bossuet's Exposition is regarded as quite a standard book; likewise Moëhler's Symbolism. He recommended strongly, for the interior life, "Louis de Grenada," "Rodriguez," "S. François de Sales;" spoke highly of Olier's life.

{55} We were greatly pleased with M. Galais' courtesy. He took us also over the library, which is very good indeed; beginning with a complete collection of the Fathers, through the schoolmen, down to modern times: it was arranged chronologically. "He pointed out to us 'Tronson's Forma Cleri' as giving the best idea of their whole discipline."—M. At M. Bonnetty's we found M. l'Abbé d'Alzon, who kindly took us to the convent of the Dames de l'Assomption, Rue des Postes. In passing, we looked into the chapel of the Jesuits, in their house at Paris, which has made such a noise. They are about 20 here, and in all France 210: and these few, but picked and valiant men, fill with dread the hosts of the freethinkers and infidels in France; they know not how to meet them but with persecution. We were greatly interested indeed with the Dames de l'Assomption. We saw the Supérieure and a sister, which latter was English. We had a long conversation, in which she explained the object of their society, lately founded—to communicate a Christian education to the children of the higher ranks, especially of the aristocratie de l'argent, who of all ranks in France are most alienated from religion. The Supérieure spoke with much feeling and intelligence, and with that beauty and distinctness of expression which makes the French language so pleasing in a female mouth. She said they had been {56} much struck, in their experience, with the mass of knowledge and accomplishments which existed out of the Church and the sphere of her influence, or rather in antagonism to her. Beside the usual vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience, they took a fourth—to extend the kingdom of the Saviour to the utmost of their power; and the best means to do this, they thought, was to lay hold of the education of the higher ranks, and impress on it a religious character. 'This could only be done,' she said, 'by a religious congregation; for how can those who live in the world, and seek after its prizes, form their pupils to the contempt of the world? How can those who work for riches themselves teach others to live above them? How, especially, can the children of the rich be strongly impressed with Christian truth save by those who themselves bear the cross?' 'Religious orders,' she said, 'are like branches which, one after the other, spring out of a tree; the trunk itself lasts on, but the branches, it may be, after a time drop off, and give place to others. We do not desire that our order should last when it ceases to be useful, and therefore we have strictly provided that it should possess no funds after the acquisition of the house and garden, which is necessary for our existence: all that we allow is, that any sister may have a pension for life—but this is not necessary; if we find any one of suitable disposition {57} and acquirements, we should be happy to admit her without any. Besides this we receive payments from our pupils: we think it more Christian to work for our living; nor would our pupils be in a comfortable position if they did not pay us.' These sisters recite all the offices of the Breviary in Latin, but not during the night, but anticipating them: they rise at five, go to bed at ten; they attend Mass daily, and have an hour of meditation every morning, and half-an-hour in the evening. 'But,' said M. D'Alzon, 'you know that, wherever there are religious orders, there must be one secret source of strength—intimate union with the Saviour.' 'You mean,' I said, 'that which springs from the Real Presence.' They all agreed; and the Supérieure continued—'We could never sustain this life, were it not for the thought that we were spouses of Christ—that is the one thought which is the centre of our life.' I said, 'I am sure there are thousands of young persons in England who would enter into religious orders if we had them.' She agreed, and said, 'they must not be purely active, but largely contemplative; there was something pensive and melancholy in the English female character, which shrunk back from a purely active life such as that of the Sisters of Charity.' They were astonished and much gratified when I read to them the Absolution in the Service of the Sick, which pronounces absolution, {58} by virtue of the priestly office, categorically, not declaratively: they agreed that it was perfectly Catholic. The demeanour of these ladies—the four that I saw—struck me exceedingly: it was gentle, perfectly that of ladies, yet intellectual: like that of those who felt they had a noble mission, and had courage to execute it. Their dress also is very becoming—a dark robe with a white hood, and white cross on the centre of the breast. All their servants take the same vows, eat at the same table; the only difference being, that they are less intelligent and accomplished.

In the evening we went for a short time into the gardens of the Tuileries; I had never before seen the orange trees out there, and the gay and cheerful spirit of the scene struck me, so much more brilliant than the aspect of our parks.

Friday, July 11.—M. was poorly with a headache, so I went alone to M. Galais at the Séminaire, who sent a young priest with me to M. Poileau's school, about a mile to the south-west of Paris. There are more than 300 pupils there; it is the largest establishment of the kind not in connection with the university. I saw the chapel, which was very neatly arranged, and the infirmerie, in which was a priest; there were several beds ranged in alcoves on each side, and some sick boys in them; a relation had come to see one, and one who seemed by her dress to be a sister of charity, another. The boys sleep in {59} dormitories, ranged much in the same manner; it so happened that the head of the establishment and the next person to him were both away, and the rooms being locked we did not go into them. We saw a class preparing for their first communion. The rule of the house is that they confess constantly, but communion is left open. The boys pay 40l. a year each, and the masters receive the same sum, besides board and lodging. The house was encompassed with gardens, and an exercising ground, with poles, &c. for the boys; their ages run from 7 to 18 or 19: sometimes the conscription finds them there. My conductor had been drawn for the conscription, and had to pay 1800 francs for a remplaçant. He said about forty were drawn yearly on a city of 7000 or 8000; he was the eighty-first or so, but there were so many of those who drew before him incapacitated from one cause or other, that he and several beyond him came into the forty eligible. On returning I went to M. Galais again, as he had invited me, and he talked to me near two hours and a half. I thought him very well instructed and clear-headed; he gave me a sketch of the disputes of the Thomists and Molinists on Grace; and the system of Suarez on the subject, the science absolue, science moyenne, and science probable of God. The Church holds the two extreme points; on the one hand the absolute necessity of the grace of God anticipating, as well as {60} capacitating, every human movement, on the other hand, the free concurrence of the human will, but she does not attempt to define, as matter of faith, the mode of their coexistence. He seemed to think Suarez, next to St. Thomas, was the greatest of theological minds. Once, in a dispute with a Dominican, the latter produced a sentence of St. Augustine which told strongly against Suarez; he kept silence, but when his turn came to reply, he said, 'That sentence is not in St. Augustine;' the other repeated that it was. 'It is not,' returned Suarez; 'I know St. Augustine by heart, and that sentence does not occur in his writings.' They searched, but were unable to find it anywhere. That evening his conscience smote Suarez for having said publicly, though with truth, that he knew St. Augustine by heart, and he confessed himself on account of it. On the subject of the Holy Eucharist, I inquired whether the Church would require more than that after the words of consecration the Body and Blood of our Lord were really and truly present, independent of the faith of the individual: he said, 'Yes; she would require a belief that the bread was destroyed, (détruit,) that its substance was changed, and its appearance, or accidents, only remained, to meet our senses. There were many opinions how this took place, but none of them were de fide, provided the thing was believed.' M. Galais gave me much more information respecting the seminary, {61} which I put opposite the former remarks thereon. It seems to me that no greater care can be taken to form the inward mind to the duties of the sacerdotal office, and to exclude all who have not a genuine vocation. Nothing can exceed the kindness of M. Galais in giving information. In the evening we went to St. Severin, to hear M. D'Alzon preach: we lost our way, and were late, and so at too great a distance to hear him well. He spoke on the Real Presence, the junction of the Divinity with the Humanity, and the blessings thence flowing forth, rather with passion and feeling than with deep reflection. His incessant action contrasts strongly with our quiet manner. I can well imagine that reading his sermon would be quite insupportable to him, as well as to the people. At the same time such sermons as Newman's would be lost on them. I cannot but think that speaking from the pulpit without book ought to form part of our education.

Saturday, July 12.—M. D'Alzon took us over M. l'Abbé Migne's great printing establishment. It contains 175 workmen, and everything is done therein; binding, stereotyping, as well as printing, and selling besides. He produces a very large octavo volume in double columns, Latin for five francs, and Greek and Latin for eight francs: the former he is about to raise to six francs. His patrology is to contain 200 such volumes of Latin authors, and 100 of Greek: {62} 46 are come out. The cheapness is wonderful, and necessary for the small incomes of those who would chiefly want such books, and the execution fair. M. Migne is a priest, and acts not from a desire to gain, but to assist the clergy. However, the Archbishop has forbidden him to say Mass at present.

We looked into the Louvre for an hour to-day, and enjoyed the glimpse of the pictures: the first time we have so indulged ourselves.

In the evening went to M. Noirlieu, who introduced us into a conférence de S. Vincent de Paul. About 40 young men present, of the rank and age of students, who meet weekly; they each take about a couple of families to visit and assist. This sort of thing exists in 33 parishes in Paris. Here there are about 50 members, in S. Sulpice 120. It is a visiting society, but under better rule than ours; and it was pleasing to see, as being formed out of exactly that part of society which is generally most alienated from such works. They gave us a copy of their rules. "The abbé himself had less to do with it than I had expected, but I believe he has an instruction in his church on Sunday evening, especially for the workmen whose families are thus visited. They conclude the meeting with short prayers, in which, by the bye, there occurs an invocation of the Blessed Virgin, which all repeat aloud, and which I did not like to repeat with them, being the one I mentioned, {63} some time ago, as not being fully approved at Rome. These things are a puzzle to me. I can blink them for a time, but when I come into close contact, I feel them again, and wonder much how they can agree, not with infallibility, but with the wisdom which I feel otherwise fully disposed to allow to the Church of Rome. This particular case is in favour of Rome. But then Rome allows and sanctions what must almost necessarily involve things to which I cannot reconcile myself. The system of devotion to the Blessed Virgin, as it now stands, wants some foundation beyond all they tell me of when I ask them to give an account of it. Perhaps, in their own mind, they consider that the mind of the Church expressed in her perpetual practice is the real ground; but for the Church being so minded I am sure they do not assign sufficient grounds. If such grounds there are, they must be found in mediæval revelation; at least, I can hardly conceive mere development going so far with any authority."—M.

Sunday, July 13.—Went to Bishop Luscombe's service. He preached. In our return, we looked into the Chapelle Expiatore—one certainly of the most touching spots of Paris. Under the statues of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette respectively are inscribed their last words—golden words indeed—which can hardly be read, especially on the spot {64} where their bodies rested for twenty-one years, without tears. In the evening we went to the Ecole des Frères Chrétiens, 6. Rue du Fleurus, and were conducted by some of the brethren to the most extraordinary scene we have witnessed in France. It was a meeting held in the parish church of S. Marguerite, to give prizes to the assiduous members of the society of S. Francois Xavier, which is composed of artizans, who attend periodically to be instructed. After Vespers and Compline, Monseigneur the Archbishop of Chalcedoine was introduced, under whom the séance was held. The curé then briefly stated the course of proceedings, and presently commenced a dispute between M. l'Abbé Massard, prêtre directeur, and M. l'Abbé Croze, on the subject whether there were or were not miracles; the former maintaining the negative, the latter the affirmative. The usual philosophical objections were put by l'Abbé Massard, very fairly and with great vivacity, and were answered by l'Abbé Croze with vivacity still greater and superior ingenuity. Constant approbation and laughter attended both question and answer, there being a large number of women outside the barrier in the aisles, the workmen members occupying the nave, and all seemed to relish to the utmost the nature of the colloquy. It was, indeed, extremely well imagined to convey to minds of that class a ready answer to specious philosophical objections {65} against the truth of religion; and, though no doubt previously arranged by the two disputants, had all the air of being poured forth with extreme volubility on the spur of the moment. To give a notion of the thing:—"M. Massard proposed the subject of Miracles; and on being asked, What about miracles? said, he should dispute against them. L'Abbé Croze asked him what he meant by miracles. M. Massard began, personating an eager and hasty infidel, with a rough account of them. 'I don't mean to give a philosophical definition; I mean what every body means—an extraordinary thing, such as one never saw—in fact, an impossible thing.' L'Abbé Croze complained that this was too vague, and gave his own definition—'an act surpassing human power, and out of the ordinary course of nature, and which consequently must be referred to some supernatural power.' L'Abbé Massard then made a speech of some length about the impossibility of miracles, and the absurdity of some that were found in history, and concluded by denying all. M. Croze made him begin to repeat his arguments one by one, saying, he would then serve him as Horatius did the Curiatii. M. Massard said, in repetition, 'God cannot work a miracle, for it would be a disorder; it would be against his own laws,' &c. L'Abbé Croze said, 'he could not see why He, who makes the sun rise every day, might not stop it one day, as the {66} maker of a watch can stop the watch. A miracle is no exertion of force in the Almighty, no more than for one who walks to stop walking an instant,' &c. M. Massard changed his ground, and"—M.—urged Hume's argument, that even if a miracle were acted before our eyes, we could have no proofs that it was a miracle equal in force to the antecedent improbability that a miracle would be done. M. Croze pulled this to pieces, to the great amusement of the auditory. 'What,' said he, 'can anything be more ridiculous than to tell me that proofs are wanted, when a miracle is done before my eyes? If I see a man whom I well know in the last stage of sickness, witness afterwards his death and burial, and, a year or two after that, that man reappears before my eyes, do I want any proof of the miracle? If I meet an ass in the street and say to him, Ass, speak, philosophise; and he forthwith opens his mouth and argues, do I want any proof that it is a miracle? If I meet an ox going along, and I say, Ox, fly; and he flies, do I want proof of the miracle? If one evening all the women in Paris were to become dumb, and could not speak'—here a burst of laughter broke from all parts of the church, and it was some time before the orator triumphant could proceed. "M. Massard said, 'Well, but there have been sorcerers and magicians who performed miracles; Moses was met by sorcerers who did the same {67} miracles that he did.' Croze—'Not the same: they imitated one or two, but then failed.' He went on with an eloquent apostrophe to Moses, ending with an allusion to the final plague; and then he went on further to illustrate the difference between divine and diabolical miracles, by the history of St. Peter and Simon Magus. M. Massard said, 'But if any one were to work as many miracles by the power of the devil as are recorded in Holy Scripture, must we then believe him?' M. Croze—'No; we have been told that Antichrist will work miracles at the end of the world; but we are assured that God has wrought them in proof of His religion, and He cannot have deceived us. Therefore we may safely reject any pretended revelation that is contrary to what we have received.'"—M.

The last question was, 'You have well proved that there can be, and have been, miracles, but now I wish to put an objection to you, which I think you will find it very hard to answer. How is it that God works no miracles now?' M. Croze rejoins, 'Is that your great difficulty? There are fifty answers I might give you. As, for instance, that God does not choose to work them now, and certainly we have no right to ask His reasons; or, that now His religion is established, it has no need of the confirmation of miracles. These and numberless other answers might be given, but I prefer showing you, that it is {68} not at all desirable miracles should be worked. Two medical charlatans once went into a town, and, in order to get themselves practice, instead of putting out that they had specific remedies for the gout, or the liver, or the digestion, or what not, they declared, on that day three weeks, they would go in broad daylight into the cemetery and raise to life any whom they were asked to raise, however long he had been dead. The bait took; their house in the mean time was besieged with patients, for it was naturally supposed that they, who could raise the dead, could cure the living. In the mean time, as the day approached, the more timid said to the other, 'What shall we do, for if we do not raise the dead man we shall certainly be stoned.' 'Don't be afraid,' said the other, 'I know mankind better than that;' and, indeed, the next day a middle-aged man came to them, and offered them a considerable sum if they would go away without raising the dead. 'Ah! Messieurs,' said he, 'j'avais une si méchante femme.' Another burst of laughter throughout the church. 'I had such a shrew of a wife. God in his goodness has been pleased to relieve me of her; if she should be the one you pitch upon, I should be a lost man.' Presently came two young men, and said, 'Ah! Messieurs, an old man died the other day and left us a great fortune: if you raise him up, I am afraid we shall be lost men, for he will certainly take it from us again.' Not long after came {69} the magistrates, who had reason to fear lest a certain person, who was now quietly out of the way, should return to life and trouble them. And they besought and authorised our charlatans to leave the city before the appointed day. So you see it would be a very undesirable thing to have the power to work miracles. So I might answer you; but I, for my part, believe there have been miracles in modern times.' Here he cited some, which I did not catch. Such was the nature of this conférence between M. Massard and M. Croze, which latter had a countenance remarkable for finesse and subtilty and comic humour. Profaneness to the church was supposed to be guarded against by stretching a curtain before the altar at some little distance.

This was followed by an energetic and rhetorical sermon from L'Abbé Frappaz, on the love of Christ, and on faith, hope, and charity, which was listened to with great attention, and applauded more than once. "After this they sang 'Monstra te esse matrem' to a lively hopping air."—M.

Then came a long distribution of prizes, in books and pictures, to the most attentive members, which were delivered to each by the Archbishop of Chalcedoine, while at intervals the choir struck out verses of a hymn in honour of St. Francis Xavier, which was echoed through the church. In the mean time the curtain had been withdrawn, and the altar brilliantly {70} lighted up for a salut pontificalement célébré. This, however, we did not stay for, as it was already past ten.

Monday, July 14.—We went up to Montmartre, having a letter for the curé; but we found that he had moved to Charenton, behind Père la Chaise. Round the church there is a small garden, with the Stations, which terminate on the north side in a Calvary; there are the three crosses, and figures as large as life, on a little rocky eminence; beneath is the sepulchre, with a recess for the body, a window and two doors: on the south side a small chapel of Notre Dame des Sept Douleurs, in which she is represented with Christ in her arms. Underneath is the following inscription, which we copied as a specimen of expressions, such as, though unauthorised by the Roman Church, are continually found in and about churches, and do much harm:—

"Ne sortez pas du Calvaire sans invoquer Notre Dame des Sept Douleurs. Elle pleine de grace, le soutien des malheureux, la consolation des affligés, le refuge des pécheurs, et des opprimés.

"Elle vient du mont Valérien; elle opère des grands prodiges, adressons nous à elle avec confiance; elle nous sera propice, et nous consolera dans nos peines. Priez pour nous, Mère de Dieu, qui avons recours à vous."

We showed this to M. Galais in the evening: he censured it, declared it was contrary to the rule, which required that no such thing should be set up {71} without the authority of the Bishop, and said he would have it made known to the Archbishop of Paris.

The church is very old, plain and ugly outside; its apse misappropriated into a telegraph station; inside it is a little better: Norman in style. The chief interest about it to us was that here St. Ignatius de Loyola made his first profession.

We enjoyed the prospect of Paris from the hill below; but that of London is, I think, finer; for this general view wants grievously the towers and spires of the middle ages: in that vast expanse there are but few buildings which soar above the common range. Notre Dame, S. Jacques de la Boucherie, The Pantheon, Les Invalides, and one or two others, seem as nothing in that great city.

We visited M. Galais again this afternoon, as he was going out to their maison de campagne, for his retreat of eight days, to-morrow. He was reciting his Breviary when we entered his chamber; he begged permission to continue, then knelt down for the Lord's Prayer, and after that talked with us above an hour. He also took us to the Supérieur. I told him we were desirous to learn all we could of their discipline. He said the seminaries had been originally established with a view to cultivate the interior life, and as places of religious recueillement,—the young men going to the Sorbonne for instruction. {72} All this had been put a stop to at the Revolution; and now, the university being under the direction of infidels, they were obliged to make their seminaries serve for instruction as well as for works of piety. They wished to have a chair of Ecclesiastical History. He inquired about the state of Christian philosophy at Oxford, and said they looked for something to be done on that subject, where the stress of the battle with infidelity now lies. He also asked whether as careful a guard was kept over young men preparing for orders as with them: on which point we were ashamed to answer. M. Galais invited us to their maison de campagne, and we agreed to go on Saturday.

Tuesday, July 15.—We ventured to call on the Père Lacordaire, and were richly rewarded for our boldness, inasmuch as we had more than an hour's very animated talk with him. Behold a veritable monk, a St. Bernard as it were, returned again in the vigour of manhood; in his white Dominican dress he looked the very beau idéal of the Church's warrior, armed at all points for the encounter with heresy, and walking serene and fearless amid the troubles of life and the shock of falling systems. A fresh and rosy countenance, a keen dark eye, and most animated expression, contributed to form one of the most striking figures I have ever beheld. I thought it was worth coming to Paris to see him. Perhaps the knowledge that he was a most eloquent preacher had {73} something to do with this feeling. "I asked him about the Tiers Ordre de S. Dominic. He said that it was under no vow, but they might add to their profession the vow of celibacy (chastity they call it always), or that of obedience, or both. The rule, as modified by authoritative dispensations, may be observed with tolerable ease by persons living in society. Father Lacordaire himself, as superior of the Dominicans in France, has received from Rome certain dispensations for those who may embrace the third order; and there are already some fifty of them, if I remember right, in Paris."—M.

We talked about the Anglican movement. He spoke also of the miserable state of the University in France; that, instead of being local, it was extended every where, and so had no body, no coherence. Its professors were bandied about, from one end of France to the other, at the pleasure of the government. He said they were engaged in a great contest for the liberty of the religious orders: that was nearly won: it would certainly arrive. Protestantism showed its deadness by producing no monastic institutions: there was no sign more convincing to his mind than this. If we had a true spring of life among us, how could we have failed to put forth what is so undeniably accordant with the spirit of the cross? After we had talked some time, I said, 'I should like to put a question to you. Suppose a person of intelligence, of {74} perfect good faith, who is ready to make any sacrifice for religion, who uses all possible means to attain to the truth; suppose such a person, firmly convinced that the English Church is a branch of the Catholic Church; though unhappily separated from the Roman Church; would you condemn him—that is, put him out of the pale of salvation?' 'Monsieur,' said he, 'there is only one thing which can excuse a person for not belonging to the Church, and that is invincible ignorance. You know in certain cases even the heathen may be saved. But such a person cannot be in invincible ignorance; for there are only three things by which a man can be prevented from seeing the truth: either the truth in itself must be of insufficient power to convince him; or there must be a defect of understanding; or a corruption of will. But the first is out of the question. The truth of itself must always be sufficient: to suppose otherwise would be to censure God. Either then there must be a defect of understanding, but in the cases of the leaders of the Anglican movement, that is out of the question, because they are men of great powers of mind, of great distinction; there remains only then the corruption of the will, which, indeed, is often so subtle, that men are unconscious of its influence. Nevertheless, in the sight of God it is the will which in such cases leads astray, and then such men are condemned, and cannot plead invincible ignorance—when {75} indeed you come to the individual, I will not attempt to judge: it is written, "nolite judicare," for it is utterly impossible for any human being to know the inward state of another. But I only say of the class that such persons cannot plead invincible ignorance—for the truth itself, as I have said, cannot be insufficient; and their intellectual powers are such, that in these also there can be no impediment; consequently the obstacle must be in the will, however unconscious the individual may be of it. A thousand considerations of family, of fortune, of habit, and what not, surround a man, and insensibly warp him, but he is still under condemnation, for it is his own will that is corrupt. If I were to go into a public square in Paris and raise three men from the dead, would all that saw it believe?' 'Certainly not,' I said. 'Why then is that? There is some secret obstacle in their will.' We tried in vain to make him understand that a person might be conscientiously convinced, after the most patient study, that the Church of England was part of the true Church, but in vain. It was plainly an idea that he could not and would not receive.

I put the case of the Greek and Russian Churches. He exempted the poor and illiterate from censure, but in the case of the instructed he said it must be the spirit of schism which secretly turned them away from the truth. I said there were {76} bishops and monks and multitudes of persons of a devoted and severe life on their side, who failed to see the claims of the Roman See. 'Ah,' he said, 'it has always been so; in our Saviour's time they ascribed his miracles to Beelzebub; how was it that they who saw Lazarus raised from the dead went and informed the chief priests of it?' In short, so complete a conviction of the truth of the whole Roman system possessed his mind, that he was utterly unable to conceive a person of ability and sincerity coming to any other conclusion. We only put the case hypothetically, but he would not admit it even so; he said, it is morally and metaphysically impossible.

"I said, 'I wish I could show you the interior of a mind like that of ——. Born and educated in Anglicanism, he has given great attention to religious truth, and in particular to the points in question. He has no desire but to be in the Catholic Church and to labour for it, but he believes that the Church of England is a branch of it, unhappily separated for a time by peculiar circumstances from the rest; and now in a state of appeal. In remaining where he is, he believes he is doing his duty. What do you think of such a case?' He said, 'I cannot judge of individuals,' but, &c. over again. He spoke as if he did not know much of England. I said to him, 'the question after all is one of fact: there are facts in England with which you are not acquainted.'"—M.

{77} He did not seem acquainted with the peculiarities of our position. He spoke with great energy and ability. I can fancy what his force in the pulpit must be.

We went to M. D'Alzon, who conducted us to Dom Guéranger; he received us with great kindness. The Pope has just erected a bishopric at Perth, in New South Wales, and one of his élèves is going out there; he suddenly resolved upon it three weeks ago, and seems quite in high spirits at the thought of it. There are now one Roman Catholic archbishopric and three bishoprics there,—Sydney, Hobartown, Adelaide, and Perth. They said Dr. Flaget, Bishop of Bardstown, had been sent out with his pontifical and a paper mitre; 'as for his cross,' said Dom Guéranger, 'he could cut that out of a tree.' We put nearly the same question to him as to the Père Lacordaire, but he was more indulgent in his answer. He said, provided such a person was strictly sincere, and used every means to discover the truth, he must be judged to belong to the soul of the Church, though he was separated from its body, and would be saved. He said our formularies for the consecration of bishops and priests were deficient, so that, granting the succession even, it would be more than doubtful whether they were true bishops and priests; but being pressed he admitted that the Roman Church had never yet been called {78} upon to decide the point, and that in fact it was not decided, though there was a general opinion among them about it. When I told him that Coleridge had collected 50,000l. for St. Augustine's, and what was the object of it, he was much astonished. 'If you English were restored to the Church,' he said, 'you would evangelise the world; Spaniards and Portuguese, Italians and French, must yield to you, with the resources you command.' Talking of liturgies, he remarked spontaneously, how those of the East were full of addresses to the Blessed Virgin: half or a third of every page was devoted to her. They went before the Roman Church in that respect. When the Council of Ephesus gave her the title of 'Mother of God,' there were public rejoicings throughout the city in consequence. He did not seem to like admitting that the prayers of St. Ephrem to the Blessed Virgin were not authentic; said it was his style. (Morris tells me the style of his Syriac works is very different from that of his Greek, and the matter much deeper.) At parting he expressed a wish, that if we came to Paris again, we would come and see him. We took a look at the beautiful chapel of the Sœurs Garde-Malades, with fresh admiration of it. We had expressed a wish to M. D'Alzon to see some sackcloth and instruments of penitence; so he took us to a house of Carmelite nuns of St. Therèse, near the Luxembourg: one of them conversed behind {79} the grille and curtain, which was quite impervious to the sight on both sides. It is part of their special duty to pray for the conversion of Protestants. These Carmelites discipline themselves every Friday. The sister showed us some of their instruments of discipline; corporal austerities, however, by all that we could learn, are not common, nor are they generally allowed by confessors, partly that the health of few will allow of them; partly, there is a danger of pride thence arising.

Wednesday, July 16.—M. D'Alzon came and breakfasted with us, and afterwards took us to the establishment of the Frères Chrétiens, Rue du Faubourg St. Martin, 165., where the Supérieur Général, Frère Philippe, received us. There was little to see in the house, as they expected the Strasburg railway would come through them and drive them away. He said the number of brethren altogether was 4000; of pupils under them, adult and children, 198,000: they increase yearly. They were almost dispersed at the first revolution, but returned again through Cardinal Fesch, who found four of the brethren, who had taken refuge at Lyons, and brought them to Paris. Frère Philippe is very plain and homely: his picture, by Horace Vernet, has made a great sensation here.

M. D'Alzon then took me to a house of priests in the Rue de la Planche. I had a long talk with two {80} of them. The first was a confessor to a penitentiary, in which eighty women are received at the cost of the city of Paris. His account of their penitence was touching. It is rare that any leave them without being thoroughly changed, provided they stay long enough. But the picture which he gave of the depravity general in Paris on this head was frightful. It is a wonderful spectacle, the close contact into which the most sublime self-devotion and the most abandoned sensuality are brought in this great city; on the one hand, consider the daily prayers and mortifications, and works of charity of those Carmelites, who are ever engaged in interceding for the conversion of sinners; of those nuns of the Adoration, who are ever contemplating the most wonderful of mysteries; of those Ladies of the Assumption, who dedicate the talents and accomplishments God has given them, under the vows of poverty, obedience, and chastity, to the direct furtherance of his kingdom; of those solitary and homeless priests—without father and without mother, without ties of family or worldly possessions, truly after the order of Melchisedec—who are ever offering the most holy Sacrifice, and building up the mystical body: on the other hand, think of that gulph of libertinage and selfishness, which is ever swallowing fresh victims—hearts young and unsuspicious, warm and confiding—polluting body and soul with the dregs of uncleanness, {81} and hurrying them away too often into the presence of the Judge. No tale of misery ever told in fiction surpasses that which is daily enacting in Paris again and again. Amid such things we live, and truly we have need both to pray ourselves, and to call upon all spirits of the just made perfect to intercede for us and for our brethren. And yet it is the same flesh and blood—the same body, soul, and spirit—the same man, which is thus fearfully working for the devil, or thus heroically fighting for God. O mystery of the grace of God and of the human will, which is past finding out!

In the evening we visited, for a short time, the church of Notre Dame de Lorette, which is sumptuously decorated inside with paintings all over; it has a double row of pillars each side. The subjects seem chosen with great judgment, and the legends are more truly Catholic than one often sees. The expense of this church must have been enormous. We also looked into La Madeleine—very beautiful indeed it is, and as grand as the Grecian style can be, but it furnishes one with the best proof that such is not the proper style for a church.

Thursday; July 17.—We looked into La Madeleine again, at the Messe du midi. Its sumptuousness is astonishing. If, however, it were not safer to admire than to criticise in such cases, one might observe how vast a space is lost in the walls and arrangements {82} of the interior, the breadth which strikes the eye being only fifty feet, while the real breadth of the side walls is at least eighty. Its architecture seems the inversion of that of St. Ouen or Amiens, inasmuch as it makes the least effect out of the greatest means, while the other makes the greatest effect out of the least means; all seems aerial and heaven-pointing in the one style; while the other seems unable, with its vast bulk, to rise from the earth, and perpetually crosses the eye with its horizontal lines—faithful images both of the religions they represent.

We found l'Abbé Ratisbonne at home, and had a long talk with him. I mentioned to him the objectionable words addressed to the Blessed Virgin, which I had seen at Montmartre and in the little book; he made the usual excuse that such things are not done by authority, and also that the French language was weak, and so, in expressing heavenly affections, it might so happen that they used words which, in strictness of speech, were too strong, but the conventional use of which formed their exculpation. Thus it was common to say of a very fine picture, 'quel adorable tableau,' and so the word 'infiniment;' but these applied to the Blessed Virgin in strictness of speech become objectionable. Much therefore must be allowed to the weakness and indistinctness of human language, on the one {83} hand, and to the fervour of filial love longing to pour itself forth, on the other. 'We are children of God,' he said; 'we speak to him as children, not as wise men; we ask the indulgence given to infants.' And so again, as respects the Blessed Virgin. He said he had been converted from Judaism at twenty-three, had seen much of Protestants before that time, but their prayers and their whole style of thinking had disgusted him; he had never been at all drawn to them. He had been a priest ten years, and was now forty-two. We had much talk on the Anglo-Roman controversy. I said, we thought ourselves Catholics already, that we had been born and bred in the English Church, which was to us the portal of that great building of the Catholic Church. He approved of that metaphor, which served to give him a better notion of our position than anything else we said, though, like every other Roman Catholic, he could not admit for a moment that we were in the Church. He said, a Protestant minister, an optician, had expressed to him his belief in the efficacy of prayers for the dead, which appeared to him under this image: it was as if a number of figures were thrown into the shade, out of the sun's rays; while between them and the sun are other figures who enjoy his full light: these, like certain glasses, reflect that light upon the figures in the shade. Thus it is that the prayers of the {84} blessed especially succour the faithful dead. He had often used this image in sermons. I pressed him with the existence of the Greek Church, on the one hand, and the acknowledged developement of Papal power, on the other; but no Roman Catholic ever hesitates to excommunicate individual or church which is not de facto united to the Roman See; unity with them is indeed a first principle—a sublime and true belief in itself, though perhaps certain facts may modify the application of it. He said he had thought continually of us since our visit, and had the greatest esteem for us, that he had prayed for us daily, as he did for England; that fair England, if she could be again, as she once was, the Island of Saints—what a means for the conversion of others! At our parting, he begged our prayers for himself. I said, if I came again to Paris, I should hope to be allowed to see him again. Our conversation was so disjointed that I can remember but little of it, but it turned on the offences which alienated us from them. He denied repeatedly the thought of adoring the Blessed Virgin. He had moved his lodgings to the Rue du Regard, 14., in order to overlook a house and garden opposite, in which were lodged a female community of converts from Judaism, over whom he watched. The Supérieure was with him when we came. He spoke of our silence as to the Blessed Virgin and all saints; that we made a wall of separation {85} between them and us, whereas the whole Church was one, vividly affected with the joys and sorrows of its several members. M. tried to show that, in the present state of things, silence might conceal very deep and reverential feelings. He seemed not to think this satisfactory, and in truth it applies only partially.

We went to the Pantheon; its interior has the coldness and deadness which naturally belongs to the tombs of those who die without the Christian's hope. It looks exactly what it is,—the shrine of human ambition—a vast coffin holding a skeleton. If it were made a church hereafter, as surely it must be, it might be made to equal the Madeleine in magnificence. We mounted and enjoyed the fine view: there is a triple dome,—sufficiently bungling, I think.

We called in at Toulouse's, and while there he discovered that I was not a Roman Catholic; whereupon he began to persuade me, with the most affectionate solicitude, that I was in a self-evidently wrong position. He asked how I justified the schism. 'I don't understand,' he said, 'how you could be Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman one day, and wake the next and find yourselves Catholic, Apostolic, and not Roman.' I answered that we had indubitably the ancient succession; that the evil passions of men on the one hand, and the extravagant claims of the Papacy on the other, had caused the separation, {86} which I deplored. But still I hoped, that, though in an anomalous state, we had what was strictly necessary to the essence of a Church. I mentioned, too, the position of the whole Eastern Church. I showed him the dangerous and extravagant language used towards the Blessed Virgin in the Psaltery of St. Bonaventure: he could not answer that, and reserved it to show to a priest; but he maintained that the work was St. Bonaventure's. I said, 'All that St. Gregory the Great, who sent St. Augustine into England, claimed for himself; all that St. Leo demanded, or that St. Athanasius and St. Basil granted to the Holy See, I am ready to give.' He finished with expressions of kind concern for us.

Friday, July 18.—Went to M. Bonnetty, who, with M. D'Alzon, took us to the Hôtel de Cluny: it is full of curious objects of the Middle Ages. I remarked one exquisite bit of glass—a pretty chapel—the remains of the Roman baths. There was something in the air of to-day which inspired me with such lassitude that I could hardly drag myself about, so we did very little. After dinner we looked into La Madeleine and went on to Bishop Luscombe's, where we took tea.

Saturday, July 19.—A little better to-day. At La Madeleine during part of a Low Mass; my admiration for this building increases greatly; it produces much the same effect as St. Peter's, deceiving the {87} eye by its great proportions. We spent a couple of hours in the boundless galleries of the Louvre. The long gallery contains few pictures that I should much desire to possess: save in the last compartment, and the first room, and none certainly interest me more than that great picture of the battle of Eylau. Thence we went to M. L'Abbé Gaduel, 1. Rue Madame, who took us to the Maison de Campagne of S. Sulpice, at Issy. It is an old royal chateau, much dilapidated, for the good seminarists do not pretend to much comfort in their house; it would seem as if they intended their discipline to serve as a winnowing fan for all light and worldly spirits. They have, however, spacious gardens behind. We were shown a summer house in which Bossuet and Fénélon held a long conference on the subject in dispute between them, and agreed on statements together, which are put up in the room, though the interest of the latter is much gone by in the totally different state of things at present. Eighty young men study philosophy here. We saw and talked some little time with M. Faillon, the Supérieur, a man of learning. M. Galais was out, and we only met him returning on his way from Paris on foot. Coming home we went into the Maison des Carmes, now in repair. M. Gaduel took us into the passage out of which the priests, after stating to the authority the act of their death, were led forward down three {88} steps into the garden, at the bottom of which the assassins fell upon them and murdered them. No spot in Paris touched me more than this. There is what appears to be the marks of a bloody hand in the passage still; but there is no other record of that ruthless deed. The church has nothing remarkable about it: but what devoted heroism on the one side, and what infernal madness on the other, have this house and garden witnessed! How many martyrs here won their crown. Truly it is holy ground, and the blood there shed is yielding a rich harvest of Christian grace in the Church which has sprung up out of its ashes with the strength of a young eagle. In the evening we went to the assemblée générale of S. Vincent de Paul, 2. Rue neuve Notre Dame, under the patronage of the Archbishop of Chalcedoine. The president gave in a long speech an account of their doings; but he was old, had lost his teeth, and dropped his voice, so that we lost very much of it.

"The beginning of his speech was about S. Vincent de Paul himself. The society had just come into possession of some relics of him, and especially a letter in his own handwriting, containing some counsels of charity. For some reason or other he was not able to produce the letter this evening; I should have liked to hear it, for his words are worth gathering up. He also said that he had been to see {89} his birth-place; and that the house he was born in had been removed stone by stone, and a chapel put in its place. The village had lost its old name, and taken his; an old oak, known in his history, where he kept pigs for his father, was still alive, and came out in leaf before the other trees. The president cautioned them against any departure from their rules; against admitting members who were only 'braves hommes,' without being religious; against attempting to bring in secondary motives to induce the members of any 'conférence' to work; against reserving their money for their own districts, instead of putting it into the common fund of the conférence: against a slight and lazy way of visiting the poor, a 'visite de corridor,' as he called it, instead of a 'visite assise.' He said they ought to sit down and talk familiarly, and take the little dirty children by the hand, &c. &c. Finally, a good many of them being students, he gave them some advice about young students recommended to them from the country, especially to take care that they were sent straight to them, and not left first to get into bad company. He described how some friend in one of the provinces sends you a note by some youth whom he describes as a 'petit ange,' and who, after six weeks' residence in Paris, comes and brings you his note, his eye already tarnished, his manner bold and loose, 'un ange déchu.'"—M.

{90} There were present full two hundred, chiefly young men, in a little amphitheatre. It was commenced and ended with prayer, which claimed the intercession of S. Vincent. This is his fête day. They mentioned four branch societies established at Manchester, Liverpool, Dublin, and Edinburgh.

Sunday, July 20.—I gave up the attempt to go to Bishop Luscombe's Chapel, as there was no communion. Heard High Mass at La Madeleine. The music very good, and the dresses splendid; not more than an hour. At two o'clock went to Vespers there: there was chanting of Psalms, an hour, and then a long sermon, more than an hour, on the virtues of S. Vincent de Paul. The preacher used a great deal of action, and gave me the idea of having very much got up his discourse, which was confirmed by seeing him in the evening at Notre Dame des Victoires, where we heard the commencement of the same sermon, but did not stop. The subject of it seems to have been a very great and good man; the sermon was a sort of abstract, I believe, of the Saint's life by the Bishop of Rodez. There was a passionate address to the Saint in the middle, with eyes uplifted to heaven. A great many people, chiefly women; many ladies,—but I do not think it was a favourite preacher. We gave up the conférence of S. Francis Xavier at S. Sulpice, having so much to do to-morrow, though much to our regret; but late hours {91} and great exertions here have tried us both, and we shall be very glad of a change.

We walked through the Tuileries just before dark; a great multitude of citizens.

Monday, July 21.—We were occupied all the morning in packing up and calling on MM. D'Alzon, Bonnetty, and Noirlieu—the latter out. We left Paris a quarter past six, on a very fine pleasant evening. Having the two first places in the malle poste, we enjoyed the drive very much as long as it was light—we reached Reims in eleven hours, a quarter after five, without much fatigue. I slept at intervals, and when I awoke admired the brilliant moonlight, Venus, and Jupiter, through one or two forests, or at least woods, which we passed. The road generally very flat, with these exceptions. Our companion was a gentlemanly Frenchman, with whom I had much conversation. He seemed to be much attached to the present Royal Family, whom he spoke of as acquainted with them, and maintained that the King was a religious man—that he heard Mass daily; the Queen was a model of piety. He thought their dynasty would stand; and not the least, because they would never submit to be exiles; they would either keep the throne, or die for it. The great mistake of Charles X. was quitting France; if you go away everyone is against you; if you stay, a party is sure to rally round you. He seemed to think the issue {92} might have been different had Charles X. remained. But there was no chance of a restoration now; the great mass of the country was satisfied. He spoke well of the Duc de Nemours, still more highly of the Duc d'Orléans, and said the Comte de Paris was a very promising boy. He regretted the want of an hereditary peerage in France, and the little independence that body possessed in consequence. I remarked the smallness of fortunes: that 60,000 francs a year were thought a good fortune for a peer. He said not fifty peers of France possessed that; many could not keep their carriage. Spoke of the clergy as not high enough in point of acquirements—he did not say their discipline or piety was defective, but that they were not a match in information, ability, and powers of mind, for those opposed to them. Wished the higher classes would send their sons into orders,—a Royal Prince, for instance, would be a good example. The tax on land in France is nearly one-fifth of the produce; very heavy; 200l. a year in land a deputy's qualification. Soon after getting to our inn, which was right opposite the west front of the Cathedral, we attended a Low Mass, and at eight o'clock a chanted Mass: it was a Mass for the dead. The outside of Reims is all that can be conceived of beauty, grandeur, unity of conception, delicacy and boldness of execution; and this, though the one great design of the architect has not been {93} completed, for the four towers of the transepts have had no spires since the great fire of 1491; and the western towers are also without theirs, and so end incompletely, the eye positively requiring them. The design of these towers is very singular; and the skill with which a strength sufficient to support spires 400 feet high is veiled, so as to make the towers appear quite pierced and open, seems to me one of the greatest marvels of architecture. The prototype exists in the four towers of Laon, which have the same design in embryo; but this is so enriched, expanded, and beautified by the architect of Reims, as to become his own work in point of originality, and certainly in grace and boldness not to be surpassed. The superiority of the western front, even over that of Amiens, is very marked—indeed, I think it perfect; and the whole of the rest of the outside of the church reaches nearly the same degree. No words can convey any notion of it. The north-west tower was half covered with scaffolding; for here, as every where, great reparations are going on. To the interior I do not give quite so much praise, though it is still of exceeding grandeur, simplicity, and beauty: perhaps, were all its windows like those of the clerestory, the effect might equal or surpass that of Chartres. The west end is, I think, the finest which I know, bearing in mind Amiens and St. Ouen; in addition to a rose window of exceeding brilliancy, {94} and colouring inexpressible, which, forty feet in diameter, crowns the top, there is a smaller one over the doorway, answering to the deep recess of that matchless portal outside. This is a feature of great beauty, though the glass is far from equalling that of the upper rose. There is happily no organ here, but at the end of the north transept, where it has not quite so much to spoil. The transept is inferior to the rest of the church in style. It was restored after the great fire in 1491; and this part of the church, with the whole of the choir and arrangements of the eastern chapels, struck me as decidedly inferior to Amiens. There is not, indeed, generally the same impression of vastness and wondrous height produced on the mind. The pillars are cylinders with four columns at the corners, like Amiens, very simple and severe; but the strength is not quite enough veiled. We went all round the galleries inside and outside, up the centre belfry, which rises ninety-two steps over the top of the vaulting, with an interval of about ten feet besides. It is a forest of wood, and had once a spire of wood, which since the fire has not been restored; this and the six towers have been covered 'provisoirement en ardoises,' as the guide told us, 'mais ce provisoirement a duré long temps;' indeed, from 1491 to our time, without much chance of being improved. We went up the great towers, and could hardly admire enough the {95} delicacy and boldness of the four corner turrets in open work. The present towers are 240 or 250 feet high; they would, I think, equal or surpass Strasburg and Antwerp, had they spires. The immense quantity of sculpture all over this exterior cannot be conceived, nor the ingenuity with which it is made to serve for decoration. A day is far too short a time to carry off the impression of it. The mind is fatigued and exhausted during many a visit, and is not at ease till it has sufficiently mastered the whole, in order to fix itself for admiration and contemplation on some particular part. It would be a week's good work to see it, and it should be visited once a year by all those who talk of the darkness of the Middle Ages, and the greatness of the nineteenth century, which is sorely taxed to keep in repair what they constructed, and has not sufficient piety to restore a part where the architect's design has been left incomplete. Such parts remain, like the window of Aladdin's palace, to show that a materialising philosophy, with all its improved physical powers, remains at immeasurable distance behind the efforts of faith and piety. M. Cousin should be sent to study truth on his knees in Notre Dame of Amiens, or of Reims.

In the midst of seeing the cathedral we walked to St. Remi, a mile, taking the ramparts. They offer a good view of the cathedral, and one of the country {96} round, like Wiltshire, but backed by fine hills to the south; but in this open country, and along all that line of hills, the famous vine of champagne flourishes. St. Remi is an immense church, 350 feet long, besides the Lady Chapel: Norman, with pointed arches; the choir with its stained windows very good; seven in the apse. The tomb of St. Remi was under repair; it is between the high altar and the east end; so the statues of the twelve peers were ranged six on one side and six on the other side of the great altar pro tempore. This church is a very grand and fine one, and, except in the presence of the cathedral, would take a day to see. Its west front has been strangely tampered with, but reminds one still, especially the turrets, of St. Georges de Boscherville; but this is greatly the more spacious church of the two.

We spent all the day in going about, passing through the internal galleries of the cathedral; the curve in the nave is very perceptible. The roof was poorly painted for the sacre of Charles X. with white fleurs de lis on a blue ground; it is very massive in its vaulting, the pitch, perhaps, not perfectly agreeable to the eye.

We had a letter from M. D'Alzon to the Archbishop, but he had left Reims a day or two before; we had another from M. Gaduel to the Supérieur of the Séminaire, which M. took in the afternoon. About 8 o'clock we both went there, and had some {97} talk with him and the professors, one of whom, M. Lassaigne, gave us a translation of Gioberti against Cousin, and recommended me Le Prêtre Juge et Medicin dans le Tribunal de la Penitence, which I got. I gathered from their discourse that confession is the great chain which holds together the whole Christian life; it is practised weekly by the pupils: communion is entirely free. A great many priests of the neighbourhood confess still to the supérieur (M. Aubry), their old teacher: forty he said. I asked them if they could conceive a Christian life maintained without confession: they said, hardly; that it was involved in our Lord's words, "whose sins ye do retain," &c., which power could only be exercised upon each individual case, after knowledge of the facts, such as of course can only be obtained by auricular confession. I alleged to the Supérieur the strong expressions often used to the Virgin Mary, instancing "les satisfactions infinies du Fils de Dieu et de sa Mère:" he condemned them and this. I spoke of St. Bonaventure's Psalter; he did not seem acquainted with it, and regretted that I did not stay till the morrow, when he would have gone over it with me, and weighed the words. But at last he said, St. Bonaventure is not the Church, though he is a saint and doctor of it. They were very kind and cordial, and I should have liked to see more of them.

{98} Wednesday, July 23.—At 5 o'clock the bell of the cathedral sounded long and loud over our heads, leaving no excuse for those who chose to slumber on. I got up, and found two places by the diligence for Laon. M. was in a great hurry, so I exercised a piece of self-denial and woke him, and we hurried off. It was, indeed, with great regret I departed from under the shadow of that noble church, feeling that I left so much of its beauty undiscerned, or rather so few of its forms impressed on the mind. We were four hours and a half reaching Laon, from 6 to 10½, in the intérieur; two fat women and a child made it latterly very uncomfortable. The country flat for some way, then hills and fine prospects. But the position of Laon is very remarkable indeed, a triangular hill rising out of a great plain: in short, another Enna, though not so lofty. The resemblance is very marked indeed, and presented itself to me again and again. Near to one corner of the triangle rises the cathedral, with its four lofty towers, two at the west end, and one at each end of the transept; there are the beginnings of two others, and all six were intended to have had spires as lofty as themselves; the south-west had one, which was taken down. Their present height is, the S.W. 220 feet each, (French,) the N. and S. 235. They are very striking, but want their crown of spires, and are in the most splendid situation for such a building which I {99} ever saw. The view is accordingly very extensive, to the north flat, but to the south terminated by fine hills. We viewed these towers in a great number of positions, on the promenades, and from another corner of the triangle, to the south. The church within is very stately; early English, 400 feet long, and quite uniform in style, or at least with only here and there a decorated window, as in the S. transept. The curve of the roof is very beautiful; after Reims it struck us as low, though at least 80 feet high. The west front is fine, though the portals require more work to conceal their vast depth. I could not but greatly admire the skill of the architect of Reims, who had evidently studied and adopted the towers and western front of this church, which is said in its time (1130) to have been the finest in France, and yet has produced a work incomparably more beautiful, and quite original. Laon has a double triforium, making four stages in its interior.

We walked about here a great deal. The situation is one of the finest I have ever seen; it inspires a sort of elevation in the mind. Beyond the church a caserne is building, and a fort already made—a bad exchange for the tower of Louis d'Outremer. The church of St. Martin is very disappointing inside, being very low. As the diligence was full for the night, we hired a cab, to take us to St. Quentin. It took us from 5½ to 11½, stopping half an hour at La {100} Fère. Road generally flat, and very bad indeed, having no pavé to La Fère. We saw a village church or two, Norman in style. Our conveyance was one of the most uncomfortable I ever experienced; besides that we were overwhelmed with bags and coats. Our driver served at eighteen in one of Napoleon's battles, and had carried off a token in a sabre cut on the cheek; it was the battle of Fleury, where, he said, "L'Empereur était trahi." So the French guide-book says of the battle of Crecy: "Les Français perdirent 30,000 par la faute du Comte d'Alençon."

Thursday, July 24.—We are at l'Hôtel du Cygne: comfortable enough. The church is of first-rate beauty; the nave, from its great height and purity of style, even more striking than that of Reims inside; and so the transept: but the choir and many parts of the church have swerved from the perpendicular, and are braced with iron,—a sad drawback. The architect has raised his central building, with extreme boldness, to an enormous height; but he has not thrown strength and breadth enough into his aisles to resist the pressure. The windows throughout of geometric tracery, remarkably beautiful; and the pillars of the nave spring from the ground to the roof without capital at the lower arches, and are of great beauty, an advance certainly on Reims, and in one respect on Amiens, in that they are not merely cylinders, with columns at the four corners, but have {101} two colonnettes introduced again between these, which produces an effect of great lightness. Beautiful end of north transept, a decorated window below, an open triforium of eight lights, and a vast decorated window terminating in a great rosace above—stained glass. The apse of seven windows, with most brilliant stained glass, beginning from a second transept of great beauty, making a double cross, the southern part flamboyant. I think the nave of this church, and the apse and arrangements of its chapels might be profitably studied as an almost perfect specimen; it may compete with Amiens and St. Ouen, and undoubtedly surpasses Reims. Height, 128 English feet; vaulting of roof very beautiful. We went in at 11 o'clock, and found preparations for a funeral of some importance: presently all the choir was filled with well dressed persons; and the body being deposited under a catafalque, surrounded with burning tapers, in the centre of the nave and transept, mass was chanted. The black velvet chasuble, and the copes and other robes to match, like all the dresses of the Roman clergy, are very handsome. We went into the upper part of the choir, but I could not avoid noticing with what indifference most of the attendants on the funeral treated the holiest rite of the Church; they were, no doubt, unbelievers; and some ragged boys close beside me were a serious annoyance, incessantly spitting, laughing, and talking. {102} The west end of this church has been barbarized in the style of 1681, most ugly to behold; it seems to have been intended to have two towers, but no part of them at present exists. We went through the roof of the church, and caught a view from the strange-looking steeple which rises over the croisée. The country round is not remarkable—flat, and in parts wooded. Rest of the day spent in writing. Found some common prints of details in the life of the Holy Family which pleased us.

Friday, July 25.—At 6 o'clock we started by the diligence to Amiens by Peronne—had the coupé with an English woman, who got in a few miles on the road. The country not remarkable—some hills and a fertile succession of corn-fields. Reached Peronne a little before nine, and breakfasted there. Several fortifications and drawbridges both entering and going, but they did not seem kept up with much care. The Church, de la Renaissance, not remarkable. The rest of the road to Amiens a fine broad country, with occasional hills, of average beauty. No view of Amiens cathedral but from the last hill, a few miles off, and then it looked small, I suppose from the vastness of the plain in which it stands. We did not reach Amiens, a distance of only 82 kiloms. from St. Quentin, till after three o'clock. At the last stage some young seminarists got out of the rotonde, and were met by their mother and sisters, as it seemed: {103} they were apparently peasants, very humbly clad, and of the most ordinary demeanour. I saw what education had done for the young men (who had not received the tonsure): even the retired life and poor salary of a country curé would be a great elevation in the scale of society to them. I would not mention this invidiously, but the lot of the French Curé de Campagne has sometimes appeared to me so painful, that it was a relief to see its bright side even in a material point of view.

I went to my old quarters at the Hôtel de France, and we were shown into the same room I had occupied two years before. We got a light dinner and set off to the cathedral. The first sight of its west front was almost painful after that of Reims, there being certainly a confusion and want of harmony in its parts; while the southern tower being left twenty feet lower than the northern combines to spoil the effect. But I was no sooner in the interior than a full sense of its prodigious superiority to every other building we had seen established itself on my mind; and the impression my first visit two years ago made was more than repeated. Only St. Ouen may enter at all into competition; but the vast proportions of Amiens, combined with the great purity of its style, more than counterbalance the, if any, superior grace and lightness of the other. In the evening we walked out to the west, in the hope of catching a good view {104} of the cathedral, but we could not find the right place. Amiens has nothing else remarkable which fell under our observation.

Saturday, July 26.—After breakfast we went to the cathedral, and passed over all the galleries inside and outside, and the roofs. The best external view from the building itself is on the north tower; the arcs boutants of the choir and the whole arrangement are much more striking than those of the nave. The guide, a very intelligent man, assured us there was no danger apprehended within or without to any part of the building. As far as M. and I could judge, we thought it would last as easily for the next 500 years as it had gone through the last. The view through the eight compartments of the upper chamber of the central clocher is pretty; it seems to fit into so many frames the city and the vast plain in which it stands. We saw the towers of Corbie. In the inside I noticed four particulars of its great superiority, over and above the unequalled proportions of the whole.

1st, The triforium and its windows, especially of the choir; these windows commence on the east side of the transept. In the rest there are arches, which have been filled up with masonry from the beginning. I think this triforium superior to that of St. Ouen, chiefly from the geometric character of its forms; whereas those of St. Ouen approach to the perpendicular. {105} Each bay has six divisions, save the five of the apse, which have four.

2nd, The windows of the clerestory, all of pure geometric tracery. I measured one on the south side of the nave, nineteen feet three inches wide, clear light.

3rd, The north transept end. A rosace above, of most brilliant glass, thirty-six feet in diameter; open gallery of fifteen divisions.

4th, The whole arrangement of the aisles round the choir. There are open chapels north and south, extending the whole four bays of the choir, which give great lightness to it; while the seven arches of the apse correspond to as many chapels. The Lady Chapel is beautiful, though not so much developed as that of St. Ouen.

By the advice of the guide we went down to the river, immediately to the north of the cathedral; from the other side of which, by a little tree in front of a house painted green, is, perhaps, the best external view of the whole mass from east to west. Even here, however, almost all the windows of the aisles are covered by houses; on another branch of the river, a little further north, rather more of these is discovered. The near view from the extreme corner of the bishop's garden is good; and the corresponding one to the south-east, as far back as the street will allow, rather better. This gives the beauty of {106} the east end. But no complete view of this wonderful building outside can be obtained, from the closeness of the houses; and that which would be the grandest ornament of the finest city in the world cannot even be seen in its full proportions.

The vaulting of Amiens is 140 feet (English) high; the ridge of the roof outside reaches to nigh 200. Its internal and external galleries must be traversed before the spectator can estimate the enormous pile of masonry which that fabric contains. It can only be matched, I think, by Milan. Amiens is only 442 feet in length, including the Lady Chapel. In this also the French architects have shown great skill, for an excess in this respect would have diminished the great effect produced by their stupendous height. York or Canterbury would be dwarfed beside Amiens, though the former exceeds it by 82 feet, and the latter by 88 feet in length. But the height of the vaulting of Canterbury nave is 80 feet, of York 99, of Amiens 140. It is a sad result of a visit to the French cathedrals, that the Englishman must be content to recognise ever after the immense inferiority of his own in the one characteristic feature of Christian architecture, elevation. A noble race of men they must have been, and not of the tiger-monkey kind, who had hearts to conceive and hands to execute such works as these. Overflowing with inward life must the Church have {107} been, who could impress such a character on her sons. Here, indeed, may the Churchman feel, "He built His sanctuary like high palaces; like the earth which He hath established for ever." Those were the ages of faith, hope, and love; it would be well if the life which glowed in those mediæval bosoms manifested itself by works in ours.

"Amiens. Feast of St. James, 1845.—I do not intend to say much about things in general, but as you have touched on them, I do say a few words. I am, I may say, fully convinced that neither the worship of saints, nor the use of images, nor the withholding of the cup, at all affect the life of the Roman Church. What I have seen has led me to reflect bitterly on Mr. Bowdler's 'Quid Romæ faciam?' The answer is, all that you try in vain to do in England. For, in sober truth, he has only told us that what exists there in practice exists with us in theory. However, I agree with him that it is our duty to put it in practice at home. But, how to get ecclesiastics to live in primitive brotherhood and in primitive poverty? How to bring people to confession? How to induce candidates for holy orders to submit to education? How to get the opportunity of restoring the daily sacrifice? How to warm our churches with devotion, so that people may come in, and be cheered and helped in their prayers, &c.? These are questions to which he has {108} supplied no answer, and the answer is not easy. It requires every allowance for the reserved and retiring character of the English to hope that we are not, even in comparison with the French, a fallen people. Still, were it not for one person who thinks otherwise, I should view our failings calmly, as a mere hindrance to be surmounted, and even take easily the painful separation there is between us and so much that I must admire, considering it as the result of an over-technical system on the one side, and an unformed one on the other—a result that would vanish as the one grew in life and the other in consistency."—M.

We determined to leave this evening, that we might secure an early passage from Boulogne on Monday morning. So at half-past-five we took the diligence to Abbeville. It is an unusually pleasant drive thither, partly by the river side, well wooded, a good road, and occasionally diversified. We even went by one country house which had a fine flower garden and lawn, and might have passed for English. It was so unusually neat and nicely kept, that I inquired if it was a private house. We had the coupé with a French gentleman, with whom I had considerable talk. He was a fair representant of the tone of mind produced by the first revolution; spoke with enthusiasm of the military and naval establishments of France, the accomplishments required of all {109} officers, the preference given to pure merit, the equality which subsisted in all the relations of Frenchmen; contrasted his own country in these respects with ours. He claimed the full possession of liberty, which I denied to them; but I fully admitted the passion for equality and the existence of it. I observed that, by their law of inheritance, they had destroyed all equilibrium in the state, all power but the central power of the government, which was continually increasing. He spoke with passionate fondness of the late Duke of Orleans, that he had a marvellous gift of speaking, attached every body to him, was exceedingly brave and able every way. I asked if he thought Louis Philippe had contrived the revolution. He said he could not acquit him as to that. The whole of his family were patterns to France, whereas, he said, the Duke de Berri was a beast, an animal. He seemed to think there would be attempts on Louis Philippe's death, but they would not succeed; the country generally was well satisfied with his rule. He defended the system of passports as admirable, but when at Abbeville his own was kept some time being deciphered he waxed impatient. He defended the conscription too, and abused the construction of our army; nothing but the firmness of the English character produced good soldiers out of such materials. He seemed to think all property in England descended to the eldest son, {110} and abused our horrible aristocracy. I said the old Saxon blood loved an aristocracy and would always have it.

We reached Abbeville just after dark, got some coffee, and rested a few hours at the Hotel d'Angleterre. At half-past-two the diligence from Paris took us up, and landed us at Boulogne between nine and ten. A fine rich country all along, but with nothing remarkable, except perhaps the site of Montreuil, a brow something like Windsor.

Sunday, July 27.—Went to the British Chapel, in the Rue du Temple—a miserable meeting-house begalleried all round, with one pulpit for the prayers and another for the sermon, flanking a table in the midst. The reading and the preaching quite in correspondence. Indeed the sermon, which was without book, was one of the most extraordinary productions I ever heard: its tone may be imagined, from the speaker calling our Lord "King of Kings, and Lord of Lords—and Emperor of Emperors." "What was half an hour to speak of immortal things to an immortal soul!" The chapel was very full of well-dressed people, whose demeanour was as little religious as can be conceived; but they were bidden to beware of the superstition of the Roman Church, and of the seductions to the animal nature which it afforded. Later we walked into the upper town, and, after dinner, along the sands, and over the {111} cliffs home. But the view of Boulogne on every side is dreary and wretched; and I should never stay there an hour longer than was necessary. We were at l'Hôtel de l'Europe—civil people, and excellent table d'hôte.

Monday, July 28.—At six this morning we left Boulogne, and crossed to Folkstone in two hours and five minutes; a very fast vessel. We breakfasted at the hotel near the beach, got through the custom house rather quickly, were ready for the half-past-nine train, and in London shortly after one o'clock. M. and I called on E. Hawkins and Acland, and then went down to Eton, and I home to Launton.

{112}

LETTERS FROM FRANCE AND ITALY.—1847.

Hotel Windsor, Rue de Rivoli,
7th July, 1847.  

  My dear ——.

* * * The weather for the last three or four days has been melting. We have had plenty to do, and have been well occupied, instructed, and pleased. Last evening we dined with M. Defresne, a very clever, able, and energetic talker. He is a great friend of the old Royal Family, and calls Louis Philippe the greatest scoundrel under the sun. We met l'Abbé Pététot, curé of St. Louis d'Antin, one of the parishes of Paris, with 18,000 inhabitants; he has eight curates, besides occasional assistance. They give the most astonishing account of the change which has taken place in France in the last fifteen years in religious matters. Formerly a young man dared not confess that he was a Christian, or show himself in a church; now the bitter sarcasm and ridicule with which all religious subjects were treated have passed away; earnestness has laid hold of the {113} mind of the nation, and even those who are not Christians appear to be searching for the truth, and treat Christianity as a reality, and conviction with respect. Even now, not one young man in a hundred is a Christian. I asked l'Abbé Pététot particularly, if he felt sure of this proportion, and he confirmed it. Out of the thirty-two millions of French, they reckon two millions who are really Christians, practising confession; many of the others send for a priest in their last illness, confess, and receive the sacraments; but M. Defresne thought this very unsatisfactory, as we should. They are making great exertions to christianise the class of workmen, the great majority of whom are not even nominally believers. You may judge of their life by the fact that they live with many different women in common, sometimes after a time selecting one of these, and confining themselves to her, but without legitimate marriage. The Church has gained about 15,000 of this class out of a hundred thousand in Paris, and worked a great reformation. At St. Sulpice they have every other Sunday a meeting of these, called conférences, at which they are addressed by different persons, clergy or lay, on religious, moral, or instructive subjects. We went to the meeting on Sunday night, and were much pleased with what we saw and heard. Their minds are laid hold of and interested; by drawing together they get a sense of {114} union and the force of numbers, and are encouraged by each other's progress; they see their superiors in knowledge and station exerting themselves for their improvement. L'Abbé Pététot told us he had preached eighty times last Lent, seven times in one day. This is entirely without note. Their labour must be very great. His manner of speaking is very pleasing, and I think the priests generally speak with great propriety, and with an abundance and arrangement of matter which is not common with us. We have just returned from a visit to M. Martin Noirlieu, once sub-preceptor of the Duke de Bordeaux, and now a curé at Paris. He has been in England, and speaks favourably of us. He thinks there is much good and real religion in the people of England, though very defective, and though the Church is suffering under many abuses. He said they computed that the Bishop of London received as much as all the French Bishops put together. The state of things here is totally different from what it is with us. There is no state religion, no temptation whatever to pretend to be a Christian if you are not. The consequence is, that there is little hypocrisy; infidelity is openly professed by a great number. On the other hand, the believers are so from real conviction, and generally after a personal conversion; there are comparatively few hereditary Christians.

The Church is gradually gaining, but much more {115} in the higher than in the lower ranks. There are 800 priests in Paris; they want 400 more: before the great Revolution there were 5000.

On Monday we were taken to see the house of the Priests for foreign Missions. They count many martyrs in late times in China, &c. There are the bones of several in their museum; Chinese pictures of the mode in which they were tortured, expressed to the life with a frightful reality. The mother of one of these martyrs is living now, and had sent to her the original picture of her son's martyrdom, drawn by Christians in China. There is a long frame of wood, which they were forced to carry round the neck, and which prevented them from taking any rest. Young men are regularly trained here for missionary work; their disposition and talents attentively considered; above all their vocation, and without this is very decided, they are not allowed to attempt so perilous a task. Indeed, where the reverse of honour, or ease, or wealth, or leisure, or anything that delights the natural man, is all that they can expect in this life, they are not likely to have any hypocritical aspirants for the work of a missionary. As for sending out a man with a wife and children to convert the heathen, the idea would appear to them too ridiculous. Near adjoining to these we saw the central establishment of the Sœurs de Charité; they have six hundred sisters here, many novices. They {116} count about 6000 all over the world, and are increasing rapidly. They were entirely put down at the great Revolution, so that this is all since 1801. They renew their vows annually; there are instances, though very rare, of sisters retiring. Every sister passes one week of the year in what is called a retreat; that is, a complete self-examination and inquiry into the past year, progress made in things spiritual, &c. This is likewise the case with every monk, nun, or priest. These retreats are productive of great effects.

July 8.—We dine to-day with M. Defresne again, to meet M. Martin Noirlieu.

We have had l'Abbé Labbé here three hours this morning. We are going a round with l'Abbé Carron at two. We have the dinner in the evening, so do pretty well.

Yours sincerely,
T. W. Allies.

{117} Genoa, July 20, 1847.  

  My dear ——.

* * * The last six days we have spent, as well as the heat would allow us, in enjoying the different views which this most superb city presents. My companions, who have both seen Constantinople, seem to reckon it only inferior to that. To begin with the beginning: we presented on Wednesday our letter to the Père Jourdain, a Jesuit; and no sooner was it delivered, than, without reading it, or any sort of preface, except W's reply in the affirmative to the question whether he was a Catholic, he began a most furious attack on us as rebels outside of the Church, Protestants, and what not. It so happened, however, that the points he took were just those which I had most at command; so he did not get much by his assault, was obliged to beat a retreat several times, and finally left us all three convinced that reasoning was not his forte, and that at least in his case the Jesuits were not employing gentle insinuation as a means of converting, He has, however, never renewed the battle since, but been very obliging, and given us every assistance in his power. Among the sights he directed us to was St. Anne's, a house of barefooted Carmelites, on the back of the hills some few hundred feet aloft, commanding the most delicious views of the city, the bay, the sea, {118} and the mountains round. A straggling and precipitous garden was covered with vines festooned on trellis work, through which one caught the blue sky, and water, and towers and domes brought out against them with full effect. Then, after seeing the long, cool corridors inside, each of which had a window opening on this gorgeous scene, and the little chamber of each brother, furnished with a poor bed, some little pictures, a crucifix, and the most necessary furniture; and on hearing the quiet tenor of every day's life, the only fear was, whether there was enough of the cross in it. But doubtless the being under obedience, the having every day's work portioned out for one, supplies all that is wanted; and however calm it seemed, every chamber, as it had the figure of the Crucified, so it was conscious of the secret cross borne by its occupant. They are occupied in instruction, and have a school of novices. Genoa is particularly rich in charitable foundations; her merchant princes cannot be accused of neglecting the poor and suffering, nor of so assisting them as to show that they thought poverty a crime and an offence. We have seen three great buildings which have moved our admiration in this way. The Ospitaletto contains 444 sick men and women: it is served by six Capucins and fifteen sisters of charity. Mass is said every day at half-past-five and six o'clock, at altars so placed in the different wards that every person {119} can see. They are confessed by the Capucins, and communicate every fortnight. All Genoese are received freely here, others pay a small sum. Again, the hospital called Pammatone, endowed by various noble Genoese, can receive 1000 sick; it had more this last winter. It is served by eighteen Capucins and thirty-four sisters. We saw here, in a shrine over the altar, the body of St. Catherine of Genoa, who died in 1510, after serving thirty-two years as a sister here. It is apparently solid and quite uncorrupt. The other great building, which we saw yesterday, is the Albergo dei Poveri—a poor house in fact, but as unlike an English poor house, as poverty in the person of the Blessed Virgin and our Lord is unlike poverty as treated by a board of guardians, and kept alive on the smallest pittance they can devise. It is a most magnificent building, with four huge courts, the chapel in the centre, of which the altar is commanded on one side by a great chamber for the men, and on the other side by one for the women; while in front it is open to the public, and behind to an infirmary for the sick.

In all these buildings what most pleases one is the bringing home the entire offices, hopes, and consolations of religion to every individual soul. I do not see how this can be done without sisters of charity, and the system of confession. Everything I see impresses on me more and more our own need of a {120} complete renovation and restoration, if we would rise as a communion to be a reality and not a sham. Yesterday we visited the Fieschine, an institution for educating orphan girls, of which it now holds 187. They are taught reading and writing and work of all kinds, the most beautiful embroidery, artificial flowers, &c. It was founded by the Count Fieschi, and is in the patronage of his family, directed by a chaplain, and a superior, with the rules of a convent, but without any vows, as a great many marry out of it. The full recognition of the ascetic and monastic life, as a Christian state, and the highest in its kind, is of incalculable importance. For want of this, all our great institutions, whether for the maintenance of learning, or the direction of youth, or the care of the sick, fail just where they ought to be strong; they have no authority; the world, its views, and principles, and measures, rule in them as in ordinary life; and the reason why is, that the very life which alone is above the world, its wants, and its measures, is excluded and condemned. We have men, we have minds, we have money; but how are we to get back principles which we have in practice given up? The under-valuing celibacy, the not possessing religious orders, seems a system of christianity without the cross.

July 21.—We go on to Milan by the courier to-day, and I shall post this letter on our arrival there {121} to-morrow, after that to Venice, which is my farthest point. I shall return through Basle, to which place write me a line as soon as you receive this. The heat here is overwhelming,—there is no getting cool, even at night. Instead of a bonnet, all women here, ladies and commonalty, wear a muslin shawl, which is pinned on the top of the head, and descends down behind to the waist: it is most pleasing and graceful. They are, besides, often good looking, and have a natural breeding and look of blood about them which seems quite extinct in France. The majority of the women over the men in the churches here is as great as in France. The buildings themselves are full of various marbles, painting and gilding, sometimes to excess, but often the effect is very beautiful. The music is much too theatrical for my taste. Several masses going on at once in a church strike one as strange, and for devotion, at least habitually, I prefer the Low Mass which one can follow without difficulty, and which is of a moderate length, to the accompaniment with music, which distracts. Their evening service, when they have any, is the Benediction, or exposition of the Holy Sacrament. The Jesuits here seem to have plenty to do; the professed house is supported by charity alone. When we go to visit Père Jourdain, he seats us on his bed, for chairs he has not for company: I believe they may not possess anything as private property, not even a souvenir of friends. {122} There is a reality about that order at least which ensures respect.

*       *       *       *       *

Yours very sincerely,
T. W. Allies.

Milan, July 23. 1847.  

  My dear ——.

We took our letter to Manzoni last night, and found him sitting, after dinner, with Madame. Considering that he lives very retired, we may think ourselves three fortunate birds of passage to have had an hour's conversation with the author of the Promessi Sposi. He is from 60 to 65 years of age, with greyish hair and a pleasing kind look. He spoke of James Hope and Gladstone; with great warmth of the latter, saying it was a satisfaction to speak with such a man. Newman he regretted not having seen as he passed through, being then in the country. I mentioned his great reputation with us. "He has the same here," he said. I inquired if he could tell us anything about the Estatica and Addolorata, who are not far from Trent, and whom we wish to see. He replied that one person of his acquaintance who had seen the Addolorata was profoundly struck, and quite convinced of the reality of her state. On further conversation, it turned out that this person {123} was no other than his wife's son by a former marriage, who was at this moment gone on a second visit to the Addolorata with a physician, for the purpose of taking an accurate account of her state. He is to return on Monday, and then we hope to hear his report. I asked if the clergy here were learned; he said there were learned men among them, but the Church was held in a state of most oppressive thraldom by the government; the bishops cannot hold a visitation, nor communicate with Rome, without permission, nor punish a parish priest without the sentence of a tribunal directed by laymen. This thraldom dates from the emperor Joseph II. What seemed most to interest Manzoni, and on which he spoke at length, was the philosophical system of his friend Rosmini; a complete system, according to his account, of great originality, thoroughly opposed to the sensuous philosophy of modern times, and preparing the mind for the faith. He made all error to consist in the will, not in the mind; and was a most inexorable logician, carrying out every principle, and never leaving a fact in abeyance. Manzoni seemed thoroughly interested in Rosmini, and expects great results from his works, of which there are already fifteen vols. published, which have begun to make an impression. He got more and more animated as our visit went on. I found his Italian clear and easy to understand; nor did he address us at all in French, {124} which his lady (a second wife) seemed to prefer. He spoke with compassion of the miserably infidel state of France, and quite admitted my remark that a great change seemed to be passing over the mind of men everywhere, and that they were in the process of being won back to the faith, as in the last century they were falling from it. The Church was the best friend of all governments, for they must be bad indeed for the clergy not to support them; and yet their position was one of jealousy towards the Church. As we bowed ourselves out of the room, he came forward cordially and said "Shake hands," the only words not Italian which he had spoken; and so we left him much gratified, and with the prospect of another visit on Monday. We were several hours in the cathedral yesterday; and at five this morning mounted to see the early morning view outside. The view, when clear, is most wondrous, embracing the range of Alps for a couple of hundred miles. This morning it was only partially open, just to the north, but still very fine. Shelley's lines on the Euganean Hills are most thoroughly Italian, and render the scene, so far as words can:—

{125} As for describing the building inside or out, it is utterly vain to attempt it. Suffice it to say, that the greatest of all Gothic cathedrals must be allowed to be a beautiful bastard, full of inconsistencies and irregularities, and even serious faults, yet so grand and profoundly religious, that one gives up all criticism in disgust. As we walked on the marble roof this morning, and watched that multitude of aerial pinnacles so clearly defined against the cool blue sky, I thought it would be as utterly beyond Walter Scott or Victor Hugo, or any other master of human language, as it was beyond me, to convey to one who never saw it any idea of this building. Human language, then, being an instrument confessedly so poor and weak, what extreme folly it is to rest upon it in religious mysteries; to think that we can penetrate into realities by its aid, when we cannot even describe the objects of sense. If Milan cathedral be indescribable, it would be strange indeed if words could exhibit the mystery of the Trinity. We must wait for intuition before we approach eternal things; that is, we must be beyond the bounds of time ere we can comprehend what does not exist in time. Prayers may be said to be always going on, at least during the day, here; as we entered, a Mass was already proceeding: there is a succession of them from dawn till noon. I confess I prefer one daily celebration, at which all {126} who are disposed, especially clergy, should assist, not merely as reverencing the mystery, (which, however, is far and far beyond our manner of neglecting it,) but as partaking of it. On the other hand, this mode sets forth a continual worship; the building itself seems a perpetual offering made to God; by day and night it pleads the Passion of His Son and the graces of His saints. I do not know whether this mute intercession is most striking when it is crowded with worshippers, or when, as we saw it at eight last night, two single lamps twinkled in its immense obscurity, and the last light of day was feebly visible through the coloured windows. As we were standing thus under the lantern, we heard a voice at the other end of the church, "si chiude, si chiude." One could hardly help wishing to stay there the night. It would certainly require a bold heart, but I think I could do it, if I thought I could get an answer to one or two questions. The shrine of St. Charles Borromeo, a pope's nephew—nobleman, archbishop, and cardinal—who was worn out with austerities at forty-six, seems a fit approach to the invisible world: where Ambrose taught, and Augustine was converted, and over all the Blessed Virgin's hands are stretched—a fit place for reaching the truth. We intend to go on towards Venice on Tuesday; we think of stopping at Verona, and going north into the Tyrol, to see the Addolorata. {127} I do no not know if you have heard of her. She has now been many years subsisting almost without nourishment, having on her hands, feet, and side the marks of our Saviour's wounds, and on her head a series of punctures representing the Crown of Thorns. Blood drops from all of these on Friday. I spoke with an eye-witness of this at Paris. The thing seems marvellous enough to go a hundred miles out of one's way to see it.

Yours very sincerely,
T. W. Allies.

Account of a Visit to the Addolorata and Estatica, in the Tyrol.

Trent, August 1, 1847.  

  My dear ——.

Since I last wrote to you, I have seen two sights more remarkable than any that ever fell under my own observation before, and than any that are likely to fall again. I mean to give you as short an account of them as will convey a real notion of them.

Maria Domenica Lazzari, daughter of a poor miller now dead, lives in the wild Alpine village of Capriana, in the Italian Tyrol, which we had a walk of four hours through the mountains to reach. She was {128} born March 16. 1815, and up to the year 1833 lived the ordinary life of a peasant, blameless and religious, but in no respect otherwise remarkable. In August, 1833, she had an illness, not in the first instance of an extraordinary nature; but it took the form of an intermittent fever, confining her completely to her bed, and finally contracting the nerves of her hands and feet, so as to cripple them. On the 10th of January, 1834, she received on her hands, feet, and left side, the marks of our Lord's five wounds; the first appearance of these was a gradual reddening of the various points beneath the skin; this was strongly marked on a Thursday, and on the following day the wounds were open, blood flowed, and since that time they have never undergone any material change. Three weeks afterwards her family found her in the morning with a handkerchief covering her face, in a state of great delight, a sort of trance; on removing the handkerchief, letters were found on it marked in blood, and Domenica's brow had a complete impression of the Crown of Thorns, in a line of small punctures, about a quarter of an inch apart, from which the blood was flowing freshly. They asked her who had torn her so (chi l'aveva così pettinata?) she replied, "A very fair lady had come in the night and adorned her." On the 10th of April, 1834, she took a little water with a morsel of bread steeped in it; from that day to this she has taken no nourishment {129} whatever, save the Holy Sacrament, which she receives weekly once or twice, in the smallest possible quantity. Some years ago, when the priest had given her the Host, sudden convulsions came on, and she was unable to swallow It; the priest tried repeatedly to withdraw It, but in vain, the convulsions returning as often as he attempted it, and so It remained forty days, when It was at last removed untouched. We were assured of this by the Prince-Bishop of Trent. From the time that she first received the stigmata in January, 1834, to the present time, the wounds have bled every Friday with a loss of from one to two ounces of blood, beginning early in the morning, and on Friday only: the quantity of blood which now flows is less than it used to be. The above information we received chiefly from Signor Yoris, a surgeon of Cavalese, the chief village of the district in which Capriana lies. We carried him a letter from Signor S. Stampa, son-in-law of Manzoni, whom we met at Milan last Sunday, and who had just returned from a visit to Domenica, exactly a week before our own. He appeared quite overwhelmed at what he had seen, and gave us an exact account, which our own eyes subsequently verified. We reached Cavalese from Neumarkt on Thursday, having taken especial care so to time our visit that we might see Domenica first on Thursday evening and then on Friday morning, {130} so as to be able to observe that marvellous flow of blood which is said to take place on Friday. Signor Yoris most obligingly offered to accompany us; accordingly we left Cavalese shortly after one o'clock on Thursday, and reached Capriana by a wild road through a mountainous valley, in four hours. As we got near the place Signor Yoris said, "I will tell you a curious instance of Domenica's acuteness of hearing. My wife and I were going once to visit her; when we were eighty or a hundred yards from her house, I whispered to my wife to go quietly, that we might take her by surprise. We did so accordingly, but much to our astonishment she received us with a smile, saying that she had not been taken by surprise, and alluding to the very words I had used." He showed us the spot where this had occurred, and it was certainly an acuteness of sense far beyond anything I can conceive possible. We went straight to Domenica's cottage, and knocked at the door. Her sister was out, but in a few minutes she came from a cottage a little below, and let us in. At the inner end of a low room near the wall, in a bed hardly larger than a crib, Domenica lay crouched up, the hands closely clasped over the breast, the head a little raised, the legs gathered up nearly under her, in a way the bed clothes did not allow us to see. About three quarters of an inch under the roots of the hair a straight line is drawn {131} all round the forehead, dotted with small punctures a quarter of an inch apart; above this the flesh is of the natural colour, perfectly clear and free from blood; below the face is covered down to the bottom of the nose, and the cheeks to the same extent, with a dry crust or mask of blood. Her breast heaved with a sort of convulsion, and her teeth chattered. On the outside of both hands, as they lie clasped together, in a line with the second finger, about an inch from the knuckle, is a hard scar, of dark-colour, rising above the flesh, half an inch in length, by about three-eighths of an inch in width; round these the skin slightly reddened, but quite free from blood. From the position of the hands it is not possible to see well inside, but stooping down on the right of her bed I could almost see an incision answering to the outward one, and apparently deeper. I leant over her head, within a foot of the Corona on the forehead, and closely observed the wounds. She looked at us very fixedly, but hardly spoke. We heard her only cry 'Dio mio' several times when her pains were bad. She seemed to enter into Signor Yoris's conversation, smiled repeatedly, and bent her head. But it was an effort to her to attend, and at times the eyes closed and she became insensible. By far the most striking point in her appearance this evening was that dry mask of blood descending so regularly from the punctured line round the forehead; {132} for it must be remarked that the blood has flowed in a straight line all down the face, as if she were erect, not as it would naturally flow from the position in which she was lying, that is, off the middle to the sides of the face. And what is strangest of all, there is a space all round the face, from the forehead down to the jaw, by the ears, quite free from blood, and of the natural colour: which is just that part to which the blood, as she lies, ought most to run. After about three-quarters of an hour we took leave, intending to return the first thing in the morning. Don Michele Santuari, the parish priest, on whom we called, was out; he returned our visit for a minute or two, very early the next morning, but was going to his brother's again.

Friday evening, July 30th.—When we visited Domenica at half-past five this morning, the change was very remarkable. The hard scars on the outside of her hands had sunk to the level of the flesh, and become raw and fresh running wounds, but without indentation, from which there was a streak of blood running a finger's length, not perpendicularly, but down the middle of the wrist. The wound inside the left hand seemed on the contrary deep and furrowed, much blood had flowed, and the hand seemed mangled; the wound of the right hand inside could not be seen. The punctures round the forehead had been bleeding, and {133} were open, so that the mask of blood was thicker, and very terrible to look at. The darkest place of all was the tip of the nose, a spot, which, as she was lying, the blood in its natural course could not reach at all. It must be observed again, that the blood flows as it would flow if she were suspended, and not recumbent. The sight is so fearful that a person of weak nerves would very probably be overcome by it; indeed, Signor Stampa and his servant were both obliged to leave the room. While we were there Domenica's sister, who lives alone with her, stood at the head of her crib with her hands under her head, occasionally raising her. We fanned her alternately with a large feathered fan, which alone seemed to relieve her; for she is in a continual fever, and her window remains open day and night, summer and winter, in the severest cold. She seemed better this morning, and more able to speak, and at intervals did speak several times. I asked her to pray for us, she replied, "Questo farò ben volentieri." "Prega che l'Inghilterra sia tutta Cattolica, che non ci sia che una religione, perchè adesso ci sono molte." She replied, I believe in the very words of the Catechism, "Si; non vi é che una sola religione Cattolica Romana; fuori di questa non si deve aver speranza." She observed, that other English had asked the same thing of her. She has light and sparkling grey eyes, which she fixed repeatedly on {134} us, looking at us severally with great interest. We told her that the Bishop of Trent had requested us to call on him, and give him a report of her; and asked her if she had anything to say. She replied, "Tell him that I desire his benediction, and that I resign myself in every thing to the will of God and that of the bishop. Ask him to intercede for me with the Bishop of all." I said, "Piu si patisce qui, piu si gode dopo." She replied, "Si: si deve sperarlo." Before we left, W—— repeated, "You will pray for us," she bowed her head; "and for all England:" she replied, "Quanto io posso." After nearly an hour's stay we took leave, hoping that we might all meet in Paradise. There is an altar in her room, at which Mass is celebrated once a week, and many small pictures of saints. Every thing betokens the greatest poverty.

It is most hard to realise such a life as Domenica's continued during thirteen years. The impression left on my mind as to her state is that of one who suffers with the utmost resignation a wonderful and inexplicable disease, on which the tokens of our Saviour's Passion are miraculously and most awfully impressed.

The points in her case which are beyond and contrary to nature are these:

1st. For thirteen years she has neither eaten nor drunken, except that very small portion of the Host which she receives once or twice weekly.

{135} 2d. On the hands and feet, inside and outside, she bears the wounds of our Lord; both sides run with blood; whether the wounds go through is not known; and on the left side is a wound which runs also.

3d. She has on the brow, as I saw and have described, and I believe all round the head, the mark of the crown of thorns, a series of punctures, and a red line as if of something pressing on the head.

4th. All these wounds run with blood at present, and during thirteen years have done the like, regularly, and at an early hour on Friday, and on that day alone.

Combining the first and fourth fact, we get a phenomenon which sets at utter defiance all physical science, and which seems to me a direct exertion of Almighty power, and of that alone. "Medical men," said Signor Yoris, "have been in abundance to see her, and have studied her case; but no one has furnished the least solution of it." He assured me he had seen the wounds on her feet a hundred times, and that the blood flowed upwards towards the toes, as we saw it did on the nose. Since for the last two years she has been contracted and drawn up by her disease the feet cannot be seen. She has refused to allow any man to see the wound on the side, as it did not require to be medically treated; but offered that any number of women, of her own village, or {136} the wives of medical men, might see it. She is a good deal emaciated, but not so much as I have seen in other cases. Nothing can be more simple and natural than her manner and that of her sister. Their cottage is open at all times. Domenica may be closely seen, all but touched and handled. Indeed around that couch one treads instinctively with reverence; the image of the Woe surpassing all woes is too plainly marked, for the truth of what one sees not to sink indelibly on the mind. No eye witness, I will venture to say, will ever receive the notion of anything like deceit.

We returned to Neumarkt on Friday, and on Saturday morning, July 31st, walked nine miles to Caldaro, to see the other great wonder of the Tyrol, Maria Mörl, called the Estatica. On arriving, we presented the Bishop of Trent's letter to the dean, and in about an hour, were conducted to the Franciscan convent; from this one of the friars conducted us to the monastery, within the enclosure of which, but only as a lodger, Maria Mörl has withdrawn. The main points in her history are these. She was born in October, 1812; she lived from her earliest years a life of great piety; about the age of eighteen, in the year 1830, she suffered violent attacks of sickness, in which medical aid seemed to be of no service. At this time she began, after receiving the Holy Communion, to fall into trances, which were at first {137} of short duration, and scarcely remarked by her family. On the Feast of the Purification, 1832, however, she fell after communicating into an ecstacy lasting twenty-six hours, and was only recalled by the order of her confessor. In June, 1832, the state of ecstacy returned every day: in August of the year 1833 it became habitual. Her ordinary and habitual position is kneeling on her bed, with her hands joined under the chin, her eyes wide open, and intently fixed on some object; in which state she takes no notice of any one present, and can only be recalled by her confessor charging her on her vow of obedience.

But I may now as well describe what we saw. In a few minutes the friar had taken us to the garden door of the monastery; we entered a passage where he left us for a short time, and returning, told us to open a door which led into a bedroom; I opened another door, and found myself, before I expected, in the presence of the most unearthly vision I ever beheld. In a corner of a sufficiently large room, in which the full light of day was tempered down by the blinds being closed, Maria Mörl was on her knees on her bed. Dressed entirely in white, her dark hair came down on both sides to her waist; her eyes were fixed intently upwards, her hands joined in adoration and pressing her chin. She took not the slightest notice of our entrance, {138} nor seemed to be aware of our presence at all; her position was considerably thrown forward, and leaning on one side; one in which, on a soft bed especially, it must have been very difficult, if possible, to remain a minute. We gazed at her intently the whole time we were allowed to remain,—about six minutes. I could see a slight trembling of the eye, and heaving of the frame, and heard one or two throbs, but otherwise it would have seemed a statue, rather than anything living. Her expression was extremely beautiful and full of devotion. Long before we were content to go, the friar intimated his impatience. I asked him to cause her to pass out of her ecstacy, and recline on the bed. He went near to her and spoke a few words in a very low tone; upon which after a slight pause, she slid, in an indescribable manner, down from her kneeling position, her hands remaining closed together, and her eyes wide open, and her knees bent under her, how I cannot imagine.

She is said to spring up again into her former position, as often as her state of ecstacy comes upon her, without disjoining her hands; and this we should have liked to see, but the friar was urgent that we should leave, and we accordingly obeyed. The sleeves she wore round her wrists prevented our being able to see whether the stigmata were visible, which she bears on her hands and on her feet. The Bishop of Trent afterwards told me we should have asked the {139} confessor to order her to show us the former. These were first observed in 1834. Now, though what we saw bears out the accounts given of the Estatica so far as it went, yet I must admit that we did not leave her with that full satisfaction we had felt in the case of the Addolorata. Maria Mörl's state in its very nature does not admit the bystander to such perfect proof as that of Domenica Lazzari. Had we remained half an hour or an hour instead of six minutes, it must still have been a matter of faith to us how long these ecstacies continue, and how often they recur. None but those who live daily with her can be aware of all her case. I can only say that what we saw was very strange and very striking, and when the Bishop of Trent informs us, as he did, a few hours ago, that these trances continue four or five hours together, I must entirely believe it. He had seen the stigmata on her hands, and she had rendered him, as her superior, the same obedience which she gives to her confessor. If I may venture to draw any conclusion from what I have seen, it is, that it appears to be a design of God, by means of these two young persons, to impress on an age of especial scepticism and unbelief in spiritual agency such tokens of our Lord's Passion, as no candid observer can fail to recognise. Neither of these cases can be brought under the ordinary laws of nature; both seem to bear witness in a different, but {140} perhaps equally wonderful manner, to the glory of God as reflected from the Passion of His Son on the members of His Body.

Ever yours,
T. W. Allies.

P.S. Maria Domenica Lazzari died about Easter, 1848, aged thirty-three years.

Albergo dell' Europa, Trent,
Aug. 1. 1847.  

  My dear ——.

I do not know whether I said anything about writing to you before I left England, but I feel persuaded that you must be sufficiently interested in our peregrinations to justify me in inflicting a letter upon you. P. tells me he wrote from Paris, up to which time he has doubtless given you full particulars, and from which point I shall take up the chronicle of our movements. We left Paris on the 9th of July, after having been much pleased and interested by what we had seen there, and came by a forced march (and in hot weather a severe one) in the malle poste to Lyons on S. Irenæus' Day, but, by an unfortunate delay, too late to see the archbishop officiate in the church, and according to the rite of his patron and predecessor. At Lyons we took the Rhone, and steamed to Avignon (the scenery quite equal in my opinion to that of the {141} Rhine), where we stayed for four hours, endeavouring, in spite of heat and some fatigue, to call up visions of French popes, disconsolate Petrarch, or the devout Laura with her green gown and well bound missal gliding towards the church of St. Clair. At last we were hurried off to Aix, and finally to Marseilles, where we just hit upon the moment of departure of the Neapolitan packet, which after coasting along the beauties of the Cornice road landed us at Genoa, where we pitched our tent to rest for a few days. We had a letter to Padre Giordano at the Jesuits' College. He began by a most polemical conversation with Allies on the "Tu es Petrus," &c., but afterwards dropped the subject altogether; he was exceedingly civil, offered us every information we needed, and gave us access to every thing we wanted to see. In this manner I found Genoa far more interesting than I had expected. It is a most beautiful and most Italian city, and has, as to outward appearance, lost nothing of its character in the days of the republic; and its institutions for the support and relief of the poor, the sick, and the religious, gave an additional source of interest beyond that for which I was prepared. From Genoa we came by Pavia to Milan, where we staid five days: for a city so celebrated and so important in ancient times it is remarkable and much to be regretted that its ancient character is so completely {142} lost. Milan is now quite a modern city, with the exception of a very few solitary buildings; the cathedral itself, wonderful as a structure, and beautiful to the end of the chapter, is quite indefensible in the eyes of a thorough-going Goth, and is after all only a very successful vagary of a bastard style. The beauty of the material, the exquisite finish of the sculpture, and fine proportions of individual parts, with the costly and vast effect of the whole, do however quite disarm one's critical inclinations, and the interior is (as we saw it on Sunday last with the choir filled by the scarlet robes of the chapter of the cardinal see, and the nave almost filled by people of every sex and station,) one of the grandest I know, and loses nothing by its intimate connection with S. Charles Borromeo, who, by the way, appears to me to have been among the best of the reformers of the 16th century. St. Ambrose's Church still remains, though I should think little, with the exception of a few minor ornaments, belonged to his time, beyond the atrium, the pulpit, and bishop's chair. The valves of the door from which he repelled the emperor are also here, though at the time they belonged to another church. They show a spring in which S. Augustine's baptism is said to have been performed, and also the garden mentioned in the "Confessions" as having been the scene of his conversion; but for these two I do not think they claim more than a great probability, {143} and entire accordance with all that is known on the subject, the tradition of the actual spots having been lost, and only recovered two or three centuries ago. From Milan we made an expedition to this place in order to see the two wonderful phenomena of which Lord Shrewsbury wrote an account some years ago,—the Estatica and Addolorata. We left Milan on Monday, and had a fine sub-alpine drive to Desenzano on the Lake Garda, with which we were very much pleased, and up which we steamed to Riva; from thence to Trent, where we introduced ourselves to the bishop as three Oxonian priests and professors, begging his highness (he is prince-bishop) to give us letters to Caldaro, as the Estatica is only visible on this being granted. He received us with all possible courtesy, and instantly gave us the necessary introduction, begging us to lay before him our impressions of the matter on our return here: he talked much of Wiseman, Newman, and Pusey, making the admission with regard to the latter that "scrive come Cattolico." He told us he was himself by birth a German, and that Englishmen were especially welcome to him as countrymen of St. Boniface, the apostle of his native country. We left Trent for Neumarkt, twenty miles distant, on Wednesday, and on Thursday passed over some very fine Tyrolese mountain scenery to Cavalese, where we had an introduction to the physician of the place, who has {144} always attended the Addolorata since the commencement of her malady, (and this we had through the kindness of Manzoni's step-son, whom we had met at his house in Milan,—it was no small satisfaction to me to meet the author of "Promessi Sposi," &c.) and with whom we walked over to Capriana, about twelve miles distant, where Domenica Lazzari abides. I think her case such a supernatural portent, and, it may be, one of such deep interest to members of the Church, that I shall fill the other side of the sheet with such an account of her as I have room for. Maria Domenica Lazzari is thirty-two years of age, the daughter of a poor miller in Capriana, one of five children, a sister unmarried with whom she lives, both parents being dead, a sister married in the village, and two brothers, who do not bear a very high character. She herself from childhood was very virtuous and pious, extremely attentive to all active duties, and worked like other girls, though always remarkable both for natural cleverness and her attention to religion. In 1833 she was attacked by an intermittent fever, which left her extremely weak, and after which pains were felt by her in her hands, feet, and head; in April, 1834, she for the last time drank some water and ate a piece of bread, since which time she has never eaten nor drunk except in partaking of the Blessed Sacrament. In the same year she received the stigmata, which are most evident {145} and apparent, and from which a large quantity of blood flows every Friday without exception, and on no other day. It was in order to test this that we contrived that our arrival should take place on a Thursday, repeating our visit on the following day. We arrived at Capriana about five in the evening, and went at once to her house, which is a little peasant's cabin chiefly built of wood, in the outskirts of the village, her only attendant being her elder sister, a simple unsophisticated peasant girl. We found her lying in great suffering in a bed about the length of a child's crib, a contraction of the muscles having followed upon her illness, and reduced a formerly tall person to the length of about three feet. At first she was unable to speak to us, but our companion (her physician) fanned her for some time with a large fan, which seemed to relieve her, and in a little time she revived. While she lay in this state I examined her very closely. The stigmata are most evident on both sides of the hands, and in a very regular circle round the forehead; these were perfectly dry, the hands being white and clean with the exception of the actual punctures of the stigmata, which are about the size of a silver fourpence, the wounds of the forehead being such as a penknife might have made; and the blood which had flowed on the previous Friday was dry, and covered her face as low as the upper part of the nostril, giving {146} all the appearance of a blood-stained mask, the blood in this case not following the inclination of her present recumbent position, but, (as is the case also in the wounds on the feet,) following the lines it would take in a pendent posture. The costal wound is on her left side. We staid in the room about three-quarters of an hour, and then retired; we returned at five o'clock the next morning, and found her much better, the wounds on the forehead and hands were all open, and blood exuding from all: she talked with greater ease than she had done before. She begged us to take her salutations to the Bishop of Trent, to beg for his blessing upon her, and his intercession for her with the "Bishop of all;" "and I," she said, "in my turn will pray for his highness as much as I am able." We commended ourselves and all England to her prayers, telling her that now there were many religions in England, but that we should pray that all might be one: her answer was, "E una religione sola, Cattolica, Romana, fuori di questa non si deve aver speranza" (this I should think came from her catechism). She said all the English she had seen had given her the same account of their country, and promised to pray both for us and for England "quanto io posso." We saw her confessor for a few minutes, and I wish we could have had some conversation with him, but he was just starting to pay his brother a visit at the bottom {147} of the valley, and we would not detain him. In the course of conversation with Mr. Yoris, and the natives of Capriana and the neighbourhood, we gained many other facts connected with her which I have not room for here; this will convey to you some notion of this most extraordinary portent, of the supernatural character of which any eye witness would, I am sure, do violence to his reason and judgment by doubting, and which physicians, philosophers and bishops have all agreed in asserting as being without explanation according to physical laws, and which I can look at in no other light than as a representation, vouchsafed for the edification of the Church and warning of sinners, of the Passion of the Son of God. The supernatural points in her case I take to be: 1. her existing for more than thirteen years without food, during which time the nails, hair, &c., have continued to grow; 2. the reception of the five wounds; 3. the periodical effusion of a quantity of blood on every return of the day of our Lord's Passion: 4. the course taken by the blood flowing from the wounds, quite at variance with the natural law of fluids. We have, I assure you, been very much impressed by this case, and what to me makes it the more peculiar is, that, in former cases in which the stigmata have been granted, they have appeared (as in the cases of S. Francis of Assisi, S. Theresa, or S. Catherine) as the seal of consummate {148} sanctity, or the reward of intense meditation on the subject of the Passion, whereas in the present instance there is nothing to lead one to suppose either one or the other, in any extraordinary degree. The impression conveyed to me by my visit was, I confess, very considerable, though it was more one of great suffering and resignation, than of any extraordinary tokens of grace, in the object of our visit. There is, I take it, no necessary connection between the extraordinary phenomena which her body bears and extreme sanctity, though one might expect it. Her life has always been extremely virtuous and pious, (the country people spoke of her as "bonissima ragazza"), and her long and intense suffering appears to have chastened and subdued her spirit to a state one would consider well disciplined to meet death, but nothing that I saw led me to suppose the lofty religious abstraction, the spiritual fervour, or super-human yearning of the soul for God, which one looks for in the female saint. Far be it from me to pry into the Divine intentions in this extraordinary appearance which we have witnessed, but if He who does all things to bring back our erring race to Himself destines her merely to be a living representation of the sufferings of the Son of God (and to serve no higher purpose than that for which we should erect a crucifix), men of faith will not fail to derive benefit to their souls, amidst their thanks for a token of the {149} divine goodness, in contemplating this memento of our Lord's Passion, while it may serve in some cases, we may hope, to warn the scornful that a day will come when they will in like manner have to "look on Him whom they pierced."

I have not yet spoken to you of the Estatica, whom we saw yesterday; and though I cannot say that her case may not be equally interesting, yet as its details are taken more from credit, I have the less to say from personal investigation.

Maria Mörl is the daughter of a nobleman of Caldaro, whose fervour in devotion has gradually grown to ecstasis, and an entire abstraction from the world, and constant continuance in what the spiritual writers call the "unitive" life: the ecstasis continues from four to five hours at a time, and only ceases from bodily weakness, or at the command of her confessor. She converses with her spiritual directors and superiors alone, rarely eats, her only sustenance being occasionally a morsel of bread and a few grapes. She has been in this state for years, and lives in and upon incessant acts of devotion. She is kept very close and retired in a Franciscan convent, and none are allowed to see her without a letter from the bishop. We found her as she had been described to us, wrapt in the most complete ecstasis, and certainly, as a representation of a devotional figure, nothing could be more striking or {150} more beautiful; but as, from the very nature of the case, her ecstasis must cease by communication with the visible world, it was to us nothing more than a spectacle. I have room, however, for no more, and must have already wearied you with this epistola Tridentina, at the length of which I am ashamed. We have just been to the bishop, who has been most courteous and obliging, and given us several facts connected with the above mentioned. This place is a most comely city; the hills of Tyrol stand about it, ὥσει θέατρον, with snowy peaks beyond them, and the Adige comes rolling from the mountains an "exulting and abounding river." I cannot help thinking what delightful "constitutionals" the dons of 1545 must have had after their hot work in the council. Excuse prolixity, and

Believe me ever yours,
John H. Wynne.

Hotel Europa, Trent, August 1. 1847.  

  My dear ——.

* * * From Milan we went to Desenzano, to begin an expedition to see a very great wonder in the Tyrol, of which I must give you an account. We went by the Poste to Desenzano, the southern point of the lake of Garda, and from thence steamed {151} all up that most beautiful sheet of water to Riva. From Riva we took a ricketty machine, called by courtesy the Post, to Roveredo, and on hither to Trent. First I must tell you, we had an introduction to Manzoni at Milan from a friend in Paris; and his son-in-law had just returned from seeing one of the two persons who were the object of our present pilgrimage—the Addolorata and the Estatica, whose case was set forth, some few years ago (about three or four), by Lord Shrewsbury. The first of these has received the stigmata of the Passion, from which blood issues every Friday—the crown of thorns, the nail-holes in the hands and feet, and the wound in the left side; and the second lives in a continual trance. We met a lady in Paris, a Roman Catholic, who had seen them, and spoke much about both, but not very satisfactorily to our minds. We determined accordingly, if possible, to visit them ourselves, and received full instruction from Signor Stephano Stampa at Milan as to the route and all other needful circumstances. Well, at Trent we went to the bishop; for one of these persons, Maria Mörl, the Estatica, lives in a convent, and may not be seen without a letter from the bishop, which we hardly expected would be granted to any persons not Romans. However, we wrote Artium Magister, Oxford, upon our cards, and sent them in. He received us very politely, granted at once the petition for a {152} letter, begged us, if possible, to call on him and give him our opinion on the cases in returning; "for," said he, "we cannot pronounce about either case, especially the Estatica, while they live, and the end is uncertain;" and he further thought every one who had the opportunity should make an unfettered judgment for themselves. At the conclusion of the interview he gave us his blessing, and by noon we were on our way in an omnibus to Neumarkt, up the valley of the Adige; grand castellated rocks overgrown with brushwood, some 12 or 1700 feet, on either side of this rapid river. Neumarkt is a stupid little place; and we were considerably imposed upon by the worthies there, who might have put us at once in the way to our point. Next morning, Thursday, 29., we took a carriage to Cavalese, a small town in the mountains, a post and a half distant; and after breakfast there, we found out Signor Yoris, a medico, to whom Signor S. Stampa had given us a letter of introduction. He was very civil, and offered to accompany us to the village of the Addolorata, whose name is Domenica Lazzari. This place is called Capriana, and we walked thither in something less than four hours, a distance (I supposed) of about nine or ten miles. This was across a range of hills, and up the valley of a tributary to the Adige: the hills covered with forests of spruce and pine, and very beautiful. We got to Capriana about 5 P.M.; and {153} I will give you an abridgment of notes I wrote that evening for the rest of the account. Reached Capriana at five, turned to the right to the house—almost the outside of all, the meanest we saw—and after some minutes the sister arrived and let us in. The room at first dark, too dark to see more than the figure contracted in the bed, and the face dark with blood as low as the bottom of the nose, and a little lower on each side. The medico drew aside the curtain, and we saw plainly the stigmata on the back of the hand, and the marks round the forehead in a straight line, about an inch below the hair in the middle. The marks are about a quarter of an inch apart in an even row as far as the hair, and for three or four marks under it. The medico told me they go all round. There were other marks below the first down to the eyebrows, but whether so regular as the first I could not tell for the quantity of blood clotted and dried on the face. The blood has flowed straight towards the bottom of the face, and not trickled sideways to the bed. There has been a good deal this week. The hands, which are much wasted, are clasped continually on the top of the bed clothes, and are marked a little above the centre with the stigmata (the nail holes); the scar extends half or three quarters of an inch all round, slightly red. The wound is cicatrised with a dark spot of dried blood in the centre. Inside (as well as I could {154} see, the hands being clasped,) the left palm seems to have a long white wound right into the flesh, which is covered all round with dried blood. That on the face is so dark and continual, that, from the holes of the spicæ (thorn marks) to the nose, it is just like a dark mask. Her breast is curved up to a close convex, and the legs drawn up till almost doubled from convulsions. The medico says she was once as tall as I am. Twelve or thirteen years since she has eaten anything but the Blessed Sacrament, and that in the most minute portions possible.

The following are the correct dates:—

10th April, 1834. Nothing eaten since.

10th January, 1834. Stigmata, hands, feet and side.

31st January, 1834. Crown of thorns.

An altar is in the room, at which the bishop allows mass to be celebrated once or twice every week, according to the convenience of the priest, and on saints' days.

We spoke of the bishop. She was much interested also in all that the doctor said. He kept fanning her with a large feather fan: her only relief. She suffers most on Thursdays. The issue of blood Fridays unaccompanied with pain: rather a relief. A woman and boy came to see her. Cheerful when freer from pain (she always suffers). Was told we were English. Looks very intently at one. Light {155} blue or blue gray eyes; hair fine,—a cold brown. Face awfully wasted. Her smile sweet. Says, when most in pain, "Dio mio, mio Dio!" Friday morning, at five, we were again with her. She was in an insensible state: waking up at intervals. The hands still clasped, but the head shaking, and her teeth chattering. The blood was bright red and fresh (flowing) from all the upper row of holes and the rest, though clotted below generally, for she suffers great heat of fever. The wounds of the hands were open and ran, but outside (on the surface) the blood had run down the back of the hand in a broad stream to a little below the wrist, and there stopped; one small current had trickled across to the bottom of the hand. It was clotted. I looked as close as I could by stooping to the inside of the left hand. My impression was of an open wound, much deeper; long, with lips standing out upon the upper side; much blood had run over the inside of her hand: it ran to the wrist and all over the palms. Her teeth whole, though the two centre much apart. Her face, above and below the blood, was not livid, but of a good complexion. Her voice when she spoke was much stronger than yesterday. She saw me trying to draw the outline of her face, and said, she supposed a portrait would appear of her. We commended ourselves and England to her prayers. All English (she said) who had seen her had done the {156} same. She commended herself by us to the Bishop's blessing and intercession with "Il vescovo di tutti," (something she said quite indistinct). This is the substance of my notes written on the spot. I must add to it, that every Friday since the date above, and only on Friday, the wounds have bled; that the doctor told us he had seen her feet a hundred times, which are marked like the hands, but the blood runs up towards the toes; as it does up the nose, which we saw. Her side wound has been seen by several women, her sister among others, whom we talked much to. She was perfectly simple, wanted no money, and treated her sister more as an invalid than anything else. The Dr. Yoris's presence was, I think, a very great advantage to us. It put all reserve out of the question, if any would otherwise have been observable, and enabled us to see her more as she always is, and no doubt to stay longer, to draw the curtain aside, &c. My impression was of great awe at the sight: the day Friday, and the supernatural facts of the flow of blood from a person taking no nourishment or food of any kind, the course taken by the blood,—but the sight of the dark mask of blood was what first and most painfully struck me. The simplicity, and apparent domesticity, of her way of speaking—her smiling and answering the doctor's questions—struck me next. As he said, a secular question is answered in the tone of this {157} world, a religious one in that of the other. She seems conscious herself of nothing beyond God's chastisement for her sins; therefore she is shy of showing or speaking of herself beyond what is necessary as information to serious inquirers. The wound in her side she refused to show any man, though she said any number of women, physician's wives, if they would, might see it, for it needed no medical treatment. She does not seem conscious of being in any extraordinary or miraculous way the vehicle, as such, of Divine Grace; but she is patient, exceedingly, and strives, as she says, to do all God's will. Nothing remarkable in a religious way is recorded of her early character. "Una buona ragazza," the doctor called her, but no more; he said especially not "bigotta." Is it not a palpable evidence of our Lord's presence to us in His sufferers, to bring home the actuality of what is taught us of the spiritual things we have been born into, yet to confound spiritual pride? "Thy ways are in the sea, and Thy paths are in the great waters, and Thy footsteps are not known."

Next morning we went to Caldaro, a beautiful village about nine miles or eight from Neumarkt, and, by aid of the Bishop of Trent's letter, saw Maria Mörl, the Estatica, but were only allowed to see her for five minutes. She knelt on her bed, with her hands together under the chin: her attitude was leaning forward, and inclined to the right in such a {158} position as I cannot keep myself in without support; nor do I think, from the overbalance of the body, it could be done naturally. Her face has much beauty, her eyes are dark and full, hair long and black, and her skin as pale as that of a dead body or a wax figure; not a muscle moved; and except a very slight oscillating motion of the body occasionally, and the breathing, there were no signs of life in her, though I saw once the eyelid quiver slightly. The friar who took us in, a Franciscan, told her to lie down; which, after a moment or two, she did; only falling back in the bed, with her legs from the knee unmoved. She gave two slight sort of groans or sighs. Her hands remained just as they were, and the eyes were fixed on the same spot. After a short visit, the friar took us out,—talking a German which we could none of us understand. When we got to the door of the house, we asked him, in Latin, if we could see her again: he answered, "Eam vidistis, eam vidistis," and left us.

We walked back to Neumarkt, and yesterday evening started in the Bolzano omnibus back to this place. Fare you well. * * * I have given you as short as I could this marvellous account.

*       *       *       *       *

J. H. Pollen.

{159} Venice, August 5. 1847.  

  My dear ——.

* * * We staid at Verona one clear day: it has very interesting churches, and a noble river, the Adige, "exulting and abounding," as Byron says; and many Shakspearian associations, besides very quaint and mediæval bits of architecture. But my time is waxing short, and a greater attraction was near. So yesterday we squudged ourselves into a merciless omnibus, which carried twelve insiders thirty miles in the space of six hours to the railway at Vicenza; and the said railway brought us on just in time to reach Venice by the last light of day. Very striking indeed is the approach to Venice, on a bridge two miles long over the Lagune, very striking because so appropriate to a city which is like no other. The evening was unfavourable, for it rained, which has scarcely happened to us before; notwithstanding, our excitement was great; I do not think I have felt so much curiosity about a place since I entered Rome nearly thirteen years ago, and could scarcely believe I was there. Though a great part of to-day has been rainy Venice does not disappoint me. The Doge's palace, the piazza, and piazzetta of St. Mark, and his church, are quite unique; so is the great canal, with its host of middle age palaces. We have been to-day both in the pozzi and the piombi, the {160} ancient prisons of the republic, the former terrible for their darkness, the latter for their heat; both seldom disgorging the prisoner save to death; and what a death, at least in its circumstances, and in the case of political offenders. The cells were all cased in wood, with hardly any light; but when the criminal in politics had confessed his fault, and was condemned, he was transferred to another cell in the middle of the night, a foreign priest was admitted, received his confession, and absolved him. The priest issued from the cell, and turned to the left, the criminal to the right, and rounding a corner not a yard off, was placed on a seat, a cord passed round the neck, and strangled. Behind the seat a door opened, a gondola received his corpse (for it is just at the level of the water), carried it to the cemetery, and no one, wife or child, knew more of his destiny than this: that the invisible inquisition of state had laid its hand upon him, and that he was not. I said to the old guide, who had a fine Venetian head, "I suppose you do not regret not living in those times?" "But I do regret it," he replied; "Venice was then a republic; there was more commerce, and life was easier; and it was just owing to her wise treatment of criminals that she maintained herself so long; and had she kept that treatment to the end, she would not have fallen: mine was a very ancient Venetian family. It is to foreigners," he added, "that I say {161} all this; writers have greatly exaggerated about these prisons." As I stood on a spot at which hundreds of human beings, during the long course of that terrible rule, had yielded up their lives in the darkness of a gloomy passage, more fearful at least to the thought than the gaze of a furious multitude, or the rack itself, I could not agree with the old man, though I was surprised at such a flash of old Venetian spirit. That same ducal palace, which is among palaces what the great mediæval cathedrals dedicated to Notre Dame are among churches, has these dungeons below; the state reception apartments of the Doge above; and over them again those other prisons of the piombi, or leads—a somewhat strange position for the drawing-rooms of the head of a state. Italian churches are as unlike ours as two things called by the same name can well be. They are full of marbles on floor and walls, paintings, gildings, shrines, images, tapers, perpetual services, and seldom wanting at least in some worshippers. St. Mark much exceeds my expectation. It has five domes covered with mosaic and figures in rich gilding, columns of finest marble, bronzes, multitudes of precious objects, but with a solemnity far beyond all these, which makes one feel that one is in a temple, a place of worship, of bowing down to the Infinite, not of addressing man himself through a part of him which has shared in his general fall—the understanding. This, I think, is the main {162} difference between Catholic and Uncatholic churches. Then, again, that vision of the Blessed Virgin and Child, so often repeated, and under so many different phases, is inexpressibly consoling. It really seems to me that the more men dwell upon the Incarnation, the more they will associate the Blessed Virgin with our Lord, and the saints with Him and with her; they will not analyse and divide, but rather always seem to be touching the skirts of His robe of glory, in every one of those who have suffered and conquered in His name; and most of all in the Mother, who was and is so unspeakably near to Him. Thus the Protestant sees in her "a dead woman worshipped;" the Catholic, the mother of all Christians; the Protestant sees in the saints "deified sinners;" the Catholic, living members of His body, in whom His virtue now dwells without let of human corruption. In short, I think Keble is no less true than beautiful when he says,

Now this is just the idea which an Italian church conveys.

Our room looks out on the end of the Grand Canal, into whose waters a slight jump would convey one some fifty feet down. It is one of the greatest {163} thoroughfares and finest views in Venice. Gondolas are perpetually flitting by; I had my first glide in one to-day for several hours up and down the Grand Canal. I can't say I feel the smallest sympathy with the ruling spirit of ancient Venice, but it is something to be on a spot so long the seat of empire; I feel that I shall feed for the ensuing year on this excursion, and this adds much to its pleasure. We were all delighted with Trent: it is magnificently situated in the midst of mountains, with that wild rapid Adige sweeping through it. The church in which the Council sat is, of course, very interesting. We called twice on the bishop; first to ask his permission to see the Estatica; secondly, to give him our report. He received us with the greatest politeness, talked about Church matters in England, and perhaps was gratified, if not surprised, by three English priests falling on their knees to receive his benediction. I hope you got my long letter of the 1st of August, giving our visit to Capriana and Caldaro. We all look back on that with great satisfaction.

August 6th.—Venice this morning is in all its beauty; we have just taken a gondola for the day, to visit churches and paintings,—Titian's finest are here. We take coffee morning and evening in the Piazzetta of St. Mark, the great resort. It is with great difficulty one can get along without an officious {164} shoe-black insisting upon the satisfaction of cleaning that part of one's dress. If they happen to be dirty, the creature can no more be driven away than a hungry mosquito; he buzzes round and round and round, till the only way is to stop and let him draw his sous.

Yours very sincerely,
T. W. Allies.

Milan, August 14. 1847.  

  My dear ——.

I left Venice yesterday morning, on my way home, alone, I am sorry to say, for my two companions proceed to Bologna and Florence, and will not be back in England till the end of September. It seems to me quite a different thing now I have to go by myself; and the only comforting thought is, that every step brings me nearer home. I am not likely to lose much time on the road, and I hope to be with you on the day I mentioned in my last; viz., Tuesday, the 26th.—I meant to have written to you again from Venice, but our days went swiftly there, and when we returned in the evening I was too much tired for the exertion. Venice will remain as a strange and beautiful dream in my remembrance. After all that one had heard it required sight to realise a city rising out of the water on all sides, {165} whose streets are canals, whose doors open by flights of stairs on the water, whose carriages are gondolas, and the most agreeable kind of carriage I ever was in; for one reclines in them most lazily, like lotos eaters, and sees palace and church, and all sorts of strange-looking heterogeneous buildings sweep gently by, in a sort of sleep; while every now and then comes a bit of semi-eastern architecture, rich ogee windows, and arcades which perfectly delighted me, and quite as often we wound through narrow, dirty, motionless canals, that seemed just suited to a purpose they no doubt often served,—the drowning troublesome bodies. But one sight we saw which you would have thoroughly entered into. On Sunday afternoon, as we got into a gondola, the gondolier informed us that he could not take us at the accustomed fare that evening, from six to eight, for it was his especial harvest time, that all the world went to the music on the Grand Canal. Accordingly, after looking for some time at the Euganean hills and Friuli mountains, which are a glorious sight to the north of Venice, we bade him take us to meet the music on the Grand Canal. This is about 200 feet wide, winds most beautifully through the city, having the Rialto bridge about the middle, and is bordered by the finest palaces. We soon met the Archduke's gondola, and behind it a great crowd of others covering the whole breadth of the canal, {166} shouldering and elbowing each other, the gondoliers shouting, watching every one else's gondola as well as their own, applauding or blaming, as might be. Each boat has one man on a little covered deck near the stern, where he balances himself admirably, and mainly directs the boat, serving both as oar and rudder, and another not quite so near to the prow. In the middle ladies recline on cushions, and no Hyde Park carriage serves to set off beauty and fashion so well as those wicked barks of Venice, which have screened so many tricks both of man and woman, for so many hundred years. On this occasion, however, the part of the boat which serves for shelter, coolness, or concealment, as it may be,—that is, a sort of cabin, covered with crape, is taken away, and the cushions afford a full view of whatever they carry. Into this press and throng of little gallies we passed with the rest; the scene every moment changing, the gondoliers vociferating, the boats seeming in perpetual collision, now jammed close together, and again emerging into a few feet of clear water, the band playing close behind us. Every now and then adventurous boats came from the other direction, and how they made themselves a way into a throng that seemed quite full before was the wonder. Some of the gondoliers were dressed in fanciful liveries, which added much to their appearance. This was all in the last light of day, and we agreed that we had {167} never seen so interesting and original a piece of fun. A single gondolier thus standing on his little deck will guide his boat with admirable skill, and though it is near forty feet long, he will make it turn the corners of the narrowest canals, and wind through opposing boats without touching. For this purpose, when he approaches a corner which he has to turn, perhaps at right angles, of course not knowing what is coming the other side, he sings out in good time, Stalí, or Staprimí; answering to starboard and larboard; and thus collisions are generally avoided, though barges act in an unkind and domineering manner towards their slighter brethren, and move about with a consciousness that they are the "iron pots" against the "earthen." These canals are not always free from another danger, as we were near learning to our cost. The last evening, as we emerged from one of the thousand bridges, came a violent smash into the boat, which made me jump. It was a whole wine bottle which descended, and broke itself on W——'s back. Providentially he was not much hurt, but I thought it might just as easily have been my head, which was uncovered at the time, and which it would certainly have broken. I suppose it was done thoughtlessly, but we could not discover the person. Almost all our time was spent in the open air at Venice, with occasional visits to the picture galleries and churches. We were all {168} much struck with the number of persons attending services on week days. There are Masses perpetually going on, sometimes two or three at different altars, from early in the morning till past noon, and each would have its circle of worshippers, men as well as women. Besides, persons would be kneeling in all parts. The largest church in Venice, S. Giovanni e Paolo, a very fine one, full of grand tombs of the ancient Doges, had the exposition of the Holy Sacrament for five days over the Great Altar, which was fitted up with crimson hangings all round, and a great quantity of lights; in the centre, in a remonstrance, the Host was exposed, places for kneeling stretched a great way down the church. I was in it almost every day, and always saw a great many kneeling and saying their prayers. We heard a sermon in St. Mark's on Sunday, about the different modern systems of physical philosophy, and their manifold absurdities. Morning and evening we took our coffee, often relieved with ices, in the Piazza of St. Mark, which in the evening is a great rendezvous, and serves the ladies in the summer instead of receiving company at home. Then we used to walk under the Doge's palace, and talk of things past, present, and to come, of which the two former were the pleasanter. We were generally very unanimous, liking the same buildings, the same pictures, and the same principles; disliking with one accord that huge {169} variety of beard and whisker and moustache, in which "Young Italy," no less than "Young France," luxuriates. The journey here took twenty-three hours from Venice, the heat and dust dreadful. To-morrow I shall see the Feast of the Assumption, which you remember we passed together at Amiens four years ago. On Monday my place is taken to Lucerne, thirty-two hours' journey from here, so that night I shall begin to scale the Alps by the St. Gothard pass, descending on that most lovely lake, and the worst part of my journey will be over. August 15th. I went just now to see the sun rise from the top of the cathedral. As I entered it just before five, I found a good many people, mostly of a poor class, already there. At five a priest entered, and began communicating people before the rails of an altar in the transept. This is done very rapidly; as with only a previous blessing he takes the pyx from the tabernacle over the altar, in which the Host is reserved, and holding a Host between the fingers and thumb, makes with It the sign of the cross, saying in Latin, "The Body of the Lord preserve thy soul to eternal life," and puts It on the tongue. When I came down an hour after, I saw a much larger number, and after celebrating Mass he began communicating a fresh set. In this way a great number can receive in a morning at different altars, without much waiting. As for effect, they understand it well {170} here; the lights burning on and before the altars, and the deep religious gloom of the duomo itself, especially in early morning, add all that can be added to the solemnity of such a scene. This is going on without intermission, till the High Mass at eleven. It certainly looks to me very like reality.

Yours very sincerely,
T. W. Allies.

{171}

JOURNAL.—1848.

Paris. Windsor Hotel, Rue de Rivoli, July 18. 1848.—I have been nine days in France, and the kindness of friends has not left me an hour to put down my thoughts. Yet assuredly, in so utter a change of one's usual habits and sights, the mind has been more affected than during many weeks of sedentary occupations. But when one has been profoundly moved either by a religious service, or a conversation, or place or building, it is a great effort to sit down, collect one's thoughts, and turn one's eyes inward on oneself. Generally, too, by the end of the day we were so fatigued that such an effort became physically impossible.

We left Southampton at five P.M., on Saturday, the 8th July. A good deal of wind, and sea rough. Passed off Portsmouth the fleet of ten men-of-war, one three decker, St. Vincent, 104 guns; four two deckers; and five frigates. Most majestic they looked unmoved amid the freshening waves. I can never {172} see a ship of war without my heart bounding. Byron has exactly expressed one's feeling:—

At five we found ourselves on the quai at Havre. The douane here is so polite as to keep one's luggage till eight o'clock—a kindness which is carried still further by the police, as the visa of passports does not commence till eleven. So I proposed to walk to the beautiful Norman church of Graville, the pendant of our own St. Cross, half way up that delightful côte which looks down on the embouchure of the Seine, and the high coast of Honfleur and Caen. The view from the terrace of the old Priory is most charming; and behind the church a most picturesque cemetery stretches up the steep hill. There is a perfect cross a little to the west of the church, which is very pleasing. We found the church empty, and said our English office before one of the altars. I do not like the effect of two windows in the apse, which symbolise, I suppose, the Two Natures, but otherwise this church is a beautiful specimen of a Norman parish church. However, its nave has been recently defiled by most protestant-looking pews; and under the tower, just before the chancel, there actually is to be seen a squireen's pew, with a table and cloth in it. The chapel and image of the Blessed Virgin were the most pleasing. At three we went on to {173} Ivetot, and found a most kind welcome from our friends. They lodged us in a house they have lately purchased, in their garden, where, for the first time in my life, I had the honour of a silver bason and ewer. We supped in the refectory, at a table in the middle, with M. le Supérieur. Silence is kept at the meals, and one of the pupils reads from a pulpit on one side. The pupils act as servants in turn during the meal.

Monday, July 10.—We heard two sermons, morning and afternoon, from M. P. L. Labbé to the confirmands, fifty-nine in number. Our friend's manner was mild and paternal, yet full of zeal and unction. His morning subject was, "You have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba Father." He distinguished between servile fear and filial fear—between Jewish bondage and Christian adoption; beseeching his hearers ever to cherish in their hearts the sense of God's paternal love, and that "we can never know how much God loves us in this world;" and then he urged them, if ever they fell into sin, to fly to God at once for pardon, never distrusting Him, however great their own unworthiness; reminding them that the tribunal of penitence was ever open to them. In the afternoon his subject was, "Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto {174} me." That at confirmation there was a larger infusion of the Holy Spirit than at baptism—what it was to be witnesses to God—witnesses by our whole life and conversation. These two addresses much pleased me, both as to manner and matter.

We had the privilege of saying our English office in their chapel, where the single lamp marks the presence of the Holy Sacrament. How great a blessing is this, that the Lord of the Temple dwells bodily in it—how great a realising of the Incarnation. The chapel is a very pleasing imitation of the middle Gothic style, built from the designs of M. Robert, who, being a pupil of the Ecole Polytechnique, gave up all prospects in the world for the hard and painful life of a priest in a petit séminaire: and not only he, but all who are there, seem to have their daily life supported by a spring of charity in themselves; and the great self-denial which accompanies it seems borne as if it were no weight at all, for they look for the recompense of the reward. During the five days we passed at Ivetot we remarked again and again to each other the atmosphere of fraternal charity which all seemed to breathe. There was no looking for success in the world—no thought of gaining wealth; but the one thing in view was to train the children committed to them as members of Christ and heirs of His kingdom. This one thought pervaded all their actions. In the evening {175} the Archbishop of Rouen came, attended by his vicaire général, M. Surgis. The masters and ourselves supped in private with him; and I was confounded at being put on his right, as P. was on his left. His own affability, however, and the unaffected kindness and ease of his demeanour with his clergy, soon made one feel comfortable.

Tuesday, July 11.—The confirmation was at nine. The pupils formed in procession along the corridor into the chapel, some sixty or eighty of the rear in albes, followed by the masters and some other clergy, the cross and crosier immediately preceding the Archbishop; we followed behind, and then mounted to the latticed tribune at the end of the chapel, whence the whole disposition of the congregation, the multitude of albes, the altar dressed for the Holy Sacrifice, and the splendid habit of the Archbishop, formed a most pleasing scene. He said Mass, and communicated, I should think, a hundred pupils; as they knelt two and two all up the chapel and received successively from his hands, nothing could be more solemn. There was a moment in this service particularly touching—the Archbishop took his crosier in his hand and standing before the altar said, "Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus, Pater, et Filius +, et Spiritus Sanctus." It seemed like the great High Priest Himself blessing His people. After Mass he stood before the middle of the altar, and, requesting {176} them to be seated, addressed them for about twenty minutes. His manner was a mixture of grace and simplicity most pleasing to behold; indeed, his whole demeanour represented exactly the priest, the father, and the bishop, and left behind it a perfume as it were of the heavenly hierarchy, among whose earthly counterpart he ranked. He enlarged upon the triple blessing bestowed upon us by the Holy Trinity, in creation, in redemption, and in sanctification. Presently he spoke of the Holy Eucharist as an extension of the Incarnation, (rapétissant) gathering it up into little; and of Christ therein really, substantially, and personally present in us. His vicaire général said, that in daily confirmations during two months he never repeated himself, but varied each address. He had no note, and spoke without effort. Then followed an examination of the confirmans by himself during about thirty-five minutes. He took boys here and there and asked them questions on the elements of the faith, the sacraments, &c., in so low a voice that I could only catch the general import. Then came the confirmation itself, which, like our own, is very short. He stood at the middle of the altar, and stretching out his hands towards the people, called down on the confirmans kneeling before him the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Ghost:

"The spirit of wisdom and understanding.—Amen.

"The spirit of counsel and ghostly strength.—Amen.

{177} "The spirit of knowledge and true godliness.—Amen.

"Fill them, O Lord, with the spirit of thy fear, and sign them with the sign of the cross of Christ unto eternal life."

The repetition of the Amen at intervals by the confirmans gives a feature to this prayer which our own does not possess. Then the confirmans, two by two, came kneeling to his chair before the altar, and he signed them on the forehead with the holy chrism, naming each by his Christian name as he said, "I sign thee with the sign of the + cross and confirm thee with the chrism of salvation, in the name of the Father+, and of the Son+, and of the Holy Ghost+. Amen." The service occupied three hours; but in country parishes it is not usually preceded by the Mass.

We had then a grand dinner at a table placed in the middle of the refectory, several clergy, friends of the house, being present. There was plenty of talking, the rule of silence being suspended by the presence of the archbishop.

In the evening there was a solemn Benediction, at which the archbishop did not officiate, but was in a chair near the altar.

After dinner, two of the pupils, one from the older and one from the younger division of the school, recited verses before the archbishop, and the {178} whole school seemed delighted at the words of kindness he addressed to them. I heard our friend, in one of his addresses, remind them that the archbishop was the head and master of the house, and so they all appeared to feel him to be.

In the evening we were all collected, in a somewhat suspicious manner, for some exhibition in a long hall, at the end of which a carpet was spread, and a chair placed for the archbishop. I asked M. Robert what was coming; but he replied, "Pour nous autres Français, vous savez, nous sommes des fous: il faut que nous rions de tout!" I will not say that the entertainment verified his former proposition, but certainly it did the latter. M. Picard, curé of the cathedral of Rouen, took out a paper, and began reading a copy of verses by himself, commemorating a recent fall from his horse of one of the tutors. At each verse the boys took up couplet and refrain, and sung it with hearty good will. This continued for some twenty or thirty stanzas. The boys needed but the hint. I thought to myself, I doubt whether it would improve the discipline of Eton to collect the boys in the long school room together to commemorate an equestrian lapse of my friend C. or A., supposing them to have met with one. The refrain,

{179} sounded by 250 voices, still rings in my ears. This was succeeded by another song, recited in the same manner, on M. Robert's propensities to study the moon.

We supped, as before, upstairs, and had some pleasant conversation with the archbishop.

Wednesday, July 12.—The archbishop sent for us this morning, inquired into our views in visiting France, and gave us each an Imitation of Christ and a small cross which he had blessed. He expressed in the most cordial manner his pleasure at seeing us, and pressed us to visit him at Rouen. After an early dinner, M. P. L. Labbé insisted on taking us to see the old abbey church of Fécamp; we went partly by railway, and, as the diligence was waiting for the train from Havre, walked some three miles, and then took a char-à-banc from Goderville. We went to the curé's house at Fécamp: but he was building, and so we all lodged with M. l'Abbé Lefevre, formerly curate there, but now living with his sister without any direct charge. M. Labbé kept us, both at supper and dinner the next day, in continual merriment by his stories.

Thursday, July 13.—M. Beaucamp, the curé, took us all over the magnificent abbey church, dating from the 10th to the 12th century, and near 400 feet long. He pointed out the variations in style and construction. It sadly wants the whitewash removed. {180} This was last evening. This morning he took us en pélérinage to Notre Dame de Salut, a chapel built by our Henry I., and one of four on this coast. The view was glorious over land and sea, the crag being 400 feet high. The poor fisher-women at times mount the côte on their knees, to make vows for their husbands' safe return. The pays-de-caux is a fine rolling country, with groves of beech at intervals, a broad expanse looking most rich and prosperous. Fécamp is stuck in a deep valley between lofty downs. We enjoyed particularly M. Lefevre's hospitable reception, and went back for supper at Ivetot. The weather is delightful—a brilliant sun, with plenty of air.

Friday, July 14.—M. P. L. Labbé, in his extreme kindness, would take us to Rouen to lodge in the house of M. Picard, curé of Notre Dame. It is in places a very pretty road to Rouen by the railway. We were able to say our English office quite uninterrupted in the Lady Chapel of the cathedral about eleven. M. Labbé staid with us all that day, taking us to different places. Amongst others, he carried us to the Carmelite nunnery, where we heard, but did not see, a sister who had been there fourteen years: she was formerly confessed by him, but in all that time he had never seen her. The rule is that none but father, mother, sister, or brother, can have the curtain of the grille {181} drawn back, behind which the sister speaks to her visitors. She was telling us how her little nephews saw her when they were very young and came with their mother, but when a little older were no longer allowed this privilege: so the mother sat on one side, with the curtain drawn back before her so that she could see her sister; but the children on the other, with the curtain drawn, could only hear her. This pained them so much that they did not like to visit her. The sister's conversation was anything but sad: she spoke with most lively interest of a Carmelite nun lately departed at Tours, who had foretold all the disasters under which France was now suffering, ascribing them to the general godlessness, specially on two points—the blaspheming of God's name and the profanation of the Lord's Day. She gave us prayers composed with reference to this. When M. Labbé told her that we were not united to the Roman Church, she made a considerable pause, and seemed to draw her breath as if something unexpected had come upon her; then she said that she should pray earnestly for us, and that every Thursday with them Mass was said with special intention for England. She went for the prioress, who likewise spoke for some time; she had a most clear and pleasant voice, which it was delightful to hear.

In the afternoon M. le Curé and M. Labbé took {182} us to call on the archbishop. He was very cordial—asked us to dine that day; and when we said we had already dined, repeated his invitation for Saturday, including M. Picard and his vicaire, M. de la Haye. Labbé was obliged to return. Before we left he insisted upon taking us over his palace. There is a splendid suite of rooms, terminating with a noble library: he has been collecting the portraits of his predecessors: he is himself the eighty-ninth archbishop. His palace is kept in repair at the public expense of the department, and three rooms are even furnished for him, an annual visitation of the furniture, as he himself told us, taking place. This archevéché is the ancient building, and of very great size—built as strong as a fortress: he showed us a window from which he had lately watched a barricade in the street below and saw a man killed. He took us last to the chapel—a plain Grecian building: hither the remains of the Empress Maud, lately discovered at the abbey of Bec, have been placed provisionally. It was only at her own earnest prayer, that the emperor, her husband, allowed her to be buried in a monastery, saying that she was too great a lady to be buried save at Rouen. The archbishop said that he seldom celebrated publicly in the cathedral, only about four times a year, "mais par la miséricorde de Dieu je dis la messe tous les jours dans ma chapelle."

{183} M. le Curé's usual hours are to dine at twelve, before which he takes nothing, and to sup about eight. He asked two or three clergy continually to meet us, at one of these meals, during the three days we were with him. His reason for taking nothing before noon, is that, after saying Mass, he is continually so occupied by his parishioners, that many times he would be unable to breakfast, so he thought it better to make the rule absolute. The confessional is a very heavy burden—a couple of hours daily, on an average; and, before great fêtes, sometimes seven hours at a time. Labbé told us he had once confessed for twenty-three successive hours. This is a duty to which they may be called at any hour of the day or night. M. Picard and his curate, M. de la Haye, could hardly find time to dine with the archbishop on Saturday, at seven in the evening, and stole away as soon as they could.

Saturday, July 15.—Our good M. Labbé returned to Ivetot this morning; he had surrendered to me his room. In the afternoon M. Picard took us about to the Hôtel de Ville—the ancient Benedictine abbey of S. Ouen: in the public library here we were shown the most magnificent gradual, full of very beautiful drawings. It had been used one hundred years before the Revolution, and, I should think, was unique, as we were told. The garden and corridors were occupied by National Guard; but M. le Curé's {184} presence obtained us permission to survey the wonderful church, the masterwork of middle and late pointed Gothic, on that side, together with its portail des marmouzets, of matchless beauty. At S. Vincent's we saw eleven windows of very brilliant painted glass, which surround the choir, and are visible at once. We then walked up Mount St. Catherine, from whence the view of Rouen and the surrounding hills is charming. I have always thought the site of this city one of the finest I have ever seen, and it looked so to-day, under a July sun. We went on to Notre Dame de bon Secours, which is now nearly finished: the inside and western façade pleased us much. The latter has three portals, after the manner of the great mediæval churches dedicated in honour of Notre Dame, and is well combined and harmonised. The inside is of the architecture of our Edward II.; very good upon the whole: all the windows of painted glass, not unmixedly good, but the whole effect very striking. It has cost 40,000l., begged or given by the curé: a noble work indeed. The ex-votos are now inserted into the northern aisle. We should have liked to stay much longer here, but were hurried to return to the archbishop's dinner. We did not dine till half-past seven; nine in number, at a round table in a large hall. He apologised that it was a maigre. But, with the several kinds of fish, no one could have desired a {185} better dinner. The archbishop, myself on his right, P. on his left, MM. Les Abbés Picard, De la Haye, Surgis, two others, and M. Barthélemi, the architect of bon Secours. We were struck by his conversation—he seemed a Christian architect, which is a rare and valuable thing. During the evening the deplorable state of France, the overthrow of fortunes, the general cessation of trade, and the frightful excesses of the late conflict, were talked of. The archbishop mentioned a man taken with arms in his hand, who was on the point of being executed by the soldiers, when the general officer interfered, and, by his solicitude, saved his life. The culprit took a pistol from his waist, said "Mercie, Colonel," and shot him dead. He was immediately cut to pieces. Every one seems to agree that the Republic cannot last—that there must be a monarchy; yet that minds are so embittered, and passions so excited, that France must come to this only through lassitude of suffering. No one knows what a day may produce. In Rouen there is great suffering—the shop-keepers sell nothing—the workmen have no employment. At Havre the warehouses are crammed with goods, for which there is no sale. Landed property, if forced to be sold, will not fetch half its value. No one can tell how long this will go on, or what will be the end of it. France is in complete paralysis. The source of all this misery is a wide-spread infidelity, {186} united with the rage for material enjoyments, and a refined taste in pursuing them.

The scale of the archbishop's household seemed to me decent and proper, without being that of the Grand Seigneur in any respect. I liked and respected him much more than if he could have had the twenty liveried servants of his predecessor the Cardinal Archbishop Prince of Croï, when high almoner to Charles Dix. He is now the earnest and laborious head of a toiling and suffering but most charitable and devoted clergy. The one hope of France lies in her children being taught from the cradle the via crucis, via Regis.

Sunday, July 16.—Fête du sacré cœur de Jesu. After our own office in the morning we have been nearly six hours at the cathedral to-day, between High Mass in the morning—and Vespers, sermon, compline, and benediction in the evening. Certainly the key note of all the Roman services is, "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." The presence of the Incarnation broods like a spirit over all: gives meaning to every genuflection at the altar; life to every hymn; harmony to that wonderful array of saints, with the Virgin Mother at their head, who intercede with the most Holy Trinity, and join their praises with the angelic hosts, and the voices of feeble men suffering the conflict of the flesh. Around the Incarnation drawn out, applied to daily {187} life, brought before the eye and the heart, enfolding the penitent at the confessional, exalting the priest at the altar, the whole worship revolves; children unconsciously live on it; mothers, through it, look on their children, till maternal love becomes itself deeper, warmer, and holier. Through it and by it the priest bears his life of toil and self-denial so easily, that charity seems like the breath by which he lives. What is the secret of this? It is that daily approach in the morning to the Most Holy One; that daily reception of Him, which deifies flesh and blood.

Such has been the impression of to-day's worship; it was devotion indeed: that is, the ascending of the heart to its own Lord: not a perpetual effort to work on the understanding, but the lifting of the higher power, the spirit in man, by which all are equal, to God. This begins with the holy Sacrifice in the morning, and ends with the exhibition of that same tremendous Sacrifice, the Incarnation of Love, in the evening. "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us," is the first and last: He comes amid a cloud of His saints: they are powerful because they are His: their works are mighty because He works in them, their supplications prevail because they, being flesh and blood, have become partakers of the Word made flesh. She, most of all, whose most pure substance He took to make His own for ever: so that what came of her is joined in hypostatic union {188} with God, and is God. Thus seen, the communion of saints is a real thing, embracing our daily life at a thousand points, the extension and drawing out of the Incarnation, understood by it, and in it. To those who do not realise that tremendous Presence at the altar the saints are so many sinful men and women made gods and goddesses, and those who reverence them idolators. How much do people lose by such a misconception: how utterly do they fail to perceive the length and depth and breadth and height of the Truth: they halve and quarter the Incarnation and boast that they alone understand it. These multiplied prayers and hymns seem to them a form, the bowing of the body a mockery, for they discern not Him who walks amid the golden candlesticks—it is emptiness to them, for He is not there.

The archbishop was kind enough to have us placed in the choir, just below the sanctuary.

At dinner at twelve M. le Curé had invited M. Surgis, M. de la Haye, and his two other curates, one of whom preached in the afternoon on the necessity of the cross, first to the righteous and then to sinners: he enlarged upon the many ways in which God brings both to Him by the application of suffering, humiliation, &c.

In the evening M. le Curé took us to pay our respects to the archbishop once more. We heard much talk again of the deplorable state of France. He {189} was very cordial to us, hoped we should not get near a barricade, and expressed his satisfaction at having met us.

Monday, July 17.—I had a quiet walk round St. Ouen and to the Lady Chapel there. I can fancy being able to retire to that church once a day being a consolation to many a life of toil. Yesterday, after the services, we seemed fit for nothing but to mount its roof and look on the great works of God around one there. At two we took a carriage to the seminaire of M. l'Abbé Lambert, Bois Guillaume. He is a person of fortune, who to satisfy his father entered the Ecole Polytechnique, and studied there for some time; but as soon as his father would consent, became a priest, to which he had always felt a vocation, and has given up his fortune to build a college for boys of the higher class. He has a beautiful spot on the top of the hill to the north of Rouen, covered with a garden, an orchard, and rows of beech trees of some sixty years' growth. He has now fifty-two boys, and eight priests, with himself, to instruct them. The object is to give a really Christian education, without directing the boys to enter into orders, which parents generally of that rank are much set against. Thus they only hear Mass twice on week days. We had a long conversation with him. He seemed much to regret the want of independence produced by, or at least existing in, French {190} education. He receives a government inspector every year, though his house is his own. This inspector objected to the beds of his pupils having curtains, as making surveillance more difficult. I told him of my surprise to find at M. Poileau's academy, near Paris, a rule that two sick boys should never be in the infirmary alone. He said he should have expected such a rule. He inquired with interest about the independence of the English character. It struck me forcibly here what an immense advantage the rule of celibacy offers to the Church for education. Here were eight masters for fifty-two boys, and yet the pension so moderate as 1000 francs. At Eton, where the cost is nigh four times as great, the number of boys at the same proportion would require ninety-six masters, instead of about sixteen. But here all personal advancement is given up. There is no increasing family to be supported: personal gain or honour is neither the motive, nor a motive, but simply the higher one of fulfilling a great duty, and winning a bright crown. This complete self-devotion seems necessarily killed by the marriage tie, so that the highest works both of the priesthood and of education are thus cut off; and it may be doubted how far, in the present relation of the state to the Church all over the world, any body of ministers who are involved in the closest ties with the world can meet the exigencies of the times, or maintain the most {191} necessary and fundamental liberties of the Church, either as to dogma or as to discipline. The great masses seem every where to be in such a state of irritation, or ignorance, or prejudice, that nothing but the spectacle of great and daily self-denial, of zeal and learning, combined with poverty, and exhibited in the persons of those drawn from the people itself, or of those who surrender a higher rank to belong to the people, will make any great and permanent impression on them. The more I reflect, the more it appears to me that the priesthood and the ecclesiastical colleges of France have in them this element of success.

M. Lambert's college is to be a quadrangle, of the style of the old chateaux in Louis XIV.'s time. Two sides are nearly finished. It will be a very pleasing and appropriate building when completed, and is from the design of M. Robert. The boys now sleep in two dormitories, which, like all the house, are scrupulously clean and neat, the masters among them, the only discernible difference being a little wider space between a master's and the adjoining bed.

In the course of to-day, I asked a person well qualified to judge, whether the university colleges were now in a better state as to the morals of their inmates: the answer expressed a fear that they were even worse.

We left our kind host M. Picard this afternoon, {192} and went by railway to Mantes. It is a fine and noble country all the way; the view of Rouen as one passes over the bridge, under Notre Dame de bon Secours, is of ravishing beauty. The lofty banks of the Seine, 400 feet high, accompany one at a little distance, most of the way—and twice a tunnel cuts through them, and comes out suddenly on the peaceful banks of the river again. The country is cut on a broad and large scale, which contrasts strongly with the limited and smaller prospects in England. We reached Mantes just in time to have a look at the beautiful church of Notre Dame, worthy of its builders, Blanche of Castile and S. Louis.

Tuesday, July 18.—We attended a Low Mass at six this morning, in the Lady Chapel at Notre Dame; there were a good many people, sisters of charity, and Christian brothers, and several communicants. This church is one of great purity and chasteness, and full of symbolism. The numbers seven and three perpetually occur in the windows and bays. There are seven bays of the nave, and seven round the apse—seven great rose windows over the vaulted triforium round the apse: many most beautiful windows of geometric tracery, with trefoils arranged in threes. In each bay of the nave the triforium has three smaller bays formed by most elegant colonnettes. The western façade, up to the gallery, is of rare dignity and beauty.

{193} We reached Paris at a quarter past ten, and in a few minutes were on our way to our Hotel Windsor; the soldiers were bivouacking in the railway station. I was then more than five hours writing my journal from the beginning. In the evening we walked to Notre Dame, along the quais, and to the Hôtel de Ville. The thoroughfares were thronged with National Guards, and an idle or unoccupied population. Woe to the nation of which these are rulers.

Wednesday, July 19.—We went to the Séminaire d'Issy to call on M. Galais, but found him out. Returning we called on M. l'Abbé Ratisbonne, and had a long conversation with him. I explained the motive of my coming to Paris; he was astonished to hear that there were yet persons of information and good faith among us who believe that Roman Catholics adore the Blessed Virgin, and put her, in some sort, in the place of our Lord. He said it was not honourable to impute such things to them; that she was a simple creature, advanced by God to the highest possible honour of being mother of our Lord. If there were nothing else objectionable in Protestantism, the disregard of the Blessed Virgin alone would repel and disgust him. Did the Apostles, in the presence of Christ, turn their back on his mother? "If," said he, "I had the honour to be acquainted with your mother, as I have to be acquainted with you, I should take good care in speaking to you not {194} to turn my back on her." The conversation turned on the Pope's Primacy, both in an historical point of view, and still more as a moral necessity; but when I urged that the Episcopate was as a chamber of Peers, in which the Pope held the first rank, he agreed, and said he was primus inter pares. He remarked on the bad way in which history had been written, and how little modern citers of original authors could be trusted as to expressions, which he had found numberless times in writing his life of S. Bernard. I inquired after his brother, who is now a deacon in a house of Jesuits, département de la Sarthe, I believe. Before parting he arranged for a subsequent meeting.

After dinner we walked again by the quais to Notre Dame—but it was already shut. The space round La Sainte Chapelle being part of the Palais de Justice was in full military occupation, and we did not see how to get in. Every where enormous numbers of National Guards are to be seen in possession of great public buildings, as so many garrisons in an enemy's land. We walked up the Rue S. Jacques, but there are very few traces of the very hot combat which is said to have raged here; how, indeed, that very narrow and ascending street could have been taken at all, is matter of wonder. If occupied throughout its whole extent by the insurgents, it must have been a most deadly battle field.

{195} We called on M. l'Abbé Noirlieu, but found that he was in the country.

Thursday, July 20.—Presented a letter of introduction to Monseigneur Parisis, Bishop of Langres. He is short, about sixty years of age, with very determined countenance. We had a rather long conversation, in which he promised to be of any service he could to me in seeing Catholic matters, and sent out for an Abbé to conduct us to different places; but as he did not find him at home, he appointed us to come at seven P.M. When I told him that the worship of the Blessed Virgin was very generally imputed to Roman Catholics, he seemed much astonished, and thought that was gone by. "We account her," he said, "a simple creature, who has received from God the highest possible grace, to be the mother of our Lord. But all that she has is derived: to have life in one self, or to derive it from another, is an infinite difference." I spoke of Dr. —— and his book, and how little he appeared to me to have caught the Catholic idea. For instance, he had represented it as the duty of the French Bishops to defend the throne of Louis Philippe, rather than the Catholic faith. "It is wonderful, indeed," replied the Bishop, "how he can have supposed that, for we have been engaged throughout, and I foremost, in a struggle with Louis Philippe." He sketched the objects which we ought to see. "You must not {196} look for the faith among the mass of the people here, for they have it not, but in religious houses, foreign missions, Catholic institutions, &c.—You have not had martyrs, I think, in the last twenty years: we have had many; and it is remarkable to observe how entirely the scenes of the first ages have been reproduced; the spirit of Christ has given birth to precisely the same answers to questions put to martyrs as of old by the spirit of the devil; and torments as terrible, tearing of the flesh, and hewing in pieces, have been borne. I was dining not long ago at the Foreign Missions, and was saying that the life of a missionary in China was not good, when all present cried out at once, clapping their hands; 'Oh, yes; but it is good—it is good.' French missionaries have subsisted," he continued, "for a long time without even bread, which is much for us, though not for you; while yours go out with wife and children, pour faire le commerce." I spoke with wonder of Monseigneur Borie's life, and how he had been able to eat even rats, as the natives in Cochin China did. The late Archbishop's martyrdom was mentioned by him with fervour; and he spoke very kindly of Dalgairns, whom he had ordained.

We went again at seven to the Bishop of Langres, who arranged for M. l'Abbé des Billiers to take us round to different persons, and especially the Père de Ravignan.

{197} Friday, July 21.—Went at half-past ten to the Bishop of Langres, who told us of the new concordat between the Pope and the Czar, which would appear to recognise the authority of the Roman Catholic Bishops much more than the French government does. He seemed to think it a great gain. M. des Billiers then took us to the Père de Ravignan: we found M. l'Abbé de Casalès, Member of the National Assembly, with him, and had a lively conversation for about half an hour. Le Père de Ravignan and M. de Casalès both maintained that Mr. Newman's theory of developement was open ground. "Tout chemin mène à Rome," said the latter. "I know, by experience, how hard a matter it is to attain to the truth—that it is long in coming. It is the grace of God—not study, brings it. Thus, we have every feeling of charity for the great movement in England." They did not appear to think that Mr. Newman's theory and that of Cardinal Bellarmine intercepted each other; and as we were five, there was no good opportunity of setting forth our conception on that point. Le Père de Ravignan has the most pleasing and attaching demeanour of any person I have met with—he seems the Manning of France. He begged us warmly to come to-morrow, any time from seven to twelve A.M.; assuring us that he did not think it lost time to converse with us. He spoke with great respect of Dr. Pusey.

{198} M. des Billiers then took us to Les Missions Etrangères, Rue du Bac. One of the professors accompanied us to La Salle des Martyrs; round this apartment are ranged pictures by Chinese Christians, representing the martyrdoms of Monseigneur Borie, M. Cornay, and the tortures inflicted on native Christians; against one side are five cases, with glass fronts; that in the centre contains the nearly complete skeleton of M. Borie: on each side are the bones of M. Cornay, and M. Jaccard; those of a native Chinese priest, a martyr, and reliques of S. Prosper, sent from Rome. On the opposite side is a long case containing memorials of different martyrs: chains, a letter written by M. Borie under sentence of death, his stole, parts of the cangue of native priests martyred, and also in a case the complete cangue of M. Borie, a frightful instrument of torture when fixed to the neck, and carried day and night, as it was by him under sentence of death, from July to November, 1838. The young missionaries make a visit here every evening, and pray before these relics of their brethren, soliciting their intercession,—a fitting preparation, I thought, for so difficult a task. Over the door was a print "of the seventy servants of God," martyred in Cochin China and those parts in the last few years.

In this house are about fifty young missionaries preparing to go into the East; of whom about twenty {199} go out yearly. Many come there as priests, with strong recommendations from their several séminaires, bishops, &c. There is accordingly no fixed period for ascertaining their vocation, or instructing them. The readiness to give up friends and relations at home is a great step towards that perfect self-denial which is required for this office.

We were introduced to M. Voisin, who had been eight years in China, and returned in 1834. His account of the Chinese was that they were very ready to receive the Christian faith; that the notion of altar, sacrifice, and priest, was familiar to them; that they would not receive, indeed, a naked religion. Every house has its altar, and they burn incense before tablets containing the five words—Heaven, Earth, Relations, the Emperor, the Master. He showed us such a tablet, and a Christian one, on the other hand, which set forth the existence of one God, eternal, all wise and all good, creating all things out of nothing, The government alone stands in the way of the conversion of the Chinese. He said that the remarkable resemblance to Catholic rites and tenets found in Thibet dates from Franciscan and Dominican missionaries who laboured there with effect in the 13th century. The most ancient MS. of the Chinese are found not to go higher than the year 150 A.D., so that all discovered resemblances to Christian mysteries may have come from an early {200} dissemination of the faith in China. They receive without hesitation the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation, but reason against that of the perpetual virginity of the Blessed Virgin.

We saw here a professor who was under sentence of death in Cochin China, but escaped.

M. Galais took us this evening over the garden of the séminaire at Issy. I asked him for his view of the last revolution. He said he had two, and could not, unhappily, see which was most likely. First, that it was the purpose of God to punish to the utmost the wickedness, sensuality, and unbelief of the rich bourgeoisie, the middle class, who were willing to have religion as a police for the lower orders, but not as a spiritual rule of life; and in this point of view the most terrible convulsions might be expected. But, also, he was not without a hope that, as the Church in the 5th century had laid hold of the barbarians and moulded them into Christian polities, which for so many centuries bore noble fruits, so now, if she faithfully fulfilled her mission, if her priests were seen devoting themselves with a fervent charity to the task of teaching and converting the masses who are without God, and set bitterly against his Church, a like result might ensue, and society be saved from these extreme horrors. If the new archbishop was a man of organisation and capable of setting up institutions to penetrate the masses, there {201} were many men of the most devoted charity among the clergy of Paris, who would second and carry out his design. I asked what had been the especial merit of the Bishop of Digne, for which he had been chosen to succeed at Paris. He said that there had been for some time complaints among the clergy respecting that excess of power given to the bishops by the last concordat, by which three-fourths even of the curés of their dioceses are 'amovibles' at their pleasure; so that only the curés in cities and towns are 'inamovibles;' whereas according to the ancient canon law all were so, except upon a regular ecclesiastical judgment. Now it not unfrequently happened that the bishop, for good reasons doubtless, but not always acceptable to the incumbent, removed a curé, and hence a strong desire had arisen to limit the bishop's power in this respect. The late archbishop had it in contemplation to erect a tribunal in his diocese, without the judgment of which a curé should not be displaced. The Bishop of Digne had already done this, and likewise given a constitution to his chapter, which also was a thing much desired by the chapters generally.

Saturday, July 22.—The Père de Ravignan received us this morning with the utmost cordiality. We had a full hour's conversation,—not at all polemical, for with that fraternal charity of his polemics never came to one's thought. He seemed to think {202} the future state of France in the highest degree uncertain: that for the Church little was to be hoped from the false liberalism of the day—they would maintain, as long as they could, the state of subjection in which the Church is held. I observed that the Holy See alone was a defence to the bishops in such a state of things; otherwise the National Assembly might take it into its head to meddle with doctrines. It will not do that, he said: Elle se briserait. Yet even the abject poverty of the bishops has turned to good. It is known that they have not the hundredth part of what is wanted for the good of their dioceses—nothing for the petits séminaires, and very little for the grands séminaires; and so they are largely assisted by the charitable. He spoke of the delight it was to him in reading the Fathers to see that it was the very same Catholicism then as now. I asked if he found every thing in them. That, for instance, one of our most eminent theologians and preachers had told me that he had searched throughout St. Augustine for every single mention made of the Blessed Virgin, by means of the Benedictine Index, and had not been able to find one instance of her intercessory power being recognised, nor that any other relation of her to the Church, save an historical relation, was supposed. He replied that it was not St. Augustine's subject to speak of the Blessed Virgin; that he wrote against the heresies {203} of his day, as the other Fathers, against the Pelagians, Donatists, Manicheans: that, however, he mentioned the Blessed Virgin's fêtes, which involved her culte. St. Jerome, however, who was a little earlier, in his work against Jovinian, had treated of that subject. I inquired after M. Alphonse Ratisbonne: he said he had been his confessor shortly after his conversion. The facts of that, and its lasting effects, could not be denied: his sacrifice of his betrothed, his fortune, everything,—his sudden change from an obstinate Jew to a Christian. He was baptized in their Church in Rome, after a retreat of eight days. The Père de Ravignan, at parting, gave us each a copy of his little book, "De l'Existence des Jésuites." I asked if I might come again: he replied, Come ten times,—as often as you like. We were both charmed with the calmness and charity of his manner. He speaks slowly, and seems to weigh every word. Logical force is said to be the great merit of his preaching.

M. des Billiers took us to the Pères Lazaristes, and we had a somewhat long talk with M. le Supérieur Général. He was good enough to give us a sketch of the objects for which his congregation was founded, to this effect:—About two hundred years ago, a lady was desirous to have the poor upon her estates better taught and instructed in the faith than they had been, and proposed for that purpose a certain endowment. But it so happened that no religious {204} society then existing would accept the proposal. Thus S. Vincent de Paul was led to establish his congregation of priests; in the first instance, for the instruction of the poor on this lady's lands: by and by more and more came to him for assistance, and his institution grew by consequence. It came to have four objects in view. First of all, to provide good priests for country parishes: at that time the priests throughout the country in France were very ignorant, and the people, of course, much neglected, and scarcely knowing the first elements of the Faith, for seminaries had not yet been established according to the decree of the Council of Trent. But, secondly, as good priests could not be made without training, S. Vincent de Paul had in view to educate them well in seminaries for the evangelising of the poor; and to this day, the Supérieur said, they were restricted to the care of the poor, and do not preach in cities at all, save in hospitals. Moreover, the third object was, that they might direct in perpetuity the Sisters of Charity; for the special task of these Sisters being to attend the sick, and, if need be, to convert or instruct them, the Saint considered it of the utmost importance that their own spiritual needs should be consulted for by a religious order specially charged with that care, and, consequently, he put both his congregations under one head; and the Supérieur Général of the Pères Lazaristes is likewise Supérieur {205} Général of the Sisters of Charity. The fourth object, which grew out of the former three, was foreign missions; for wherever Sisters of Charity go, the Fathers must go also, working in relation to them, and with regard to the poor. They have now 600 missionaries, chiefly in the East: their labours extend to Syria, Smyrna, Constantinople, China, Brazil, the United States. They have at Constantinople 1200 children in their schools, of various creeds: no attempt at conversion is made in these schools: they are free to accept, or not, the religious instruction; but the Supérieur said, they were generally very glad to accept it. The moment, he said, liberty of conscience is allowed in Turkey, the Turks will be converted in large numbers. They are already strongly inclined to Catholicism: for the Greeks they have a supreme contempt; but they trust and respect the Catholics: in money transactions the Sublime Porte chooses a Catholic agent. I inquired if the orthodox Greek Church (whom he called schismatic) had no missions: he said, it has neither missions nor schools—it is utterly dead—its priests are profoundly ignorant. These people have sinned against the Holy Ghost. He extended this charge of ignorance to the Russian priests. I observed that I had been told by an eye witness that the Church in Russia had the same sort of hold on the mass of the population as it had in the Middle Ages in Europe; but {206} he seemed to think both people and priests densely ignorant. Many converts, he said, are made to Catholicism from the Armenians and other sects; but hardly any from the schismatic Greeks; however, as soon as they are instructed, they will give up their schism. The Pères Lazaristes direct ten séminaires in France; the S. Sulpiciens twenty: the Société de la Rue Picpus two; the Maristes one or two; the rest are directed by diocesan priests chosen by the bishop. As we rose to leave I asked him if the Sœur de Charité were still living to whom the vision of the Blessed Virgin had been granted. He replied that she was. But you have heard, I suppose, the miracle which has happened lately. We said we had not. A young novice, he continued, of the Sœurs de la Charité, on the 30th April last, received, in attending a sick sister, a most violent luxation of the vertebral column. The surgeon considered her case so full of danger that he refused to operate on it without calling in another. The head was turned round and pressed closely on the left shoulder; paralysis had seized on the left side, and the right was beginning to be affected. The surgeon said an operation might be performed, but in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it failed. She had been several days in this state; the Supérieure of the Sisters was asked for a written authorisation to operate on her; she did not like to agree to this, unless the patient herself demanded it. At length {207} they determined on a neuvaine of prayers to S. Vincent de Paul, the feast of the translation of whose relics they were then celebrating. This began on Sunday, the 7th May. After this had begun, the patient expressed the most earnest desire to be carried into the church of S. Vincent de Paul, and to be laid before the shrine containing his relics over the altar. She had the most confident persuasion that she should be cured by his intercession. Her confessor, as he told me, set himself against it as much as he could—he had given over her case, and was going to administer the last sacraments to her on the next day. At her repeated request it was referred to the Supérieur Général, and he gave his consent that she should be carried on a couch to the church between four and five in the morning. The Supérieur said to himself, as he told us, the case is desperate; if she dies on the way it will be no worse than it is now. She was accordingly carried to the church on Tuesday, the 9th of May, and laid before the altar; as the Mass went on, at the Gospel she took her face with both hands and pushed it round from where it had been pressed on the left shoulder beyond its proper place to the right. At the elevation she tried to rise, but to no purpose. She received the Holy Communion with the utmost difficulty, and in the greatest pain; but, before the priest had finished the Mass, she rose of her self from her bed, {208} perfectly cured, and knelt down. She staid in the church while another Mass was said, en action de Graces; and then walked back to the house of the Sisters of Charity in the Rue du Bac (about ten minutes' walk). The Bishop of Carcassonne, who was in the church, about to say Mass at the time, was told by the Supérieur Général what had happened. He said to her, "Doubtless, you prayed fervently?" "No, my Lord," she replied; "I did not pray; I believed." ("Non, Monseigneur, je ne priais pas; je croyais.")

After this account I inquired of the Supérieur Général whether we might be allowed to see and speak with the young person to whom this had happened; "for," I said, "people in England will simply disbelieve it." He consented, and sent for a priest to take us to the house of the Sisters of Charity, with a request to the Supérieure to let us see the novice. This priest was her confessor; and from him we heard a great deal in confirmation of the above account; how hopeless her case had appeared, and how bent she was upon being carried before S. Vincent's shrine, which he had discouraged as much as possible. We also saw the Mère Supérieure, who gave the same information. At length the novice herself was introduced, who told the same tale in a very simple and natural way. She described herself as in such a suffering state that she did not attempt to pray in the church; that she heard a sort of crack {209} in her neck, and thereupon thrust her face round from the left to the right side—so that the sister who was with her put it back just right; but after this she continued in extreme pain and weakness; tried in vain to rise at the elevation; and only a little after receiving the Holy Communion felt suddenly quite well. She had never since felt the least return of her pain. I asked her how the accident had happened. She said she had taken up the sick sister to support her, when, by some mishap, the whole weight of her body fell on her neck. Others told me that her confidence of being healed had been so great, that before she was carried to the church she had said to the sister waiting on her, "You may put my 'couvert' in the refectory for to-morrow, for I shall return on foot." When the surgeon came, after her return, to see her, the sister told him that the patient had no need of his services. "What! she is dead!" he said. "No," replied the sister, "she is cured." "She is cured! How?" He then asked to see her; and was obliged to confess that it was a perfect cure. M. Hervé stutters a little, and his agitation at finding a patient in such a state so unexpectedly cured added to this defect. I was told that he shook her head about in every direction, exclaiming, "C'était cassé! c'était cassé! c'était cassé!" There is accordingly the attestation of the Supérieur Général of the Pères Lazaristes, of the Supérieure of the Sisters of Charity, {210} of the priest confessing the patient, and of the patient herself, for this cure; besides the sisters who spoke of it to us.

We drove in the evening to Notre Dame, St. Gervais, and La Madeleine. The latter was lighted, and many were at private prayer before the Holy Sacrament, or waiting for confession.

Sunday, July 23.—Our own office at home. Part of High Mass in St. Thomas d'Aquin. The churches in Paris have a certain official air. I like them better in the provinces. M. des Billiers took us to the Société de la Rue Picpus, and presented us to its Supérieur, the Archbishop of Chalcedoine (formerly Latin Archbishop of Smyrna). He gave us a sketch of the rise and objects of this society. In 1794 l'Abbé Coudrin, seeing the destruction and desolation of all holy institutions, was inspired with the thought of founding a religious society at once to repair by the perpetual adoration of the Holy Sacrament of the altar, day and night, the disorders, crimes, and profanations of every kind, which were taking place; to bring up youth in the knowledge of the truths of salvation, together with the elements of profane science; to form young Levites, by the study of theology, for the service of the sanctuary; to bring back to God, by preaching, an alienated people; and to evangelise the heathen. L'Abbé Coudrin at this time was in daily danger of his life, {211} and was concealed in a barn. At the end of the year 1794 a pious lady, Madame Aymer de la Chevalerie, just delivered from prison, into which she had been thrown, with her mother, for having concealed a Catholic priest, offered her assistance to l'Abbé Coudrin, to carry out his designs with regard to her own sex. Hence arose les Dames des Sacrés Cœurs de Jésus et de Marie, who devote themselves to the perpetual adoration of the Holy Sacrament, and to the education of young females, and who now count more than twenty establishments in France, and two in Chili, one at Valparaiso, and the other at Santiago. All these establishments are directed by priests of this Congregation.

The Abbé Coudrin gathered by degrees a number of young persons round him, and succeeded in setting his Congregation on foot, which was recognised in 1817 by Pius VII. In the year 1837 he died, having witnessed many establishments of his Congregation in France; the foundation of one at Valparaiso: many of his disciples evangelising the Polynesian islands, and two of his children bishops, M. Bonamie, first Bishop of Babylon, and then Archbishop of Smyrna, and M. Rouchouze, Vicar Apostolic of Eastern Oceania. On his death the former was chosen for the government of the Congregation by its general chapter.

At present the Congregation has, besides twenty-four {212} establishments in France, two houses in Chili, and two in Belgium; one at Louvain, the other at Enghien, for instruction of youth. It has about one hundred missionaries, priests and catechists, in the Sandwich Islands, the Marquesas, Oceania, and elsewhere.

The object of the institution is to retrace the four periods of our Lord's life: His infancy, His hidden life, His evangelical life, and His crucified life.

With respect to our Lord's infancy, gratuitous schools are kept for poor children; and larger schools, to which a certain number of young persons is admitted free of charge, according to the resources of each establishment. Those intended for the Church are here prepared for their sacred functions.

As to our Lord's hidden life, all members of the Congregation are to imitate it by repairing in the perpetual adoration, day and night, of the Most Holy Sacrament, the wrongs done to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and of Mary, by the sins which are committed.

Priests imitate our Lord's evangelic life by the preaching of the Gospel, and by missions.

Lastly, all members of the Congregation should recall, so far as in them lies, our Saviour's crucified life, by practising with zeal and prudence works of Christian mortification, specially in the mastery of their senses.

In 1833 Gregory XVI. entrusted to the Society of Picpus the missions of Eastern Oceania.

{213} There are houses for the novitiate at Issy, near Paris, at Louvain, and at Graves, near Villefranche. It continues not more than eighteen, nor less than twelve months. Here are priests and candidates for the priesthood, preparing themselves to live under the laws of religious obedience, and to devote themselves either to the instruction of youths, or to missions, or to the direction of souls, in the post assigned to them by their obedience; or to deeper studies, which shall enable them to serve the faith according to the talents God has given them.

Young men and adults likewise are received, who, without being called to the ecclesiastical state, wish to consecrate themselves to God for the advancement of His glory, and the assuring of their own salvation by the practice of religious virtues.

Priests besides, and laymen, are received as boarders, who, desirous not to remain in the world, wish to prepare themselves in retirement, and the practice of the virtues of their estate, for their passage from time to eternity.

This society has just applied to the government for permission to send out chaplains with those who shall be transported for their participation in the late revolt. I do not know a higher degree of charity than this; and many other priests have inscribed themselves for this service.

In the chapel we saw one of the brethren continuing the perpetual adoration of the Holy Sacrament.

{214} The archbishop spoke in terms of great contempt of the ignorance of the Greeks; and likewise anticipated a large conversion of the Turks, whenever liberty of conscience is allowed. He had just sent out some missionaries to Oceania.

Both going and returning, we passed the spot at the entrance of the Rue du Faubourg S. Antoine where the late archbishop received his death wound. The house near was severely battered, and in different places along the Rue S. Antoine, and in the Faubourg, were the marks of balls; but altogether the insurrection has left much fewer traces behind than one could have expected.

Returning we looked into the Sainte Chapelle, S. Louis' peerless offering in honour of the Crown of Thorns. It is a perfect gem of the 13th century, and the under chapel is almost as beautiful; but nothing has been done since last year. All round works were going on in the Palais de Justice, though it was Sunday. Indeed, in this respect, the aspect of Paris generally is that of a heathen city.

At four we went to a Benediction at M. l'Abbé Ratisbonne's house, to which he had invited us. His sisterhood of Converted Jewesses sung the Psalms very nicely. Nothing, to my mind, can be more solemn or touching than this ceremony, when the priest takes the ostensoire in his hand, and blesses the people, Benedicat vos Omnipotens Deus, Pater, {215} et Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus. One seems to hear the words of God Himself.

We then adjourned to the parloir, with M. Ratisbonne, Lady ——, and Mr. ——, a Scotch minister. Here we conversed about various matters; magnetism, true and false miracles, &c. They asked about my visit to the Tyrolese Stigmatisées. Lady —— told a story, in one point of which, in spite of its bizarrerie, I found something which strangely takes hold of the mind. We had been talking of that Egyptian witchcraft by which an unknown person is said to be seen in a child's hand. She observed that M. Laborde had purchased this secret, and had been able to do the thing;—having afterwards become a Christian, he abstained from it. Lord ——, it seems, had told her respecting one of the —— family, that he had come back from Italy with the firm persuasion that he should not survive a certain day: the source of this persuasion was, a prophecy made to him by a Venetian sorceress, and to two of his friends, who both died violent deaths at the time specified. Lord —— treated this notion of Mr. —— as an imagination; however, he made him promise that he would visit him on the day he mentioned. After going to England, Mr. —— returned to Paris, and there Lord —— met him again. One day the friends who were with him told him that Mr. —— was ill with a fever, and though he thought {216} himself better, and intended to go to a ball at Lady Granville's, they thought ill of him. In a short time Mr. —— died. A few days after Lord —— had been dining, and the dessert had just been removed, when the door opened, and the figure of Mr.—— walked into the room. Lord —— said, 'What ——, is that you? I thought you were dead.' The figure assented. 'Will you take a chair?' said Lord ——. 'Are you happy?' An expression of indescribable sadness passed over the face, and he shook his head. 'Can I do any thing for you?' said Lord ——. Again he shook his head. 'Why, then, have you appeared to me?' 'Because of my solemn promise,' the figure said. 'Since, then,' replied Lord ——, 'you say I can do nothing for you, I beg one favour of you,—that you would go away, and never return again.' The figure complied, and walked out of the room. I don't think I should have thought this story worth repeating, but for M. Ratisbonne's remarks on it. He said, 'I can well believe this may have happened, for we are surrounded with beings that we know not. A sense is wanting to us, and if but a veil dropped, we might see this room crowded with beings who look on us. Besides, appearances of this kind are continually happening, and I believe it from what occurred to myself.' 'Occurred to you!' I said. 'What do you mean?' 'I had been called in,' he answered, 'once at Strasburgh, to administer extreme unction to a {217} young married lady. I found her in the agony of death, screaming fearfully; her husband was supporting her in his arms on the bed. I administered the last unction to her; and an effect followed which I have often observed: she became calm, and died in the utmost peace. Some days afterwards I was in my room about noon, looking out on the garden. Suddenly I saw her within two steps of me, the same exactly as when living, but with a great brightness all around her. She made a motion to me of inexpressible sweetness and happiness, as if thanking me for a great service, and disappeared. At the first moment I felt a thrill like an electric shock; but this passed. I mentioned this vision afterwards to a friend, and to her husband. I had known but little of her.' I asked if he was quite sure this was not an illusion, but he had no doubt about it. Of the many stories of this kind one has heard this is the first told me by the person to whom it happened.

The heat to-day was intense, and it was followed about eleven o'clock by a violent thunder-storm and torrents of rain.

Monday, July 24.—P. left me at twelve. I dread exceedingly the being alone in Paris, but for the object I have in view I must try to get on a few days.

Called on M. Bonnetty, who was very cordial. He asked about the movement in England, and the state of minds. Likewise on M. Gondon, to deliver Mr. {218} N.'s letter. I had a very long talk with him on the state of minds in England. He expressed the greatest dislike of the Tablet; said Dr. Wiseman had done all he could against it. Dr. W. had multitudes of letters from persons asking what they should do if they became Catholic. He spoke with feeling of the great sacrifice those made who did so; that, if married especially, all means of subsistence were closed to them; and their family often gave them up. He asked what those who had been converted did. I said I believed many were in great difficulties. Louis Philippe had, during his reign, appointed more than half, or nearly two-thirds, of the French bishops: his notion was to get "des Evêques complaisans; mais il avait la main malheureuse." Except three or four, all that he had appointed had proved themselves men of firmness and courage; and had not been willing to sacrifice the liberty of the Church to his smiles. I inquired if the late Archbishop had not once been too much inclined to the liberal side. Louis Philippe, he said, had appointed him in that hope; but he had opposed the utmost firmness to the king's attempt; so that latterly the King called him a downright porcupine,—there was no laying hold of him on any side. Twice his addresses to the King had not appeared in the "Moniteur," which was as great an insult as could be offered. I remarked what a great blessing it was to the French Church to have firm {219} and courageous bishops. He spoke with enthusiasm of the choice of the Bishop of Digne for Paris; it was better than could have been hoped for: he was a man of great energy, and would leave no abuse uncorrected. The late Archbishop had some little Gallicanism, but the new one was entirely Ultra-Montane.

I was some time at La Madeleine this evening. This church is never so grand as when the solitary lamp is burning before the altar, and a few worshippers here and there come, in the silence of the evening, to offer their prayers. I observed several common soldiers who thus came in, knelt for a short time, and went out again.

At nine went with M. Des Billiers to see the Bishop of Amatha, Vicar Apostolic of Western Caledonia. He was lodging in a house of the Maristes, Rue du Mont Parnasse; and had all the simplicity of a missionary. He received us in his sleeping-room, which was not even ordinarily comfortable. We had an hour's conversation with him. His society has been lately established, the actual Superior General being its founder—it is named after the Blessed Virgin; they take the three vows, and are bound especially to the practice of simplicity. The objects of their institution very much resemble those of the Société de la Rue Picpus. They have now four bishops in Western Oceania. "We did {220} not choose this sphere for our labours," said the Bishop, "the Pope assigned it to us." The bishop lately massacred in those parts was of their society. The Bishop of Amatha has in all twenty-six missionaries under him—he is going out with eleven; and this very day, after many fruitless attempts, has received the promise of a free passage in the first government ship, for himself and his companions. As the transit costs 2000 francs a head, this was matter of great importance to him, as he has 40,000 francs to set him off, with his missionaries, from the Société de la Propagation de la Foi; but nothing for his after support. Thus, they live by cultivating the earth—and, he says, the natives are only excited to labour by seeing them labour. When asked whether the savages were more inclined to Protestantism or Catholicism, he answered, "They are ready to take whichever comes first; but in the long run we expel the Protestants. They see that we are consistent and invariable in what we teach—that we come and settle among them without wife or children; that we do not trade; and so they are unable to assign any motive for our conduct but charity to them; and this in the end works upon them." By the bishop's account he and his missionaries live in the midst of the savages. He seems about thirty-eight or forty years of age—able to "endure hardship," and quite willing, in a state of the most apostolic poverty. He {221} knew and spoke highly of Bishop Broughton—also had heard a high character of Bishop Selwyn. I said, there was not upon the earth a bishop of a more Catholic heart or greater charity than he. He said, he heard he had put down trading among his missionaries, and brought them into order. "He is living," I said, "just the same life which you have described, cultivating the earth with his missionaries." The bishop's expression was, "We try to make the savages men, and then Christians. We have been calumniated as though we were agents of the French government; this will tell you," he said, "whether that is true:" and he read me an official letter refusing him a free passage. "This would not have been were we government agents." He spoke highly of the Anglican missionaries, but very badly of the Methodists—"they will do anything by any means, against us—but the others are men of education and good faith, and act honourably." Two Anglican ministers in Sydney, he said, had lately gone over to them; and a third, the best preacher in the city, was expected. They had a splendid cathedral there, which had cost 40,000l., and some 15,000 Catholics—the Anglicans about 2000, the Methodists 10,000. (I am told this is entirely incorrect; the numbers of the English Church are far greater.) "We want but England to be Catholic," he said, "in order to convert the world; men we can send in abundance in {222} France, it is your resources we need." I said, "You must pray for that." "We do pray constantly for it," he said. He alluded to the corrupt state of morals in Sydney. At parting he regretted he could not answer my visit, as he was going to Auvergne, his own country, to-morrow, to see his family before leaving France.

It is, I think, impossible to conceive a higher degree of charity than the going to live among savages in Oceania. Banished from country and friends, without family ties or support from domestic affections—in danger at times of massacre, and always subject to every species of personal discomfort. If this be not an Apostolic life, I am unable to conceive what is.

Tuesday, July 25.—Went to a Low Mass at S. Roch: this is a poor uncomfortable church. I do not like the demeanour of people at Paris, compared with those in the country; they seem afraid to show reverence.

M. des Billiers took me to the Hôpital Necker, for men and women, near the Rue de Sevres: his friend the almoner took us round; he seemed an example of the old French character, polite and gay, with a natural spring of cheerfulness, which woke a corresponding chord in every one he addressed. I was pleased to see, as we went through the wards, in which were several wounded in the affair of June, {223} how every face of man, woman, and child lighted up with pleasure as he addressed them. This hospital is served by eighteen sisters of charity. After this nothing would do but he must take us to l'Institution des Aveugles, though he left a party in his own rooms. I have never been over an institution more interesting or more worthy of support than this. I had a feeling of dread in entering, to see all around me boys and girls deprived of the most precious of the senses—here, however, charity seems to have done all that is possible to alleviate their loss. They are employed in a great variety of occupations, not only reading, writing, and music, but in carpentering, printing, turning with the lathe, making shoes and slippers, and a great many other trades. Boys on one side and girls on the other were walking about the house and the garden as freely as if they possessed the blessing of sight—all seemed cheerful and even happy. We watched with astonishment a blind boy using a sharp instrument in turning the lathe, with as much precision and fearlessness as if he saw. Many likewise were practising music, and the sudden smiles which mantled over their countenances every now and then were pleasant to behold. I bought for twelve francs a pair of candlesticks, turned and polished with the utmost nicety,—all done by the blind. The eye can detect no inequality or variance in the work; they are as if they {224} came out of a first-rate shop in London or Paris. It is true that this spectacle was after all not without pain; for even while feeling the charity which had successfully devised so many occupations for creatures lying under such a loss, the expression of each face, deprived, as it were, of its soul, afflicted one—and here were two hundred young people of both sexes in this condition; very often likewise their faces were otherwise deformed. We asked one lad to read to us: he passed his fingers rapidly over letters raised a little above the paper, and read us tolerably fast a passage respecting English rule in India, in which, oddly enough, my own name occurred. Another mode of reading, not by letters, but by other marks representing letters, and similarly raised, seemed more difficult, or the reader had less practice. Another blind man wrote a short sentence which we dictated to him respecting our visit. This seemed done by a very complicated instrument, which had about sixteen points, capable of forming all the letters and figures, in a sort of square hand; several of these points went to make a single letter; and they were touched by the hand as rapidly as I have seen lace-makers fix their pins. One blind boy kindly directed us over to the female part of the house: they move up and down stairs and about the corridors without hesitation. Our friend and conductor had a kind word for every different party, and seemed {225} quite at home. It would have been impossible to be out of sorts in his company; he was ever chirruping round one.

Afterwards M. Des Billiers walked with me to the Enfans Trouvés, Rue d'Enfer. I had once before seen a house of this kind at Rouen, and this renewed all one's feelings of admiration and love for S. Vincent de Paul. If ever charity flowed in any human breast, it was in his. When people scruple at admitting some material miracle, such, for instance, as that mentioned above, wrought before his shrine, they forget that the whole life of this saint was a spiritual miracle infinitely more astonishing. It is a simple exercise of God's creative power attending, it is true, on the virtue flowing over from our Saviour to His saints, that a malady is removed by the intercession of a saint, whose relics are approached in faith, but that man's naturally selfish and fallen spirit should become a shrine of self-denying, patient, suffering, and conquering love, from the baptismal font unto the grave, is a miracle of God's redeeming power, of His election working in union with His creature's will, which does, indeed, awaken the greatest astonishment. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father." It is said not to the Apostles, nor to those on whom {226} they laid their hands, nor to the first ages merely, but without limit of time.

In the room where the infants exposed are first received there are eighty-five cradles; many of them were tenanted, some by infants apparently dying, or, again, only that day received; one was lying, just arrived, not yet undressed, washed, and clothed,—the children of shame and disease, too often; always, I fear, of misery; one could not look upon them without the deepest commiseration, or the highest regard to those sisters of charity, (for this hospital there are thirty-two), who fulfil their mission towards these the veriest outcasts of the world. The sister who took us round told us that twelve a day were baptized on an average; sometimes as many as thirty. If they survive the first few days, they are sent into the country to be nursed; but they are brought up in different houses, instructed for various trades, and kept, if necessary, till twenty-one years of age. At present the use of the tower is suspended during the day, but at night infants are so received, left sometimes without rags to cover them; a little badge is put on each, and any particular marks about them noted. In the day they are received upon the attestation of a public officer. We went through the ophthalmerie, and infirmerie. It was most interesting to see these little creatures of various ages, but nearly all suffering, finding from those who had become {227} their parents in Christ the mercy which their natural parents had not shown them. I said to the sister that I feared they had few English among them: she assented. When will my country be foremost again in these works of saintly charity, in this bearing of the cross amid the sins and miseries of a fallen world? Would that instead of so much earthly wealth she were once more the isle of Saints. But this is impossible, so long as she denies, despises, or misunderstands the honour due to the virgin estate of those consecrated to God, or the power of Christ's sacrifice conveyed from the Lord to His members.

Wednesday, July 26.—Had about an hour's conversation with the Père de Ravignan. He asked me if I knew the Comte de Montalembert, said his intended preface to the life of S. Bernard, on the religious orders, had already swollen to three volumes: he regretted that the Père Lacordaire was not at Paris, for me to see him. I asked why he had quitted the National Assembly. That, he said, has caused us some pain. His own generous nature led him to think that he might induce the liberal members there to extend their liberality to the Church, and to countenance liberty of teaching; but he soon found his mistake in this; they were false liberals, ready enough to apply their principles to state matters, but not ready to carry them into the domain of thought. They were liberal against the Church, {228} and despots over it. M. Lacordaire had not entered the Assembly to gratify any wish of his own; he sat there on the Mountain; but this state of things, this difficult and confined position in which he could not act freely, was most repugnant to his disposition. So he resigned; it might have been better fully to have considered the reality before hand. As to the salaries given to the clergy, Le Père Lacordaire was not for discontinuing them. No doubt, miserable as they are in amount, and given in exchange for ample estates, it would be desirable to do without them, were it possible. But as the clergy is mainly drawn from the lower classes, this is not possible; and the small "casuel" they receive for baptisms, marriages, and interments, is necessary to eke out their scanty incomes. It was sad to see such a remuneration made to its clergy by a Catholic country, while England, he said, allowed such comparatively liberal stipends to the same class.

I asked him what were the strongest books on the Roman Primacy. He said the Brothers Ballerini, and Valemburg's Controversies. I remarked that for nearly three years my attention had been fixed on this subject, and that I had pursued it through Councils and Fathers down to the conclusion that the Pope had indisputably a primacy of order (or honour) in the whole Church, but had not a primacy of jurisdiction over the East. He did not advance anything {229} new on this point. He quoted the usual passages of S. Irenæus, S. Victor, St. Cyprian, St. Augustine. I had considered, I said, all these, and a great multitude of others, but still my conclusion was against the primacy of jurisdiction, as concerning the Oriental Church. He then attempted to meet this by the paucity of documents in early times; but I said those which actually existed told against the Roman claim. "Suppose," said he, "you were to admit the Roman hypothesis; would you not find it solve all the passages?" I said this was the very way in which I had studied the question, and come to just the contrary conclusion. He said that he understood English, and would read my book, which I had offered to send him, and let me know his answer to my view.

I was struck again with the charity of his manner, and with his likeness to Manning. Went for half an hour to the adjoining church of S. Vincent de Paul. His shrine is still open over the altar. I saw various articles, clothes, books, crosses, carried up and put against the glass covering his relics, for the purpose of blessing them.

At one went to the distribution of prizes at the Petit Séminaire, 21. Rue N. D. des Champs. The four vicaires généraux of the Chapter of Paris sat in front, to crown with a chaplet the gainers of the prizes, and to present books to them and those who {230} gained an accessit. There were a good many other clergy, and a tolerable number of laity, men and women, present, friends evidently of the young men and boys. I could not but be struck here, as elsewhere, with the great number of plebeian and unintellectual faces among the clergy, (to which, however, the four vicaires généraux, and some others, were exceptions.) As for the laity present, male and female, it was a mass of unredeemed ugliness. One of the professors read an address to the pupils of full a half hour, passing in view the whole life of the late Archbishop, his studies, labours, writings, acts, and lastly, his martyrdom and burial, not forgetting his solicitude for them. One of the last of his public acts was the coming there on Whit-Sunday, a fortnight before his fatal wound. I did not think this address good—it was monotonous both in tone and delivery;—very remarkable is the difference in the sound of the French language when read and when spoken. The recitation is so peculiarly spondaic, stiff, and conventional, in the former case; while, in the latter, it is easy and flowing. When this was done, the giving of prizes began. It took an hour; and no wonder, for at least two hundred wreaths and two hundred sets of books, single or double, were to be distributed. Many indeed received several wreaths and prizes. The winners came forward, ascended four or five steps, and were successively crowned and {231} saluted on each cheek by one of the Vicaires Généraux; now and then they were taken to a friend or relative, male or female, when present, to receive their crown. It was put on the head, and then carried in the hand. I thought that at least the principle of emulation was not discouraged. But the great number of subjects which were rewarded was as remarkable as the number of prizes. It seemed as if they never would end. There was Excellence and Sagesse: Greek, Latin, and French composition; Latin verse; Philosophy, Rhetoric, Geography, English Language, &c.; and most of these divided into different forms. No merit could be said to be neglected. There was a first prize, and a second, and sometimes three accessit besides; and some reached nine, or even ten rewards. I dare say they all felt as young Greeks receiving the laurel crown. Certainly the mounting those steep stairs, in order to receive their crown, must have been a nervous operation.

At the conclusion, one of the Vicaires Généraux rose, and delivered a few words to the pupils with great simplicity and ease; the day of return was then announced for Thursday, 5th Oct. I marked many ingenuous and pleasing countenances among the successful candidates. A father near me was in a state of the greatest excitement at the prizes of his son, a lad of thirteen.

{232} I went over for a few minutes to the exquisite chapel of Les Dames de bon Secours, or Garde-Malades: it was quite silent; and I could enjoy its beauty without interruption. I was told yesterday that the labours of these sisters by sick beds materially shorten their life; and that they enter the society with the full consciousness that the service they undertake is injurious and often fatal. Their work is, to attend on sick persons of good condition, and to use the opportunity, which sickness rarely fails to present, of directing the thoughts to religious subjects. A payment of five francs a day is made to the institution for their services.

Went to M. Gondon, who took me to the Comte de Montalembert's reception. The Bishop of Langres there, M. l'Abbé de Casales, two other members of the Assembly, also M. Bonnetty, M. de S. Chéron, translator of Hurter's Life of Innocent III., and about ten other gentlemen. La Comtesse was in Belgium, visiting her family. I had some talk with the Bishop. M. de Montalembert began a conversation about England, which interested me. "I am in great fear for you; if you resist the present crisis, as you did the first revolution and Napoleon, it will be a great glory. The glory of England is already great, but that will be almost miraculous. It is the struggle of paganism against religion. I admit that you have in England a larger amount of religion on {233} the whole than any other country has: c'est une réligion bien mince, you will agree with me: there are very few among you who hold an integral Catholicism; but, however, religion of some sort there is. Yet, in spite of this, the great mass of your people is become heathen; they look at your books and your lives, and believe there is no other life, for you have taught them practically there is none. It is all very well to tell them that, were property divided among all, they would get some eleven shillings a week; whatever it be, they will try for it: if they do not believe the next life, they will try to get something of this. And then look at the state of things all over the Continent. If England outrides this storm, it will be marvellous. I wish she may with all my heart, but she alone remains." He seemed to think the German and Italian unities, if constituted, would alter the balance in Europe. As for the state of France no one, I imagine, can tell what is coming. M. de Montalembert and two others are the only members of the old House of Peers sitting in the Assembly. There is a fair number of old deputies; but the great mass of the rest are utterly unworthy, from education, position, or any merit whatever, to represent France. They are not up to any of the questions which present themselves. And from such an Assembly France is to receive a constitution. Of the French generals at present in power, M. Bédeau is the only one who is {234} religious: I heard lately a remarkable trait of him. When in Africa with his army he met a priest, went forward to him, took him aside to some distance, and confessed to him; he then returned to his army, and said, if any one liked to follow his example, he would wait for him; they were going to fight, and no one could calculate the chances of war. How many did the like I did not hear.

Thursday, July 27.—M. des Billiers came to go with me to M. Hervé, the surgeon of Les Sœurs de la Charité, to get his account of the material facts attending the healing of the novice on the 9th of May. We found him out, but Mad. Hervé gave the same account as we had before received; and told us if we would call later we could see M. Hervé. I did so, and he then said that he had deposited a medical account of the whole thing with the Sisters, which I might see in the Rue du Bac.

I went again to call on M. Noirlieu, but found him out. On the way went into the old abbey church of S. Germain des Prés: since I was last there the whole choir has been painted. I think this is the most pleasing and impressive of all the churches at Paris. I could not be there without emotion, considering the long line of Benedictines who had worshipped within those walls, and deserved so well of the Church of Christ by studying and editing her great Fathers. I saw commemorated in {235} one monument three great names—Mabillon, Descartes, and Montfaucon; of the second, I think it was said, "qui luce, quam indagavit, nunc fruitur:" this comprehends everything,—to enjoy that light. O utinam!

I have been looking to-day at a short account published here: "Sur les soixante-dix serviteurs mis à mort pour la foi en Chine, en Tong-King, et en Cochin-Chine, déclarés vénérables par notre S. Père le Pape Gregoire XVI." It is a wonderful history: the deeds and sufferings of the early Church exactly reproduced in our own times. These martyrs were even more savagely tortured than those of old by the Romans. And some of them are only four or five years older than oneself, some of them natives of China, younger; so that while I have wasted my days in vanity, others, sharers of this same flesh and blood, have entered the noble army of martyrs. And if charity dispenses the place of the redeemed in the mansions on high, near to their Lord assuredly will be their place, who passed from the midst of a deceiving and voluptuous civilisation, unstained and unallured, into the midst of a population lying in the valley of the shadow of death; low, grovelling, filthy in mind and body, and this to save some souls, if it might be, out of that otherwise condemned mass. It would seem as if out of corruption at its worst degree the highest, purest, and most self-denying {236} charity were to go forth, to show that God's arm is not shortened, and that we might be, if we would, all that the martyrs of old were. Moreover, the people of Cochin China are naturally of a peculiarly timid disposition; yet many have been found to emulate the courage of European priests and bishops, in bearing the most prolonged torments and trials. What a horrible thing does it seem, that we should be practically taught, that the system which produces these men is such a corruption of God's revelation as is but a step removed, if removed at all, from idolatry.

Walked about the gardens of the Tuileries and through the Boulevards this evening: the population of Paris seems to pour itself out with delight here; and no wonder, for what great city has so pleasing a place of recreation for all classes, not the great and rich merely, as the gardens of the Tuileries. To me especially they bring back long past years. But I don't at all like being alone in this Babylon.

Friday, July 28.—I met the Bishop of Langres and a party, who went over Gerente's painted glass manufactory, 13. Quai d'Anjou. He seems to have reached the colours of old glass, and showed us the process by which all the appearance of antiquity is given to new glass. By means of acids he produces imperfections in glass which was smooth and clear; thus heightening the tone of other parts. Even {237} chemists have been unable to discern the difference between two pieces of glass, one ancient and one modern. He said —— was a humbug; Waille was the best English worker, but Hardman would be so soon.

Went into Notre Dame for some time: in spite of the grandeur of many parts of this church, I always feel dissatisfied with it as a whole. Went also to S. Severin, to a little chapel of the Blessed Virgin, the altar of which, and figure of the Virgin and Child, please me much. Took a letter from Labbé to M. Dupanloup, but he was not in Paris. Called likewise twice on M. Defresne, but he was out; and took a letter to the Bishop of Orleans, but he could only be seen between eight and nine in the morning. In the evening I found Mr. A. Coppinger at home, and had a long talk with him. He seems to think there is no chance whatever for Henri Cinq; that the sentiment of loyalty, of the duty even of obeying authority, is in the multitude utterly extinct. The rich shopkeeping classes are universally unchristian; so that in repressing the last émeute of June, even the revolters behaved with more respect in the churches than the Garde Nationale sent to fight them. The root of French misfortune is the thoroughly bad education given to men in all but the ecclesiastical schools. They regard Christianity as if they were outside it; the Gospel as a very beautiful {238} book, doubtless, but not one commanding obedience from them. Living upon a civilisation, the whole force of which is derived from Christianity, they think that they can dispense with this the root of society, and construct society on their own superficial theories. The revolution of February took every one by surprise, even those who brought it about; it was the result of secret societies which had been existing for years; but though they felt their power, and thought that they might, perhaps, overturn a ministry, they did not calculate on casting out a dynasty. The last revolt had been very perfectly organised: it had a great many leaders, each with so many hundred men under him; these leaders well paid, but the common men fighting gratuitously for what was supposed to be their own cause. Though near ten thousand men are now in prison, it is not supposed that many of these leaders have been captured. And so what may happen in the winter is a subject for much fear.

Saturday, July 29.—Went at eight this morning to call on M. Defresne. He was very cordial, asked about our visit to the Tyrolese Stigmatisées—had heard from Manzoni that we had been to him. He soon got into his usual animated tone of conversation. The events of February and June had had a beneficial effect for the clergy, in bringing out their charitable care for the wounded, to which even the saying of {239} Mass had been postponed. L'Abbé Etienne had just been dining with him, so that he too had heard of the healing of the novice. A friend whom he named as the Poet Reboul came in: we all agreed that the life of S. Vincent was a greater miracle than any thing wrought by God in virtue of his intercession. M. Defresne engaged me to come again on Tuesday morning, and proposed a dinner for us three.

Mr. A. Coppinger returned my call, and offered to be of any service in showing me institutions, &c. He attested the great charity and devotion of the clergy. This has the most intimate connection with the celibate. He did not seem to think there was much improvement in the morals of the different educational establishments of the University. In his own time at the Ecole Polytechnique out of 200 scholars not above a dozen would be practical Christians; for not only was all religious instruction utterly neglected, but the professors, often infidels, would inspire them with a contempt and dislike for religion. Now the Ecole Polytechnique had 250 scholars, and perhaps a quarter of them might be sincere Christians. When once they were known as such, the probability was that they would be very decided and earnest: they were sometimes members of the society of S. Vincent de Paul for instructing the poor.

Went to M. des Billiers to ask him to accompany me to the Rue du Bac, to obtain a copy of M. {240} Hervé's attestation of the miraculous cure. We found the original of this no longer in their possession, it having been sealed up and deposited, with other documents, near the shrine of S. Vincent. They had a copy of it, which I proposed to copy, and then take it to M. Hervé for his signature. This was done; and I hope to obtain it to-morrow. I asked M. des Billiers what he thought of the permanency of the republic. His conviction is that it cannot stand, but that the time of its duration may be indefinite from a few months to ten years. He believes that France is entirely monarchical: but it will probably require great sufferings and an exhaustion of the country for the monarchy to return. The obstacle is, that the middle classes, the bourgeoisie, who now reign, dread with the monarchy a cortége of noblesse and clergy. Could they be fully persuaded that all ranks would share alike, and that no attempt would be made to revive old privileges, they would be for the monarchy; for they want trade, confidence, and a firm government, and this the republic cannot give. The person of the monarch is not so clear; for though all educated and thoughtful people must see that a monarchy must rest on a principle, and that legitimacy alone has that principle, yet the name of Napoleon has still a vast influence throughout the poorer classes. The restoration had lost a fine opportunity. It was really very popular at first, and {241} had it applied the principles of liberty to the Church and the nation, might have maintained itself: instead of this, it honoured a few individual ecclesiastics, thereby creating a great ill-will against the Church, but acted towards the whole body of the Church in the most illiberal spirit, keeping it under lock and key.

Called on M. Gondon: we talked about the cure of the novice. I told him I was engaged in collecting the proofs of it. M. Gondon thought that the Benedictines and Dominicans were not destined to take root afresh in France: he pointed to the position of the Père Lacordaire in proof of this. With very great abilities, especially the power of carrying away his auditors by his eloquence, he could with difficulty maintain one very small house in France. In the middle ages such a man might have founded an order. He heard his celebrated sermon on the first Sunday after the revolution of February, in Notre Dame. From beginning to end "c'était un délire." The father is just returned to Paris. He observed that late events in England must have convinced reflecting people how completely our Church was the puppet of the ministers of the day. Louis Philippe had tried to play the same game in France as had been played in England in the appointment of bishops, but the grace of consecration had been too strong for him. I replied that this was not quite fair, for we too had {242} men of courage among us; and I quoted Bishop Selwyn's energetic and successful protest against the attempt of a secretary of state to sacrifice the rights of the natives in New Zealand.

I then went to the Sœurs de la Charité, and soon found myself in their secrétariat, engaged among a number of sisters in copying M. Hervé's attestation. It was enclosed in a sort of pastoral letter of M. l'Abbé Etienne to the sisters throughout the world, dated 31st May, 1848; expressing his confidence that the bark of S. Vincent would weather the storm of this revolution as it had the last of 1830, if they were faithful to their rules, and fulfilled their ministry with zeal. I found likewise that, three days after this cure, there had been another of a person afflicted with blindness for seven months, and I determined to go into this case likewise. The sisters went to the Benediction at five: soon after I followed them to their chapel. It was a most touching sight to see so large a number of sisters and novices in worship together before the Host. Here then, I thought, were before me so many female hearts offering up to God daily the sacrifice of themselves in works of charity; they have made the voluntary surrender of the pleasures of home, of feelings dearest to the natural man; there is no holding back in their offering: it is complete, and penetrated with charity. Here are hundreds kneeling {243} in front of me who dedicate their labours to the hospital and the sick bed, going forth into all lands, and making the healing of the body a means to cure the soul. If ever there was any institution on which the sunlight of God's countenance may be supposed to rest, it is surely this.

It was settled that I should return on Monday to continue my extract.

M. Defresne told me this morning that the Pères Lazaristes possess a great number of S. Vincent's letters in MS., giving the most minute directions as to cases of conscience and details of practice, which were written to his fathers during his long experience, and which show the most marvellous knowledge of the heart and the most acute practical judgment. It is an instance of his wisdom that he directed the sisters for thirty years by word of mouth, and at last wrote down for them the rules which he had found work efficiently in that time. A real constitution exists before it is written, just as model French constitutions cease to exist before the ink which enunciates their principles is dry.

M. des Billiers told me to-day of an old French Legitimist of distinction, who, like most of his party, refrained for a long time from exercising the franchise after Louis Philippe's accession, because it involved an oath of fidelity to him. They found at length the inconvenience of this, when they wanted {244} to elect a Legitimist deputy; and the old man was much pressed to take the oath. He refused for a long time, but at length said he would go. As his purpose became known, and he was much respected and looked up to, there was much expectation at the polling-place what he would do. When called upon to take the oath, he said, "M. le Président, allow me to tell you a story. I remember being with his Majesty, Louis XVIII., King of France, when a young prince came before him, confessed his faults, and, falling at his feet, promised an unalterable fidelity. We all know how that prince has kept his oath. Now I promise and swear, (repeating the formulary of the oath), fidelity to Louis Philippe, and I will keep my oath as he kept his." Every one was convulsed with laughter, and the President could hardly stifle his: but he intimated that he could not allow the oath to be taken with that reservation. The old man repeated it again, by itself, but the effect had been produced, and every one saw with what purpose he took it.

But who can regret that so foul a villany as the supplanting a king, a kinsman, and a benefactor, has met with retribution even on earth?

Sunday, July 30.—I have just heard at S. Roch a sermon which lasted more than an hour and a quarter, delivered, for the most part, with great rapidity, and a vehemence of tone and action which would {245} have frightened an English audience. The preacher, l'Abbé Du——, showed very considerable power both of thought and expression. I should have preferred a less rhetorical display, both in manner and matter. But power there certainly was. "My thoughts are not your thoughts, saith the Lord." He began by saying we were all under the reign of a sophism; this sophism was, under a great variety of shapes, the preferring the present life to the future. He then dwelt with great force and beauty on our Saviour's life on earth, that He was God, and that He was a carpenter; that He worked for his daily bread. Now God can do nothing but what is perfectly good and wise; therefore, when He assumed this servile condition, it was a work of perfect wisdom and goodness. He came to do His Father's will. And this one condition runs through all degrees of human society, alone making them acceptable to God,—to do God's will. Glory, genius, success, the wonder and admiration of our fellow men; all this is nothing. To do the will of God will alone open the kingdom of heaven—Jesus Christ stands ready to open the kingdom of heaven to generation after generation of those who, sealed by the fore-knowledge of God, and working with His grace, do His will—and to those alone. There was no key to the present state of things, to these terrible conflicts, this incessant agitation, but one; that life was but a day's {246} labour, an hour's—nothing in comparison of eternity. This life was not the proper condition of humanity. It was fallen—the Saviour's proper work was to restore it to its normal condition; but that normal condition can never be here. Here it is a work of reparation, slow, painful, full of obstacles in proportion to the depth of the fall, but always merciful. Who would give a patient the full nourishment which he could take in health? Now, here we are all patients of Jesus—all—and to our latest moment. We shall never return to our normal condition on earth, but in eternity. You are all workmen and workwomen; idleness is a capital sin—idleness will shut out from heaven—Jesus Christ has taught us to work, every one in his estate. The work is one, though the condition may vary,—to do God's will. It will not be asked us whether we had genius, skill, power to embrace the works of God in our thought; but one thing only will be asked us,—whether we have done our work; that very work which God set us,—to do His will. And this is why society is suffering now to its utmost depths. This world is made the end, the limit, the object, the reward—eternity is put out of sight. "On a ôté Jesus Christ au travailleur de la pensée, au travailleur de l'art, au travailleur de la terre. Et nous souffrons, nous souffrons tous—nous allons de souffrances en souffrances." Thus the question of labour is insoluble. Men think of {247} repaying the young girl's sacrifice who works day and night for the support of her parents; who denies herself every gratification to which she might innocently aspire, with a little more wages—or the mother's tears, who suffers for her family, or the father's continued exertions, with a few pieces of money. Jesus Christ did not so: he assigned to labour a far different reward—he would give it no reward at all on earth—he would give it eternal life. He then drew a vivid picture of the priest's life of toil, suffering, instruction, and benediction. What was the end of this work? It was eternal life. The greater the humiliation, the greater the suffering, the more absolute the cutting off of all human sources of enjoyment or requital—the more the will of God was done, the greater the reward in heaven. To man, no matter what his condition on earth, or the powers of his mind, to man working with grace and inspired by grace, the kingdom of heaven, according as he has done the will of God, will be given. This, and this alone, is the remedy for all the ills of society; and we are under the dominion of a sophism, because this truth is set aside.

There was rather a numerous congregation, by far the greater part women; not many persons of education, I should imagine—yet the sermon in tone was far beyond the reach of any but the educated.

This morning at eight I was at Mass here, a short {248} High Mass; there were many communicants. But I have never been in a church so inconvenient in one respect, there were hardly any prie-dieus; the consequence is, that people sit nearly all the time, or just bend the knee against their chair; it is no easy matter to kneel on the floor, so encumbered with chairs. I think there is far less reverence in the outward demeanour of people at Paris than in the provinces.

Went to the evening service at Notre Dame des Victoires: I wished to be present at one of the meetings of the Archiconfrérie du très-saint Cœur de Marie. There was a large congregation, which at length filled the church: some thirty or forty members round the altar of the Blessed Virgin; of the rest nine-tenths at least were women of the lower classes. Vespers were sung, the congregation joining with remarkable unanimity. This indeed gives a particular and most pleasing character to the service of the Archiconfrérie. Then the Abbé des Genettes, founder of the brotherhood, a silver-haired old man, mounted the pulpit, and spoke in the most familiar and practical manner on the text "Beware of false prophets." His manner was in calmness the very opposite of that of this morning's preacher. He contrasted the disobedience to parents which now prevailed, the debauchery and wickedness all around them, with what he had known fifty or sixty years {249} ago. They had been struck for this, and the rod was still suspended over their heads; he besought them to repent. When this was over, he read from a paper requests for the prayers of the Archiconfrérie for so many men, so many women, parishes, bishops, &c.; among which I heard in immediate juxtaposition "270 Protestants, 69 Jews." He likewise read a letter of thanks for their prayers, to which was attributed the conversion of a desperate sinner, and such letters he said he was receiving every week. He implored them to be very fervent in their prayers for the objects named to them. There would be in the week, he said, three especial days: Tuesday, the feast of St. Peter in vinculis. He read them the account of this from the Acts. It struck me, from the attention with which they listened to this, that they were not accustomed to read it. He then passed to the Pope, as successor of St. Peter, who was now, it might be said, in a sort of moral captivity. He earnestly and repeatedly besought their prayers for him, who was suffering at the hands of ungrateful subjects on whom he had showered benefactions. Not that the bark of St. Peter could ever be overwhelmed by the waves: it was secure by the divine promise; but they might so far persecute the Pope as to gain for him the crown of martyrdom. More than twenty times since his accession the Holy Father had commended himself to {250} their prayers by means of persons coming from Rome. They should all now pray for him every day. He should be in his confessional that day at six A.M., for several hours; again from half-past-two till five; and from seven till nine, in order that they might prepare themselves for the plenary indulgence attached to this Church on Thursday. He notified likewise a fresh religious service, for the soul of the late archbishop, on Monday, 7th August, at Notre Dame. They should all pray earnestly for the holy archbishop: it may be that he had washed out with his blood his sins, and needed not their prayers; but they should pray for him. He then descended for the benediction. The whole congregation seemed to have one heart and one voice in the hymns which followed. This service lasted from seven to half-past-nine, and was very interesting.

Monday, July 31.—Went to the Père de Ravignan. He told me that, since our last conversation, he had been looking in "Tournely," where he found a passage on the primacy of jurisdiction, which seemed to him quite convincing. He gave me a note for the Père Lacordaire, but my visit was cut short by an appointment, so he begged me to come again.

Went to M. des Billiers: he attacked me again on the primacy of jurisdiction. I said that the Ultramontane theory, when pushed to its absolute issue, demanded the infallibility of the Pope singly; that, {251} indeed, this was involved in the primacy of jurisdiction; that the Pope had exerted the supreme power of withdrawing their authority from the French bishops when it seemed to him for the good of the Church. He did not like to admit that the primacy of jurisdiction involved infallibility, because infallibility of the Pope is not a dogma. But here lies precisely the difficulty of their position. Roman Catholics want, for the completion and impregnability of their system, the infallibility of the single papal chair, and this is precisely what has been ever denied by large schools among them, and is not even now an article of faith. For that they are the universal Church, that their dogma alone is true, that the Greek and every other communion is heretical or schismatical, or both, all this depends on the infallibility of the single papal chair. I said that, if they would prove the Greek Church to be in schism, I should give up our cause.

We went to see M. Gabet, at the Pères Lazaristes, who has been ten years in Central Tartary, or Thibet; gone through great dangers and privations; has come back safe; and is going out again. He was with a brother missionary, who remains at Macao till he rejoins him. His account of Thibet is most interesting, and in many respects very surprising. They have many Catholic practices there—such as holy water, the religious celibate. The Lamas, or {252} priests, are very numerous. Two-thirds of the men of the country live in religious celibacy; and he believes that this is a real celibacy. He and his companions lived for six months in a great community of 5000 lamas; they were, perhaps, of ten different nations, and spoke four different languages. During that time they had not observed the least impropriety among them. They are religious, pray much, and have a complete contempt for those who do not pray. Faire l'esprit fort among them is a sure way to be thought little of. But this religion is very superstitious: they have not the power to choose what they should embrace and what refuse; they have the instinct and the need of religion very strong, but not discernment of what is true religion. Thus, if you read to them the Gospel, they will adore Jesus Christ, Pilate, Caiaphas, &c. Theirs is not an "incroyance raisonnée" like Protestantism, but a cloud of superstition which obscures their sight. He anticipated that Christianity would make large progress among them, because of their religious spirit. There is as yet no religious establishment in Thibet. All over Asia the ministers of religion observe continence. The character of priest and married man is to their notions incompatible. They look for a complete denial of self in one who would teach them religion. There are no laws against foreign religions in Thibet, as there are in China. A great number of the female {253} sex also live in continence, though not so many as of men. I asked him how he accounted for the connexion between so many of their usages and Catholicity. He said some were of opinion that they had derived them from Catholicism; but as they are exceedingly tenacious of their rites, he did not himself think this: others again thought that Catholicism had borrowed from them. Neither of these views was necessary. There was no trace whatever of Christian missionaries having been among them. He thought that all the resemblance which was to be found in their rites, customs, and belief, might be accounted for as relics of the one true faith communicated to all the world originally, and handed down by tradition. This faith had been guarded in its purity among the Jews by a written law, and other institutions: but other nations had possessed it likewise, and retained it more or less corrupted. They had no bloody sacrifices, but offered wine, water, corn, and especially paper. He had been well treated on the whole: they had converted two Lamas—one of these had lately written to him: he had sent the letter to the Society for Propagation of the Faith at Lyons, for he believed there was no one in France who understood the Mongolese language. That of Thibet is taken from Sanscrit; but the continuous line above the letters which exists in the latter language is broken at each letter in this. But {254} the strangest thing of all is the Grand Lama, who is at once High Priest, King, and Divinity. They believe in the transmigration of souls, and suppose that Buddha continually becomes incarnate for the redemption of man. When the Grand Lama dies, they wait till a successor is made known to them. And here M. Gabet said that, allowing for some jugglery, it was impossible not to conclude that there was diabolic agency at work. The present Grand Lama is a boy of ten years old; the son of a poor woodcutter 600 leagues from the Grand Lama's residence. The Grand Lama is discovered by a child of a few months or a year old announcing that he is the Grand Lama who died—that his soul has passed to him. Thereupon the most particular inquiries are made. A commission is sent to the spot, and the utensils used by the late Grand Lama are put among a number of others just like them; they then demand of the infant which belonged to the Grand Lama, and he replies, this and this was mine. Were this merely an arrangement of the men in power, would not have chosen the son of a poor man, at a great distance. They had not been, it is true, ocular witnesses of these things; but from what he had heard, he could not doubt that there were "des prestiges diaboliques." Under the Grand Lama there is a king for the management of temporal matters, and four ministers; these conduct matters in an {255} interregnum. They had lived in intimacy with one of these four ministers. The missionary in these countries must be prepared for the most absolute self-denial—he must carry his life in his hand. He noticed that throughout Hindostan the religious indifference of the Europeans (save the Spaniards and Portuguese) injured them exceedingly in the opinion of the natives. With them religion is a first need of life: it does not matter so much what religion it is—to pray is sufficient; but a man who does not pray,—who has apparently no religion at all—is one of the lowest of beings in their eyes. The English might save themselves an immense expense if they showed themselves devoted to their religion instead of indifferent.

M. Gabet has a very pleasing countenance: moustache and long beard, plentifully mixed with grey hairs. He looks in vigorous health. Yet when he went to the East he was delicate. He believes that the constitution adapts itself to the rigours of climate. The cold of Tartary is intense. From this high table land the rivers of Hindostan, China, and Siberia all take their sources. They slept continually on the earth; up to midnight, while the body was warmed with the day's exercise, they maintained some heat, but from that time to the morning they froze. Their only nourishment was wheat or oats, moistened with a little tea. He is going back to Great Tartary. {256} We had no introduction, but nothing could exceed his readiness to hear and answer our inquiries: and he offered to give us again any information in his power.

We got from him the address of the young person who was cured of her blindness in the chapel of S. Vincent on the 12th May, three days after the former cure of the neck. We drove at once to see her at one of the houses of the Sisters of Charity, Rue de l'Arbalète, 25. We told the Sister who received us for what purpose we were come; she assented to it, went out, and brought back immediately the young girl. She is fourteen; very simple and homely in appearance, and looks the daughter of a peasant. She said, in answer to our questions, that it was hearing of the other cure which put it in her thoughts to go to S. Vincent's chapel, and ask for his intercession. She was taken there on Friday, May 12th, at 6¼ a.m., by the Sister who was then with us. I asked her if she could see at all in going there. She replied, "Not the least." She knelt and assisted at the Mass, but nothing took place; but "as soon as I received our Lord, I saw perfectly." "Could you not see at all the instant before?" "Not at all." "And the instant after you saw perfectly?" "Yes." "The cure did not come then by degrees?" "No; it was instantaneous." The disease called amaurosis had subsisted from the month of September {257} before; and every variety of cure having been tried in vain, all treatment had been given up for a month previously. It was accompanied with violent pains in the head. Since the cure she has seen perfectly: she appears to be quite free from any disease in the eyes now. While she and the Sister were gone to the chapel, the rest united themselves at home at Mass in intention for her cure. I said I was going to copy the account of this at the Rue du Bac, when the Sister offered me a MS. copy, which would save me that trouble. And, as it contained the report of the physician who had attended her, we took it at once to get his signature, Rue Mouffetard, 94. He was out, but his wife received us, and it was settled that I should come to-morrow, between twelve and one, when he would be at home. The testimony of this young girl was so clear that I saw no possibility of doubting the effect produced.

I dined with Mr. Coppinger and his two sons: since 1824, he has resided here. The account they give of the irreligion of the shop-keeping class, and of the wretched education which has tainted the springs of French society, is terrible. They said by far the greater number of men at Paris dine away from home in public places, and often leave their wives and families to fare poorly at home, while they themselves feast at a restaurateur's. It appears that on the Sunday night of the last émeute the alarm {258} at Paris was extreme: the rebels were thought to have the best of it; and it was their known intention to sack the quarter of the Tuileries and the Chaussée d'Antin. They think that the present state of things cannot last: but what is to come nobody can tell.

Tuesday, August 1.—This evening I had nearly an hour's talk with Le Père Lacordaire. He remembered that M. and I had called on him three years ago. I recalled to his mind what he had said, that well-informed and sincere persons could not remain out of the Church of Rome. Since then I had been especially studying the question of the Roman Primacy, and yet the conclusion to which I had come, after a most careful examination of antiquity, was in favour of a primacy of order, but against that of jurisdiction. He dwelt on the obscurity of the first three centuries: they were times of persecution, in which the popes had other work to do than to defend their primacy. Yet how remarkable it was that at the Nicene Council this primacy was seen at once emerging from the storm. The legates of the Roman Pontiff presided there. I observed that Hosius, Bishop of Corduba, who signed the first, was not marked as Roman legate, whereas the two priests who followed were; that it was as imperial commissioner, and friend of Constantine, that he presided. He seemed disposed to assume that Hosius must have been papal legate. I said {259} that I by no means impugned the primacy, but entirely recognised it: my defence was in the difference between a primacy and an absolute monarchy: for the claim of universal jurisdiction, as at present exercised, amounts to that. He said they did not consider the papacy an absolute monarchy at all: they who lived within it felt that in fact it was limited in a great number of ways. There were rights inherent in bishops which the Pope could not touch: he could not suspend them from the government of their dioceses without cause given, and a regular ecclesiastical judgment rendered; he could not take from the priest his right to offer the Holy Sacrifice, or to confess, without the like judgment. I quoted the calling in of all the powers of the French episcopate in 1801, because it seemed to the Pope for the good of the whole Church. He admitted the case, and that the power did exist; but it was altogether an exceptional case, such as had never occurred before. I said that in controversy it was necessary to push principles to their absolute issue: it was natural enough that they, born and living under the papacy, should not feel it to be an absolute monarchy. He quoted Bellarmine as saying that it was a monarchy tempered by aristocracy and democracy. The Pope could not destroy the episcopate. I said our new converts maintained that he could: that if all the bishops of the world were on {260} one side, and the Pope on the other, he could make a new episcopate. "I regard," he said, "as anticatholic, such opinions as these." He dwelt on the primacy of Peter, as shown forth in the Acts: nothing seemed to him clearer or more marked. He seemed to argue as if, the primacy granted, the degree to which its power was extended was a mere matter of discipline, of arrangement and growth in the Church itself. Besides, there was another point: without living in a system it is nearly impossible to understand it. Invaluable as Scripture is, and written tradition, the works of Fathers, Councils, &c., they are writing after all: without a living oral tradition, they will not be understood. The Church holds the truth as a living body; it circulates in her veins. We see the same sort of thing all around us. A young man may study diplomacy for four, five, six, years; he may have the history and treaties of Europe at his fingers' end: this knowledge is excellent; but he wants one thing, without which he could never be a diplomatist—practical initiation; this will be the most valuable part of all his knowledge. You may know perfectly how to sew, but could any one make a coat without seeing others make it, and the practical acquaintance with many little points? This was seen most strongly in religious orders: there was a traditional life in them of which no mere knowledge could take the place. "I had studied well the rules of the Dominicans, {261} but until I saw their practical working I could not understand them at all. Or again, in ten minutes' conversation with a person, you will catch more of their mind and feelings, and tone of thought, than by studying ten volumes of their works. There is something in the contact with persons for which no study can make up. Or again, the sight of a city. Half a day in a place will give you a better notion of it than all the descriptions ever written. You drink in the knowledge of it at all pores. I have read a great deal about London, but I assure you that I am unable to form any notion of it to myself. The mere look of the place would instruct me more than any books. Now such is the force of oral tradition in the Church: it is the life of an organised body which dwells in its members. Only think what would laws be without jurisprudence: why the most important part of all laws is their interpretation; if a man had the most perfect knowledge of the laws themselves, he would be no jurisconsult without knowing their practical application. Now this is a sort of knowledge which fails you entirely, being outside the Church; thus it is that we have no difficulties, while you are perpetually seeing them." I said, "I found it very difficult to represent our real position to them. The question was, not whether one might be a Roman Catholic, for of that I had no doubt; we all admitted that they were a part of {262} the Church. The question was, whether I was forced to become a Roman Catholic; to deny all my past life; supposing that we had the succession, and formularies which conveyed the episcopate and priesthood,—whether I should be forced to affirm that the grace of the Sacraments was intercepted by the sin of schism or heresy. We saw and deplored the division of the Church; but might not such a state of things be allowed, as in the great Western schism the Church was, as a fact, divided for forty years; might it not then be for 300 years?" "As to that," he said, "supposing the question of faith did not exist, supposing you could interpret the Thirty-nine Articles in a Catholic sense; granting there were no variance as to the number of the Sacraments; supposing that you individually, or the whole English Church, were to admit the faith of the Roman Church,—for you must come to her, not she to you,—then there would be the una Fides, but there would still remain the unum Corpus. Now every branch that is severed from a tree does not immediately die, it may sometimes be planted afresh, and take root beside the parent trunk; it may even bear leaves and some fruit, but that will not be unity. The Greeks have a vast deal in common with us. Supposing that the question of the Procession could be resolved by explanations on their part, there would only remain the authority of the Roman See to be admitted by them. {263} You again have retained much more than the Lutherans and Calvinists. What you have of good is ours, is Catholic. If persons among you believe in God, believe in the Redemption, lead a holy life, bring forth good works, I do not deny that all this is Catholic in them; if they are ignorant as to the sin of schism or heresy, this, which is good in them, may be sufficient for their salvation. When I hear persons saying there is this or that good in Protestants, I always admit it; I say this is a portion of the truth they have carried away from us; they have a certain root, and yet they are not joined to the tree. Why, Mahomet himself carried away much truth from the Catholic faith; and though he mixed and adulterated this, Mahometanism lives still by those remains of truth. So it is with those who have separated from the Church; the full life remains in her; unity is in her alone: portions of the truth, portions of life, may exist in other bodies; may suffice for the salvation of those who, by no fault of their own, and with no consciousness of their own, are in those bodies; but she alone has the full truth, she alone is one. Whether you can exist with safety out of her depends on the degree of your personal knowledge." I said, "It is very hard to represent to you one's difficulties." "Because," he replied, "they are matters of detail: you may study the question for sixty years and never come to a result, unless {264} you lay down clearly general principles. Grant that the Church in Luther's time was in a frightful state of corruption, that great tyranny had been exercised in England by the Pope; grant this and much more—would that excuse separation? There are always such causes as this at work. Men are not quite absurd. They do not make revolutions for nothing, as we have just seen. Why, Louis Philippe, was turned out, rightly or wrongly, because by his conduct he had made nobody care to defend him. Grant that there were these causes for your separation, does that excuse the state of schism?"

He quoted S. Cyprian's conduct as proving that reference was made to Rome, asserted that the Pope presided at all the general councils. Throughout his conversation it struck me that he was weak in facts, but strong in principles; and this seems to apply to the whole Roman controversy on this point.

Here Count Montalembert came in, and, as it was very late, I retired. He begged to be remembered to M., and asked if I was going to stay some days longer.

This morning went to call on M. Defresne. No sooner was I there than he began to read me parts of his friend M. Reboul's poetry, in a whirlwind of enthusiasm. This continued, with one little interval of detestation expressed for Louis Philippe, till breakfast. M. Reboul was there, and read, at his {265} request, his verses on the death of the archbishop, treating it as a sort of expiation. M. Defresne is full of charity towards the Puseyites, as he called them, but he seemed not to be quite aware that we formed a part of the English Church.

I then went to the other side of Paris to see M. Fernet, the surgeon who attended the young girl so strangely cured. He entirely confirmed her having been completely blind: she used to come to him with her companions, crying, and after many vain attempts to relieve her, he sent her to M. Sichel, a famous oculist: but he could do nothing. He saw her a few days after she recovered her sight: she then saw perfectly. Amaurosis is a paralysis of the nerves of the eye: it is sometimes cured, but then gradually, and not instantaneously. He added a few lines to the certificate stating that he had examined her after the cure, and found the sight quite restored. After this interval the cure might be esteemed complete. I inquired if he had any way of accounting for this cure. He said, none whatever. It was a phenomenon which he could not explain. He mentioned that he had been told she had once before seen for an instant, and then lost her sight again. Hearing this, I went to her pension again, to ask for an explanation. The mother told me that, at Christmas last, when she took the Holy Communion, she had for an instant seen the priest, and then became blind {266} again; that before September her sight had been more or less affected, but that from September till May it had been quite lost save this momentary restitution.

Calling on M. Bonnetty afterwards, I mentioned this and the other case. He said they were very cautious and backward in assenting to such things. As to the loss of the Pope's temporal power, he did not believe 200 millions of Catholics would suffer him to be deposed by four lawyers, who were the instigators of disaffection. Others, however, anticipate that the time is come for this temporal sovereignty to be given up, and that the spiritual power may come forth the brighter when it is gone.

Wednesday, August 2.—Called on M. l'Abbé Pététot. The last revolution has had a happy effect on the side of religion. The utmost respect has been paid to the priests; they have never ceased a moment to go abroad en soutane. In 1830 they were obliged to give this up for two years, and only recovered popularity by their devotion to the sick in the time of the cholera. But now they have come to the priest to bless the trees of liberty. He had blessed six. They even went in procession with the Cross, which is contrary to the laws, and woe to him who did not take off his hat. But this is the only good side of the late movements. Commerce is at a standstill; and the very boutiquiers talk freely of the {267} necessity of having a king. Paris subsists by articles of luxe, and a republic is not favourable to these. But what is coming nobody can see. In the riots of June, the insurgents had possession of the church of S. Paul, in the Faubourg S. Antoine. The curé induced them to go elsewhere; and, before leaving the church, they came to him for his blessing, saying they were going to fight: and so they went forth to kill and be killed. But all the middle class—the bourgeoisie—is profoundly hostile to religion: they will do anything to prevent its gaining influence. Although liberty of teaching would follow naturally from the principles of the republic, yet the Assembly has just passed a law on primary instruction as bad as can be; and another on secondary instruction will follow like it. Religion does not make any way with these classes; money is their idol. A workman or poor woman will give five francs to a charity, where these people think much of ten sous.

M. Pététot, with two companions, went, last September, to see l'Addolorata and l'Estatica. They were at Capriana on the Thursday evening and Friday morning, 9th and 10th September. They saw the wounds of the hands and forehead, as we did, quite dry on the evening, and in the morning fresh with blood. The sister had gone out both evening and morning, and they had to find her, so that Domenica was left alone. Her state, in the six weeks {268} which had elapsed since our visit to that of M. Pététot, seems to have become much worse. She was quite unconscious, and terrible to behold. All three were profoundly convinced of the truth of the stigmata and of the miracle. They went from Paris on purpose, with the full intention of rigorously observing the facts. One of the party was then a pupil of the Ecole Polytechnique: has since become priest. They were likewise three days at Caldaro, and saw l'Estatica several times. They saw her elevated in trance on the tips of her feet, extremis digitis,—"so," said M. Pététot, "as I could not have remained a minute, and that on the soft bed." They saw her repeatedly shoot herself from the recumbent position to the kneeling one. The Holy Sacrament was exposed the day when they found her in trance on the point of her feet. They addressed her through her confessor, and recommended to her prayers a design which they had in their thoughts. After she had prayed for it, they inquired if God had made known to her the subject of it. She assented: said that it was pleasing to God, but that one of those who took part in it would shortly withdraw from it. "Fortasse unum ex vobis Deus excipiet seu tollet; non agitur de morte," the confessor interpreting said. This has since taken place. The information she gave was so precise as to their design, which it was impossible for her to have divined, that they {269} were quite convinced of its having been made known to her preternaturally.

I asked M. Pététot which had made the greatest impression on him. He said, the Addolorata by far; that her case made him inclined to believe the other. This produced an effect quite of a different kind from the former. He equally believed both. He saw the stigmata on her hands, which we did not, as her sleeves covered them. It appears the confessor is quite weary of accompanying people to see her; they were some time before they got on with him, only after saying that they had come from Paris on purpose. I was much pleased with the ample corroboration given by M. Pététot to our own visit.

He spoke of the priest at Capriana as the worst specimen he had met with; he would scarcely speak of l'Addolorata; treated it as nothing extraordinary. They found out the secret of this afterwards, that the Austrian government prohibited its being mentioned. An ecclesiastic at Trent quoted to them Tacitus, that it was not allowed to them to think or to express their thoughts. The priest was continually à la chasse; so he was the two days we were at Capriana.

Called on M. des Billiers: we had a little skirmish about the Primacy. In the evening went with M. Gondon to the Count de Montalembert's. The new Archbishop of Paris, now Bishop of Digne, came in {270} accompanied by the Bishop of Langres; he looks an Italian prelate, full of courtesy; I should think his affability will stand him in good service. There were several representatives, M. de Cazalès, M. de Falloux, l'Abbé Sibourg,—and M. Bonnetty, M. Le Normand, Guizot's successor at the Sorbonne. The conversation was chiefly on the state of politics, the doings of the Assembly, M. Proudhon's recent developement. M. de Montalembert was the liveliest and best converser. He said he was greatly obliged to M. Proudhon; they were in a cavern with a gulph at the bottom of it, and Proudhon had lighted a torch to show them where the gulph was. "What good will the torch do, if no one will beware of the gulph?" one of the company said. "Nevertheless, I am much obliged for it," said M. de M. "I shall wave it about and make use of it." He could not understand the selling of livings in England, and asked if it was not simony. I said it was, and done in defiance and by elusion of the law. He wondered that bishops were obliged to institute, however dissatisfied with the fitness of the presenté. I said, in the actual state of things, our only hope was in the liberty, firmness, and integrity of the priesthood. All the company seemed to have the worst opinion of French prospects. As we went home with M. Le Normand, he observed on the misconception of their position by the Quarterly lately, which seemed {271} shocked at the acceptance of the republic by the Church; as if it was possible to do anything else. I said it was a sentiment of loyalty among us, which dictated that feeling. "Loyalty," he replied, "is entirely extinct in France; it is a fiction, and it is useless to attempt to conjure it up."

Thursday, August 3.—Called on Père de Ravignan, but he was out. Went for some little time to the Chapel des Dames du bon Secours. It is a delightful feeling to get out of the noise and glare of the world into that exquisite little shrine. Then went to Issy, and was two hours with M. Galais. I asked his opinion about modern miracles, and whether one could in good faith deny the material facts in the cases which had come under my notice. He said there could be no doubt that God did occasionally work miracles; and he did not see how the facts could be denied here. I remarked, that the chief difficulty seemed to be, why such and such cases were chosen more than others, as they had to our eyes no peculiar fitness. He observed, that there seemed analogous cases in the Gospel, where our Lord appeared often to heal out of a sentiment of compassion to the individual; and there are a multitude of cases where the details are not given, but it is said, curavit omnes, He healed them in globo. I asked which nation in the Roman Church was at present most conspicuous for its missionary exertions. {272} He said, the French by far; there are ten French for one Italian missionary. Will the Jesuits get more liberty of action under the Revolution? He thought not. There was no disposition to apply the principles of liberty either to the Jesuits or the other religious orders. They had the reputation of being very "habiles;" and "habiles" they certainly were, but not so much as they were esteemed. He doubted if they had been wise under Louis Philippe's government; it was known that in their colleges out of France, Brugelette for instance, devotion to the elder branch was inculcated. Now, the wise course seemed to be to accept the government de facto, as the Fathers of the Church did. They troubled themselves very little who was emperor. Had the Jesuits done so, they would not have been suspected by Louis Philippe; and so, perhaps, would have had colleges entrusted to them. I asked what the actual position of the Church with regard to the state was. "There are," he said, "in the Assembly sixty—it may be as many as a hundred—good Catholics; but all the rest are indifferent, or even hostile to us. The immense majority are bent on resisting the influence of religion." "It seems to me then," I said, "a kind of miracle that you subsist at all." "It is so," he replied. "The thing in our favour is that, small minority of the nation as we are, we are firm, compact, and banded together, while our enemies are {273} divided in every way. They have no common principle, and so they have a dread of us, a fear of our succeeding in winning back the nation to religion, by which they would fall into a minority. The real feeling which influences this unbelieving mass is the lust of domination; they have got their feet on the neck of religion, and they mean to keep it there. For this reason they will allow no liberty of teaching if they can help it." "But I suppose you have won ground since 1802; have you not?" I said. "We have won and we have lost," he replied. "Doubtless the clergy are better constituted now; there is a great devotion among them. Our bishops are in the main well chosen, and do their duty. They understand the crisis, and are fully convinced that they must fight the battle stoutly, and make no concession. But, on the other hand, in 1802, though religion had been overthrown, and impiety had publicly triumphed, yet the great mass of the nation had received a Christian education. It is the reverse now; this mass is now unbelieving, they have not been brought up as Christians, their first impressions were not in favour of religion." "You are then as missionaries among unbelievers," I said. "Precisely so. And this enormous unbelieving mass has the greatest jealousy of us. We only ask fair play; liberty, not privileges; and this they will do every thing to keep from us. They are making, quietly {274} but definitely, efforts to secularise, as they call it, the education of girls; that is, knowing the importance of first impressions, and of the female sex on society, they would take this primary education out of religious hands. There are infernal plots abroad. They dread us, and have a feeling, that if we were allowed a fair trial we should win our ground. I am convinced that we should reconquer France if we were only allowed liberty of action. Even the multitude who seek to satiate themselves in sensual enjoyments, even these come to us sooner or later for aid. Few after all can gain these enjoyments, and those who do, feel that they have not reached what they were seeking for. And then in the young clergy I am continually seeing instances of the most touching generosity and devotion. Many give up fair prospects, and fortunes, and surrender themselves wholly to their ministry." I remarked, what a difficulty the law of continence must impose on those who had to determine the vocation of young men. "You have, indeed," he said, "named the true difficulty." "The readiness," I added, "to embrace such a law, must be in itself the touchstone of a ministerial vocation, for it involved a continual sacrifice; and feelings, which were very pronounced at one time, might not continue." "It is so," he said. "Here is the most trying and embarrassing part of our duty. We do not always succeed. It {275} is most hard to judge if a young man of twenty, who appears devoted, will continue so. Yet, I assure you, I have known many whose most secret thoughts have been laid open to me, and who were pure as angels. I was once acquainted with a man of great capacity, but an infidel. He was thoroughly persuaded that continence could not be really observed by the French clergy. He set himself to work, and made for many years the most minute inquiries. The result was, that he discovered many horrors; but he likewise was completely convinced that continence was maintained by a great number. Now this could only be, he knew, by a supernatural gift; and it had such an effect on him that he became a good Catholic."

M. Galais afterwards went through Migne's Cursus Completus Theologiæ, pointing out the most valuable treatises in it. He strongly recommended Klee's Manual of the History of Christian Dogmas, and Pouget's Institutiones. Their examinations begin to-morrow, and their vacations in four days. He looks forward to taking the waters somewhere. They absolutely require a change of scene and occupations.

I called on Mr. Coppinger this evening, and staid to tea with them.

Friday, August 4.—Called on M. ——, who had promised to take me to the Assemblée Nationale. He said the Père Lacordaire had completely failed {276} in the Assembly: first he had taken his seat on the Mountain, shaking hands with the most advanced of that party; then he spoke for the first time, in defence of Ledru Rollin, to the consternation of his friends: and, lastly, he seemed quite bereaved of his usual eloquence, uttered nothing but trivialities, and was at a loss for words. All this he conceived had deeply wounded him, and he had resigned his seat to the great disgust of his constituents, who had been pained first at the line he took, and then by his retirement. He was always eccentric, and took a course of his own: he had professed that his seat in the Assembly was incompatible with a religious life, but he did not live here en communauté, but alone, and was engaged with M. Ozanam and others on a journal, the Ère Nouvelle, which was in the highest degree a political life. But he liked to be unlike other people. Padre Ventura, in his funeral oration on O'Connell, had ascribed R. C. Emancipation to the fear of England; so Le Père Lacordaire lauded the Duke of Wellington and Sir R. Peel to the skies for granting it, in his funeral oration of last February, to the great disgust of the Irish, John O'Connell, and the rest, who were present.—It was no easy matter to get into the Assembly: I was an hour waiting, after sending in my name to the Comte de Montalembert, and then the Tribune was full, and it was near another hour before I got in. The {277} Chamber is an immense room, in the form of a horse shoe, at the bottom of which is the Tribune, and behind it the seat of the President, and sundry officers; while the benches of the representatives are ranged eleven deep, one above another, round the other three sides. The speakers were heard very plainly, though I was at the very furthest point from them: strangers sit in galleries at some height above the members, on both sides and at the bottom. When there is agitation, the sound of voices is like the roar of the sea. But there was nothing interesting to-day. The President, M. Marrast, said, "M. Fayet a la parole," and I heard the Bishop of Orléans speak twice, but very briefly. The speakers were generally very rapid; there was a great want of dignity both in their manner, and in the general aspect of the Chamber. They sit uncovered. I listened for about two hours, and came away congratulating myself that I was not a legislator, specially in the National Assembly. It seemed to me a place for the violent to succeed in, and for the good and thoughtful to fail in. I watched the representatives going in for some time; generally speaking, they are anything in appearance but distinguished. The presence of an armed force on every side gives likewise an unpleasant feeling to an Englishman.

Saturday, August 5.—Was an hour with the Père de Ravignan this morning—one of the pleasantest {278} I have spent in France. Really his kindness and charity to a complete stranger are more than I can express; and I was quite confounded when he thanked me repeatedly for coming to see him. I told him I had not seen any institutions for the education of the other sex, and he gave me notes to three. He agreed with M. Galais in thinking that France was at present that part of the Roman Church in which there was most movement. "Italy is always the head and heart: there are, and always have been, there many ecclesiastics of a holy life. Still it cannot be doubted that a certain reform is wanted there—a reform, of course, to be wrought by the Church, and not in separation from her. This is only saying that where there are men, there is a natural tendency to degenerate. We have passed through this reform in France." I asked whether he thought, if liberty of teaching were granted, that the Church would regain the mass of the population. He hesitated. A certain effect would doubtless be produced: the mere establishment of a house of education in every diocese would be a considerable step. It was very difficult to know the number of practising Catholics in France. There were not above two millions of Protestants. Out of the million of Parisians there might be from a hundred to a hundred and fifty thousand who communicated at Easter, men, women and children: of women one half were Catholic; of men, {279} perhaps, one-twentieth. Paris was one of the worst places in France; so, again, the North generally, and the centre, Bourges, Berri, le Nivernois. On the other hand, in Bretagne and the South religion was much more general. He then passed to a subject which was of peculiar interest to me, as touching the sorest place of a parish priest. "Suarez," said he, "has a discussion on the fewness of the saved, whether this is said with reference to the world or to the Church; and he applies it to the world, but not to the Church. I think he is right; this is the result of a ministry of twenty years, in which I have necessarily had large experience—it is the feeling, also, of our fathers generally. You know the Church teaches that attrition only, combined with the Sacrament of penitence, avails to salvation—attrition arising from motives of fear rather than of love. Contrition by itself, one act of pure love by the soul, avails even without the Sacrament, if there be a firm purpose and desire to receive it. God has no desire for the sinner's death. Jansenism has done great harm on this subject, by inspiring a sort of despair which is most dangerous." I observed that purgatory was the necessary complement of such a doctrine. "It is so," he said, "and though God is alone the judge of the sufficiency of those acts of the dying, yet we may hope that a great number come within the terms of salvation, whatever purifying process {280} they may afterwards require." I asked if Jansenism was not well nigh extinct? "It is, in France," he said, "but it is still strong in Piemont and in Portugal." He then reverted to the Primacy, and spoke of the force of that superiority which is discernible through every century in the Papal See. Not one passed in which, even from the East, some appeal was not made to it. M. de Maistre spoke of a "présence réelle" of the Papacy being sensibly felt throughout the whole history of the Church. I said I rested our defence entirely on the difference between Primacy and Monarchy. There were two great powers in the Church of divine origin—the Papacy and the Episcopate. In the earlier centuries the latter had been most sensibly felt: but in modern times the former. "With regard to discipline," he said, "I might allow that; but as to the hierarchy, and as to dogma, the relation has always been what it is now: the hierarchy, even the Eastern patriarchs, always were as strictly bound to the Roman chair as the bishops now. They felt the Pope was their superior." I said I had been unable to see that. I had searched far and wide for evidence of it. The patriarchs of Alexandria, in their own district, and, later, the patriarchs of Constantinople, throughout the East, had judged as absolutely as the Pope in the West: independence was a wrong word to use; but they seemed to enjoy as complete a liberty of action {281} in their sphere as the Pope in his. He observed, with regard to Bossuet's Gallicanism, "We have been preserved from the ultimate consequences of those principles, but they might have conducted to a sort of Anglicanism—the two touched each other. But," he added, "Le cœur et la prière vous éclairera. L'étude est souvent difficultueuse; ce n'est pas que l'esprit n'ait pas ses propres fonctions. But light comes from the heart. I shall often think of you, and pray for you." I said I thought of leaving Paris on Thursday, and should like to pay him a last visit on Wednesday. "I fear I shall be ordered out of town by my physician; but I will try and return on Wednesday." "You must not think of it," I said; "but are you not well?" "My throat is unwell, which prevents me from preaching." "That is just it," I said: "I should have thought myself most fortunate if I could have heard you preach." He embraced me at parting; and wished to call on me, which I would not hear of.

Certainly, if ever there was a heart of Christian kindness, it is that of the Père de Ravignan.

M. des Billiers showed me a very interesting MS. letter from S. François de Sales to Mad. Chantal. Went again to call on M. Noirlieu, but found him out, and to the Archevêché to get a ticket for the service of Monday, but the secretary was out. In the evening walked along the Boulevards; there was {282} the usual tide of men and women, but here, as everywhere else in Paris at present, there was a total absence of all that seemed distinguished in either sex: a respectable equipage is rarely seen. I doubt whether I have set eyes on a lady since I have been here.

Sunday, Aug. 6.—Went to La Madeleine at 10, expecting a Mass, but it was the end of a Benediction, and then to my amazement saw M. L'Abbé Pététot in the pulpit. Presently he explained that he was there, the curé of the parish having given in his resignation, and the vicars general of the chapter having appointed him to take care of the parish, until the new archbishop should nominate another curé. He earnestly requested their prayers both for the parish under such circumstances, and for the person to be named. In every parish the responsibility was great, but peculiarly so there, where not only so much good was to be done, but where the example would have a wide influence on others. The curé is much to be compassionated with the care of 50,000 souls. The time would allow him but a short exhortation to them. He then read a few prayers: gave out a neuvaine of prayers beginning on that day, and preceding the feast of the Assumption, to be directed for the tranquillity and well-being of France, by order of the vicars general. It was not, of course, of obligation. The Psalm Miserere should be said {283} each day, and "Sacré Cœur de Jésus, prenez pitié de nous. Cœur immaculé de Marie, priez pour nous." He then read the account of the Transfiguration, and began with remarking on the wisdom of the Church in bringing before us at stated times particular subjects of contemplation. Thus the thought of heaven, which the Transfiguration suggested, she called to our minds on the Second Sunday of Lent, and on Ascension Day, and on All Saints. It was a thought peculiarly necessary and good for us. What would our life with all its pains and afflictions be, without heaven? How could we understand anything that passed here below? "car la terre sans le ciel serait la negation la plus formelle de Dieu." Without the thought of heaven we should be exposed continually to two opposite dangers,—on the one hand despair, on the other too great attachment to the world. M. Pététot's delivery is particularly graceful, and has something quite paternal and attaching in it. I thought his dress most becoming; over the baue he wore a canon's tippet, dark, and bordered with pink, while his stole, embroidered with gold and joined over the breast, contrasted well with the other colours. No more consummate bêtise have we committed, than the giving up the proper dress of the clergy; and assuredly never was there a greater mistake, than to consider it a question of superficial importance. Alas! for the day of coldness and neglect, when the English {284} priest changed his cassock for the layman's coat. But I fear the outward form seldom fails to be an index of the inward spirit; the body here is the clothing of the soul. From the time the chasuble was relinquished, the keys were no longer used, and both, I believe, will be restored or remain in abeyance together.

At three, a sermon at La Madeleine on humility: it was a good plain discourse, setting it forth as the first and most necessary of Christian graces, springing from the consciousness of our personal sin and misery, in feeling which consisted the precept, and in desiring to be treated accordingly the counsel or perfection of humility. This was followed by the Benediction, in which were the prayers for the neuvaine.

Dined with M. Martin de Noirlieu. He said the archbishop's death had been an époque for the Church. His funeral was a real triumphal procession, such as France had not seen since the great revolution. Seven hundred priests took part in it. His body was borne uncovered. Every one, especially the military, pressed to touch it, so that the white gloves and stockings became quite black. An intense feeling had been excited by his sacrifice: the people had never been so well disposed to the Church. It looked to the priests now for comfort and support, and had confidence in them. He saw daily the effects of this in his parish. He had been treated with more respect {285} to-day than he had ever known before. A movement towards religion was certainly begun in France, which must go on; it would require time, but it would spread wide. Catholicism was still a power in France; and, what was very certain, it must be either this or nothing. There was no inclination to Protestantism. Some Protestant ministers wished to bless the trees of liberty, but the people would not hear of it. "Who are you?" they said; "we want the priests of Pie Neuf." He said the republic was hated and could not last: already Henri Cinq was in many mouths. What was very remarkable in the archbishop's death was, that he was not at all likely to have done such a thing. It was not in his character. He had a great dread of death. At twelve o'clock on the Sunday he had not thought of it: he then hastily dined and set off with his vicars general to M. Cavaignac. The enthusiasm which his presence everywhere produced was wonderful. The soldiers rendered him martial honours by a spontaneous feeling, and the people knelt for his blessing. That passage on foot was a triumphal march. In the midst of his agony he said, "Eloignez vous, mes amis; je ne vous édifie pas." M. de Noirlieu and his brother, a young priest, asked many questions about the movement in England. The view he had taken was, that Puseyism would lay hold of many Catholic truths which it found in antiquity, such as the sacrifice of {286} the Mass, but would not admit that extension of power which was now claimed for the Pope. He observed, however, that those who went over took the most extreme line of Ultra-Montanism. The appointment of Hampden must have done us much injury. I observed that among them the Church was working under such oppression that anything but Catholicism would be destroyed by it. For instance, in every commune the schoolmaster, generally a person without faith, is set up by the government as an antagonist to the priest. The attempt to make education a mere affair of the state was thoroughly anti-christian. He agreed that it was only the "sêve intarissable" of Catholicism, ever mounting up afresh, which kept them alive. M. de Noirlieu has juster notions of the English Church, and makes larger allowances in favour of our state, than any other ecclesiastic I have met.

Monday, August 7.—I was at Notre Dame by half past eight, for the ceremony in honour of the archbishop. The church became gradually very crowded. I was in time to get a seat very near the pulpit. Mass began at ten. Most of the clergy of Paris were present; some representatives; the Cardinal de la Tour d'Auvergne, a venerable old man of 80, who officiated; the Bishop of Langres; and the Bishop of Quimper. Just before eleven M. L'abbé Cœur began his funeral oration, which lasted two {287} hours and forty-three minutes. When about half over, the poor old cardinal, who, of course, was fasting, could hold out no longer; he was obliged to go out, and finished the Mass in silence in the choir, while the sermon continued. Thus its inordinate length broke the order of the service. The preacher was not without merit, but his delivery was very bad, and he was obliged continually to spit; an operation which would come on in the middle of a sentence, and was once repeated six times in the most disagreeable manner. The eloquence of Demosthenes himself could not have sustained such an interruption; and I could not help wishing that the Père Lacordaire, whom I saw present, had been in his place. The sermon contained a sketch of the life and labours of the archbishop, especially praising his simplicity, learning, courage, complete independence of state or personal interests. That he had fully understood the mission of the Church in these latter times, to consummate the alliance between religion and his country. He had it much at heart to form in the Ancienne Maison des Carmes, rendered so illustrious by the blood of martyrs in 1792, a new school of prophets, eminent at once for science, piety, and courage. He was a great encourager of learning in the clergy. Their efforts in behalf of "la liberté d'enseignement," would be the honour of the French episcopate in the eyes of posterity. The archbishop {288} was powerful in his life, but much more so in his death. His death was the real apology of the sacerdoce, which had been attacked. It could not be defended by books; it required a martyrdom: "le martyre est un grand maître de la raison; il ne discute pas, il montre." A hundred years of teaching could not have proved what his blood shed in the Faubourg S. Antoine had established. Nor was his death brought about by an "entrainement du caractère: c'est l'apologie du sacerdoce et du Christianisme." The preacher dwelt at great length on the "new times,"—that the Church was essentially indifferent to all governments: it was the life of humanity. He then gave a Christian explanation of liberty, equality, fraternity; and finished with an address to the archbishop: they did not believe that he needed their prayers, which, however, they would offer for him.

This sermon, besides its inordinate length, was deficient in connection and choice of subjects: it was far too general. Had it been well delivered, parts would have been very interesting; but, considering that the occasion was quite unique—the death of an archbishop and martyr—it must be considered a failure. I was more than five hours and a half in Notre Dame.

Went to M. des Billiers, who conducted me to the Couvent des Oiseaux, for the Supérieure of which le {289} Père de Ravignan had given me a letter. The Sisters of Notre Dame were founded by the Bienheureux Fourrier, for the purpose of educating. But their houses, though conducted on the same principles, are independent. This is of very great extent,—has a very handsome chapel, with oak fittings, and a rich marble altar; a very costly library, including a large collection of engravings of different schools, museum of natural history, and every thing which can contribute to the ordinary education of young ladies. Nothing that I have seen in Paris interested me more than this house; nor was I ever more struck with the advantages which la vie de communauté presents. There are here, between mères and sœurs, 116 religieuses, who are occupied in directing the education of 240 girls; at least, there were this number before the events of February: there are at present only 50; but it is just before the vacation, and a large number have been withdrawn, either from the fears of their parents, or their inability, since those events, to pay the pension. They employ, besides, sixteen masters, for music, languages, &c. The terms are 1800 francs a-year. There are one hundred pianos in the house, and every thing that I saw was on a like scale of abundance and richness. They attend Mass daily. We went to a Benediction in the chapel; and after this the aumonier conducted us all over the house,—the class-rooms, dortoirs, garden, {290} &c. A religieuse sleeps in each dortoir; the beds have not even curtains, so that there is the most perfect surveillance. A pupil is never left with a master alone, but one of the sisters is present at the lessons. No private establishment could possibly compete with this: three millions of francs, the almoner told us, had been laid out upon it, first and last; every thing is done for the pupils by the religieuses, nor have they any servants, save for the garden. They give, besides, instruction gratuitously to a large number of poor children, separately from their pensionnaires. The almoner told us he gave two instructions to the upper, and two to the lower classes, every week. He had got together an immense collection of maps and engravings, a volume for each department of France, in order that the pupils might have pictures of all that was described to them; for which he quoted to me—

The great extent of this house, the number of the rooms, the perfection of all its accommodations, astonished me. The number of teachers, in comparison to the taught, is far beyond anything we have; not less difference is there in the pains taken with their religious instruction, and the moral surveillance exercised over them. But the most pleasing {291} thought of all was, that personal interest was not the prime agent, nor an agent at all in this. These nuns acquire nothing from their pupils personally: the house, it is true, is necessarily supported by the pensions; but all that remains goes to the instruction of the poor, or the decoration of the chapel, or the advantage of future generations of scholars in the accommodations of the house. The teachers do not get rich upon the taught, not to speak of the poor who are instructed gratuitously at the same time. The number of persons engaged allows of the greatest attention being paid to any individual case requiring it, and the primum mobile is charity. How great the superiority in all points of view to any private establishment. Gain entering in changes the motive of all this: from a work of love, it becomes a profession; self-sacrifice vanishes, as personal interest appears. They have English and Irish pupils here, as well as of other nations: even some Protestants. The garden is quite sufficient for all purposes of recreation. The age of the pupils ranges from ten to eighteen or twenty. Some remain till they marry.

Accompanied M. Bonnetty to Lady —— in the evening.

Tuesday, August 8.—My visit to the Couvent des Oiseaux yesterday sharpened me for that to the Dames du Sacré Cœur to-day. Le Père de Ravignan had given me a note to Madame D'Avenas. {292} We had a great deal of talk with her, which not unfrequently took a controversial turn; and she seemed particularly well informed on such points. The congregation of Sacré Cœur was only founded, she told us, in 1800; they now have about fifty houses in France, three in Rome, others in Piemont (lately sequestrated by the state), in the United States, one at Acton, near London,—in all, about seventy. At eighteen they may commence a noviciate, which lasts two years: they can then take the vows for five years: at the end of which time, being of twenty-five years at least, they can, if they please, take the final and irrevocable vows. There are one hundred Sisters in this house, which is the old palace of the Ducs de Biron, in the Rue de Varennes, having a garden of immense extent behind it. Their scholars, before the events of February, amounted to 160: all is done for them by the sisters, who have no servants, except for the garden. They have masters for the different arts: the pension, exclusive of these masters, is 1000 francs. The Supérieure Générale of all these seventy houses resides here. They are founded uniquely for education. Some of the class-rooms are very magnificent—the old reception rooms of the palace. But, generally speaking, the house is not equal in its extent or fitting up to Les Oiseaux; but the garden is far more extensive. Madame D'Avenas walked over it with us; and amid its {293} groves one can hardly believe that one is in Paris. Both Madame D'Avenas and M. des Billiers attacked me on the state of separation of the English Church, and the schism it had thereby incurred: this, I said, depended on the degree to which the Papal claim is true.

Called on M. ——, who gave me a deplorable account of the state of things here: that the chiefs of the party for the République Rouge—Louis Blanc, Caussidiere, and Ledru Rollin—were supported by General Cavaignac secretly: that the rapport just given to the Assemblée had re-awakened the most furious passions, and that a fresh insurrection might break out at any time.

In the evening called to thank the bishop of Langres for the service he has been to me in procuring for me the company of M. des Billiers, who, together with M. Farel, his Vicaire Général, returned with me and talked some time.

Wednesday, August 9.—Went with M. Farel over the Carmes, the scene of the massacre of 175 priests on September 2, 1792, among whom were the Archbishop of Arles, and the Bishop of Saintes. The Supérieur conducted us over the house and garden; he showed us the room in which the revolutionary tribunal sat; the passage through which the victims were hurried to be dispatched; and at the bottom of the garden the orangery, now a chapel, into which they {294} fled, and which retains on its floor, and on the seat which runs along its inner wall, numerous traces of blood. There is, especially, the mark of a head on the bench, where the crown of hair is still visible, which must have been dripping with blood to have left such a trace. No spot in Paris has such interest for me as this: none is so glorious to the Church of France: none carries such an omen of future triumphs. Between this orangery and the house is a small circular piece of water, on the edge of which several likewise were massacred. In a small vaulted chamber, up stairs, are the marks of three rapiers against the wall, which the assassins, sleeping there at night, seem to have put to stand there, dropping with blood. And in this very room Madame Tallien, the Empress Josephine, and the Duchess D'Aiguillon were confined seventeen days, as appears by an inscription in pencil on the wall, asking how long liberty should be a vain name, and signed "Citoyenne Tallien, Josephine Beauharnais, D'Aiguillon." Even here the reminiscences of this house do not stop;—in the garret many of the Girondins were confined, and the walls are covered with their indignant remarks; many from the Latin poets, in heathen style,—some written in pencil, some in their blood. It is a curious contrast, as one turns away from this chamber, to see over another door one of the old inscriptions of the Carmelites {295} remaining:—"Quod delectat, momentum est: quod cruciat, æternum est." It is, as the late archbishop said, "le monde Païen, and le monde Chrétien, vis-à-vis." He had purchased this house as a place for the encouragement of the higher studies of theology among the clergy; the design was not completed at his death, but there are about forty here, of whom twelve are masters. He has added another to the noble band of martyrs, the unequalled patrimony of this building: his heart has just been carried to the chapel, where we saw it in a glass case. Surely neither their blood, nor his, has been shed in vain. He seems to me worthy to rank with the Archbishop of Arles, who, when his name was called out by the murderers, stepped forth from amid the priests seeking to shelter him, and said, "C'est moi. Je suis celui que vous cherchez." He was struck down and massacred. The same power enabled the late archbishop, not a man careless of his life, nor of great physical courage, to present himself fearlessly among enraged combatants, and when suffering extreme tortures from his wound not even once to ask his physician for aid. If ever any sacrifice was voluntary, it was his: and this notion of making expiation with his blood for his flock seems to have given him supernatural force.

The Abbé des Billiers had got me a ticket for the distribution of prizes at the Institution des Aveugles. {296} The crowns and books were almost as numerous as at the petit séminaire: here, however, the ceremony had an especial interest, as all the scholars had to surmount exceeding obstacles arising from their loss of sight. There were, notwithstanding, a great number of subjects for which prizes were given; and the whole was terminated by a concert, in which the boys and girls were performers. Music is one of the things in which they most excel, and the source, doubtless, to them of peculiar enjoyment—the sensations it excites may replace to them, in some degree which we cannot imagine, the loss of sight. This spectacle, however, is not without pain, as well as interest, to the beholders, as I experienced in going over the house itself a few days ago.

Thursday, August 10.—M. Farel took me to the Dames de la Visitation, Rue d'Enfer. As they are cloitrées, we could not see their house, but we conversed a little with the Supérieure. M. Farel said smilingly to her that they looked to the prayers and intercessions of the visitandines for the maintenance of public tranquillity; and when the affairs of the Church did not go well, it was because the visitandines did not do their duty. Vraiment, the Supérieure replied, not displeased at the remark; and then she sent for four English sisters, with whom I had a long talk. Three of these English sisters had been converted, one, eight years ago, from a state of utter {297} unbelief; the other two, six and three years ago, being members of the Church of England. The fourth was born a Catholic. None had any distinct idea of the Church of England. They all expressed themselves delighted with their condition. There are several months of trial before admission to the noviciate, which lasts at least a year and a day, after which they may take the final vows. They told me it not unfrequently happened that persons wishing to remain, and having apparently all the dispositions suitable for the religious life, were refused by the superiors, but that their judgment had never been known to have been deceived in those whom they accepted: a special light was given them to that end. The primary object of their order was prayer and intercession, and they received among them persons labouring under various bodily infirmities, who would not be accepted elsewhere; their rule was not severe as to bodily austerities. Their founder, S. François de Sales, had assured them that the number of infirm persons they admitted would never be so large as to diminish the efficacy of the order. They likewise had schools attached to their houses; but no nun was occupied more than two hours a-day in school. They have about 180 houses—one in England, at Westbury, near Bristol; some in the United States. The number in each house was thirty-three, but in the great towns they passed this number. Before the {298} events of February they had sixty pupils. I observed that the not knowing or not considering the careful attention paid to the subject of vocation was the cause of many prejudices in England against the religious orders. One of the four, a novice, said, when she came to visit her sister, before her conversion, she had the greatest dread of entering the house, but she had found it quite different from what she expected. We had a great deal of conversation about late conversions, that of Mr. Newman especially. I said, Roman Catholics in England seemed to me to commit a great fault, and especially converts. The moment they had left us, it seemed their object to depreciate to the utmost the Church of England; instead of allowing what we undoubtedly possessed, and pointing out with charity and kindness the particulars in which they presume us to be deficient, they delight to condemn us en masse, in the most harsh and insulting manner. I noticed the Tablet as instinct with this spirit; and when this came from men who for years had been fighting on our side, it was the more offensive. It was in strong contrast with the charity and kindness one met with in Roman Catholics abroad.

Called on Lady ——, who had asked me to dine with her to-morrow. She spoke to me seriously on a subject which, she said, had been much upon her mind. Living for a long time among Roman Catholics, {299} she had come to the knowledge of a vast number of answers to prayer addressed through the Blessed Virgin to God. Without rejecting evidence which on any other subject she should admit to be conclusive, she could not refuse her belief to the efficacy of these prayers, and yet her whole mind revolted from addressing an invocation to the Blessed Virgin. Moreover, she believed that, in the minds of the ignorant and superstitious in the Roman Communion, the Blessed Virgin was an obstacle to their approaching God,—they stopped with her. And yet these prayers were undoubtedly answered. Did God then vouchsafe a reply to the love which evidently dictated these prayers? To her Protestantism seemed to have called forth the manly virtues, independence and self-possession; whereas Catholicism developed itself in far greater tenderness of spirit and affection. She showed me a passage from Padre Ventura, strongly setting forth the paternity of God the Father and the maternity of the Blessed Virgin in parallelism, and compassionating those who held either without the other. But to Protestants the Blessed Virgin was a merely historical being, having no present existence; they did not mean to dishonour her, but they simply never thought about her.

I said it appeared to me that the Intercession of the Saints for the Church on earth and its particular members could not but be an essential part of the {300} Communion of Saints, and this once being granted, the pre-eminent position of the Blessed Virgin accounted for the effects wrought by her intercession; that those who had carried her power to the highest yet made it a simply intercessory power. "Monstra te esse matrem" was the highest exhibition of her authority. When the mind comes to reflect upon her, and the position she holds, so unapproachable by any other creature, it can hardly fail to come to these results. The greater tenderness and devotion of spirit discernible among Roman Catholics must be on account of their so vividly realising the Communion of Saints, and this specially in the case of the Blessed Virgin. We must not reason from the ignorant and superstitious members of the Roman Church, any more than from the apathy and utter deadness of heart and irreverence apparent in so many of our own people. The cultus of the saints may be idolatry to those who do not realise the ineffably higher office of our Lord. I can conceive their asking, What good can the bones of dead men do? But when the reality of Christ's presence in the tabernacles of their flesh is felt, I could not see how the grace and glory bestowed by the Head upon his members detracted from Himself, as the source and giver of it. The Communion of Saints, therefore, would account for the answers given to prayers for the intercession of the Blessed Virgin. But how could the Saints know of the prayers made to them? I said I saw {301} no difficulty in the view of divines, that those who enjoyed the vision of God, beheld in Him the needs and requests of their brethren in the flesh.

Lady —— has an odd notion of the soul slumbering till the Resurrection, which, I said, she must allow me to say, was simply false doctrine.

I took leave of M. Bonnetty afterwards. M. Farel took me to the establishment of S. Nicolas, for the education of orphan and other children, and their apprenticing to various trades, Rue Vaugirard, 98. This has been set on foot and conducted for about twenty years by Monsignor de Bervanger. He has collected out of the streets of Paris a thousand gamins, whom he receives at a small pension—twenty francs a month for orphans, twenty-five for other children; lodges, boards, instructs, and teaches them a vast number of trades. Of these he has even at present seven hundred: but the Revolution of February has cost him a diminution of three hundred. Five hundred of the garde mobile, who lately saved Paris, have been brought up by him. He observes that the difficulty for children destined to live by manual labour is how to join elementary studies, especially that of religion, with their apprenticeship to a trade. Without religion a workman does not find in all his life rule for his conduct, consolation in his toils, or hope for the future. Thus establishments uniting these advantages answer a deep need {302} of society, and this has been the chief aim of the Œuvre de S. Nicolas since its institution in 1827, i.e., to succour orphans, to give them a love of virtue and labour, and prepare them, by the practice of religious duties, to become not merely good workmen, but good Christians. For this purpose an hour and a quarter is given every day, except Thursday, to the study and explanation of the Catechism, the Gospel, and Sacred History. The pupils are arranged in fourteen divisions, according to their age and intelligence. They are taught by priests approved by the archbishop—these are ever among them, not only in their work and studies, but at their recreations, instructing them to be content with the position assigned to them by Providence, and to bless Him amid the most painful toils and privations, out of regard to an eternal recompense—sentiments which the example of these priests in surrendering themselves to so charitable and self-denying a life must be very powerful in inspiring.

The children are specially instructed and prepared for their first communion and confirmation.

The establishment has within it twenty-five ateliers for pupils whose parents or guardians desire to leave their children till the end of their apprenticeship; for the children only attend these workshops on an express request. Care will be taken to put to good Christian masters the children not able to profit by {303} this advantage. A great number of those brought up here are already set at the head of these workshops. Their younger brethren will find with them the same religious usages, and as it were the same family.

They are occupied in these workshops eight and a half hours a day. They have a class two hours every day, except their friends desire them to pass this time in the workshop, to perfect themselves in their employment. If their work should be suspended, they attend the classes.

The apprenticeship lasts two, three, or four years, according to the trade. When finished they may remain in the establishment; and what they earn beyond their maintenance may be deposited in a savings' bank. The parents can select for their children what trade they like, after considering their tastes, physical powers, and intelligence. Though these workshops are an increase of charge to the establishment, yet, as it does not seek to make a pecuniary speculation, the payment for the children in them is no larger than for the youngest, though their board is more expensive. Moreover, those who work require a larger amount of food.

All the earnings of the apprentices belong to the masters of the workshops, who have thus an interest in their progress, and in conforming themselves to the rules of the house, from which they are liable to be dismissed. On their side, they provide the tools. {304} They have no power to inflict punishments, but report to the brethren.

The studies comprehend reading, writing, arithmetic, and orthography; the elements of French grammar, geography, and history; analysis of grammar and logic; book-keeping, linear-drawing, practical geometry, vocal music, the most complete instrumental music, gymnastics, and swimming; such primary instructions in natural philosophy, chemistry, and natural history, as are applicable to daily life; mensuration and horticulture.

The children do not remain in study more than two hours and a half following, nor occupied on the same subject more than from half an hour to an hour and a half. Those not in the workshops have eight hours of class and study, excepting the youngest, who have only six, as they rise later. Each class has from fifty to seventy scholars at most.

There is a small examination several times a year.

The food is prepared by sisters of charity. It is wholesome and plentiful, and shared by the masters. There is breakfast, dinner, and supper, besides the goûter.

Sisters of charity take charge of the infirmary, kitchens, refectory, linen, and washing: "they know that all holiness which isolates us from those who have need of our assistance is false."

Most careful provision is made for the cleanliness {305} of the children. Warm water is supplied in winter; baths at all times. Every child is supplied yearly with a pair of summer and winter pantaloons new; those of the year preceding become every day's clothing.

House-work, in which the brethren have aid from the children out of class time, is paid to them. Long experience shows how much better for the children this is than when it is made a punishment. Moreover, some children have such need of motion, that great harm may be done them if it be refused them.

"All which appears low to the eyes of men, is an object of emulation among religious, whose vocation aims at the most perfect conformity with the counsels and example of our divine Saviour. Like Him, they dare to touch the Leper banished from man's society; like Him, they despise Pharisaic censure. They would deem themselves unworthy to belong in so privileged a manner to the service of a crucified God, if their heart was under the influence of human opinion, if regards even to their health, which a sensitive conscience often shows them to be superfluous, could arrest them in the accomplishment of their labours."

The brethren sleep in the dormitories among the children. One of them invariable keeps watch in these dormitories, which are lighted. The most careful and rigorous surveillance is exercised. The eldest rise at 5½; the youngest at 7. In winter they go to bed at 8; in summer at 8¾.

{306} Good marks are given to the children, which three times a year are exchanged for books, &c. Marks of conduct, work, and application, for each week, are hung up in the parloir. So likewise the places obtained in the compositions of the week; and the notes of three months, which are sent to friends. Pupils who constantly maintain themselves on the table of good conduct for three months are entitled to a reward. There is a solemn distribution of prizes every year before the short vacation, on the Sunday following 15th of August.

Extraordinary recreations are provided at times; as in summer a long promenade, in which the pupils take with them a day's provisions.

During the recreations of each day, the brethren make themselves children with their pupils, authority disguising itself under the shape of affection. This is the most favourable moment for studying character. They endeavour to gain the confidence of those in whom they have observed bad dispositions by employing the most attractive means of religion, and they have often the consolation of making them teachable and happy.

It is a great point to occupy the children during their recreation, and so to brace the body by exercise, that their nights may be sound and their health good.

Parents can see their children any day, but only {307} at play time, and when they are not in disgrace. They cannot take their children out but on a few particular days.

Punishments are inflicted as sparingly as possible. No master may strike a child.

Children are received from eight to twelve years old. Those under ten are sent in general to the Maison succursale, at Issy. Twenty francs' entrance are paid besides the pension. The number is limited to 1000.

We had first an interview with Monsignor de Bervanger, the founder of this work, to whom, I should think, it must supply perpetual occupation. He sent a most pleasing boy round with us to the different parts of the establishment. In many of the various ateliers work has been suspended; this is an effect of the revolution: in many we saw the pupils at work under their 'chef.' They reach such perfection in their work, as to obtain an easy sale for it, and to gain their subsistence. A large number were playing in high spirits. The premises are necessarily of great extent, and certainly it is a bold and immense experiment, and most interesting. It is not the least astonishing that Monsignor de Bervanger set it on foot without private funds: but its maintenance involves a large degree of ever active charity, both in the brothers of S. Nicolas, who teach these boys, that would otherwise be the refuse of Paris, {308} and who eat and sleep in the midst of them, and in the Sisters of Charity, by whom the kitchen, infirmary, refectory, &c. are served. Thus without the 'celibat' in both sexes, this and every other work of high charity falls to the ground. Not only on the score of expense would it be impossible to conduct such a house without the aid of those who disregard money altogether as a remuneration; not only would it be difficult to find so total a surrender of time and of the whole man in any who had household ties to bind them: but as certain devils cannot be cast out "save by prayer and fasting," so there would seem to be a like proportion of means to end in particular applications of the Cross's healing power. It would appear to be a necessary condition for the restoration of the suffering masses of society, that the highest blessing of the natural man—family life—should be voluntarily surrendered by those who are to be God's instruments in this special work. They who are seen amid the toil and sweat of every day's task to be living a supernatural life of charity,—they, and they alone, can gain the affection of the world's outcasts, and lighten the burden of the Cross which they have first themselves so borne. As I went over this house, and saw its inmates, I comprehended in some faint degree the amount of charity which such a life must require. The musical service, performed by these children themselves on Sunday, is described as very {309} well done, and very interesting. Many of their friends come to hear. I thought their chapel confined for so large a number.

A little book which Monsignor de Bervanger gave us contains a pretty full account of this institution, from which I have taken many particulars given above. He observed that an Englishman not long before had paid them several visits. He was most struck by the terms of intimacy in which the masters lived with the pupils. This has also struck me pointedly wherever I have seen educational institutions in France. There the wall of separation does not seem to exist, which shuts out the English tutor or master from the real state of his pupil's mind, from his prevailing habits, and natural tone of thought. With us, the boy before his master, and the boy by himself or with his schoolfellows, are two beings wholly distinct. Seldom, indeed, can the tutor get at the real living soul with whom he has to deal; still seldomer mould and direct the development of his moral powers. It is, to the best of my belief, a generic difference between Anglican and Roman Catholic education.

As we were walking home, M. Farel told me that in the diocese of Langres alone there were five hundred institutions of Sisters of Charity. "Do you not mean," I said, "five hundred Sisters?" "No," he replied; "not a commune is without them." I {310} asked to how many several parent houses they might belong: he said, to about five. Thus the Sisters of S. Vincent de Paul only form a portion of those dedicated to this work.

Friday, Aug. 11.—I copied the rest of the account of the cure which happened to the novice at the Rue du Bac. The Sisters asked me if I had seen the child who was cured of blindness. I said I had, and that she seemed to me of very limited intelligence, and extremely simple. One of them answered, "Yes; I asked her what she thought when she recovered her sight, to which she replied, 'C'était drôle à voir.'" While I was sitting among a number of the Sisters of Charity transcribing the account, their great cheerfulness—one might almost call it merriment—of tone was remarkable; they were those engaged in the general management of the house at the Secrétariat. There is something too in their faces which indicates inward peace. They look happy. I took the opportunity of reading the pastoral letter of the Abbé Etienne, their superior general, in which the account of the cures was contained. It was written to encourage them amid the unsettled state of public affairs. He reminded them that the Revolution of 1830 opened with a much more threatening aspect towards religion; and yet the period of eighteen years which they had since passed through had been one of unexampled progress and prosperity to their Institution. {311} The times in which their founder S. Vincent de Paul lived were likewise most unsettled, but he only saw in that a larger opportunity for charitable exertions; he had promised his children, that so long as they were faithful to their rules the Divine protection should never fail them, and God had, beyond doubt, granted these two miraculous cures to the intercessions of S. Vincent at the opening of another momentous crisis to assure them that their Saint had not lost his power with God. He felt the greatest confidence in their zeal and charity and spirit of union, which made his own task light. Before leaving the house I visited their chapel again, which has to me a peculiar interest, on account of what is said to have taken place there.

I here insert the account of the cures, which I copied from the original, and the attestations, which I procured from the two surgeons who had treated the several cases. The superior-general thus introduces the mention of these two cures:—"This is not all, my very dear Sisters. At a time when, perhaps, yet greater trials are in store for the Church and for us, and when, perhaps, likewise, yet greater mercies are to reward our faith, God has thought fit to set, as it were, the seal of His Omnipotence on our confidence, and to show by prodigies all the power of S. Vincent's protection at the throne of Divine Goodness. Two astonishing cures have taken place {312} this year before the shrine of S. Vincent, during the 'neuvaine' of the translation of his relics. I do not qualify them as miracles, because the ecclesiastical authority alone has the power so to term them. But my heart feels the need of bringing to your knowledge the details concerning them, because I know all the joy and edification which you will experience in them, and how proper you will esteem them to encourage you to draw closer the ties which bind you to your holy calling, and to lead you to appreciate the designs of God for our two families, if we are faithful in corresponding to them. I shall preface the account of each healing by the certificate of the medical man, which sets forth the state of the patient at the moment when it took place."

"Attestation du chirurgien sur la maladie de la sœur Marie Javelle.

"Le 2 Mai 1848 j'ai été appelé au couvent de la rue du Bac, n^o 132, pour la sœur Marie Javelle, âgée de 24 ans, que j'ai trouvée couchée, ayant la tête inclinée sur l'épaule gauche, qu'elle touchait presque, avec raideur des muscles du cou, impossibilité de la ramener à sa position naturelle, et douleur vive, augmentée par les moindres mouvements. On m'apprit que cet état avait été la suite immédiate d'un coup violent, porté par mégarde sur la tempe droite.

{313} "M. Lenoir, chirurgien de l'hôpital Necker, vit cette malade avec moi le lendemain 3 Mai. Sans rejeter la possibilité d'un simple torticolis, nous eûmes, ensemble, la pensée d'un déplacement d'une apophyse articulaire du côté gauche de l'une des dernières vertèbres cervicales.

"Le danger de la réduction de ces déplacements, que nous fîmes connaître à la supérieure, l'absence jusqu'ici d'accidents graves, nous déterminèrent à nous borner à l'application des moyens propres à calmer la contraction des muscles du cou.

"Les jours suivants, les accidents augmentèrent. Il survint de la fièvre, la tête s'inclina davantage sur l'épaule; la malade eut de la peine à boire, ce dont je m'assurai en lui voyant avaler, par saccades convulsives, quelques gorgées de liquide. Le bras gauche devint douloureux jusqu'à la main, dont le contact retentissait péniblement jusqu'au cou; il était dans une extension continuelle, avec raideur tétanique qui ne me permit point de le changer de place. Le membre inférieur gauche, d'abord engourdi à sa partie supérieure, présenta aussi de la raideur.

"La respiration était un peu gênée. Les facultés intellectuelles conservaient leur pleine intégrité. Les choses étaient dans cet état le 8 Mai, à sept heures et demie du matin. Nous avions exprimé des craintes plus graves que les jours précédents. La supérieure {314} n'avait pas osé permettre des tentatives de réduction dont nous avions annoncé les conséquences possibles, auxquelles la malade, bien résignée, se serait prêtée volontiers.

"Le 9 Mai, à sept heures et demie du matin, sans aucune manœuvre chirurgicale qui soit à ma connaissance, j'ai vu dans le cabinet de la sœur Buchepot (première directrice du noviciat de la communauté) la jeune sœur Marie Javelle, debout, marchant facilement, portant sans effort sa main sur sa tête, celle-ci revenue à sa rectitude naturelle, le cou ayant repris sa forme, sa souplesse, et exécutant tous les mouvements.

"Paris, le 10 Mai, 1848."

Having forwarded my copy of the above to M. Hervey de Chegoin, he returned it to me, with the following attestation, written at the end:—

"Je certifie cette copie conforme au procès-verbal que j'ai avéré de la maladie de la sœur Marie Javelle.

""Hervey de Chegoin,
"Médecin des hôpitaux, &c."

Accompanying it with the following note:—

"Monsieur, j'ai signé bien volontiers la copie que vous m'avez adressée: elle est aussi exacte que le procès-verbal lui-même est l'expression de la vérité dans l'exposé des symptômes pendant huit jours, et {315} de leur disparition subite et complète après la circonstance qui l'a précédée.

"J'ai l'honneur d'être,
"Monsieur,

"Votre très obéissant serviteur,  
"Hervey de Chegoin.

"31 Juillet, 1848."

The relation of the cure itself is as follows:—

"Detailed relation of the healing of the Sister Marie Javelle.

"The Sister Marie Javelle, twenty-four years of age, after having proposed three months at S. Stephen, entered into the community of the Daughters of Charity, Feb. 17. 1848. Having been appointed to nurse in one of the infirmaries on the night of 30th April to 1st May, in supporting a patient who fell back on her head, she twisted her neck, and so considerable a derangement took place, that it continued in that position. The next day inflammation ensued, and the surgeons called in were themselves alarmed at the gravity of the accident. Before attempting an operation as dangerous as the injury, and which, touching the spinal marrow, might cause instant death, all remedies were tried, but to no purpose. The nerves contracted, the head became stiffly fixed on the shoulders, presently the arm and {316} left leg became paralysed, and the pains so violent, that at times the patient feared not being able to bear them. All her hope was in God: she begged of him courage, resigned herself to His will, and besought much the Blessed Virgin, whom she tenderly loves, and who has already given her special marks of protection. At length came Sunday, 7th May, day on which commenced the 'neuvaine' of the translation of S. Vincent de Paul. That day she had the consolation of communicating in bed, with a morsel of the Host, for her throat being twisted, she joined to her other sufferings that of not being able to swallow more than some drops of water, and that with incredible effort and pain. She expressed a desire to make, in union with the Seminary, a 'neuvaine' to S. Vincent to obtain a cure. On Monday the surgeon declared, that he had no hope but in the success of the operation, and dangerous as it was he pressed it. It was thought requisite to speak plainly to the patient, and tell her, that she would either be healed by means of the operation, or remain an invalid all her life, asking her which she preferred. I shall be composed, she replied, in doing the will of my Superiors, being assured that I am doing that of God. However, it was resolved to finish the 'neuvaine' before attempting anything. Sister Mazin, our most honoured mother, had sent her before a morsel of the waistcoat of our blessed {317} Father S. Vincent. In the night of the 7th to 8th May the patient had the strange fancy to swallow a morsel of this. Not venturing to do it without speaking, she waited till the morning, when, by help of a little water, she swallowed some threads. Scarcely had she done so, when she felt the most perfect conviction that she should not die, and that she should obtain her cure by the intercession of S. Vincent. At one in the afternoon, seeing near her one of the directresses of the seminary, she told her, that could she see the Saint's shrine, and touch it, she should be immediately cured. It was observed to her that this latter was impossible; but she so urged the former, that we were touched by it, and endeavoured from that time to find means to satisfy her keen desire. With the consent of our excellent superiors, a litter was procured; it was arranged as well as we could: and after passing a whole hour in dressing her suitably, at four in the morning on Tuesday, 9th May, she was put on the litter, and the dangerous passage from our house to the chapel of S. Vincent de Paul was undertaken. She was accompanied by the Sister Azais, Sister Girardot, second and third directresses of the seminary, Sister Martha Velay, formerly mother of the seminary, Sister Boscredon, employed in the seminary, Sister Bonneau, third infirmière, who had herself attended on the young patient, by Dominic Belyn, called {318} Louis, and John Scipio, called Baptist, both servants of the house, who carried the litter. During the passage the patient suffered much. In spite of herself complaints escaped her, and especially when the litter was set down in the church she felt so keen a pain that a cry burst from her. The moment she perceived the Saint's shrine, she looked at it with the most lively confidence, and felt an extraordinary movement in her person. At the beginning of Mass she felt inclined to join her hands; in fact, her left arm recovered the necessary strength, and her hand reached the other again. At the Gospel a movement like her first caused her to take her head with her hands, and turn it without difficulty to the other side. At the elevation of the Mass, Sister Azais, who was near her, told her to try and rise; she made the attempt, but was unable, and answered, that it was not yet time. She had continued to suffer much up to this point. At length the Communion was brought her. Her throat was so closed, that she felt a great pain, but this was the last. Some minutes afterwards she came down readily from the litter, unassisted by any one. After this Mass she heard, as a thanksgiving, that of M. Etienne, our superior general,—came back on foot, and from that day, far from preserving the least feeling of her injury, she is better than she ever was. This is attested by the sister on whom the miracle has taken {319} effect, who has signed the present act, as have the witnesses named above.

"Marie Azais, Cecile Girardot, Marie Javelle, Marthe Velay, Justine Boscredon, Josephine Bonneau, Dominique Belyn, and Jean Scipion.

Note. "It is well to observe that, on the 2nd of May, the surgeon of the house, M. Hervé de Chegoin, was called in alone to see Sister Marie Javelle, and the case appeared to him so grave, that, not liking the single responsibility of it, he begged to join a colleague, whom he brought the next day.

"The 8th of May, the last day on which M. Hervé had seen her before her cure, he had found her so ill that, on the morrow, when he was told that Sister Javelle had no further need of his services, he asked if she was dead.

"The young sisters, then composing the seminary, begged that their names should be joined to this act, to attest its truth, and to put themselves in a special manner under the protection of S. Vincent. This writing being to be inclosed in a silver gilt heart joined by a chain of the same to a head in silver gilt likewise, the whole has been put into the hands of our most honoured father, M. Etienne, to be deposed on the shrine of the saint."

The second case is as follows:—

{320} "Attestation du Médecin sur la Maladie de Madlle. Céleste l'Allemand.

"Je soussigné, médecin, demeurant à Paris, Rue Mouffetard, 94., certifie que la nommée Marie Céleste l'Allemand, agée de quatorze ans, native de Jussy, département de la Haute Saône, résidant actuellement à Paris, Rue de l'Arbalette, 25., dans l'Ouvroir des Jeunes Economes, a été traitée par moi, puis par M. Sichel, pendant environ huit mois, pour une amaurose complète; et que les divers traitements employés, tant par moi que par mon confrère, n'ont nullement amélioré la position de cette jeune personne, quoiqu'ils aient varié à l'infini depuis le mois d'Octobre dernier jusqu'au mois d'Avril, où elle a cessé tout traitement."

"Signé, Fernet, D. M.

"Paris, 23. Mai, 1848."

"Relation of the Miraculous cure of a Child of Mary, de l'Ouvroir des Jeunes Economes.

"We, the undersigned children de l'Ouvroir des Jeunes Economes, established at Paris, Rue de l'Arbalette, 25., certify the truth of the following details of the sudden cure of one of our dear companions, named Céleste l'Allemand, child of Mary, of our ouvroir. This companion, aged fourteen, had entirely {321} lost her sight from the month of September, 1847. Six medical men, successively called in to attend on her, had exhausted all the resources of their art upon her without obtaining the least result. They had declared that the optical nerves of our young companion were paralysed, and that she was struck with a complete amaurosis; consequently all medical treatment had ceased since last April.

"Painfully affected at this sad state of our companion, we resolved to consecrate to Mary the month of May, then beginning, in the intention of obtaining her cure by the intercession of the most holy Virgin. From the 1st of May our young companion went to pray every day before the altar of Mary, with the firm confidence that the immaculate Mary would restore her sight before the end of her favourite month. But on the 9th of May, the news of the striking cure worked on a young sister of the seminary of the Daughters of Charity, by the intercession of S. Vincent de Paul, and before his relics, exposed in the chapel of the Priests of the Mission on the occasion of the 'neuvaine,' celebrated yearly in honour of the translation of his body, suggested to us the desire to recommend our young companion to this great saint. Permission was granted to Céleste l'Allemand to go to pray before the relics of S. Vincent de Paul. It was Friday, 12th May, on which she went to the chapel of the Lazarists, Rue de {322} Sèvres, 95., accompanied by two of our mistresses, Sister Dumargat and Sister Desbré. We were all fully convinced that she would obtain her cure by the intercession of Mary, our good [mother], and S. Vincent. Not being able to accompany Céleste to the chapel of S. Vincent, we heard the holy Mass in the chapel of our house, uniting ourselves to her in heart and spirit. As to our companion, she heard a Mass celebrated at a quarter-past-six, before the altar of the holy Virgin in the chapel of the Lazarists, and received there the Holy Communion. At the moment she received our Lord, her sight was suddenly restored to her; and a violent pain in the head, which she had felt from the moment of her loss of sight, disappeared at the same time. The sister who accompanied her, ignorant of what had taken place in her, took her by the hand again, after the Holy Communion, to reconduct her to her place. Our young companion, fearing to disturb her in her thanksgiving, let her do so without informing her what had happened to her. But a quarter of an hour afterwards she made known to her her happiness; and to prove to her the reality of her complete cure, she changed her position herself, and named to her different surrounding objects, which she perfectly distinguished. After having heard a Mass of thanksgiving, she hastened to return to us, to make known to us her happiness. Though we expected to see {323} her return healed, on account of the greatness and simplicity of her faith, a lively joy and gladness broke forth not the less in all the house on her arrival. It was who should see her first, to congratulate her on the signal favour of which she had just become the object. After this first explosion of our gladness, we assembled to chant in choir the Magnificat, during which tears of joy streamed from our eyes: then we went to the chapel to sing the Te Deum and the Regina Cœli. Immediately after, Céleste wrote with her own hand a letter to her parents to inform them of her miraculous cure.

"Our young companion having been presented to M. Aladel, our good director, was named by him Marie Vincent, in gratitude for her cure, obtained at the altar of the Most Holy Virgin, in the chapel of S. Vincent, before his relics exposed.

"From the day of her cure, Céleste has resumed all her ordinary occupations, which she had been forced to interrupt during nine months: she reads, writes, and works at her needle with the same ease as she did before her eyes were attacked.

"Paris, 30. May, 1848."

M. Fernet attached to this paper, which I gave him to read, the following:—

"Je soussigné, Docteur Médecin, demeurant Rue Mouffetard, 94., certifie la jeune Marie Céleste {324} L'Allemand a été revue par moi quelques jours après la guérison, et que je me suis assuré que la vue était entièrement rétablie.

"Fernet.

"Paris, ce 1^er Août, 1848."

After giving these two accounts, the Superior General, M. Etienne, thus continues his pastoral letter:—

"In presence of these facts, my very dear sisters, I am induced to remind you, that S. Vincent considered as a visible sign of the protection of heaven over your company the altogether wonderful manner in which one of his first daughters came out safe and sound from the midst of the ruins of a house in which she was, and which, in falling, had buried forty persons, who there perished. This fact was, in his eyes, a sensible proof that God had taken pleasure in his rising work, and reserved for it a comfortable future. It seems to me that if he were to speak to you himself to-day of the two cures which I have just been relating to you, he would not fail to point them out to you as testimonies of the designs of divine providence with regard to you, and as motives which should reassure you against all the fears that the disturbances of social order may inspire. Would he not say to you, as he said then, that your company being the work of God, in like manner as He has {325} known how to raise it up in His compassion for the poor, so will He well know how to sustain it in the moment of trial, and to preserve it from every unfortunate event which might threaten its existence. I confess to you that at the sight of these signs of his protection, at a time which has so many points of resemblance with that in which he lived, I cannot avoid seeing the same career of charity which he so gloriously passed through open afresh before you. * *

"As a thanksgiving for the two miraculous cures worked on the 9th and 12th of last May before the shrine of S. Vincent, a general communion shall take place in each house on the day fixed by the Sister serving it."

In concluding this subject I must add that I by no means sought for such facts as these cures—they came in my way while engaged in other inquiries: I did not think it fit or honest to turn away from them so coming, but endeavoured to ascertain the truth by every means in my power. I now set them forth with the evidence which I was able to collect about them. I am also bound to say that, since I have come to the knowledge of these cures, I have been informed, on the best authority, of two results, approaching at least to the same miraculous character, following immediately from the reception of our Lord in the Holy Eucharist. These occurred very lately in the Anglican communion.

{326} Saturday, August 12.—I had heard so much of the grandeur of Bourges Cathedral, and the beauty of its windows, that I determined to judge for myself. So this morning left by the 8 A.M. train for Orléans and Bourges. Up to Etampes the country is pleasing and broken in parts. From thence to the forest of Orléans is an immense plain, rich in produce, but treeless, dull, and flat as a pancake. From Orléans to Vierzon is another immense plain, desert, sandy, and solitary; after this the country improves to Bourges. Visited the cathedral at Orléans: the western front is fine, well arranged, and forming a somewhat striking unity; but the interior is bare, poor, and most displeasing to the eye, which is pained at so bad an imitation of Gothic. As soon as I reached Bourges I went to the cathedral: the west front, in spite of its five deeply recessed portals, the central one of which is very beautiful, sadly disappointed me—it is totally deficient in unity, and will bear no comparison with that of Amiens, not to mention Reims. The towers are positively ugly; the worst effect being produced by buttresses, which protrude in the most inelegant shape, their strength not at all veiled by ornaments. The interior is very grand: it is peculiar in having no transept, but double aisles continued throughout, the nearest of which to the centre is of inordinate height. Round the choir the huge lancet windows, crowned with {327} roses, are of great beauty; but unfortunately they are not complete, as at Chartres, with the effect of which I do not think Bourges will bear a comparison. The pillars, of which there are twelve on each side from the west front to the apse of the choir, are cylinders with eight engaged columns; they look lighter than those of Amiens and Reims, and very lofty from the height of the first aisle, which must be seventy feet, and has a triforium like the centre. Grand, however, as Bourges is in some respects, I should not put it in the first rank of churches, with Amiens, Milan, Cologne, Reims, and St. Ouen. It is in the first style, like Chartres. The apse has none of the magic lightness of Amiens, Cologne, or St. Ouen. From the north tower is an immense view over the country, which has some eminences, but not strongly marked features.

In the streets nothing but soldiers or national guards are to be seen. It would appear that the purpose for which men are sent into the world is to bear arms. There could not be a heavier condemnation of the Republic than the outward aspect of society. There was, however, a special cause for this. Three hundred, I believe, of the national guard at Paris had come to visit their brethren at Bourges, and were to be entertained at dinner the next day in the garden of the archevêché, on which the state, with its usual insulting dealing towards the Church, {328} has laid its hands from the time of the first revolution. So likewise, it has robbed the church at Bourges of the grand séminaire, an immense building, and turned it into barracks.

Sunday, August 13.—Was at a Low Mass and part of the High Mass in the cathedral. A great number of soldiers, guards, and country people enter in, and lounge and sit about, without a very religious demeanour. Called at one at the Séminaire, with a letter for the Supérieur, M. l'Abbé Ruel. He talked with me some time, and then sent one of the séminarists and a priest to show me about Bourges. He inquired of the state of things in England; our studies at Oxford. I lamented our state of separation: if the religious feeling of England were united with the Roman Church, the world might be converted. In any case, the state of separation itself was most disastrous to both sides; it wasted the life of the Church. If the truth was altogether with them, as they asserted, then, of course, our loss was fatal indeed; but even then the Roman Church in the loss of England had suffered her right hand to be cut off. Whether we were with her or against her would make all the difference in her conflict with the world. He assented, and observed that England had been the island of saints. I afterwards remarked that my attention had been particularly drawn to the Roman Primacy. He said the disputes as to the {329} Gallican liberties had fallen to the ground; but I thought he intimated that the Gallican feeling was not extinct. Whatever the theory might be, the sway of the Roman See was, in reality, very gentle. It felt its way beforehand, and only acted according to the spirit of the Church. I said my great difficulty was, that all history was for Gallicanism, while the Ultramontane theory was evidently the only entire and consistent one, which would bear out all the acts of Rome. I asked if the revolution had produced any change at Bourges. He said, none at all. Louis Philippe had fallen because he had sunk into general contempt—he had become esteemed "un homme d'argent." The priest and séminariste conducted me to the house in which Louis XI. is said to have been born, but the present walls are evidently of the Renaissance. It is occupied by a small sisterhood. We went also through the Hotel de Ville, the house of Jacques Cœur, and to the cathedral. There is a very fine crypt under the choir and its aisles. Bourges has little interesting save its Cathedral. The climate is damp and unhealthy, from the marshes near. I left by the last train in the evening, at eight o'clock, and slept at Orleans.

Monday, August 14.—Left Orleans at 7, Paris by 11. Left it at 7 for Amiens: we went through a most violent thunder storm about half way.

{330} Tuesday, August 15.—At the cathedral during part of one High Mass, and the whole of the second, when the bishop officiated pontifically, and gave afterwards the Papal Benediction. It was nearly full of people. I never felt the superiority of this building more than to-day; the interior is pre-eminent for unity, simplicity, and grandeur. I was sorry to miss the vespers and sermon at three; but I left to reach Boulogne in time for the packet, and got to Folkstone shortly after eleven.

{331}

CONCLUSION.

There are certain doctrines in the Roman Catholic Church, which are brought into such prominence in practice, and are in their own nature so very powerful, that they make that faith appear in its actual exercise quite another thing from the faith prevailing among ourselves, although there be really no essential difference between the true mind of the English, and that of the Roman Church. I say the true mind, that which forms the basis of the Prayer Book; that of which the Prayer Book faithfully carried out would be the verbal developement. Whether the true ἠθος of the English Church will ever prevail actually within her, cast out the puritan virus, and collect and animate the whole body of Catholic truth which her formularies still contain, remains yet to be seen.

In the meantime I am greatly struck with the power exercised in the Roman Church by the great dogma of the Real Presence. It is the centre and life of the whole. It is the secret support of the priest's painful self-denying mission; by it mainly the religious orders maintain themselves; the warmest, deepest, lowliest, most triumphant and enraptured {332} feelings surround it: the nun that adores in silence for hours together, one from the other taking up that solitary awful watch in the immediate presence of the King of Kings; the crowd of worshippers that kneel at the blessed yet fearful moment when earth and heaven are united by the coming down of the mystical Bridegroom into the tabernacle of His Church; the pious soul that not once or twice but many times during the day humbles itself before Him; the congregations which close the day by their direct homage to Him, as present to the three-fold nature of man, body, soul, and spirit; all these attest the deep practical import which the dogma of the Real Presence exerts on the Catholic mind. Are not their churches holier to the believing soul, than was the temple of Jerusalem when the visible glory of the Lord descended on it? For does not the single lamp burning before the shrine indicate a Presence inexpressibly more condescending, gracious, and exalting to man? In Catholic countries the offering of direct adoration, the contemplation of the mind absorbed in the abyss of the Incarnation, never ceases one instant of the day or night. It is the response of the redeemed heart for ever making to Him, "Who when He took upon Him to deliver man did not abhor the Virgin's womb." When I contrast this with—what is still too common in this country, though happily growing less so daily—the beggarly deal or oak table {333} covered with worm-eaten cloth, or left bare in its misery—with the deserted or pew-encumbered chancel, from which every feeling of reverence seems for ages to have departed—or with the pert enclosure domineered over by reading-desk and pulpit, and commanded all round by galleries: and on which, perhaps once a month, the highest mystery of the faith is commemorated among us, I do not wonder at the Roman Catholic, who regards the English Church as a sheer apostacy, a recoil from all that is controlling, ennobling, and transcendental in faith to a blank gulf of unbelief.

The very existence of the Roman priest, the compensation for all he does or suffers, depends on that half-hour of the day when he meets his Lord. What an inexpressible privilege to have been preserved to, nay, almost enjoined upon, all her ministers. And how could the monk and the nun live but on the continual food of the Holy Eucharist, and the steadfast contemplation of the Incarnation? England has banished the monk and the nun, and popularly, in spite of her formularies, accounts the priesthood more than half a heresy; she has no provision among her institutions for the Christian Brother and the Sister of Charity, though her poor are perishing for lack of the bread of heaven, and her sick dying in uninstructed heathenism, and her young carried about with every blast of doctrine, ever learning {334} and never coming to the knowledge of the truth. And together with those self-denying orders, which bear witness to the exuberant life welling forth out of the depth of the Church of Christ, England has banished the dogma of the Real Presence, not indeed from her theory, but still from being that vital and pervading practical truth which should animate and reward the labours of every day, and turn into consolation all the sorrows of humanity.

O that the Spirit of God might breathe the life of every day's practical action into those ancient Catholic formularies which are at present a reproach to our degeneracy! O that our deep and large chancels of old time, the figure of our buried Lord's sepulchre, might once more be the Bridechamber, where the risen Saviour descending should hold daily communing with His Church!

Most intimately connected with the dogma of the Incarnation, and its symbol, the Real Presence, is that of the Intercession of all Saints, especially of the Blessed Mother of God: nay, this may be said to be the continuation and carrying out of the Real Presence, so that wherever that is truly and heartfully believed, this will be, within due bounds, cherished and practised. For the truth that our Lord has assumed our flesh, and communicates that flesh to His true believers, leads directly to the faith that they who are departed and at rest with Him, {335} and delivered from all stain of sin, do indeed "live and reign" with Him, and have power with God. And if this be true of the least saint, who by the mercy of God has been thought worthy of the Beatific Presence, in how much higher a degree is it true of Her, to whom by the assumption of her pure flesh Christ was brought so inconceivably near? And shall not we who are engaged in so weary a conflict call upon all saints, and Her especially, to aid and befriend us? "O ye spirits and souls of the righteous, bless ye the Lord, praise Him and magnify Him for ever!" Yea, praise Him, and magnify Him, by praying and interceding for us, who, high as ye are, and low as we, you exalted to glory, and we buffeted by the flesh, and led into error in the spirit, are yet your brethren by virtue of the Flesh and Blood of the Incarnate God, which made you what you are, which is the earnest to us of being one day what you are. Praise and magnify the common Lord who bought us, by supplicating larger supplies of His grace on us His suffering members. And may not we ask you, who dwell in sight of the Eternal Throne, but who once, like ourselves, bore the burden and heat of the day in this earthly wilderness, may we not ask you to turn your regards on us, to intercede for us before Him, whose members you are in glory, and we in trial? Of the redeemed family one part is with God and one on earth. Is {336} there to be no communion between them, when one part most needs the aid of the other? Is this derogating from the glory of Christ? What a strange perversion of error which can so esteem it! Surely it is a sense, a spiritual touch, as it were, of the "cloud of witnesses," which inspirits Catholic hearts to win the battle, which enables the most lonely to feel that he is not alone, that he is encompassed and aided by heavenly hosts. Accordingly the intercession of saints, especially of the Blessed Virgin Mother, is a living truth in Catholic countries: it accompanies the doctrine of the Real Presence, and works in subservience to it. Doubtless where the former is not vividly held, the latter will be repudiated, and, perhaps, counted idolatrous. It would, indeed, be wholly out of proportion with the cold creed of the Unitarian or the Sectary: it might lead those to fall down and worship at the feet of a servant who did not behold in that servant the one image of the Lord, the seal and impress of the only Begotten, which claims all glory for the Lord of glory.

And a concomitant of the true doctrine of the priesthood is that system of confession which is the nerve and sinew of religion in Catholic countries. The English prayer-book says of every individual priest, "whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained." Here is the whole Catholic doctrine stated. {337} Now this the Roman Church not only says, but acts upon. And its strength lies, accordingly, not in anything that meets the eye, gorgeous cope, or chasuble, or procession, or majestic ceremonies symbolising awful doctrines; not in anything that meets the ear, whether chanted psalm, or litany, or sermon touching the feelings, or subduing the understanding; though all these it has, its strength lies deeper in the hidden tribunal of conscience. The good Christian is not he who attends mass or sermon, but he who keeps his conscience clean from the attacks of sin, who, overtaken in a fault, has straightway indignation upon himself, and submits himself to the discipline which Christ has appointed for restoring him. The efficacy of the pastor must entirely depend on the knowledge of his people's state, and his power to correct their sins, and to guide them in their penitence. How he can possibly have this knowledge, or power, or guide them at all without special confession, I see not: nor how he can ever exercise the power conveyed to him at his ordination, and lodged by Christ in His Church for ever. This is the true bond between the pastor and his flock: the true maintainer of discipline, and instrument of restoration. Accordingly, in Catholic countries, we see the priest truly respected, cherished, and obeyed by his flock, however much he may earn the dislike and suspicion of the worldly and unconverted: in Protestant {338} countries we see the pastoral office a nonentity; the shepherd of his flock is virtually a preacher of sermons. He knows the plague is ravaging them, but they will not bear the touch of his hand: he must see them perish one by one, but they will not let him help them: when mortification has begun, then he is called in to witness a hopeless dissolution, or to speak peace, peace, where there is no peace.

The dogma of the Incarnation and the Real Presence has again the closest affinity with that of the Priesthood. Christ is present in His Church, for the Priest in the tribunal of penitence is as God Himself. How vain, how worse than blasphemous, would be the attempt to absolve from sin,—surely the maddest infringement of Divine Power which mortal ever imagined,—had not He, the partner of our flesh and blood, said, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them, and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained;" and "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." No blasphemy can approach the Church's blasphemy, if it be not God's truth; and if it be, so deeply touching the secret springs of discipline, in what state is a branch of the Church of Christ, which utterly neglects this truth in practice, and allows it with impunity to be denied, and derided, and calumniated? Whose children from their infancy have scarcely ever heard it? Whose full-grown {339} men turn from it in all the hardness of rebellious manhood? And if it be what it is, either a Divine Power, or a diabolic deceit, can that be at once the Gospel, which has it and which has it not?

Here then, again, we have no new thing to take up with, but simply to practise what we already solemnly profess.

Thus the perpetual recurrence to the doctrine of the Real Presence, the prominence given to the Intercession of Saints, especially of the Blessed Virgin, and the real putting forth of apostolic power in the tribunal of penitence, are striking features in the Roman Communion. By these she proves that she has living power as a portion of Christ's Church, by living upon and dealing with the most awful powers: as she holds the true doctrine, "Believe that this is so, because I say it, and I say it because it has come to me from Christ through His Apostles," so she exhibits the convincing proof of her mission: "Believe that I am the Church, for behold me exercising the supernatural powers of the Church." This is that inward proof which convinces, which is nothing technical, merely intellectual, or matter of argument, but like St. Augustine's "Securè judicat orbis terrarum,"—"A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid." And the Anglican portion must prove, in act as well as in theory, her identity with this of Rome, from whom she has her succession, and with {340} that other great Oriental Communion, the joint-witness herein of Catholic truth and practice. Her prayer-book has the deepest accordance with the Catholic system. Will she in act continue to put a false interpretation on the words of her own formularies, or will she read them practically in the sense of those from whom she took them?

Among minor things, which yet we have suffered loss and harm in giving up, may be reckoned the custom of crossing with holy water on entering a church, with hearts as directed, full of reverend thoughts, and of "trust in the merits of Jesus Christ," and the custom of bowing on passing the altar. It is sad to contrast the manner in which English abroad and at home enter the House of God with the reverence shown by the right-minded in Catholic communities. A still more to be regretted omission is that of the Crucifix, which might, with much edification, appear prominently at least in one part of the church, over the rood-screen or over the altar. How often, in France or Italy, passing some retired village, or at a turn in the road, may one admire a Crucifix, large as life, sanctifying the village green, or making a shrine of some leafy recess? How often does the tedious ascent of a hill bring to mind, by its wayside memorials, the hill of scorn up which He, our only hope, slowly toiled in suffering? Is it not a tenderness to the tired wayfaring man to bring before his {341} thoughts the very form of Him in whom all labour is made sweet? Who that has climbed the rocky stairs of the S. Gothard pass has not felt refreshed and inspirited by the Cross crowning the heights which look down on the last valley of the Italian side? As the way before him becomes narrower and steeper, frowning in arid desolation, and shut in as it seems on all sides, that Cross is to Christian thought a sign and token, that through the sternest valley and up the hardest height there is yet a way, though we see not our path before us. In faith the traveller goes on till height after height is won, and terrace after terrace surmounted, and the one road opens before him. Shall then the English labourer, doomed beyond most others to be a hewer of wood and drawer of water, be deprived of the aid of those symbols which shall tell him that this too may be made the way of salvation? Has his duller eye and less imaginative thought less need of the painting and the sculpture to inform them? Has he become more reverential since remembrances of his Saviour have been put out of his sight? Does his bearing in the House of God show a more chastened and humbled spirit of contrition since the Rood has been taken from before his eyes on which the God-Man was portrayed in suffering? What!—are those who deem it almost the whole of religion to put forward continually the sacrifice of the Cross, consistent in removing {342} carefully out of sight the visible representation of that sacrifice? Is every memorial of our redemption to be scrupulously swept away from the face of the country?—nay, even from the interior of our churches? Out upon that detestable puritanism, devoid alike of heart and imagination, which has so successfully laboured to take away from England—once pre-eminently the isle of faith and love—every outward characteristic of a Christian land. I am, with shame, obliged to feel and confess that a pious Roman Catholic, coming to England, so far from being touched by the purity of our faith, or the warmth of our love, would probably be shocked at every step by a subtle irreverence, which has affected our whole tone of thought and mode of action in holy things. It is become the atmosphere which we breathe, by which even the instinct of the true Christian mind is so deadened, that it cannot be aware, without going out of it, how much we have lost

On the other hand, there are parts of the Roman discipline which have struck me very unfavourably. First, the employment of the Latin language in all the administration of sacraments, and in most of the public services. That in the middle ages, before modern languages had attained order, consistency, and beauty, and while they still appeared mere hewings of Latin by the barbaric sword, ecclesiastics {343} should have been unwilling to desecrate, as it were, so solemn a service as the Mass, by rendering it into misshapen ever-changing sounds, I can well conceive. But this state of things has long passed away: nor can I imagine how a devout population can endure to have the Psalms of David chanted, and the most holy and most beautiful form of words which ever was put together, recited in a tongue they understand not. Even those who can fully enter into the stateliness and imperishable beauty of the Latin tongue must surely feel it a grievous disadvantage, that devotions, which should carry the whole heart with them, are not presented through the medium of that mother tongue, the accents of which speak to every man's heart by the force of a thousand nameless associations, as those of no other tongue can. How, indeed, in country parishes, where there is little music, interest can be kept up in the services, I do not understand. It is true the Sacrifice of the Mass does not depend on the language by enunciating which it is consummated; but was that sublime harmony of thoughts and words the most elevating intended to be inaudible? For even at a Low Mass, when I had the book before me, and the officiating priest at the distance of ten feet, the whole Canon of the Mass was inaudible. In a chanted Mass it is out of the question distinguishing any words. I should feel this more than I can express. Besides that {344} it gives scoffers the pretext of saying that the Roman Church aims at making her services a mere spectacle, or mainly a spectacle,—an infamous calumny indeed, but which this unhappy locking up her praises and prayers in the Latin tongue tends to substantiate. Sure I am that if the Anglo-German race be ever restored to the communion of the Latin Church, as I fervently pray that mercy may be reserved for them by God, this custom as regards them must be changed. It is a matter of discipline, merely, of course; or, whatever I might be tempted to think of it, I should not so speak.

Again the reservation of the cup to the sacrificing priest, an admitted innovation and exercise of authority, is one for which I can see no adequate reason. And though the doctrine of concomitancy seems involved in that of the Real Presence, and I, for one, should recoil with horror from the thought that almost every one in the Latin Communion has been for ages deprived of the participation of the chief Sacrament, and though one may allow that this custom was very prevalent before it was enacted, and arose out of reverence, and renders the administration of the Sacrament much easier, still I cannot reconcile myself to the necessity of it. Granting that power exists in the Church to order it in case of necessity, wherein lies that necessity? In case of a reconciliation this point must surely be granted, as {345} it was granted to the grand Duke of Bavaria, though he was induced not to avail himself of the grant.

Preachers in the Roman Church use no book: it seems the people would not tolerate a written discourse. The result is, that sermons are much more rhetorical, and rather appeal to the affections and feelings than to the understanding. The French mind certainly would not endure the sort of cut and dried essay which is often given in England; yet an appreciation of logical order and sound reasoning is the very characteristic of the French mind. More southern nations would still less enter into the style of preaching in vogue with ourselves. I think it is a grave question whether the faculty of expressing one's thoughts in public without book should not be made a part of every priest's education. The ancient Fathers all did so. Is not our own the only portion of the Church where a contrary practice prevails? And dangerous as it would be for the generality of Anglican priests to attempt to speak on grave points of doctrine without their book before them, yet surely by a special education the power may be acquired to combine accuracy of thought with readiness of expression. Orthodoxy has no natural connexion with a written sermon. At least the power of illustrating any given subject without book is a precious means of influence. And what is the priest without influence?

{346} No more interesting spectacle is there in the world, to my eyes, than the aspect and attitude of the French Church. Fifty years after such an overthrow as no other Church ever survived, behold forty thousand priests at work, under eighty bishops, in the great task of winning back their country to the faith. Despoiled of all territorial power, of all political authority as priests, of the possession even in fee of a single church, parsonage, or palace; reduced to a state of even apostolical poverty, and receiving a miserable salary paid as to merchants' clerks by the government; with a temporal power jealous of all spiritual influence, and the whole mind of the nation infected with infidelity—year after year they are winning ground, they are making themselves felt; they present a front before which even the tyranny of centralisation pauses in its career, counts ever and anon the cost of the conflict, and recoils from its aggression. In the very midst of the corruptions of Paris we are told that fifty thousand converts, the pure gold of the Church, exist as a centre which is ever drawing more around them. Infidelity itself talks of the religious movement, and fears it, and would fain expel its most tried and valorous champions—two hundred destitute men, who begin their profession by the renunciation of their goods. How is all this done? What power is this which makes its way against such tremendous odds? If any fact {347} was ever patent in history, it is this—let us not be ashamed to own it—it is the power of the Cross. The bishop, residing in a palace which he has not the funds even to keep in repair, with a smaller income than a little tradesman or a country attorney, has no other channel for his cares and affections than those five hundred priests, who, with the pay of day-labourers, yet charged with the intimate knowledge and perilous guidance of souls, look up to him as their head and support, their defender and champion. And in every village there is one at least, linked to earth but by a spiritual tie, a member of a great hierarchy, through whom the Redeemer rules visibly on the earth. He is cut off from almost all participation of temporal things, but the larger is his portion of things spiritual: he reflects, in his degree, the true Melchizedek. Removed from us but by a narrow strait we see bishops at 400l. a year, archbishops at 600l., bound to celibacy, truly ruling their clergy, serrying their ranks against the enemy, and fearing nothing, were it but that they have nothing to lose; standing, where the bishop ought to stand, in the first ranks against the attacks of infidelity.

There, again, the priest detached from all human ties, representing in his life already that state where they neither marry nor are given in marriage, in his {348} spiritual character greater than all other men, in his temporal condition lower than most.

Consider now the duties and habits of our own Church, in its present practical working, by the side of this of France. In the one, every bishop and priest offers daily the tremendous Sacrifice. Daily he has to appear in that most awful presence, where nothing unclean can stand: daily he is armed against those spiritual conflicts, for himself and others, which he has to undergo, receiving "the holy Bread of eternal life and the Cup of everlasting salvation." In the other, the priest at rare intervals, in the vast majority of instances only once a month, approaches the Source of life and health. But what is the inward condition under which each approaches it? The one is under complete spiritual guidance, taught, as a first element of spiritual life, that constant and rigorous self-examination must be practised, and for every sin willingly committed after baptism penance be undergone and confession made: the other, left to himself in that work most perilous to human frailty, the conduct of one's own spiritual state; nor, again, that thus left to himself, he can work by a chart in which the hidden shoals are pointed out, and his progress noted. All, on the contrary, in this inward life, so unspeakably important, is left a blank. How can he guide others who has never been taught to guide himself, or submit himself to another's guidance? {349} For as to the duties of the priest, in these two Churches—in the one, the very main duty, which is far more important than all others, is the secret guiding of consciences, laden with guilt and in various degrees of purification: all public ministrations are immensely inferior in importance to this. Whereas in the other Church, it is these public ministrations which alone exist in any degree of efficiency. Not one Anglican priest in a hundred has ever been called to receive a confession, or unfold the terms of reconciliation to a guilty soul. Indeed so much is this the case, that the notion of the priest in most parishes is extinct: it is the minister and the preacher who have taken his place. Again, in the one Church a compact body of doctrine and a line of preaching are set forth in the catechismus ad parochos: in the other, it frequently happens that two adjoining priests are at issue on the very first principles of Christian doctrine; whether, for instance, there be or be not a Christian priesthood; whether there be or be not grace in the sacraments. Again, in the one Church, for the more devoted spirits religious orders and councils of perfection exist, and celibacy is the condition of all superior spiritual vocations; in the other it is yet in practice doubtful, whether councils of perfection are not inventions of the Evil One, and whether the putting forth of celibacy as meritorious be not an infringement of the one Sacrifice offered on the Cross.

{350} Perhaps this contrast might be carried farther, but it is an unpleasant task to show how Anglicanism (meaning by that expression not the real system of the prayer-book, but that which has practically forced its way to a great extent into the pale of the English Church,) is gold largely mingled with earthly alloy. A divine work is at present interfered with by commixture of an heretical element, leaving us only a fervent hope and prayer, that by the long suffering mercy of God a seed may still remain, which in due time by most unambiguous works of love shall prove its identity with the ancient Church of the Island of Saints, and become one fold under one Shepherd.

The work of educating the French clergy is largely in the hands of the Congregation of S. Sulpice, a celibate body of course, and whose members are not paid, but merely clothed and boarded. They necessarily teach one uniform dogma, that is, within that sufficiently wide range of doctrine on which the Church has set her immutable seal. More than this, {351} they impress one uniform sacerdotal mould and type, and exercise one discipline on all committed to them. It results, of course, that all who go forth from them, passing through their various public and private scrutinies, are trained and practised combatants to the extent to which their teaching goes. More yet than this; a severe ascetic and self-denying character is from the beginning attached to the sacerdotal life; they take the Apostle literally, "no man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life;" parents who consent to their children entering into the priesthood think and speak of it as "a sacrifice;" those who look forward to it have it so set before them, and can count the cost before they take the first step. Few situations to which they can afterwards be called require the exercise of greater self-denial than has been expected from them from the first. Does not this point out to us the quarter from which a reform among ourselves must proceed? Surely before the laity can become sound churchmen, the priesthood must be uniformly taught; "the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth." But High Church and Low Church, not to mention the interminable shapes of distinction in individual minds between and beyond them, are utterly incompatible with each other. After the dogma of the Trinity they part company. Until then the Anglican Church teaches her priests {352} an uniform dogma, and moulds them in a severe and uniform discipline, she cannot hope for any other fate, than that her bosom should be rent with interminable heresies and divisions. The existence of the Séminaires, and the order of S. Sulpice, is a reform in the Roman Church. Are we never to reform? Not by introducing novelties, but by recurring to ancient practices. The continual encroachment of the world upon the Church rendered it necessary to promote Seminaries as places of spiritual retreat for candidates for Holy Orders; and when, as a consequence of the Revolution, the course of study in the university became quite secularised, it became also necessary to detach the candidates altogether from that course, and to provide all that was requisite for instruction as well as for inward discipline within the walls of the Séminaire. This, as to instruction, is not completely done yet. But it is in course of doing. Now does not that necessity which sprung up in the French Church exist just as much among ourselves? Are our Universities at present a fit school for preparing men for a life of the utmost patience, self-denial, and humiliation? Is the sacerdotal type impressed there at all? Is anything like an uniform dogma known? Is it not precisely there that moral control is relaxed, and habits of indulgence are commonly introduced? Is there any attempt made to form the inward life, and discern a man's {353} vocation? Oh, is it not the severest censure of our Universities even to mention such things? And without any special training, without any knowledge of his inward state, the young man who has been accustomed to unrestricted company, to studies almost exclusively classical or mathematical, to every kind of worldly amusement and sport, or to travel at the time of life most perilous to innocence, is taken and made a priest of, and sent to the "Cure of Souls," in a parish. Can any state of deeper practical corruption than this be well imagined? Or any system more thoroughly opposed to that pursued in the Church, which is proverbially mentioned among us as "corrupt?"

Surely the establishment of a system of "Séminaires" among ourselves, a course of close and effective moral discipline for the candidates for orders, and the inculcation of one uniform dogma, must precede any real change for the better among us. God grant that such a change may come!

Another evil has arisen from this absence of a fixed type in the clergy, and of a dogmatic standard in our Church. Both in France and England the State has seized upon that most precious prerogative of the Church—the nomination of her chief pastors: both in France and England the State has ceased to be either Catholic or Christian. Perilous then at the best it is, that a power not necessarily religious {354} should take to itself the choice of those who are to fill the Apostolic Chairs. But this peril is so far lessened in France that the State must at least appoint one who has had a priest's education, has been moulded by the great Christian mother into the character first of her child and then of her minister, and, whatever his other qualifications be, will acknowledge her in her true unearthly character of the spouse of Christ, and defend her privileges before all things. This is the Church's guarantee in France,—not a sufficient one—but something. And, moreover, lest this character should by possibility be wanting in any nominee, power is reserved to the Apostolic See to refuse institution to such a one. But in England,—in this miserable diversity of belief in the bosom of the Church herself, this utter absence of dogmatic teaching,—the State may select at its pleasure the Erastian, the Latitudinarian, the Sabellian, the Low Churchman—the man, in short, that it wants for its own evil designs against the Church, and place him in a position where he commands the obedience of the Church's children. A fatal power, of which we are suffering the results.

On one more point there is a striking contrast. In the French Church there are special communities, as we have seen, (les Pères Lazaristes, les Missions Etrangères, &c.) for instructing those who are willing to give themselves to missionary work. In their {355} institutions the bent of the mind, the special aptitude for so pre-eminently difficult a work, the vocation, in short, of these candidates is carefully attended to: those who have been themselves engaged in missionary work, and have the advantage of experience, direct their studies and discipline: none but those who are most single-minded and unreserved in their devotion are allowed to undertake the work of an apostle. On our part, what sort of labourers,—how grounded, disciplined, and tried,—have we been sending forth to be the Church's forlorn hope in her assaults on the strongholds of heathenism? Men who found difficulty in being employed in England from defective education or other causes: men who looked to get their 300l. a-year, and marry upon their missionaryship: or again, Lutherans from Basle, smuggled into the garb of English churchmen through the Church Missionary Society: nay, till very lately, a number of our missionaries have had no orders!!

At "Les Missions Etrangères," to inspirit the zeal of the students, they have brought back to them the bones and relics of those who have suffered for Christ in foreign lands. There have been such in China, within the last few years, men who, if now living, would only be entering on the middle period of life. And not long ago there were two missionaries in that country who were condemned to death. One was executed; the other was saved by the accidental {356} coming of a French frigate off the coast the very morning of his execution. He returned to France, and when he came to "Les Missions Etrangères" he was shown, among other relics, the bones of his companion, with whom he had so nearly suffered. His fortitude forsook him at the sight; he could hardly support himself, and cried, "Ah! why did that unhappy frigate appear? But for that my bones would now be here, and my soul had been in heaven."

And now, as we leave the French Church, let us glance a moment at that whole community of which it is but one, though an important member. My whole design in the foregoing pages has been to bring before sincere and candid minds facts which otherwise might not be presented to their notice. Facts have an objective existence; if we shut our eyes to them they do not cease to be. The sun shines, though we are blind to its rays. Wisdom utters her voice in the streets, though none listen to her. Now incomparably the most important facts in the Roman Church are those which concern not merely a member of it, but the whole Communion: e.g. its extent, its doctrine, its internal discipline, its vital principle, and its generative and expansive power. If under these heads we consider the Roman Church, taking it merely as a fact, like the British monarchy, is it too much to say, that no work of {357} art, no discovery of genius, no scheme of philosophy, physical or metaphysical, earthly or heavenly, no history of human deeds in doing or in suffering, no political constitution, no scientific confederacy, no association of monarchs or of peoples, no past or present civilisation, nothing about which men have wearied themselves in research and discussion, is so worthy of patient thought and humble consideration as is that Communion. The following are a few reasons for the above observation:—1. The Roman Catholic hierarchy depends on the Pope as its centre of unity, and as the divinely-appointed Head of the Church on earth. From him all its bishops receive canonical institution, that is, the grant of spiritual jurisdiction. Accordingly, they sign themselves Bishops "by the mercy of God, and the grace of the Holy Apostolic See." What, then, is their number, and into how many countries do they extend? The following is as near an approximation to the truth as I can make.

{361} Here, then, is one spiritual empire, stretching over all the continents of the earth, entering into so many various nations utterly different in manners, language, origin and temper. This empire, though outnumbered in some few of these nations by other Christian Communions, yet has no one other set over against it, equally wide-spread, united, and claiming like it universality. And its functions, though necessarily exercised in this world, sometimes in friendship with, sometimes in opposition to, the civil power, have to do exclusively with man's relations to the unseen world. So that it is strictly in this aspect a "kingdom of heaven" on earth, whose several members hold together by their common union with one chief.

2. But further, this hierarchy, thus numerous, thus widely spread, and thus united, are in possession of a vast body of doctrine, which they maintain to have descended to them from our Lord through His Apostles. This body of doctrine is uniform, coherent, systematic, forming a whole which comprehends all the relations of man to God from the formation of the first man to the general judgment of the world. These bishops, and the priests under them, are not in the habit of disputing what this body of doctrine is: for, as to all that concerns the Christian life, it has long ago been clearly defined and established. In the long course of eighteen hundred years disputes about it have indeed arisen: they {362} have then been terminated by common consent: individuals who took a different view about them from the whole body have been obliged to leave it, and the truth has only come out the more sharply defined from these contests. Moreover, as this doctrine claims to be revealed, and as all revelation must be partial, as a light shining amid darkness, penetrating it indeed on all sides, but leaving indefinite spaces beyond unillumined, there are a multitude of questions more or less touching on this doctrine, yet not comprehended in it, or decided by it. Only enough is, by the consent of all members of this hierarchy, decided, so as to leave the Christian in no doubt as to any point concerning his salvation, or as to any practical means of obtaining it. There is no split in this doctrine, dividing its professors into separate camps: no internal opposition of principles reproduced in external divisions. It is one logical whole. If fresh doubts as to any point not yet decided be raised by the ever-active intellect of man, then the hierarchy, either collectively or by tacit adherence to the voice of its chief, declares and decides the point mooted. This body of doctrine, thus possessed and taught by this hierarchy, is termed the Faith, and it is necessary for every simple member of the Communion to hold and believe it. It is clear that no such body of doctrine could exist without a power coexisting at all times to declare what does or does {363} not belong to it: for were it simply written in a book, interminable disputes would arise as to the meaning of the book. Just as the English law, the work of ages, exists in a great number of volumes, but requires no less for its practical daily working the decision of a supreme judicial authority. The sovereign declares in his courts of justice what is the law: the Church declares in her court what is the Faith. This in civil matters, is government; in spiritual, it is infallibility: without it, in the state there would be no one authority, in the Church no one Belief: this would be dissolved in anarchy, and that distracted by heresy.

3. But thirdly, this great spiritual empire, with an hierarchy thus widely extended yet thus closely united, and a code of belief at once so large and so definite, erects its tribunal for the heart and conscience of every one belonging to it. In virtue of certain words spoken by its divine Founder to His Apostles, it intervenes as a living power between man and his God, exercises the most special authority of its Head, and retains or remits sins in His name. It does not recoil before the pride, the self-will, the independence of human nature, but grasps it in its inmost recesses, and compels it to hear on earth the voice of the Judge of quick and dead. The authority it claims is so vast, so fearful, so incalculably important to those who live under it, so beyond the {364} natural powers of man to exercise, that it is manifestly either divine or diabolical. For hundreds of years it has formed the subject of numberless reproaches directed against this empire by those who belong not to it: yet it subsists still: there is no sign of its being surrendered or modified. It subsists under all forms of civil government, absolute or constitutional monarchies, or wild democracies, whose very symbol is the entire independence of the human will. And what is remarkable, the most devoted and saintly men who have lived under this spiritual empire, and whose lives were a continued sacrifice of their own leisure, toil, sufferings, and will to God, have been most zealous to uphold, and most skilful to exercise, this tribunal over the consciences of men. It has been now for many generations the chosen taunt of the unbeliever, and the constant practice of the saint.

4. But further, this empire dares to offer up the dearest affections of the natural man to the more uninterrupted service of God. It requires of all those whom it employs in the office of teaching a surrender of the liberty to engage in those ties which the Gospel itself seeks, not to proscribe, but to sanctify. Thus the Communion, which honours marriage as a sacrament, requires of all members of its hierarchy, down to the subdeacon inclusively, to abstain from it. It regards them as the militia of the {365} Church; and "no man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life." Multitudes there are besides, both of men and women, who accept not only this condition, but voluntarily embrace the vows of poverty and obedience in addition. To all these this spiritual empire promises one only compensation, great indeed, but received by faith alone; that, in proportion as they surrender all delight arising from the creature, and bring their will into subjection to another, the larger shall be their inheritance in the Creator; the more absolute the union of their will with His. And on this super-human life, founded in self-renunciation, and supported by Divine love, all great works in the Roman Communion depend. Not only is it the condition of the whole hierarchy, of all who have the Church's commission publicly to teach her belief, but the task of education, from the highest to the lowest classes, and the manifold labours of charity for the sick and poor, are all committed to those who give this proof of the sincerity of their vocation.

5. Lastly, in this spiritual empire there are a great number of institutions or congregations of men specially intended for its wider extension among yet heathen nations. To the conditions above enumerated they must add a yet more special aptitude for the most difficult and laborious work; a yet more complete surrender of human praise, reward, comfort, {366} or support. Sisters of charity are seen to cross over the ocean to the extremity of the world, that they may work in combination with missionaries, whose task it is to live among savages, and to make them first men, in order that they may hereafter be Christians; both alike without endowment, in simple dependence on Providence, trusting to the labour of their hands for maintenance, putting their lives in the power of the faithless and fickle savage, and showing him, by their own homelessness, that they but live and labour for him. Nor has the blood of martyrs wholly ceased to flow. Seventy persons in China, Tonking, and Cochin China, have in the last fifty years borne witness with their lives to the faith of Christ—some of them Frenchmen and Spaniards, but some likewise priests and catechists taken out of one of the naturally feeblest races of the East, whom the grace of God nerved to endure torments unsurpassed for their severity in the earliest persecutions of the Church.

Whatever be the imperfections of human agents, is there not enough in all this to make us behold the working of a Divine and supernatural power? Should we not each, in our several spheres, labour and pray for reconciliation and unity—the adjustment of differences—the mutual understanding of Christendom? One alone can do this—let it be our first and last request to Him.

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APPENDIX.

I subjoin the following, as giving a further view of the Seminary of S. Sulpice, which could not so well be incorporated into the Journal itself.

Picture of the duties of a seminarist who desires to sanctify and prepare himself worthily to fulfil the functions of the holy ministry:—

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INDEX.

CLASSIFIED INDEX.

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NEW WORKS AND NEW EDITIONS