Jt 0f at least, a partial remedy, t o ; * quite certain that the organisation o f all S ay works ought to contain a supply of Chap\ Ur Priests for the spiritual service o f the ladq(-e.Fs employed upon them— Priests whose jerZ1' should be to attend specially’ to the intis. 8and well-being of the labourers upon each ritbl ~e the Bishops in Ireland in a position to

‘riW 'his spiritual assistance ? Are the Parish '»Id , —already provided with work two, three, V i ) y r ’ fold beyond what they are able satisfac

>!'SaN very weighty addition to their existing Vffen .l(mts ? I f the present staff o f Parish ,Vf(ie ’.s not sufficient— i f there are no Religious iCt>rS ’ n a position to take this charge upon \ i t.'~aUd if the Bishops out o f the resources o f N vp eVeral dioceses are, as we suppose, unable to

a remedy, what remains to be done ? fefi) 'he cure is very simple— surely the manahfovi- railways should be bound by law to iNoh re''gious instruction and religious minisS iy f f°r those masses o f labourers whom they ,Vh f r°m their homes, and whom they expose to N o r ful temptations. The duty o f the conN 'd e to'vards the labourers whom they employ

WaZ s°mewbat further than the mere payment

“Ses. O' Su r ° 'he extent o f their power, they arc X ardians o f these poor people in the sight o f a,i ^ one day or other they, as well as all of

" ia. , have to renderà strict account o f their S a- have to render a strict account o f their X 0'Jsh>p. If, then, these worthy people do j>e l,t. not, fulfil their duty in these respects, (; V j ' , sl?tare should interfere to compel them. j N g tJa'lway Act should contain a compulsory ™iots **?!n'in g in this direction. W e hope these p o t . 'Vl*l not be wholly lost sight o f in Parlia. V t i N if, as (here is too much reason to bel(\'ht ' ey will be lost sight of, some little memento ip t t}lf>° he supplied from out o f doors, that at

0p„| .palish Parliament may have no excuse

ecfing one o f its most imperative duties. F r e n c h c o r r e s p o n d e n c e . lA-rt- P aris, F eb. 17, 184C. t h DEBATES TN THE FRENCH tJ.' is b: i . . PARLIAMENT. OrNs »1. ' I,ne f should V ' V h u o « 0 " l W h a t 1s g o i n g UU U C IC . m e m m u

.... a,~ .... . i sikjluu resume mj1 coramum'v "h a t is going on here. The world tar^'hern'i)^C^ cr " 'a n ever what to think o f the

?-f 'hern A ' le" cr than ever what to think o f the

Qp j . ersecutor, and I am glad that the publi'¡i)1* aiUoni8 n."sileeds should have originated with L ’c, lot,® 'he London ^tapers. In the meanhav’e tUorpS,!10t f ° rget that we, Catholics, should h 'f lly t_ , 'han common eyes, for there seerns iiJ'I'oal 0 e a s'ngle part o f the world in which

V 1Ss'ons re*s are not merged into religious ( „ S r . . . , a mrs' serious nature, jt , 'hem p1? , " ' " probably remember what I N . SalvnnA. 'C r®,v ° l " ' ' oni brought about by

Iyln>in

>0

> 0 ,

m 'he Board of Public Instruc

famoi,s ordinances of

l'n, V i N ' •Ehe battle so sturdily fought by e tt. Uemam, Montaiemliprt

"oNEnnp!.e?ia!n’ i l°ntaleir,bert, and Beugnot k>uNrVcd ■ Io" se-Twas 110' 'a be expected to pass

N an l mi , he Low! r-, St- Marc Girardin,

biers, attacked the Ministerial mea

sure, bringing forth no new arguments, but contenting themselves with disputing about the le gality or illegality ot the Board’s existence. The very Voltairian passions o f the Gauche got tired, when some violent attacks made by M. Thiers on M. de Salyandy, and rather weakly repelled by the latter, brought M. Guizot to the Tribune. In a certain sense, one may venture to say that his speech has become an event almost as important as Sir Robert Peel’s famous conversion to the repeal o f the Corn Laws. The Minister now stands upon quite a different ground from what be did formerly’ ; i f he be sincere in lu3 professions, I see no reason why be should not establish religious freedom in regard to education as well as it exists in other matters. But there’s the rub; is he sincere? However, even allowing a doubt upon that head, it seems hardly possible that as a statesman, he should recede from his late and perhaps new princples.

M. Guizot’s speech may be divided into two parts : the first, relative to the négociations with Rome ; and here he laboured with great embarrassment not to offend the dormant passions of his hearers, and still less to involve the Government in that difficult and still obscure affair. The second and most important part was concerning the rights o f the family to insure a religious education to its offspring prior to any other right or claim. On this ground, the Minister was clear and comprehensive, simple and yet eloquent. He rose above all his competitors ;— he concealed not the defects o f the University, nor winced under the probe o f liberty. The question with M. Guizot was not whether the ordinances were illegal or legal; for, said lie, i f the constitution of the University by Napoleon was lawfully modified by Government measures in 1815, what reason can there be for refusing the same lawfulness to measures of a contrary nature, hut originating in the Executive at the present day ? And even pushing on still farther, why should not the constitution o f the University he even still more modified hereafter ?

But the real, the great fault o f that body, says M. Guizot, is, that the State has, in fact, no power over it ; the public education has become a monopoly in its hands, and after 1830 it has even pretended to prevent the fulfilment of a formal promise o f liberty. The ordinance o f December last was merely intended to replace in the hands o f the State that authority which belongs to it. It is the first satisfaction offered to the conscience and to the rights o f nature; it is one step towards the realisation o f the promise held out by the Charter. “ And indeed, gentlemen,” continued the Minister, I am convinced that our monarchy is hound by its duty, by its engagements, nay, by its very interest, to fulfil the above promise as it has fulfilled all others. I t is too heavy a burden, in a Government like ours, in a state of society like ours, before these benches, at the foot of this tribune, in the midst of such debates ; it is by far too heavy a burden to wield either arbitrary power or monopoly o f any kind, whatever may he the hands to which such power is intrusted.” . . . . And in what, pray, is that monopoly both odious and impossitjle ? I t is because there are rights previous to those o f the State, the rights o f the family, to whom children belong before they belong to the State. For, in fact, a religious belief, and those who are entitled to maintain it in any society, have a right to transmit that belief from generation to generation, through tuition, and in such a form as they have received it from their forefathers. “ And this is not the sole privilege o f the Catholic religion ; it is equally applicable to all beliefs and to all religious societies ; the civil power ought to leave their transmission to those bodies and to those men who have received the deposit o f the belief.”

The above analysis and quotations contain the pith of the whole speech, and you will agree with me that I have not at least exaggerated its importance. The efforts of the Bishops,' the complaints o f religious men o f all persuasions, are tous fu lly justified, and nothing remains, it would seem, but to grant that freedom so nobly proclaimed as a necessity o f our times. That it w ill come to that seems almost inevitable ; but it will not be during the present session.

The general elections are to take place next year, and the Government does not, perhaps, feel confident enough in its own strength to run such a risk at such a juncture. I t is. however, somewhat remarkabie that the majority for the Cabinet should have increased so considerably this year, when it could hardly muster together seven or eight votes last session. The Deputies seem to have felt the pulse o f their constituents in the interval o f the two winters, and many o f them have perhaps rallied in consequence. A majority o f ninety-eight, as happened lately, is certainly no mean foundation for a Cabinet.

But the effects o f M . Guizot’s speech on the Chamber itself must not be omitted. Thiers and Dupin had certainly succeeded in rousing its bad passions, on which they both practised so successfu lly last year, and on the present occasion a mere trifle would have turned the scale in their favour. On the contrary, in consequence o f the Minister’s straightforward conduct, many sincerely religious men in (deposition abstained from voting against him. Thè Conservative party also read a good lesson out o f his words ; they learned that their true mission was to conserve the rights o f conscience against the raving attacks o f infidelity ; to conserve the only real basis o f society against those who would endeavour to overthrow it, or perhaps establish upon the ruins the foundation o f a despotic power. Considered, also, as a statesmanlike measure, this new turn may serve the Government to rally to its standard many a Legitimist, and certain members o f what is called in I* rance La Jeune Gauche.

But still I am obliged to revert to the doubt I expressed before: is M. Guizot sincere in his professions ? Is he not playing a double part to conciliate the Bishops on one hand, and, on the other, to form the nucleus of a new majority in the Chambers ? W i l l he not forget his present views as he has more than once forgotten, or rather dropped, his old ones? A l l these are questions which some dark and contradictory passages o f his late speech authorise us to put to him, and to which, o f course, his future conduct will give the answer. A t any rate, he has incurred a very heavy responsibility for that future, both in the eyes o f God and o f man.

P.S. Your observations on Lord Aberdeen’s reply to Lord Ivinnaird’s questions concerning the Nuns of Minsk, are o f the very best. The manner in which the Minister spoke is either a mask put on for the occasion, or bears the marks o f the grossest ignorance o f what goes on in Russia. I have myself inhabited that country for four years, and many circumstances o f persecution came to my knowledge which force me to believe from the beginning to the end every word o f Sister M ieczyslawska’s narrative. Is it not shameful that when Europe rings with execration o f the tyrant’s deeds and cruelty; when two French papers, La Presse and La France, sold to Russia, have not dared even to mention one word o f the narrative ; when, on the contrary, there is not one other paper o f any note in France or England that has not raised its voice against the northern barbarians; is it not shameful, I say, that an English Minister should presume exaggeration on the part o f the poor victims ? should justify a Nicholas and almost a Sicmaszko ? A t the same time, I cannot but add with g rie f that the conduct o f the English Catholic members in Parliament forms a striking contrast to the intrepidity o f the French Catholic Peers and Deputies. On this side o f the Straits it is often adverted to with surprise and regret. Have you the seed o f no Montalembert among you ; or do you always intend to have yonr best battles fought by Protestants ? * t *

REVIEW. Grounds f o r remaining in the Anglican Communion.

A Letter to a High-Church Friend. By Frederick W illiam Faber. London : Toovey. 1846. On the subject o f which it treats this is one o f the best o f pamphlets, with one o f the worst of titles. As to the title, indeed, an Irish friend remarked, the other day, that i f such a pamphlet had been published in Ireland, withsuchjatitle,theEnglishpublic would have greeted it with laughter inextinguishable as an Hibernian bull. In point of fact, the title is a very good title if only the word not were introduced into it. I t ought to be called “ Grounds for not remaining,” or else “ A Refutation o f “ supposed Grounds for” &c., &c. Either o f these titles would have expressed very accurately the purport o f this most admirable pamphlet.

Reviewing it is almost out o f the question, except in the way o f extracts and o f general description. I t is one o f the plainest, ablest, most e lo quent, acute, and effective replies to the ordinary Puseyite objections which are put forward to defend the authors of them for remaining in the Anglican Church.

As to the extracts, we confess we have a great difficulty, because we should wish to repeat the whole pamphlet, without the omission o f a single sentence.

I t is perfectly astonishing how, so soon after his conversion, Mr. Faber can have thrown himself thus heartily and entirely into the spirit o f his new position; how he can have thrown o ff thus completely every, even the smallest, shackle o f An glicanism ; and how he can have been brought, as it were, at a moment’s warning, by the grace o f God, thus thoroughly to write and act as i f he had been a Catholic o f twenty years’ stand ing. W e have read few pamphlets with more complete satisfaction than this one. The zeal, the intrepidity, the perfectly unselfish earnestness it displays in every page, are a solemn lesson to correct the stubborn lukewarmness o f those o f uswho have either been horn inthe Catholic Church, or have been Catholics for much longer periods than Mr. Faber.

The form o f this pamphlet is that o f a letter to an Anglican friend, and it has no other plan than that oi dealing in succession with the various pretexts which persons in the position o f his friend are accustomed to delude themselves with. The pamphlet thus opens:—

77, Caroline-slreet, Birmingham, Jan. 10, I84G. My dear **—The author of Hawkstone tells us that a Papist and an Evangelical are, in one most important respect, very like each other without knowing i t : namely, that both of them mistake the proper office of a Christian teacher; which, he says, is to deliver a message , and they say, is to save souls one by one. I do not think he is at ail singular in this view ; for when Catholics act upon their notion of Christian teaching, and try to convert Protestants by urging the unsafe condition of their souls, Anglicans are apt to think it an unjustifiable, nay, downright immoral, way of proceeding. Indeed, I remember myself to have been struck, almost offended, with the apparently selfish prominence which a man is to give to his own soul, as guided by the Exercises of S. Ignatius, with the stem way in which he simplifies the sinner’s views of things, the boldness with which he leaves to Divine Providence the adjustment of difficulties rising out of apenitent’s so acting, and the positiveness with whicli he refuses to allow us to legislate for anybody else’s spiritual good, or even for the honour of the Church, until we have first cared foe our own soulsThe Oxford writer alluded to is certainly most correct in what ho asserts, so far as Catholics are concerned ; m all their practical and devotional books they fh> f . prominence to the salvation of single sou!», many Protestants find it most-difficult to un er and which looks to them like the unscrupulous p lytism'of the Pharisees. Anvhow I mustbrave urged objection., and take ' ^ ¡ ¿ ¡ , „ 60“ which acted u £ n ' t S m e n t because I felt

morally certain that I could not be saved, ii I remained in i t ; andwhat I want to show you is, that you yourself , as a High-churcliman, are in a position of such doubt and difficulty regarding the “ one thing needful,” that it is like resisting the call of God to remain w'here you are vpon thegrounds you allege. Your occupations will not, I grant, allow you to search the Fathers for yourself, to do to them what you inconsistently blame Dissenters for doing to Scripture, to become deeply read in ecclesiastical history, and the like; for you that is out of the question. Well—granted but, my dear friend, you have a soul to save; a soul for which, as though there were no other soul in the world, Jesus shed His precious 131ood, and for which he founded His Church, and enriched her with the treasures of His merits. One then ot two courses is open to you: you have not leisure or meanshto become a theologian ; it remains, therefore, either that you recognise some authority in your Church, to which you are willing to bow, and be quiet, or that you investigate your position for yourself, with your own powers of mind and in constant prayer; and it the result of that investigation is to cast over you a horrible overwhelming doubt as to whether you are not in a position most disadvantageous to your soul, then to act as a man would act who cares for nothing else but his soul, and submit to the Catholic Church, in whose bosom you already allow that you can save your soul rvithoilt a doubt.

Does this seem an immoral way of^ putting the question ? Of course, to hard controversialists it will seem a very illogical way; but that matters little to you and me : you want to save your soul, and I want to see you in the enjoyment of that spiritual peace and happiness which God has so undeservedly bestowed on me by putting me into the One True Fold. Now, on your own showing, the first of these alternatives is not open to you ; you deny that any individual primate or Bishop, or the whole Protestant episcopal bench together, have anjTclaim to be heard when they dogmatise ; nay more , you not only question, but actually deny, their right to interpret the Prayer Book; and of the Prayer Booh itself you speak as if it were imperfect, in many important matters not so Catholic as it ought to be, and jn some grave respects rather to be endured as atrial than anj’thiug else. Of course, I have nothing whatever to do with the truth or falsehood of any one of these propositions ; you make them yourself, and whatever they are worth, they clearly show that the man who propounds them recognises in the Protestant Establishment no dogmatising authority to which he is prepared to bovr, should it happen to be at variance with his own Highchurch opinions. This is enough in the outset to raise a strong doubt as to the propriety and honesty of j ’our remaining where you are: bur, not to pursue this, you are clearly left, with your avocations, to the second line which I pointed out—to investigate your position for yourself with your own powers of mind, and in constant prayer ; and if the result of that investigation is to cast over you a horrible overwhelming doubt as to whether you are not in a position most disadvantageous to your soul, then to act as a man would act who cares for nothing else but his sonl.

And now let me say a few words on some of the things which you bring forward in defence of your position. Whether taken singly or together, they certainly form novel grounds of Church communion, and grounds which an old Catholic would perhaps find it difficult to understand, or to believe that they could be honestly adduced : but, of course, the case is very different with amere convert like myself, for I know how stro ng and cogent reasons may appear up to the time when they fall away, like scales from the eyes ; and it is hard to realise ihe process by which we have been blinded so long—a process which we are then with pain and reluctance forced to characterise as a spiritual delusion, from which God has mercifully delivered our unworthiness.

I hope it will not sound to you as a mere form o f words, when I apologise beforehand for what will seem rude and ill-natured language. The.prominent feelings in my mind are deep sorrow for you, as one in peril of his soul, and under a very subtle yet fearful delusion ; and an affectionate yearning to see you brought into the true light and true fold, together with adaiiy strengthening conviction of the falsehood of your position, ami the absolute necessity of being in communion with the Holy See. You must be prepared therefore for a style which will seem offensive, bitter, sarcastic, and conceitedly dogmatical: you are so deeply wedded to your present theories, that, speak as I will, my language must seem all this to you, and Lshall be neither surprised nor vexed at you calling it so. Indeed, I shall expect you to call it so; expect you perhaps to'throw the letter down in indignation with what will almost of necessity appear the odious, self-satisfied temper of the writer; and I may anticipate this for the follow ing reasons : first, I am, in the language ot controversy, a turn-coat and a renegade, and the privilege of speaking is almost denied to such an one; and words which would give no offence in the mouths of others, sound like insults in his. Secondly, you are not a Catholic, and so can hardly realise the positiveness with wdiich Catholics may speak, without any feeling of self-sufficiency, when they have the Church on their side ; although it 19not too much to say that you speak with quite as much assurance, and in quite as dogmatising a lone, of theories, not only rejected by the Catholic Church, but by your own spiritual superiors and more than three quarters of your communion. Thirdly, my argument must be in a great measure a reductio ad absurdumt and this is in itself an ungracious form ot disputation, but in the present case unavoidable ; for it mud be shown to you that the arguments by which you keep yourself separated from the Catholic Church must also keep Dissenters separated from you, and heathen from the Gospel. Fourthly, o me as a Catholic, many of the grounds you put torwari for remaining in the Anglican communion aPPe^r miserably profane and almost blasphemous, that, 1 not use strong language to characterise ( seem to be compromising the truth in a *ejy or , ” vayAnd, lastly, I do confess to a great and hopeful eagerness to see you brought by God’s gf®c®' tion which is rebellious to Christ’s C ur » 3 es to your own communion, disobediqt1 7 present superiors, and perilous to your ° t ’ fought out of all that dim, cloudy, SuPemitjous mysticism, in which you^ are t Partyleaders to enxelnpe you. in' ° , ' ‘ fT ™e

I trust that tbis/ip0'0®? w 1 have an increased claim on your consideration, w en remind you that I am hardly at all writing against w at vvas ever my own position ; I never could receive le theory of “ holding and not teaching .Roman oc rine; it was repugnant to ray natural sense o onesty, as well as being a real denial of the ofhee of a Church, which is to teacK what it holds ; X never e o Anglicanism hy. -of-those secret, mysterious token«, the.quotation of which is now so lasa-’ona e among you. antj inciee(i that subtle mysti“ f l N V lc^ Tractarian section.of the Protestant es a is ment has now taken a last and fatal refuge, is

^

development,of a few months’ standing,

h' ft ^ 1-S. ^ r means true that I am altogether, or c le y, writing against what was but a short time since Jdy own position. Still, I do write as one who was

iree Months ago an Anglican; as one who bas spent many years of his life in hostility to. .Holy Church, for "■nich hetrusts God will mercifully forgfr« himi; as one ^’ho now teems to himself to have resiste2 earlier call«,