Priest!" He told them that by removing this vestment, the priest ceased to officiate as a priest, and thenceforward prayed only as a layman. And he considered it a clear proof of the unsound teaching of Maynooth, and of its inconsistency with the morality of the Decalogue, that when Sir Robert Peel stated in his place in parliament,* that in Maynooth college, two, and even three students were compelled, under the old grant, to sleep in one bed for want of sufficient accommodation, neither the Presidents nor the professors came forward to deny the fact, because it served a purpose to leave it uncontradicted! (p. 311.)

For the reason stated in the outset of this article, we have confined ourselves to that part of the Maynooth question which bears directly on the relations of Catholics to the state, and to their Protestant fellow-countrymen. To ourselves as Catholics, the subjects which we have passed altogether as less suited for discussion in a Journal like ours, are, we need hardly say, infinitely more interesting and far more intimately connected with the progress and even the maintenance of religion in Ireland. How far the system hitherto adopted in the college is calculated to attain the great ends of ecclesiastical education; whether the education, in so far as regards mere secular learning, has kept pace with the progress of the time; how far the tone and spirit of the religious teaching fulfils all those higher requirements of which, in these days of trial, the common mind of Catholicity is everywhere becoming daily more sensible; how far the spiritual training, not merely realizes the substance of the interior life, but successfully aims at the very refinements of the higher asceticism; how far, in a word, the entire system is calculated to form perfect priests, suited to strive with the varied and new forms of difficulty, intellectual, controversial, or ascetical, which present themselves in modern society;these are the really vital questions for the consideration of

*It is hardly worth while to say, that Sir Robert Peel never made such a statement. When an absurd story to that effect originated in a jest, made the rounds of the newspaper press, this lamented statesman was at the pains to reprint from Hansard and circulate among his friends, an exact report of the speech as delivered by him on introducing the measure.

the chapel and common hall. The community, therefore, increased in numbers as it has been, is still condemned to occupy the mean and inappropriate chapel of the old college. Accordingly, as far as the opportunities of church ceremonial, nay, of the ordinary decencies of worship, are concerned, the students are at present actually at a greater disadvantage than before the enlarged endowment; nor has it been possible, even in the other parts of the college, the class-halls, study-rooms, cloisters, corridors, &c., to attempt anything of that internal decoration which adds so much to the grace and effect of the gothic collegiate buildings which have been elsewhere erected. The petty persecution of withdrawing the vote for repairs has, of course, aggravated this evil. The new building is yet almost entirely destitute even of the commonest necessaries of furniture; and the new library, a spacious and elegant room, remains with its walls still bare of shelves; while, in the expectation of a speedy removal to their new site, the books, inconveniently crowded in the old library, have fallen into a state of inextricable disorder.

The Report of the Commission makes it plain that, until the new building shall have been completed by the erection of a suitable chapel, it is idle to hope for such order as is indispensable to the decency and even to the quiet and recollection indispensable for public worship.

These, however, together with the still higher requirements to which we have been alluding, will furnish matter for much and anxious consideration to the Trustees of the College, and the ecclesiastical authorities who are responsible for its efficiency. The Report and Evidence supply ample information, collected not only from the members of the college themselves, but also from many other ecclesiastical establishments in foreign countries. Nor do we doubt that, in the wise discretion of those who are alone responsible, what was originated and designed in a spirit of hostility, will eventuate in the improvement and elevation of the tone, character, and efficiency of the Institution.

ART. IX, The Blessed Sacrament, or the Works and Ways of God. By FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER, D. D., Priest of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. London, Dublin, and Derby: Richardson and Son, 1855.

FAT

ATHER Faber's new book on the Blessed Sacrament, will, we venture to predict, go through more editions, and continue to have more readers and more admirers than any work which has yet come from his gifted pen. It is a rare, beautiful, altar-flower, and will long shed a pleasant and holy fragrance to attract many a devout heart, and make it love to linger near the sanctuary. The author tells us that his own desire has been to present it at the feet of the Blessed Sacrament, as a thankoffering, for the gift of faith in that wonderful mystery. It will surely have the effect of inciting others, too, to wish to make their thank-offerings, if not for the gift of faith conferred under extraordinary circumstances, yet for the thousand times ten thousand priceless favours that have flowed to them from the Blessed Sacrament-if not in the shape of a written work requiring genius and learning to produce it, yet, at least, by prayer, and praise, and love.

It is a beautiful characteristic of the Church, that, though since her first establishment, she has been incessantly engaged in deadly warfare for the conservation of the faith, though she has never been allowed a moment's breathing time by the schismatic, or the heretic, or the infidel, yet never has she for one hour relaxed in her sweet care to promote the holiness of her individual children, to multiply among them the fruits of the Holy Spirit, to see that they should aspire to perfection and the most intimate union with God. A conflict so long sustained, so unintermitting, so violent, as that which the Church has been compelled to maintain against the countless hosts who have ever and again continued to assail the faith, would have infallibly absorbed the entire attention and engrossed the entire energies of a society which was not always aided from above. All the fortitude, and vigilance, and vigour, which such society could put forth would scarce be adequate to the work of defence. Its rulers would tell the people that in the time of hot war, with such powerful

Catholics. For the solution of these questions, the evidence contained in the appendix of the Report will supply abundant and most suggestive material, to be used by those whose province it is to decide with authority. We cannot commend too highly the frankness and unreserve with which the witnesses have given their opinion on all these subjects. There is no appearance of effort to make out a favourable case for the college; no desire to conceal or gloss over what is believed to be a defect; no reluctance to suggest many large and searching measures of reform; and we do not doubt that in the hands of the Trustees of the College, the careful and judicious suggestions of the Report and the evidence of many of the witnesses, will turn to a most useful account in the improvement of its condition and the development of its great resources for good.

There are some points upon which there is a unanimous demand for improvement. To raise, at the entrance examination, the standard of proficiency in English and in general information; to enlarge and continue throughout the course the instruction and also the exercise in literary composition; to devise a means of maintaining and extending, during the advanced course, the classical and philosophical knowledge of which at present, speaking practically, a final leave seems to be taken at entering into divinity; to promote the study of the chief modern languages; to improve and extend the library, which at present appears lamentably defective in these departments; and to increase the facilities of keeping the students au courant with all that is really good and safe in the literature, (especially the historical literature,) of our own times ;these are objects connected with the literary interests of the college, to the importance of which every one seems fully alive, and which must form the most prominent features in any scheme of improvement which may be devised.

As regards the spiritual training of the students, it is impossible to doubt that, in every essential particular, it is solid and satisfactory; but in reference to some of its details, a wide difference of opinion appears among the various witnesses. The most remarkable of these regard the extent and the nature of the intercourse between the superiors and the students, and the sub-division of the now overgrown academical body into smaller sections, each

living apart from the rest, and subject to a different government and to a special sort of training. These, we need hardly say, are questions which would be entirely out of place here; although there is not one of our Catholic readers who must not feel how important are the interests which they involve.

There is one other subject, that of Christian Art in all its branches, to the deficiencies in which more than one of the witnesses strongly alludes, and which we should be forgetful of what, since the first establishment of our Journal, has always been one of the great objects of our teaching, were we to pass by. The subordinate place given to the study and practice of Church ceremonial; the meagre and unsystematical training which the students receive in ecclesiastical music; the absence of instruction in the principles of ecclesiastical architecture and decoration; and the want of proper models for the formation of the taste of the students-to all these the Commissioners allude strongly in their Report. It would be unjust, however, to advert to these striking deficiencies without adding, that, for the most part, they appear to be the natural growth of the state of penury to which the college was condemned under the old parliamentary grant, of which every farthing was unavoidably devoted to the mere material necessities of the students. Since the increased endowment of 1845, the witnesses state that it has been impossible to remedy the evils which had thus arisen under the old system. Owing to the miserably insufficient accommodation of the college buildings then in existence, and their extremely dilapidated condition, the sum granted for building purposes proved to be entirely below the requirements of the college under its new and enlarged conditions. Although the building has been executed at what he considers "a very low rate," the architect of the Board of Works states that" the amount of accommodation required was so greatly disproportioned to the funds allocated for the purpose, that, although the several buildings, and all the fittings, were designed in a style of the severest simplicity, the Board have been unable to do more than erect a portion of the original design, without furniture or fittings of any kind." (p. 264.) Most unhappily, for the important objects to which we are now alluding, the portion which they were obliged to omit was the very part which would have included