music may at first seem, its plaintive strain and soothing cadences live when other and secular melodies die away and are forgotten. And to choirs we may say that no trouble is too great to be devoted to the due performance of the Church's song, and choirmen and boys alike should remember that they must be either a great annoyance to the congregation, or a source of delight, comfort, and edification.

Reviews of Books.

THE NEW SCHOOL HISTORY OF ENGLAND FROM EARLY
WRITERS AND NATIONAL RECORDS. (James Parker and Co.,
Oxford and London.)

Nothing is more important in the present dangerous age, than
that the rising generation should be thoroughly grounded in
the real facts of the history of their native land. A good
school history of England has long been a desideratum. Our
histories for the young have been either so dry, that they do
not command the attention of children and young people, or
so utterly false in their relation of facts, so completely one-
sided, that it would be almost better for the young to be
altogether ignorant of history, than to have their minds filled
with the radical rubbish they contain. In these works, facts
are perverted to suit the democratic ideas of the day, or to
satisfy Protestant antipathy to the Church of Rome, or rather
to anything of a Catholic tendency. It will be a long time
before the popular idea of "Bloody Mary" is eradicated from
the national mind, and longer still before the romance of Guy
Fawkes is reduced to sober history. Dr. Neale's admirable
little work has till now been almost the only English history
fit to place into a child's hand, and the best antidote to that
silly, Radical tirade called "A Child's History of England,"
by Charles Dickens. We are, therefore, all the more glad to
welcome this volume which, on the whole, appears to us well
deserving the name of a " School History of England." It is
longer and fuller than Dr. Neale's, the only fault of which
was its brevity, yet it is not too long, and is written in a
clear, pleasing style, never dull nor wearisome and with the
interest well sustained throughout.

The work commences with a geographical outline of the British Islands, and is well furnished with maps. The first ten centuries of British History are not passed over in a few pages, as if they contained nothing worthy of notice, but narrated n detail, as necessary to the understanding of what is to follow.

The Reformation period is narrated with much greater fairness than we usually find in popular histories of England. The destruction of the Monasteries of Henry VIII. is described as an odious and unjust measure, and the executions of Fisher and More as judicial murders :—

is that he left the gift legally imperfect, and that it was his much-abused sister Mary who completed it. The grammar schools, too, that go by his name were mostly founded by private individuals, though the forms of the law ascribe them to the king; and the few institutions (as the well-known Christ's Hospital) which he did endow, cost him nothing, as the funds came from the suppressed charities and hospitals. The proficiency that he evinced in literature, and the dogmatic tone of his writings, show a general resemblance to his father, which very probably might have become more complete, had his life been longer.

Of Mary he writes :

Few sovereigns have a worse name among general readers than this Queen, but this is the result of her enemies only having written her history; for it is certain that she suffered far more, and was far more influenced by conscience in what she did, than any other of the house of Tudor.

The history of this and the succeeding reign is very well told. Of the persecutions the author says:—

The number of sufferers is variously stated, but the least estimate makes it about 300 who perished at the stake, and many more died in prison. .. .. Certain it is that the Reformers had more freedom for worship, if they only conducted themselves quietly and did not force the authorities to take notice of them, than the Romanists enjoyed under Elizabeth, or the Church in the time of the Commonwealth.

Of

course many suffered, but a still greater number were found in the next reign who, whether truly or untruly, made a boast of how they had bearded the terrible Bonner, or the all-powerful Gardiner, had reviled them in the grossest manner, styling them "limbs of Antichrist," and had denounced the Mass as the invention of the Devil, and yet lived to tell this tale.

Cranmer is described as "timid and time-serving," and his death an "intolerable cruelty." We must protest against the term Romanist being always applied in this book to the Roman Catholics, though it is certainly an improvement on the favourite epithet of Papist, so common in Protestant histories. Concerning the persecutions in Elizabeth's reign we find :—

Though the Romanists still formed the majority of the population, the condition of most of them was pitiable in the extreme. Students holding their opinions were driven from the Universities.. To be a Priest was to incur daily the actual risk of death; all who succoured them were in equal danger; and it was only the personal favour of the Queen, to save nobles, and the corruption of the Courtiers, who for money shielded the rich, whilst the poor filled the prisons, that allowed even a shadow of the old religion to exist."

In his relation of the struggle between Charles I. and his Parliament of the murder of that Martyr King, and of the career of the hypocritical regicide, Cromwell, our author is thoroughly Conservative and trustworthy. He says :

:

The story of the years that England was without a Parliament is usually told as if all right, in every case, was with the Parliamentary Party, and that they were wantonly oppressed from an innate love of tyranny in the king and his advisers. Such a representation is very far from the truth. The contest was really begun by Charles' first Parliadecessors had plunged him into, and their successors showed the same ment, when they refused the supplies to carry on the war that their predetermination to make their grants depend upon all the powers of government being really placed under their control. No sovereign before had ever such a demand made on him. . . .

Of Laud he writes:

This, the introduction of Popery, was a charge that the Puritans were never tired of bringing against the best and wisest Prelates of the English Church-against every one, in fact, who manifested any love of decency and order. Whitgift and Bancroft had repressed their extravagance, but Abbot, the last Primate, had given way to them most unwisely, and hence the task of his successor, Laud, was more than usually difficult. Puritanism, from the very first, had its political as well as its enforcing obedience, he was quite as ready to render it where due. He openly avowed himself a believer in the Divine right of kings, and quite willing to accept all its consequences, of absolute lordship over the person and the property of the subject. Such a belief was more odious to the Puritans-who, whatever they occasionally pretended, were Republicans at heart-than even his so-called Popery.

The sale or gift of the Abbey lands, however much it might enrich the receivers, and however much it might appear to forward the Reformation for as Bishop Latimer said in one of his Sermons, thousands became Gospellers for them"-was the cause of deep distress to the people at large, particularly in the country districts. The Monks had been liberal landlords and charitable neighbours, and never suffered the poor around them to want a meal. But with the new lords of the soil it was altogether different. Many of them had been once poor them-religious aspect, and Laud was the determined foe of both. Strict in selves, and when the estates came into their hands, they thought of nothing else than how they might obtain from them the uttermost farthing. No more entertainment for all comers, no more daily meals at the gate, no more free gifts of a horse, or a cow, or a sheep to the poor man who had lost his own by accident or disease. These things had all passed away with the Monks, and even the open commons now began to be enclosed by the new men, on the false pretence that they had once been Church property.

Of Edward VI. our author says:Edward, as the king under whom the English Reformation may be said to have begun, has been celebrated as a model ruler by writers, who forget how very little a sickly youth who died before he was sixteen, could possibly have had to do with it. His charity is loudly praised in bestowing his palace of Bridewell on the citizens of London, but the fact

The story of the war between the King and Parliament is admirably told, though we think a few more details might have been given of the King's execution, which is well designated as a murder. Cromwell's character is, on the whole, depicted in its true colours, which it well needs to be in an age when the regicide is often described as a model of all that is good and noble. But an age that worships a

Garibaldi naturally honours the memory of a Cromwell and a Robespierre. We are told," Cromwell took care to be well rewarded by his tools, and before he openly seized on the supreme power, Hampton Court and £7,000 a year had been granted to him, beside his army pay of £10 a day, and his salary as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland."

We scarcely agree with our author that-"Cromwell was not naturally bloodthirsty-though he had no scruple at shedding blood when he thought his own purpose required it; but there seems no reason for styling him an able governor, for he appears to have thought that he could rule a nation by just the same violent means as he employed to reduce a mutinous regiment." We must conclude our extracts with one on the Revolution of 1688. The author says:—

In process of time good flowed from some of the changes effected at the Revolution of 1688, but in its own day its effects were mainly seen in the substitution of a costly standing army in place of the old inexpensive militia, and enormous taxes extending even to births, marriages, and burials. William's rule produced hopeless entanglement in the affairs of foreign countries, with its consequent national debt, which most Englishmen, then and long after, thought was paying too dear for the honour of protecting their old rivals the Dutch from the arms of France.

Literary Notices.

PERE FELIX AT NOTRE DAME.
(Continued.)

The subject of Père Felix's fourth Conference was "the attributes and rights of the authority of the Church. It was longer than any of the preceding discourses, and, from the space it occupies in print, must have taken at least an hour and a half in delivery.

"The first prerogative of the Divine authority of the Church," said the Father, "is the right to teach; it is the right of taking, in the name of God and of truth, a full possession of intelligences-in a word, dogmatic power or doctrinal sovereignty."

Quoting the words of our Lord, "All power is given unto me in heaven and earth: as my Father has sent me, even so send I you: Go,

teach all nations," &c., he said :-
:-

"I demand here, of the good sense and good faith of any honest man -I demand even of the reason which is most refractory to everything which savours of authority, domination, and sovereignty-is it possible to see and hear in these words anything else than the intention of constituting for entire humanity a teaching body, and investing it with the right of making itself believed? Turn these marvellous words which way you will, you will get no other meaning from them: the will of Jesus Christ, the absolute will to create the great dogmatic body, the grand institution of the living word the true doctrinal university, the truly universal school, alone invested with the right of presenting to all the gift of truth, and of imposing on all its inalienable sovereignty.

But what, exclaims the genius of research and examination, is there, then, to be no other school in the world? There will be the Divine school of truth-in this school one single Master, unus est magister vester Christus; and in order to interpret these words of the one Master, one single institution, sufficiently durable to be able to teach always-suffitreasures of truth to be able to teach everything of which it is necessary ciently vast to be able to teach everywhere-sufficiently rich with the not to be ignorant, docete omnes, docete omnia quocumque mandavi vobis. This persuasion of intellectual sovereignty and of doctrinal royalty-this conviction of the right to teach all men, not one truth only. but the truth this assumption to govern all minds, and to touch with the sceptre of authority every intellect which comes into this world, even in limiting then to the person of Jesus Christ, is so strange-so humanly impracticable and so divinely audacious, that in face of these words, as in face of the whole personality of Jesus Christ, we are constrained to exclaim, 'Divinity or folly; Yes, He is either a madman, or He is

Divine.'

"Remember, too, that all the successors of Jesus Christ have inherited this Divine audacity, or-if He is not God-this folly. And now, after twenty centuries, the Church, our Mother, continues with Divine calmduty to believe in her instruction, and we, to-day, are not less affirmaness, publishing everywhere both her right to instruct you, and your tive, not less convinced, and not less bold, than our fathers, in maintainwords,-Go and teach. Behold us ready to defend them, without yielding an atom, in all their Divine integrity, even at the price of our blood. Heresy, on this question, yields everywhere; she makes concessions to philosophy, politics and, above all, to popularity; she abandons to the fancies of the most extravagant interpretation, the shreds of the Gospel, lacerated by a sacrilegious criticism-the Church never: never has she ceded anything of her most unpopular, but most fundamental right, of teaching nations, and causing all intellects to submit to every word of the Master. She asks pardon neither of human reason, nor of human popularity; and in the midst of the immense clamour which contemporary rationalisms raise round her time-honoured ambition, Catholicism says to-day, as she has said for 19 centuries,-'I have spoken, you must believe; I am king of intelligences, and you are my subjects.'

A little book on Denominational Statistics of England and Wales, published by Mr. Sandford of Charing Cross, is an attempt to ascertain from the marriage returns the proportion of the population belonging to Roman Catholics, Jews and Dissenters. Mr. Ravenstein, the author of the book, estimates the number of Dissenters at nearly one-fifth of the entire population, and as he includes under the term Dissenters, the mass of unbelievers who profess no religion at all, his estimate is not out of the way. But Mr. Ravenstein has another object, and when we read—" That if religious fervour can make up for numerical inferiority, Dissenting bodies are as strong as the Church. One Dissenter, in fact, does as much Church-going work as six average Churchmen!"-we may more than guess that object. Taking the number of marriages at Meeting-houses and Register offices for the lasting the imperishable heritage which Christ has bequeathed to us in these twenty-five years, he attempts to prove that Dissent has doubled in that time, and that at the same rate of increase, in thirty years more, Dissenters will form a majority of the population. That is, because Dissenting and irreligious marriages have doubled in twenty-five years, Dissenters must have increased in the same proportion-a fallacy, founded on entirely false premises. Every one knows that in the early years of the Dissenters' Marriage Act, few availed themselves of it, and that it would therefore be impossible to compute the number of Dissenters from the marriage returns. Old associations prevailed, and a mere civil contract or a marriage at a Meeting-house, were alike repugnant to the feelings of the last generation. We have now generation born and bred to the new state of things, and the lapse of time which has accustomed Dissenters to Meeting-house marriages, has, in larger proportion drawn the indifferent and unbelieving from the Church to the Registrar's office; for while Dissenting marriages proper have increased in twenty-five years from 5.45 per cent. to 9.45, irreligious marriages have increased from 2.61 per cent. to 8.40, an increase one-third greater than that of Dissenting marriages. The only conclusion that can be fairly drawn from these figures is, that of nearly one-fifth of the population called Dissenters, little more than half (or onetenth) are religious Dissenters. That there has been any increase in these latter, corresponding to the increase of population, is exceedingly doubtful; but that indifferentism and infidelity have increased and become more avowed, is more than probable.

a

"Ah! you know, and history loudly testifies to it-to shake off this yoke imposed upon intellects by doctrinal authority was, in all ages, the desire, the passion-I was going to say, the rage of all heresies and all to say it, the Divine obstinacy of the Church; and this obstinacy is her rationalisms: to maintain it was ever the superhuman desire and, I dare glory, her strength, her power, her permanent miracle. . . ."

The second point in the authority of the Church, Père Felix stated, "is her right and duty to command:"

'Doctrinal authority demands, as its necessary complement, legislative authority; the right of imposing belief implying essentially the right of the Church is different from any other legislation. It includes in itself determining in acts, the manifestation of belief. . . . This legislation of a sovereignty, a universality, a depth, and an efficacy that you will find nowhere else; a legislation, the most really sovereign and universal—the deepest and most truly efficacious, that is to say, the most thoroughly obeyed, that we have ever seen. If, in her legislation, the Church sometimes endeavours to place herself in harmonious relations and in pacific agreement with such and such human legislature, it is never to the detriment of her own sovereignty. She can make a compact, she never abdicates; she makes alliances she never consents to her own

fall..

...

And this legislation, so really sovereign, is rigorously universal. Behold! indeed, how this omnipotent Queen makes for all, those laws which reach-without distinction of persons and dignities-the prince

upon his throne, as well as the shepherd in his cottage--the man of genius where he recognises no other competent judge than that conscience itself. upon the heights of science, as the man of labour bending over the anvil Before this invisible sanctuary he erects a barrier harder than or stooping before the furrow. . . . She literally includes the world in adamant; he seals it with an inviolable seal, and he says, I have my her command, as she includes it in her teaching; and this celebrated secret, and I will tell it to no one." What, then, is this confiding, sweet, word, urbi et orbe, is become the authentic sign of the immensity of her and serene authority which comes and knocks at the door of this closed legislative power, and of the real universality of her legislature. Never sanctuary, . . . . and which says, 'Open to me; this conscience is my have the boldest of the Cæsars ventured anything similar; never have domain, and I have the right to enter there: this secret belongs to me, these apparently most universal monarchies, attempted anything so and, by the justice and mercy which send me, I have the right to know divinely audacious. The end of their sceptre was arrested at some fron- it, for, if this secret is a crime, I have a mission to know, and power to tier, and their most ambitious orders of universal obedience have never pardon it.' had in reality the pretension of extending everywhere. They felt them- "Who, outside the Church, in the ancient or modern world, ever had selves too little to essay the immense, too weak to attempt the impossible; the idea of such an authority and the boldness of such ambition. Ah! and insensate as they were sometimes, they were still too wise to attempt what would the most sublime representatives of the ancient or modern such a folly. But the Church extends-not only over one world have thought-what would Plato have thought if, one day, a kingdom, one nation, one race, but over the world-the network man such as we meet in the Church, clothed in serge or coarse woollen of her truly universal legislation. And what increases in this garments, with bare head-a rope round his loins-had come to knock public and perpetual exercise of legislative power, the prodigy of at the door of the Academy, where the great man of genius was discoursing the Divine audacity we have just pointed out, is, that this legis-upon wisdom; and if, summoning one of his disciples, he had said to lation extends itself into the most intricate recesses of life; that him with calm assurance, Go and tell Plato, your illustrious master, its imperative laws reach the most delicate, the most susceptible, the that I expect him this evening, at such an hour, and such a place, to most irritable parts of our nature-always more or less in revolt-pride, receive the avowal of his sins, and to grant him pardon for them. Tell and sensuality. To confess sin and to mortify the flesh, what is it but him that I have the right to know all the evil that he has done in this the sword of the law penetrating the most sensitive parts of our human life, and the power, if he wills, to pardon it him; tell him that I am life? To demand the humiliation of the soul and the affliction of the only a man, but that I come in the name of that God-the author of body.... is not this to arouse, to wound, to stir up the fiercest heaven and earth, of Whom he is so superbly discoursing-tell him that instincts of our humanity? Who does not perceive what prodigious if he does not come to seek voluntarily the pardon that eternal mercy boldness was necessary for the infant Church when she laid sends him, 1 condemn him in the name of this same God, to receive from down the severity of her laws in the full orgies of the pride and sensu- Him the punishment of eternal justice. . . . And we, Sirs, have we ality which at that time inundated the world? The Church nevertheless not the audacity to invite you to come and tell us your most intimate dared to do it, and to-day, in the full revival of Paganism-in the midst secrets? You men of letters, you men of science, you statesmen, you of the saturnalia of independence and sensuality-of pride and voluptu- deputies, you senators, and you who touch the steps of the throne, and ousness, which blaze forth everywhere before our eyes the Church still you who are everything that one can be in this world,-have we not the dares, and maintains against all, its sovereign and austere legislation boldness-we who are nothing-to invite you, to come, with brow inclined over the world. . . . and knees bent, more prostrate than the humblest subjects before the greatest potentates-to acknowledge, even in our nothingness, this sweet but sublime power, the power of pardoning, this maternal but loyal authority, the authority of mercy." And how is it that this assumption is not received with an immense burst of laughter? Divine appears to you here, because under this puny appearance of man you discover through a ray of your faith the majesty of God, Who condescends towards your misery; because in this sublime prostration before a majesty which at the same time both hides and discovers itself, you feel an impression of respect, and as it were a breath of authority, which you feel nowhere else besides.

"But the legislative power in the Church of God demands another necessary complement administrative power. The Church is a living society. Now societies, whatever they may be, imply these three things, which ought to combine, in order to determine their progress and complete their harmony-the constituent, the legislative, the administrative." After eloquently discoursing on this third point, Père Felix went on to the fourth :

"There is in all well-organised society, another authority, which is called judicial authority, the power of repairing injury done to justice; then the right of judging, the right of condemning, and, consequently, the right of punishing, that is, the right of giving to outraged society legitimate satisfaction, and to violated justice necessary reparation. . . This the Church claims. To deny to her this right of punishment would be to condemn her to complete impotence. This authority of repression -this right of punishing, in her own domain and in her own way, her subjects who are in rebellion-who can contest them to the Church? Who can refuse to her a right inherent in her essence, and the exercise of which, is for her not only a condition of dignity but a condition of existence, the right to strike with the sword of the spirit the obstinate violators of the law of the spirit. . . . . Baptised, as you are-marked with her sign, and carrying her banner-if you repudiate her doctrine, if you reject her authority, how can you prevent the Church from withdrawing from you, or separating you from her? How refuse to a living body the power of expelling the evil which corrupts it? How refuse to the Divine mother-outraged in her dignity, her laws, and her majesty -the faculty of saying to the rebellious child, "I no longer know you?" Yes, the Church which has the authority and power to communicate to men the gift of God, must also have the authority and power to withdraw the benefits of love, from him who profanes her by a sacrilegious touch, or outrages her by an ungrateful rebellion. The Church, retiring into her sanctuary, with her benefits unrecognised-her authority outraged and her maternity betrayed-must say to every subject, obstinate in his rebellion, whether he be prince, king, or emperor,-'I take up my cross, and 1 depart from you; I separate you from me. Depart: I cut you off from the festival, where, with my maternal hands, I dispense the bread of truth and the substance of life. I deprive you of my Communion, to which you will return only by the way of repentance; brought back to my bosom, ever open, upon the arms of Mercy.' .

"But I cannot terminate this rapid sketch of Catholic authority without showing you, in the Church, the most touching authority that it is possible to imagine, the second side-the gracious and radiant side-of our judicial authority,-I mean the authority of mercy, the right and power of pardoning-not only the power to remove the punishment, but the power to remove the fault-in a word, the power of making innocent. A magistrature such as we have never seen; of which conscience is the sanctuary, and whose truly Divine function is to set free from the tyranny of crime, and to restore, with liberty in doing good, the joy of feeling innocent. The Church needed this magistrature of conscience for the moral and religious education of the human race. The great power of education is to enter into the soul and heart of the child.. "Reflect, Sirs, that even the most degraded man guards in the centre of his life that essentially reserved spot, the sanctuary of conscience,

CONVENT EXPERIENCES.

....

Because the

Lady Gertrude Douglas has addressed the following letter to the Times:

"Having read in the Times of March 30 the account of Mr. Newdegate's successful motion respecting the examination of Monastic institutions, I think that the experience of one who has been herself for five years a member of one of the cloistered Convents of our land may be of service in removing a few prejudices and popular delusions, or at least in furnishing some correct information on a subject which, while it occupies so large a share of the public attention, is by the majority very little understood. I am the eldest daughter of the late Lord Queensberry. At the age of twenty-one I entered the Convent of the Good Shepherd, at Hammersmith, and after a three years' noviciate-interrupted by a residence of five months in my own family, during the period which immediately succeeded the death of my brother, Lord Francis Douglas, on the Matterhorn-I was professed and become a sister of the Black Veil' in 1867. I was then sent successively to houses of the Order in Liverpool and Glasgow. At the expiration of two years (for reasons which I do not feel myself called upon to state, but which were personal, grave, and important, and which had nothing to do with the Convents or nuns, to all of whom I am warmly attached) I wished to return to my home. No difficulty was made in allowing me to see and to converse with the Ecclesiastical Superior of the Diocese. At my request he came to see me, and treated me with the most indulgent and fatherly kindness, and, after a short delay, he released me from my vows, and allowed me to return to my family. To Protestant authority in such a case I would never have appealed, and had my Ecclesiastical Superiors refused to sanction my application for freedom, had they imposed the smallest restraint on my conscience where the real tie existed, then would the Commission of Inquiry which Mr. Newdegate wishes to set on foot have been perfectly useless to procure my liberation,' as I should most decidedly have declined to take advantage of its interference in a matter which simply regarded my conscience, and this not from contempt, but from a conviction which nothing could shake, that no authority from God could rest with any but the Priests of the Holy Catholic Church, to whom alone He gave the power to bind and to release.' This is, I know, the conscientious belief of every nun I have ever known. This example should be enough to convince Mr. Newdegate and his party that there does exist for every nun a Court of Appeal in the persons of her Ecclesiastical Superiors, and that, moreover, it is the only Court of Appeal that can be of any service to her. If any girl or woman dares

perly so called, its animating principle is the law of nature and of the Gospel.

A high authority tells us that Godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is-1 Tim., iv., 8, and this voice of inspiration could never be more completely verified than in the history of the treatment and condition of our national poor. The Clergy are the chairmen of the parish vestries, and for every reason they must be the parties to blame for allowing Christianity to evaporate from the operation of the Poor Law. It is idle, however, to make complaints. We may blame the past, but we cannot recall it. Again, I must say that the great principles of Christianity are the groundwork of English law, and an Englishman who understands the constitution of his country will look to its laws as moral guides to direct him (in the various relations of life) to a proper performance of his duty to his brother citizen. I say, if you intend rightly to settle the Poor Law question you must revive the observance of this great principle. Englishmen of all classes must be taught it from their childhood by precept and example, and now I hope you will understand what I mean when I speak of unity of action between the Poor Law Board and a Board of Education. The following contrast between new and old is very striking; it will be interesting also to add that Bishop Blomfield, who, in compliance with the provisions of Lord Bridgewater's will, appointed Dr. Chalmers to write his treatise, was the head of the Royal Commission which recommended the introduction of the new Poor Law:THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ENGLISH LAW.

That mankind is a community, that we all stand in a relation to each other, that there is a public end and interest of society which each particular is obliged to promote, is the sum of morals.

Both our nature and condition require that each particular man should make particular provision for himself. But for every one who desires to act a proper part in society, all that can be said is, supposing what as the world goes is so much to be supposed that it is scarcely to be mentioned that persons do not neglect what they really owe to themselves, the more of their care and thought and of their fortune they employ in doing good to their fellow creatures, the nearer they come up to the law of perfection thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.-Bishop Butler's Sermons.

At our baptism we make our contract in the presence of God and His congregation that we will

forsake the covetous desires of the world, that is the covetous living only for ourselves, there is our contract with the world, that we will mutually assist our brethren in the world.-Donne's Sermons, published 1649.

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF
MODERN TIMES.

The greatest economic good is
rendered to the community by each
man being left to consult and to
labour for his own particular good

that they may return to their Dioceses. A postulatum has also been presented by the German Bishops praying for the recognition of the Catholic Association of Germany, and the establishment of a principal See at Cologne.

The Bishop of Chiusi and Pienza died on the 25th of March, leaving another Italian See vacant. Unless some providential change occurs in Italy three-fourths of the Dioceses will be thus widowed, and the difficulties of nominations are so great that new Bishops can be appointed in very few cases in the Pontifical annexed provinces, and the work has to be done as a general rule by Vicars-Capitular. In other parts of Italy the difficulties are not so great, as in those states Victor Emmanuel's authority may be lawfully acknowledged.

The Tablet says:-"On Sunday afternoon the Holy Father went to
the Basilica of Sta. Croce in Gerusalemme in order to consecrate the
Agnus Dei, those consecrated last year being already exhausted. The
entrance of the Monastery was draped with crimson and gold, and a
more beautiful sight could scarcely be witnessed than the arrival of the
Pontifical cortége as it passed rapidly up the broad green alley that lies
between Sta. Croce and the Lateram. The trees on either side the road
were just bursting into leaf, and the grass was literally covered with
spring flowers. Groups of Trappist Monks, Zouave officers, Swiss
guards, and Bishops of every rite mingled with visitors of every nation
on the steps of the Church and crowded the doors of the Abbey, and
many persons succeeded in entering the corridor and sacristy where the
ceremony was to take place. The appearance of Pius IX. was the
signal for a hearty burst of cheering, the cry of Vive le Pape Infallibile!
being almost universal. He was looking remarkably well, and gave his
Blessing twice or four times to the crowd before entering the Convent.
day to the See of Sabina."
The Pope's cousin, Cardinal Milesi-Ferretti, was consecrated the same

-or in other words a more pros-
perous result is obtained by the The Roman correspondent of the Times, writing on the 13th inst.
spontaneous play and busy compe- says:-"The Official Journal of last night claims a great victory. It
tition of many thousand wills each says the sitting yesterday finished the voting upon the amendments pro-
bent upon the prosecution of its posed to the several par s of the Constitution de Fide before the Council.
own selfishness, than by the anxious The votes were afterwards taken by calling of names upon the entire
superintendence of a Government text of the matter under discussion. Six hundred Fathers were present.
vainly attempting to regulate the There were no negative votes. A moderate number voted with condi-
fancied imperfections of nature or tions-juxta modum. All the rest were simply affirmative. The next
to improve on the arrangements of meeting is fixed for Easter Tuesday. Of course much depends on what
her previous and better mechanism. the journal calls a moderate number, and on the conditions. The Arch-
It is when each man is left to seek bishop of Paris, who, as well as the Bishop of Orleans, is here, and not
with exclusive and concentrated gone home as reported, claims a victory. Upon what precise grounds I
aim his own individual benefit that have yet to learn. The objections made to and attached to the vote in
markets are best supplied, that the form of protest were not to the matter, or to any principle involved
commodities are furnished for in it, so I hear; but were rather on the ground of informality. Indeed,
general use of best quality and in it is admitted, and put in the way of excuse, that the opposition was
greatest cheapness and abundance, taken by surprise. Darboy and many others imagined they would have
that the comforts of life are most another opportunity of speaking for the voting by name-call; but found
multiplied, and the most free and themselves silenced. Yet they say they have gained something, and
rapid augmentation takes place in stand better than before, and also that the Opposition is stronger than
the riches and resources of the ever. Rome, it is needless to say, recognises a Providential interposition
commonwealth.-Chalmer's Bridge- in the Plebiscite, which will reduce the French Government to non-inter-
water Treatise, vol. 2, p. 34.
vention with the Council, so it says."

So long as the public mind is being poisoned by the false principles of that economy of self which is now so widely prevalent it is impossible that any cure can be found for poor law difficulties. As well might we hope that victory could be obtained by an army where the standard was raised with the inscription, "unscrupulous zeal for self-preservation is the real characteristic of a good soldier," as suppose the proper order of society can be preserved where regard to self is the ruling principle of the philosophy of the day. Moreover as to the law of supply and demand, it seems not out of place to observe that our social disorders, in which the condition of the national poor occupies a prominent place, demand a copious supply of those great principles of social duty which are incorporated in English law, trace their origin to the bosom of Almighty God, and are supernaturally confirmed by the Gospel, and therefore ought, let me say again, to be the bond of union between the Poor Law Board and the Board of Education.

Notes, Literary, Archæological, &c.

The Levant Herald of Constantinople has developed into a regular daily paper.

Recent returns show that 30 per cent. of the population of France can neither read nor write; while more than 7 per cent. can read but cannot write.

Two Pilgrimages to the Holy Land in the fifteenth century, those of the Princes of Orange, Louis and William of Châlon, have just appeared in Paris in a small tract edited by M. E. Travers.

The private view of the Exhibition of the Institute of Painters in Water Colours takes place on Saturday next the 23rd inst. The Gallery will be open to the public on the following Monday.

We hear that the next number of the North British Review will contain a short article from the pen of a distinguished historian reconciling the two statements, hitherto thought discordant, of the Dublin manuscript and the Ashburnham manuscript and Bale, as to the author of our great fourteenth century alliterative poem, the "Vision of Piers Plowman," and showing to what family this author really belonged. The question has puzzled all biographers and critics hitherto.

The following incident is worth noting here, as evidence of literary taste among the million in 1870. Not very long ago the present writer was walking, in Somersetshire, along a road, by the side of which a new villa was in course of erection. Two of the builder's workmen were

talking as they mixed some lime and water, when one, a stalwart young fellow, "all hair and lime," as Ben Jonson says, remarked, "There's a book of Gladstone's I want to read: it's called Juventus Mundi."" This was a compliment that would, doubtless, have been very grateful to the Premier, had he heard it.-Athenæum.