ciple; the Catholic Church, her infallibility and religious order; the State. freedom of inquiry, and social order, Not only will they then live in peace, but they will respect and strengthen each other, not merely in hollow semblance, which would be unworthy of them both, but in earnest reality.. As to the benefits which would result from this pacification to the Catholic Church and constitutional France, they are immense. What is the great evil which disorders our temporal society? The enfeeblement of authority. I speak not of that force which compels obedience; never perhaps had power more of it; never perhaps so much; but of that authority which is anteriorly recognised in principle and in a general manner, which is adopted and felt, as a right, which has no need of recourse to force; of that authority to which the heart and the understanding yield a voluntary allegiance, which speaks from on high with the empire not of constraint,and yet of necessity. This is truly authority. It is not nevertheless the only principle of the social state. It suffices not for the government of men. But nothing can suffice without it, neither reasonings repeatedly reiterated, nor self interest well understood, nor the material preponderance of numbers. Wherever this authority is wanting, however great the physical force may be, obedience is always precarious and base, always bordering on servility or rebellion. But Catholicism contains the spirit of authority-of authority systematically conceived and organized, laid down as a fundamental principle, and carried out into practice, with great firmness in doctrine and a rare knowledge of human nature. Catholicism is the greatest and most holy school of respect the world has ever seen. France has been formed in this school, in spite of the abuses to which human passions have often turned its precepts. These abuses are little to be feared in future, and the great benefits may flow from the inculcation of the precepts, of which we have great need. Catholicism has also its evils. Its coldness, its formality, its predominance of forms over realities, of exterior ceremonies over interior convictions. But these evils arise from the incredulity, mostly hypocritical, of the eighteenth century, with which the present age is also in fected; and also from the predominancy which was long excessive in the church, of the governing over the vital principle, of ecclesiastical authority over a religious life. . . . What then has saved Catholicism from shipwreck? The popular faith. The Government fell, but the Catholic peo ple survived. M. de Montlosier is right. In our days also, a cross of wood has saved the world. But this salvation is incomplete. The church is raised from the ground, but souls languish. Catho licism is wanting in faith, of a faith springing out of the deep inward con victions. . The situation of Protestantism is more simple; some persons affect to believe it better. The general spirit which, since 1830, has prevailed in our political and domestic affairs and alliances, the analogy of principle between constitutional France and Protestant England, has given rise to an opinion that Protstantism is in favour. There are even some people who pretend to have discovered a grand conspiracy to render France Protestant. This absurdy has no need of confutation. A very little time back Protestantism appeared not to be so well established in France. I speak not of the Restoration. But under the empire it was said that Protestantism had a republican tendency, that its maxims were opposed to all stable order and to all strong power. The protestant spirit and the revolu tionary spirit were represented as being closely allied. "The same assertion is still repeated. It has become the theme of a party who persevere in exhibiting Protestantism as incompatible with social order, tranquillity of conscience, and the monarchy. Happily Protestantism is not a religion of yesterday in Europe. It has a history to reply to this accusation ... The French Reformed Church ought especially to be exempt from this ridiculous reproach. She enjoys her new liberty with modesty and gratitude. Never has a religious society been more disposed to show deference to the civil authority. Protestantism, therefore, we have omitted the reasons as too generally appreciated, and too trite to be repeated to an English public, in this country can inspire no fears of a political nature; and in a religions point of view it may effect much good, but not in proselyting and convert. ing. Conversions on one side and on the other will be henceforward extremely rare; and the importance which certain persons attach to them, either as a matter of gratulation or camplaint, is somewhat puerile. Truly such conversions are facts most grave to those who are engaged in them, but they are of no moment to society. France will not become Protestant; Protestantism will not perish in France. Among many other reasons, the following is decisive. It is not between Catholicism and Protestantism that a struggle for mastery exists at present. Impiety and immorality are the enemies they both have to contend with. To revive the influence of religion is the work to which they are jointly summoned; an immense work, for the evil thereby to be removed is immense. When one reflects with any seriousness upon this evil-when one sounds, though but partially, its abysses,-the moral state of the masses of our population,-the popular mind so vagrant, the popular heart so empty, desiring so much, hoping so little, fluctuating so rapidly from the fever to the langour of the soul, one is seized with melancholy and dismay. Catholics or Protestants, priests or laymen, whoever you are, if you are believers, do not molest each other, but direct all your zeal towards those who have no faith. There is your field, there is your harvest. An open field for Protestantism as for Catholicism, where the one and the other may find full occupation, and where each has peculiar aptitudes and peculiar merits to labour profitably. We are suffering under diverse moral maladies. Some are tossed with doubt, and a sickly wavering understanding. These require the shelter of a port where no tempest can intrude, of a light which never flickers, of a hand ever present to uphold their faltering steps. They demand from religion rather support for their feebleness, than aliment for their activity. In raising them it must sustain them; in touching their heart it must subdue their inteligence; in animating their interior sensibilities, it must at the same time and above all impart to them a profound sentiment of security. Catholicism is marvellously suited to this character so frequent in our days. It has satisfactions for desires, and remedies for sufferings. It possesses at the same time the art of subjugating and of pleasing. Its anchors are strong, and its perspectives full of attraction to the imagination. It excels in giving at once occupation and repose to the soul, and opens a welcome haven after great fatigues; for without leaving the heart cold or idle, it spares it much effort, and lightens the burden of its responsibility. For other minds diseased also and severed from religion, more ietellectual and personal activity is necessary. They also experience the want of returning to God and to a faith. But they have the habit of examining every thing for themselves, and will receive nothing for truth which results not from their own reasonings. They would flee from infidelity, but liberty is dear to them; and there is in the religious bent of their disposition, more thirst than lassitude. To these Protestantism may find access, for in urging upon them piety and faith, it not only allows but exhorts them to exercise their reason and their liberty. It has been accused of coldness, but wrongfully. In appealing incessantly to a free personal examination, Protestantism works its way deeply into the soul, and generates a strong faith, in which the activity of the intelligence aliments the fervour of the heart, instead of extinguishing it. And by this characteristic it harmonizes well with the spirit of the age, which was in the days of its youth at once inquisitive and enthusiastic, as eager for conviction as for liberty, and which, despite its momentary exhaustion, has not changed its nature, but will resume infallibly its double character. "Let Catholicism and Protestantism then never lose sight of our society. Let them each, according to its peculiar principle, seek out and medicine our social wounds, and cater to those moral wants to which they are respectively most adapted to satisfy. In this task lies their true mission, their efficacious mission, not in eyeing each other constantly with hostility, and renewing old controversies. In general, controversy has but little effect, and that not of a religious kind. They should therefore discard controversy, and bend all their energies to their joint and yet seperate work. Thus they may live in peace not only with our new society, but with each other. This alliance must take place. I repeat, it must. I close as I commenced this paper, by insist ing on this necessity. Peace be tween religious creeds is at present imposed on them all by our social state. Harmony in liberty is their legal condition; it is the Charte. Let them adopt it then heartily as a fact; let them render a loving obedience to this rule. I fear not the disrepute of a false prophet in predicting that religion will gain by it as much as society," &c. &c. A production more completely French than the one from which we have laid such ample extracts before our readers, we believe was never before given to the world. Almost every moral and mental characteristic of Frenchmen, and of Frenchmen too of the highest class of mind, is therein exhibited with a distinctness, a brevity, and a burnish of artful phrases and bastard logic which it well nigh tortures the sense to contemplate within so narrow a compass. In what other country than France, upon the face of the whole earth, would a statesman undertake, not to restrain external actions, but to dictate, ex cathedra, to mind, regarding the thoughts and convictions of men on the most vital topics, as subject, even in their intellectual and spiritual developments, to the mouldings and limitations of a barely political and social expediency? In what other country in the world could religious creeds and philosophy be viewed barely as material facts, to be dealt with, not in their outward forms, but in their inward life, in the same manner as if they were purely conventional institutions? For it is to the inward life of Catholicism, Protestantism, and Philo. sophy, that M. Guizot addresses his dogmatic dialectics. Despite the refining verbal distinctions he makes, this is the fact. He would regulate the internal spirit of faith in France, under its two broad divisions, as well as that of the infidelity of indifference which he calls philosophy. In this we discern the radical passion of Frenchmen for organizing, as they call it, all things. Mind itself they would manage as a great military chief would manage masses of material force under his command. They would array and order it, and send a detachment here and a detachment there, under different captains and different banners, to achieve certain conquests which they deem desirable. There is a pro fundity of impious assumption of the Divine power in such designs; and it is precisely a design of this kind, most flagrantly set forth, that the Essay of a M. Guizot unfolds. The French in their Great Revolution attempted to usurp a dominancy of this sort. Their will was to destroy, their will was to create, their will was to mould and wield all the elements of human society, just as if they had to work upon plastic matter to be shaped by the hands of the artificer. And this abrupt, impatient, arbitrary wilfulness they called freedom. It is much the same now. Persecution in principle at least they abjure; and liberty, especi ally intellectual liberty, and liberty of conscience, they proclaim emphatical ly; but whilst they believe it within their competence, as it were, to orga nize all mental energies, however di verse in nature, and make them act together as parts of the same machine, towards the fulfilment of certain temporal and national purposes, there is the sublimation of tyranny in the very conception. Yet what else does M. Guizot propose? All the great conflicting opinions of men within the French territory are, he affirms, to hear his voice, and kiss and be friends. He considers them, therefore, as sus ceptible of yielding obedience to some intellectual fiat external to themselves. However absurd this phrase may sound, it simply expresses the substance of M. Guizot's meaning. But let us examine his propositions a little closer. He would bring about a pacification between the three powers; Catholicism, Protestantism, and Philo sophy. But this is only possible in one way; by neutralizing them all. It is in vain to say that each may find separate work without interfering with the others. They are in a most prominent sense relative existences. Take away their mutual relations of opposition, and they become at best but feeble prevarications. Their mutually antagonistic qualities constitute, wherein they differ, their very essence. It is preposterous to maintain that the doctrines of each can be zealously propagated, without hostile reference to the doctrines of the other two, espe cially when they are all placed in active juxtaposition: for they are severally at variance, not on points of acknow. ledged minor importance, but on the most vital questions of revelation. It is only by regarding these questions themselves as of very secondary moment, that the pacification on which M. Guizot insists can be accomplished; and whenever this may happen, they will all fade away into a colourless neutrality. But No, says M. Guizot; each of the powers should preserve its distinctive characteristics. How however, being reconciled together, can this be? One of their most distinctive characteristics, is reciprocal opposition, as a distinctive characteristic of the gospel in the earliest ages of the Church was opposition to Judaism, Paganism, and the schools of the Philosophers. M. Guizot's argument is absurd, and at If it be Econtradiction with itself. worth any thing, the apostles at that period alluded to, should have carefully preserved all the distinctive characteristics of their doctrine, and made peace at the same time with the Jews, Pa=gans, and Sophists. They should have said to the devout Jews, go you and preach the Mosaic laws, we shall not interfere with you; and to the devout Pagans, go you and preach your gods and idolatries, we shall not interfere with you; and to the Philosophers, go you and enlighten the world with your philosophy, we shall not interfere with you. We shall merely address ourselves to the rabble, who believe in nothing, and who have no philosophy. And then they would have established exactly the same kind of pacification He that M. Guizot recommends now. would have Catholics, Protestants, and Philosophers, all act on this system. He would have them avoid all disputes and controversy. Controversy he assures us has never done any great good, and asserts in a passage which we have omitted, that it was never called into prominent action till the time of the Reformation, though it is evident from the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles of St. Paul, that the inspired ambassadors of Christ were engaged, almost incessantly during their arduous lives, in controversial discussions with all gainsayers. M. Guizot will not of course admit the justice of the parallel we have drawn between the Christians, Jews, and Pagans of ancient times, and the Protestants and Catholics of the present day; and yet the comparison is a just one. The conversion of Papists will ever be in the estimation of genuine Protestants as deeply needful as the conversion of Jews and Pagans But it is easy to divine the thought of his heart. It is this: That Catholicism, Protestantism, and creedlessness, which he calls Philosophy, have all good in them, if not in equal measures. He perceives that they have each certain properties, and produce certain effects which he has noted as beneficial. He has observed that the religious sentiment, even where it is denied, is common to them all; and it is this sentiment that he would desire to see cultivated. Whatever development it may assume, at least within the range of Christian and philosoconviction to phic denomination, is to him equal. He wishes spiritual abound in society, but whilst he would allow these convictions to attach themselves to particular tenets and forms of worship, he would have it nevertheless admitted without dispute, that in their generality, under all their guises, their most excellent. operation is The substance of religion he sees solely in a vague sentiment, resulting in some determined persuasion of the mind; its doctrines he looks upon as mere accidents. And this view is one very commonly adopted by those who call themselves in a large and liberal sense, as they say, the friends of religion. They do no doubt recollect that Jews and Pagans, Stoics and Epicureans, and all the other numerous worshippers and philosophers of antiquity, entertained each the kind of sentiments and the kind of convictions they insist upon as const.tuting the essence of religious truth. But this consideration does not at all disturb their theory. Why? Because there is a profound incredulity at the bottom of all their speculations which have a theological aspect. They regard Christianity chiefly as a historical fact-a fact, they are willing to avow, which has been prolific of immense benefit to mankind. In this sense they may deem it divine, and call it with some sincerity a revelation; but that it is a revelation in the rigorous signification of that term, that it contains an absolute and essential rule and standard of right and wrong with respect to the spiritual and moral nature of man; that such a rule and standard is any where to be found; that natural truisms do not comprehend the substance of religion; that the doctrines of the Gospel are not mere accommodations and helps to the one universal sentiment of which we have spoken, which pervades all bosoms; that they are not therefore plastic to manifold meanings of a Protean complexion; of a chamelion changefulness, compliant to every variety of temperament and humour, and to the social and political changes of the world-they have no notion. Christianity appears to them principally admirable from its vagueness; and its divinity they emphatically see in this: that, whether Catholic or Protestant, philosopher or infidel, civil society has been much improved by its influence. We repeat however, that this elastic conception of the Christian faith, with whatever plausibility it may be put forward, is rooted in incredulity. It proclaims that there is nothing positive and specific in Revelation of any paramount value; that its general propositions alone which respond to a common feeling and common want in the heart of man, are important; that all the rest is conventional; convenient it may be or not; for the most part effectively useful within a proper narrow sphere; but always to be kept in the back-ground, and never suffered to interfere, by wranglings about its minor matters-differences about what people foolishly call fun damental doctrines, and such comparative trifles-with these broad generalities, on which all are agreed, and on which the cause of vital religion represented to depend. It is impossible to put any other construction than this on M. Guizot's scheme of religious and philosophic pacification in France. But how is it that he is blind to the fact, that this scheme, though now for the first time formally and dogmatically announced and recommended, without the exper diture of either wisdom or wit, logic or religious zeal towards its promotion, has been in active operation in that country for at least half a century! He gives a most eloquent and fearful picture of the feverous unbelief, not disbelief, and the consequent extreme demoralization of mind which prevails among the overwhelmed majority of his countrymen; but in what, we ask, has this state of mind originated, but in the attenuation and dilution of all decided and definite doctrines and opinions with reference to revelation ? Superstition produces one effect; infidelity or a positive denial of the truth of revelation, another ; and latitudinarianism or a willingness to admit and to interfuse the claims to acceptance of diverse creeds, a third; and it is with this last evil of which M. Guizot complains that French society is at present labouring; yet the remedy he proposes, is to carry the evil out to its utmost extent. He fancies, that when it has reached its climax, fervour will coalesce with indifference; that the false proverb, as old as the hills, that all religions are equally true and good, if they be embraced with sincerity," which is the burden of his essay from beginning to end, and which limiting the scope of this proverb to the faith of Christendom, he sets forth as a discovery, if cordially received as an unquestionable axiom, would kindle an ardour in each separate class of religionists devotedly to propagate their peculiar tenets. This is the gist of his scheme. The scheme itself bas, as we have said, been long, and is at present working spontaneously in various parts of the world, to the production of consequences the very reverse of those which M. Guizot contemplates. it has not certainly yet attained that full-orbed completion which he anticipates for it, and would urge forward. When that consummation arrives, But |