wild German story the triumph of the good principle is made apparent by the rage and frenzy of the demons who are disappointed of their prey, so in our Europe of to-day the noisy clashing of all our elements of ignorance and social ill serves but to testify how true must be the policy which is causing them such great disquiet. There are in this 19th century classes which represent what the mass of mankind was in the dark ages. There is in every Roman Catholic country in Europe the poor peasant who tills the earth, but is as untaught as the beast he drives; whose religion is but a superstition as unreasoning and as uninformed as an African's fetish worship; who has animal combativeness just as a dog or a game cock has animal combativeness; and whose voice and whose hand are at command of the nearest master who can arouse his simple instincts. This crass herd of untaught human creatures is now made to give weight, by their hoarse chorus, to long tirades of frantic abuse, which the priests are pouring forth against the quiet progress of truth. They have howled at every light which has risen upon the earth. Their pagan fathers howled at Christianity; they have howled at the philosophy which taught them that the world revolved; they have howled at education, they have howled at the Bible spread open to the people, and now they are howling at freedom. It is a noise and nothing more; but when it comes loud and strong it testifies that some light is rising which their masters hate. It is contemptible to all our judgments. . . . .But if we would be safe in treating them with scorn we must marshal our intelligence, and place the proper men at the head of those who are labouring for the advancement of the human race. . . . .Count Cavour has been from the commencement of the transactions which have given shape and substance to the kingdom of Italy, the Garibaldi of the Council Chamber. . . . . .He was not only the master worker, but he was the type of the cause of Italy."

Cavour and freedom; Priests and slavery! These are the ruling ideas embodied in the above specimen of rhetoric. Cavour and the advancement of the human race; howling priests and moral darkness; these are the antagonistic pictures presented to our view. Let us examine these antitheses somewhat closely, and ascertain whether all is indeed as it is represented; it may be that these slandered priests are the true friends of freedom, and the real promoters of the progress of mankind; and it is not impossible that slavery and moral darkness may be more justly coupled with the name of Cavour and all that Cavour represents, than with the principles of which, in union with the Times, he is the sworn opponent.

It is not our intention to dissect and analyze the choice

specimen of rabid declamation which we have transferred above to our pages. It is not the first time that we have heard the "howlings" of the Times.

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"I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word."

We fear, in all probability, it will not be the last! It is a noise, and nothing more! It is contemptible to all our judgments!" Contempt may be considered the only fitting reply to such shameless and senseless calumny against the religion of Catholics. At the same time we pause one moment to ask, whether among the peasantry and the uneducated and labouring masses of this enlightened Protestant England, will be found one hundredth part of the acquaintance with the necessary truths of Christianity which is possessed by similar classes in Catholic countries, against whose religion the Times raises its howls of execration? There runs a story, for the truth of which we do not vouch, but which, in the remote recesses of our memory, seems to us analogous to what has come under our personal observation, in intercourse with English Protestant poor. Be it true or be it false, we fear it furnishes a fair sample of their general knowledge and personal appreciation of Christianity. The story tells of the earnest endeavours of an English Protestant rector to move the heart of an aged female member of his flock, on her deathbed, to some sense of her religious duty. He dwelt on the passion of our Lord, and read to her the detailed account of it. When he had concluded, he anxiously watched the result. "Ah," replied the object of his solicitude, Ah, Sir, it is very sad, very sad indeed, but let us hope," she added, with a relieved expression of countenance, "let us hope it is not true!" Fiction as this may be, no such tale could even be invented of a Catholic population, though official evidence renders it too probable in our own country. That great authority of the Times, the scoffing About, could not, alas! say of our English poor what he affirms respecting the Roman peasantry, They have a sweet malady which comforts them in all their ills, that is, the faith." (La Question Romaine, ch. v.)

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But, if our English people have little knowledge of Christianity, they are not wanting in superstition. A whole article might be written on their popular superstitions alone. For our own part we can testify that only

the other day, when a friend of ours gave notice to his landlord, a respectable Yorkshire farmer, of his intention to quit a house he rented from him, "Ah!" exclaimed the farmer, "I knew I should get the notice to-day when I set out for market, my wife told me so, and she is a seventh child!" Throughout the north there is a belief that every seventh child is no canny," and is endowed with second sight.

But a more amusing instance lies before us in the Newcastle Daily Chronicle of Feb. 3rd, 1860. It contains a letter addressed to the editor, and headed" a Baptismal Superstition," from which we extract the following verbatim:

"Here the idea is, that at a christening, unless the boys are christened first, and the girls last, the latter get beards and the former are smooth-faced. I know of instances of men here smoothfaced, whose friends declare it was owing to their being christened after girls, although I don't know whether the poor females received the beards instead. In christenings I myself have been at, knowing it was our custom here, I always took care if it was a girl, to have it done last, or a boy, to have it done first."

We could not refrain from this digression, and we beg the Times to look at home, for we suspect the simplest child of the Catholic peasantry he reviles, knows more of Christianity than the writer of the effusion under our notice.

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Let us come to the point we have singled out for special consideration. We of the Catholic laity, crass herd' as we are, "of untaught human creatures," form a hoarse chorus" to the "frantic abuse which the priests are pouring forth against the quiet progress of Truth!" These priests "have howled at every light which has risen upon the earth......and now they are howling at freedom!" It is a contemptible noise and nothing more. But, that it may safely be treated with scorn, the proper men, such as Cavour, must be placed "at the head of those who are labouring for the advancement of the human race. Thus does the great Times, the oracle of England, instruct the admiring multitude. But, be it permitted to our crass untaught intellects to ask a few simple questions; nor let us, Pilate-like, turn away till we have found a clue which may lead us to their answer. For to answer them fully would exceed our present limits. Or

rather we suspect one word alone contains a full answer, but it is a word which admits of infinite development.

We would ask, then, what is truth? what is light? what is freedom? what is truly the advancement of the human race? We do not make the enquiry for the sake of answering or confuting the huge hydra-headed Times, which would be a profitless task enough; but because of the real importance of the subject, and because of its especial importance at the present moment, which is preeminently a season of sham, a time of false disguises; when more than ever there roam over the world whole herds of wolves, seeking to hide themselves in the clothing of sheep, and to entice the unwary; when men, calling themselves sincere Catholics, devise schemes to rob St. Peter of his patrimony, and hesitate not, in their earnest anxiety for the welfare of religion and of its earthly head the Vicar of Christ, to declare that "the smaller is his territory the greater will be the sovereign;' "* asserting that there is an incompetency inherent in the spiritual office of Pontiff, which renders it impossible for him to watch over the temporal interests and the real advancement of his people, and that therefore his rule must be restricted to a few who are condemned, like himself, to remain "immobiles sur la pierre sacrée;" as if Rome were not the heart of Christendom, and as if Christendom could have lived on for the last thousand years with a heart which did not beat! These are days when, in zeal for the truth, and for the good of their country, men hesitate not to incur excommunication, and, with a profession of Catholicity on their lips, openly set at nought the voice of Sovereign

*Le Pape et le Congrès.

The Memorandum of the Romagnese rebels " expresses its profound respect for the Spiritual authority of the head of the Church." Yet they are heedless of his voice, which declared by the Allocution of the 20th of June, and repeated on the 26th of September, "We recall to the memory of all, the greater excommunication and the other ecclesiastical pains and censures inflicted by the sacred Canons, the Apostolic Constitutions, and the decrees of General Councils, especially that of Trent, (sess. 22, cap. 11. de Reforma,) censures to be incurred without any other declaration, by all who in any way dare to attack the temporal power of the Roman Pontiff. And furthermore we declare that these censures have been unhappily incurred by all those who, at Bologna,

Pontiffs, and dictate to them the limits of their spiritual province.

All around us are the same deceits; in our journals, our popular writings, our weekly literature; on all sides there lurks, under some flower of innocence, the snake of infidelity and of antichrist. The burden of it all, the key to the right reading it is the maxim, not expressed, but throughout implied:-Love yourself with all your heart, your neighbour for your own sake, and God so far as it suits your purpose. This in reality is the lesson instilled. Human and natural affections are treated as of paramount importance, to which even God must yield precedence; and so far is it from being remembered that the sacred fire of love must be kindled from on high, and can only burn in a heart which loves its God with all its powers; that to live for God alone, and seek, in all, His supernatural gifts and graces, is reckoned a barbarism of the dark ages, a life which unfits men for their work in this world, a state of things which may satisfy the weak-minded dreamers who live for heaven, but is utterly inconsistent with, and opposed to, the claims of earth, and subversive of all the natural rights of man. Christianity is to be treated as a modern French philosophy deals with Thomas a Kempis, declaring it a fine poem, only wherever you meet with the name of God, put Humanity in its place. In short, it is assumed that God is made for man, not man for God. These are the infidel antichristian principles whose poison it is sought to spread, flavoured and disguised by the sweet honey of a seeming philanthropy ; and there is such a devilish cunning in the mode by which they are propagated, that we shall do well to keep ever present to our mind the only true antidote, and to remind ourselves that in the Cross of Christ alone we possess a test which, like the spear of Ithuriel, may turn the monster fiend back into his own foul shape.

Ravenna, Perugia, and elsewhere, have dared by assistance, counsel, consent, or in any other way whatsoever, to violate, disturb, and usurp the power and jurisdiction of this Holy See, and the patrimony of the blessed Peter." It was after this, that the men who, by their acts had incurred and were incurring these censures, expressed their profound respect for that spiritual authority which pronounced them, without the slightest change in their couduct. Unhappily too many such instances might be cited, including the unhappy king of Sardinia's recent address to his Chambers of Deputies.