The difficulty is to restrain our pen from wandering amidst this wilderness of falsehoods in our desire to refute them all, in place of confining it to combat the one evil principle which lies at their root, and which we wish especially to notice. But we must be severe on ourselves; only let it not be supposed that we are blind to the numberless historical and other fallacies with which the Roman question is surrounded, because we address ourselves solely to one object; viz., to offer some remarks on the unchristian and unworthy assumption that there is an inherent incongruity between the religious and civil office; and that the Catholic religion is the enemy of freedom and advancement, rightly understood, or of the development of the affections of the human heart. Moreover, we limit ourselves to deal with these questions, in great measure, in the abstract, because an appeal to all the facts which support our views, and an examination of those which appear to be opposed, would occupy a space we cannot at present command. Not that we underrate the value of facts; but our object at present is to supply a key to them, or more strictly speaking, it is to consider the one great and undeniable fact of the day, the increasing and determined opposition of the spirit of the age to the spirit of religion.

The government of the Popes is essentially a Christian government; the spirit of the age is more and more retrograding towards paganism; or, at the best, its highest aspirations are after a natural religion, and its ideas of freedom and advancement are a simple return to the laws of nature falsely understood, and a yearning after deliverance from the claims of revelation and divine authority.

Hence proceed the howlings of the Times and the scoffings of About. Our apology for placing such a book as his at the head of our article, must rest on the fact that it is a great authority with a portion of the English press, and has thus been brought before the notice of our countrymen as if it were really worthy of attention. At one time we heard of nothing but "all that Perugia shrieked and all that About has written." The writings are as little to the purpose as the shrieks; and the shrieks are the fruit which such writers produce. Suffice it to say the book is

* The Times.

one which no English lady could suffer on her table. It is worthy of its name, it is essentially de la boue. The raciness of its style renders, if possible, still more offensive the flippant filthiness and falsehood of its jests and calumnies. This foul spirit is so manifest as at once to vitiate and nullify its testimony on other points, in the eyes of all who will pay regard to the character of the witness. However, such an author may be believed when he testifies against himself. His book contains one or two pictures, painted indeed in order to be scoffed at, but which it may be worth while to lay before our readers, both as betraying the spirit of the writer, (though not to the extent of more offensive passages), and also as giving an insight into that state of things which he desires to see reformed.

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We will first take his description of a village in the province of Frosinone towards the Neapolitan frontier. Night is approaching, and the whole population is returning from its labour in the fields." Our Frenchman has always an eye to the soldier. He would rejoice to see the blessings of a forced conscription introduced among these Roman peasants. "Guns, and drums, and wounds," form an essential element in his ideas of progress and enlightenment, and the exclamations which break out on this and other occasions, betray the tender secret of his heart. He remarks of this peasantry:

"It is fine, it is strong, it would make fine regiments." (La Question Romaine, Ch. V.)

But the Pope would make them saints, and cares little whether they become soldiers; with About and the Times and the world at large it is the reverse; fine regiments, extended commerce, political renown, and head learning for the million, these are their beau ideal; make sure of these, and leave sanctity and heaven to take their chance. Here is the point of the question, here is the direct and irreconcileable antagonism between the Papal government and the so-called spirit of the age, in other words, the spirit of the world, the flesh, and the devil.

To proceed with the description from the pen, be it remembered, of a writer who describes in order to con

temu:

"All these half-clothed men who are returning home with a mattock on their shoulders, have risen this morning two hours before the sun, to weed a small field or stir the soil around a few olive

trees. The land of more than one of them is six kilometres from the village; he goes there every day with his child and his pig. The pig is not fat; the man and the child are extremely thin; for all that, they are gay; they have plucked flowers on their road; the boy is crowned with roses like Lucullus at his table. The father buys two salads with a cake of maze-this will form the supper of the family. They will sleep into the bargain, if the fleas will let them. If you follow these poor folk home, they will give you a kind welcome, and their first words to you will be an invitation to supper. Their furniture is simple enough, their conversation is poor enough-their brains are furnished like their houses.”—(La Question Romaine, ch. v.)

Be it so! we have proof enough that if they have not heads like Mons. About, they have hearts he well might envy. And the day is fast coming for each, when hearts, not heads, will form the subject of a test on which a whole eternity depends. After all we doubt not that there would not be found a greater amount of intellect among English country hamlets, but we fear it is beyond a doubt that the faith, hope, and charity, of this despised Italian peasantry, would there be sought for in vain.

Thus, we are further told of them :

"Ask not of these country people what they think of Rome and the government; they have but a vague notion of those sort of things.... If there exists a capital for these poor people it is Paradise. They believe in it firmly; they seek it with all their might. One who complains at paying two dollars for his fireside, gives two and a half to have written over his door, Viva Maria! ... One must see them on a grand fête day to admire the ardour of their naivetè. Men, women, children, all the world flocks to the Church. Each of the streets is covered with a carpeting of flowers, joy beams on every face. What new event then is happening? What is happening? The feast of St. Anthony! The mass is sung with music, in honour of St. Anthony. A procession is formed to keep the feast of St. Anthony; the little boys disguise themselves as angels; the men put on the robe of their confraternities; see here the peasants of the Heart of Jesus; there those of the Name of Mary; there the souls in purgatory. There is a little confusion in forming the procession. They embrace, they push one another over, they scuffle, all in honour of St. Anthony. At last the statue leaves the church; it is a puppet of wood, with cheeks very red. Victory! The crackers are lighted, the women weep with joy, the children cry at the top of their voice, Live St. Anthony!' In the evening, grand fireworks; a balloon, made in the image and resemblance of the saint, ascends above the church, and bursts magnificently,"

So these good folk have their holidays, though not exactly after About's fashion. On the other side the Apennines he finds Italians more to his heart:

'But, I confess," says he, in reference to his favourites, "that religion loses ground in these fine provinces. I have sought in vain among the towns of the Adriatic for those inscriptions of Live Jesus, live Mary!' which edified me on the other side of the mountains. At Bologna I read sonnets at the corner of every street; sonnet to Dr. Massarenti, who healed Mme. Taglioni...... At Faenza, the inscriptions painted on all the walls certainly betrayed a kind of fanaticism, but a fanaticism of the dramatic art: Live Ristori! Live the divine Rossi !' At Rimini, at Forli, I read Live Verdi! Live Lotti !'...... When I went to visit, near Ancona, the holy house of Loretto......I saw a troop of pilgrims euter the church, who advanced on their knees, shedding tears and licking the pavement. I supposed that these good peasants belonged to some commune of the neighbourhood; but a workman of Ancona, who happened to be present, informed me of my mistake. Sir,' he said to me, the unhappy persons you behold live on the other side of the Apennines, because they still make pilgrimages. For fifty years we have made none; we work.'" (La Question Romaine, ch. v.)

We

So, we thought from the former pictures, did the people whose faith excites the pity of Mons. About! For our own part we are more disposed to bestow our pity where he finds motive for admiration. We will now turn to another chapter, where the principles against which we raise our voice are still more openly proclaimed. were under the delusion that the real object of every Christian temporal government was to assist the Church in making men good Christians, watching over their temporal interests with a view to their eternal. But we are told this is not so; such notions are antiquated, they savour of the time of Charlemagne. It is not often, however, that we meet with the reverse teaching so plainly uttered as by the favourite of our leading English journal. After falsely charging the Church with opposition to science, Mons. About tells us:

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Sovereigns who are not Popes have nothing to fear from the progress of enlightenment, because it is not their interest to make saints, but to form men...... All the princes of Europe, except the Pope, limit their views to the things of earth, and they do wisely. Without questioning the existence of another world, they govern their subjects as if there was nothing to be hoped for after this life.

They strive to procure them all the prosperity that can be enjoyed here below; they labour to render man as complete as he can be in the gross covering of the body. We should treat them as sorry jesters if they gave us the place of Job on his dunghill, whilst pointing out to us with the finger the eternal beatitudes. But, reflect that our emperors and our kings are lay sovereigns, married, fathers of families, personally interested in the education of children, and the future of nations. A good Pope, on the contrary, has no other interest than to gain heaven and to draw 139 millions of men there after him." (La Q. Rom. ch. xvi.)

We do not pause to notice the palpable exaggerations contained in this extract, nor to prove that the Roman government do not neglect the material interests of their people, (though they do not make them all in all,) but we quote the passage as an avowal ad unguem of the real cause of the world's hatred to the Papal government. It is too Christian for an infidel generation. It puts heaven first, and earth next, as the way to heaven. It remembers death, judgment, hell, and heaven, and these four last things influence all its acts; it has more care for soul than for body. It does not treat religion as the contrivance of a police system, to keep people on their good behaviour; nor as an amusement or excitement, to be set aside when real business is to be done, a cloak to be worn on holidays, but thrown off when men require the use of their limbs and have need of action; a "flattering unction' to soothe weak consciences, but a trammel of scruples altogether unworthy of a statesman. No! we conceal it not. If a Pope must choose for his people between a temporal advantage, however great, to be purchased at a spiritual loss, and a spiritual gain accompanied by some worldly disadvantage, he will undoubtedly, and he ought undoubtedly, without hesitation, to prefer the glory of God and the good of souls to the highest aggrandizement this world can offer for himself or his people. But not so a Pope only; this is the duty of every sovereign; be he layman or ecclesiastic, married or celibate; what he holds he holds for God: "The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof: the world and all they that dwell therein."* There is no divided empire; the temporal and the spiritual alike are God's, and alike are to be held for God. True, indeed, to the spiritual belongs directly the

* Ps. xxiii.