care of souls, but to the temporal it also belongs indirectly. Both have the same beginning, and the same end, which is God; and, though in different spheres, both are bound to work for God and the salvation of souls. The moment any earthly object becomes an end instead of a means, whether in the temporal or the spiritual order, the harmony of the universe is disturbed. Even if commerce and worldly prosperity may in a lesser sense, be called the end of temporal rule, that is, so far as they conduce to the one great end, the service and the glory of God; still, the moment they take the place of this end, or interfere with it, they become idols, because they then become the ultimate end instead of the subordinate; so that strictly speaking, all these things are but means, just as earth is not our home, but a mere stepping-stone to heaven. Mons. About tells us of the Roman Government:-" There is not a law, not a regulation, not an act, not a word, which comes from above, which does not tend to the edification of the people, and does not urge them towards heaven." (ch. xvi.)

This

appears to us the highest praise, and, were it not for the whole context, we should, in our simplicity, have supposed it to be meant as such. But we must not forget that we live in an age of enlightenment; our Dickens-reading public would have their heaven here, and they place it in the gratification of the intellect, and in the affections of the human heart.

Here, again, is the same deceit; as some are deluded by the attractions of science and ingenuity, by commerce and material improvements, or by the glories of war and the excitement of political contest, so others are decoyed by the sweet and apparently innocent allurements of hearts which beat in sympathy to their own, and build themselves a heaven in the warm interchange of human kindliness and affection. God forbid we should make light of these things, or harbour that sour puritanical spirit which forbids a mother to kiss her child upon a Sunday; or which shrinks from the development of science, as an effort of human pride or presumption. We hail the loving intercourse of friends, and the kindly circle round the family hearth, as amongst the choicest of God's blessings, and therefore one of the first and foremost to be hallowed by dedication to His service. We welcome the genius which reduces the swelling steam to obedience, and turns to the

service of mankind the rich resources of that world, which is his school-room for eternity; but we ask that this gift also, should be turned to the glory of Him from whom it comes. We rejoice in the printing-press which may circulate among the nations high and noble thoughts, and win souls more and more to the love of God who gave man the intellect to invent it; though we hesitate not to affirm that so far as it is perverted to the service of another master, it becomes a bane as great as it is meant to be a blessing. We honour too, the noble military profession, but we would rather the evil which makes it a necessary one did not exist; we are not disposed to impute it as a fault to a people, that its soldiers have not enough wars to win them laurels. We honour, too, the politician and the statesman, but only when he labours for his country; we do not create the place or office for the man, though we honour the man if the place be not his object. Those who accuse the Roman system of not providing sufficient career for the statesman and the soldier, would seem to regard the career itself as a main object; whereas it seems to us, that the objects to be aimed at are peace, and a well-governed happy people; if these be attained, the smaller the army, and the fewer the placemen, and the less knowledge of the delights of a general election, the better !

How can we be thankful enough for the sweet tenderness of home, with all its joys of kindling_hearts_and loving voices! God be praised for them! But let them not stand in place of God! Let not the gifts be preferred to the Giver! Nay, let them be loved for the sake of the Giver, let the Giver be loved in them! Otherwise we know who has said: "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me."*

We are drawn into these reflections upon human affection both by the tendency of the age, and by the following passage in M. About's chapter on "The education of the people" under the Roman government. We observed it was quoted by the English press, and it is certainly peculiarly calculated to rouse the domestic indignation of all true British lions and lionesses, with whom too frequently the

* St. Mat. x. 37.

ties of earthly home take rank before every heavenly consideration. M. About is giving an instance how all means are used to urge the Roman people heavenwards. O tyranny of tyrannies! see how it penetrates throughout!

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'Open a book of devotion: such are printed in the country. Here we have, just to our purpose, the life of St. Hyacinthe. We find it on the work table of a young girl. A kuitting needle, left between two pages, points out the place where the fair reader has left off this morning.

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Chapter v. She divests herself of all natural affection for her

relatives.

Deter

"Learning from the Redeemer Himself that we must not love our kinsfolk more than God, and feeling herself naturally drawn to make much of her own, she feared lest such love, although natural, if it once took root and began to grow in her heart, might in time surpass or impede the love which she owed to God, and render her unworthy of Him. She took the most generous resolution to divest herself of all affection for those of her blood. mined to conquer herself in this courageous resolution, and to triumph over nature itself which resisted; powerfully animated by another word of Christ, which says, that in order to go to Him, we must even hate our relations when our love for them stands in the way, she proceeded solemnly to make a grand act of renunciation of them before the altar of the most holy Sacrament. There, falling on her knees and inflamed by a great fire of love for God, she made to Him an offering of all the natural affections of her heart, and particularly of those which she felt to be the most powerful in her, those for her nearest and dearest relations. In this heroic act, she made use of the intervention of the most holy Virgin, as may be seen by a letter from her hand to a regular priest, promising, by the aid of the holy Virgin, to attach herself no more either to her kinsfolk or to any other terrestrial object. This renunciation was so strong in courage and sincerity, that, from that moment her brothers, sisters, nephews, all persons of her blood, became objects of indifference to her, and she considered herself henceforth as an orphan and alone upon the earth, so that when these relations came to visit her at the convent, she saw them and spoke with them as if she were in the presence of strangers and unknown persons. She had formed in Paradise a family altogether spiritual, chosen among the saints who had been the greatest sinners. Her father was St. Augustine; her mother St. Mary of Egypt; her brother St. William the Hermit, ex-Duke of Acquitaine; her sister St. Margaret of Cortona; her uncle the Prince of the Apostles, St. Peter; her nephews, the three children of the Babylonian furnace.'

"You think, perhaps, that the book dates from the middle age; that it expresses the isolated opinion of a spirit warped by the

cloister undeceive yourself. Here is the title and the date, and the opinion of those who govern at Rome:

"Life of the Virgin St. Hyacinthe Marescotti, religious professed of the third order of the seraphic father St. Francis; written by the F. Flaminius, Mary Annibal de Latera, brother observant of the order of minors. Rome, 1805, at the house of Antonio Fulgoni, by permission of superiors. "Approval. The book is to the glory and honour of the catholic religion, and of the illustrious order of St. Francis, and to the spiritual profit of persons who desire to enter on the way of perfection.

"F. Thomas Mancini of the Order of Preachers, censor, ex-provincial, and consulter of the Holy Rites.

"Permission to print. F. Thomas Vincent Pani, of the Order of Preachers. Master of the sacred apostolic palace.'

"Behold a woman, an author, a censor, and a master of the palace, who would strangle mankind to place them more quietly in paradise they are doing their duty."-(La Quest. Rom. ch. xvi).

Here we have a key to the wholesome horror professed by certain of our statesmen for a government in the hands of men without families; if, say they, men have not their hearts opened by the ties of family, and the sweet affections of home, what love or sympathy can they have with their fellowmen? Poor blind worms of earth! What are the ties of home, of kindred, of human love, what the closest and the nearest bonds of earth in comparison with the all-constraining love of Christ? Is there no distinction between the misanthrope who, in the intense pride of self, closes his heart to his fellowmen and exclaims,

"I have not loved the world nor the world me,"

and that heaven-aspiring soul, whose burning heart is kindled with the fire of God's own love, and from the very fact of living to Him alone, has no place for self; but loving God with all its powers, loves its neighbour in and for God, and reflecting the sunshine of God's own countenance, sheds its kindly warmth on all within its reach? Strangle the human race! stifle human affection! Thus may men talk whose love is selfishness, or, at the best, blind attachment to creatures while the Creator is forgotten! Thus raves the Times of the 18th of January last, in reference to Dr. Dixon's pastoral, and the Irish Hierarchy in general:

"Do these men wish to set before us, more forcibly even than M. About himself, the miseries that nation must suffer which groans

under the government of a priesthood without family ties, without veneration for the rights or feelings of men, without respect for the dignity, of nations, actuated by no other motive than the wish of trampling the layman under the heel of the priest, and establishing a power which, under the pretence of fearing God, casts aside all regard for man ?”

Shall this 19th century submit to see heaven put before earth ? the love of God stand in the way of the rights or feelings of man? is not this life and this earth something present and tangible? Is it not intolerable that you should take it for granted rational men are to be governed with a view to a future and unseen state of things?

It is true we find the divine Scriptures addressing such exhortations to the early Christians, but then they needed comfort in their trials; it was well enough to preach to outcasts from society that their home was above; mais nous avons changé tout cela; let those who will, listen to such counsels; for our own part:

"Let us enjoy the good things that are present,...and let not the flower of the time pass by us. Let us crown ourselves with roses before they be withered....Let our strength be the law of justice, for that which is feeble is found to be nothing worth. Let us therefore lie in wait for the just, because he is not for our turn, and he is contrary to our doings, and upbraideth us with transgressions of the law, and divulgeth against us the sins of our way of life. He boasteth that he hath the knowledge of God-he is become a censurer of our thoughts. He is grievous unto us, even to behold: for his life is not like other men's, and his ways are very different."*

Give us rulers who "mind earthly things; we want not men whose "conversation is in heaven;" that is our own concern, we live in days of freedom, and claim the right of every man to choose for himself between heaven and earth, and hell into the bargain, or to believe in such things or not after his own pleasure; freedom and liberty for all, except for your antiquated notions of treating temporal government as a religious matter, or fancying that Sovereigns have to care for the souls of their people! Liberty for all except the clergy and their dogmas, and men who have a conscience! Give us rulers who make this earth their end, whose conscience will suit itself to

* Wisdom ii.

. Philip. iii.

VOL. XLVIII.-No. XCV.

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