France, July, 1859. RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF PEACE AND HONORARY

PRESIDENCY OF THE POPE IN ITALY.

A telegraphic despatch has just informed us, at the moment I write, that peace has been signed between the Emperors of France and Austria. Without entering into political questions, which do not belong to our correspondence, I must observe that the conditions of this peace have not been, in general, favourably received by public opinion. Many intelligent persons think that these arrangements have placed Italy in a provisory, uncertain situation, and that the quarrel will recommence under one form or another in a few years.

The honorary presidency offered to the Pope has a religious bearing deserving of our serious attention. This idea has been already exposed in a famous pamphlet, entitled " Napoleon III. and Italy." I believe that it was first originated in the writings of a certain Abbé Gioberti, now dead, who was an influential personage at the Court of Turin in 1848.

In what will this honorary presidency consist? The details of the new combination are not yet known. If the Pope is called to exercise an effective authority in the affairs of the Italian Confederation, it is certain that the inhabitants of Piedmont, Lombardy, Tuscany, and the other provinces, will be very discontented. They entertain a profound secular dislike of the priestly power. Experience has convinced them that the priests are the worst temporal masters. The presidency of the Pope will be in their eyes the continuation of the Austrian system, or even something more odious. Was it worth while to sacrifice so much blood and money to obtain such a result?

Then, again, will the Pope be willing to accept the position proposed to him by the treaty of peace? Perhaps not; for the government of his own States will be more or less subordinate to the deliberations of a political assembly composed of delegates from all the Italian Princes; and will not

this be contrary to what he regards as sacred and inviolable rights? It is a positive fact that the organs of the clerical party indignantly protested, at the beginning of this year and previous to the outbreak of hostilities, against this honorary presidency, saying that the Papacy ought not to be associated with the fluctuations of Italian politics. Will these apologists of the Romish chair alter their opinion after recent events?

In any case, the religious question, or more properly the Papal question, must have had some influence on the arrangements of the two Emperors. Louis Napoleon probably rather feared drawing upon his head the irritation of the clergy; he has endeavoured to give to the Pontiff of Rome a striking proof of his respectful sentiments, and this desire has led him to adopt half measures, which will not fully content either the one or the other of the contending parties.

Let us add to the preceding one general reflection. What a difficulty-I would almost say what an impossibility—it is for Roman Catholic people to have really liberal institutions! There is a constant antagonism between the religious state of these people and the civil condition to which they aspire. Their conscience and their faith ought to be in entire subjection to the authority of the priests, if they wish to preserve their religion; they are really slaves in their relations with God; how, then, can they become free in their social relations? France has tried these twenty times to establish political liberty, but her efforts have never obtained any lasting success, and at the present time again she is despotically governed. Wherefore? Because she has continued to receive Romanism as her national religion. The priests have gradually regained the power they had lost, and have made common cause with the heads of the State, in order to prevent the steady development of liberal principles. Will Italy succeed better than France in this perpetual conflict between the Papacy and liberty?

I doubt it. Happy are the nations which. have entered into the path opened by the glorious Reformation of the sixteenth century! They can make continual advances under the standard of liberty without meeting perfidious and implacable enemies: their faith is in accordance with their political vows and their social wants.

DEBATES IN THE FRENCH PRESS ON RECENT

ACTS OF THE COURT OF ROME.

For several weeks past the Parisian journals have had lively discussions on the affairs of Bologna, Ravenna, Perugia, on the encyclical and the allocution of the Pope in the Consistory of Cardinals, on the nomination of a new Archbishop of Milan, &c. It would be too long were I to give you all the particulars; I must restrict myself to the substance.

You are aware that Pius IX. solemnly accused the insurgents of Bologna, &c., as factious, impious, perverted men, criminal, sacrilegious-as having trampled under foot all rights, human and Divine. This is the habitual language of the Court of Rome. The so-called Vicar of Jesus Christ pours forth, from one century to another, a profusion of the most outrageous epithets on every one who does not blindly obey them. As soon as you admit a doctrine or perform an action opposed to the decisions of the pontifical chair, you become inevitably a wretch, an Atheist-a being worthy of all the punishments of heaven and earth! This is a well known fact.

Besides this, the Pope has fulminated the greater excommunication, in accordance with the canons of the Council of Trent, against those who, by their actions, their advice, or by simple consent, or in any other manner have attacked, troubled, or usurped the temporal power of the Romish Pontiff, the patrimony of the most blessed Peter. In consequence, horrible scenes of pillage, brutality, and murder, related by the whole European press, have desolated the unhappy city of Perugia.

Naturally the political journals of Paris which represent public opinion have blamed these words and these cruelties, as much, at least, as they are able, under the present system of the press in France. The Siecle especially, which has from 40,000 to 50,000 subscribers, is indignant that the Pope-a minister of Jesus Christ, a priest should have dared to command and reward such atrocities. The reproaches of the Siecle have been so vehement that the Government has given it a severe reprimand.

The Univers, on the contrary, faithful to the inspirations of the Jesuits, has justified the massacres of Perugia in the same way that they gloried in the abduction of the young Mortara, and in all its columns it exalts the wise measures and paternal feeling of Pius IX. According to this honest Univers, the Romish people is the happiest and even the freest of all people! Being governed by the Pope, they are governed by the representative of God on the earth, and this representative of God is infallibly the best of princes! The Romans enjoy here below a foretaste of future blessedness! Their constitution in this world contains the elements of that which awaits us in heaven! I am not inventing these enormous extravagancies; I copy them. The inhabitants of the pontifical States are, then, to believe the Jesuit paper, the anticipated elect-they have a foretaste of eternal felicities! Here there arises a slight objection. How is it that these Romans, so well-governed and so perfectly happy, are always ready to put down the existing power? and why is the presence of foreign troops necessary to keep them in obedience? The Univers is not at all embarrassed at this difficulty; it replies-1st, that many of these Romans are ungrateful wretches; 2nd, that they are fools; 3rd, that they have been led astray by the machinations of revolutionaries; 4th, that the Roman people are the people of St. Peter, the people of Jesus Christ, that they have to play a special part in the human family, and have not the right to overturn the particular constitution imposed upon them. Is not this admirable reasoning? The inhabitants of the pontifical States are condemned to live perpetually under the tyranny of the priests, because it is a Divine institution which interests the whole of mankind!

The antagonists of the Univers have not had much trouble in demolishing this vain scaffolding of sophisms, lies, and insults. They easily prove that the ancient bishops of Rome possessed no temporal sovereignty, and that the cause of religion was not thereby enfeebled. They show that the Romish Pontiff ought to exercise his spiritual office with a full independence, without having two or three millions of subjects to govern, and that his person would then be more respected, &c. These arguments are perhaps solid; but I think that the adversaries of Romanism are very inconsistent. They only go half way, and this is the principal reason which prevents them from obtaining a decisive triumph.

There is only one good method of getting rid of this Papacy; it is to renounce its spiritual authority, as well as its temporal power. This is what the Reformers and their disciples did, and all was accomplished. But what is the manner in which those men act who attack the Papal Government, either in the Pontifical States or in France? They have neither sufficient piety nor courage to become Protestants in the full meaning of the word. They remain Roman Catholics, and continue in the various practices of their Church with their families. They condemn Popery in one sense, and remain subject to it in another. This is too much or too little. If you persist in considering the Pope as your spiritual head, humbly bow to all his words and all his actions! It is illogical to separate the Pope into two distinct persons, prostrating yourself before the Pontiff, and disobeying the Prince. Choose one or the other. Either take the Pope in his entireness, or let him be completely abandoned.

Neither the French nor the Italians well understand this important question. They have never opened the Holy Scriptures; they imagine that there is no other religion possible but Roman Catholicism. Very well! Be assured that the priests will take advantage of this inconsistency to regain the fulness of their domination. How different it would be if these millions of men, who so violently declaim against the temporal power of the Pope, would openly separate from the Papal Church herself, and proclaim the alone sovereignty of the Word of God! Then, and only then, will the Romish clergy feel that its reign has passed away for ever.

ATTACK OF THE BISHOP OF NISMES ON THE PROTESTANTS.

I spoke to you in my former letter of the grand fete celebrated at Nismes in honour of the tercentenary jubilee of our Reformation (Evangelical Christendom, p. 224). It appears that the Popish Bishop of Nismes, named Plantier, has been much annoyed by this pious and imposing, manifestation. He has addressed to the Protestants of the department a letter of forty-five pages in octavo. It is very long, as you see, and its length renders it tedious, without making it more persuasive. M. Plantier renews all the objections, a thousand times refuted, on the divisions of Protestants. He confounds external uniformity with real internal unity; and because the members of the Reformed Churches are distinguished by

various names and secondary diversities, he gratuitously supposes that we cannot have union of spirit, heart, and life. If M. Plantier were to be present at some of the meetings of the Evangelical Alliance, he would see that Evangelical Christians are one, although they do not all wear just the same uniform. But do not let us enter into discussion with this poor bishop; he has never studied the subject.

This same prelate has entirely forgotten, in his letter, the gravity and dignity of the episcopal character. He employs a mocking tone, which we call in French persiflage. This M. Plantier turns into ridicule the costume of our pastors, the great assembly meeting in the open air, the discourses, the celebration of the Lord's Supper, and the sudden storm which obliged the brethren to enter into their temples. All this furnishes him with a subject of inappropriate pleasantry. We should have supposed that a bishop would have had more respect for himself, and would not have condescended to raillery in bad taste. But every one writes as he can; and the Popish prelates of France come in great numbers from the lower classes of the people, and therefore have not in their youth received a good education.

The pastors of Nismes could not remain silent under this unwarrantable attack. They addressed to their parishioners a letter which, in its moderate and charitable language, forms a favourable contrast to the episcopal manifesto. I will quote a few lines: "Very dear and beloved brethren,-At the moment when we are rejoicing with you at the happy impressions produced by our jubilee fête, and are blessing God that we were able to celebrate it with such a concourse of brethren, and with so much Christian feeling, it is not without surprise and grief that we have read the letter addressed to the Protestants of Gard by the Bishop of Nismes. You sympathise in our feelings, we know. Like ourselves, you have been grieved to hear, from the mouth of a minister of Jesus Christ, words so far from being in harmony with the mission of peace and love which he is called to fulfil in the midst of us. We beseech you in the name of the Lord to remove from your hearts all irritation and bitter feelings. We fear nothing for your faith. Thanks to the Protestant principle, each of you can say, 'I know whom I have believed.'. . . One thing only concerns us at this moment; it is that the salutary impression which you received from the glo

rious recollections of the Reformation may not be destroyed by these violent attacks against the purity of our faith and the heroism of our martyrs. God is our witness that your spiritual progress in truth and love is the constant object of our pastoral solicitude. Dear brethren, become more and more the joy and the crown of our ministry. Pursue with perseverance the path which lies before you, keeping your eyes on Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of your faith.' Learn at the feet of the Redeemer, humility, strength, and self-denial. Live at peace with all men; love those who belong to a different communion to yourself, notwithstanding the errors and mistakes of their piety. . . .' This is the true language of the servants of the Gospel-the accents and the words of brotherly love joined to invariable firmness of principle.

The celebration of our jubilee fête, while calling the general attention of French Protestants to the doctrines and works of their fathers, has again excited

THE QUESTION OF SYNODS.

Some of the consistories have expressed their wishes on this subject; others are preparing to adopt the same course. But the opposition is also very strong, and the end will not be attained but after long efforts. A few explanations are here neces

sary.

Ŏur Reformed Church of France, organised under the influence and direction of Calvin, adopted the Presbyterian and Synodial constitution. Each parish had a consistory, or ecclesiastical council of the first degree, composed of the pastor and a certain number of elders. Above the consistories were the presbyteries (colloques), consisting of a pastor and elder, delegated by certain parishes contained within a certain limit. Next above the colloques were the provincial synods, which, as the name indicates, were composed of a pastor and elder from each of the parishes of the province. Finally, at the summit of the ecclesiastical edifice appeared the national or general synod, into which were admitted two pastors and two

elders nominated by each of the provincial synods. Thus our organisation was complete and well accomplished its object. I believe that the Scotch Church has preserved all the essential features of this system. We have not enjoyed the same advantage in France. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and the long persecution of our fathers, overturned our ecclesiastical structure. The law of the eighteenth Germinal of the year X. re-established the parochial councils and the general consistories; it also mentioned district synods; but these have been very rarely convoked, and we no longer have a national synod.

This is evidently a deplorable want in our organisation. The means of exercising discipline in matters of faith, worship, and practice fail us, and it is most important to restore as soon as possible the basis of our ancient institutions. I will take an opportunity of again referring to this subject. CONGREGATION OF CONVERTED SPANIARDS AT

ORAN.

Some months ago I mentioned in our correspondence the conversion of a certain number of Spaniards settled at Oran, a small town of Algeria. The following are some further details.

The number of converted Spaniards is forty-two. They have been instructed and prepared for the ordinance of the Lord's Supper by M. Fuster, an evangelist, himself originally from Spain. "I commenced," writes M. Fuster, "by visiting familiessimply reading the Word of God with them. The number of those who willingly heard the Gospel increased. Several of our hearers, no longer fearing the world nor the opprobrium of Christ, and resolved openly to confess their faith before men, invited me to address to the Consistory of Algiers a petition for the authorisation to meet in a temple. The signatures were nearly all from heads of families. This is the first time that a Spanish Protestant Church has been formed in Algeria. Many of these new converts have had to renounce various worldly advantages, but they continue firm in the faith." X. X. X.

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