May till the 14th of December. Still it was necessary, and he submitted not ungrace fully to his fate, protesting his attachment to the Republic as warmly as if the preceding seven months were blotted out of memory or had never been. At once, the evil work of DeBroglie and Fourtou was undone. An amnesty covered all political offences; the gag was removed from the press; and the local instruments of despotism were cashiered. Of the entire number of prefects, one was transferred and only four retained, whilst eighty-one new ones were installed under the new régime. France has awakened from her nightmare, trade has revived, confidence is restored, and all with out the firing of a shot, or the construction of a barricade. Surely the noblest results are to be hoped for in the future, now that the noble nation, which for nearly a century has writhed under the harrow of revolution, has by a calm and resolute appeal to moral 'force, asserted its claim to peace, order, and free government. Pius the Ninth still lives, whilst Victor Emmanuel, the "robber of the Church," though thirty years his junior, is no more. Il Re galantuomo appears to have succumbed to a disease not necessarily dangerous, except on an impaired constitution-the legacy of excesses in the past. At any rate, he died at the age of fifty-seven, in the odour of sanctity, although he had been excommunicated times without number. His Holiness "had pardoned him," he says, with a magnanimity of Christian forgiveness which was certainly not affected, and it may be presumed that the prayers for the King's soul which are to ascend from "the prisoner of the Vatican" will avail for the sacrilegious plunderer of the Quirinal. On the 23rd of March, 1849, the ill-advised assault of Charles Albert upon the Austrian power in Italy proved fatal to him. He was on the road to Milan, and encountered Radetzky in overwhelming force at Novara, within his own territories. On the Lombard side of the Ticino lay Magenta, which became famous ten years afterwards, under other circumstances and with different results. Italy's hour had not yet arrived; Charles Albert and Sardinia were worsted at Novara; the King abdicated, and Victor Emmanuel, his son, reigned in his stead. It is not likely that Charles Albert had any higher object in view than the aggrandizement of the House of Savoy, though he may be credited with all an Italian's hatred of the foreign tyrants. Perhaps neither he nor his successor had any rational theory of an united Italy, and if the dream was realized under the latter, the credit belongs very partially to him. The two heroes of this fruitful era were Cavour, the man of thought, and Garibaldi, the man of action-the one far-seeing, cautious, and plodding, the other, brave, chivalrous, rash, visionary, and impetuous. The events of the period from 1859 to 1870 are too fresh in the memory to need any review; Italy is now a great united nation, and Rome is its capital. That dangers and perplexities beset its path must be admitted. Military ambition, vast expenditures upon public works, and, more than all, a restless substratum of communistic republicanism together cause a heaping up of debt and of trouble. Radicalism has lately been at the helm, and has made fearful havoc by its dilletante experiments in every direction; Depretis and Nicotera are unworthy successors of Cavour, Ratazzi, or Ricasoli. King Humbert will probably follow in his father's footsteps, and it may be that with a new Pope and a new King some terms of amity will be arranged by which the Vatican and the Quirinal may live together peacefully in the Eternal City. If so, the intrigues of Ultramontanism would no longer supplement the conspiracies of secret communistic societies. The events of the war have passed by so rapidly of late, that he who has mastered authentic details of each in succession, deserves credit for his discriminating industry. Kars, Plevna, Sofia, Nisch, and Antivari have for the present been crowned by the brilliant exploits of Generals Radetzky and Skobeleff in the Shipka Pass. Roumelia now lies open to the victorious Muscovite up to the gates of Adrianople. There, immediately below the Balkans, lies the district of the atrocities of May, 1876. Batak and Philippopolis appeal mutely to the conquerors and the world from their peaceful nests in the valley. War has now done, let us hope, all its awful work in that sore-oppressed and outraged region. It now remains to deal with the turbaned culprit who still rules on the Bosphorus. The rumours regarding England's action are not worthy of notice, not merely because they are contradictory, but because, whether the Premier likes it or not, his Government stands pledged through Lords Derby and Salisbury, Sir Stafford Northcote and Mr. Cross, to absolute neutrality, so long as Engish interests are not imperilled. Though, to borrow a phrase from Sir Henry Havelock, who has recently returned from the East, that "theatrically-minded man who is at present in possession of power" should desire to involve England in a dis honourable contest on behalf of wrong, he is too wary to attempt it. His own friends, and the Duke of Westminster is one of the chief of them, the Chambers of Commerce, the manufacturing districts, the City of London, and the large towns everywhere have given fair warning of the result. The reason for summoning Parliament on the 17th will appear in a few days; meanwhile it is certains that whether a war vote is asked for or not, nothing is contemplated except an assertion of England's dignity and the taking of unobjectionable precautions-certainly nothing so mad as a crusade for the Asiatic ruffians who have desolated the fairest regions of Southern Europe. January 12th, 1878. BOOK REVIEWS. ROME IN CANADA. The Ultramontane struggle for supremacy over the Civil Authority. By Charles Lindsey. Toronto: Lovell Bros., 1877. It is singular that, notwithstanding all evidence to the contrary, men are to be found and they are chiefly party politicians-who not only deny that the Roman Catholic hierarchy has made, and is making, serious attacks upon the State and upon the liberties of the people, but attempt to meet fact with ridicule. It is of course a necessity, so far as parties are concerned, that the assumptions of sacerdotalism should be overlooked. In view of a general election, they desire to stand well in the neighbouring Province, and it is because they know that the Church is all-powerful there; because they are perfectly aware of the truth of the statements published by Sir Alexander Galt, and now in a more complete and elaborate form by Mr. Lindsey, that they ignore them to the public, and even impeach their truth. The politicians are not deceived, and although they desire to deceive their Ontario followers, that is no reason why the latter should consent to be deceived. To those who desire to know the truth upon a subject of pressing moment to Quebec in particular, and only in a slightly inferior degree to the entire Dominion, we heartily commend this able and trustworthy volume. If after doing so, they are prepared to acquit the Ultramontanes at the bidding of party leaders, that is their own affair. Qui vult decipi, decipeatur. One of the cries raised by those who propound the ostrich policy, of not seeing what is before one's eyes, like most of its kind, endeavours to enlist an amiable feeling in the service of untruth. It is urged that the gentlemen named above are engaged in a crusade against the Roman Catholic religion, and especially against the bishops and priests of Quebec. Certainly no one would a priori suspect Sir Alex. Galt or Mr. Lindsey of intolerance or even of taking the slightest interest in polemical_theology. They are not in the habit of talking about "the scarlet woman " of Babylon or brawling sectarian nonsense on the 12th of July. Our author might, as Sir Alex. Galt did, in defending his pamphlet, quote the words of Mr. Gladstone on this head': "I desire to eschew not only religious bigotry, but likewise theological controversy. Indeed with theology, except in its civil bearing-with theology as such-I have here nothing to do. But it is the peculiarity of Roman theology, that by thrusting itself into the temporal domain, it naturally, and even necessarily comes to be a frequent theme of political discussion." That is exactly the feeling of those who oppose Vaticanism in Canada; but their reasons for that opposition are ten-fold stronger than Mr. Gladstone's. No one, save a bigot, would think of assailing Ultramontanism as a theoretical system; all the absurdities of the Syllabus in a heap, with Infallibility as its apex, would cause very little uneasiness and escape without animadversion. But in the Province of Quebec, the New School," as Bishop Bourget terms it, is not a band of dreamers, but a crusade against the supremacy of the State, upon the independence of the bench, upon liberty of conscience, of speech, and of the press. Our attitude, therefore, is one not of attack, but of defence. It is not we who have waged war on the Church or its ministers; but they who have attempted to subjugate the Civil Power, and, so far as in them lies, have subverted the constitution. Mr. Lindsey remarks that intolerance, when rigidly maintained and carried out, where practicable, into active operation, is pregnant with effects of the most dangerous kind, and strikes at the root of civil liberty. The second chapter of "Rome in Canada" ought of itself to startle those who feel or affect indifference on the subject. The New School, having, at least for the time, cowed and silenced the Gallicans, is now boldly claiming the right to control the State. Those who are not in the habit of studying the French journals and brochures have no idea of the elaborate machinery of aggression at work in the Province. "The writers," says the author, " upon whom Bishop Bourget showers his applause, form a motley crowd of journalists, pamphleteers, and authors of more pretensions, priests, Jesuits, bishops," &c ; and these men have, during four years, "produced a pyramid of worthless, but not innocuous literature, which probably contains not less than one hundred separate publications." These and the journals which slavishly proclaim the doctrines of the New School are approved by the bishops and pressed upon the faithful from pulpit and altar. The independent press is denounced and starved out of existence, because Catholics dare not buy or even read these papers, when denounced, on pain of eternal damnation. Judges are denounced and threatened, as Judge Mondelet stated he had been; and even Judge Taschereau, of the Supreme Court, stated that he was afraid, as a Catholic judge, to pronounce his judgment after the fulminations heaped upon three Canadian judges already. The Bench has been plainly told that not the law, but the decrees of the Church are to inspire their judgments; and if these conflict? The Bishop of Rimouski, only a year ago, denounced Judge Casault, in unmeasured terms, for his decision in the Bonaventure case. The judgment should have been received with universal reprobation. "It sins by being inʼunison with several of the propositions condemned in the syllabus; and he informs all concerned that Catholic judges cannot in conscience administer civil laws such as that which controls Parliamentary elections in Quebec; if they find any difficulties about the oath of office they have taken, he is ready with authority to prove that, in such a case, it does not bind the conscience;" he then proceeds to bully the Legislature, and demands the repeal of the law or a declaration that it does not mean what its words clearly express (pp. 289—90.) Most people have heard something of clerical interference at elections, and the defence set up for it by political journals in Ontario. The judgment of the Supreme Court in the Charlevoix case has set that question at rest for ever. Judge Taschereau explained the effect of these pulpit and altar methods on the people, and Judge Ritchie, after conceding to the priest every privilege as a citizen, proceeded thus :"But he has no right in the pulpit or out, by threatening any damage, temporal or spiritual, to restrain the liberty of a voter, so as to compel or frighten him into voting, or abstaining from voting, otherwise than as he fully wills." That has a finer ring in it than the miserable special pleading of partizans in Toronto angling for clerical support in the Province of Quebec. How the system acts, the words of a single witness may serve to show: "I was afraid that if I voted for Tremblay I should be damned." Thus, on the principles of the New School, as sanctioned by the bishop, and practised by the curés, the liberty of the voter, which is one of the sheet-anchors of our representative system, is removed, and a judge, called upon to decide a contested election, has the chance of perjuring himself, under cover of an episcopal dispensation, or of being cast out of the Church. Bishops and ecclesiastics who oppose the New School are treated no whit better than the judges. The late Archbishop of Quebec, VicarGeneral Cazeau, and others in high position who have attempted to stem the torrent of Ultramontanism, were freely denounced by the claqueurs of the dominant party as "Gallicans and Liberals." For the time being they have yielded to the storm; but they are not, by any means, put out of the way. It is not true that all Roman Catholics in Quebec, cleric or lay, are Ultramontanes, in the intolerant sense of the word. They do not all believe with the bishops, in their Circular of 1875, that the State is included in the Church. They have not yet been convinced that it is the duty of rulers, at least in free Canada, to enact laws at the dictation of the Church, and that the Legislature ought to be-what the Quebec Legislature is rapidly becoming-a registry of fice for episcopal decrees. In Ontario, judging from the utterances of Archbishop Lynch, there is still some freedom for our Catholic fellowsubjects; but they must not rely upon these utterances. The long arm of the New School has reached even his Grace of Toronto, and he will repeat his letter of 1876 to Mr. Mackenzie no more. The party press-but this was before the decision of the Supreme Court-made much of this letter, as if Ontario were Quebec. Quebec, at any rate, did its duty. The Rev. Alexis Pelletier, one of the élite of the authorized pamphleteers of the New School, was upon his Grace's track, as these sleuth hounds are, in every corner, on the instant. D. Lynch was trying to persuade Ontario politicians that the Catholic Liberal indicated in the Syllabus was not the French Canadian Liberal of Quebec; he met a rebuff at once from headquarters, and has held his peace on the subject from that day to this. On the other hand the Courrier du Canada, by advocating the most outrageous doctrines of the School-intolerance, priestly immunity, the subordination of the State to the Church, and the responsibility of Executive, Legislative, Judiciary to the latter, has been enabled to announce that, "Our Father the Pope has accorded to us in our quality of Catholic journalist, the apostolic benediction for us and our family to the third generation, with permission to read the books in the Index without exception" (p. 185). We suppose they can construe gifts of the sort, whence the benediction primarily comes; on earth people would in all probability have no little trouble in deciding how many people will have the right to read Darwin's Descent of Man in the year 1978. A most singular feature in the tactics of the New School would at first sight appear to be the tenacity with which it clings to the dogma, so to call it, of intolerance. The Abbé Paquet, however, and his friends see deeper into the future than most of us. He is instructor of the ingenuous youth who receive their training at Laval University. A complete account of his views on liberty of conscience will be found in Mr. Lindsey's startling Chapter X., entitled, "The Apotheosis of Intolerance." Religious toleration is "a gross error, an insult to reason, a blasphemy, and an impiety." "Every where and at all times, the principle of religious or dogmatic intolerance will remain master of the position," because it is truth, and truth is indestructible and eternal-a style of syllogism it may be hoped the élèves of Laval are not taught to regard as valid. Then follow the sentences which give a clue to the zeal for intolerance :— "Those who reproach the Church with being intolerant of toleration, reproach her with no. thing less than her right of existence." "As the Church cannot renounce her mission without renouncing her existence, she ought always to anathematize this teaching" of toleration (p. 212 et seq.) Father Braun, a German Jesuit, the protégé of the Bishop of Montreal, with the express approbation of three other bishops, ventured to say "It is customary to regard Protestantism as a religion which has rights. This is an error. Protestantism is not a religion. Protestantism has not a single right. It possesses the force of seduction. It is a rebellion in triumph; it is an error which flatters human nature. Error can have no rights; rebellion can have no rights," &c. (p. 216). Could Philip II. or Alva, his lieutenant, desire more? : Bishop Pinsonneault's denunciation of Liberalism is noteworthy, as it defines the intangible thing beyond possibility of mistake (pp. 197— 9); but M. O'Donnell, in a sermon in presence of a Bishop, gives us some idea of what will become of all the liberties in Quebec if these gentlemen have their way: Anarchy, intellectual, moral, and religious, seems to you the fitting complement of these diabolical doctrines. Your liberty of the press is the oppression of the mind and the heart, its weapons lies and immorality; liberty of conscience is equal liberty for truth and error; liberty of speech is anarchy, license, the right of rebellion; and your political liberalism (mark it well!) is the liberal theory of the relation which Church and State should bear to one another." When we recollect what the Ultramontane theory of that relation is, have we not a right to arouse the | people of the Dominion to the breakers ahead? We have given but a very inadequate review of Mr. Lindsey's book, certainly; yet should we succeed in attracting the attention of our readers to it, this notice will have served its purpose. Want of space has prevented any reference to the valuable historical chapters on Gallicanism and the attitude of the Church on marriage, education, and other matters fully treated. Mr. Lindsey's work is the only complete, comprehensive, and trustworthy treatise on the subject, and should be widely circulated. META HOLDENIS. By Victor Cherbuliez. Collection of Foreign Authors. New York: D. Appleton & Co. M. Cherbuliez in this capital little story in dulges in a revanche on German manners, which very probably goes far to console him for German victories. The sarcasm is as delicate as it is pointed. Benedict Holdenis, the father of the fair Meta, is a corpulent, middle-aged German merchant of Geneva, who cultivates all the virtues both theoretically and practically among his seven children. The hero of the tale, Tony Flamerin, visits him, and the infants are at once trotted out, and placed "like organ-pipes in a row, according to age and size," while their precocious exploits are recounted. At dinner, the house-father displays an admirable appetite, so much so indeed that Tony fears that he would hurt himself, but excess of feeding does not stifle German sentiment, and "what matters it whether one lives in a palace or a hut," cried M. Holdenis, "provided one keeps a window open to a bit of blue sky?" Tony is charmed with this simplicity of living, and with the games and psalm-singing that follow, for is he not perilously in love with Meta and her two dangerously deep turquoise eyes? The family service that ends the evening is well hit off. "He opened an enormous folio Bible, and bending his patriarchal head, began to improvise a homily upon the text, 'These are the two olive trees and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth.' I thought I understood him to mean that the two candlesticks represented Monsieur and Madame Holdenis; the little Holdenises were as yet only bits of candles, but with proper efforts were expected to grow into wax tapers." No wonder that after such an idyllic evening as this, Tony appears to his somewhat fast American friend Harris, who has been waiting for him at the hotel, to be rapidly becoming in his turn German and patriarchal. "Out of what holy water font do you come?" cried he; "you smell of virtue half a mile off." And taking a brush he dusts our hero from head to foot. Tony is not without a rival. True, he has the pleasure of painting Meta's portrait, but the Baron Gruneck, a withered old bachelor who suffers from a sort of articulary rheumatism or from an ill-digested cavalry sabre, which Tony wickedly suggests he may have swallowed when young, dangles round Meta in an insufferable manner. However the fates are propitious. Out on a bench in the garden, the lovers half come to an understanding. Meta tells Tony the names of the stars as, one by one, they come shimmering out in the blue. The nightingale sings, and Meta becomes transcendental, speaks of eternity, of Paradise, “where the soul breathes God with as little effort as the plants! breathe the air here below." Tony, the flippant dog, puts his arm round her waist, and is about to give a more mundane definition of his Paradise, when they are interrupted and explanations and formal betrothals have to stand over till the morrow. Alas, that fatal morrow! Tony enters the house, steals up to Meta unobserved, and looking over her shoulder sees that the object on which she is gazing with so much ecstasy is a sketch of a wreath of violets, of forget-me-nots, encircling the suggestive words" La Baronne de Gruneck!" Quietly and unnoticed, Tony steals off. One souvenir he leaves behind, for he writes on the frame of the unfinished portrait the bitterly satirical words," She worshipped the stars and Baron Gruneck," and then he makes off like a thier. Another souvenir, though, he leaves as well, in the shape of nearly all his fortune, which M. Holdenis had borrowed of him purely for his own good. Coming back to his hotel, mad at Meta's perfidy, his friend Harris greets him with the delightful news that the philanthropical German merchant has failed. Seeing Tony's despair, Harris bursts into a tone of laughter. "What, Tony my son," cried he, "sweet child of Burgundy, has this unctuous sharper found a secret way into your indigent means?" and, rolling himself on the floor, he exclaimed, "Oh, primitive candour, sweet union of souls, I adore you! Oh, patriarchal virtue! are these the tricks you play?” Tony quits Geneva, plunges into a mud-bath of dissipation to allay the horror he had con ceived of virtue, and loses his last penny in the process. His upward career again we will not disclose it will be enough to hint that he and Meta meet again under very different circumstances, and our interest in the heroine is sustained till the very last, so carefully has M. Cherbuliez refrained from letting us be certain whether we have grasped the true clue to her character or not. There are some delightfully expressed and incisive passages in this tale. Thus: "It is only the lazy people who complain of weariness that are blameworthy;" or again, “Whatever arithmeticians may say to the contrary, nothings added to nothings grow sometimes into somethings." The canvass is well filled with other figures, all effective and well drawn, and the events crowd together quite rapidly towards the end of the story. By a true touch of French sentiment, one of the love scenes takes place in "the loveliest of cemeteries,” flowery and grassy, with a "large weeping willow casting a soft shadow, in which the sun was making silver lace." This is probably the most interesting story that has yet appeared in this series, the publishers of which are to be congratulated on the happiness of their selections. BOOKS RECEIVED. FICTIONS AND ERRORS, in a Book on "THE ORIGIN OF THE WORLD, ACCORding to ReveLATION AND SCIENCE," by J. W. Dawson, LL.D., Frincipal of McGill University, Montreal. Exposed and Condemned on the authority of Divine Revelation. By John G Marshall, formerly Chief Justice, etc., in the Island of Cape Breton. Halifax, N.S., Printed at the Methodist Book Room, 125 Granville Street. 1877. GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. A Novel. A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO ENGLISH VERSIFICATION, with a Compendious Dictionary of Rhymes, an Examination of Classical Measures, and Comments upon Burlesque and Comic Verse, Vers de Société, and Song-writing. By Tom Hood. A new and enlarged Edition. To which are added Bysshe's "Rules for making English Verse,” etc. London: John Hogg. 1877. Toronto: James Campbell & Son. THE CAPTAIN'S CABIN: A Christmas Yarn. By Edward Jenkins, M. P., author of Ginx's Baby, etc. Illustrated by Wallis MacKay. Montreal: Dawson Bros. 1878. |