SAMUEL BAGSTER & SONS, 15, PATERNOSTER ROW. EDINBURGH: W. OLIPHANT & SONS. DUBLIN: SAMUEL B. OLDHAM. 1853. THE JOURNAL OF SACRED LITERATURE. New Series. No. V.-OCTOBER, 1852. ROMANISM IN FRANCE. Les Origines de l'Eglise Romaine (On the First Principles of the Romish Church). By ANDRÉ ARCHINARD. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1852. By E. Histoire des Protestants de France (History of the French Pro- Le Pélerinage à la Salette (Pilgrimage to Mount Salette). By the Abbé LEMONNIER. Eighth Edition. L'Univers, Union Catholique, for the years 1848-52. Le Ver Rongeur (The Gnawing Worm). By M. l'Abbé GAUME. Paris, 1852. ROMANISM in France! What a varied and confused crowd of ideas does the phrase call up in a mind somewhat acquainted with the history of the years that have passed away since the days of Luther. In one sense France may be regarded as the arena in miniature of the great conflict which his appearance called forth between the rival powers of authority and free thought. And there in consequence did Leo and Luther engage in a deadly pas VOL. III.-NO. V. B sage of arms that marshalled on one side and on the other all the forces of the kingdom-sacerdotal, military, civil-which in their repeated collisions put the whole land into confusion and alarm, and which, after a battle of three centuries, has by no means come to a termination yet. Complicated and wonderful is that web: how deep and various its colours! What grand characters are woven into that national tapestry. There we see and almost fear to look upon the wily and implacable Catharine de' Medici; there we admire that sturdy old Protestant the Admiral Coligny; the Guises come stalking forth on the canvas, haughty and chivalric; proud of their blood, prouder still of their unstained orthodoxy. Mary Stuart we behold now in the lap of a refined sensualism, and now the centre of a Catholic plot designed for the destruction of Elizabeth and the overthrow of Protestantism. Here is Henry IV. perishing under a poniard which Jesuitism has plunged into his breast; and here is Louis XVI. dragged to the guillotine by the insensate fury of unbelief. That stately monarch has left a harlot's bosom to order a dragonade against his Protestant subjects; and that poor wizened Regent enjoys his debauch while he encourages scoffing the most shameless, and infidelity the most extreme. In one part of the picture you see the streets of Paris running with blood at the Catholic massacre of St. Bartholomew; in another part you see them polluted with the sanguinary Saturnalia of revolutionary Atheism. This monarch is Henry IV., who beat Popery on the field of battle, but yielding to the fascinations which it threw around a throne, bartered away his solemn convictions for a mistress and a crown. This monarch is Louis XVI., the only prince of a long series who was really good and pious, and he perishes for the vices of the religion he serves, and the evils accumulated by ancestors with whom he has no sympathy. In the mazes of that picture there is a unity. Numerous and diverse as the pretences are, two conflicting aims are steadily pursued. All those brooks, rivulets and streams, intersect each other though they do, and various as are the directions in which they seem to run, in reality make their way into two single streams, and these streams seek the ocean towards opposite points of the compass. One hastens to the north,-it is the stream of mental independence; another hastens to the south,-it is the stream of mental servitude. Of the former the philosopher is the self-elected symbol, but its real guardian is the Gospel; the latter is represented by the priest and defended by the soldier. The two powers are in direct antagonism. For more than three hundred years they have been engaged in conflict, and at this moment the battle rages more fiercely than ever. France is a country of extremes. Its fickle Celtic blood hurries up and down the tube, now resting at fever heat, now sinking below zero. Till recently the latter had been its position for more than half a century. Under the repeated blows of Philophism religion seemed dead in France; dead and buried did it seem; utterly perished, past all hope of revival. The only faith was faith in Voltaire; the only belief was disbelief. Men were sure of nothing except that there was nothing to be sure of. Extinct was all zeal save the zeal for extinction. Religion was not only disowned, it was scorned, laughed at, spit upon. Religion was a token of imbecility, and a topic of impious jesting. Disproved by argument and outfaced by wit, it was scouted as an open cheat or a thinly veiled hypocrisy. Such was the Frenchman's view of religion,-the view of those who set the fashion in the world of thought and speech. The curtain falls ;-in a moment the stage-bell rings, and as the curtain ascends you wonderingly behold a temple where you had seen the hall of a club, and there men are on their knees at worship, where a little before your tearful eyes beheld the orgies of infidelity. What a transformation! Is this worship real? Will that adoration last? will it come to good? These are questions on which some light may be thrown in the course of this essay. First, however, let us make a true report of what we see. The material forces of Romanism in France are apparently very great. Let us recount and measure them. Speaking in general terms, France may be called a Catholic country. Protestants there are in the land, and among them exclusively may real religion find a home. Equally may it be true that the Catholicism of Catholic France may be little better than the thin coating of ice which you see on the surface of the water in some calm morning of early winter. Nevertheless, in courtesy at least, France must be termed a Catholic country. In religious statistics such is her designation. Tithes Being Catholic, she has of course a Catholic clergy. That clergy before the revolution drew their support from the soil, to onetenth of the produce of which they had a right, similar to the right of the king to his royalty, and the lord to his rent. swept away by the revolution left the clergy independent of the state. But independence was not the parent of wealth, and therefore the clergy were ready to receive the annual bounty of the state when Bonaparte saw reason to think that policy required they should be taken into his pay. Since then the clergy appear in the Budget, like the police or any other state officials, and receive a yearly vote of 42,111,050 francs. The franc is tenpence of our money; but as 'the worth of a thing is that which it |