he says, "to make a truly political revolution succeed without a previous religious rising, and without substituting a new for an old creed." The near future seems likely to strengthen the truth of this affirmation. A Catholic is logical. He respects the Church; he obeys it; whilst the Belgian Liberal is, in his own mind and conduct, a contradiction even to himself. He spends his life in maligning the clergy, but, at the same time, yields his wife and children, and often himself, to them. How can strength come out of such weakness?

Social reform is another stumbling-block. Political equality exists: everywhere liberty is proclaimed and guaranteed: what more is required? Is this the climax of progress? Who would dare to state that henceforward mankind will remain contented? However, if new changes are necessary, they will only be possible in the line of greater equality; and that is what Socialism desires and promises. But if these claims are put forward violently at the elections, at public meetings, or in street risings, the wealthy classes will be intimidated, and will seek refuge under the power of a tyrant, as in 1848. If the lower classes tried to solve the problem by force, they could not establish durable institutions; were they temporarily victors, their success would only cause a prompt reaction.

Thus the imperfect working of Parliamentary rule, and the straits into which we are driven by social and religious questions, will, in all probability, arouse a general European movement of reaction. Owing to the fall of the Liberal Ministry, it has, to all appearance, commenced in Belgium. Exaggerated confidence must not be placed in continued progress; history teaches us that it encounters many obstacles, and even that sometimes retrogression occurs.

But it will be said, perhaps, Could not the Liberals avoid this struggle for the schools as a religious question?-How would it be possible? The future of a country belongs to those who have the direction of education. Therefore if the clergy rule the schools, sooner or later they will be the masters of the country. So the Liberals came to the conviction that they were obliged to deprive the clergy of school authority. How then, are secular schools to be established? Is religious instruction to be entirely omitted? Or must we combat Catholicism even in the schools, as in France? Naturally, the clergy advocate their own cause, and thus provoke religious disputes, not, as during the sixteenth century, with regard to certain dogmas, but, as at the time of the French Revolution, between unbelief and natural religion.

But, it may be said, Why are Liberals afraid of clerical influence? As it will favour Christianity, there is no cause for apprehension. To that the Liberals reply: If the Catholic clergy were masters, they would not respect the liberties guaranteed by the Belgian Constitution, which M. Thiers considered necessary liberties. All Catholics, particularly in England, maintain that this is not true, and that they are calumniated. They repudiate intolerance. Unfortunately, the condemnation of modern freedom, and especially of liberty of conscience, forms part of the traditions and even of the dogmas of the Roman Church. This is a recognized historical fact. According to Lord Acton, it belongs only to ancient history; but, alas! it may be traced in modern and contemporary times. I must prove this because it is the basis and origin of the Liberal movement on the

Continent. If intolerance were not a fundamental doctrine of the Catholic Church, the hostility of the Liberals against her in all Catholic countries would be groundless.

All who wish to know the truth about this much-debated question, have only to look at the memorable and instructive debate between Bossuet and the Bishop of Montauban in 1700. After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, all Protestants remaining in France were forced to go to Mass. This measure was condemned by Bossuet-out of respect, not for liberty of conscience, but for the sanctity of the Mass. The Bishop of Montauban maintained that the Church required the extermination of heretics, which he proved in the following passage:

"Saint Leon, in his 85th letter to the emperor Leon, addressed to him these beautiful words: Great Prince, you should punish the followers of Nestorius, Dioscorus, Eutychès, and not allow discord in the Church. Saint Gregory, who was one of the mildest fathers of the church, in his sixtieth sermon on the Song of Solomon, concluded that it was better to punish heretics by the sword of temporal power, than to suffer them to continue in error. It is upon these principles, strengthened by the unchanging tradition of the Church, that the Christian emperors sanctioned laws against heretics to force them to become Catholics." It is certain that the Church never complained of the severity of these laws: on the contrary, it has been proved that they were solicited and approved of by the Councils. A great number of special Councils, particularly that of Aquileia in 381, of Milan under Saint Ambrose in 389, of Carthage in 400, of Mitylene in 418, besought the civil power to overthrow the heretics. The third Council of Orleans (538), the sixth of Tolèdo (38), that of Toulouse (1119), were the precursors of the Inquisition. Pope Innocent III. and the Councils of Toulouse (1229), Arles (1234), Narbonne (1245), Béziers (1246), and Albi (1254), accomplished the organization of that terrible power which became the executive power of dogmatic intolerance. Two general Councils ordered the extermination of the heretics in words which make one shudder. See what the third canon of the fourth General Council of Lateran (1216) says, under Pope Innocent III.: "That all authorities should be warned, exhorted, and, if necessary, constrained by ecclesiastical censure, to swear officially to the zealous defence of the faith and the extirpation of all heretics from territories under their jurisdiction. Whoever exercises the least authority is obliged by oath to accept this principle. Therefore, if a lord, warned by the Church, neglect to clear his territory of the heretical pest, he shall be excommunicated by the city and provincial bishops; if he is not submissive, the Pope is to be cognisant of it within a year, so that he may liberate the vassals and deliver the territory to faithful Catholics, who, after the extermination of the heretics, will retain it without dispute, and preserve it in the pure faith. And for those who, having taken the cross, are equipped for the uprooting of heretics, is the enjoyment of the holy privileges accorded to the Crusaders."

Bossuet is of the same opinion as the Bishop of Montauban. He says: "I am convinced and have always maintained that princes can by penal laws compel all heretics to conform to the profession and practices of the Catholic Church; also that this doctrine should be considered unalterable in the Church, which not only has followed, but

demands similar ordinances of princes." "* Will it be thought that Bossuet's views are, obsolete? In modern times-namely, in 1815, we have William, King of the Netherlands, giving to Belgium a constitution sanctioning necessary liberties. All the Belgian bishops published a Doctrinal decree, condemning freedom and the constitution as contrary to the dogmas of the Church. The following are some of the articles referring to the liberty and equality of the various creeds :-" Art. 190. Liberty of religion is guaranteed to all. Art. 191. Protection is equally granted to all religious communities in the kingdom. Art. 192. All loyal subjects, without distinction of religious creeds, enjoy the same civil and political rights, and can aspire to all dignities and occupations. Art. 193. The public exercise of any worship cannot be hindered unless it disturbs the public peace."

The condemnation of the bishops is as follows:-" Art. 190 and 191. To swear to maintain liberty of religious opinions and equal protection of all worship means the protection of error as well as truth, the development of anti-Catholic doctrines, the blending of the tares with the wheat, and the slow but certain extinction of the true faith in these happy countries. The Catholic Church has always repulsed error and heresy; she cannot regard as her children those who dare to approve of that which she has ever rejected. Art. 192. To swear fealty to a law bestowing equal rights on loyal subjects of varied beliefs, would sanction all measures entrusting the interests of our holy religion in thoroughly Catholic provinces to Protestant functionaries."

In all Concordats concluded between Pius IX. and Governments ruled by the Church, he has stipulated that the Catholic religion only should be tolerated, and all others ruthlessly proscribed. Thus, in his allocution of September 5, 1851, Pius IX. boasted of having obtained from Spain a Concordat, according to which the Catholic religion "should as formerly be exclusively dominant in the kingdom in such a way that every other religion should be banned and forbidden there." It will be remembered how these principles of intolerance were applied to Protestants. The first article of the Concordat concluded by Pius IX. with the Republic of Ecuador on September 26, 1862, was "The Catholic Apostolic and Roman religion continues to be the religion of the Republic of Ecuador. Consequently, the practice of no religion, and the existence of no society, that has been condemned by the Church can be permitted in the Republic." Is this ancient history? It is a recognized fact, that wherever Catholics are in the minority, as in England, they claim liberty and equality; but when they are at the head of affairs they deprive others of these rights. Veuillot said openly to the Liberals: "We refuse you liberty because

* The exposition of the Catholic faith concerning liberty of conscience is so important in the debate between Catholics and Liberals, that I give here the words of Bossuet himself. "Je declare que je suis et que j'ai toujours été du sentiment, premièrement, que les Princes peuvent contraindre par des lois pénales tous les hérétiques à se conformer à la profession et aux pratiques de l'Eglise catholique; deuxièmement que cette doctrine doit passer pour constante dans l'Eglise, qui non seulement, a suivi mais encore demandé de semblables ordonnances des Princes. En établissant ces maximes comme constantes et incontestables parmi les catholiques, voici où je mets la difficulté c'est à savoir si on a raison de faire une distinction particuliere pour la messe et d'employer des contraintes particulières pour y forcer les hérétiques."-Lettre du 12 Nov. 1700. If the Gallican Bossuet admits intolerance as a dogma, certainly the Roman Church cannot deny the fact.

it is not in accordance with our principles; but from you we demand it, because it is your principle."

Do not these extracts afford convincing proof that the Liberals are justified in combating with energy the political power of the clergy? The ultra-Conservative Protestants in Holland and elsewhere are satisfied with the recent defeat of the Liberals in Belgium, for they look upon them as enemies to all religion. Are they not aware it is the manner in which the clergy use their spiritual authority to acquire power that rouses this hostility to all worship and the anti-religious rage that one meets with in all Catholic countries? It is indeed distressing to see the friends of liberty assail Christianity with such fury, since from the Gospel has sprung modern civilization; but who should bear the responsibility, if not the Catholic clergy, who have made the religion of Christ a weapon of warfare in the political arena?

Before entering the Capella Sistina in the Vatican you pass through a magnificent hall called the Sala Regia. On the walls are pictures by Vasari, representing the triumphs of the Church. Four of these frescoes show the horrors of the massacre of the Huguenots on the St. Bartholomew's eve. It was Pope Gregory XIII. who ordered the perpetuation on the walls of the Vatican of the memory of this crime, which drew tears from the eyes of old Voltaire. Stendhal says very well: "The palace of the Popes is the only place in the world where murder is publicly glorified." So long as these pictures are not obliterated, with a mea culpa by the head of the Catholic Church, the Liberals can say that when the Roman priests are completely masters they will enforce the dogma of intolerance.

In the remarkable and learned letter which Lord Acton wrote on November 21, 1874, in reply to the expostulations of Mr. Gladstone, he proved that Pope Pius V., who was made a saint by the Catholic Church, urged the assassination of Queen Elizabeth and the massacre of the French Protestants, conforming himself therein to the prescriptions of his faith. "He declared that a Pope who should permit the least grace to be shown to heretics would sin against faith, and would thus become subject to the judgment of men" ("Catena," p. 325). He required that they should be pursued until they were all destroyed-ad internecionem usque donec deletis omnibus exinde nobilissimo isti regno pristinus Catholicæ religionis cultus restituatur (Pii Quinti Epistola, p. 155). How could the Liberals fail to be alarmed with the prospect of power passing into the hands of the clergy in a country where there remains ineffaceable memories of decimated populations, of towns delivered to pillage, of Protestants slaughtered, of national prosperity annihilated, of the most atrocious persecutions committed in the name of the dogmatic intolerance which the Catholic Church continues to maintain in principle, and to apply without mercy wherever it has power?

EMILE DE LAVELEYE.

CONTEMPORARY RECORDS.

I.-ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY.

N recording the progress of Ecclesiastical History, place and precedence must always be given to the venerable company of the Bollandists, who have now for two centuries and a half been its most constant and indefatigable students. During that period every four or five years on an average have seen a new volume added to the stately series of more than sixty folios in which they have described the lives of the saints. Of late years a period of eight years has elapsed between each volume. 1867 saw one, 1875 another, followed in due course in 1883 by vol. xiii. for October,* comprising the saints commemorated from the 29th to the 31st of that month. This new volume is a repertory not merely of hagiology but of archæology and history, secular and ecclesiastical. The Bollandists have taken tribute from all the resources of modern research, and brought all to bear upon the illustration of their subject. Thus, to take an instance, the student of the organization of Asia Minor under the Romans could not take a better guide for the literature of his subject than their voluminous commentary on the martyrdom of SS. Seleucus and Stratonice, who suffered at Cyzicum in Mysia, and whose acts have been preserved for us in an ancient Syriac MS. written by a contemporary. In their commentary the Bollandists quote every modern traveller, historian, or archæologist who has even remotely dealt with their subject. Mommsen, Marquardt, Boeckh, Perrot's "Exploration of Galatia," Curzon's "Monasteries of the Levant," Wright's "Catalogue of Syriac MSS. in the British Museum," are only a few specimens of the wide reading which illustrates an apparently uninviting subject. I say "apparently," because another work which has lately appeared without attracting much attention among ourselves has placed such researches in a new light. The modern conception of history takes note not merely of the actions of kings and legislatures and generals. It also investigates the legends and folk-lore of ancient nations, when striving to realize the life of the past. Now, even in this lower light, regarded as mere legends, the lives of the saints are valuable illustrations of the social state of the Middle Ages. But M. le Blant, an eminent member of the French Academy, the head of the French School at Rome, and one of the best archeologists in Europe, has taught us in his last work to view the records of martyrdom belonging to Roman times in

* "Acta Sanctorum Octobris, Commentariis et Observationibus." Illustrata a J. Van Hecke, B. Bossue, Vict. et Rem. de Buck. Soc. Jesu Presb. Theolog. t. xiii., Oct Paris 1883, pp. 1003.