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man can doubt that the peculiar connection of Church and State inherited from old Spain, operates as a grave hinderance both to the material and religious prosperity of the Mexican people. The Church is, indeed, by the old legislation, acknowledged to be supreme in spirituals, but the State is supreme in whatever touches the temporal. A parish priest violates ecclesiastical discipline, commits a grave canonical offence; his bishop suspends him, excommunicates him; but though he ceases to perform any sacerdotal functions, he still retains under favor of the Government his benefice, and the bishop has no power to remove him and appoint a successor. Here, in a similar case, our courts would decide, as they have decided in principle, in several cases, that the benefice being a trust for the benefit of the Catholic religion, is vacated when the priest ceases by the laws of his own Church to be competent to hold it, and they would decide so in case of a Catholic priest, because the principle is just, and because they would decide so in the case of any Protestant minister. Both the Church and the State suffer from the present state of things, and unless it can be so changed as to place matters on the footing they are with us, we see no hope in Mexico for either. The fact that Bishop Rosati, when he was sent to arrange ecclesiastical affairs in Hayti, received instructions from the Holy See to place them, if possible, on the same footing they are in the United States, tells us plainly enough what are the wishes of Rome in this respect, and may satisfy us, that, if there are objections on the part of individual Catholics who suppose the world has stood still for the last two hundred years, or that it is perfectly possible and easy revocare defunctos, they are such as we need have no scruples of conscience in disregarding, or even combating, providing we do it with the respect always due to those who adhere to the past, and resolutely resist all changes.

Let us not be misunderstood. We do not, as we could not as a Catholic, censure or complain of the order which obtained under the Christian emperors, under the Barbarians in the Middle Ages, or under modern monarchy. We do not oppose Concordats; we do not pretend they are either wrong or unwise; we defend the practice of the Church and the principle of her practice in every age. We

are finding no fault with what has been. The Church, as we often say, deals with the world as she finds it, and when she does not find free men, she cannot deal with free men. Where there are only sovereigns, and no free citizens, she can in her political relations deal only with sovereigns. She has done the best that was to be done with the ages she has traversed. If circumstances have changed, or are changing, so as to render a different policy practicable or expedient, it does not follow that she has ever been wrong or unwise. No reproach is necessarily cast upon the past, nor do we demand a revolution in France or any where else in favor of republicanism. We do not like the Napoleonic régime, or dynasty, but we believe a revolution against either would, even if successful, cost more than it would be worth. Our readers need not to be told that we are opposed to all revolutions, because they generally fail in their purpose, and because we are not at liberty to do evil that good may come. In France, even, we should be a loyal subject were we a Frenchman.

But what we do ask, and what we write, as far as in our power, to effect, is, that Catholics should not allow themselves to regard modern liberalism as an unmixed evil, and that in all countries where even a shadow of public liberty remains, and Catholics have a degree of freedom and equality, they should resist with all their power and influence every attempt, under whatever guise it may be made, to establish despotism on the ruins of the liberties of the citizen. We have wished also to draw attention to the connection there is between religious freedom and political freedom. What we ask for our Church is not State patronage, is not special favors or special protection from the Government, but liberty, and that liberty which is liberty for all as well as for us. Give the Church an open field and fair play, she needs nothing else. We confide in her own intrinsic power and divinity to win the victory. We pray, therefore, those inconsiderate Catholics, whether in France or out of France, who make themselves the adulators of Cæsarism, to look ahead and see that they are only storing up wrath against the day of wrath, or only preparing the way for the new republican revolution, when it breaks out anew, to be more hostile to religion than ever; that they are confirming in the minds of non-Catholics the grand ob

jection we have in our age to combat, and that they are so compromising the Catholic cause that Catholics in the new revolution must either join a movement hostile to the Church, or join the cause of the sovereigns, fight on the side of despotism, and go down with kings and Cæsars. That revolution may be put off for a time, but come again it will, if the sovereigns have their way, and all their military forces will prove impotent before the irrepressible instincts of humanity. True prudence foresees the evil and guards against it.

The danger is not now of a republican outbreak, for the pear is not ripe, but there is danger that the reaction against republicanism in Europe, since 1850, will provoke such an outbreak, and one that will not be repressed so easily or so suddenly as was that of 1848. The danger to us Catholics is that in this new outbreak we shall be found associated in the popular mind with the defenders of Cæsarism, and thus be opposed even by the sincere and earnest friends of rational liberty. We warn our brethren of this danger, and we earnestly entreat them not to let our words pass unheeded. Many things indicate to us that the Emperor of the French is losing, rather than gaining popularity. He was thought to have come out of the Eastern war with a manifest advantage over England, and as the arbiter of Europe. But however much British interests may have been disregarded by the Peace of Paris, it is clear that the English Government has since contrived to recover the ground it had lost, and to make its policy for the East triumph over that of France. In diplomacy, Lord Palmerston has carried it over the Emperor. He has defeated the French in regard to a canal across the Isthmus of Suez, gained a footing in the Persian Gulf, defeated the Russian policy in the Persian Court, induced Napoleon to aid his views of conquest in China, and obtained a grant from the Porte of a railroad along the Valley of the Euphrates, with the guaranty from the Turkish Government of a minimum of six per cent., while the Emperor of the French has to content himself with the present of St. Anne's Church at Jerusalem. This in this age of materialism will not render the Emperor popular with the active spirits of his Empire. English supremacy seemed never so near being permanently established as at this moment. The interests of France

seem to us to have been more compromised by the developments of the English policy in the East during the last year than those of England were by the peace. Lord Palmerston seems likely, so far as regards France, to prove in effect a second Chatham. Let this defeat of French interests be exploited as it will be by French republicans, and the effect upon the Imperial régime will prove all but fatal. Let not our Catholic friends repose in too much security. The throne on which they lean may fail them, and the only way in our judgment to sustain it, and ward off the revolution, is to anticipate it, and develop the Imperial constitution into a liberal government, satisfactory to the friends of rational and well-ordered liberty.

ART. VI.-LITERARY NOTICES AND CRITICISMS.

1. L'Immaculée Conception de la Bienheureuse Vierge Marie, Considerée comme Dogme de Foi. Par Mgr. J. B. MALOU, Evèque de Bruges. Bruxelles: Goemaere. 1857. 2 Tomes. 8vo. We have not yet received the second volume of this work, although it was to have been issued on the 1st of last April. When we receive it we shall make it a point to bring the work very fully to the notice of our readers. The Bishop of Bruges is one of the most learned and eminent writers in Europe, and he has, we are told, written this work at the request of the Holy Father. From what we have read of the first volume, we have formed the highest opinion of its merits, and we are led to believe it the very work needed on the subject.

2. Etudes Philosophiques. Ontologie, ou Etude des Lois de la Pensée. Par M. l'ABBÉ F. HUGONIN. Tome premier. Paris: Belin. 1856. 8vo.

We are ignorant whether the Abbé Hugonin has or has not published more than this first volume, a copy of which he has done us the honor to send us. We have no space at present to speak of it according to its merits. As far as we have examined it, the work strikes us very favorably, and proves that the French mind, though still affected by Cartesianism, is working its way into the elevated and serene regions of a truly ontological philosophy, which places the order of knowledge in harmony with the order of being. We shall return to this volume soon, and attempt an appreciation of its merits.

3. Bertha and Lily; or, the Parsonage of Beech Glen. A Romance. By ELIZABETH OAKES SMITH. New York: J. C. Derby. 1855. 16mo. pp. 336.

4. Mary and Hugo; or, the Lost Angel. A Christmas Legend, by ELIZABETH OAKES SMITHI. With Illustrations by Darley. New York: Derby and Jackson. 1857. 16mo. pp. 149.

5. The Newsboy. New York: Derby and Jackson. 1856. 12mo. pp. 527.

These three works by an estimable lady, deserve a more extended notice than we are now able to give them. They are marked by a fine vein of philanthropic sentiment, and by deep and independent thought. They are the genuine utterances of the heart and soul of the author, and indicate a mind of great earnestness, and a heart that craves truth and goodness. The author is not a Catholic, but she has advanced far beyond the vulgar Protestantism of the day, and has aspirations which can be met only in the Catholic Church, though she probably sees it not, and believes it not. She is not satisfied with any form of Protestantism that she has yet encountered, but she is one of those who are looking for a new development of the religious sentiment, and its embodiment in a new Church, or "The Church of the Future." She is not with us, but she is not against us. The literary and artistic merits of her works are very considerable; and Bertha and Lily is entitled to a high rank as a romance. The interest of the story is well sustained; the characters are well marked and life-like. The incidents are a little wild, but they are not wholly improbable, and the effect upon any other than a Catholic reader, must be pleasing and inspiring. Mary and Hugo is a wild and unearthly story, with a little too much of the m stic for our taste, yet it indicates thought and reflection as well as imagination.

The Newsboy is our favorite. We like it for its appreciation of boy's nature, for its hearty sympathy with the poor and neglected, and its detestation of all hollow pretence and hypocrisy. The author loves humanity, but she detests all sham, all mere seeming, and allows herself to be deceived by none of the heartless conventionalities of society. She carries her radicalism somewhat further than ours goes in our maturer years, but we find it refreshing to meet a writer now and then that dares call things by their right names, and to plead the cause of those whom society regards as outcasts. She is no Puritan, no self-complacent Pharisee; she is not afraid to compassionate sinners, and to tell the scribes and Pharisees of the day, that publicans and sinners, even harlots, go into the kingdom of Heaven before them. She believes love and genuine kindness are often due where we mete out only cruelty and wrath. So far we believe her right.

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