constitution, and that they are like diverging rays of light which can never meet. Hence, the policy which counsels further concession to the development of the Papal system in England, may be likened to the tactics of a general who allows his adversary to lead his columns in safety from the further bank of the river, in front of his position, across the bridge which separates the two armies, and to deploy them in perfect order on the near bank of the river. The general may justly have confidence in the strength of an entrenched position, and await the assault of the enemy on vantage ground with perfect security as to the result; but in the majority of cases, the defence of the bridge may be an important element of success.

Accordingly, in Belgium we find that the State maintains the command of the bridge which separates the province of religion from the domain of politics, and resolutely beats back the Papal force, whenever it seeks to effect a passage across it. For instance, when the Roman Catholic Clergy have sought to control the exercise of the political franchise by abusing their pulpits to electioneering purposes, the Belgian tribunals have inflicted upon them the penalties of the law imposed upon the political offence. The case of the Curé of one of the principal Communes near Brussels may be instanced amongst others, as showing that the privilege of the pulpit was not allowed by the Courts of Belgium to shelter an act which was not within the true intent of the privilege. Again, several Curés have been sentenced to fines for performing the religious ceremony of marriage before the civil preliminaries have been complied with, and the sentences have been confirmed on appeal.

It is not within the province of this work to suggest the course which ought to be adopted on the

present occasion; the responsibility of that decision may be allowed to rest with the executive Government, or the Legislature. But thus much But thus much may be affirmed, that they cannot both stay their hands. Either the Executive must enforce the law as it stands, or the Legislature must alter the provisions of the statutebook. The determination of this question will depend in a great degree on the feelings of the English people. Those feelings have been outraged by the Pope in their most sensitive quarter, and it is natural that the outrage should be resented. At present, indeed, the voice of the upper classes has been mainly heard; but if once the fears of the great middle class should become alive to the idea that there was any positive danger of the fond dream of the Papacy being realised, —if a religious panic should seize the English nation at large, as on more than one occasion has happened in former times, if it should be thought for a moment likely to come to pass in England, that the Director would succeed in wresting from the father the education of his child, and the Confessor in intercepting from the husband the confidence of his wife, and that the family which at present exists in its integrity almost exclusively in England, and which is the sheet anchor of the State, would be broken up and disappear in the manner in which it has perished, as an institution, in most Roman Catholic states,—a great revulsion would in all probability ensue in the tolerant spirit of the English people. No greater misfortune could befall the Roman Catholics in England, than that the enterprise of Cardinal Wiseman should be attended with some notable success at the outset. The institutions of Rome are totally opposed to the manners of the people of England; and when individuals attribute the success of the Reformation in England to

causes of State policy, they forget that in religion, as in politics, the same maxim holds good-yivovraι μèv γίνονται μὲν αἱ στάσεις οὐ περὶ μικρῶν, ἀλλ' ἐκ μικρῶν, στασιάζουσι δὲ περὶ μεγάλων. A spark of fire will serve to kindle a conflagration that shall burn a city down to its foundations, but if the materials upon which it falls are not inflammable, the spark will fall harmless.

It is to be hoped that the occasion for a reaction may never arise. England at present stands purely on the defensive. We have an established order of law, which has been violated in England in obedience to a Foreign Power. That Power, being a Foreign Power, may have been misled by wrongful information as to the state of the law in England. It is right that the truth should be brought to its cognisance, in the usual manner in which Foreign Powers receive information as to the municipal law of other sovereign states. That Foreign Power has further departed from received practice. It is fair again to suppose that it may have been misled in this respect by some misinformation as to the state of the law in England. This might also be a subject of diplomatic representation to the Court of Rome, for it must be presumed that the Pope is accessible to truth and reason.

The new dignitaries, who are the subjects of her Majesty, stand in a different category. They seem disposed to contend that they have not violated the law of the land. This fact may be at once ascertained by a reference to Westminster Hall. If it should be held by the judges of the land that no violation of the law has been committed, cadit quæstio. If, on the other hand, the law should prove to be obscure, it should be cleared up: if technically inoperative, it should be formally repealed. There can be no greater scandal to a State, than to have laws in its statute-book

which speak only to the ear, or are too obscure to be obeyed. But this may not be assumed with respect to any law, until its authorised interpreters have pronounced it to be unintelligible. If, on the other hand, the law shall be found to speak distinctly and clearly, there is no alternative but obedience to it. But its present harshness should be accommodated to the milder manners of the age. The law as to Papal Rescripts, which, in its present form, would continue to be inoperative, should be modified, so as to be practically available to check any abuse of the spiritual power of the Pope to temporal purposes, and when so modified, it should be inflexibly maintained.

The friends of civil and religious liberty will probably be divided in opinion as to the measures to be pursued. Some will be anxious that the arm of the law should not be put forth on the present occasion; but others, whose sincerity is beyond question, and who know that the maintenance of civil and religious liberty in England rests upon the sanctions of the law, may reasonably apprehend, that if the law falters on the present occasion, before a power which is the inflexible adversary of civil and religious liberty, the sanctions of civil and religious liberty may themselves be endangered, and that the moderation of feeling, and equity of judgment, which has hitherto characterised the English people, will not be preserved under the aggravations of further outrage.

The Continent of Europe has been, within the last two years, convulsed from one end to the other. From the Tiber to the Danube, from the Seine to the Eyder, the triumph of self-will, under the form of anarchy, has been momentarily complete. The Papal Tiara has bowed its head to the storm equally with the Imperial Crown. But the tempest has scarcely

passed away, ere the spirit of self-will reappears under the garb of absolutism. No sooner does the Roman Pontiff resume possession of his tiny sceptre by the aid of a foreign power, than he casts the torch of dissension across the straits which separate one of the few havens of political repose from the regions of political turmoil; and he sends a messenger of discord, with instructions to brave the authority of the law in a country, where respect for the authority of the law is enshrined in the hearts of the people. The conduct of the Holy See is one of those moral anomalies, which perplex the philosopher to explain their cause, whilst they embarrass the statesman to control their effects.

It is to be hoped, indeed, that the arrow of civil discord has fallen wide of the mark on this occasion. The spirit of the Roman Catholic laity is equal to the crisis: they know and feel that it is not the cause of their religious liberties, but the cause of the Papal Power, which is staked upon the present move; and their natural leaders have spoken forth in language which argues a heartfelt allegiance to their sovereign and her laws. There is no united political action, even amongst the Roman Catholic Clergy, against her Majesty's Government. It would be a slander on them as men and citizens to assert this. The golden words of the Fathers of the Fourth Council of Toledo find a response in many breasts: "Quicunque a modo ex nobis, vel cunctis Hispaniæ populis, qualibet meditatione vel studio sacramentum fidei suæ, quod pro patriæ salute, gentisque Gothorum statu, vel incolumitate regiæ potestatis pollicitus est, violaverit, anathema sit, atque ab Ecclesia Catholica, quam perjurio profanaverit, efficiatur extraneus, et ab omni communione Christianorum alienus."