former provinces be restored to it; in other words, that the Italian kingdom be broken up. It says to Italy Your existence as a free and united nation is incompatible with my temporal rule; I therefore demand your destruction. What would be the reply of France, England, or any other nation, if, being in the position of Italy, such language were addressed to them? Again, the chief of the Papal government hurls his anathemas at Italy for adopting a variety of laws which are not only demanded by modern progress and civilisation, but which Roman Catholic France and Belgium have already adopted, and which the free Austria of to-day is hastening to adopt. Who amongst enlightened men does not sympathise with the work which is now being carried on by the Austro-Hungarian diets and statesmen? With what disgust would not every friend of justice and freedom see to-day Vienna or Pesth in the hands of a temporal power maintained by foreign bayonets, anathematising and impeding at every turn the great work of national regeneration, liberty, and progress now being carried on in the Austro-Hungarian state? Assuredly such a spectacle would be hateful in Vienna or Pesth, and assuredly it is not less hateful in Rome.

There is a desire often expressed by many of the most inveterate enemies of the Roman Church, which Roman Catholics will do well to consider. It is this: that the temporal power of the Pope may continue to be prolonged by forcible means, because thereby the greatest possible damage will be inflicted upon his spiritual power. These bitter foes of the Holy See

will certainly read with joy of the Roman Pontiff blessing and decorating the foreign soldiers who have fought for the shred of territory still left him-soldiers whose Chassepot rifle "did wonders" in its murderous work of death and slaughter. But what answer can be given to those inveterate enemies when they ask, pointing to the hecatomb of mangled corpses which strewed Mentana's field: Are these the bloody tokens by which the Papal king would have mankind believe that he is indeed the true representative on earth of the gentle and loving Jesus who refused to be made king—who was named the Prince of Peace; who "came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them?"

Those who, in examining this double question of the "temporal power" of the Roman Church in Italy, and of the Anglican Church in Ireland, look only to the vast material strength of France and England, will perhaps come to the conclusion that the "temporal power" of the two churches, which those nations respectively uphold, is in no danger of being brought to an end, or even of being greatly modified. But those who observe the direction in which the current of civilisation and progress is running, who watch the onward flow of civil and religious liberty in all directions, who mark the successful vindication of national and individual freedom, even in countries hitherto most opposed to all such principles, will come to a very different conclusion. The ruined and decaying remains of a vast armoury of weapons by which arbitrary statesmen and bigoted ecclesiastics sought

to sustain and strengthen, as they imagined, the cause of religion, are to be seen lying broken and disused on all sides. Such instrumentality belongs to the past, whether its outward forms were to be seen in the stake and torture of ages long gone by, or in those civil disabilities and offensive oaths which were abolished but yesterday. The attempt to maintain by force the temporal power and position of an ecclesiastical body, in opposition to the will, the liberties, and the progress of a whole people, is but a vain endeavour to preserve the last remnants of the old system, which sought in a thousand ways to shackle the liberties and consciences of men, by compelling them to accept, or at least support, some form of religious belief which their brother men believed to be the truest and the best. Those last remnants will be as surely swept away as those around which the present generation can remember the battle raging, but which now exist no longer. More time may yet have to be lost in the struggle, that struggle may blaze forth for a moment hotter and fiercer than ever, but the ultimate result is inevitable. France may be the greatest of military powers, while Italy has not yet organised the undeveloped resources of a nation whose birth-throes we have witnessed and yet are witnessing. England possesses might and resources such as may well make the strongest shrink from rousing her to hostile action; while Ireland may be said never even to have known an existence at once independent of others and united within herself. Yet when Italy and Ireland demand the cessation of the temporal

power and rule of an ecclesiastical body which weighs down their liberties, stops their progress, and poisons their whole national life, it is with them that the final victory will rest, despite all the strength of France and England, who respectively uphold in Italy and Ireland the temporal power of the Roman and Anglican hierarchies. For while the former nations have on their side, in this matter, only the material strength of Chassepot rifles and Armstrong guns, the latter have with them the whole current of modern civilisation and progress, united to the divine power of justice, liberty, and right, now, as ever, numbered amongst the best gifts which God has bestowed on

man.

If, moreover, a glance be directed from the old world to the new; whether to the vast dominion of the great American republic, or to the rising communities of England's colonial empire-those free nations of a no distant future-the system of absolute religious freedom and equality will there be seen reigning unquestioned, none having the least desire to disturb, in those countries, that universal settlement which, to the benefit of State and Church, leaves both unhampered, thus realising the idea of a free church in a free state-" Libera chiesa in libero stato," as said Cavour.

Such facts, when connected with the manifestly increasing tendency of the more enlightened and powerful European nations to put in practice the principle of complete religious freedom, reveal clearly to every thoughtful observer what must be the final

result. Is such a result to be dreaded? Is it indeed to be lamented that the prospect opens of a time when no temporal power of any church whatever shall thwart the independence and progress of a whole nation; when no country shall be compelled to support a church hateful to the great majority of its people? Surely the fall of such systems, not less unworthy of an enlightened age than of the Christian faith, should be hailed with thankfulness; while at the same time due preparation should be made so to meet that salutary change as to turn it to the best possible account, for if well and wisely profited by, it will usher in the full reign of absolute religious freedom and equality. Then shall all those who share a common faith, and reverence their conscience as their king," follow its dictates without let or hindrance, without paying tax or tithe to any other creed save that which reigns in their own hearts. Thus shall religion rest upon conviction, its only sure foundation, and so the sacred claims of man's spiritual life be brought into harmony with the no less sacred rights of freedom, truth, and conscience.

The debates which have occurred in the French Chambers since our article on the Two Temporal Powers has been put in type, lead us to add the following remarks:-M. Rouher has declared that Italy shall not be allowed to seize upon (s'emparer de) Rome. If he means that France will under no circumstances allow that city to become the capital of Italy, the conference proposed by the French