they are called, whether military or naval, clashes with their religious convictions, dearer to them than life? Is it not the duty of the Government not only to give them full liberty, but also to provide them with ample means to 'worship God according to the dictates of their conscience'? Is it not furthermore the duty of the Government to give to the Catholic sailor and soldier the security, to him as a parent so consoling, that when he dies in the cause of his country his little children, dear to him as the apple of his eye, shall not be perverted from the cherished faith of his fathers in the naval or regimental school?-a concession which we trust the British Government will freely grant, by admitting the principle of due ecclesiastical control as a safeguard for the faith of Catholic children in such schools. "The condition of humbly-circumstanced landholders, who form so large and important a part of the community, is also a subject of the very last importance, affecting as it does the peace and the happiness and the prosperity of the country. In alluding to this momentous question we by no means step out of our own province. We are ministers of charity, and charity commands us to relieve the corporeal necessities, to alleviate the temporal misery of all our fellow-creatures without any exception, especially of those who are bound to us by the closest relation. We and our clergy derive a large portion of our temporal support, and that, if not extravagant, certainly neither scanty nor grudgingly given, from the voluntary benevolence of the humble Catholic landholders of Ireland; and strange it were, indeed, if, with our temporal wants generously supplied by them, we should be indifferent to their temporal condition, or should, out of a false delicacy, shrink from helping to ameliorate it in any way within our reach, and on suitable occasions vindicating before the world the just rights of our generous, devoted, beloved people. No. We should be unworthy of them, unworthy of the place we hold in their affections, unworthy of our ministry of charity and mercy, could we so far forget them and the duty we owe them on so many titles. We feel called upon, then, by a strong sense of duty to say that, whilst there are many excellent landlords in Ireland who do not forget that 'property has its duties as well as its rights,' but too many, unmindful of the duties, enforce the rights under the operation of one-sided law-so one-sided and unjust, that the judge sitting on the bench of justice has had wrung from him the admission that he was compelled in the name of law to administer injustice. This law, as it stands, gives the landlord the most formidable power to evict the improving tenant without giving him any compensation whatever; and this power has been too often exercised with circumstances of the utmost cruelty. A man may, by the application of his little capital, with his own and his children's labour, convert a barren waste into a smiling pasture, or improve inferior land to many times its former value. But not for him or his shall the pasture smile, nor shall he gather the well-earned harvest of his labour from those teeming fields which the sweat of his brow has fertilized. The landlord, wishing to consolidate farms, or choosing to plant them with Scotch settlers, or preferring cattle to Christians, especially of the tenant's religion, or displeased for his having presumed to vote at the election of a Member of Parliament or Poor-law Guardian otherwise than he had wished, or from whatever motive it may be, comes armed

with the powers of the law, seizes to himself the fruits of the poor tenant's capital, labour, industry, and casts himself and his helpless young family upon the world, to eke out the remnant of his days in the workhouse, or to find a watery grave in the ocean, or to perish in the swamps of America. Is not this literally the history of many a poor Irish tenant? May God inspire our rulers to put an end to this crying injustice. The natural and Divine law, humanity and justice, the peace and good order of society-all demand the application of a speedy remedy to this too-long-tolerated evil. We hail with pleasure the announcement that the Government intends to apply the remedy without delay by adjusting the relations between landlord and tenant; and we look forward with hope to the day when, with the Divine blessing, both parties will feel that their interests are inseparable— when the landlord will not abuse his power by cruel evictions, nor the tenant seek redress in the wild justice of revenge'-when the one will consider it the noblest exercise as well as the truest enjoyment of the rights of property to make his tenants happy under him, and the other will look up to his landlord as his good friend and protector.

6

"Addressing you on various subjects concerning your spiritual and temporal welfare, we should, venerable and dearly beloved brethren, be wanting to you, to ourselves, to our common spiritual Father, did we not call upon you to offer up fervent prayers to heaven for our Holy Father the Pope, that God may deliver him from all his enemies at home and abroad, may shorten the days of his affliction, and may give him to see once again reigning around him, what alone he sighs for, Glory to God on high, and on earth peace to men of good will.' The Holy Father is profoundly afflicted by the troubles excited in Italy through the machinations of wicked men, at once the enemies of the Holy See and the disturbers of all order, who, casting off allegiance to their lawful Sovereign, as they had already cast off the restraints of religion, are seeking to disturb the peace of the Pontifical States. Nor, as it should seem, have these lawless men wanted the sympathy, if even the direct encouragement, of those who from their position should be the friends of order. Catholic Europe, the Catholic world, has been shocked to see that unscrupulous statesmen, contrary to the principles of justice and international law, which they themselves are the loudest to invoke at other times, and from no assignable motive save that of a deadly animosity to the Holy See, would fain despoil the Roman Pontiff of those dominions which he has held and holds by a title the oldest as well as the most sacred of any in Europe. Yesthe oldest and most sacred of any in Europe. Long ages before any of the present dynasties of Europe were thought of, Central Italy, from sea to sea, enjoyed a high civilization under the mild sway of the Roman Pontiffs; and the princes and peoples of Christendom, so far from grudging them the patrimony of Peter, protected their persons and defended their possessions as well, that the Head of the Church, being the vassal of no one, the enemy of no one (which it were not meet the common Father of all should be), and so being placed far above all local or personal considerations that else might fetter his freedom of action, might be perfectly independent in administering the affairs of the Universal Church. And why is it now sought to disturb the Holy Father? Because, forsooth, he does not keep up with the

progressive spirit of the times. Is it, then, so soon forgotten, that Pio Nono began his reign as a Reformer? Not to speak of the paternal wisdom which, whatever may be said to the contrary, has marked his reign throughout its whole course to the great happiness of his people, is it so soon forgotten, that scarcely was our illustrious Pontiff seated in the Chair of Peter when he made large concessions to his people, adapting, as much as might be, the new ideas of progress to the forms of ancient wisdom, and bent his liberal and enlightened mind to the consideration of measures having for object the social and physical amelioration of his fair country? Has it so soon passed away from memory how the praise of his enlightened policy was on every tongue? how the eyes of all Europe were fixed upon him with little less reverence than when every one bearing the name of Christian acknowledged the Roman Pontiff as the Father and Head of all Christians? how the vivas with which the seven hills of Rome resounded were given back from the banks of the Thames, and how, in their admiration of Pio Nono, Englishmen for a while forgot his religion? Is all this no longer remembered? and will the former eulogists of Pio Nono charge him now with want of progress? and will they even make common eause with the anarchists, who rewarded his patriotic efforts by the assassination of his Minister and the exile of himself?

"The Holy Father has, venerable and dearly beloved brethren, but too much reason to be afflicted. But it will be no small consolation to his paternal heart to know that he has the prayers and the sympathies of his faithful children all over the world; among whom, numbering two hundred millions, none turn towards him with more of filial affection-none more strongly condemn the unworthy attacks made upon him, the bitter invectives poured out against him-none feel more intensely the wrongs committed against him, and the sorrows that have most undeservedly fallen upon him-than his devoted children in Ireland, no less true to the spiritual allegiance they owe to the Sovereign Pontiff than to the temporal allegiance due to the Sovereign who wields the sceptre of these realms. The children cannot but share in his sorrows when the heart of the best of fathers is plunged in grief. And, if others could be indifferent to his grief, you at least, venerable and dearly beloved brethren, could not be indifferent-you, who cannot forget how, in the days of our affliction, when famine visited the land, his paternal heart bled for the sufferings of the people, and his hand was stretched out to relieve their distress, though scanty the revenues at his disposal. And now that our Holy Father is himself stricken, we pray God, and we call upon you to unite with us in praying, that God may strengthen him, nor have we a doubt but that, with the Divine assistance, our illustrious Pontiff will, under this trial, comport himself in a manner befitting his high dignity, and prove himself as eminent in Christian virtue as he is in position. In his person God has set at the helm of Peter's bark one who will guide it through flood and storm with a watchful eye and a steady hand, until even they who may wish to see it dashed to pieces will be forced to acknowledge that the vessel and the hand that guides it are under the protection of Heaven. If, seeing the perils that encompass him, he should for a moment give way to fear, at once,

not so much to chide as to assure, the voice of the Lord will come to him over the waters, as it did to Peter, saying, 'Why fearest thou?' and the hand once stretched out to the fisherman of Galilee will be stretched out to his successor, and that successor will, like him, walk upon the angry waters gaping beneath him.

"But it is not merely the temporal power of the Pope which the enemies of the Holy See would assail. With it they hope his spiritual supremacy also would cease and come to an end. You, brethren, have no fear that it ever will so happen. You believe that the spiritual supremacy of Peter and Peter's successors, being the rock on which Christ built his Church, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail, will last as long as the Church itself—to the end of time. Full eighteen hundred years and more has that Church stood the shock of time, and it alone survives the wreck and ruin of ages. Many a storm has assailed it, but assailed it only to test and prove its ever-during stability. What with the incursions of barbarians, and the fierce contentions of Christian princes and nations, and the plottings of crafty statesmen, and the turbulent outbreaks of popular passion-wars upon wars, and revolution after revolution, have spent all their fury upon the Rock of Ages. The powers of earth and hell combined to tear it up from its foundation; and, could the powers of earth and hell prevail, they would have done so. But, no. The revolutions of ages, sweeping all else before them in their onward course, have broken upon the rock-built Church, only to display their own utter impotence. There it stands as firm as ever, and will stand, for its foundations were laid deep by the hand of the Almighty; and that same hand has at once ensured and recorded its indestructibility, for all time to come, in the title-deed written over its portals, 'Thou art Peter (or rock), and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.' (Matt. xvi. 18.)

"And now we call upon you, brethren, both clergy and laity, to do your part. First of all, put up your prayers to Heaven, that the Most High, who holds the hearts of kings and statesmen in his hand, may inspire our rulers with righteous counsels, and may incline them to listen to our just demands in favour of our people. There is nothing that we may not obtain by fervent prayer. Then rest not content with mere acquiescence, cordial though it be, in the decisions of your bishops. Hold Meetings, send forward petitions to Parliament, call upon your representatives to press your claims upon the attention of Government, and, if need be, even to make the concession of them the condition of their support; use all legitimate means to put before the empire the justice of your cause, and to sustain by your united strength the demands of your bishops in your behalf. So will they be not only just but irresistible. So will you, the Catholic laity, prove true to the memory of your forefathers, who, in weal and in woe, have ever clung to their pastors. And so will you best consult for the eternal, without overlooking the temporal interests of your children and your children's children.

"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the charity of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all.' Amen. (2 Cor. xiii. 13.)"

"

Reprinted verbatim from the " Nation," August 20, 1859.

PROTESTANT MAGAZINE.

NOVEMBER 1, 1859.

PAPAL FRANCE AND PROTESTANT ENGLAND.

Is there to be war between these two great Powers? Is one to invade the territories of the other? If so, on what ground is the war to break out?-when is any invasion to take place?-and by whom? What are likely to be the results, immediate and remote, of any war or invasion? Are we wrong here to moot such questions? No! Scarcely can we read the papers day by day and week by week-papers whether foreign or Englishwithout reading something on the subject, something as to the arming or disarming on the part of France, something as to preparations on the part of England. All this denotes some. foregone conclusions. War is possible! Invasion is possible! Success of the invaders is possible! "Is it indeed?" ask some. The reply, painful though it be to state it, must be candidly given. Foreigners, especially the French, think so. Many of our fellow-subjects think so.

War and invasion, then, being possible, are they probableare they likely to be successful? Can we turn the possibility into an impossibility? To answer well and wisely as to any invasion is difficult. We have no sound data to go upon. Many things less improbable have taken place. The antecedents of the present Emperor of the French tend to produce this conviction, that his actings and designs are not to be estimated after the measure of ordinary men.

His position is singular. It is perilous to him-perilous to the peace of Europe,-threatening in some respects to the peace and welfare of England.

But if an invasion be either possible or probable, are we safe against it? If not, are we wise in remaining unsafe? The folly of the man who leaves his home and goods uninsured against fire,-who leaves in dangerous times his home unprotected against the midnight robber or assassin, is nothing compared to the folly and infatuation, under the influence of which a great nation willingly leaves itself exposed to the chance, the probability, the possibility of any successful invasion.

But is not Great Britain at this very moment guilty of such improvidence? If so, ought not immediate steps to be taken to obviate this? Protestant Great Britain has accomplished VOL. XXI., November, 1859. N New Series, No. 238.