the darkness of the Protestant land. One bright spot is irradiated with the triumph-the partial triumph-of Roman principles of government. Can it be irrational to hope that when these principles prevail in the same degree throughout the land, we shall have everywhere, under State and general governments, the same placid order, the same security for life and property, the same freedom from turbulence and riot, the same purity of elections, the same integrity in the discharge of public trusts, the same awfulness of judicial virtue, as prevail in the Catholic city and county of New York?

We have left ourselves very little space to express as we would like the real respect which, after all, we feel for this book, and still more for its author. With here and there a slip in grammar or diction, and with no more of pedantry than can easily be pardoned to the author's vocation, the work is beautifully written; and if there does seem to be a dreadful gap between what the author intended when he started, and what he found where he stopped, it must be acknowledged that he passed from one point to the other with consecutive steps along an intelligible path. His argument, although encumbered with mistakes, is, nevertheless, good against any opponent who accepts his premiss,-that the Church Universal is a visible corporation. His appeal to all Protestants to examine with candor the grounds of their belief, and bravely and sincerely accept the consequences, is earnest, tender and touching-all the more so, as the unhappy author in his very exhortation, evidently looks back upon those generous moments when he himself was practising these virtues, as Adam within myself to think of it-these nations of the Latin race and of the Catholie religion have been of late the most grievously tried of all! Not only by intestine fires, by the quaking of the earth, by the inrushing of the sea. Look with impartial eye, with the fearless serenity of truth, with that assurance of faith which fears not to accept the revelations of experience, and then tell me-where is it that the moral foundations quake most violently? Where does the current of a formidable electricity give the severest, the most incessant shocks to republics as well as monarchies? Among the Latin races; among the Catholic nations, Yes, by some inscrutable design of Providence, they, more than others. have had to drink of the cup deep and large;' they have wet their lips more deeply in the chalice in which are mingled 'the wine, the lightning, and the spirit of the storm;' and they have become possessed with the madness of the drunkard." Discourses of Father Hyacinthe, Vol. I., p. 155.

might have looked back upon Paradise. Those hours can never return. Never more may he exercise the manly virtue which he now commends to others, and which we doubt not he faithfully practised until it became a prohibited good. Let him now attempt to look into the writings of those who differ from him, with a view to "examining candidly the grounds of his faith," and the thunderbolt of the excommunication lata sententiæ breaks forth upon him from the Bull In Cœna Domini.* We are so affected by the honest Doctor's exhortation to candid inquiry, that we shrink from putting ourselves, like him, in a situation in which if we candidly inquire we are damned.

The little volume will reasonably be expected to be more effective as a fact and a testimony than as an argument. As a testimony, its precise value is this: Until two years ago, the author, believing himself to be entirely sincere and candid, held, as the result of private judgment, a system (according to his own statement) wildly inconsistent, illogical and self destructive, which he vindicated to himself and others by arguments plausible and satisfactory. Within two years, after candid but astonishingly brief examination, in the exercise of the same private judgment, he has dropped that system and adopted another, also with entire sincerity, and vindicated by plausible arguments, which he is not permitted candidly to reexamine. It is solely by the use of the same private judg ment that played him so false before, that he has come to embrace this other system.

Qu.:-What is the probability that he has got the truth

now?

This is what he may never know.

One thing alone he holds intelligently-that the Roman church is the true church of Christ; and this he knows only by his poor private judgment, which he is not permitted to revise. Every thing else, he takes on the authority of this. And this, being known only by private judgment, may be a mistake!

Poor man!

* Ligorii Theol. Moral. 63, 735.

ART. VII.-THE BIBLE AND THE SCHOOL:*

An Address of M. E. de Pressensé before the Evangelical Alliance at Amsterdam, held in August, 1857.-Translated for the "New Englander," by PROF. J. P. LACROIX, of the Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio.

ALL who have any correct appreciation of the age in which we live, and of the future which is preparing for us, admit without hesitation that the great question of the day is that of popular education. Democracy is everywhere gaining ground; it flows not only, as Royer-Collard said, with full banks, but it is breaking beyond its proper bounds. Political institutions have little to do with the matter. Where they yield to the popular pressure, there is less observable friction than in such countries as try to resist it. But all institutions that presume to offer it stubborn defiance are sure to be swept away in the end; for its floods are constantly mounting, with the regularity of natural law. This fact is not a mere political phenomenon, it is a social fact of momentous import. Everywhere the masses are becoming conscions of their might; they have found, in the principle of association, an irresistible lever; for they have numbers on their side, and where numbers are organized and of one mind, what can resist them? Whether this state of things be welcome to us, or not, does not affect the matter of fact. Gladstone has justly said that the nineteenth century is the century of the laborer, meaning, that in this age, for the first, in the history of the world, the laboring classes have attained to a real participation in political and social life. From of old they have been kept in the back-ground, have been simply permitted to prepare the costumes for the great actors, or to handle the machinery which

* This Address of the distinguished French Protestant Pastor, M. E. de Pressensé deserves just now more than ordinary attention in this country, as it brings to view the way in which the question of "the Bible and School" may be regarded by a Protestant minority in a Roman Catholic country.-Editors of the New Englander.

gave glory to the action. But in our day all this is changed. The people has become one of the principle actors, and that too not simply to take a sudden part in revolutionary crises, but to play a direct and constant role in shaping the face of the world.

Such is the situation-at least for those who have eyes to see it. I will say at once, that I think we should accept it resolutely and without regret. It has, it is true, its immense perils, but it has also its providential phase. I believe it is as God would have it be. That the classes of society should approach each other by the enjoyment of equal rights, by freedom of person and labor, by a common prosperity, is surely in harmony with that religion which knows neither bond nor free. Notice that I have no thought here of touching on political ground; I consider simply the social fact. From this point of view I hold, that Christianity has a moral tendency to sweep away all barriers to equal rights among the redeemed of the same Saviour. And I am convinced that nothing could be more unfortunate than to make religion seem distrustful and inimical in regard to the privileges of the masses; for, the weal of the future depends entirely on the influence Christianity shall exert upon them. Nor is this a mere matter of prudence, it is a question of truth and justice.

But in any view of the case the situation is grave and fraught with peril. What will be the nature of this immense weight which the masses are to throw into the social balance? Will it or not be a blind force, shaped by every wind that may blow, and destructive, like the tempests of nature? In other words, will it be an intelligent, or an unintelligent force? Let it not be forgotten that the spirit which fills out a political frame-work is infinitely more important than the frame-work itself. The French politicians of 1789 fabricated an admirable constitution; but they thought very little of those who would have to put it into practice. They constructed their theoreti cal system in the brilliant circles of Paris, but none of these reformatory philosophers thought of descending into the hovel and workshop to dissipate the ignorance of the masses. Hence their work was in vain. The blind rage of blindly-led masses swept away, in 1793, the brilliant constitution of the Mirabeaus and Lafayettes. Much, it is true, depends on political

constitutions, but much more on those for whom they are made. Let us not place in the second rank that which is of first im portance-popular education.

The nations that were born of the Reformation have constantly aimed to instruct the masses; with them it was a necessity of self-preservation. In fact, the Reformation itself was based upon a Book,-a book by whose divine authority it shielded and upheld liberty of thought, and withstood traditionary servitude. It whispered into the ears of the Middle Ages, those words which gave St. Augustine to the Church: Tolle et lege, take and read. We see, therefore, clearly enough, why the Reformation taught the masses to read-why the Church, which has for its motto, Lege, should be more zealous for popular education than the Church which esteems the utterances of the priest as higher than the sacred Word. There is, therefore, a religious cause for that great diffusion of elementary education which characterizes Protestant nations. Yes! It is the Bible which has created the school, especially the Protestant school. Elsewhere it is not so. We may truthfully say that the natural tendency of modern Romanism is to increase and intensify popular ignorance. It is true, this Church has its teachers and schools; but it imparts knowledge only in very limited degrees. It instructs its masses only where its influence is contested by powerful rivals. Hen e we see, that where Popery has exclusive sway, the people are covered with thick darkness. It desires to retain within its own grasp the keys of knowledge, lest some other sentiments than its own should be taught. Under such circumstances it is, in fact, safer to teach nothing at all beyond the catechism; for the taste for knowledge, once indulged, is no longer easily controlled.

However, the condition of the world is now such as to render this system difficult of practice. In France, an impulse has been given to general education which cannot be checked. The government, the various Churches, and societies of every description, are taking part in it. Schools are multiplied and encouraged-schools for the young and the adult, schools for each sex, schools for the learned callings. The cause of education may be said to be gained. And to the question which we have proposed, viz.: Will the masses, on arriving at polit