neva. mitted to linger on till the year 1802, when it was sup- | hastened to extend a hand to those same Catholics with pressed by a Papal Legate, in virtue of a special mandate from the Holy See. This suppression, says M. Pronier, was confirmed by Napoleon the First, and the Catholics of the departments of Mont Blanc and Leman were placed under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Chambery. This state of things did not last beyond the year 1819. Certain parishes of Savoy having been incorporated at the peace of Vienna with the Canton of Geneva, which was then united to the Swiss Confederation, a general desire was expressed that the Catholics of that canton should be placed under the jurisdiction of a Swiss bishop. Negotiations with this end in view were opened in 1817, and went on for more than two years. At length, by a Brief of 1819, the Pope agreed to extend as far as Geneva the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Lausanne, who resided at Strasburg. Since the year 1821 that bishop has also been authorized honoris causa to assume the title of Bishop of Lausanne and of Geneva. Under this arrangement the Catholic inhabitants of the latter city have lived from that year down to the present time, their immediate spiritual head being simply a curé or parish priest, elected by the common consent of the diocesan and civil authorities. whom they had been at war. James Fazy, the Radical leader, leaned upon them; by their support the Radical government maintained itself for several years at GeThese years of Radical government were, therefore, times of prosperity for the Catholics of Geneva. It was then that there began that enormous influx of Savoyards and French into the dismantled city of Calvin which encouraged the curé of Geneva to form the fairest expectations. In the name of toleration and liberty, the treaties which regulated the existence of the Catholics at Geneva were allowed to fall into oblivion. Even after the fall of Fazy the same policy was adhered to. One day, for example, the government made a grant to the Geneva Catholics of a large piece of ground for the erection of a cathedral in the Gothic style; at another time the Protestant population, by their solemn vote, admitted the Savoyard Communes, which had been annexed in 1815, to a share of the millions of money which up to that moment had been the exclusive property of the Evangelical Church; and later on, a magnificent site was sold for a few francs with a view to the construction of a third Catholic church. At the same time, various religious corporations went on establishing themselves quietly upon Genevese territory; the salary of the curé of Geneva was doubled, as well as the number of his assistant priests. In short, among the devotees of the Papacy in France and Savoy, nothing was so frequently talked about as the conquests of Catholicism in Geneva, and its approaching and inevitable triumph. The Catholics have not had the slightest reason to complain of this system. Faithful to its pledges, and firmly maintaining its rights, the Conservative government which was in power after the restoration resisted all the usurpations of the clergy, and took its stand on the letter and spirit of the treaties. The ambition of the clergy would have wished a very different course of action. The most unfounded complaints were repeatedly uttered by their party; they declared that the Church had no freedom--that the Catholic worship encountered incessant obstacles-that persecution had commenced. They managed to fill the whole of Europe with their piteous cries, and the curé Vuarin, a man of daring but intolerant and despotic spirit, carried his complaints to the foot of the thrones of princes, and displayed the greatest dexterity in pulling all the strings of worldly politics, in order to interest the Great Powers in the fate of the pretended martyrs of Geneva. It was impossible for him to make a great impression. The plan which he had secretly cherished of reconstituting the Episcopal See of Geneva, for his own greater glory and that of the Holy See, was completely upset, in consequence of Monsignor Henry, then Bishop of Lausanne, having refused to denude himself of the smallest particle of his authority. The curé Vuarin died without having succeeded in the accomplishment of his purpose, esteemed as a saint by the Catholics, but by the Protes-France, it had been for some time asserted that the tants regarded as an intriguer. The government of 1815 fell in the year 1845, and, strange to say, its fall was brought about by its policy of supporting the right of the Jesuits to establish themselves in Switzerland. Radicalism came into power by making capital of the religious question; but, as soon as the war of the Sonderbund was over, the Radicals Everything was going full sail before the breeze, when suddenly the wind changed. The old spirit of Protestantism and of liberty woke up little by little at the sight of the audacity and astuteness of the priest of Notre Dame of Geneva. "By virtue of what right," it was asked, "have all these friars and nuns come to settle among us? Perhaps our canton is destined to become a second edition of Belgium ?" By the nomination of a State Council, with M. Carteret at its head, the Genevese declared in the most emphatic manner their resolution to set limits to the inroads of the Ultramontanes. Interpreting in its more rigorous sense the law relating to religious corporations, the new Council of State shortly afterwards compelled those which had been established within the territory of the canton to apply for authorization, a thing which up to that moment they had never so much as thought of. That authorization was granted only to a few; all the rest were obliged to break up or emigrate. The government went still further. By the public rumour of both Switzerland and Episcopal See of Geneva had been reconstituted in favour of M. Gaspar Mermillod. The backstairs intrigues of the curé Vuarin had therefore been renewed. The State Council did everything in its power to bring the truth to light. Finally, on the 20th of September 1872, after a lengthened correspondence, and discussions, and negotiations of every description, in the course of which the dignitaries of Rome did little else than evade all direct questions, and pass from one equivocation to another, the Council of State, by two simultaneous decrees, declared that it ceased to recognize M. Mermillod as Catholic curé of Geneva, and that in consequence of this it deprived him of the stipend belonging to that office. It further prohibited him from performing either personally or by power of attorney any act which might belong to the jurisdiction of the ordinary. Thus ceased to exist, in point of fact, the hitherto legal status of the Catholic administration. The Catholics wanted to give out that the Genevese received the publication of these decrees with the liveliest indignation. We must say that their approbation of them was, on the contrary, quite universal. In vain did the Ultramontane party try to raise a disturbance. Their proclamations and the virulent articles in their newspapers made no difference either one way or another; and shortly after, on the occasion of the general elections for the Grand Council, the people of Geneva gave their full sanction to the policy of M. Carteret. The clergy alone persisted in making an uproar, and of their lamentations Pius IX. has too willingly made himself the echo. But the most profound tranquillity has not ceased to reign in the city of Geneva and throughout the whole canton; nay, more, there prevails the most intense satisfaction at seeing Ultramontanism held in check. sent to them as usual. He referred the Council of State to Monsignor Mermillod as solely charged with the affairs of Geneva, but without giving a copy, as he was asked, of the legal act by which the Holy See charged the curé of Geneva with this administration. On that point Monsignor Marilley was altogether silent. It became necessary to have recourse to Monsignor Agnozzi, Chargé d'Affaires of the Holy See in Switzerland. Then came the letter of the Council of State to Monsignor Mermillod ordering him to confine himself henceforth to his duties as curé of Geneva, since they alone could be recognized by the law. Next followed the refusal of Monsignor Mermillod, who appealed to his ecclesiastical superiors, declaring that he would persist in exercising all the powers which had been committed to him seven years before by the Holy See and the bishops. On the other hand, Monsignor Marilley asserted that he had neither desired nor favoured the division of the ecclesiastical administration, but that he submitted to decisions the announcement of which could not be long delayed. In these circumstances, the Council of State, perceiving that they were being trifled with by these ecclesiastical personages, and that their authority was distinctly repudiated by Monsignor Mermillod, summarily deprived the latter of the office of curé, and of the emoluments and privileges thereto attached. The tortuous policy pursued by these high dignitaries throughout the whole course of the transaction is suffiBut it may be here naturally asked, What grounds ciently manifest. People wanted to know if the sepahad the civil authorities for treating their curé in this rate diocese of Geneva had been actually re-established; high-handed way? The circumstances which led to Mon- in other words, if the Pope, disregarding the rights of signor Mermillod being extruded from his office may be the State and the solemn covenants formed between the very shortly stated. Whilst the aggressive practices of Holy See and the Canton of Geneva, had completely the Ultramontanes had been gradually stirring up modified the state of things which existed since the jealousy and indignation in the public mind to inaugurate year 1819. What do these bishops and legates do? and carry out a policy of repression, another train of They act as if Geneva were in fact a distinct diocese events had been proceeding side by side with this newly (Monsignor Marilley refusing to present to vacant awakened popular feeling. In the year 1865, the Bishop parishes, and Monsignor Mermillod wishing to do so in of Lausanne and Geneva, spontaneously or otherwise, his own name and on his own responsibility, like a had appointed the curé of Geneva, who was Bishop of legally constituted bishop), but they say not a word as Hebron in partibus, his Vicar-General, in so far as to its being reconstituted. Monsignor Mermillod refers regarded the Catholic interests of the canton. The the State to his superiors; Monsignor Marilley sends it Council of State then in power was weak enough to give to Monsignor Agnozzi; Monsignor Agnozzi feigns its consent to this modification of the state of affairs ignorance, and refers it to Rome. Better still: Rome, which had prevailed until then: all that it specified which has never made a positive declaration, speaks at was that the Vicar-General should not act except in last on the 23rd of December. This time, perhaps, the the name and on the responsibility of the ordinary. It light will appear: it cannot fail to issue from that founfurther reserved the right of direct application to the tain of light called Pius IX. A mistake: read the latter as often as it should be deemed expedient. In allocution of the Pope at the consistory of the 23rd the beginning of 1872, popular rumour, seconded by a December, and what do you find there? Declamation, public journal, having announced that the Episcopal See recriminations, and nothing else. On the question of Geneva had been reconstituted, with Monsignor Mer- whether or not the Episcopal See of Geneva had been millod at its head, the existing Council of State, which, reconstituted, absolute silence along the whole line as we have already seen, had begun a reaction against from Rome to Berne. The single point which it the Ultramontane intrigues, suddenly seized the oppor- was of importance to make clear was precisely the one tunity afforded by two parishes in the canton falling on which silence was obstinately maintained. But the vacant, to demand directly of Monsignor Marilley, Genevese authorities were not to be hoodwinked or Bishop of Lausanne and Geneva, that he should pre- | driven from their purpose by this policy of evasion and delay. No longer knowing with whom it had to deal when it treated with Monsignor Mermillod, and not being able to obtain the slightest explanation of a situation full of intrigues, equivocations, and Jesuitical reserves, the Council of State took the only course by which it was possible to save the rights intrusted to its keeping. It ceased to recognize Monsignor Mermillod as curé of Geneva, and deprived him of the stipend belonging to that office. Such is the plain, unvarnished account of the so-called persecutions of the Catholics of Geneva down to the end of last year, when, thanks to the firmness of the Council of State, all that Monsignor Mermillod had made by his intrigues was the loss of his former legal position as curé, without the recompense of obtaining a higher dignity in its stead. It is important to remember here, in view of what immediately follows, that Monsignor Mermillod at the beginning of the present year no longer occupied any ecclesiastical position recognized by the law of the land, being neither a regular bishop of any diocese in Switzerland, nor vicar-general, nor even curé. He was a Swiss citizen, amenable to Swiss law, and nothing more. His episcopal title of Monsignor, derived from a bishopric which existed only on parchment, was purely honorary, and conferred no real civil status. The vigorous measures of the Genevese authorities immediately produced the most wholesome effects on the policy of the Curia Romana, and forced it, nolens volens, to take up the gauntlet. In pursuance of this change in the position of affairs, Rome replied to the challenge of the Swiss by ordering the publication, in all the churches of the canton, of a Pontifical Brief, by which Geneva was detached from the bishopric of Lausanne, and Monsignor Mermillod appointed Vicar-Apostolic of the new diocese. This Brief, dated the 13th January, was actually read in the various churches on Sunday the 2nd of February, in direct violation of the law which prohibits the promulgation of such things without the authorization of the government. After the first feeling of excitement, occasioned by this open defiance of their authority, had passed away, the local government, recognizing the gravity of the crisis, wisely resolved to refer the difficulty to the Federal Council, the supreme court of the Helvetic Republic. The question was no longer cantonal, but national, and as such could not be competently dealt with except by the highest representatives of the nation. To the Federal Council the case then went, and that body was not slow to indorse and carry out the policy of the local government. An energetic protest was immediately drawn up and sent to the Papal Chargé d'Affaires, denying the right of the Vatican to dismember a legally constituted Swiss bishopric without the consent of the governing powers, and warning the Holy See that the Federal Council, in the exercise of its constitutional authority, would take the necessary steps to prevent any further encroachment on its rights, as guaranteed by the Brief of 1819. The Federal Council at the same time sent a copy of this letter to the State Council of Geneva, and instructed that body to convey it to the knowledge of Monsignor Mermillod, in order that he might make known, within a given time, whom he intended to obey. This communication of the government was received with the highest gratification, and gave rise, when it was read, to no little excitement among the members of the Council. They immediately despatched their ultimatum to Monsignor Mermillod, intimating that if within three days he did not resign the dignity of Vicar-Apostolic, he would be expelled from Switzerland. The answer was such as might have been expected-namely, that he would not cease to discharge the functions of Vicar-Apostolic, even in opposition to the orders of the civil authorities. This explicit declaration having been communicated to the Federal Council, a decree was immediately issued for the arrest of Monsignor Mermillod, and on Monday, the 17th of February, a commissary of police waited on him at his house, and conducted him there and then across the Swiss frontier into France. The painful impression produced by these violent measures has been, to a certain extent, counterbalanced by the direct practical benefits which a portion of the citizens of Geneva seem likely to obtain from the transaction. The position of antagonism into which these events gradually forced the court of Rome and the civil authorities of the canton, made it quite plain, to men of the most opposite shades of political opinion, that a new modus vivendi between the two contending parties was absolutely indispensable to the maintenance of peace and order in the Genevese community. Two alternatives lay before the citizens. They had it in their power to restore peace either by dissolving the existing connection of Church and State, or by granting to their Catholic fellow-citizens the right of choosing their own pastors. The former course would certainly have set the matter most effectually at rest, but the great majority of the State Council do not seem to have regarded the proposal with favour, introduced as it was by Fazy and the Radicals. Partly on account of its being mixed up with the political schemes of the Opposition, partly, perhaps, on other grounds, the Carteret section of the Council fought shy of this plan, and fell back on proposals of a milder type. A Bill, conferring on the Catholic parishioners the right of choosing their own pastors, was immediately laid before the Council, and rapidly passed, by overwhelming majorities, through the various stages required by the constitution. A day or two after Monsignor Mermillod's expulsion, it had received, by an emphatic vote of seventy-six to eight, the requisite legal sanction of the Grand Council. Before these pages are published, it will have been submitted to the consideration of the assembled people, and, in all probability, have received from them the final approval which is necessary to constitute it the law of the land. OUR FATHER'S LOVE: A STORY OF LONDON STREETS. CHAPTER I. ALL ALONE IN LONDON. HERE are some places in London where King Dirt holds a carnival all the year round-narrow back streets, where the tall houses, almost meeting at the top, shut out every gleam of sunlight, except during the longest and hottest days of summer, and then only a narrow rift of golden glory lights up a strip in the centre, and makes the shady corners look more dark and desolate than ever. In one of the shadowed nooks of such a street sat a little girl, her head leaning against the brick wall for a pillow; and you might have thought her fast asleep, but for an occasional sob. She had cried so long that her eyes were swollen and heavy; and even the faint light of Fisher's Land made them ache so much that she was glad to close them. No one noticed her for some time, but at length a girl about her own age stopped and looked at her, and at last spoke. "What's the matter?" she said, touching her shoulder. With a sob and a start the girl opened her eyes. "O Elfie, is it you?" she said, and then her tears broke out afresh. "What is it? Haven't you got anything to eat?" she asked. "I shall never want to eat anything again," sobbed the other. "O Elfie, mother's dead!" "Dead, is she?" said Elfie, but looking as though she could not understand why that should cause anyone to cry. "I shall never be happy again, Elfie.-O mother, mother, why didn't you take me with you?" wailed the poor little orphan. "Just because she didn't want you, I guess," said Elfie, but at the same time sitting down to soothe the grief she could not understand. "There, don't cry," she went on in a matter-of-fact tone. "My mother's gone away, but I don't cry after her; not a bit of it; I know better than that, Susie Sanders." Susie shrank from her companion's touch as she said this, and thought of what her mother had said about making companions of the children in the street, and half regretted having spoken to Elfie. There was a great difference in the two girls, anyone could see, though both might be equally poor. Elfie was unmistakably a street child, ragged, dirty, sharp-looking, with bright cunning eyes shining out of a good-tempered looking face; while Susie, in her patched black frock and tidy pinafore, and timid shrinking ways, showed unmistakably that, poor as she might be, there had been some one to love and take care of her. Alas! for her, poor child, her only friend in the wide world had died that morning, leaving her alone in the streets of London! It was the old, old story: a widow striving to work for herself and her only child, and sinking at last beneath the stroke of disease, after giving up one by one every article of furniture, and moving from place to place, until at last she was glad to find a refuge in the garret of one of these gaunt houses, where she had not lived many weeks before God called her to the mansion he had prepared for her. She had talked to Susie of this, and tried to prepare the child's mind for the coming of the sad trial; but the little girl had hoped that her mother would get better "by-and-by." And so, when at last she woke up that morning and leaned over her mother, and found that she could not speak, or even return the caresses lavished on her cold lips and brow, she grew frightened at the unwonted stillness, but yet could not think her mother was dead, until some of the neighbours came in and told her so. Mrs. Sanders had not made friends with her neighbours, and they had thought her proud, because she did not talk to them of her affairs; and so, beyond telling Susie to go to the overseer of the parish, and ask him to send some one to bury her mother, they did not trouble themselves. Susie had just been on this errand, and wandered out again into the street to cry there, when Elfie saw her. They had spoken to each other before, but there had not been much acquaintance, for Mrs. Sanders kept her little girl in-doors as much as possible. But Elfie had taken a fancy to Susie, and resolved to befriend her now; so instead of moving away when she was repulsed, she put her bare grimy arms round Susie's neck, and said, "Tell us all about it, Susie; the boys shan't hit you while I'm here." To tell "all about it" was just what Susie wanted. No one else had asked about her mother, except the few hard questions put by the overseer, and so she gladly nestled close up to Elfie and told of her waking that morning to find her mother cold and dead. A grief like Susie's was quite beyond Elfie's comprehension. Her mother had left her six months beforegone off no one knew where, and no one cared-at least, Elfie did not. No one beat her now, she said; and if she was hungry sometimes, it was better to be hungry than bruised, and no one dared to do that now, so that she was rather glad to be left free to do as she pleased. But Susie shook her head very sadly when told she ought to be glad. "I can't," she said, "though mother told me God would take care of me when she was gone. I wanted to go with her, and be happy in heaven now." "And why didn't she take you?" said Elfie, whose ideas about heaven were not at all clear. and made her sit down on the stairs, while she listened to the conversation going on just above them. When they reached the garret, and Elfie had shut the door and glanced round the room, she said, "Look "She said I must stay here a bit longer, and do the here, Susie, which will you like best,-to stop here and work God meant me to do." Elfie laughed. "Oh, it ain't much money I earns; but I manage to get something to eat somehow, and that's what you've got to do now, I suppose." Again the tears came into Susie's eyes. "I don't know what I'm going to do," she said; "mother told me to read last night about the ravens taking food to Elijah, and she said God would send his angels here to take care of me." "Then that shows she knew nothing about this place," said Elfie, in her hard matter-of-fact tone. "Angels don't come down Fisher's Lane-at least, I never see 'em, and I'm out pretty near all hours, night and day too." Susie sighed. "I don't think it was quite an angel with white wings mother meant, but somebody who would be kind and take care of me-a lady or gentleman perhaps," she said. Elfie laughed. "Catch a lady or gentleman coming down here," she said; and the idea of such a thing seemed so ridiculous that she burst into a second peal of❘ laughter, until Susie looked offended, and then she said more gravely, "It's all a mistake, Susie, about the angels or anybody else caring for you. I know all about it, for I've lived in Fisher's Lane ever since I was born, and people have got to take care of themselves, I can tell you." "But how shall I take care of myself?" asked Susie. "I know there's some money to pay the rent next week, but when that's gone what am I to do?" "Get some more," said Elfie shortly. "I'll help you,” she added. "Thank you; will you come home with me and stay to-night, I'm dull by myself?" said Susie with a deep sigh. Her companion joyfully assented, and went off to the market in search of some stale fruit to share with Susie at once. Then they went back together to Susie's home, and, going up the stairs, overheard two of the women talking to the man who had come to see about the funeral. Susie was too much overcome with grief to pay any attention to what was said; but Elfie had had all her wits sharpened, and she laid her hand on Susie's arm work for yourself, and go out when you like; or have somebody come and shut you up in a big horrible place, with high walls like a prison, and make you work there?" Susie shivered. "Nobody would do that to me," she | said, looking across at the bed where her mother lay covered with the sheet, and thinking what she had said of God caring for her. "But they will, though, if you don't look sharp, for I heard the woman say you'd better go to the work-house,” replied Elfie. She had heard the work-house spoken of very often, but did not know what it was like, or that the life of children there was far less hard than hers. She only knew they were not allowed to run about the streets, and the idea of being shut up in any place was dreadful to Elfie, and must be to everybody else, she thought. She succeeded in making Susie dread being taken there. "But what shall I do to pay the rent here?" she asked. "Well, it would be nice to stop here," said Elfie; "but I manage without paying rent anywhere, and that's a saving of money." "But where do you go to bed?" asked Susie. "Well, I ain't been to bed in that sort of bed for nearly six months," she said, pointing towards the corner. "I sleep under a cart, or on a heap of straw, or anywhere I can find a nice place; it don't matter much when you're asleep where you are, so long as you're out of the way of the rats." Susie shook her head. "I shouldn't like that," she said. “Well, no, I suppose you wouldn't," said Elfie, again looking round the room. "People that's always been used to tables and chairs, and them sort of things, like you've got here, wouldn't like to sleep out under a waggon, I guess." "How can people do without tables and chairs?" said Susie. "How can they live?" "Oh, pretty well! Lots of us have to do without them, and other things besides," said Elfie carelessly; "but you couldn't, I suppose, and so we must try to keep these." "How shall we do it?" asked Susie. "Well, you can sew shirts, and I can get a job now and then at the market, and sometimes I clean steps for people, and that all brings money. How much do you pay for this little room?" she asked. "A shilling," answered Susie. "Mother's put the shilling away for next week, and she paid the landlord yesterday." "All right. Have you got any shirts to sew?" asked Elfie. |