learn trades, and remain as work-people in the convent. Lastly, a very excellent school is opened for young ladies; gratuitous schools are also annexed to the establishment, and young women, who wish to pass their life in retirement, are received on very moderate terms, and occupy separate apartments.

3. Sisters of Mercy of Evron, founded in the year 1679. The diocese of Mans enjoys the inestimable advantage of possessing this numerous congregation. The number of houses amounts to one hundred and seventy-five, whereof a great number are in the diocese of Mans, the others in those of Sens, Rennes, and Angers. Twenty-five hospitals are served by these sisters. Their statutes deserve being made known. The diocesan bishop is their superior; the lady abbess is elected for three years. The sisters must under no pretext transfer their property to the community. They come in poor, remain poor, and whenever, for any reason, they retire into the bosom of their families, they find their patrimony again. They make no vows; they merely promise, on admission, entire obedience to their superior, so long as they remain members of the community. The noviceship lasts five years. Besides the active duties of their calling, they devote a certain time to meditation, spiritual exercises of novices, silence, prayer, and pious reading. They recite on Sundays and festivals the offices of the blessed Virgin and the penitential psalms. They also observe the excellent custom of yearly spiritual retreats. 4. Daughters of St. Charles Borromeo.-This congregation is very much spread in the diocese of Nancy, where it possesses about sixty houses. Many girls' schools and almost all the hospitals, are entrusted to their care. They morever visit the sick in their private dwellings, and minister medicine gratituitously. They direct also the lunatic asylum at Nicholas and Mareville.

5. Sisters of St. Joseph.-Their parent house is at Cluny, in the diocese of Autun. They dedicate themselves to education and the care of the sick. They are particularly active in the French colonies; we find them in the Gaudaloupe and Martinique, in French Guiana, in the East Indies, in Bourbon, and in Senegal. They have recently sent a colony to Algiers.

6. In the diocesses of Limoges, and that of Nevers and the neighbouring districts, we find congregations, which combine the duties of education and the visiting of the sick.

7. Ladies of the adorable Sacrament of the Altar.-They are established in the diocesses of Arras, Valence, Meude, and Avignon. Each community has a free school and a poor-house. The diocese of Valence posesses also the Dames of the blessed Trinity: a congregation which is numerous and extends over many departments. Their occupations are instruction and the care of the sick.

8. Dames of good Succour in the diocess of Toulouse. This community embraces every work of charity; and among its members are to be found ladies of the most distinguished families. Toulouse possesses many laudable institutions which attest the active zeal of the inhabitants of that great city. We need only mention the association of Ladies of the Dolours of Mary, who, with singular self-devotion, perform the duties of instruction and attendance on the sick.

9. Dames of the good Shepherd.-This institute was established by the blessed Father Eudes, about the middle of the seventeenth century. Its object, as is well known, is to bring back fallen women to virtue. The principal house is at Paris. Great and various are their services to society; and His Holiness himself expressed a wish to see a like institute eatablished at Rome -a wish which was complied with by the lady superioress at Angers.

LIST OF THE TEACHING RELIGIOUS ORDERS OF MEN IN FRANCE.

1. Lazarists: founded in the seventeenth century, by St. Vincent of Paul.— Their triple object is instruction of the peasantry-direction of ecclesiastical seminaries and conversion of the heathen. They possess, at present, several communities, and direct fourteen colleges and seminaries; but their principal field of exertion is in foreign missions,—a field, where, since the suppression of the Jesuits, they are the most active, zealous, and intelligent labourers. They now constitute one of the noblest ornaments of the Church of France. They have rendered the most essential services to the Church in the United States of America.

2. Seminary of foreign Missions, Congregation of Picpus, and Congregation of our blessed Lady.--These three congregations are exclusively designed for training up priests and lay brothers for the foreign missions. The seminary of foreign missions sprung up almost simultaneously with the society of Lazarists, shortly after the erection of the bishopric of Babylon, in the year 1638. This congregation numbers a great many excellent and indefatigable missionaries. It possesses spiritual jurisdiction over the missions of Siam, Tonking, Cochin China, and a part of China, as also over Pondicherry and the coast of Coromandel. The Congregation of Picpus and of our blessed Lady have sprung up in more modern times. To these two societies the Holy See has entrusted the missions in the Eastern and Western Oceanica, where, thanks to the intrepid and indefatigable zeal of their holy envoys, and in despite of much persecution on the part of the English and Protestant ministers, the faith has made very wonderful progress.

have

3. Sulpicians: founded in the seventeenth century by the venerable priest Olier. The object of this congregation is to rear pious and learned secular priests for the Church. This congregation has ever exerted the greatest influence on the Church of France; and, after the great revolution, was re-established by the venerable Emery. It was in this seminary the great Fenelon received his theological education. The parent house is at Paris, but in the provinces there are seminaries conducted by the Sulpicians.

4. Brothers of the Christian Schools: founded in the year 1679, by the venerable Abbé de la Salle.--In the year 1724, Pope Benedict XIII solemnly confirmed this institute and its statutes. The founder seeing that though girls' schools were confided to the care of devout and religious women, the schools

poor boys were destitute of this advantage, resolved, in order to supply this want, to establish the congregation in question. The Brothers of the Christian Schools had to encounter violent opposition on the part of the lay schoolmas

ters; but, supported by the approbation of the bishops, they overcame every obstacle. When the congregation was suppressed by the revolutionists, in the year 1790, it possessed, in France alone, one hundred and twenty houses, wherein one thousand brothers imparted religious and civil instruction. Under Buonaparte the order was re-established; during the restoration it become flourishing; and, after having sustained a violent, but temporary persecution, in the calamitous year 1830, it now possesses two hundred and fifty houses in France, rises every day higher in public estimation, and has attained to a greater degree of prosperity than at any former period. Children are gratuitously taught reading, writing, arithmetic, the elements of drawing, and are admirably grounded in religion, and trained up to virtuous habits.

5. Brothers of Mary.-This congregation has precisely the same object, as the great community of which we have been speaking. Its labours are confined to the city of Bordeaux and the neighbouring provinces where many popular schools are placed under its direction.

6. Brothers of Christian Instruction: founded in the present age by the pious Abbé Jean de la Mennais, brother to the once celebrated writer.—The regulation of Abbé de la Salle, whereby two brothers at least must superintend every school, having proved onerous to the poorer and remoter districts, the Abbé Jean de la Mennais has modified the rule, so as to permit a single brother to direct the school, where the commune is unable to provide for the maintenance of two. This congregation, as we ourselves can attest from personal experience, has produced the most blessed fruits in Brétagne, the founder's native province. It has since been transplated into other provinces of France.

Brothers of St. Joseph: founded by the Abbé Dufarrié, in the present century. This congregation, like the preceding, has popular instruction for its object; but its members, moreover, conduct the sacred chant, and attend the curate in the administration of the sacraments. This congregation is spread over several diocesses; the members take no vows, but merely make a promise to obey the bishop of the diocese, so long as they remain in community.

MALE RELIGIOUS INSTITUTES FOR THE CARE OF THE SICK.

There is in France but one religious institute of the "Brothers of Mercy.” The female congregations are generally more useful; hence they are more multiplied.

1. Order of the Brothers of Mercy: founded in the year 1572, by St. John of God, who placed the same under the rule of St. Augustine.-The brothers devote themselves to the care of the sick, and especially that of the insane. After the revolution, this order was resuscitated by some pious layman; and at present the brothers serve several hospitals and lunatic asylums in various cities, such as Marseillles, St. Croix near Salons, Chayla, Lyons, Nantes, and Montbrison. They lead a very mortified life, and their food and clothing are extremely coarse and simple.

In order to devote thomselves the better to their ministry of love, their spiritual exercises are not very numerous; yet they daily recite the office of the blessed Virgin, and have community of prayer, daily meditation, and one spiritual lecture. Their most distinguished subjects repair to Paris, and follow the lectures of the medical faculty. In the treatment of the insane, they have often been eminently successful.

From the Tablet.
REVIEW.

The ideal of a Christian Church considered in comparison with existing practice; containing a Defence of certain Articles in the British Critic, in reply to Remarks on them in Mr. Palmer's Narrative. By the Rev. W. G. Ward, M. A., Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. London: Toovey, 1844.

This book is one of the most remarkable that has for a long while past been published on religious controversy; and may, we suppose, be regarded as the ne plus ultra of Puseyism. How adequately to describe or explain its contents we are utterly at a loss; and as little can we "realise" the state of mind of the writer. We are therefore very glad to understand that this work will, in connection with the Rev. Mr. Cooper's volume on the Slavery of the Anglican Establishment, be made the subject of an elaborate review by a master-hand in the next number of the Dublin Review. In the meantime we proceed to do the best we can with our confined space and limited appreciation of the subject. We have used the expression ne plus ultra of Puseyism. But, indeed, this volume is so strictly peculiar and special that it ought rather to be called a manifestation of Wardism. None but itself can be its parallel. It is eminent in intellectual ability. If we may speak on such a subject, we should say also that it is eminent in spiritual discernment, and the relish and apprehension of sacred things. Not less distinguished is it for abhorrence of every shred of Protestantism for deep sympathy with the Roman Church-for disgust and loathing at the present condition, theoretical and practical, of the EstablishBut of all its distinguishing features we confess we can find none more eminent than this-the extraordinary capacity of the author for standing upright and balancing himself on an invisible point-for walking in perfect security upon a line compared with which the edge of the keenest razor is breadth unlimited. After reading by far the largest and most important part of Mr. Ward's book, we are wholly unable to form the least guess of how or where he finds a resting place for the sole of his foot. A Catholic he is not-but "loyal" to an heretical, schismatical, and unsacramented civil corporation, nicknamed an "Esteblished Church." He is not Protestant, for he anathe

ment.

matises Protestantism with all his might. And in what sense he can be called an Anglican, as distinguished from a Protestant on one side and a Catholic on the other, we are at a loss to understand-more particularly when we find him (p. 425) denying that that there is any "essential difference" "between Reformed England and Protestant Germany;" maintaining (ibid) that "English 'high-Church, men' are in the constant habit of" as "fearful an approximation to blasphemy against the Holy Ghost" as "the wildest German ever devised;" vindicating the "English Catholics" (p. 131) from the charge even of schism; declaiming (p. 117) against the "fundamental principle of ordinary High Church theology," as "simply anti-Christian" when "considered in the temper of mind to which it fitly appertains," and " in its inevitable tendency destructive of all religious belief;" denouncing Low-Church theology (chap. v.) as at variance even with the principles of natural religion; earneastly contending for the great truth (p. 115) that the Anglican system and that of the primitive church "are quite certainly opposed to each other on the very elementary principles of religion," and that (p. 111) " in the matter of Church government it is impossible to discover the faintest resemblance between" them; and admitting (p. 75) "the radically corrupt and heretical nature of the system" he has learnt within the Establishment-corruption and heresy, which he hopes he has pro tanto thrown off by exercises of private judgment of the most comprehensive and Anglican-sapping character.

However, let us put an end to our astonishment and come to the fact. The book before us is a thick octavo volume of about 600 pages, and is divided into nine chapters. The first chapter is preliminary. The second is entitled, "of what kind will be the Ideal of a Church in circumstances like ours?" Under this head, and in ten sections, he describes with much unction the ideal of a Christian Church in its functions of "imparting moral discipline;" "imparting orthodox doctrine;" gratifying our aspirations and affections;" protectress of the poor; denouncer of the vices of the rich; "educator of the higher classes;" "in her intellectual duties ;" and "in her political duties." In all these points he carefully and elaborately paints an ideal for the purpose of convincing his readers that in all these points the Establishment is a signal and fundamental failure.

In the third chapter he vindicates himself and his brethren in the British Critic from the charge of disloyalty.

The fourth chapter proves in considerable detail the entire dissimilarity of the Anglican and the primitive systems-in Church government; in "formularies" of worship; "in formal discipline;"in "recognised ecclesiastical principles;" in "tone and temper of mind."

The fifth chapter elaborately blackens Lutheranism and Evangelicism.

The sixth chapter treats "of our existing practical Corruptions," under the heads of " Absence of all System of Moral Discipline for the Poor" and "for the Rich;" "Our Church's total neglect of her Duties as Guardian of, and