Hear what Bourdalane says, "Although in the sacrifice the Priest be only the substitute of Jesus Christ, it is nevertheless certain that Jesus submits to him, that he is subservient to him, and renders him every day on our altars the most prompt and most exact obedience, so that the Priest commands his Sovereign Lord, and makes him descend from Heaven."

We must ask is this the stuff the Tractarian Doctors of our day call religion? Is it scorn, contempt, horror, unmitigated aversion to such foul blasphemy which must expose us to the title of "infidel writers," by the choice instructors of our college youth?

"Even in the Church phantasmagoria are added to the grandeur of the scene: proportions change; the eye is deceived, and belies itself;-sublime lights; powerful shadows; he has everything calculated to help the illusion. That man whom by the vulgar cast of his countenance you would have taken in the street for a village pedagogue is here a PROPHET. He is metamorphosed by the imposing effect of all that surrounds him; his heaviness becomes strength and majesty; his voice has formidable echoes. Women and children are struck with

awe.

"Mark that imposing figure, which, clad in the gold and purple of his pontifical vestments, concentrating upon himself the thought of a whole people, the prayer of ten thousand souls, is now ascending the triumphal stairs of the choir of Saint Dennis. See him now hovering above all these people on their knees. He soars to a level with the fretted ceiling. He raises his head among the tops of the highest pillars, in the midst of the winged heads of the cherubim, and hence hurls down his thunder-bolts.

"This is he, that terrible arch-angel, who within one short moment will descend for her ;-and now, mild and condescending, enter yonder obscure chapel, to listen to her during the languid hours of the afternoon. Oh, propitious hour of tender but tempestuous emotions! -Why does the heart here palpitate so audibly?

How subdued the light, and lone is the aspect of the church: yet it is not late. The large rose-window of the portal flushes in the setting sun.

One thing astonishes and creates a feeling of fear: quite at the extremity of the church is that mysterious old stained-glass window, which has lost the precision of its drawing and sparkles in the gloom like some illegible scroll of unknown characters.

"The chapel is not less obscure on that account. The eye cannot distinguish any of the ornaments, nor the delicate mouldings which embellish the roof: the shadows deepening, mingle and confound the objects in one compact mass. But, as if this chapel were not gloomy enough, it contains in a secluded corner a narrow recess of dark oak, where that agitated man and that trembling woman, so close to each other, converse in whispers on the love of God."

Let us ask ourselves what has been the education, what the qualifications of that man for such a dangerous office?

C

He has read of "woman and hell!"

Plunged at earliest youth into the abyss, he has reeled and reeled under the weight of impurest pictures and descriptions— the pressure of constitution, of blood and of youth, till the senses seemed a larva of molten metal.

And here behold this terrible instrument, agent, and subject: Confession, Priest, Woman.

Was not woman bid to "ask of her husband at home," by the Apostle, if in doubt or ignorance?

Are not husbands and fathers, in the Mosaic law, the absolvers or retainers of their wives and daughters promises?

If a difficulty arose, it was the men who were to appeal to the Sanhedrim, and not women.

Has the Romish Church broken all these directions, and without drawing upon her that awful denunciation "Ye enter not in yourselves, and those that were entering in, ye hindered?"

What need is there to be told that the influence of the Priest is exerted to alienate the wife from the husband, and the daughter from her father?

It must be so.

What need is there to show how terrible is the use made of confessions so obtained-the fearful association of Directors and ecclesiastical police? What need to show the awful struggle that succeeds?

The dreadful suggestion that if the Priest possessed the body as well as soul, he would make his victory more complete.

There is not a thought which the subject, thus explained by Michelet, presents which is not full of mourning, lamentation, and woe.

The concluding two chapters of this second part are devoted to a consideration of that fruitless enervating state, both moral and intellectual, which results from the discipline, or rather fearful thraldom of convents.

The barbarous treatment which the young and beautiful must expect to endure from a Superior who, perceiving the impression her youth and beauty makes upon the director, is urged by malice, disappointment and jealousy, to revenge herself of the unfortunate object of the Director's preference.

The omnipotence of the Director is alluded to again and one ray of hope breaks in amidst the gloom, viz., that courageous magistrates will dare to do their duty in visiting these convents, and in extreme cases protecting the forlorner members; and there is a pathetic appeal concluding the fifth chapter we must quote with deep sympathy and earnest reverence,

We dare not wade through the concluding portion of this part. We will not bring forward the avowed profligacy which the working of this fearful system has entailed. The horrible profanity which covers with its threadbare cloak the open violation of virtue.

Let us draw the veil over the fearful scene, and "let us all to meditation."

THIRD PART.

This section treats of family ties, duties and intercourse. The first word is that which no true religion can contemplate without sorrow, it is schism.

The place in which this dissociating element is exercised, "the family," no Christian state should countenance.

In Roman Catholic countries the daughter as well as son is early separated from the superintendence of the mother: the Priest takes instant possession of the young mind.

"In yon little class, without witness, without control, without contradiction, one man is absolute-invested with the most ample power to punish. Without the rod his voice is all powerful: his harsh words sink into the mind of the little trembling trusting child, fresh from her mother's side, and there remain.

"Never will she forget the fearful words addressed to her for the first time by that gloomy man in that majestic church.

"What an advantage for him to preside over her in the convent, where she resides-to sow the first seeds of knowledge in her young soul to exercise the first severity as well as the first indulgence, which is so near akin to tenderness-to be the father and friend of a child so early torn from her mother's arms.

"The confident of her first thoughts will long be associated witn the reveries of the maiden, for he has had an especial and unique privilege, which her husband may envy him-the virginity of her soul, the first offerings of her will."

Of this person, young man, must you ask the hand of the maiden.

I only hope that this girl may be really yours; but between the Priest-ridden mother and the Priest, you may expect a wife minus heart and soul; and you will learn by experience that he who gave her to you on such terms knows well how to resume his sway over her.

Can we wonder at this sad picture?

"We have already said if you enter a house in the evening, and sit at the family table, one circumstance will almost invariably strike you on the one side the mother and the daughter are together, and of the same opinion; the father on the other, and alone.

"What means this? It means that at this table there sits another-invisible to you-ready to contradict and give the lie to all the father may utter."-Need we be told that that other is the Director!

The remedy proposed for these social evils is simple but worthy of all reception.

The advantage which marriage gives the husband momentarily of withdrawing the wife from foreign interference is to be followed up by making her the partner of his thoughts, interesting her in his affairs, and creating in her an activity from the activity which surrounds him. To suffer with him is by no means the worst that can happen to her: she may have a restless night or two, but she will not suffer the fearfullest of all ills idleness and ennui.

The second piece of advice refers to both son and daughter: they should be mainly educated at home. Intellectual nourishment, gestation, incubation, and education, are by no means to be performed effectually without the mother's aid, than physical similar arts and functions are. This care, solicitude, and employment will not only benefit the children but also shield the mother.

Oh, ye parents who grudge your children the length of their vacations because of their supposed recession in learning, know that there is a training under a mother's well directed efforts which no learning can impart.

One youth may be all classics, another all mathematics; but where is the man, if the mother's forming, moulding care be wanting?

"One thing perplexes her: will her boy be a Bonaparte, a Voltaire, or a Newton ?"

Is this the subject of the man of the world's laughter ?—Let him laugh on.

The heroic mother makes her son a hero. The eagle soars not from the pullock's nest.

The heroic mother desires her son to be a hero: the Priest desires him to be a saint. Now the great difference between the two is this,

"Go work to day in my vineyard;" "occupy till I come;" "she looketh well to the wages of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness." The Deity's creative activity prompts his intelligent creatures to activity. This is the mother's hero.

The art of utterly destroying activity, will, and individuality, to use their own admission, "We annihilate it is true, but in God," but to get rid of absurd mysticism, to absorb man in reveries, and promising him that he shall participate in infinity -in effect only absorbing man in man, in infinite littleness. "The Directed being annihilated in the Director." This is the Priest saint

In the case of Francis de Sales and Madame de Chantal, we found that if a devout Director directs a devotee, he will con

vert her to love. If this love be pure from inert acts of immorality, it is a wonder of abstinence renewed day by day, which flesh and blood is not to be supposed capable of, but in

the rarest instances.

They mean mean virtuously and yet do so,

The Devil their virtue tempts, and they tempt Heaven.

Secondly, in the case of Madame Guyon and Father Lacombe, if the woman be the superior mind the Director is led into ruin, and the effect of "this religious annihilation" is the most terrible undoing of the soul, its faith, its powers its elevated aspirations, its hope full of immortality.

Thirdly, if the Director be of less gifted excellence, as in the case of the Capuchin Friar (which we dare not transcribe in these pages, see note to Chap. 7th, Part 2nd), wholesale villany and revolting blasphemy may be legitimately expected to result. The system is radically bad.

Oh! man, thou seekest God above earth and under it, but if thou find Him not at thy fire-side, He will not be found of thee at all I fear. All the offices of religion are inefficacious, and worse if they have not made thee a better man in the various relations of life and developed the powers and talents God has given thee to promote His glory, the happiness of thy fellowcreatures, and thy own moral elevation.

We must in conclusion observe, we envy not the man, be his rank what it may, who can see in this valuable work of Michelet, nothing but the vagaries of an "Infidel writer."

A GALLERY OF LITERARY PORTRAITS.—
BY GEORGE GILFILLAN.

William Tait, Edinburgh.

A TRUE "Spirit of the Age" is still wanting. Hazlitt's book is not the thing, and Horne's is almost a failure. The present work is not an attempt even to rival these; and yet is more readable than either. The sketches of literary men, and the criticism of their productions, are for the most part skilful and generally just: and there is an animation, a sprightly buoyancy that speedily attracts and never fails to gratify. The gamesomeness and somewhat wild enthusiasm of youth are apparent on every page, while now and then we find a few sagacious sentences that smack of quiet meditation. The style is brilliant, with much alliteration, and a thick sprinkling of metaphor. There are many faults both of manner and judgment, but taking it altogether, and as the work of a young man, we have