than that of Fontainbleau and that it caused him less regret; for the following words were uttered by the great abdicator himself to the noble attendant on his misfortunes:

"General, I am happy, I have fulfilled all my duties; I wish you, at your death, the same happiness. I felt the need of it, you perceive: I am an Italian, a Corsican schoolboy. The sound of the bells moves me; the sight of a priest gives me pleasure. I intended to keep all this a secret; but it must not be; I ought, and I wish to give glory to God."*

Among his brave soldiers without fear and without reproach, who, like him, had escaped the fire of the battlefield, how many have wished thus to give glory to God!

To fear God and ridicule those who despise him is courage and wisdom. To brave God and our conscience for fear of displeasing some bipeds who do not see the one, and do not feel the other, is the lowest degree of cowardice and folly.

Let us observe, finally, that if Reformers have cast a blight upon religion, by depriving it, with confession, of the regulator of the mind and heart, they at least have had the frankness to deplore this fault and to seek to repair it.

It is well known that the first Reformers made various efforts to save this precious institution from the general shipwreck.

Luther, in a singular manner, adhered to what he called the only remedy for afflicted souls ; † and Melancthon, in preparing the Augsburg Confession places auricular confession among the sacraments adopted by the new Church. Calvin recognised its utility, and there was a time when his disciples in France taught its necessity. The Anglican Liturgy preserved it for the consolation of the sick.

But the Divine seal once effaced, there was little gained by

* Words of Napoleon to M. Montholon, in the Biography quoted above. ↑ Little Catechism.—Concerning Babyl. Captiv. x.

Nouveauté du Papisme, by the minister Dumonlin, liv. vii. ch. 1

boasting to the people of the excellence of this restraint to aid them in controlling their passions, they threw it far from them, and celebrated their deliverance by such a horrible relaxation of habits, that the end of the world seemed at hand.*

The inhabitants of Nuremburg in alarm sent an embassy to Charles V. to obtain from him an edict re-establishing confession. The Swedish Church solicited that measures should be taken against the libertinism which was let loose by the absence of confession, libertinism so frightful, they exclaimed, that there is no one who does not believe himself at liberty to satisfy his passions. The horses are running away with the coachman, according to the proverb, and the reins no longer guide the chariot. The ministers of Strasburg in 1670, also vainly implored the magistrates of the city to declare confession obligatory.‡

Last of all, the same demand was addressed to Frederic William III. by one of his counsellors. I can recommend nothing more important to your Majesty than confession. The Church possesses no more effectual instrument to preserve Christians in the fear of God.§

What does all this prove? That men might have spoken and written for twenty centuries the finest sentiments concerning the necessity of confession, and not have been able to induce even one individual to go any farther, if a divine voice had not said: Confess!

Mémoires of Luther, book v. ch. vii.

† See Guide du Catéch. Vaudois, tom. iii. p. 435.

Ibid.

Scheffmacher, Letter v.

§ Gazette évangélique de Berlin, 1829. n. 81.

CHAPTER XLVII.

SACRAMENT OF ORDINATION.-CELIBACY.-ITS INTIMATE CONNECTION WITH THE PRIESTHOOD.

EVERYTHING is connected in the Catholic system. If the Eucharist requires penance, both demand the Sacrament of Ordination.

Is it not evident that the unction of divine grace must flow in large waves over the feeble mortal who has the awful power of bringing down upon the altar the Holy One, offering him as the victim of propitiation in the name of the human race, receiving him into his heart, and distributing him to those present! Must not that man be impressed with the divine seal, who has the right to penetrate into the conscience, and the power to transform this polluted den of all the vices into a sanctuary worthy of the Divinity!

In religious societies of human formation, men assemble and say to one of their number: "Be the minister of our worship;" and that is ordination. The same act which qualifies the person elected to receive the emolument of minister, confers upon him the right to exercise his functions. What more is necessary to a man than a human choice in order to govern a human institution?

In a divine religion, human election is not sufficient. How could men confer on a man the right to conduct the af fairs of God, and dispense his gifts! Can the master of heaven and earth be proscribed or held in tutelage!

It is evident that no man can take the honor to himself, but he that is called by God as Aaron was; so also Christ did not glorify himself to be made a High Priest, but he himself

that said to him: Thou art my Son, and in creating thee from my own substance, I have made thee my equal in power.*

That the Pontiff of the Church, before communicating to the candidates of the sanctuary a power formidable to the angels, turns towards the religious assembly, and asks of it if it judges them worthy of such a charge, and if it has no objection to offer against them; that the people and their magistrates united to the clergy have preserved the custom of electing and presenting these subjects, is a preliminary, but does not constitute the priest. The elected of men cannot become the Man of God, except Christ says to him by the mouth of a successor of the Apostles: I send you as my Father has sent me: Go, teach, baptize! Do this in memory of me; Forgive or retain sin, &c.! †

Take from the ministry of religion its divine investiture, and it is only a miserable deception; its functions are only a sacrilegious and absurd mockery. What would be thought of the individual who should announce himself as minister of state without the sanction of the sovereign? How would his acts be substantiated!

I will say nothing of the rite by which the Catholic Church consecrates her ministers. I pass on to the obligation she imposes on them to live in celibacy. Is this obligation in harmony with the duties of the priesthood? Is there nothing in it prejudicial to society?

The world has decided the first question in favor of the Catholic Church. Even when the priest ascended the altar only to offer upon it the smoke of incense and the flesh of bulls, the universal conscience imposed continence upon him.

Nec quisquam sumit sibi honorem, sed qui vocatur à Deo tanquam Aaron. Sic et Christus non semetipsum clarificavit ut pontifex fieret; sed qui locutus est ad eum: Filius meus es tu, ego hodie genui te. (Hebr. v. 4. 5.)

Tu autem, ô Homo Dei. (I. Tim. vi. 11.)

The incompatibility of the priestly office with intercourse with women, even in the legitimate relation of marriage, is an opin ion common to men of all times, of all places, and of all religions, as the distinguished author of the immortal book Du Pape has demonstrated, with rare erudition.*

How strange! that after christianity has elevated the priest to the incomprehensible dignity of the coadjutor of God in the redemption of the world,† that the question has been proposed, if it would not be suitable that he should take a wife!

If silence is imposed on the men whose incompetency is manifest, I mean on bad priests and the systematic enemies of every priesthood, it will be found that christian nations absolutely unite in opinion on this subject with the rest of the world. Protestantism itself, the born enemy of religious celibacy, in its quality of offspring of married monks and priests, has only confirmed the universal opinion by the profound contempt with which it overwhelms reverend husbands, and the insult it attaches to the epithet son of a priest !‡

I do not wish to repeat here what I have elsewhere said of the invincible repulsion which exists between the idea of the priest and the idea of the husband, between the duties of a father according to the spirit and a father according to the flesh. Let the conscientious man reflect and weigh the following questions.

Is it right that the mortal whom Jesus Christ has called to become the light of the world, the salt of the earth, and whom he has elevated above the angels, by associating him with the infinite grandeur of his priesthood, should be drawn into the routine of common life!

Could we see, without a shudder, the hand which received by holy unction the power to consecrate and dispense the

Du Pape, liv. iii. ch. 3.

† Dei enim adjutores sumus. (I. Cor. iii. 9.)

Du Pape, loc. cit.