unity of ideas and union of hearts. This is feared in France, and even in Algeria, where the bishop is not allowed to have more than twenty students in his small seminary, because the college of the university would otherwise fall. The remedy is more dreaded than the disease. This is the reason why the conferring on the Catholic Church liberty of instruction and action, which has been promised her in France, but which she enjoys in England, has been evaded for ten years. In England, not only can the students of Catholic colleges present themselves for university degrees, but the bishops assemble when and where they will, without fear on the part of the government, to deliberate on the common interests of religion.

In this respect, France is already behind England. She is even behind a small adjoining country-Belgium.

With liberty of instruction, Belgium has a Catholic university,in which theology, philosophy, and all other sciences, go hand in hand, forming the Belgian nation as Catholicism in their time did all Christian nations. France, without liberty of instruction, supports a university which does the very opposite: she supports her university, to implant in the rising generation principles of anarchy; and she supports a magistracy to punish with death those who put in practice these principles. This is, in truth, the constitution of France, or rather its deconstitution.

France will soon be behind Germany even. Twenty years ago, Germany, a nation of saints if it had good priests, was in a critical situation. Priests unworthy of the name and of their country, instead of rebuilding the sanctuary from its ruins, plotted secretly how they might exchange their breviaries for wives. There was a scandalous petition for this purpose in the university of Fribourg in Brisgau. The people alone publicly opposed this apostacy of its unworthy pastors. Since that period, God has taken pity on this good people. Things are becoming better by slow degrees. A new and more hopeful race of clergymen is rising. In the Rhenish provinces, there are some who, at first imbued with the errors of Hermes, because they had been taught them, have cast them away, to embrace sincerely the orthodox doctrines. On the other bank of the Rhine, the faculty of Catholic theology of Tubingen, in its quarterly review, may be held up as a model of orthodoxy in doctrine, of piety, of erudition and skill in reasoning, and of clearness and precision of style. In the university of Fribourg even there is a great deal that is better. The faculty of Catholic theology presents several members who leave very little or nothing to be desired. A professor of law has just published there a work on the

influence of Catholicism on law and politics, which is remarkable for the depth of its views, and for its true feeling of Catholicism. Besides this, Protestantism continues to send over to the Catholic Church her finest geniuses and most noble characters, in the train of the Zoïgas, the Winckelmans, the Hamans, the Stolbergs, the Schlegels, and the Hallers.

If matters go on as they are now doing, it is highly probable that, in twenty years, we may see England at the head of nations, and France at the bottom. I wish to turn out a false prophet, but I do not hope so. ROHRBACHER.

THE FESTIVAL OF THE CIRCUMCISION.

(From Viscount Walshe's "Tableau des Fêtes Chrétiennes.”) A FESTIVAL SO solemn and important as that of the birth of our Saviour, requires an octave. Accordingly, for several centuries, the eighth day after Christmas-day was observed under the title of the Octave of the Nativity of Jesus; and it appears that it was about the year 660 when this feast received the name of the Feast of the Circumcision of our Lord.

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An old writer, speaking of the celebration of this day, observes : Jesus Christ has been pleased to show us, in this mystery, that although the divinity was united to his humanity, he did not come to exempt himself from the law."

At the commencement of the year, the Church offers to the meditation of the faithful an example of submission to the established law. She seems to say: “In all future time be you obedient to your superiors in the name of God. Behold! He who in his divine person bore no stain of sin, had need neither of circumcision nor of baptism; but as he came to teach humility, he humbled himself under the common yoke."

In the law of Moses, no particular place was appointed for circumcision; and it may be supposed that the son of Mary was circumcised in Bethlehem, where he was born; because when the magi came to adore the divine infant, they found him there. It was on the day on which the blood of the new-born infant was first shed, that he received the name he was to bear among men. The Son of God had a good right to the most glorious names,-to those which had been rendered

illustrious by great kings and conquerors;-but no! he preferred to all others that of Jesus, which signifies Saviour. Thus, in the hymn for the Circumcision, we read: "To increase their glory, conquerors assume the names of vanquished nations. But thou, O Jesus! takest a name which announceth deliverance. Thou wouldst rather deliver than conquer."

I remember that, while at college, our teachers recommended us to inscribe on the first page of our writing books some thought to the glory of God, to sanctify and render more profitable our studies. There seems to me something like this in the name of Jesus being stamped on the first day of the Christian year. That those which follow may be sanctified for us, religion has imprinted on the first hour a name of redemption and salvation. Thus, the husbandman who desires his meadows to produce good pasture, brings the rills from which they are watered from a pure and beneficent source. By the established customs of society, the first days of the year are in general but little sanctified. The duties of society encroach too much on those of religion. On this day of visiting, a Benefactor is forgotten-God, who sendeth years upon the world to know the worth of man.

The Church is often afflicted by the remnants of Paganism, which mark this first day of the new year. Our new year's gifts, so loved by us all when we receive them, and still more delightful when we can give them, those new year's gifts, so longed for by children, -were anathemized by the holy fathers, on account of their pagan origin.

We learn from the council of Tours, held in 566, that the faithful were directed to sing the litanies on the first day of January, as a reparation for the impious and superstitious hymns of the Pagans; which shows that the first day of the year was less a feast of joy than a day of penance and expiation,-a day without the Alleluia in the office.

Towards the end of the seventh century, the Church abrogated the three fasting days which the councils had prescribed at the close and commencement of the year. She earnestly exhorted the faithful to substitute the poor for friends, and to convert their new year's gifts into alms. The whole of Christian charity is embodied in this precept. Ages, in their progress, may bring about changes in the ceremonial of religious feasts, but in nothing do they change the spirit of Catholi cism; it remains ever pure, elevated, full of love and mercy, of meekness and justice. And when time shall be no more, it will return to God who made it, like those angels who came to visit the patriarchs and the saints, and who re-ascended into heaven with their ivory feet

unsullied by the dust of the world,-without losing a single feather of their wings. The gifts, the wishes for a happy new year, being an established usage, religion has mingled with them her wisdom and her counsels.

I remember that, while at Rouen, one new year's day, about nine o'clock in the morning, I entered the church of St. Maclou: it was crowded with the faithful, and its old respectable parish priest was in the pulpit. The poor inhabitants of this poor district were happy to come at an early hour in the morning of the first day of the year, to supplicate God for strength to labour, and resignation to suffer; for in this parish, which is little inhabited by the rich, resignation and fortitude are virtues of the greatest necessity. The good pastor addressed his flock in a tone of paternal tenderness, that reached the soul. I remained standing amidst the crowd, feeling such happiness in listening, that I have not forgotten his words.

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Many of you," said the venerable priest, " many of you have come to wish me a happy new year. I thank them; and that the day which this year commences may be good and happy for me, it must not be unhappy for yourselves. To you, then, my dear children, in my turn, I wish a happy new year,―a year free from misery, free from the scourge of God;-one of those years of virtue which lead to the blissful years of eternity. To you, then, who hear me, who neither wear fine clothes nor fare sumptuously, I wish patience and resignation. Oh! wear in a spirit of Christian humility those poor garments in which I now see you clad; and if the good years I wish you arrive in heaven, your God will exchange these clothes for robes of purple, like those of kings."

Being in the midst of the crowd, I observed the emotion which prevailed. I can truly assert that there was then between the flock and the pastor,-between the children and the father,-between the Christians and their priest, so close a bond of charity, that among them there was but one heart and one soul. On all the first days of the year which have rolled over my head,-days of prosperity or days of adversity, in the mansions of the great, whither I have gone with the crowd to present my wishes for their happiness to the prosperous of this world, I have seen many things,-I have forgotten them. How happens it then that I have retained the remembrance of this exchange of good wishes between the priest of St. Maclou and his poor parishioners? It is that religion has impressed its seal on this scene, and nothing can efface it.

There are many persons who pass from one year to another without feeling, and who set themselves to smile with disdain, when you tell them that you finish not one year, and commence not another, without emotion. For myself, I own that it is not without strong emotion that, on the night of the 31st December, I count the twelve strokes of midnight. I continue listening to the sound of the last stroke, which lasts for several seconds, and which is all that remains of the expiring year, and still belongs to it; for it is only when this vibration shall have ceased to tremble in the air, that the new year shall begin. At the moment of this transition, I feel the necessity of a religious thought; without this, the soul would be plunged into excessive sadness,-for how many of our friends have been carried to the tomb during the year which is just falling into the gulph of eternity! With hope for the future, with resignation for the past, I say to the commencing year: "Hail! new-born daughter of time. Hail! thou unknown visitor. Thou comest to us completely veiled; we cannot discover whether thy countenance be smiling or severe,-whether thy hands, as yet closed, bring us happiness or misery,-whether thou bringest in the folds of thy mantle peace or war. Thou art a mystery to us; but thou comest to us from God, and thou art welcome. Hail! Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord.""

The day which begins the year, seems to me so solemn, that I would wish a larger share of it to be devoted to religion. Sometimes, when a well is about to be opened to the inhabitants of a city, you see a minister of religion come to bless the waters which are about to flow. I would wish that there were also from the steps of the altar a blessing on the days which are about to come.

Are there two things under the sun which resemble each other more than the waters which flow, and our days which pass away? The waters are on their way to the ocean-the days to eternity. But if old Ocean saith not to the waters which come to him, "Why are you troubled and defiled?" God will ask of our days, "Why have you not been pure?" Let us then do our best to keep them unsullied.