of Rome, and which is held by the members of that Church in at least as tenacious a way, it became a very serious question indeed with the Old Catholics, when they resolved to have an organization of their own, how they were to maintain it. Without a bishop their days were obviously numbered. They might linger on for a time with the priests they had, but these would die in the course of nature; and with no successors to them the flocks would, of course, find their way back again in time into the ancient fold. And suppose they elected any one of themselves to the episcopate, who would or could consecrate him? For the performance of such a service there was needed what, a priori, one could hardly have expected to find-a body near enough Rome to approve of Old Catholic principles; and yet on such terms with it as to be willing to dare its displeasure by helping to perpetuate a schism from its ranks. Strange to say, however, there did happen to exist just such a religious community as was able to satisfy all the required conditions-the community, namely, of the Jansenists; and an immense amount of fresh interest has thus gathered around a sect which, on other grounds, has always held a notable place in the Post-Reformation history of the Church of Rome.

The Jansenists are so called because they are supposed to hold the doctrines of Cornelius Jansen, or Jansenius, who was born in 1585 near Leerdam in Holland, who was appointed Bishop of Ypres in 1636, and who died of the plague in 1638. At the University of Louvain, where he studied, the young Dutchman became the intimate friend of John Duverger de Hauranne, afterwards so well known as the Abbé de St. Cyran and the spiritual director of the famous monastery of Port Royal. The two young men were both aiming at the priesthood, and, as both were very much in earnest, they soon came into keen contact with the religious currents of the day. At the time the great services rendered to the Church of Rome by the Society of Jesus, in rallying it at home after the shock of the Reformation, and extending its confines abroad by missions, were being fully recognized, and the Jesuits were showing that they intended to make the most of their merits by claiming the chief say in all ecclesiastical matters. But at the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries Romanism was in a more fluid state than it is at present, and they met with many difficulties in getting their own doctrines accepted as of exclusive authority in the Church. Even in the Council of Trent, which sat from 1645 to 1663, there was by no means absolute unanimity about the most essential questions-for example, about justification-one archbishop, two bishops, and five others ascribing the acceptance of a sinner before God simply and solely to the merits of Christ through faith. And all doctrinal disputes did not end when the Council rose. Controversies continued to be as rife as ever; and when Jansen and De Hauranne took up their abode in Louvain, they found themselves in the drift of a conflict in which the university of that city had taken a leading

part. This conflict was about the teaching of St. Augustine. His works were not formally condemned by the Tridentine Council, because he was recognized as one of the Fathers, but the whole current of opinion in the Church was decidedly hostile to him. Toward the close of the sixteenth century, however, Michael Bains, a distinguished professor in the Louvain University, came forth openly as his expositor and disciple. Among the distinctive Augustinian doctrines are these,―that human nature is totally depraved, and that salvation is entirely of grace; and Dr. Bains, who is described as having been "equally remarkable on account of the warmth of his piety and the extent of his learning," had the courage publicly to censure the tenets commonly received in the Church of Rome in relation to the natural powers of man and the merit of good works. These efforts were met in the usual way. The inconveniences which had arisen from what was now felt to have been the inconsiderately rash treatment of Luther were too fresh in the recollection of the Vatican to move it to extreme measures; and so the Louvain professor was not excommunicated: but two Popes in succession issued circular letters condemning what he had taught, and Augustinianism was virtually placed under a formal ban. Notwithstanding of this-or shall we say because of this?— the name of the Bishop of Hippo was not allowed to be forgotten in Louvain, The students read his works with probably all the greater relish that the waters were in a manner stolen. At any rate this is certain, that Jansen and de Hauranne left the university enthusiastic Augustinians, and that the former devoted the greater part of his subsequent life to the preparation of a digest of the Augustinian system. With what care this digest was accomplished may be guessed from the circumstance that Jansen is said to have read through the works of Augustine (ten volumes folio) ten times, and to have thirty times collated those particular passages which related to Pelagianism. He did not live, however, to see his own work given to the world, or to share in the afflictions which it brought upon such as accepted its teaching. He died, as we have seen, in 1638; and it was some time after that that the volume was published, under the editorship of two friends to whom he had committed it on his death-bed. Its title was as follows: "Augustinus Cornelii Jansenii Episcopi, seu Doctrina Sancti Augustini de Humanæ Naturæ Sanitate, Ægritudina medica, adversus Pelagianos et Massilienses;" and the earliest edition is dated "Louvain, 1640." The book is divided into three parts: the first being a refutation of Pelagianism, the second showing the spiritual disease of man, and the third exhibiting the remedy provided. Its defects, looked at from the Protestant evangelical point of view, are very apparent. For one thing, the Holy Scriptures are not assigned their rightful position as the supreme rule of faith, and Jansen fights the Jesuits with the authority of Augustine and of tradition, instead of with the authority of God. Nevertheless the grand essentials of the gospel system are

undoubtedly in the work, and we believe it may be said that to it, as much as to any other book that can be named, may be ascribed the preservation of whatever evangelical salt was found within the Church of Rome for a century after the Reformation.

The publication of Jansen's "Augustinus" at once produced a great sensation. By many it was welcomed with enthusiasm, but by the Jesuits it was recognized immediately to be an enemy which could not be safely left to go at large; and steps were instantly taken by them to discover something which might furnish an excuse for its suppression. This something was found by Nicolas Cornet, a member of the Society of Jesus, who, after patiently sifting the book, extracted out of it several propositions which he declared to be heretical. These propositions were submitted to the Pope, and by him were formally condemned. But the sentence so procured did not reach the root of the matter. The Jansenists agreed in condemning the propositions, but they affirmed that they were not in the book; and when a second decree was got, asserting that they were in the book, they answered by questioning the right of the Pope to affirm anything of the sort. The Pope's infalli- | bility, they said, did not extend to a judgment of facts. Of course they had the best of the argument; but they were weak in the matter of authority, and the end of it was that the "Augustinus" was placed in the "Index," and that a splendid monument erected over the grave of Jansenius was ordered to be demolished, in the hope that "the memory of Jansen might perish from the earth."

In the meantime the other of the two friends who were associated in the origination of this movement was advancing it elsewhere, not so much by argument as by example. De Hauranne had taken up his abode in Paris, where, as the Abbé de St. Cyran, he became the centre of a religious circle, which, under his influence, expanded continually. He is described as having been one of those men to whom the Church of Rome would have delighted to give the title of "Saint," if it had not been for certain drawbacks which made him an inconvenient member of the communion. His holiness was of the ascetic type. He went about in a humble garb, and with a “mortified" air; and all his public acts tended to increase the ghostly reputation of the Church of which he was a minister. But then, on the other hand, his sanctity was real. He was in the habit not merely of studying the Scriptures for himself, but of recommending the study to all his disciples; and the doctrines he taught were not of the sort by which "the priest" is made to occupy the first place in a sinner's thoughts. These things did not help to gain for him the favour of the Jesuits. On the contrary, he became increasingly obnoxious to them; and it is probable that their enmity to Port Royal derived a good deal of its bitterness from the circumstance that the inmates of that celebrated monastery chose the Abbé de St. Cyran as their spiritual director. This incident, however, became a memorable

one in the history of Jansenism, because it involved in the controversies of the time far greater names than that of the Bishop of Ypres. The monastery was divided into two sections. There was a town house and a country house. Port Royal de Paris, as the former was called, was usually inhabited by nuns. Port Royal des Champs, or the farm in its neighbourhood, was the abode of certain male recluses, who occupied their time partly with devotions and partly with literature and agricultural pursuits. Among the latter were such men as Antoine Arnauld, Blaise Pascal, Le Maitre, and Nicole; and by them the battle for Augustinianism was fought, with a skill and wit and learning which nothing but the brute force which the Jesuits were able to command could ever have successfully resisted. As it was, the Port Royalists actually stayed the tide of oppression for some years. The tactics of their enemies were mercilessly exposed and ridiculed in the Provincial Letters; and while all France was laughing at the absurd figures which the unfortunate ecclesiastics were made to cut, the Church would not have been sustained if it had ventured to proceed to extremities against those in whose interest the Letters were written. But laughter is not a thing which lasts; and the Jesuits were not diverted from their purpose by the light though stinging shafts of wit which were discharged against them. Biding their time, they again, after a season, resumed the weapon which was weightiest in their hands-that of absolute authority; and they so applied their influence at Rome, and at the French Court, that Jansenism, so far at least as the open profession of it was concerned, was by-and-by completely suppressed in France. The method which they employed in this connection was very simple, but very effectual. A formulary was prepared, which was used as a Shibboleth, and those who refused to sign it were mercilessly persecuted. The formulary was as follows: "I condemn from my inmost soul, and by word of mouth, the doctrine of the Five Propositions, which are contained in the work of Cornelius Jansenius; a doctrine which is not that of St. Augustine, whose sentiments Jansenius has misinterpreted"! Very many resolutely refused to take this test, and the dungeons of the Bastile, and of other prisons, were crowded from time to time with men and women who preferred to suffer rather than to defile their consciences by swearing falsely. The battle continued long, with intervals of peace, but the final victory remained with the Society of Jesus; and in the year 1710 the monastery which had been the stronghold of what remained of the evangelical faith was razed to the ground.

In the meantime an illustration was being given of the difficulty of really exterminating any faith which a number of men are in earnest in maintaining. Jansenism was suppressed in France, but one result of that was that it flourished in consequence all the more vigorously in Holland. Holland was a Protestant country, so that the Jesuits could not enlist the secular

for. But having offered these preliminary explanations,

I now proceed to tell what came under my own observation.

When in Amsterdam in 1869, I made the acquaintance of an intelligent Scotchman resident in Holland, from whom I received a great deal of information about the religious condition of that country. In proposing to myself, therefore, to revisit the Low Countries in the autumn of 1873, with this purpose, among others, to inquire into the state of the Jansenist community, I wrote to this friend asking if he could help me in the prosecution of the objects I had in view. He replied at once, cordially promising assistance, and mentioning particularly that, if I chose, he could procure for me the advantage of an interview with the only representative of the Jansenist episcopate then living,-the Bishop of Deventer. I of course accepted this offer gladly; and on the morning of the 18th of August a Dutch gentleman, who could speak his own language and English with equal facility, called for me at my hotel in Rotterdam, and brought a message from the bishop to the effect that he would be glad to see me that same evening. He left with me at the same time a pamphlet, in English, written by a Mr. Fallow, a Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, which he said might give me some of the information I was in want of. I found Mr. Fallow's pamphlet to be written from the High Anglican point of view; and there were some statements made in it with regard to the present attitude of the Jansenists which my own inquiries did not confirm. Nevertheless his statistics may, I suppose, be accepted as correct, and I give them here. He says he was informed that the community now consists of only twenty-five congregations, sixteen of which are attached to the diocese of Utrecht, and nine to that of Haarlem. There is no church now in Deventer, and the bishop of that see lives in Rotterdam, where he acts as pastor of one of the two congregations there. The community is all but entirely Dutch. One congregation alone exists outside Holland, in the island of Nordstraad, Sleswick. It is connected ecclesiastically with the diocese of Utrecht. The whole together have a membership of about five thousand. It is very plain from this that the number of prelates is out of all proportion to the present size of the flock; and the extravagance of having an archbishop with two suffragans to govern so small a Church looks particularly marked when you visit their places of worship. The "Cathedral" at Utrecht we found to be a small chapel in the corner of a square, with nothing whatever outside to distinguish it as an ecclesiastical building; while at Haarlem we could not even manage to get within sight of the church in which the bishop of that ancient see officiates. After much wandering we reached the narrow back-lane in which we were told it stood, but both sides of the street were fully occupied with shops and houses, except at one point, where a high dead wall broke the uniformity.

We asked a boy who was blowing the bellows of a forge immediately opposite if the Jansenists' "kerk" stood over the way, and he said, Yes; but to this hour we have only his word for it. In all this, however, we saw much that was interesting and suggestive! The Jesuits in the end got the best of it, even in Holland. They had the world at their back, and all the influence of the great Catholic Church. Popery, therefore, is at the present day everywhere represented by fine places of worship, and receives the homage of multitudes of worshippers, while Jansenism bears all the marks of a suffering sect. It lives in the shade; it shrinks into corners; and, like our old Scottish Seceders, it probably seeks compensation for the want of the sunshine of temporal prosperity in the maintenance of a severer style of Christian profession and life. But in the upholding unbroken of the old hierarchical framework it has no doubt high purposes in view. The Jansenists remember how near they were to becoming extinct in the beginning of the eighteenth century. But for the providential presence of the Bishop of Babylon in Amsterdam, the precious link of the apostolical succession would have been broken. It was to increase the security for the preservation of the holy seed that they restored the suffragan sees of Haarlem and Deventer. It is of course for the same reason that the bishopric of Deventer is continued, although there is now no flock in that diocese to oversee. And they will feel less inclined than ever to diminish the number of their dignitaries, now that they have lived to render important service to Germany, and to see how nearly they had failed, even with all their care, to be able to render the service which was required of them. For on the very day on which Reinkens was elected to the episcopate by the Old Catholics, the Archbishop of Utrecht died. At the same time the bishopric of Haarlem was vacant. And the transmission of grace in a valid form to thousands of people hung thereafter by a single thread-on the precarious life of the Bishop of Deventer !

Under the guidance of my Dutch friend I found my way to the house of Monsignor Heycamp about seven o'clock in the evening. He lives in a quiet, narrow, unpretentious street in Rotterdam; and when we were shown into a plain parlour, opening with folding-doors into another room behind, which appeared to be his library, the daylight seemed to have already begun to

wane.

The bishop received us both very kindly. He is a man of about sixty years of age, with a pleasant cast of countenance, and a benevolent expression of face. He wore a clerical dress,-a white necktie, a long black surtout buttoned up to the throat, and a velvet skull-cap; but there was nothing specially to distinguish him either as a Church dignitary or as a Catholic; and certainly in the conversation which followed there was not much compelling me to feel that any great gulf of separation was dividing us from one another. At his invitation we drew our chairs to the round table

which occupied the centre of the room, and at once began a talk which lasted until the shadows of evening had almost filled the apartment.

First of all, referring to an impression conveyed by Mr. Fallow's pamphlet, to the effect that the Jansenists no longer occupy the ground held by their fathers, I asked if it was the case that they now reject Augustinianism, and particularly his doctrine of grace? "No," was the answer, given very emphatically; “we maintain the old position as firmly as ever. Indeed it is there that our distinctive principles lie." [What misled Mr. Fallow, I believe, was this:-Those whom we call "Jansenists" object to the name, as the members of the Catholic Apostolic Church object to being called "Irvingites." They honour Jansenius, but they do not wish to be regarded as building their faith upon him, or upon any other mere man, and they ask in Holland to be recognised as "the Old Bishopic [or Episcopal] Communion."]

"You have, I suppose, the Bible in the Dutch language?" I next said; "and permit the free use of it among the members of your congregations?"

"Most certainly," the bishop replied. "We not only permit our people to read the Holy Scriptures in their own tongue, but we command them to do so." (This also was said with great energy.)

"Then I understand your past relation to the Church of Rome to be this: You have not seceded from it. You still hold that you belong to the communion of the Catholic Church. In regard to the oppressions you have suffered, you assert that you have been treated illegally; and you maintain a standing appeal against them to the next General Council ?"

"Yes."

"And you did not recognise the Council of the Vatican as Ecumenical ?

"No."

"In calling together any Council of the Christian Church, would you consider it proper to include the Anglican Church in the list of invitations ?"

The bishop answered in the affirmative, but he did so with apparently some hesitation; and as he had not probably considered the matter, I do not know what might come to be his decision ultimately. Of course, I did not ask if there was any chance of people who were Presbyterians, or Methodists, or Congregationalists, being owned in this connection; for I knew that they wanted the episcopate and the apostolical succession, and I did not wish to put the good man to the pain of telling me that my orders were utterly invalid. I went on, however, to submit this difficulty to him :

"You tell us," I said, "that the Church of Rome has excommunicated you, a faithful section of the Catholic communion. You also believe that, in decreeing the doctrines of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin and of the Pope's Infallibility, it has promulgated damnable heresies; now, I am anxious to know how long and how far it will require to go on in the same

line before you begin to doubt or deny its apostolicity. In other words, have not recent events, especially, led you to suspect that there may be some truth in what others have asserted, that Rome is Antichrist ?”

The answer of the bishop was long, and somewhat elaborate. He had a good many qualifications and explanations to make; and it was evident that the conclusion to which Old Catholicism-if it is not to die-is tending, was one from which he instinctively shrunk. But the upshot of the whole was, that in his opinion confidence in the Papacy has been fatally shaken, and the new attitude is that of determined protest against it, as not merely an erring, but a perverted system.

I asked, then, if, in these circumstances, they did not feel bound to join in the endeavour to overturn the system, viewing Rome, not as the Mother Church, underneath whose care it would be happiness to return, but as 66 an harlot," who had usurped a place which did not belong to her?

He answered, that as yet they could not see what active steps they were warranted to take to bring about the overthrow of the Roman Church. They were waiting, he said, until God opened the way more clearly to them in his providence. But he left on my mind one very distinct impression,-that the Jansenists view the Papacy with very different feelings from those which animate the bastard Romanists in the Church of England. To the latter the See of St. Peter is surrounded with a glory which recent events have scarcely dimmed. To the former the same object is black and forbidding, and they are turning from it with an increasing horror and dislike.

Turning from this point, I asked the bishop whether, in his opinion, the German Old Catholic movement is most a spiritual or most a political movement.

"If I had not believed it to be mainly a spiritual movement," he replied, with emphasis, "I would not have held out my hand to it."

I said I had noticed that the Archbishop of Utrecht had consented to take part in the consecration of a German bishop, only on condition that an Old Catholic constitution should first of all be drawn up and submitted to him.

That, M. Heycamp said, had been done; and he himself had been fully satisfied on the point before engaging in the ceremonies of the previous week. He added, that no new Church had been set up, nor had there taken place anything like an incorporating union between the Jansenists of Holland and the Alt Catholics of Germany. They all professed to belong to the one Catholic Church; and the effect of what had been done was simply to recognise, in a formal way, the church-standing of the members of both communions. He also entered at considerable length into an exposition of the place which, in his view, German Old Catholicism is filling. He told us that, in the meantime, Bishop Reinkens has no local diocese, but that it was likely he might soon have one, for that there