to state libraries, in which they remained like articles of vertû in a museum.

The Biblical student of the highest promise may perhaps be found at the present moment in an old cathedral town some fifty leagues from Paris, while it is nearly certain that all his books of reference are to be found in the Bibliothèque Impériale. There is, of course, a faculty of Theology in the University, but it is well understood to be of a purely formal character. It is a mere tradition of the old Sorbonne, it is in some sort the unquiet ghost of the University of Paris, still hovering near its ancient seat. The Faculty of Theology does little more than confer Theological Degrees upon the candidates for those distinctions. As a teaching body, or as a nursery of learned men, it cannot be said to exist.

of

The duty of teaching is substantially, if not altogether, thrown upon the Professors in the ecclesiastical seminaries throughout the country. And, considering the limited resources of those establishments, the only wonder is that so many works of merit and learning upon those matters should issue from the French press. What we have said of the function of teaching, as discharged by the Faculty of Theology in the University of France, must be taken with some qualification. The chair of moral theology is filled by one of the most eminent men, whether as a philosopher or as a divine, of whom Europe can boast. The Abbé Bautain, of one of whose works, "La Belle Saison, à la Campagne," there was a slight notice in this journal some years ago, is the occupant that chair. His lectures are daily crowded by the studious youth of Paris, or, more properly speaking, of France. Young men in training for the bar, for what the French call "l'administration," for diplomacy, for the study of medicine, or of engineering; members, in a word, of all the special schools with which Paris abounds, crowd the benches of the Sorbonne in order to hear, not the doctrine, but the eloquence of the professor. He is well aware of the spirit in which they attend his lectures, and he arranges his lectures to meet their requirements. He knows perfectly well that many of those who listen with pleasure and with interest to a lecture upon moral theology, as a scientific dissertation, would never be tempted to listen to a sermon. It is his study, therefore, to make them acquainted in a popular form with the

truths of religion, while they believe that they simply follow a course of lectures delivered in a style which attracts and fascinates them. But this, as every one knows, is not a scientific treatment of moral theology, as it was understood in the old universities, and as it is still understood in the ecclesiastical seminaries. Nor, were there a chair of scripture filled in this way, would it contribute much to the critical study of the Scriptures, however much good it might effect otherwise. For this, as for any study that you may name, leisure and resources are needed; and both of those are wanting in France. Nor is the want likely soon to be supplied; although, beyond a doubt, it will be eventually supplied, should no worse days be in store for the Church of France than those upon which she has lately entered. Religious communities are springing up all over the French territory, not under state patronage, but of their own independent. strength. Communities of this kind always accumulate the resources of which we have been speaking, slowly it may be, but fully and judiciously. M. De Valroger himself is an instance of this; he is a member of the Oratory of the Immaculate Conception, one of those religious orders which not only spring up with the rapidity already noticed, but which soon strengthen themselves and seem to have every promise of duration. There is hardly one department in France without a Jesuit College, and if we do not find that modern Jesuits occupy the same place in literature which the order held before its suppression, it wil. not be very difficult to account for the circumstance. When the French empire was suddenly opened to the activity of the society in 1849, the harvest was great, but the labourers were few, and it was found almost impossible to meet the more pressing wants of the time. Diocese after diocese put forward its claims for a Jesuit College, but the society, during several years, had not wherewithal to satisfy the demands upon it. The French Jesuits were not then a numerous body; some few remained in France and took their place amongst the secular clergy; the majority, however, were distributed among the Swiss and Belgian Colleges; and the inmates of the former had already been dispersed by the war of the Sonderbund, when liberty of education and freedom of association, to a limited extent, were granted to French subjects, under the administra tion of M. de Falloux.

At present, although the Jesuits' colleges have been in operation some fourteen years, and others for shorter periods, it is not to be supposed that within such a space of time the society could withdraw subjects from the more active duties of literary and pastoral teaching, for what may be called the closet work of literature. In the course of time it will be different. The houses of the society have a great power of reproduction, and we may expect, that in proportion as the numerical strength of the body increases, many of its members can be spared for services more varied than can be allotted to them now. Meanwhile the book before us is sufficient evidence that sound biblical studies are gaining upon the French taste. Hitherto, since the suppression of the society, and of the old universities, Greek scholarship has been at a low ebb in France, notwithstanding the production of some dictionaries and school books of undoubted merit. This is attributable in a great measure to the limited academical course which precedes the baccalauréat, supposed to correspond with the bachelorship of arts, the lowest degree in our universities. The candidate for the "Baccalauréat" has seldom reached his twentieth year, and presents himself for his degree after a course of studies not much more extensive than the entrance course for any British University. Most commonly he crams for this examination from a thick book called the "Manuel du Baccalauréat. A Frenchman generally, as far as Greek is concerned, resembles the Professor in the Vicar of Wakefield, who had his three hundred florins a year without Greek, and his doctor's cap without Greek, and who therefore could not see the good of Greek. In this respect the Germans as well as the English have a great advantage, and it is hardly to be expected that France will outstrip or rival either England or Germany while her present university system remains unaltered. It does not favour deep or solid studies, and at one period a French minister of public instruction was not ashamed to say that what academical studies in France had lost in depth they had gained in surface; as if any gain in surface could make up for the loss of depth. There are, however, indications that this state of things is drawing to a close; and that, although serious literature may have been impover ished and the French mind may have been crippled during one or two generations, by state interference with

public teaching, still the intellect of a people in every way so great will outgrow the swaddling bands that tie it up in this second infancy which has been forced upon it. It need hardly be said that the revival of Biblical studies is amongst the most healthy of the symptoms to which we have alluded. It is impossible to have any measure of success in those studies without sound learning. To write a commonly decent book upon the subjects treated by M. De Valroger you must have solid and respectable reading at the very least. Shallow reading is more endurable in any thing else than in scriptural criticism, because, however strange and fanciful may be the theories of German critics, their learning is unquestionable. Nor, in our opinion, can any more effectual corrective be applied to the dreaminess and obscurity of German notions upon those matters than can be derived from the clear mind and transparent style of a French scholar such as M. De Valroger.

ART. IV. 1. "All the Year Round," No. 117, July 20, 1861. 2. "Secret Instructions of the Jesuits."

3. Correspondence between Dr. R. R. Madden and Charles Dickens, Esq.

"WE

E no sooner answer one of their satires but they have half a dozen more ready to be published. They keep magaziues full of them they have them remitted from all parts of the world. Those that were refuted a hundred years ago, on which the world laughed as though they were not refuted, they revive again at present, with the same confidence as if they were new pieces or had remained unanswered."

In the article headed "Secret Instructions of the Jesuits," published in Mr. Dickens' periodical above referred to, of the 20th of July last, the following passages

occur:

Tellier, in reference to the charge of neglecting to answer habitual calumniators.

"A copy (of the Monita Secreta Societatis Jesu) of which recen reprint in Paris three Editions in Paris have been sold in ten days, and the fourth is already out, dressed in red and black (the garb of a melodramatic demon), with the Latin original and a French translation on opposite pages, is now lying on the writer's table. ...

"If the deed (of republication) has been done with Imperial connivance, it can hardly have obtained Jesuitical permission. On the contrary, there is a loud ultramontane shout denying the authenticity of the document; but to dissipate all doubts on the subject, it suffices to turn to history, and compare the conduct of the Society of Jesus with the secret instructions now divulged to the world. This is not the first time they have been brought to light; but every time the Society has contrived to secure the copies, and put them out of sight, as soon as the first excitement of publicity had passed away. The Superiors of the Jesuits are ordered to retain and to hold these private instructions, with great care, in their own hands, and to communicate them only to a few of the professed; some of the instructions may be imparted to non-professed persons, when advantage to the Society is likely to follow; but it must be done under the seal of secrecy, and not as if they were written rules, but merely suggestions drawn from the actual experience of the person who gives the advice.

"Special care is ordered to be taken that these admonitions fall If into the hands of strangers, who might put upon them an self for his construction, through envy of the Order. Should extensive than treuod absit !-far be it from us!), it must be unfavourab Most comme are the real sentiments of the Society, such ever happen book called calling to witness such members as stoutly denied that the venerally, aby opposing to these the general written rules." confirming the assertion byessor in the written rules." remain still in ignorance, and florins a 31, according to the age, the all Catholic princes, a sort of instructions and the printed or thGreek, and of the penitent.

"The place of confessor is, with In this ng period, and obtained ministerial office more or less powerfu great acolite, adroit, with a

cultivated mind, gentle manners, and an even te?

passions, the temper, and the intelligencence will per, he knew how "Père Lachaise held this post for a lode her praccording to occafor his Society great consideration. Supple, s not fer of those of his to alarm or to soothe his penitent's conscience Frencirties, he spoke sion, and never lost sight of his own interests ne Company. A masked opponent of all opposite pa? to sayew individuals of them with moderation, and even praised some in suLour majesty; 2st ine said to the ,se my succesbelonging to them. A few days before his death, le, how king, 'Sire, I entreat you to do me the favour to choor to a cl the glory sor out of our Company. It is extremely attached to been inill into but it is very wide-spread, very numerous, and compo been crippsurdifferent characters, who are all very susceptible touchingerference with of the corporation. No one could answer for it if it disgrace; and a fatal blow is soon struck.' The king was so rised at this address, that he mentioned it to Marechal, his head

sed of very