subject, according to the expression dioceses, like that of fulfilling all not be taken from them nor limited, Art. 226.-5th. To swear to observe and maintain a law, which gives the sovereign, and a sovereign who does not profess our holy religion, the right of regulating public instruction, the superior, middle, and inferior schools, is to surrender, at discretion, public teaching in all its branches, it is to betray, in a shameful manner, the dearest interests of the catholic church. In fact, by means of a law conceived in such general terms, to what length must not the rights extend on this subject, and what bishop will not fear with reason, according to the text of the daw, the invasion of his sacred rights of teaching in his diocese, and especially as to the higher and middle schools, destined to receive and to form the heart and mind of the eleves of the sanctuary? The power which bishops have to watch over the teaching of christian faith and morality through the whole extent of their Art. 145.-6th. To swear to observe and maintain a law, which authorizes the provincial states to execute the laws relative to the protection of the different forms of worship, to their external exercise, to the public instruction, is it not to entrust the greatest interests of religion to lay persons, who have not, and and cannot have, in the eyes of the catholic church, any qualification, either for discerning the justice or injustice of laws of this kind, that may be referred to them, or for directing the application of them, or for ordering the execution of them in the respective dioceses? If it should happen (and we ought to foresee every thing) that the greatest part of the members of these states were not favourably disposed towards the clergy, we should certainly see renewed, under different pretexts, all the arbitrary measures, all the same species of vexations and oppressions which the local authorities caused the catholic clergy to experience under the ancient French government, and the church would find itself again enslaved by virtue of the laws of the state, and according to the caprice of the members of the provincial states. God grant that no child of the church may concur, by a solemn oath, to support such an order of things. Art. 2.-Addit.-7th. To swear to consider as obligatory, till it be otherwise provided, and to maintain all the laws which are now in force, would be to co-operate evidently in After having instructed our diocesans on the religious motives which ought to prevent their swearing to observe and maintain the new fundamental law, we have to apprize them that they ought never to forget that one of the principal duties of a true christian, of a faithful child of the catholic, apostolic, and Roman the eventual execution of laws, anticatholic and manifestly unjust, which are contained in the civil and penal codes of the ancient French government, and especially of those which permit divorce, which legally authorize incestuous unions condemned by the church, which denounce against the ministers of the church, faithful to their duties, the severest punish-church, is the love of peace, submisments, &c.... All of them laws which a true catholic ought to abhor. There are some other articles that a true child of the church cannot engage himself, by oath, to observe and maintain, and which the urgency of circumstances do not permit us to attend to at the present moment; such is, in particular, the 227th, which authorizes the liberty of the press, and opens the door to an infinity of disorders to a deluge of anti-christian and anti-catholic writings. It is sufficient for us to have proved that the new fundamental law contains several articles in opposition to the spirit and maxims of our holy religion, and which evidently tend to oppress and enslave the church of Jesus Chsist; that, consequently, it cannot be allowed to faithful catholics to engage, by oath, to observe and maintain them. We have had to consider these articles in themselves, and with respect to the fatal effects which, sooner or later, must result from the execution of them. The known character of our august monarch furnishes us undoubtedly with a just motive for hoping that he will deign, by his royal solicitude, to avert them as much as possible from his catholic provinces, which form the greater part of the new kingdom; but when once a human law is intrinsically bad, and in opposition to the divine law, and the laws of the church, we cannot under any pretext bind ourselves to obey it. | sion to the powers, perfect resignation to the divine will, as to the issue of events the most afflicting to his heart. As for ourselves, who are bound to give you this salutary advice, we will say with one of the greatest doctors of the church,— "Without doubt every wise man who considers our conduct, will not accuse us of having been induced to write this by the vicious impulse of any human passion. He will be convinced, that we have been determined by the fidelity we owe to Jesus Christ, in proportion to the liberty he has given us....For it is impossible to suspect us of raising our voice for our personal interest. It is for the cause of Jesus Christ that we have addressed these instructions to you, and we have been sensible that it was our duty not to keep silence under the existing circumstances.". (S. Hilar. Lib. Cont. Const. Imper. T. 2.) (Signed) PRINCE MAURICE DE BROGLIE, bishop of Ghent. CHARLES FRANCIS JOSEPH PISANI DE LA GAUDE, bishop of Namur. FRANCIS JOSEPH, bishop of Tour 341 POETRY. A DIALOGUE BETWEEN MATILDA AND MAURA, On the latter's intention of embracing a Religious State. MATILDA. STAY, my friend, your rash endeavour; Shut on you her dismal gate. Plenty, gayety, and ease; Cease, my friend, the tempting strain, To remove my fix'd design. Wretchedness in fair disguise: More solid and less apt to change, Welcome, since to you 'tis given, Fit the fervent soul for heaven, Yes, thrice welcome shall you prove, If you can repay His love, Who bore a heavier cross for me. MATILDA. Shall, then all the wide creation, All that eye, or ear can charm, All that art displays to view, To instruct the heart, or warm, Be for ever lost to you? Fix'd, with everlasting chains, To the spot where now you stay; There to breathe while life remains, There to leave your lifeless clay. Say, do not these bars affright you? Lofty walls, and gloomy cells; Does a prison's naine delight you, Where despair and horror dwells! 342 Lines on the Death of the Rev, Mr. Quick, and on Charity. LINES On the Death of the Rev. J. F. QUICK, WHEN falls the hero on the sanguine field, Taught, by the sullen frown of death, to yield;' When sinks the monarch on his silken bed, And when the mighty mingles with the dead; Fame sounds her clarion to the ends of earth, And tells their deeds of glory from their birth Nor does the hoary bard forget his lyre, But all his art, and all his youthful fire, Once more he summons the high strain to raise, Big with the hero's and the victor's praise, And, shall, the virtuous feel the death-winged dart, Who chose, and kept through life, the bet-. ter part; And though less brilliant to the eye of man, Fill'd with far nobler deeds life's little Nor bard, nor orator, can half so well Dropped on his icy cheek a grateful tear; When humble souls, who owed him all they knew, Wept by his passing corpse their last adieu : When all his sorrowing friends, in dark array, Sung the sad requiem o'er his hallowed clay, And all that once had seen, or long had known, Joined in one tender, sympathetic moan. And this has been ;-and we have seen them pay Such fitting tribute on his burial day. And all thy terrors to his closing eyes, Were but sweet beckonings into Paradise. St. Mary's College, Oscott, F. C. H. Sept. 12, 1818. ON CHARITY. O CHARITY! celestial fire! Of earthly love, when thou art near ; With what keen ardour thou dost glow. ance of the pope's authority, and in so doing he is supported by all the sovereigns of Germany. "The grand duke of Baden contends, that as sovereign he is entitled to nominate to the vacant diocese, and that such nomination ought to be held good till it be ascertained by competent judges in partibus, that an improper person has been chosen. In this case, after the most rigorous inquiry, he has found the baron von Wessenberg's qualifications of the highest kind, and his conduct to have always been most exemplary; and the refusal on the part of the pope is therefore an arbitrary act to which no deference ought to be paid. "The whole case is laid before the public in a memorial from the court of Baden, accompanied by a number of very curious documents. "It appears that the baron von Wessenberg, in his capacity of grand vicar of Constance, sanctioned by the prince primate and the chapter, has been the author of many important reforms in the church that have long given great umbrage to the court of Rome. 66 deed by nearly all the clergy of catho. lic Germany. Among the lay catho lics there is but one opinion concerning him." article be correct, we have a most If the intelligence in the above forcible example of what the catholic religion must expect from protestant and kingly nomination to the highest offices in the church. This reverend baron and bishop-expectwell-known demoralizer of the Neant is a disciple of Febronius, the therlands, whose schemes of reform were chiefly instrumental in tearing the fine provinces of Brabant from the diadem of Austria. The article says, the grand duke of Baden is supported by all the sovereigns of Germany, in which case we may conjecture the affair will occupy the attention of the members of the holy alliance, at their approaching conclave at Aix-la-Chapelle, at which the Among his other reforms, it ap-Roman and English foreign minispears that he absolved monks from the ters are to assist. oaths of celibacy, quoting the well the Irish prelates, that he cannot Consalvi assures known language of the apostle Paul on the subject that he caused the serviceto conceive it possible that his dear be translated into, and celebrated in, the friend Castlereagh and his colleagues mother-torgue-that he dispensed with should meditate the destruction of the use of the breviary-that he alter- the catholic religion, notwithstanded a number of inconvenient forms with ing they all so piously swear it is a respect to baptism,&c.-that he appoint- compound of idolatry and superstied stated examinations of the clergy- tion. that he abolished all but a few festivals, and prohibited all ringing of bells on the days and eves of those abolished; that he, with the consent of the civil authority, converted monasteries, &c. into places of education and hospitals, formed a new and more commodious division of parishes, and distributed the livings into classes, which were bestow. ed according to merit, and in which all extremes were avoided; that he discouraged pilgrimages, &c. It appears also that he protected a professor who had distinguished himself by his skill in liberal learning, after a mandate had been issued against him by the pope, on the ground that he had ascertained the accusations in the mandate to be unfounded. "The bishop is supported by all the clergy of his extensive diocese, and in nity of putting the sincerity of his new acquaintance to the test, by getting him to espouse the cause of the pope, and to exert the influence of England in re-establishing the ancient discipline of the catholic church in Germany, which this professed catholic baron and avowed protestant duke are attempting to destroy. But how can he consistently do this, when he has been himself a party to the celebrated Canadian instructions, one of which directed, "that such into the holy state of matrimony, ecclesiastics as may think fit to enter shall be released from all penalties to which they may have been subjected in such cases, by the authority He will now have an oportu |