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THE SEQUEL TO" A WORD TO ENGLAND."

THE immorality prevailing in the continental Catholic countries, and which is the fruit of their religion, how often has this been descanted upon and yet in England it is only partially believed now. But a little reflection would, or ought, to convince you of its existence, without reiterated facts. To people brought up as are the French (taking France as being the country we are most familiar with; but the remarks will apply equally to others), immorality and the vices that grow from it are not crimes; and even were they, the convenient absolution of their priest would entirely wipe them out. No matter what may have been their lives, no matter what sin they may be in the daily habit of committing, no matter what commandment of God they deliberately break, they have only to go to the nearest confessional, tell the hidden priest in it, and obtain absolution. So long as it is concealed from the eyes of the civil law, it may be pardoned over and over again by the priest. By this process they are cleared from sin, and go forth to the world free, ripe and ready to commit it again. Do the priests themselves really believe in the efficacy of this infallible remedy?-that they do is scarcely to be credited, It may be observed by the reader, acquainted with French manners, that the men rarely, if ever, approach the confessional. Not they their consciences are by far too pliant to require it. They never enter a religious edifice. They go through their whole long lives, and probably never see the inside of a church, and never say a prayer: in short, they hate the priests, and ridicule all the observances of religion. Are they right in cherishing this hatred? Perhaps not; but they have some cause. short illustration will show what I mean.

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In a certain French town, the name of which I will not mention, a priest, holding a high place in its principal church, and a man of some fifty years, has long been looked up to by the inhabitants generally, as a perfect saint. But unfortunately for his saintly character, an exposé has just come to light, touching upon sundry gallantries of his. It seems he has been carrying on for years a game that would be enough to make even a layman blush, if discovered. The ladies implicated, and there are several, were fair penitents of his, all in the habit of kneeling at his confessional. They hold a good position in society, and are married. It is whispered also, that if the secrets of past years were divulged, their numbers could be increased many-fold. But now, what redresshave the husbands? None. They cannot challenge, or insult, or beat the priest, because he is a priest; so they have no resource but to pocket their exasperation, and admonish their wives to behave better in future. Fortunately, on the Continent, these things are looked upon less gravely than they are with us, both by society in general and by husbands in particular. The delinquent has been suspended for a time from some of his clerical duties, not all, and there the matter ends. Had not the exposé been so thoroughly public as it was, he might have gone on till doomsday unmolested, for unless by compulsion, you never find the priests reprimanding their brethren for these matters. It would be an exemplification of our English saying-though it may not be polite to quote it here-of the pot calling the kettle black.

There are two classes of women in France, the faithful and the profane. Do not imagine the designations are mine: they call themselves so. And a woman has little else than a choice of one of the two evils. The former class are entirely under the dominion of the priests; their time, nearly from morning till night, and every day in the week, is passed in the church; they are ever in the confessional; their lives are entirely occupied with the subject of religion, and their priestly director is to them all wise, all omnipotent, all God.

The other class have no religion, and do not pretend to any. They amuse themselves as they please; they rarely, if ever, go to church; numbers never. They dress, gossip, visit, whisper bits of scandal of the priests, abjure the confessional, sicken at the thought of their daughters being brought into contact with its iniquities, and, in fine, pass their time, from girlhood to old age, without giving a thought to religion. You will say there must be a medium course: I do not see it: since to pursue or profess religion, a woman must frequent the confessional, and from that moment, if she attend it often, she is a slave to the priests.

And now I would ask, looking dispassionately at the subject, is it a matter of surprise that immorality should prevail in these Roman Catholic countries? What moral safeguard have the people-what inducement not to pursue vice? The perusal of the Bible is denied to them, therefore from that source no strength of conscience can be obtained. We have seen that the priests, rather than checking, set an example of immorality, and they are ever ready to absolve those confessing it. We are prone to rail at the Roman Catholics, at their doings in these continental countries, but we should first put the question to ourselves— Should we be a whit better had we been brought up in the religion they have been? The system should be blamed, and the higher priesthood, but not the people, who but live as they have been taught. Oh! that all England could see the working of this creed in its own countries! they would rise with one voice, one mind, to keep its encroachments far away from them. Of domestic happiness abroad there is none; they are unacquainted with its name; and cannot be made to understand how an Englishman and his wife can find enjoyment in each other's society at their own fireside.

There are many anomalies in the Romish religion that excite our astonishment, and, I fear, indignation. Their form of adoration we cannot understand, and never, until we shall be numbered amidst its devotees, can we deem it a fitting one. The last time I was in Paris, I went one Sunday morning into the church of St. Eustâche, at the bottom of the Rue Montmartre, to hear, or see, as you will, the celebration of mass. The epithet mummery is often applied to the religious services of the Papists, leaving a harsh grating on the ear, for we ask ourselves involuntarily how we should like the contemptuous term applied to ours. Much as I have lived in Catholic countries, I have rarely entered their places of worship, but I was astonished at what I then witnessed, and I do solemnly assert that there is no word in our language fitted to describe it but "mummery."

Six or eight priests were engaged in the services, but the business of the two chief ones, as we judged by their glittering attire, consisted in promenading and bowing, like a master of ceremonies would do in a ball

room, or a couple of schoolboys under the hand of their dancing-master. Backwards and forwards, from the foot of the altar-steps to the railings that enclose the space before it, in length some thirty or forty feet, did these priests march with stateliness, one on either side, to and fro, to and fro; and at each turning round there was a ceremony of bowing four times repeated so many bows altogether I never saw. They bowed to each other, they turned about and bowed to the right, they turned and bowed to the left, and they turned and bowed behind them. Not a slight inclination of the head, but a bending-down of the whole body, so that the ornament they wear on their backs, over the surplice, about the size and shape of a door-mat, but all gold and flowers and beautiful embroidery, flew up in the air at every bend. Occasionally after the bowing, instead of immediately continuing their walk, they turned each to an open book that stood on a board, temporarily erected near the railings, and after looking on these books for the space of half a minute, they turned simultaneously away, the usual stately bows were again enacted, and their marching was resumed. It really did look as though they were showing to the people how gracefully they could bow, and it continued for something like half an hour. There was no praying, no devotion, no anything but this promenading and bowing; the other priests meanwhile were chanting the mass.

A board, a common deal plank, stuck all over with lighted tallow candles (dips, as our housemaids call them), was paraded about the church amongst the congregation, by means of a pole, borne upon two men's shoulders, who were dressed in working dresses, blue blouses. A priest walked before it, and the great Suisse, in his red coat and feathered hat, clanking his baton of office upon the flagstones, preceded the priest. As they passed one of the numerous images propped against the pillars, the bearers of the board did not take sufficient space to clear it, and down went five or six of the candles to the ground. The men saw the mishap, and stopped for assistance; the priest and beadle did not; and it was only when they reached the choir, and were about to enter, that they discovered their board of candles had come to a stand-still. Back they rushed, picked them up, and carrying the extinguished candles in their hands, the priest some, and the Suisse the others, the procession scuffled on with much less dignity than it had started. As to the many times that solitary lighted candles were carried about, I could not have enumerated them. Then came another scene. A lady who knelt with, and made one of, the congregation, was called inside, to the presence of the priest. A lighted candle was placed in each of her hands, and she was thus paraded about, a priest, or one of the surpliced lads, preceding her. They dodged her in and out amidst the priests and the lay members of the choir for some minutes; she then re-approached the railings, the lights were taken from her, unceremoniously blown out, and she came back to her seat. Several other farces, or what looked such, were enacted, but I do not remember them clearly now. A lad of thirteen who was with me, lighthearted and handsome as English lads are apt to be, was swelling with laughter, in spite of all frowns and reprimands. He kept smothering his face in his pocket-handkerchief, and finally rushed out of the church convulsed, whispering he would wait outside. It may be that these scenes are ludi

crous to us because we do not understand them, but they seem wonderfully inconsistent with the calm, desirable in the worship of God.

We called after the service upon some friends, asking if they could tell the reason of the lady in the church being marched about with two candles; but not saying that it put me in mind of Jane Shore, her white sheet, and the lighted tapers.

Madame de St. J replied, that it had fallen to this lady's turn to' supply the bread for the communion, and the carrying the candles was accorded her in honour of her charity, and that the congregation might be aware of it.

"You have not been to mass ?" I continued to Madame de St. J. "Bah, non! and never have since I came to years of discretion." "Now may I ask why ?"

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"I don't like the priests," she replied: "we know what they are.' "But," I argued, half seriously, half laughingly, "how do you expect to get to heaven?"

"It is not going to mass will take me thither. I have a pretty large circle of acquaintance, as you know, and I don't think one out of them all frequents the services.

"What a bad road you must be on," I laughed.

"We are all on the same: what is the matter with it? You English think you must lead good lives, and spend dull Sundays, but when our time comes to die, we send for the priest, confess, he gives us absolution, and-voilà tout."

Do you think this is the exception to the rule? Nonsense! If you do, you are unacquainted with French Roman Catholics. Madame de St. J-spoke to a well-known fact: and she but does as others do. The religion of at least half her countrywomen, and most of her countrymen, consists in having the priest to them on their death-bed-voilà tout! as she observes.

This is not a sermon, or how many commands of our Saviour's could be brought forward that we should search the Scriptures! WHY are the Roman Catholics not allowed to do this? why is the hook forbidden to them under pains and penalties?

In a quiet French town where I have been recently staying, was visiting a French lady from Douai, with her children. We became intimate with her, and she frequently called on us. One day, she was roving about the sitting-rooms, an amusement she much patronised, inhaling the scent of the flowers, looking at the English trifles scattered about, and turning over the leaves of the books, though she did not understand a word of their language. She came to a table where lay a volume alone, took it up and opened it.

"And what is this one?" she said, continuing her questions.

"The Bible."

"The what!" dropping the book again with a little scream, as if she feared it would bite her.

"That is the Bible."

"Do you keep a BIBLE in your house?" she asked, with an accent of excessive astonishment.

"We dare not," she returned, shaking her head." "Who prevents you?" row

"The priests, of course. They do not allow it."

I doubted if I heard aright, for although much has been said about the prohibition of the Bible to Catholics, one can scarcely comprehend this, in earnest, every-day reality. "Is it really true," I said to Madame de L, "that you Roman Catholics may not keep a Bible in your homes?" "Perfectly true," she answered, with a gesture of surprise at my question.

"Do none of you do it?"

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"I do not know that it is ever done," was her reply, "and I am quite sure that if it ever is, it is concealed from the priests. A pretty penance we should have if they knew of such a thing. And what good would it do us to keep a Bible in our houses? Dear! what a deal of reading there seems to be in it! we should never wade through it."

I regarded her for a few moments lost in thought, thinking, perhaps, what a mercy it was that these priests were not our priests. And this avowal was from no uneducated peasant, but a lady of character and

station.

"Do your directors (meaning the clergy) know that you possess a copy of the Bible?" resumed Madame de L

"Certainly."

"But they don't allow it to the poor?"

"On the contrary, they take care to assure themselves that the poor possess a copy."

"Are you saying this to deceive me to make me laugh?" (me faire rire.)

“Indeed no; I am speaking the truth. Do you know what we call

She took it in her hands again, with an embarrassed air though, and turned its leaves over.

"We have a society in England, whose sole object is the propagation of these Bibles; to provide them for the poor and friendless; and to send them out among the heathens."

"Eh mon Dieu!" she exclaimed, how different! And you attend your church too, in England, on the Sabbath!"

"Always."

"Do your nobles go? and your peasants? That great statesman and warrior who has just passed from among you, did he go?" (The Duke of Wellington.)

"Yes, yes, he was a good man. And all who care to be good, go, in England."

"It may be your religion," she mused, "that keeps your country so tranquil."

"So much cannot be said for yours," laughed a lady who was sitting by. "And by the way, Madame de L-, do you never go to mass?" "I never go," was the emphatic reply.

"May we ask," I interrupted, "if you are satisfied with your inculcated religion?"

"Not with one part of it, the confessional."

"Ah!"