By this statement it would appear, as well from the number of priests required, for the service, as from the decrease (in 1824 the number was 36,000) of the students educating for the priesthood, that there is a certain difficulty at the present time in maintaining the ranks of that very respectable body, to whose virtues I should be ashamed not to render justice. But let us not at once suppose that this is owing to the smallness of the salary which the clergy receive a salary wholly sufficient for their simple wants, and, as they are taken, for the most part, from parents poorer than themselves, more than they are accustomed to, or, had they remained among the laity, would have received.

It has become more difficult to fill up the ranks of the priesthood, not because the pecuniary rewards of the church are insufficient, if pecuniary rewards could alone suffice, but because pecuniary rewards cannot alone suffice when they have to counterpoise all the tastes, and affections, and habits of the human heart.

You tell me that the church was crowded when it had rich benefices and bishoprics at its disposition,-ay,-but had it only rich benefices and bishoprics ? Had it not also pomp, power, place, all that corrupts and gratifies our nature? Were not its favours courted, and its vices forgiven ? What difficulty was there in renouncing the world, when you what was most valued in the world? most holy of the martyrs themselves were insensible to the glory that awaited them in front of the lion ?

thereby gained

Do you

think that the

To be a French priest at present-what do you receive, and what do you renounce? You receive a moderate, but honourable subsistence, perfectly sufficient for all the wants which are necessary to, or indeed compatible with, your calling. But you renounce the honours of a literary or military career; you must turn aside from all that animates and vivifies your na

tion. You must for ever abandon the passion of the peasant, whose toil you have escaped, bnt from whose desire—desire becoming every day more ardent, you cannot, from every early recollection and daily habit, be entirely free. You must abandon the hope of having a little spot of ground, which shall become a field, perchance a farm, under your care and economy;-a field or a farm which would be your own.

Nor is this all-out from the innermost depths of your heart you must pluck the soft and gentle passion, which has not only been given you by nature, but which the society in which you live brings in every varied reflection before your eyes.

To be priest, you must neither be dramatist, nor warrior, nor proprietor, nor lover, nor husband, nor father;—you must renounce all these titles, so precious in a nation at once affectionate and vain ;--and this without any of those gratifications which have mingled with the religion and the religious enthusiasm of the best and wisest of men. No one shall call you saint, or worship you as prophet; no one shall mingle with your person any of that mysterious divinity which of old mantled the ministers of God.

You shall be loved and respected, but you shall be loved and respected as a man-you shall be loved and respected, but you shall be loved and respected as a member of societyaud you have foresworn the pleasures of a man, you have placed beyond the tomb the pleasures of society; you have made the sacrifice of religious enthusiasm amidst the empire of religious indifference.

Let me proclaim boldly, that a poor priesthood has always been, and always must be, a zealous and devoted one. But let us not confound events; let us not imagine that it is the same cause which always produces the same effect, or that poverty and purity, which are frequently the sign of a religion on its rise, may not sometimes denote its decline.

The ministry of a rising religion, not merely animated by the vulgar motive of procuring a revenue by their virtue—on which virtue, nevertheless, their revenue solely depends-not merely stimulated by this vulgar motive, however, the members of a rising religion have their souls filled and satisfied by

a nobler and more exquisite gratification-a gratification the highest of which humanity is capable, proceeding from the adoration, the worship of their disciples. Here is an impulse given to their energy, here is a reward held before their eyes, --an impulse which no government can give-a reward which no benefice can supply.

But reverse the medal-behold, not a religion rising, but a religion falling!—its revenues have been diminished; we may disguise the cause, but the cause will really have been some diminution of our religious zeal. Then what follows?-The same sentiment which has diminished the emoluments of the church, scrutinizes and watches over its conduct; for the very reason that the clergy are worse paid, they are obliged to be more active, more pure. They are placed in the middle of a crowd, who no longer superstitiously embrace their feet, but who look them intelligently in the face.

The clergy of that fallen religion will thus become more pure as they are worse paid, and as they are worse paid, they will diminish; but they will diminish not because they are worse paid, but because the same cause which diminishes their pay exacts from them all the purity of their creed, but accords to them none of the honours of its apostles.

I depart then from the vulgar cry, that it is only necessary for a priesthood to be poor and pure, for its doctrines to succeed. But if a church may be pure aud righteous after its fashion, and yet decay and perish, I defy you to show me in all history, past and present, the example of a church, which has not been corrupted by its wealth, which has not fallen or which is not falling, crushed by the weight of its possessions:aud the catholic church of France-that church which, reformed as it is, cannot support itself, may date its destiny in times remote from these, when rising from its riches, amidst all the pomps and vanities of the world, was first seen the cloud that now glooms over its altars.

I have stated the revenue, the numbers, the qualities of the catholic priesthood. I now come to their divisions and dis=tinctions.

The catholic clergy of France may be said to be divided into

three classes: for the late revolution, to which all have submitted, can hardly be said to have produced another.

1. The clergé assermenté, i. e. the clergy still remaining who took the oath of the constitution of 1789; who are necessarily few at the present time.

2. The Gallican clergy, the body the most numerous.

3. The clergé ultra-montain, the sect now most popular and fashionable.*

Among the most celebrated of the ultra-montainists, distinguished for his eloquence, his zeal, and his "Essay on Indifference," is the Abbé de la Mennais.

"I was sitting one day,” said a friend of mine to me, in the bureau of the Avenir (a religious journal), "waiting for one of the editors of that paper, when a little man came in and sat himself shiveringly down before the small fire, from which I was endeavouring, in no very happy mood, to extract some kind of consolation. Small, plain, and ill-dressed, with large green spectacles, and an immense nose, timid, awkward, there was nothing at first sight very interesting either in the manner or the appearance of my acquaintance. I spoke however; he spoke; and in speaking his air became more firm and decided -his features assumed a new cast-his eye lit up-thought, suffering, compressed passion were visible in his countenance—and his whole person swelled out, as it were, into more spiritual and imposing proportions. 'Monsieur l'abbé !' said my friend, entering just at the moment that my eye was fixed on a print opposite. The print was that of the Abbé de la Mennais, the person I had been talking to was the Abbé de la Mennais 'himself."

At St. Malo, in Brittany, in 1782, of a family in the middle classes in life (merchants fitting out ships), was born Félicité Robert de la Mennais. His early years were spent in the house of an uncle, who lived a retired country life, in the midst of a large library, to which the young student had frequent recourse. Every style of composition, poetry, prose, plays, history, religious tracts, were all, at this time, devoured with an equal literary avidity.

* See Appendix under head of Religion.

At the age of the passions, however, books were laid aside, and for some years the follies of an ardent temperament preceded the pieties of repentance,

At last, this eloquent man appeared-the priest of the restoration; supposed by some a proselyte from divine grace, by others a hypocrite from worldly ambition, but acknowledged by all to possess singular ability.

If I have paused thus long on the portrait of M. de la Mennais, it is not because this person was the former champion of the Pope, but because, within a few months from the period at which I am writing, he has endeavoured to give christianity new doctrines, to breathe into catholicism a new spirit, to fashion it, according to the ideas of his epoch, into a new form, to raise up a democratic religion full of energy, and life, and passion, in face of the spectral majesty of mitred Rome.

Never was work so popular as that pamphlet called "les Paroles d'un Croyant," *-never was work so popular in France, and why? M. de la Mennais has wished to make the catholic religion in France what he has found society in France. He has wished to nourish it with that sap which has insinuated itself into every other feeling, opinion, and institution. He has wished to give that spirit of equality to his creed which he has found everywhere, but which springs whence?-from an equality of position connected, in a great degree, with an equality of possessions.

The religion which once taught obedience to the magnates of the earth, has endeavoured to accommodate itself to the laws which have banished from France these magnates, and we find a catholic minister flaunting a republican flag before the eyes of a church, the high priest of which is, at this moment, supported by the bayonets of kings.

Some christians may blame the attempt! Let all turn their faces from its execution!

"And I was transported in spirit into the ancient time; and the earth was beautiful, rich, and fertile; and its inhabitants lived happily, because they lived as brothers.

And I saw the serpent glide in amongst them; he fixed on many his pow

* It is impossible to give any idea of the literary art and eloquence of this production, but by a reference to it.