Moreover, an English Churchman conversing with a Roman Catholic will find, in proportion as both are earnest-minded, that they have generally the same friends and the same enemies, the same likings and the same antipathies, which, if the great heathen philosopher be correct, is a strong proof of an inward identity.[1] Very rarely indeed will they differ in principle, though sometimes in facts; the inward character will be the same in both.
The only merit of the following journal, if it have any, is the attempt to see things as they are in the Roman Catholic system; to put off all preconceived prejudices, not condemning that which is contrary to what one is accustomed to meet, but endeavouring to understand the principle on which it rests. It is nearly restricted to France, but perhaps that country is for more than one reason the most interesting part of the Roman Catholic communion at present. There the divorce, which all the governments of Christendom are now enacting on the Church, has been accomplished with the most harshness, contumely, and tyranny. The ample estates surrendered by the French clergy, in noble reliance on the generosity of their country, have been taken possession of by the state, which, admitting that the vast majority of its people are Catholic at least in profession, has recompensed this surrender by a grant to the clergy, yearly repeated, not a dotation once for all, and that in amount so unspeakably mean and inadequate, that every Frenchman of honour and feeling must blush for his country as he thinks upon it. The immense majority of curés throughout France receive from the state a stipend of 32l. a year, in larger populations this is extended to 48l., in the largest of all to 60l. Moreover, in France the state has done or is doing, what in England it will also do if it can; it sets up in every parish a schoolmaster without a creed, to teach children all kinds of useful knowledge, from which only a definite creed is excluded, and to be an antagonist to the clergyman in his proper sphere. Then the existing generation of Frenchmen has been brought up since the tide of infidelity swept over their land; in too many cases they are not only infidels in present practice, but even their childish thoughts and associations were not Christian. The full harvest of the terrible convulsion of 1789 is being reaped—alas, it is far from being yet gathered in! Infidelity not only stalks openly through the land, but bears open sway in it. There is nothing on which all those with whom I spoke were more agreed than that "le respect humain" was against the Church and against religion. What a fact is this alone, whereby to estimate the state of a country. If "hypocrisy be the homage which vice pays to virtue," where stands that country whose public opinion requires no hypocrisy in the open profession of unbelief? For these and other reasons, then, I conceive that the Church of God is best seen in France working by her own intrinsic powers, not only unaided by the world, but most cruelly afflicted by it, and so externally oppressed and degraded, that nothing but the irrepressible life of the Gospel could penetrate and leaven society under such conditions. God grant that such a state of things be not preparing in England—and if it be, God grant likewise that the Church, in the day of her need, may have servants and handmaidens, priests, teachers, and sisters of charity, as disinterested, laborious, patient, and zealous, as He has raised up for her in France. This further may be said, that, if France as a nation be ever brought afresh under the yoke of her Saviour, no condition of human society need be despaired of; nor the capacity of the Church of Christ to overcome any amount of obstacles doubted.
Of course the institutions mentioned in this journal are but samples of a multitude. None will feel more than the writer its great incompleteness. Still this is a field of observation which has been little worked; so that the mere partial breaking of its surface may produce fruit.
It may be as well to put together here the five congregations in France mentioned in different places of the journal, which are engaged in missionary work. They are "la Congregation des Prêtres de la Mission," or, "les Pères Lazaristes," Rue de Sèvres, 95.; the "Séminaire des Missions Etrangères," Rue du Bac, 120.; the "Congrégation des Sacrés Cœurs" (Séminaire de Picpus), Rue Picpus, 9.; the Jesuits, and the Maristes. The "Congrégation du Saint Esprit," for forming priests for the colonies, Rue des Postes, 26., I did not visit. These, with the "Congrégation de la Miséricorde," form all the French missionary establishments. I think no one can give even a transient look at the course of life pursued by the St. Sulpiciens for the education of the clergy, without admiration of the astonishing care of the interior life taken by them, and the pains they are at to ascertain the due vocation for so special a work.
The chief establishments of the Church for education are the grands séminaires in each diocese, for preparation for holy orders; and the petits séminaires, both under the direction of the bishops, the latter receiving boys for all sorts of professions. In these two classes of establishments alone, as a general rule, is strict attention paid to the religious training of the pupils. The royal colleges, which extend all over France, have been by all described to me as in the most corrupt moral condition, and as suffering their professors to instil systematic infidelity into their pupils. Of course the vast majority of the youth of the country is educated in these colleges. The result is seen in their lives. For the female sex, the chief congregations devoted to education are "Les Dames du Sacré Cœur," in Paris, Rue de Varennes; "Les Dames de Notre Dame" (couvent des Oiseaux, Rue de Sèvres); "Les Dames de la Visitation." Each has a great number of houses through France and elsewhere. For the poorer classes, "Les Frères de la Doctrine Chrétienne," and the various sisters of charity, are of incalculable benefit: they are very numerous, and widely spread. Their disinterested and loving labours would be the greatest of blessings to our parish priests, engaged in conflict with a hard practical heathenism on the one side, and on the other, with various forms of dissent, the essence of which may be said to consist in a complete negation of the Church's office in the scheme of redemption, and, generally, of all objective belief beyond the sacrifice of our Lord for the sins of men, and the operation of the Holy Spirit.
It will be seen throughout, that I do not consider non-appreciation of the good in the Roman Catholic faith and practice a necessary ingredient of the English Churchman's character. I am quite convinced that the reunion of the English Church with the Church of Rome would be an incalculable blessing to the whole Church of God, and to the whole human race. Whoever made the separation, we need not despair of such a reunion; the right accomplishment of which good persons, on both sides, may earnestly hope and pray for.
[1] Arist. Rhet., lib. 2. 4.
JOURNAL.—1845.
Tuesday, June 24.—Reached Southampton from Oxford in good time, and left by the packet at 10 P.M. We passed the experimental fleet off Portsmouth, had a very fair passage, and were at the mouth of Havre about ten: but for two hours we could not enter; the swell was considerable. At Havre, took our places to Ivetot, which we reached about half-past-nine. The country rich but uninteresting.