The chair rent exacted in the French churches is no doubt a disadvantage to religion; for it always thins the audience more or less. Though the sum collected is a trifle, and especially when we consider the recklessness with which the Parisians spend their money, many good and thoughtful men object to the practice on principle. Indeed, the tide of popular opinion seems set against the tax, and it certainly suggests to the sceptic an unpleasant parallel between the theatre and the sanctuary. Those who cannot afford the expense of hiring a chair during the service must stand up, or kneel, or occupy one of the benches fastened to the walls. The poor man goes, however, to church to forget the outside world. And yet it is there, in the very place where all should be equal, where rich and poor, high and low, should be esteemed alike, that his poverty is thrust into his face, that he is again reminded of the difference between him and his more fortunate fellows. There are many so extremely poor in Paris that even a few sous are an object to them. This explains why the few mission churches, in which no charge is made for chairs, attract such large crowds, principally composed of working-men, who are otherwise rarely, if ever, seen at worship. On this account, several of the parish churches in Paris have lately been so arranged that no rent is exacted. To do away with the system entirely is, however, not feasible at once. Some provision will first have to be made to replace the considerable revenue which accrues from this source not only to the parishes, but also to the dioceses. If the obstacles in the way to the acquisition of property by the church, the acceptance of legacies, and the accumulation of means from similar sources, were less formidable, this reform might perhaps be introduced in a comparatively brief period. But owing to legislative restrictions, bequests and other love-gifts can only be accepted by the church after long-protracted and expensive proceedings ingeniously invented for the benefit of the bureaucratic hierarchy. Had Napoleon III., instead of spending many hundreds of millions on the metamorphosis of his capital, devoted only one hundred millions to the erection of a dozen large parish churches and the endowment of the rest, he might have obtained a more substantial guarantee for the preservation of his throne and dynasty than the strategic streets which now traverse Paris. At any rate, this much is certain: with the abolition of chair-rent in the churches the attendance at divine service, and consequently the religious sentiment, might be greatly stimulated. It is also to be hoped that juster views in relation to the restoration of the sanctity of Sunday may obtain the ascendency in due time. As regards the latter subject, the example set by the government in suspending hereafter all public works on holidays and Sundays would of itself have a very happy influence on the national morality.

Inasmuch as the church chairs are rented to families and paid for yearly or half-yearly, this evil is less glaring in the provinces. The wealthier parishioners there usually try to secure places in front, often at high rents, which renders it possible to let the remainder more cheaply, sometimes at mere nominal prices, to the poorer classes.

What we have stated above applies, in many respects, equally to the larger provincial cities, among which Lyons, Marseilles, Nantes, and Toulouse deserve special mention for their religious zeal. Nor are Rouen, Strasbourg, Bordeaux, Lille, and Metz indifferent to the success of the church. The other large and small cities may be judged according to the state of their respective provinces. One thing may, however, be safely depended upon, namely, that every city contains a circle of laymen which sets a praiseworthy example in religious conduct and social Christian deportment. The women cling, nearly everywhere, with deeper devotion to the church than the men, and in the provinces even more than in Paris. The most devout of spirit are the German provinces, Alsace, Lothringen, and Flanders, as well as Brittany, Auvergne, Limouisin, Dauphiné, and the provinces south and west, where most if not all the adults fulfil the precept of Easter communion. Least devout are perhaps the provinces in the vicinity of Paris, Normandy, Champagne, Picardie, Orleans, down into the very heart of France, as far as Tours and Bourges. Within a radius of about sixty miles from Paris, the condition of the villages is truly deplorable, and in the towns, the religious sentiment is only very slowly awakened. There are localities where Sunday is even more habitually disregarded than at the capital; and if the men go occasionally to church, they rarely partake of the Holy Sacrament. This state of things is, however, an exceptional one, and especially in the villages near Paris which send their vegetables, flowers, fruits, and other produce to market. The daily contact of the peasantry with metropolitan life has had a bad effect on their morals. At these points the church is chiefly attended by Parisians who spend a portion of the year at their villas.

But while we feel constrained to admit that there is a great deal of religious indifference among the male population, it is pleasant to feel justified in saying that France is able to boast of a large body of ecclesiastics whose zeal and piety must command the genuine admiration of the Catholic world. In the year 1865, there were only 837 vacancies in the 31,388 parishes into which France is divided. The budget for 1869 appropriates salaries for the incumbents of 106 new parishes, and 50 new vicarages. The ecclesiastics in France number 45,000—a very high percentage in a population of thirty-eight millions, of whom about a million are non-Catholics. At the same time, the pay is very small. Not half the parish priests have an income exceeding 1500 francs per annum, while several thousands have no more than 1200, (two hundred and forty dollars in gold.) Only the incumbents of the comparatively few parishes of the first and second classes—numbering little above 3000 all told—have an addition of from 1200 to 1500 francs yearly from the state. The income of the canons varies from 1600 to 1800 francs, rarely reaching 2400, and this leaves them partly dependent on mass stipends and casuals. Many bishops are obliged to make extra allowances out of their own pockets to the canons of their cathedrals. The archbishops, who are also senators and cardinals with extra pay attached to these dignities, enjoy large revenues, ranging from 120,000 to 150,000 francs, all of which they sorely need. Mons. Morlot, the late Cardinal Archbishop of Paris, imperial land almonier and peer of France, had an annual income of 230,000 francs. Of this sum he had, however, set aside from the beginning 30,000 francs for distribution among the Paris poor. Although this estimable prince of the church enjoyed his income for several years, he left not enough at his death to bury him, and the expenses of his funeral had to be paid by the emperor. The demands on the purses of these high ecclesiastics are so heavy that they are constrained to practise the most rigid economy, unless they possess independent fortunes. The household of a French bishop or archbishop usually consists of a private secretary, a coachman, a man-servant, and a cook, who is generally the wife of the coachman or servant. His house, furniture, carriage, are all of the plainest description. A bishop does not entertain what is called company. On special occasions he may invite some clergymen to his table, but nothing more. If business calls him to Paris, or some other place outside of his diocese, he takes his secretary with him, and puts up at one of those quiet hotels patronized by religious. When away from home, he always appears in public either on foot or in some hired conveyance. Now and then he accepts an invitation from some Christian family, and calls on Catholic laymen who have attested their zeal by word or deed. The most distinguished prelates often love to surprise the offices of the Parisian journals, such as the Monde and the Univers, by a visit, when they request the different writers to be presented to them, throw out valuable suggestions, and converse with the greatest freedom and bonhomie. This cordial intercourse between bishops, priests, and laymen has contributed no little toward the glory of the church and the efficiency of the Catholic press. Except in the sanctuary itself, the Catholic Church in France is utterly devoid of pomp and splendor, and by far the largest part of her resources is set aside for the maintenance of numerous educational, charitable, and other benevolent establishments, at which it may be interesting in this connection to cast here a brief glance.

First in importance and influence are the Conferences of St. Vincent de Paul, founded at Paris in the beginning of the third decade of the present century. In the metropolis alone are eighty odd conferences, one for each parish, besides some national and special ones connected with various other religious institutions and associations. Among the national conferences may be instanced a Polish, a Flemish, an Italian, an English, and two German. The most prominent of the special conferences are the Cercle du Luxembourg, formed by the Catholic students, and the Cercle de la Jeunesse, formed by the youth of the higher schools. The total number of members is probably over 4000. In addition to this, many other religious associations have been directly and indirectly promoted by the Conferences of St. Vincent de Paul: for instance, the patronages for promoting the physical and spiritual welfare of apprentices; the work-shops for young girls belonging to the working classes, who are not only furnished with employment, but instructed in their religious duties; the society for the relief of the Faubourgs, managed by women whose object is the education of the children of laboring people who reside in the wretched hovels of the remoter suburbs. The Société Maternelle, established in 1788, which has in every quarter of the city its female agent to relieve working-women who cannot afford to remain at home to nurse their infants. This society expends over 60,000 francs a year, and relieves nearly a thousand mothers. A similar society is that of the Crèches, where infants under three years of age are taken care of while their mothers earn their daily bread. One of the greatest evils of our modern system of economy is the compulsory labor of females. There are in Paris 106,300 working-women who earn on an average only 1 franc and 10 centimes per day, (twenty-two cents in gold,) and have to support a family on this pittance. Very excellent institutions are the Salles d'Asiles, play-schools for children aged from two to six years, which already number over 4000 in France, and are attended by hundreds and thousands of children. The Child's Friend Society is designed to save those children who are in danger of being demoralized by the evil example of their parents. The Société de St. François Regis aims to counteract the illicit relations but too frequently entered into between the opposite sexes. It labors to supply the poor who flock to the capital from every part of the provinces with the documents which the law requires for the solemnization of a legal marriage. The advocates of the civil marriage contract may learn from this the beauties of the system which they praise so highly. Nothing can be more expensive, troublesome, or attended with greater loss of time, than the legalization of the different papers required to be produced before a marriage can be ratified by the civil authorities. On the other hand, the church exacts only a few and simple formalities to unite a pair in the bonds of holy wedlock. This society was founded in 1826, and in 1866 it brought about the marriages of no less than 43,256 couples, who had previously lived together without being married.

Paris contains fifty-eight nunneries, the greater part of which make the education of the young and the care of the infirm and the aged their main occupation. The nuns also tend the sick in twenty-four out of the thirty-six public hospitals in Paris. An order of more modern origin, but one that has already accomplished much good, is that of the Sisters of St. Paul, for the blind of their own sex. Most of its members are blind themselves; but their proficiency in all domestic employments is such that their pupils are taught to excel in them. The founder of this order, a Parisian widow, has done for this class of the afflicted what the famous Abbé de l'Grée has done for the deaf and dumb. The sisters are principally taken from the ranks of the pupils who cannot be otherwise provided for. This institution is already self-supporting. The Little Sisters of the Poor, founded in 1840, at St. Servan, near St. Malo, in Brittany, have in Paris alone five large establishments with 1700 sisters, where they support in comfort 11,006 aged poor. Its members solicit broken victuals in the kitchens of the rich, and unsold vegetables from the market-hucksters, which they take home in small carts drawn by donkeys. They also take up collections on stated days at the doors of the churches. Not content with constituting themselves the guardians of the helpless, they also relieve them of the trouble and humiliation of soliciting alms. Is not this conduct worthy of the best days of Christianity? Though not yet quite thirty years old, the Little Sisters of the Poor are already widely known and honored. Recruited at first from the lowest classes of society, many women of the higher have latterly joined the order, though the majority of the sisters are still working-women and servant-girls. We would here incidentally remark that the French servant-girls rank far above those of the other continental countries in a moral and religious point of view. This is mainly due to the strictness with which good behavior and chastity are enforced in all French households, where no promiscuous intercourse between the sexes is countenanced. However indifferent master and mistress may themselves be to religion, they nevertheless invariably insist that their servants should be regular communicants and church-goers. The status of the female domestics is therefore higher than that of the average working-woman, whose independence of control but too often proves her ruin. This also explains why servant-girls should be so much more eagerly sought in marriage than working-girls. In France, the domestic, and especially the female one, is treated almost as a member of the family. The difference between master and servant is not so marked, and the result is that the latter has more self-respect and pride. Indeed, the manner in which servants are treated by their employers in France is a highly creditable feature in the national character.

But to return to the religious and other societies. A very useful association is a woman's society founded by a dozen ladies, "Invalid Working-Woman's Aid Society," which numbers in 27 parishes 600 members, and cordially co-operates with the sisters of St. Vincent de Paul in visiting and tending the sick in their own habitations. In 1865, its members had paid 158,368 sick calls to 52,748 sufferers. Another female society attends the sick poor in the public hospitals, and seeks to assist feeble convalescent girls and boys in procuring employment. "The Church Aid Society" furnishes churches destitute of means with vestments worked by the hands of its members. Still another society of women keeps on hand stocks of clothing for the needy, its members sewing for this purpose several hours each day. One society has set itself the laudable task of returning to their relatives and friends the destitute and forsaken orphans who have come with their families to the city from the provinces. Several orphan schools have been opened for the same purpose by laymen and the rural clergy in different parts of France. Many of the orders labor to a similar end, especially that of the Trappists, who own now twenty-two extensive agricultural settlements, mostly in France, some of them with a hundred brothers. Some of the most barren and unhealthy districts were taken in hand by the Trappists, and the results which they there achieved are really marvellous. At the abbey of Staoueli, in Algeria, they fed during the last famine 600 Arabs a day for several months, without materially lessening the provisions sent for sale to the markets. Though the brothers work from ten to twelve hours daily, besides devoting several hours at night to their religious duties, they eat nothing but bread, (1½ lbs. per diem,) vegetables seasoned with salt, and drink only water. The Bernhardines also follow agriculture; but their rules are less severe, for they are permitted to use milk, fish, and a little wine. Four flourishing settlements have been established by this order in the most sterile districts of Southern France. The Brothers of the Holy Ghost (Frères du Saint Esprit) make foreign missionary enterprises and the amelioration of the condition of the convicts their specialty. The Brothers of St. Joseph educate the deaf and dumb, and the Brothers of St. Gabriel vagrant boys. The Œuvre des Campagnes is a society which strives to provide for the spiritual and material wants of the poorer rural parishes. Its main object is to awaken the dormant religious feelings by popular missions, devotional works, etc. Several societies have been organized in Paris and the provinces for the better observance of Sunday. The societies called "Reunion of the Holy Family" consist of the poor who meet on Sundays in chapels and halls for mutual instruction and prayers. A special society under the patronage of St. Michael has charged itself with the distribution of pious publications, tracts, etc. The colossal missionary enterprise of France is well known. No nation furnishes so many missionaries, gives such large contributions as the French, a people among whom a century ago the Catholic religion was, during several years, formally abolished. Of the 8000 missionaries distributed over the globe more than one third are Frenchmen. The Lyons-Paris Society for the Propagation of the Faith extends all over the earth, and possessed in 1867 an income of 5,149,918 fr., of which sum 3,582,659 fr. had been collected in French dioceses. During the preceding year the Society of the Holy Infancy could afford to disburse 1,603,200 fr. for 59 missions supported by it alone. It has baptized 383,206 children, and educated 41,226 more.

A separate mission exists for the Holy Land and the Orient, (Œuvre des Ecoles d'Orient.) The society mainly applies itself to supplying the missions established in these regions by the Franciscans and Lazarists with money and other aid. The return of the Nestorians, Armenians, and other eastern schismatics to the bosom of the mother church is one of its principal objects, and has already made considerable progress.

It must seem almost incredible that the greater number of these benevolent and religious societies should enjoy no fixed or only very inadequate revenues. Yet such is actually the fact. Except their buildings, many of which are heavily mortgaged, very few of the societies have any property or capital. Under these circumstances it naturally requires the most untiring exertions and the closest economy to sustain themselves. Aside from the regular collections in the churches, these organizations are mainly dependent on the charity sermons, by which funds are raised, as well as on the lotteries and bazaars gotten up for religious and charitable purposes. We see therefore that they have had a severe struggle for existence. The church is the only institution in France which can never be centralized, and the future belongs for this reason all the more surely to her.

These results show the great and many-sided activity of the French Catholics. There is no known ailing or misery, no human evil, caused by our short-sighted legislation or social policy, which is not met and alleviated by the church and her servants. These efforts may not be crowned with the desired success in all instances; but when we consider the opposition which every religious project encounters in France, it must be confessed that the church has accomplished more in that country than in any other. Nor should it be forgotten that this is largely owing to a fact which neither the sophistries of modern scepticism nor the equality of all denominations under the constitution of the empire can do away with, namely, that the Catholic Church still remains the national one. For the same reason we venture to predict that the occurrence of any extraordinary events, of any great public calamity, would rather tend to promote than retard the growth of the religious sentiment among the masses. It is a remarkable circumstance that in times of national distress and suffering, the attachment to the church is strengthened. Never were the sanctuaries so crowded as during the disturbances of 1848 and 1849. How many of those who had until then worked for the overthrow of church and state were not converted when they saw whither their principles led them? Will this not again be the case at the next revolution? It often requires such violent shocks to check the baneful passions and to open the eyes of the people.