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    82 The deader and Saturday Analyst. [Jan...

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    THE GKRAND ARMY AT MASS. AN order has be...

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    THE POPE AND HIS TEMPORALITIES. F EW sub...

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    82 The Deader And Saturday Analyst. [Jan...

    82 The deader and Saturday Analyst . [ Jan . 28 , I 860 .

    The Gkrand Army At Mass. An Order Has Be...

    THE GKRAND ARMY AT MASS . AN order has been issued , it is said , by the Minister for War , forbidding soldiers in garrison at Paris or any other town in France from attending worship in parochial or conventual churches ; and intimating that , for the future , provision would evervwhere be made within barracks for the regular celebration of mass . The compliment paid to religion hardly disguises the distrust entertained of the priesthood . The courtly confessor of Louis XV . having shrived the dying debauchee , told the edified companions of his" pleasures , that the King had made the " amende honorable" to God . Louis Napoleon desires ,

    perhaps , to mitigate the wrath of the Church which he has certainly provoked by his policy , as much as his Bourbon predecessor offended Heaven by his contempt of private morals . What the languid penitence of the Royal sinner may have availed , we know not ; but it is certain that the Imperial offender will be credited in account with no indulgence by the Church , for his delicate attention to the spiritual wants of his Guards and Zouaves . Such attention , as Dr . Johnson would have said , " had it been earlier had been kind ; " but it has been delayed until a moment when its motive can hardly be ascribed , even by the most charitable , to the devotional instincts of the Government ; especially when it is accompanied with an inhibition which reads like a bitter sarcasm embodied in an order of the day .

    The truth is the Emperor feels he can no longer afford to trifle with the subversive disloyalty of the clergy for whom he has done so much , but who are bent upon showing the world how fathomless is ecclesiastical ingratitude . There is not a cathedral or important parish church in Prance , which has not been restored or beautified at the cost of the State during the last ten years ; there are few prominent works Of ecclesiastical importance , that have not had the benefit of Imperial help | and there are scores if not hundreds of the parochial clergy whose ¦ -personal position has been raised from indigence to comfort by the munificence of the Eldest Son of the Church . But all is now forgotten in the

    rage and resentment he has kindled by his recent adviqe to the Pope to relinquish the worldly cares of sovereignty , and to be content with a guaranteed security for the possession in peace of the city of Borne . Spoliation arid sacrilege are now the only vices with whose denunciation French pulpits resound . The doctrines of passive obedience , lately preached in their most Ultramontane sense , are inculcated no more . The powers that be are still said to be ordained of God ; but as the highest-of these powers is the enthroned successor of St . Puter , all resistance to his authority is pronounced to be at once anarchic and accursed—and all is uttered in italics .

    And the lengths to which episcopal and pastoral denunciation has gone during the last fortnight , can hardly be believed by those who have no other means of information but such as are afforded in the public press . Seditious libel , outlawed wherever the civil jurisdiction extends , claims the privilege of sanctuary , and at the foot Of the altar believes itself secure from molestation . The stern hand that struck down democracy , and stifled the voice of political discussion in the press , the salon , and the tribune , hesitates , as yet , to smite its surplioed adversary . But all that takes place beneath the sacred roof is daily reported by the emissaries of the police j . and the Government cannot disregard

    its tendency . At a convent chapel , near Paris , a few days ago , a sermon was preached , by a well-known abbe , on the life and death of St . Peter j the character of his Imperial persecutor was depicted in significant terms , and the moral of the discourse was pointed in the pregnant words , ' ¦ Remember what was the fate of Nero 1 " No wonder Napoleon III ., whoso flatterers have been so fond of comparing him to-Augustus , should think it as Avell that his troops hear nothing about the O ^ sahs who came to an untimely end . He well knows that though the votes of seven millions are said to have given him the crown , it is the arms of half-a-million soldiers that must preserve for him the

    sceptre . Tho elements of a vast conspiracy against the restored dynasty are , indeed , now mingling , for the first time , in France . Poctrinnairos and Jqsuits , devotees of legitimacy and fanatical republicons , priests and protectionists—ore seeking shelter and support from one another , and whispering vows of mutual help and common hostility . The clerical organisation , even without tho aid , of the monastic orders , furnishes facilities for wide spread combination that the enemies of the Empire have never had before j and it ia worth the while of those who have the prfcscrvation . of great monopolies to defend , to invest 'largely in the . plot ,. We do notmerf ' H to say that disaffection lms-been ' ov will bo ' able suddenly to improvise counter-revolutionary designs in any practical shape ; but we have had abundant proof of the rapidity with which disaffection comus to maturity Qn tho other side of the channel . We doubt not that tho intrepidity and self-reliance of the singu ^

    la rly gifted man who out of nothing created for himself an empire , will prompt him to do wondrous battle in its defence ; and , so long as he can rely upon the absolute fidelity of the army ; it is not easy to see how his . power can be seriously shaken . For this purpose , however , it is evidently essential that French soldiers should hear no more than their prayers when they go tb mass . The Chasseurs de Vincennes and Voltigeurs of the Line will not be supposed to be very susceptible of theocratical impressions ; but if we are told that " a word spoken in due season , how good is it !"—the converse may be , and probably is , matter of uncomfortable conjecture just now in the Imperial mind . Better , at all events , to be on the safe side , and to make sure that no sacerdotal finger is allowed to play with arms of precision . Very awkward things these arms of precision when you

    are not quite sure about the triggers ; and very wonderful to think what a difference an almost imperceptible obliquity of aim may make in the future fate of empires !

    The Pope And His Temporalities. F Ew Sub...

    THE POPE AND HIS TEMPORALITIES . F EW subjects in our own age open a field for more interesting and instructive retrospect than the Papacy ; none , perhaps , is more suggestive and confirmatory of the progress made by civilization and the true principles of liberty of thought and intellect during the last thousand years . It would scarcely be possible to conceive a stronger contrast than between the vigorous thunders launched forth by the powerful pontiffs of former days , and the weakling remonstrances , the maudliri plaints and peevish recriminations uttered by him who can scarce keep his seat on the chair of St . Peter . Nor can the change be accounted for by the different dispositions and natural

    temperament of the Popes themselves . Times , institutions , and men are changed since a Pontiff could excommunicate Robert , King of France , our own contemptible John , or the daring and independent : Henry VIII .. Formerly , whether a Popelvas enjoying high and mighty state in Ronie , or was an exile from his own land and virtually a prisoner in another , his authority was equally owned , his spiritual prerogatives held to be equally unquestionable and valid How is it that poor Pius XX ..,. distraught as he is with perplexities-and difficulties , and irritated by unwelcome interference , does not protest by means of ban and interdict , as his predecessors would have done ? It is said that an encyclical

    letter or bull is to be issued in a few days , hurling curses and anathemas against all and sundry of his political enemies and opponents . Why is such an announcement received with incredulity and derision ? What is it which withholds the Papal See from excommunicating the Emperor of the French , whom the Pope accuses of plotting to rob him of his territory ? It is simply that the spirit of the age is changed . The Minister for Public Instruction , in addressing the pupils of the Polytechnic and Philotechnic Associations at Paris the other day , made use of a few words which well characterise the difference between the blind devotion formerly shown to the

    Catholic Church , and the independent action which Catholics are now disposed to exercise as their right : — " We will nowhere be promoters of anarchy and impiety . We fear God and keep the faith of our fathers . We are Catholics , and never under any government has religion been surrounded with more respect arid protection . " France , in common with the civilized world , though grown more moral , hns given up its superstitious reverence for Rome . While turbulence and inclination to resist authority righteously exercised are l'apidly disappearing , men ore becoming more independent every day , and more tenacious of their inherent right to think for themselves . Nations have learned that when

    a country is prosperous , and governed by rulers who employ means well adapted to the conservation of the principles and institutions morally and physically congruous with the nature and peculiarities of its inhabitants and their traditions , it cannot do better than retain them , and should be slow to accept any substitute palmed upon it by the Vatican . A laugh of derision would probably be the greatest effect produced either in Catholic or Protestant countries , should Pius IX . bethink himself of making use of , the almost forgotten weapon of excommunication . Rumours of its employment in the case of Piedmont were afloat a short time ago , and it was declared thatthe papal threat was met

    by the counter threat that the king and his subjects would turn Protestants if tho project were corried into execution . Even such a rumour is an important sign of the times , as marking the liberation of individuals and nations , from the spiritual and intellectual thraldom in which tl . iey were formerly held . Probably there never was on age in the history Of the Church when the Papacy was in so low a condition as that in which wo now see it . It scarcely boasts a literary or political adherent who can bo considered to stand one grade above mediocrity . This may be looked upon as a homage to tlio superior honesty and sinconty of

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 28, 1860, page 6, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_28011860/page/6/