the most venerated in our Church, bearing testimony either to the damage inflicted on our ecclesiastical system, by the abolition of monasteries, or to the desirableness of their revival, with such modifications as the change of times and circumstances requires; and this being admitted, will any one dare to say that we shall any longer refrain our hand from the work of restoration ? Fas est et ab hoste doceri,' is a maxim, I fear, but little heeded in the Reformed Catholic Church in England; but while we are asleep, the field will be won, and by stealth. The sisters of charity are the most formidable weapon (by far more formidable than the priesthood) of the Romish Church; day and night their unwearied round of labour proceeds; some spend days and days in prisons and condemned cells, calling to repentance by acts more controlling than words- by kindness, meekness, long suffering, and gentleness; and, as one who had witnessed their labours remarked, presenting a picture inconceivably sublime. Yet, a few hours since, I witnessed with my own eyes a young maiden of twenty-one years, descended from ancestors of the haute noblesse,' no other than the daughter of the Conte de Beaumont,' engaged in all the lowly (I had almost said menial) offices of a sister of the order of St. Vincent de Paul. I had obtained permission to view the interior of the convent, and was conducted round it by this lady; I knew at the time nothing further than that she was a sister-so meek, simple, and unpretending were her manners. The interior of this house was a picture of happiness; some were eagaged in instructing a school of seventy children; others in dispensing medicines to the poor; but all actively at work. Each parish, according to its population, has its sister or sisters of charity, whose office it is to visit the fatherless and the widows in their afflictions,' and to beg from house to house for the 'pauvres de la paroisse,' and then to dispense wood and clothing to the most deserving of the poor. But you will say I have been pleading for Rome; on the contrary, I have been pleading for the adoption of a primitive order-the order of Deaconesses (for what matters the name?) which belongs not to Rome, viewed as the worldly creature she often appears—and if I may so speak, an order which, though existing in communion with Rome, is not of Rome,' took not its rise at Rome, but in a Church which, till very lately, thought scorn of his Holiness, and claimed her own peculiar exemptions; and, though now, alas! daily becoming more imbued with the Mariolatry and errors of popery, time was when she sought a sisterly intercommunion with our beloved parent, the Holy Catholic Church in Britain. Depend upon it, whatever may be urged against some monastic institutions, none, in reason or conscience, can be against des sœurs de la charité,' if incorporated on Protestant rules. Nay, yet more; so intense is the yearning after a life of retirement—of retirement from the clamour of controversy and the dust of the world in the female breast at this day, that, unless an asylum be provided, and quickly too, in our own Church, it will be sought elsewhere; experience, daily experience, proves the truth of this; multitudes are ripened for religious seclusion; pious evangelicals now at rest (Mrs. Hannah More and others) have paved the way; modern writers of another school (as Mrs. Paget) have more clearly developed the feeling; and madness will it be in us, or our rulers, to prevent the march of Providence; for that the hand of God is in this movement, none can doubt, and woe be unto us if we turn aside the current into another, a corrupted channel.

"I know a young English lady here who a few months since was all but persuaded into becoming a sister herself. The circumstances of her case are as follows: her name I may not reveal. From the fact of a dear friend being received into a convent in illness to be tended by the sisters, she became herself an inmate for some time. The devotion, self-denial, and charity of the members, failed not to produce a vivid impression upon a gentle and Christian heart; her fine mind embraced with fervour the beauties of the system, but her enlightened conscience showed the deformity of a part of the religion; the homage paid to the Virgin Mary, I have reason to believe, was what restrained her from surrendering herself entirely. She resolved to quit the convent, at her own request had orthodox Church books to read (such as Hook's Sermon on Romanism, Jelf's Via Media, and Mr. Townsend Powell's tract on The Worship of the Virgin,' &c.); and it is to be hoped will not peril her soul again by

entering a convent. I need not say how lovely a character she would be, how devoted a servant of her Lord, in a Protestant convent of the Catholic Church in England; and may not this be said of multitudes, whose names and virtues will present themselves to your readers? In the beautiful lines of the patriotic Lord John Manners, which I must quote from memory:

'O that our youthful Queen would add one gem

To those which glitter in her diadem,

And, list'ning to humanity's loud calls,

Restore the Sisters to their ruined walls!'

"If in days bygone convents were not always nurseries of virtue, if to the systems adopted by Rome many objections may be made, if we have no rule' adopted by our Church for such societies, still let us put our hand to the good work, and God will 'keep us from the evil.' Let us not have to look back in years to come, and despairingly exclaim

"Sero medicina paratur

Per longas morbi convaluere moras.'

"Yours faithfully,

"AN OXFORD M.A.

"Tours, France, Dec. 28, 1843."

Now, we know well enough that there is a strong desire in very respectable quarters to meet the wants of the religious, intellectual, and moral character, in the present day, by providing for it an institutional refuge from the ordinary cares of the world; and we have no doubt that, as the literary class increases in extent and influence, something of the sort will be forced upon the attention of all governments. But this is a very different thing from the superstitious revival of an old religious institution which fell into corruption and abuse, and became wholly inapplicable to the increasing modifications and complexities of civilised society.

The remarks, however, which Mr. Maitland makes on the topic are both so seasonable and reasonable, that we shall content ourselves, on the present occasion, with giving an abridgement of them.

Among other things, the writer of the anonymous circular alluded to, states, that "It is hoped and earnestly requested that the friends of primitive piety, order, and simplicity, into whose hands this paper may fall, will contribute their thoughts and endeavours towards expanding these hints, and devising some method of bringing them to a practical issue." Mr. Maitland remarks on this, first, that no channel for the contribution of thoughts is pointed out; and, secondly, that the monastic and conventual system never can be adapted to meet the present exigencies of the Church of England; and that any attempt to revive that system in this time and country, can only prove a sad

and mischievous failure.

No doubt, money might be raised and a plan made for the building; but then, as to the " adaptation" spoken of! In the body of the document the words are, Revival of the monastic and conventual

system, in a form suited to the genius, character, and exigencies of the Church of England." We remarked, in our last Number, on the confessed Tractarian proneness to play at Catholicism. Mr. Maitland shrewdly remarks that the proposal before us is a mere playing at monkery: if," he adds, "not quite like children playing at soldiers, yet something not much beyond the customary show and service of our rural militia. Anything like real monasticism-anything for which the use of such terms as "THE MONASTIC AND CONVENTUAL SYSTEM" is not a most unwarrantable and delusive usurpationanything really calculated to produce its advantages, such as they were, or even such of them as are wanted or could be desired, in these days-an attempt to revive anything that can fairly be called the monastic and conventual system, on a scale of any magnitude and permanence, must, I think, fail for want of one great thing-that thing on which, by the Divine appointment, it flourished, while it did flourish, as truly as man lives by the air he breathes-namely, that concurrence of men's minds, which, forming what is called the Spirit of the Age, wants, desires, imagines, carries forward its own sehemes, irresistibly bears down opposition, creates, protects, uses, and then, in its progress, neglects, disowns, and tramples down its old institutions, and knows no use in their ruins but to furnish quarries or foundations for new ones."

Doubtless, Mr. Maitland is perfectly right in his emphatic declaration, that we can no more revive the monastic than the feudal system. He refers to the classic imitations of the French Republic, and the recent attempts to revive the Tournament, as felt instances of the ridiculous. "" 'Why," he demands, "is that ridiculous now, which was honourable, and almost sacred, four hundred years ago? Why may not our nobles amuse themselves, as their ancestors did, without being laughed at? I am not expressing any wish for the revival of such a pastime, but merely asking why the attempt to revive it is considered as actually absurd, and whether it is because the thing itself is so very much less dignified and worthy of great men, and so very much more ridiculous in itself than a horse-race, a fox-chase, or a steeple-hunt?" He finds the reason in the different state of society. "Do what he may," he exclaims, "no man can strip himself of the circumstances, and concomitants, which it has pleased God to place round him. He may say, 'I will be a monk;' and he may call himself, and get others to call him, by the name: but if he says, 'I will be a monk of the fourth century,' or 'a monk of the twelfth century,' we can only assure him that he is mistaken-that the thing is impossible and that, if he is a monk at all now-a-days, it must be of the nineteenth century."

But there are obstacles even to this, and particularly in England. Before the period of the Reformation, the monastic system in the Western Church had got into a very bad state. Too many monasteries were really societies of dissolute men; and a vast many more had so

far departed from their bounden discipline, that there was nothing to restrain the vicious. That is, the monks lived in them under scarcely, if any, more control from vice than fellows of colleges do now. That under these circumstances, in a dissolute age, a great number of monks became profane and debauched, and a great many were secular and careless of religion, are not to be doubted; and as little that the charges against them have been naturally and unavoidably exaggerations. But the odium, with whatever degree of justice, exists in such force as to preclude the revival of monastic institutions in this country; which also by the great body of the Church would be deemed eccentric and absurd. Different states of society render specific institutions, forming no part of the Church, though more or less connected with it, useful at one time, noxious at another, and incapable of existence at a third.

Such is the rational opinion of Mr. Maitland, on the possibility of their revival. He then proceeds to comment, in the same admirable and clear manner, on the abandonment, as declared in the circular, of

Vows. "No vows," it says; "but a solemn declaration and engagement of obedience to the Superior, and of compliance with the rules of the institution during residence." Mr. Maitland remarks, that this seems to be, in fact, giving up the whole thing.

Surely," he adds, "no one who has at all considered the system of Monasticism can doubt that the vow of perpetual self-dedication was the very root of the matter. The reserved power of change, even if encumbered with difficulties, would alter the whole thing. The monastic vow necessarily operates in two ways: First, in making all but the most thoughtless careful how they enter upon such a mode of life; and secondly, by making those who have taken it contented with a condition which they know to be unalterable, and in which, whatever other schemes of life may occur to their imagination as brighter than their own, they remain peacefully and cheerfully, because that very circumstance of perpetual obligation has given it somewhat the character of a divine dispensation. It is very well for politcal agitators, and makers of fancy tales, to tell us of raging monks and pining nuns gnawing the chains of their spiritual bondage, because they were either in love commonly so called, or in love with the vanities of the world-as if such persons, with very few exceptions, would not fairly run away, vow or no vow-but it is no part of human nature to be rendered permanently unhappy by unalterable dispensations. Generally men and women are satisfied with the sex and the stature assigned to them, and do not think of making themselves miserable about the circumstances of native country, parentage, or anything else which, they know, cannot be altered.

6

"But the matter may be illustrated by a case in which a vow of perpetual obligation remains among us in the present day. No one can doubt that it would make a difference scarcely to be imagined if the marriage vow, instead of being perpetual and irrevocable, were only a solemn declaration' that the parties would conduct themselves properly so long as they should see fit to continue man and wife. I do not mean merely that many unhappy marriages would be dissolved, and many unequally-yoked persons set at liberty, for it would certainly operate something far beyond this, and of quite a different nature. Thousands who are now living happily together, and who, if they ever thought of such a thing as a separation, would consider it one of the greatest evils that could happen to them, would become unsettled, would be led to speculate, and tempted to experiment; the possibility would be present to their own minds, or perpetually suggested by others; a cross word or an angry look would be followed by divorce; and a state of things would follow, plainly showing, if the name of marriage was retained, its nature was changed, and its chief benefits were lost. I am not

saying that the monastic vow was a good thing, or that those who took it did right; but, that without it the system could not have existed; and also, that without it neither the system nor anything really like it can be now established.

"But there are, moreover, two particulars in the character assumed by the vow in question, which are strongly against its revival in the present age. In the early days of monasticism, a person self-devoted by a vow to a life of celibacy was on that account looked up to with respect. But the vow, which was then in itself a ground of reverence, would in the present day expose any men or women who should be known to have taken it, to the suspicion, or the remonstrance, or the ridicule, not merely of the frivolous and thoughtless, but of nine out of ten of those whom they were brought up to love and honour, and to whom they were bound by every tie of affection and respect. And it must surely make some difference in the working of a system, whether those who adopt it become objects of esteem and veneration, or of contempt and suspicion. There may be those who would answer as before, that persecution from anybody would be delightful; but, beside other reasons for taking courage, we may comfort ourselves with the hope, that they are not sufficiently numerous to fill more than one or two monasteries at the utmost, and that only for a very little while.

"For let us just look at another point-the monastic vow was one of obedience; and in the proposed adaptation there are to be 'no vows; but a solemn declaration and engagement of obedience to the Superior, and of compliance with the rules of the institution during residence.' But what are we to understand by obedienee to the Superior' in this revived monastic system? Is it, for instance, to be such as the Rule of St. Benedict required? The reader may see what that was in a following page. Nothing of that sort, 1 suppose, can be intended in this enlightened country; and I am led, by the dispute which I have heard for many years past respecting canonical obedience to our Bishops, to doubt whether the talk of obedience has any real meaning. I am afraid that in the present day nothing will give such a Superior power, except law or money; and that only the latter will procure for him anything which can properly be called obedience. In the former of these cases, when power is given by law, the obedience will be rendered to the law, and in no sense whatever to the Superior. If he has an Act of Parliament hanging in his cell, constituting and appointing him Ruler over certain persons named in the schedule A annexed, according to certain regulations set out in schedule B annexed, those certain persons must obey (whether him or the law, is perhaps of no great consequence) so far as the law goes; but beyond that the Superior has no power. On the other hand, something further may perhaps be procured for him in the way of obedience, by money. I do not mean what lawyers call moneys numbered' paid down in pence by the Superior to the monks for capping him, or doing what he bids; but money's worth, provided by the expense of money. They may be endowments such as will (according to the familiar phrase) make it worth men's while-worth the while of men nursed up in sensitive independence to put up, at least for a time, with the degradation and annoyance of submission; or it may give a lift in society, smooth the way to holy orders, or, more probably, to the sectarian ministry; or it may hold out various other advantages which it is easy to imaginc. But whatever they may be, the obedience thus purchased will be of little value, and the mode by which it is obtained will considerably qualify the nature of the society. It must, I suppose, consist chiefly of those to whom such advantages are an object; perhaps entirely; for men of higher motives may not like that sort of constant association and close fellowship with the sordid and scheming.

"There is, I repeat, a want of power; a want which it is in the present day impossible to meet by any legitimate and reasonable means. How is it attempted in the plan to which I have so repeatedly alluded? The author of it seems to have been conscious that the Superior would be in rather a helpless predicament, and to have thought that, as he could not be magnified, he should be multiplied. I am afraid I shall hardly be believed, when I say that, under the head of VISITATION,' we are told that the proposed monasteries are to be visited monthly by