Clergy, there exists at Paris 48 parochial churches for a population of 1,025,169 Roman Catholics-still far short, as the report remarks, of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when there were 40 parishes for 200,000 souls, or even before 1789, when there were 71 parish churches for 600,000 or 700,000. In addition to the parish churches there are in the diocese 27 public chapels, 50 private ones, and 157 oratories, where mass is performed by special authorization. The number of the secular priesthood who administer there is 890. There are, besides, in the diocese, 15 ecclesiastical communities of males, numbering about 1,000 frères and novices, and 48 religious communities of women, numbering about 3,800-altogether a personnel of 5,690 members of the ecclesiastical condition.

MONTALEMBERT AND LORD PALMERSTON.

M. de Montalembert has just caused to be reprinted an article from his pen, entitled, Pius IX and Lord Palmerston, which appeared in the Correspondant

on the 25th of June last.

After solemnly warning that the display of a continual and persevering hostility to Rome will end, infallibly, in alienating the good understanding and alliance of a country so fundamentally Catholic as France, M. de Montalembert asks if it be possible that England is not aware of the general Continental hostility she is fermenting against herself. The letter is thoroughly Jesuitical in its tone and character, and is evidently designed to frighten Great Britain from sympathy with Free Institutions in their struggle against the aggressions of despotism.

IRISH CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY.

Notwithstanding the full reports of the success of Church Missions in Ireland, yet the bold denials of the Papists have led us to watch the subject with interest. At the late anniversary of the Society the Rev. S. Minton, who had lately been on a tour of inspection in Ireland, gave the results of his inquiry. After speaking of the wonderful and systematic efforts of the Romish priests to counteract the work, and of his own care to obtain exact information, he says: "He could unhesitatingly declare that the general verdict given was, that upon the whole the work was still progressing hopefully in Ireland, and that there was nothing whatever to damp the zeal or diminish the ardor of those who were engaged in it."

The (London) Clerical Journal says, that "at the late visitation tour of his Grace the Archbishop of Dublin, his Grace made close inquiries on the subject of the Irish language, as to whether the Clergy residing in the Irish speaking districts made efforts to instruct their parishioners through the medium of their language, so dear to many of the Irish people. It is well to know that much is doing and has been done towards this desirable object by the instrumentality of the excellent Irish Society; and that many clergymen have commenced the study of the language, even in advanced life, like Bishop Bedell, who began the study of it in his sixtieth year. Nothing can be more deplorable, as Canon Wordsworth shows in his Sermons on the Irish Church, than the manner in which the two fundamental principles of the Reformation, viz, vernacular Scriptures and a vernacular Liturgy, seem to have been neglected or forgotten in Ireland. No edition of the Book of Common Prayer in Irish appeared before the year 1608, more than seventy years after the commencement of the Irish Reformation; and it was not till the year 1686, that is, a century and a half after the commencement of the Reformation, that the entire Scriptures, Old and New Testaments, were made accessible to the Irish in their own tongue."

We take this occasion to call attention to the Sermons of Canon Wordsworth, noticed above, as the most satisfactory history of the Irish Church which we have ever seen. At the present day especially it is of the greatest interest and value.

REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA.

We have before us President Benson's Inaugural Address. In it he enunciated the following principles as those upon which he will endeavor to administer the Government:

1. That according to the solemn obligation soon to be administered to me, I will try and faithfully adhere to the Constitution and Laws of the Republic. I will also strive permanently to keep in view:

2. The encouragement of every branch of industry and avenue to national greatness-agriculture, commerce, mechanism, internal improvement, education, etc. etc.-by recommending such measures, from time to time, as will in my opinion enhance their interest, and as the state of the public finance will justify.

3. An avoidance of pecuniary embarrassment of the Government, unless eircumstances should render a different course indispensable to our national existence, or the maintenance of the majesty of the laws.

4. The moral, intellectual, social, and political improvement of the Aborig.

ines.

5. The cultivation of peace and harmony at home and abroad. 6. The observance of good faith and justice toward all nations.

The ship Elvira Owen sailed from Savannah on the 21st June, for Monrovia, Liberia. She carries out 321 emigrants. Of this large cargo of emigrants, nearly all were slaves, freed voluntarily by their owners, and in two cases furnished generously with money, to the aggregate amount of nearly $30,000, to give them a start in their future homes.

While Great Britain, France, Prussia, Belgium, Brazil, and Lubec, Bremen and Hamburg, have formally recognized Liberia as a State, and entered into political intercourse with her, the United States, which, for obvious reasons, should have preceded them all in the matter, have not yet followed their wise and just example. Already Great Britain is opening and establishing commercial relations with Liberia, which in the end will be as remunerating, as they are now important to the Republic. The country is rich in ivory, coffee, sugar, woods, &c., and contains nearly fifty millions of inhabitants Mr. Gerald Ralston, in a letter from London, of June 26, 1856, speaks of the great increase of commerce between these two countries, England and Liberia, and of the great decrease of it between Liberia and the United States, particularly in the last two years; and the decrease is going on in rapid ratio. He says, "When I was in Bristol ten days ago, I got a list of merchants of that port, who have no less than 54 ships engaged in the palm oil, and other trades of the African coast. The house of H. & Co. have 18 ships, B. D. & Co. have 12, L. & S. have 10, Mr. G. has 8, Mr. C. has 2, and Mr. R. has 2, W. & Co. have 8, Mr. L. has 2. These ships vary in size from 200 to 500 tons. So I could give you an enumeration of some 35 ships, (some of them even larger than 1000 tons burthen,) trading from Liverpool with the coast of Africa. These ships are independent of those that sail from London and other British ports, and I think it would not be difficult for me to enumerate 100 ships and steamers trading between these islands and the coast of Africa.

VOL. IX.

THE

CHURCH REVIEW.

JANUARY, 1857.

No. 4.

ART. I.-DISSENSIONS IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE, AND THEIR FINAL ADJUSTMENT.—No. I.

THAT brilliant but eccentric gentleman, Mr. Walter Savage Landor, suggested, some years since, the formation of a gallery to be filled with the likenesses of the great heroes of England, in the sphere of public life, of Literature, of the Drama, of Philosophy, of Natural Science, of the Arts, and of mechanical inventions. But from this Valhalla he proposed to exclude the great Theologians, on the ground that their works were chiefly controversial, having been called into Life through the exigencies of party warfare. It never seemed to have occurred to Mr. Landor, that all great achievements, all glorious unfoldings of Truth, are in some sort the product of conflict; are, in themselves, battles against existing falsehoods in the world of thought or belief. A Raphael, indeed, may be painting his cartoons and dreaming of the beautiful forms soon to be the delight of a world, while Titans are engaged in a war to end in the spiritual emancipation of men: a Goethe, to his shame, may have a song for every theme, save the Father-land, writhing in agony under the oppressor. Art moves in its own way and scarcely feels the common pulsations of the human heart. Its waters do not mingle with the common stream of History; they are fountains by the way side. Its Light shines and blazes apart, noticeable and grand, yet withal a Law unto itself. But the heroes of the race are they who fight its battles, and their thoughts are not so much of beauty, as of Truth, of righteousness, and of God. No great 31

VOL. IX.-NO. 4.

right has been secured, no great blessing conferred, no great work done without toil, and weariness, and fight. The course of Empire, the growth of thought, the advance of knowledgeour revolutions, and our reformations, our very firesides are all, in some form or other, the prize and guerdon of battle. Battle is thus a potent factor in all History. By battle the world moves on. The causes and the men alike who occasion and produce it, do not challenge our admiration; on the contrary, they are condemned to infamy-bringing to light the worst aspects of human nature and its radical defect of sin. The Hero and deliverer comes after the Oppressor; and oppression must needs be sharp before his work can come to successful issues. So, also, the lover of Truth battles against error and falsehood. It is in resistance against wrong that the true hero reveals his qualities. The knight errant, on the other hand, armed cap-a-pie, going forth in quest of foes, is a mere fantastic being; and the keen dialectician, who challenges a world to dispute his Theses, is a mere knight errant. War having its origin, then, in wrongs done, in falsehoods spoken, in oppres sions committed, is scarcely an amusement to the man who undertakes it. The undertaking is the sacrifice of personal ease, for truth and right against the wrong. It is a great mistake to suppose that the true hero seeks battle for the sake of battle. It is sheer necessity that compels him. It is well to bear this in mind in all our studies of History, and in our estimates of the men who occupy conspicuous places upon its pages.

These observations apply as well to the Christian religion and Church, as to the State and the Social life of man. From the time that Christianity first made its appearance among men, down to the present day, conflict has been one of the great elements of its Life and History. We may be weary of it, nevertheless against our will we are perpetually in the midst of it. We congratulate ourselves when one ugly issue is disposed of, still we are soon compelled to awaken to the realities of another. When the noise of strife is ringing in our ears, it pleases us to dream of times when warfare, within the Church, was unknown. Who has not heard Clergymen, while deploring our modern contentions, wax warm in their descriptions of the Primitive Age, and set it forth in glowing terms as free from the presence of party spirit? Is it not an old story to say of the Apostolic Age-then dissensions were unknown? Even Hegesippus, living in the second century, discourses of the matter like a nineteenth century clergyman.* Nor need

Euseb. Hist. Bk. 3: c. 32.

this surprise us, since, even before his day, it was gravely said, that the Apostles were, before they were called by our Lord, "sinners above the rest of mankind.' The common notion upon this subject, it seems to us is, that the Church, in the Apostolic Age, suffered only from without-that Jew and Gentile sought, each in his own way, to crush her young life, while within the pale, holiness, love, and peace, held undisputed sway. We pronounce this, at the outset, a fiction. And we propose to set forth, in brief review, the truth of the matter, in the hope that the lessons to be gathered from the party dissensions in the Apostolic Age and their final adjustment, may not be lost upon us at this late hour of the world.

The wide-spread misconception of the actual condition of the primitive Apostolic Church, may be readily accounted for. It springs, we should say, from the knowledge that the Apostles themselves, guided and inspired by the Holy Ghost, were the teachers and pastors of the Church. It flows by way of inference from this fact. No motive has been present to the immense majority of men to start a question, or to raise a doubt respecting the extent of the influence wielded by the Apostles themselves. Then still farther, as part and parcel of the general notion, has been that firm perception upon the part of modern Christians, of the enormous, startling, moral force, which Christianity possessed and displayed in this period. Here are two facts, both of great significance in themselves, and certainly well fitted to lead men, without further thought, to the opinion, that this was the true Paradisaic Period of Christian History. This morning twilight rosy with Auroral splendors, embosomed in an atmosphere of divine love, is the point which has ever awakened the keenest delight and sympathy of Christian hearts. We find it a source of joy, not, however, because we suppose the Church then to have been what many fancy it, but because, amid storm and darkness, threatened from within, as well as persecuted from without, she held on her course freighted with truths and powers for the healing of the nations. As we read the history of the Apostolic and sub-Apostolic Age, it is not simply the divine supernatural revelation of redemptive grace and blessing, finding its way to benighted hearts with softest, gentlest tread, but it is a hand to hand conflict between the Spirit of God and the human soul, between truth and falsehood within men, between love and selfishness, and the final triumph of grace over nature. How can we ever lose sight of this fact? How can we sup

Barnabas Epistolae V, p. 9, Ed. Hefeb.