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services of much importance, is undoubtedly gone by in countries highly civilized and altogether Christian. As headquarters for missionary enterprise, and retreats for studious divines, monasteries have been invaluable. When they became of little or no use for such purposes, most of the ends really answered by them were positively injurious to the public. Their suppression, therefore, stands upon very different grounds from that of parochial and capitular foundations. But it is hardly justifiable to suppress convents as a relief for the financial difficulties of a nation, much less so for satisfying the selfish cravings of individuals. Property, severed from private inheritances for monastic purposes, ought, in justice to the donor and to the public, to be kept sacred for religious, learned, and eleemosynary uses. In England this obvious truth was pretty fully acknowledged, and even to some small extent respected, because monasteries were suppressed by a strong, long-established government. In France their suppression took place amidst anarchy, when every voice is overpowered but that of selfish and ambitious indigence. Nothing, therefore, was to be expected but the complete abstraction of their funds from public purposes. This was undoubtedly neither just nor politic; but it was far more excusable than the confiscation of those endowments which had provided France with a sufficient body of secular clergy. The influence of such an establishment might render many services to the country of which it urgently stands in need, in addition to those of a character exclusively spiritual. But when the clerical profession is both depressed in circumstances and insufficient in numbers, it has little prospect of commanding general notice from a proud, busy, crowded, and irreligious world.

The United States of America may seem to offer an example unfavourable to this conclusion. In them not only does religion generally prevail, but also episcopal protestantism has recently advanced in a remarkable degree. This last, however, has chiefly gained ground among the wealthier and more intelligent classes of a people habitually religious. The great mass yet lies

under its old liability to the fluctuating influences of various discordant sects, all contending eagerly for popularity; and many parts of the country appear to be very insufficiently supplied with religious instruction and consolations of any kind. More experience and information are, therefore, needed, before conclusions can be safely drawn from the American case. But matters have gone far enough to show the value of a system that will bear sufficient examination. The church's increasing popularity among a people extensively nurtured in prejudice against it, is a testimony to the soundness of their national religion, upon which Englishmen may think with honest pride, and which may eventually receive due attention from inquirers after truth in other nations.

To religious inquiries the public mind has been, for several years, everywhere attentively directed. Lewis Philip's last years upon the throne of France were disturbed by contests to keep the clergy from an efficient controul over the universities. At the same time acrimonious debates arose upon the Jesuits, and that order was ultimately obliged to break up its establishments in the French territory. A like fate overtook it in all other parts of the Continent, and its dispersion has now been regularly decreed by the pope. Under these calamities, Loyola's followers have extensively taken refuge in England; where the provisions against them particularly, and monastic bodies generally, made in the Roman Catholic Relief Act, have been allowed to sink into a dead letter. Little as the operations of their order, well-directed and subtle as they are, need be dreaded in a country full of Bibles, evangelised by an enlightened clergy, occupied by a thoughtful well-informed population, and open to free discussion, yet it is obvious that a large importation of Jesuits can scarcely fail of having some effect, even upon England. A field for the operations of such a body may, indeed, be almost always found among the wildernesses of human nature. It is little more than five years ago, since Rhenish Germany saw set in motion the very feelings that made Crusaders in a former age. A million of persons, at least, could then be found capable of pouring into

From

Treves to see and venerate the seamless coat of Christ. this amazing revival of a spirit, which Europe flattered herself had long been all but extinct, has arisen a new call for reformation in the papal church. England would want a century of superstitious ignorance, before she could produce another Treves. But religious questions have not wholly escaped, within her bosom, the influences that lately fired a million brains with visions of the holy coat. Among her junior clergy, many have imbibed a leaning towards the church of Rome. Their intention was to go no further than Laud and the non-jurors went. this length held out obvious warnings. failed of rooting itself in England, but both for himself and his royal master. ciples have not, however, stopped within the bounds that contented Laud. They have actually apostatised from a scriptural faith. Their real, though not nominal leader, did so, in October, 1845. Nor has this tendency of giving man's traditions any opening for casting a shadow over God's undoubted word, been only shown by one of the most conspicuous examples that could be given of it. Others have followed their leader from the rock of truth to the quicksands of tradition.

Even Laud's divinity not only also prepared a scaffold Some of its modern dis

When we consider, besides these matters of domestic interest, the recent suppression of monasteries in the great western peninsula of Europe, the flight of the pope from Rome, and a general state of continental politics unfavourable to Romish principles, it is obvious that a competent knowledge of ecclesiastical history becomes indispensable for individuals in the more intellectual classes. Divinity, like politics, can never be understood without history. Human authority requires light and correction from a consideration of the party's own circumstances, and of contemporary transactions. For supplying these helps, in a sufficient and trustworthy manner, probably, no work, of the same size, equals Mosheim's Institutes; and, it is hoped, that a careful reader of them will augur from the past favourably for the future. He certainly may trace a progress, slow, perhaps, but constant, towards religious improvement. Even retrograde

movements have been often ultimately seen to have this tendency. They have given that temporary prominence to some lurking evil that was required for its eventual extirpation. If any thing, therefore, seem unfavourable to the cause of truth, it may reasonably be viewed as one of those providential dispensations which are necessary for perfecting the religious knowledge of mankind.

STAPLEFORD TAWNEY,
February 9. 1850.

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This largely attributed to unworthy artifices of the Jesuits

They accused of blending paganism with Christianity

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