The Press.
London, England, 1858-11-20 00:00:00

Notre Dame to O'CONNELL, is making now, as he
has made before, powerful efforts to obtain elbow-
room. lie does not like, neither did ROBES-
PIERRE, to be " coudoyit."
Our contemporaries, and with them many other
readers of the " D6bat sur l'lnde," are persuaded
that the author is seeking emancipation of the
intellect of the entire world, in order that opinion
may be free. We believe that he is struggling for
liberty for himself and his Order, with a view, not
to the emancipation, but to the conquest of the
rest of the race ; and therefore it is that we cannot
accept as implicitly as many of our countrymen
appear to have done the eulogies which this illus-
trious foreigner has lavished upon everything
English, from statesmen down to racehorses and
stable-boys. Why do we distrust these pleasant
things, and regard them as paraded under dis-
guise? Because they are familiar to us in other
shapes, and because we remember their application
to countries and to institutions entirely opposite
to our own in spirit and in action. Language
less fervent, less eloquent, but precisely analo-
gous in every other respect, was addressed in
1811 by the Father-General of the Jesuits—and it
must be borne in mind in judging of these things
that Rome is now absolutely under their govern-
ment—to Russia. Her Institutions, her Emperor,
and her People were eulogized as ours are now.
The Father-General asserted then the doctrine
that absolute devotion to the Sovereign was the
great principle to be inculcated in the education
of youth, just as M. DE MONTALEMBERT goes
now for the unlimited freedom of intellect and the
refreshment of the " bath of liberty." We have
not space to quote the original documents, but
our readers will find them in the pamphlet of
LEUTEROTII to which we alluded in our last
impression.
The Emperor of RusslA, an able and resolute
man, was not to be hoodwinked by this ingenious
flexibility. Ile perceived its true character, and
by his famous Ecclesiastical Constitution of 1817
retained for Poland, where the main strength of the
Papacy existed, no less than for Russia Proper,
an independent National Church, of which Him-
self was the Bead. lie saved by his decison
and perspicacity his Empire from political sub-
jection and spiritual absolutism. No doubt the
Papacy, as represented by the Jesuits at Rome
now, is the friend of education in one sense. It
desires to be its exclusive possessor and admi-
nistrator. Its object has ever been to get hold
of youth, and to keep youth in its schools, its
colleges, and its monastic institutions, till its
mind is moulded to the Papal model, and made
a fitting instrument for the advancement of Papal
policy. It would fill a book to give half the instances
which we have under our hand, but those of our
readers who may wish to examine into the subject
for themselves will find the materials for
conviction in the second volume of KRASLNSKI,
in the remarkable work of GRniFIELD, and in an
address delivered in later days by Father IGNA-
TIUS, once known as the Hon. and Rev. GEORGE
SPENCER, to the Roman Catholics of London-
derry. But why need we dwell upon events
which have become matters of history, when we
have under our eyes the forcible abduction of the
poor little boy MouvanA, and the scarcely less vio-
lent seizure of the children of the °WALLETS, of
which an account will be found in another portion
of our paper of to-day ? These, if we had no other
knowledge of their policy, are sufficient surely to
exhibit the view which the Papal Church enter-
tains of education and its progress. In their
hands alone and within their walls must be the