The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-16 00:00:00

The Catholic Congress at Maline?.

A correspondent writes to a contemyorary :—" On my
returning from Malines, I find quoted in your journal—and
I understand that this is the case with nearly the whole
round of the London press—a passage from the Ihdepen-
dance Belye relating to the recent Ca holic Congress at.
Malines, which throws a good deal of light on the kind of
' independence' adopted by that journal. I find there stated
that at the call of the illustrious French preacher,the fete
Felix—who for the last 11 years has preached the
course of Lenten sermons before the eminently intellectual
audience which gather around the pulpit of Notre Dame de
Paris—' :he assembly (of islalines) replied by cries, a hun-
dred
times repeated, of " Viva Jesus Christ l'" One
might indeed have believed oneself at a banquet,' adds the
independent' scribe, 'at the moment when the health of
the host is proposed,' &o. On the whole, the call to hail
publicly the names of our Blessed Saviour, His Vicar on
Earth, and the Catholic Church, uttered by the first sacred
orator of France at the present time, is represented by the
Independence to have been responded to in such a way as
only fools or blackguards could do it. Now, sir, I was
present at the scene, and to me it seemed one of the
grandest I ever witnessed. I shall describe it
for the benefit of your readers. At the end of
one of his usual calm and clear discourses addressed
to the Congress in its hall of meeting, the Pare Felix, who
had been alluding to the insults infl;cted on our Saviour
by Itenan and other recent writers, called for a special
manifestation, on the part of the whole assembly, of its be-
lief and love with regard to the Divinity of Christ, His
Vicar, and His Church, and invited the assembly to repeat
after him the following acclamations, which ho first pro..
nouneed with outstretched hand, in a calm and firm tone of
voice, Viva Notre Signeur Jesus Christ, vrai Dieu et
vrai homme The whole of the 4,000 gentlemen present
in the hall at once stood up and stretched their right hands
like the speaker, and repeated in the same calm and earnest
manner, and in measured time, as it were, those 4,000 voices
speaking in unison, ' Viva Jesus Christ, Notre Seigneur,
vrai Dieu et vrai homme 1' In like manner were the other
two acclamations repeated, much after the manner in
which, from the earliest times, the members of the then
truly great Christian assemblies, which aro called the
councils and synods of the Church, repeat the Acclama-
tions' set down in the rituals for the conclusion of their
meetings. Far from appearing to my artistic appreciation
to bo the act of either fools or blackguards, the whole scene
seemed to me not only enacted by sensible and car nest men,
but as the grandest and most appropriate declaration of
faith, like the taking of the oath et allegiance by a whole
host; in flue, a kind of renewal of a Christian's baptismal

vows.
" I need hardly dwell after this on the way in which the
' independent' scribe speaks of my truly reverend friend,
Father Hermann, and the manner in which he makes out
that tho five pirates of the Fiowei y Land, executed at New-
gale in February last, were made up of ono Catholic and
three Protestants, All who have the happiness of knowing
Father Hermann, and M. Listz first of all, can testify to
his eminent talents as a musician and as a sacred orator,
just as they can attest to his constant humility, abnegation,
and religious fulfilment of his sacred vocation. It is no
credit to any one's judgment or honesty to speak of him
otherwise.

DRUNK FOR TWENTY YEARS.—Au inquest was
held on Wednesd,iy in Cannon-street, St. George's-in-the-
East, as to the death of Sarah Whalley, aged fifty-nine
years. From the evidence it appeared that the deceased had
been a desperate drunt'ard for no less than 20 years—it was
her huebancl's opinion that she had not once been properly
sober in all that time—and had died suddenly on Monday
morning. The medical testimony showed that all the organs
of deceased were in a shocking state of disease, from her
habits of drinking, and that death had immediately resulted
from disease of the heart. The jury returned a verdict in
accordance with the evidence.