The Sun.
London, England, 1867-09-03 00:00:00

ST. LEGER.

6 to 4 ng,t Hermit (t.:Oen and offered)
7 to 4 agst Achievement (taken and offered)
101 to 6 agst Vauban (taken)
20 to 1 agst Julius (taken)
25 to 1 agst Fervacques (taken)
50 to 1 agst Marksman (taken)
1000 to 10 agst D'Estournel (offered)
300 to 2 agst Taraban (offered)
5t02 on Hermit-1, 2, 3 (offered)
5t02 on Achievement-1, 2, 3 (taken)
50 to 20 agst Vauban-1, 2, 3 (taken)

DERBY'.
1000 to 35 agst Geant des "Wallies (taken)
1000 to 30 agst Glenderg (taken)
40 to 1 agst Uncas (taken)

JOHN STIRK
25, WELLINGTON-STREET, STRAND,
Executes Commissions on all the races to any amount.

Tho full market odds laid.
Prico list daily.

MR. GEO. WEBB executes commissions, by letter only,
at his residencD, 125, Queen's-crescent, Haverstock-hill ;
and has lists posted daily at the City Arches ; also through
his Agent, Mr. F. Butler, near Meux's Brewery. No con-
nection with any other person using the same name.

PROGRAMME OF WARWICK SEPTEMBER
MEETING.
WEDNESDAY.

The Grand Stand Plate (Handicap) of 100 sous, for all
ages. Three quarters of a mile.
Ago st lb
Volunteer a 9 5
Confederate ... 6 8 4
Indian Star ... 4 8 0
Skirmish 5 7 9
Overture ... a 7 7
Landlord ... 4 7 5
Opoponax ... 3 7 5
Kt. of St. Michael.. 4 7 0
Tremble ... 3 7 0

Ago st lb
Moonbeam ... 3 6 4
Brown Tommy ... 3 6 3
Marq. of Worcester 3 6 2
Python ... 3 6 2
The Earl ... 2 a 0
Cuckoo (in. 71b ex.) 2 6 0
Lady Lambton ... 3 G 0
Silenus ... 3 6 0
Second Hand ... 3 511
Dulcimer 5 5 10
•.. ... 3 5 9
Rod Riband ... 3 5 7

Veda ... ... 2 6 12
Buckfoot 6 6 10
Master Willie 3 6 8
Vixen 5 6 7
A Sweepstakes of 5 sovs ea&
olds 7st, three Bst 101 b ; fil
Three quarters of a mile.
Sarah 2 yrs, The Laird 2, Tho Parson 2, Summer's
Eve 2, Cuckoo 2, The Earl 2, Philosopher 2, Tumbler 3,
Tho Skipper 3.
Tho County Handicap of 10 sovs each, 2 ft (to the fund)

b, with 50 added, for two year
dies and geldings allowed 31'►,

THE "AVENIR" AND ITS WRITERS.

_.-..4P.---__ _.----

_
When, after the Revolution of 1830, the Avenir
was established, it encountered opposition on all
sides. The Legitimist party, the moderate Or-
leanists--known by the name of the Juste Milieu
party— the Republican infidels, and soon the
bishops of France, followed by a large body of
clergy, protested on different grounds against some
of the political doctrines and political measures
enforced and recommended by the new journal.
The very able articles, however, which it con-
tained iu defence of religion and of the rights of
the Church ; its valuable foreign correspondence ;
the boldness with which it denounced any encroach-
ments of the Government and its officials on the
rights of the Church ; the terror with which it in-
spired the enemies of religion in France awoke
admiration and sympathy in many quarters. In
Belgium and in Catholic Germany it excited the
liveliest interest ; and in France the young and
the inexperienced among Catholics—all who, in
fact, were little conversant with political matters,
and were unconnected with the Royalist families,
became enthusiastic admirers of the Avenir.*
The Abbe de la Mennais, brought up in the
political traditions of faithful Brittany, was, in the
early and flourishing period of his career, a distin-
guished ornament of the monarchical party of
France. At this. time he wrote those beautiful
essays on the anniversary of the execution of Louis
XVI., on the Holy Alliance, on the state of revolu-
tionary Spain—in which he roused the Government
and people of France to put down the anti-Chris-
tian Revolution in that country—and on Christian
Greece and her struggle for independence.t It
was, however, chiefly to moral subjects, such as
the observance of the Sunday, the religious re-
forms to be introduced into the State colleges, the
rights of the Church as opposed to certain preten-
sions of the Government, he devoted his especial
attention. A mind mathematical in its construc-
tion, and a character prone to exaggeration, ren-
dered him less eminent in the sphere of. politics
than in the regions of theology and philosophy.
Hence he never obtained over the Royalist party
the same influence as his illustrious friends, de
Maistre, de Ronald, and even de Chateaubriand.
Two prosecutions, instituted, by the administration
of M. de Villele (the most fatal mistake ever com-
mitted by the Royalist Ministry), one for an attack
on the University, the other for an attack on the
Gallic= Declaration of 1682, alienated him by de-
grees from the court and its defenders. Hence
the ultra-Royalist, who used to cry out, in the
Drayeau Blanc "Vive le Roi quand meme," began
in the last years of the Restoration to feel a latent
inclination towards the American institutions, that
at least secured the freedom of the Church, the
freedom of education, and the freedom of the

press.
As an anti-Gallican the Abbe had to combat
the opinions of many of his superiors in the hier-
archy ; and. this was in itself a perilous position
for a clergyman.' The bishops sometimes attacked
him in their pastorals ; and these assaults some-
times provoked on his part a certain exaggeration
of sentiment, and a certain acerbity of language,
wanting in the respect due to the princes of the
Church.s
Again, his philosophical system on the authority
of mankind in religious matters § excited great
differences of opinion ; and the great majority of
the French prelates were adverse to his views.
Yet a considerable number of the laity and of the
junior portion of the clergy were ranged on his
side.
Such was his position when the Revolution of
1830 broke out. The coup d'etat of 1830, pro-
voked by the aggressions of the Liberal party on
the rights of the Church, and by its menacing
attitude towards the Crown, was ill-advisedly con-
ceived and most clumsily executed. The Royalist
party, discouraged, divided, and (to use a military
phrase) demoralized by the Royal ordinances of
1828 against certain rights of the Church, did not
give to the new, extra-legal measures of Charles
X. that sympathy and support which, by moderat-
ing and applying them, might have rendered
them successful.

The Abb6 de la Mennais, always laudably Anxi-
ous to promote the freedom of the Church, thought
the July Revolution presented a favourable oppor-
tunity for emancipating her from the fetters im-
posed by the ancient Parliaments, the Republic,
and the Emperor Napoleon I. " This Revolution
has been so rapid," he wrote to a friend at this
time, "-that the people have not had time to do
mischief. The Church will be placed in a better
position; and the Royalists, who prefer religion to
royalty, will have no reason to be dissatisfied."

The Church of France which, since the com-
mencement of the century, had been growing in
moral and intellectual power, was now, indeed, to
pass through new trials, and gain new victories.
But the means proposed by the writer in question
for insuring those victories, and the consequent
moral regeneration of the French people, were not
more dangerous than impracticable. " The infinite
and the finite, the absolute and the relative, the
spiritual and the temporal," says the illustrious
GOrres, " run into each other in this world ; and
religion and civil society can never be absolutely
sundered." But the attempt to bring about even
a partial severance of. Church and State is most
destructive.

'The object and the principles of the Arenir
were recently set forth in these columns. 'We
will now say a few words of its principal writers. Of
its founder enough has been already said. We have
already seen that partly on personal, partly and
more especially on public grounds, the Abbe de la
Mennais, in the Acenir, abandoned his ancient
system of policy. His chief associates in the new
undertaking were the Abbe Gerbet, the Pere La-
cordaire, the Count de Montalembert, and M. de
Coax. The young Abbe Gerbet, afterwards pro-
moted to the See of Perpignan, was a dialectician
of the first order, and withal endowed with a bril-
liant imagination—qualities which he had even
then displayed in several admirable works. But
he had not turned much of his attention to poli-
tical science. II The Pere Lacordaire had just
given the world some tokens of those wondrous
powers of reasoning and eloquence, that were for
thirty years to enchain France to the chair of
truth, and to win countless souls to Christ. But
still young and inexperienced, with a character as
ardent and impetuous as that of de la Mennais,
though united with more tact and prudence, he
still retained, even after his conversion to Christia-
nity and his elevation to the priesthood, a strong
predilection for the political doctrines of the Con- ,
stituent Assembly in which he had been brought
up.ll- At this period, as was the case with most
of the writers in the Arenir, the Pere Lacor-
daire betrayed an ill-disguised leaning towards the
Republican form of government. And though, as

* The Pere Chocarne, in his new life of the Pere La-
cordaire, points out some of the services which the Avenir
rendered to religion.

In the Drapeau Blanc, 1823.
Even those prelates who did not hold the Gallic=
opinions disapproved, of course, of this language.
§ Though this philosophical system had beon pro-.
p.manded in 1820, yet, in 1824, Pope Leo XII. received the
author with open arms, wished to retain him at Rome,
took steps to promote him to the cardinalitial dignity,
and to the end of his life corresponded with him. Rome
OlerattA, but did not approve of the philosophical sys-
tem in question. It was only after the author's sad

secession from th_4 Church the Holy See pronounced a
c.,n4ure, On this philoAophy. It i 3 highly probable that,
r:11a.:11N1 tril;, ti religion, this system, at least in
his lifetim2,Jahl not have b3en cand3mn2d.

The syllabus to the Quant.l Curs was drawn up by
Mgr. (11,-,‘rbet. "A burned child dreads the fire." He had
in his youth a lively experience of the folly and dangers
of political Liberalism.
¶ Even in his mature years a find him, in 1848, pub-
licly controverting some statement of his friend, Count
d Montalembert, as too aristocratic, and designating him
the citoyen Montalembert—a title which even extreme
Liboralism was ashamed to revive. We find him as a.
deputy to the National Assembly, taking his place, not
like other ecclesiastics with the Party of Order, but—
probably with the view of winning them over to better
sentinvints—sitting beside Jacobins and Socialists. His
position was so false, that he soon tendered his resigna-
tion as deputy. These facts we state to show, that the
holy priest and the mighty preacher was not a sound prac-
tical politician.

was already well-known, and as the Pere Chocarne
has since shown, in his recent biography, the
illustrious preacher in his riper years entertained
sounder political views, and was a sincere partizan
of representative monarchy ; yet he never to the
end of his life seems to have appreciated the ulti-
mate bearing and tendency of political Liberalism,
or to have in general formed a clear, well-defined
system of politics. There are, however, in his
writings, admirable passages on the social blessings
of the Christian religion.

'When the Count de Montalembert joined the
writers of the Avenir, he was but on the eve of
his majority, and was, consequently, without any
political experience. By his great and precocious
talents, as well as by his excellent qualities of
heart, he was, however, worthy of being associated
with the eminent and zealous men who now con-
ducted the Avenir. There he gave an earnest of
those splendid talents that were afterwards to
rank him among the greatest orators that ever
adorned his country. Possessed of a clear, acute
understanding, enriched with various stores of
learning, and distinguished by a manly, severe
style of eloquence, he has, by his speeches and writ-
ings, rendered the greatest services to religion and
to his country. In the treatment of special
political questions, such as the freedom of educa-
tion, the freedom of the Church, the necessity
of the Pope's temporal power to the liberty of the
Church, and the like, he is singularly happy. But
he has given few proofs of profound, philosophic
statesmanship ; and, like his illustrious friend, the
much lamented Pere Lacordaire, he seems not to
discern how surely the doctrines of political Libe-
ralism lead to Radicalism and Jacobinism.

In the Avenir, M. de Coux first laid open those
Christian views of political economy, as original,
as profound, and which were afterwards destined
to shed lustre on his chair at Louvain. To general
politics he does not appear to have devoted much
attention.

Such was the distinguished body of young men
whom, in his new enterprize, the Abbe de la
Mennais had drawn around him.

The great leaders of the Monarchical party, with
whom he had been formerly connected, disap-
proved, it is needless to say, of the tone and ten-
dency of the new journal, and two of his ablest
disciples and personal friends, M. Berryer and
M. Laurentie, strongly condemned the course on
which he had entered. These were men deeply
versed in politics, and whose judgment was
entitled to great weight.
Thus we have characterized the doctrines, and
described the writers of the Avenir.

The warnings of the wise, as well as the judg-
ments of the French prelates, and the final decision
of the Holy See, were in a moment of calm and
candour confirmed by the Abbe de la Mennais
himself. He said on one occasion to his friends :
"It is, perhaps, as well that the Avenir has been
suppressed ; for, had it continued, there might,
perhaps, have been a conjunction between the
Catholics of France and the revolutionary party."
That such a remark was well founded, two facts
may serve to show. First, we find about a year
after the publication of the Encyclical, " Mirari
Vos," the Pere Lacordaire contending with the
Abbe de la Mennais,* that it was extremely impro-
bable that in their lifetime the Republican form
of Government should take root in Europe—a
circumstance which shows the close connection
between the principles of the Avenir and a Re-
publican, or (what would be the same in France
and other large countries) a Revolutionary Govern-
ment. The fact, too, that at this very time the
work entitled " Paroles d'un Croyant" was com-
posed proves that the Liberalism of the Avenir
contained the latent germ of the frightful Jacobin
doctrines professed in that book. Hence the Abbe
Gerbet in replying to his former friend and master
after his apostacy, writes that in the " Mirari
Vos " Pope Gregory XVI. had shown himself to
be a prophet as well as a teacher.— Westminster
Gazette.

* See his Letters to Madame Swetchine

THE THEORY OF MINORITIES AND MR.
MILL'S PRINCIPLES.

In all states of civilization and in all repre-
sentative systems, personal representation, Mr.
John Stuart Mill contends, would be a great im-
provement against class predominance. The per-
sonal representation of every voter, and therefore
the full representation of every minority is, he
argues, the most valuable of all protections. It
is the safeguard which is to be found in the
principles of democracy itself. It is not only the
beit safeguard, he adds, heaping up his argument,
but the surest and the most lasting, because it
combats the evils and dangers of false democracy
by means of the true, and because every democrat
who understands his own principles must see and
feel its strict and impartial justice.
On Mr. Mill's principle of personal representa-
tion, the right of minorities to be represented
cannot be disputed, for it is a step in that direction,
but from that principle also follows universal
suffrage, the admission of every " person "—a de-
signation which Mr. Mill invented in order to in-
clude women—to the franchise. He is consistent
and true to his principles in advocating the right
' of minorities, which is but an instalment of his
ideal of perfection—personal representation. And
this ideal of political perfection is, further, merely
thepolitical development of his philosophical creed
which recognises no supreme and ultimate authority
outside or beyond the mind of the individual.
I But how can they who arc opposed to the prin-
ciple of individualism in politics as well as in philo-
sophy support a theory—such as the right of mino-
rities—which creates a double will, a double con-
science, a double voice in an organic body, which
not only weakens the force, but destroys the col-
lective character, the unity of an organic whole ?
To ensure the due and full representation not of
persons but of classes, of communities, of interests,
let the constituencies be as numerous and as varied
in character as possible, but do not destroy their
organic character, their collective will, by introduc-
ing the right of individuals in the body to dissent
from the collective voice and vote, and by-a con-
trivance contrary to the analogy between human
and corporate nature, confer a double voice and
will on one organic body.
On what principle, if in an organic body mino-
rities are to be represented, can the theory of per-
sonal representation be rejected? Of two things
one :. either admit personal representation, or,
rejecting the representation of individuals— one or
many—keep to the representation of organic bodies,
of communities, of classes, in which the individual
will is represented in the collective will. How to
arrive at the knowledge of the collective will is a
matter of detail, of expediency ; the simplest and
the least artificial method is the wisest and the least
liable to error. But every method which tends to
weaken the organic unity of a constituency strikes
a blow at corporate representation, and leads by
a logical necessity towards the principle of personal
representation, towards individualism, which is the
characteristic and the bane, as we urged in these
columns a short time ago, of modern society. But
precisely because the right of minorities is a step
in the direction of personal representation, is a
consequence of individualism, is it supported by
Mr. Mill and the whole school of philosophical ra-
tionalists. " Without some plan of the kind " (the
right of minorities), says Mr. Mill, " it is impos
Bible to have a representative system really ade-
quate to the exigencies of modern society." Bet
what are the peculiar exigencies which Mr. Mill
alludes to ? Does modern society require to
be governed on new principles, or only by new
methods ? We are living in an age, as Mr. Mill
elsewhere says, in which, whether we will or not,
we are entering on new paths, we are surrounded
by circumstances wholly without example in history,
and the wonder would be if exigencies so new could
be dealt with in a completely satisfactory manner
by the old means.

We agree with Mr. Mill that we are surrounded
by circumstances wholly unexampled, that we must
consequently adapt our means to altered circum-
stances, and expand or modify institutions so as to
bring them into true harmony with the growing
wants, the widening knowledge, and keener synava-

thies of modern society. We are no inveterate op-
pone, its of change, no advocates or apologists of
wooden" politicians, whose unsympathetic natures
or ti morons minds shrink with ill-disguised aver-
sion from the recognition of popular wants and
aspirations. On the contrary, we rejoice in the
growth and development of the popular mind, on
its energetic will, and on the intelligent interest
which the 'working classes are displaying in the art
goverament. We rejoice in the quickening
process which is going on around us. Though the
quid ening process, like the travails of every new
birth , is a period of danger, it is also and still more
apa ciod of hope. We are not of those who would
add to the peril which society is undergoing by a
system of stern and unsympathetic repression, or
das)tthe new hope by ungenerous doubts and dismal
fombodings. We do not believe in the invariable
use of bit and bridle. There is nothing sacred in
mere means, however old or stereotyped. We
would discard them as readily as we would slacken
the bridle on the generous steed. We have con-
fidence in the future, although it is entering on
new paths. We are just as ready to alter the mere
means and methods of government, as we are in
our journeyings to exchange the stage coach for
the steam carriage, provided the end aimed at is
the one which God from the beginning has set up
for society, and that the guidance towards this
ultimate goal is entrusted to the direction of eternal
principles.

Whilst repudiating the sacredness of mere
methods of government--whilst rejecting with all
our strength the antiquated dread of popular go-
vernment, which puts faith only in a system of
stern repression—whilst abjuring the Toryism of
the Lord Ellenborough stamp, that does more than
the Radicalism of John Bright to set class against
class, and to dig a chasm between " good society"
and the people, we confess to a far higher abhor-
rence of that false Liberalism which foreswearing
all the old principles on which society is founded
and the eternal verities, of which they are the
deductions, rashly aims at re-creating all things
anew.

Principles never grow old ; their application only
varies under- varying conditions. Truth is com-
prehensive and elastic, and knows how to adjust
new claims and the growing needs of a young and
energetic society with eternal principles. This
inherent power of adaptability is what the Revo-
lutionists and the Rationalists—the Iconoclasts of
their generation--utterly fail to comprehend. Not
knowing how to adjust modern wants with ancient
principles, or how to reconcile, by bringing into
obedience, unto God, modern ideas with eternal
verities, our workers and thinkers, like modern
Iconoclasts, fall to breaking the image of Eternal
Truth in their own mind and, as far as their
Iconoclastic fury reaches, in the mind of the world.
It is because Mr. Mill is the apostle of this school,
whose influence under his successful guidance is
penetrating into the intellect of the country, that
we look upon him as the most dangerous enemy
—political, philosophical, and religious—of Chris-
tian society in England. He is for ever digging
trenches round the walls of the Christian edifice,
undermining its foundations, sounding its timbers,
driving the thin end of his rationalistic wedge
into its intellectual crevices. He aims at nothing
less than the total overthrow of Christian society,
and the construction of a new civilization on a new
basis. Instead of God man is to be the basis of
society; from him all things are to proceed upwards,
and to be referred back. Man is to be the monad
round which all things are to be agglomerated.
Outside man there is to be no objective truth, and
consequently no God. To construct such a society
is like placing the pyramid on its apex. Yet such
is the logical result of the principles of which Mr.
Mill is the new apostle. It is the new religion
which Mazzini is preaching in the pages of an Eng-
lish Quarterly.
One of the reasons, then, against the admission
of the principle of minorities into our constitution
is that it is the introduction into our political
system of a philosophical error which finds its
legitimate root in Mr. Mill's school of philosophy,
and ',which can only reach its ultimate political
development in the principle of personal represen-
tation and its complete triumph in the establish-
ment of rationalistic philosophy. That men who
do not hold with Mr. Mill's system have supported
the right of minorities in the hope, not of advanc-
ing one considerable step towards personal repre-
sentation, but of making the newly-created consti-
tuent bodies speak with stammering lips, divided
minds, and paralysed wills, is one of the anomalies
which will make the Session of 1867 for ever me-
morable in the annals of English history. —West-
minster Gazette.