The Sun.
London, England, 1866-01-18 00:00:00

Father Hyacinthe at Notre Dame.

Father Hyacinthe has preached his sixth and
closing " conference " at Notre Dame (says the
Times' Paris correspondent), and to the last
moment the thousands who thronged to hear hiel
felt the same unbounded admiration as when
his genius first broke upon them. There has been
nothing like it since Lacordaire. Less declamatory,
less impassioned, less ambitious of rhetorical orna-
ment, and appealing less to the imagination than
the great Dominican, Father Hyacinthe surpass°
him as a dialectician ; and never was his power in
this way more manifest than in defending Chris"
tianity against Rationalism. In alluding to the.
preacher on a former occasion I spoke of him as 81
Dominican. It was an error ; Father Hyacinthe IS 3
member of the order of Barefooted Carmelites, Car"
mes De'ehausse's, the reformed branch of the original
Carmelites, named from Mount Carmel, and wile
claim their descent from Elijah. Like his prede"
censor in the same pulpit, Father Hyacinthe---'
whose name in the world was Loison, and whose
brother, the Abbe Loison, is now one of the vicar
of the Church of St. Clotilde, in Paris—is remark-
able for his liberal opinions in political and his tole"
ranee in religious matters. But his liberalism'
though not less sincere than Lacordaire's, is better
regulated. The first sermons of the Dominican va.re
most discursive. He treated all the topics that tuoeb
interested and agitated the generation of 1834'
nationalities, liberty, politics, industry, railroads/
and Napoleon. The novelty of his style, the splay,
dour of his diction, the hardihood of his ideas, and
the recollection of the fierce struggles he had been
just engaged in together with Lamennais—allre'
sponded to the fermentation which pervaded society
at the time, and captivated those who heard Wel'
He was, however, then a member of the secular
clergy ; for it was some years later when he first
appeared in thepulpit of Notre-Dame with hiishaval
crown and arrayed in the white robe of the order.

His political opinions had been Republican, with
perhaps some tendency to Socialism, and he never
entirely forgot them. The sermon he preached at
St. Roch in 1853, and the discussion to which hiEi
marked political allusions gave rise, occasioned Ili°
forced retirement from the pulpit.
In the sermons, or " conferences," which he ha°
just concluded, and which attracted day after day s°
many thousands, Father Hyacinthe did not indeed
show any fear of touching the perilous topic Of
politics, but he mainly applied himself to combat-
ing the notion that morality subsists and suffice
independent of religion. His language was correct
and chaste, and though he avoided meretricious or
namenti there were occasionally bursts of elocution
which seemed to send a thrill among his hearers'
The crowd who went to listen to him could scarcely
find standing-room in the spacious cathedral, and It
was no uncommon thing for 20f. or even 40f. to be
paid to secure a seat. Among his most constant and
most attentive listeners was his mother, for whom
place was always reserved opposite the pulpit, and
the old lady, who sometimes seemed to forget that
the gifted orator was her own son, used to weep Or
joy and pride when she was reminded of it by the
congratulations of those who knew her.
As I have spoken of the liberal opinions of the
eloquent Carmelite, I cannot resist quoting one to
two passages in his last conference, in which he,
establishes the distinction between the temporal sou
spiritual authority of the Pope. He said—
"No one bows more lowly than Ido before that throne'
venerable on two accounts—its weakness and its grandeur'
—a throne invested with all the majesty of history, and
sceptre which is borne in the hands of an unarmed ola
man. No one bows more lowly than Ido before him, of
wishes for him longer and more glorious days. But 1 must
declare with theology,with the Popes, with Pius IX. hilly
self, that the throne is not a theocracy. God, long centn;
ries, and France have placed two crowns on the head;°'
the successor to St. Peter, who has united, but not eon:
founded, them together. Theocracy is the governmen"
exercised by a Prince instituted directly by God Or
that object. But the Prince who governs the Row°
States does not govern them precisely because be id
Pope ; and the Pope who governs our consciences doe°
not govern them precisely because he is a Prince. On tild
contrary, if by the decree of Providence these two croWn°
are laid together on his head, it is because it NV°
necessary—to use an expression which cannot be too often
repeated, though it be known to all—that those two Power!
should be united there in order to be better separated
everywhere else."

In another part of the same discourse Father
Hyacinthe adheres, in terms still more formal, t°
the principle of liberty of conscience, and repudiata
and stigmatises violence :
" There are abuses in the religious order as well as in
purely human affairs. . . . The horror which this corr°Po
tion of religious affairs excites in me will not force me t°
conceal it. For my part I have never understood the his"
tory of the Church in this point of view—to insult all the"
is outside it, and to glorify all that is within it. The Pei
allotted to the sword in the world, if it be sometimes— e°,
these are happy moments—to defend justice and weakness
oppressed in the Church, is never to inspire in people the
faith which they reject. To affirm that it is would be t°
repudiate the Gospel. itself ; it would be at once an set °,
folly and an odious crime. It would be an act of sigos'
folly, for the wise man should proportion the means to the
end, and this end is faith, conviction, and the free ao°-
lion of the mind and the heart. Do you desire and do Yen
believe that the sword can obtain such an object ? It is
madness, but it is also a crime, because if there be, nest "-
the majesty of God, a majesty which is inviolable, it is the
majesty of man's conscience."
What, perhaps, imparts additional force to the
liberal manifestation of the preacher is the solo°
approval of the Archbishop of Paris in an allocution
he pronounced after the close of these conferenceBl
and in which I find these words :

"I thank and I congratulate the preacher for the exA111:
pie he has shown here ; and even though that exaraPe.
may not be followed elsewhere, it, is well that words 15"
noble should be uttered in presence of an auditory such /1:
that which has attended the Conferences of Notre-Dag°.

tETON COLLEGE.—Yesterday the Christmas vat'
tion terminated with the return of the lower boys to ti;
school. To-day the fifth form will arrive, and the sixth
form will reach the college to-morrow, by which tituo
whole of the scholars will have reassembled.