The Sun.
London, England, 1868-07-07 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON TUESDAY EVENING, JULY 7, 1868

GETTING INTO THE ARK.

" Recent Secessions and Corporate Re-
union," is the title of a pamphlet which has
just reached a third edition. We noticed it
at the time it made its first appearance as
being opportune, and as calling to a sense of
their real position, those Anglicans of the
Ritualistic school who bitterly and uncharitably
complain of those who have left their Com-
munion for that of the Catholic Church. The
pamphlet is written with great calmness, and
in a tone of extreme kindliness towards those
who are still in the deadly errors of the Angli-
can Church. Its principal object seems to be
to create a more gentle and amiable feeling
in those who are still Anglicans, towards those
who have abandoned Anglican error, and are
enjoying the light of Catholic truth. The
author hopes by his pamphlet "to abate the
spirit of rancour and animosity which has,
unfortunately, been gaining ground." He can-
not " conceal from himself the fact that a cla-
mour has arisen in many, of what we should
consider influential, quarters amongst Angli-
cans, calculated to give as quite a different idea
of the leaders of the Catholic movement to
that which we had entertained." He says
that it bas become the fashion to speak of
those who pass over to us as having " fallen,"
as having joined " an alien Church," become
" schismatics," while every pains is taken to
disparage their character, to represent their
step, as the result o f " discontent," "
impa-
tience," " weakness, " " want of faith,"
cowardice." Nay, more than this, " trea-
chery," " dishonesty," and other moral delin-
quencies, are freely imputed to them.
The author then goes on to make an apology
for those who have become Catholics. Has
the Anglican, he says, "a right to condemn
his brother because he has acted upon his con-
victions, and denounce him as if he had done
something exceedingly- weak or dishonour-
able! ?" The author thinks the Anglican does
I not possess this right. " Let us look for a
moment," he says, "at one or two points
where the divergence lies, and see whether
the seceder has not something to say for him-
self,—something in the shape of reasons which
may at least challenge fair inquiry." The
writer then proceeds to point out the princi-
ples on which the Anglican remains a Pro-
testant, and then to give those on which the
seceder has become a Catholic. After giving
about seven reasons on one side, and seven on
the other, he concludes this part of his pam-
phlet by saying, " I am not instituting an
1 argument, but roughly sketching some of the
1 grounds upon which converts act, by way of
showing that they need not be considered
ener unreasonable or impatient, because they
Ihave seen fit to adopt a different course of
I action from their friends." In his anxiety to
keep the peace, and not disturb the tranquillity
of his Protestant friends, our author here
seems to us to have rather overstepped the
mark. How can he possibly say that he has
" not been instituting an argument ?" Surely,
it is to be hoped that the grounds on which
men leave the deadly errors of Anglicanism,
and become Catholics, are logical ? Surely,
to state those grounds is to institute an argu-
ment, and an argument, moreover, which is ab-
solutely conclusive? Possibly our author meant
that, though be had brought forward unan-
swerable arguments, his object was not so
much to appeal to them as proofs of the false-
hood of Protestantism, as to appeal to them as
reasons for holding a Catholic position. But,
if he did mean this, it seems to us it would
have been better distinctly to have said so.
We hope the author of the pamphlet will not
think us captious in making this remark.
He tells us that he has rea carefully the
WESTMINSTER GAZETTE, and has not observed
anything but the most respectful treatment
of the Ritualist party, and the most generous
estimate of their spirit and motives. We hope
that he will never find anything in our pages
to belie the truth of that criticism. We desire
most ardently to treat all men with respect,
and to give them credit for the very best
motives in their actions. But, we cannot
I altogether go the lengths of our amiable author.
It appears to us that justice and generosity
should never part company. We are generous
to individuals, but we must neither sacrifice
justice to our principles, nor to that position,
which those principles oblige us to maintain.
It is axiomatic with us, that " out of the
Church there is no salvation." The only plea
on which we can admit the salvation of any
man out of the Roman Catholic and Apostolic
Church, is the plea of invincible ignorance.
We are aware that these words sound harsh.
But whatever their sound may be, they are
fundamental. That is our position ! We can
occupy no other. We are right, and right in
everything, in faith, and in morality. Angli-
cans are all wrong, wherever they diverge
from us. We are in saving truth ; they are
in deadly error. How far the influence of in-
vincible ignorance extends—how far it excuses
_towhat an extent it goes in this country—
how far prejudice, education, the English
atmosphere encourage it—is, of course, a
matter of debate, and, to a certain extent, an
open question. But, the two grand facts—
that we are savingly right, and that Anglicans
are damnably wrong—are not questions that
are for one moment open. Now, we think
i that our author, in writing his pamphlet,
should have said this. He should have done
justice to his position, as well as have done
I generosity to his friends. We believe if he
1 had done this justice, the tone of his pam-
phlet would not have been less charitable
(God forbid O, but it would have been more
impregnated with the momentous truth, that
he was in the ark, and his friends were floun-
dering about in the flood. Supposing, for
instance, it had been possible for one of those
men, who had turned Noah into ridicule for
building the ark on dry land, to have got out
of the waters of the flood in which he was be-
ing engulphed, and to have found himself
safely stowed away in the ark with Noah and
his family ; and supposing that the rest of his
friends, who would not take the trouble to
follow him because they thought the rain would
' after a bit be over, cried out to each other, and
to him, that he got into the dry because he
was " discontented," " impatient," " weak,"
" wanted faith," and was " a coward ;" what
answer would that man make out of the win-
dow of the ark ? We should imagine he would
admit most willingly, that he had been not
simply "discontented," but excessively so ;
not impatient only, but perfectly restive ; not
wanting, in faith alone, but almost in despair ;
not a simple coward, but a coward of the
largest possible proportions. How ludicrous
it would seem, to be consulting the tastes of
those poor swimmers who were waiting for
the rain to give over, so far as to call oneself a
seceder from the watery grave ! and to meekly
suggest the possibility the one had " something
to say for oneself," and that getting out of
the fearful deluge into the safe, blessed ark,
had in its favour " something in the shape of
reasons which may at least challenge inquiry!"
Surely, this is carrying generosity to an ex-
treme ! Indeed, to speak frankly, it seems
to us most ungenerous, and a course of action
most unkind. Supposing the happy man we
just spoke of had so treated those who were
arguing that they would stay where they
were because the rain would soon be over,
and thus they would have a " corporate re-
union " as soon as the land appeared, and
it became sufficiently dry under foot. Suppos-
ing the man in the ark said in answer to
their clamours : - Now, my dear friends, treat
me generously and fairly. Don't call me
names; that never does any good. You think
that I have got out of the water in which
you are swimming so beautifully, to seek
" undisturbed repose " with Noah and his
family in this excellent ark ? Nothing of the
sort ! I have my reasons; you have yours.
You are in God's faith, so am I. Don't de-
nounce me as weak and dishonourable. I
assure you, though I am a seceder from a
watery grave, that " I have something to say
for myself—something in the shape of reasons,

which may at least challenge inquiry.
course, I am not using this as an argument
to induce you to get out of that nice bit of
water in which you are disporting yourselves,
but I am simply sketching some of the grounds
upon which I have acted, by way of showing
that I need not be considered either un-
reasonable or impatient, in having got out
of the chilling, deadly waters of this deluge,
and in having secured myself a safe position."
A man who could talk like this, under the
circumstances, would simply be acting an in-
human
part. How much more would he not
be guilty when it is a case, not of temporal,
but of eternal death and life ? Surely, gene-
rosity this could not be called, nor charity, nor
kindliness, nor love of souls. But, let us not
be mistaken. Our author, we are most fully
convinced, means to be most kind. Simply,
he does not realize as vividly as he should do,
the immense difference in the Catholic and the
Anglican position, and the doctrine of exclusive
salvation in the ark. We feel as kindly and
as generous towards Anglicans as we possibly
can do. But we feel also the fearful position
they are in We ascribe to them the best
motives ; far be it from us to judge them. But
we do juf,e, and we condemn too, their Ang-
licanism. Indeed, in proportion as we feel ten-
derly and generously towards them, in that
very same proportion do we try to make them
realize the fearful position they are in. We do
not feel inclined, we feel too serious, to be
bandying compliments and pretty faces with
a man who is standing on the edge of a preci-
pice—we would rouse him, shake him, frighten
him—throw him down, if by so doing we were
ftble to save his life. Our energy and zeal
would be in proportion to our love for his
safety. And as long as we could save him,
it would be a matter of utter indifference to
us, if he called us all the names in the New-
gate Calendar.—Westmintser Gazette.

FRANCE UNDER NAPOLEON M.

By the coup d'acit the Prince President
took upon himself the entire government of
the country. His decrees were absolute.
There was no power left to control his acts.
No King had ever exercised such complete
despotism over the nation. His first step was
to confirm the royal ordinances of Charles X.
in 1830. His decrees went much further than
these ordinances. They reduced the number of
representatives to 280. The liberty of the
press was abolished ; but the liberty which had
been given to the Church by the people in
1848 was preserved. France saw the neces-
sity of these decrees, they were accepted
without a murmur by the great majority of the
people. They were necessary for the•restora-
tion of order, and it was that ardent desire for
order which was the cause of the almost unani-
mous vote in favour of the Empire.
In the meantime, the Prince President had
done all in his power to restore confidence. No
sooner had his nomination as President of the
Republic for ten years at Notre Dame been
confirmed than he took up his residence
at the Tuileries. This first step was followed
by the creation of the Senate, to take the
place of the Chamber of Peers ; the members
were appointed by the President for life, and
to receive a salary of 30,000 francs. It was
to this Senate that the Prince President sent
a message to announce the contemplated re-
storation of the Empire. His friends were
loud in speaking of the glory of a Second
Empire; and, to stay the fares of those who
had not forgotten the disasters of the First
Empire, the President pronounced that famous
speech at Bordeaux known by the phrase,
" The Empire is peace." He next opened the
State prison to Abd-el-Kader, a captive at
Amboise, a measure which pleased the people.
It was in October, 1852, that he convoked the
Senate for November, to deliberate on a
change of Government, and propose a Senates
consultum for ratification by the people.
He, moreover, did his best to restore con-
fidence to commerce. The concessions of rail-
way companies were extended to ninety years'
leases which doubled at once the value of the
shares ; every industrial enterprisewas pro-
tected, and every kind of limited liability
company was allowed. The order of the day
was commercial liberty. It was by such means
the Empire was made popular ; everybody
could see his way to fortune, and the price of
labour was high in the market. The first
fault, however, of the Emperor, was to re-
establish that oath of allegiance which had
been abolished by the people in 1848. Ile
was the only person in France who, as Presi-
dent of the Republic, had made an oath to
keep up that Republic; he had therefore be-
trayed his trust almost in the same way as
the King of the Barricades in 1830. By
exacting such an oath from his servants, he
forced all men of independent minds, and who
had any respect for oaths, to retire again into
private life. In consequence, the Govern-
as no gentleman of unimpeached
ment fell again into the hands of schemers and
freethinkers,
character could accept a public office. Absence
of this sense of honour and virtue in the
erovernina circles, has been the principal
cause of so many revolutions in France since
1792. Men of integrity, who look upon any
kind of trespass against honour
as a stain, have
been constantly
kept out of office by their con-
science, and therefore France, from that period,
has not had an honest and religious councillor.
This explains why religion, which was de-
stroyed during the great Revolution, has,
though supported by a zealous and self-denying
clergy, made such little progress compared with
what might have been the case had the Govern-
ment, instead of thwarting, given its support
to religion. Each successive Government
has relied more upon the passions which were
evoked by the Revolution of 1792, than upon
the high principles of religion and virtue,
without which no Government can exist. The
Emperor, when he exacted an oath of alle-
giance from his servants, sowed the first seeds
of dissolution. It placed the destines of the
Second Empire in the hands of godless men,
intent only on the pursuit of their own selfish
aims. Almost immediately after the procla-
mation of the Empire, speculation and gam-
bling on the Bourse became the rage. What
collosal and scandalous fortunes were not made!
what extraordinary financial companies were
not brought out, with no other object than to
realize the premiums from the shares offered to
the public ! The most notorious of these com-
panies was the Credit Mobilier, which had the
greatest schemers of the day at its head. All
France was, as it were, at a premium. To
please the working classes and raise the price
of labour, one-half of Paris was ordered to be
pulled down to make room for those fine
Boulevards which dazzle the eye of every
foreigner who visits Paris. The Louvre was
finished ; no expense was considered too great;
and how different from those days of the Re-
storation, when an expense of 40,000 francs
was considered too much for the nation to
spend in decorating the ball-room of the Hotel
de Vile. The Emperor knew, however, that
France cannot be held long in slavery without
glory, and that is why the Empire cannot
exist without a war every three years. It was
this necessity that made the Emperor fall into
a second fault far more serious to France than
the first. The second fault was the con-
sequence of the first, which deprived the
country of those men who knew the genius of
the ancient Monarchy, which had made France
so great that no country in Europe dared go
to war without its permission. The Emperor
and his servants were ignorant of this poli-
tical genius. He had lived in exile amongst
the Carbonari in Italy and other conspirators
against public order ; he had spent his last
years in London, where he was obliged to
have recourse to Jews, to provide the
common necessaries of life. His name, how-
ever, was not forgotten in France, on account
of the glory of the Empire, though it bad
ended in the ruin of the country, and had
placed Paris in the hands of a foreign army.
But a generous people like the French are
easily influenced by a sentiment of pity. Those

who had been elevated to the rank of marshal,

prince, duke, count, baron, &c., by the first
Emperor, knew nothing of the real political
genius of their country ; their only object was
to keep their idol upon the throne. Hence,
against every rule which had up to that time
led the destinies of France, the Emperor
formed an alliance with her greatest enemy—

England, and consented to fend her army to
fight England's battles in the Crimea. The
French army became, as it were, -the servants
of Lord Palmerston. No eulogium was found
too great to puff up the vanity of the Emperor
in all the English newspapers ; public gratitude
went so far that he was carried in triumph
through the streets of London. The effect of
the Crimean war was to double the expendi-
ture ; and as the Russian war did not put a
stop to all the other extravagant expenses go-
ing on at the time, both the blood and the trea-
sure of France were squandered for the sake of
gaining a few years' popularity. This absolute
necessity of war to keep up the Empire, made
the Emperor seek an alliance with the people
of Italy. Had he not been as unfamiliar with
the genius of that country as he was with
that of France, he would have known that

Italy is a country which always betrays those
who go to its help. Italy was kept at peace
at the time by the Austrian army, and this
gave the pretext of attempting to found that
wonderful utopia of nationalities, which was
another proof of how littl3 the Emperor un-
derstood the political genius of France. But
it afforded the pretext of a second war, which
was what his personal interests required. Every
one now knows the result of the Italian war.
France has lost her old allies at Naples, Flo-

rence, Modena, and Parma; instead of those
faithful allies, she has created a kingdom of

discontented people, ruled by godless men,
and overrun by brigands, which has yet to
learn that nothing durable can be founded in
this world without religion • a kingdom of
_

ungrateful men, as hostile to Franco as they
are friendly towards Prussia and England.
The necessity of a war every three years,
as the only means to uphold the despotic
government of the Empire, did not end there.
The Emperor embarked with Spain and Eng-
land in a war against the Republic of Mexico.
Spain was glad to take a last revenge on a
country that had shaken off its yoke. Eng-
land bad but one aim, to protect her mer-
chants, and enable them to withdraw from the
capital of Mexico the large sums they had
collected in that city. Spain took the lead,
France and England kept each other company,
but it was noticed at the time how sparing
England was in both navy and army ; she did
not wish to increase the burthens of the in-
come tax. France, ou the contrary, lavished
her money, her army, and her navy, and the
Emperor had the presumption to establish a
Crown in Mexico, in the place of a Republic..
He did not see that he was running counter to
the political genius of the ancient monarchy
of France, and that he was, as it were, making
an ally of England instead of the United States,
the faithful ally of France ever since their War
of Independence. When Spain and England
saw the magnitude of the French armaments,
they were wise enough to withdraw from the
venture, and the Emperor remained to carry
on the war single-handed. His pride made him
believe that he could conquer a republic which,
during the last quarter of a century, had been
torn by civil war. He carried on the war
against the public opinion of France. Every
one foresaw the disgrace it would bring down
upon the nation. How the war ended is but
too well known : the Monarch was shot, and
the French army had to leave the country.
The public press was prohibited giving any
account of the disaster, and details could only
be learnt by conversing with the officers and
soldiers after their return. They explained
that the French at no time held any ground
except what they stood upon ; that the army
never left a town or village but it was occu-
pied the next moment by the republican army;
that when they came away they left many
prisoners in the hands of the Mexicans. This
shows how the public had been deceived by
the accounts publishediu the ilioniteur, and
what credit ought to be given in future to
the official paper. It is well here to notice
that, at the door of the Mairie of every village
in France, the Government has posted up the
Mortiteur des Communes,. intended for the in-
struction of the people. The Government ex-
plains its acts in its own way, and as no one
can contradict the official paper, public opinion
is formed by that means, and the people kept
in the most shameful ignorance. In the same
way as when the penal laws in England were
enacted against the Catholic religion the
greatest falsehoods were propagated, so now,
all over France, the same baneful expedients
are adopted by the Government to propagate
its views. It was by means of Government
placards, posted up in every village, that the
peasants were induced to subscribe to the
Mexican Loan ; unheard of lottery prizes were
offered, but those who advanced their money
have lost every farthing. The Mexican war,
therefore, only brought down disgrace on the
army, and ruin on the finances.
In the meantime, Prussia was able to attack
Austria by pleading the very utopian schemes
of nationalities put forward by the Emperor.
France was too much occupied with the Mexi-
can war to be able to interfere in that struggle,
which ended in Prussia forming a kingdom '
which threatens France on the Rhine, and
leaves her without a single ally in Europe.
Russia also took advantage of the prostration
of France to annihilate the Polish nationality,
by proscribing the Catholic religion in that
kingdom, and substituting the Russian for the
Polish language in all public schools.
Those who conducted the destinies of France
could not see the sad effects brought about by
changing the policy of the ancient Kings of
France. They were satisfied by obtaining
from Prussia the surrender of Luxemburg to
Holland, and a promise that the fortifications
of that town should be razed. To counteract
the sad mistakes the Emperor had made, his
advisers could see but one remedy—a general
war in Europe.
France for the first time felt her inability to
grapple with the formidable coalition which
the policy of the Empire had evoked. The
Government saw no other remedy but to place
France on the defensive, which explains the
late reforms introduced in the army. France
is no longer able to dictate her will, and has
fallen into the state of a kingdom of the second
order, requiring all her available strength for
the defence of her own frontiers. The disgrace
into which France has fallen is not yet seen
by the people ; they are kept by restrictive
press-laws in ignorance of their inferiority.
The simple people of France still believe the
falsehoods printed in the Government jour-
nals, and are unwilling to examine the ruin
both political and financial which hangs over
their heads, 111. Thiers, in the Legislative As-
sembly, tells them in vain that the country
has to bear an amount of taxes altogether out
of proportion with the resources of the coun-
try ; that the tax of blood falls too heavy on
the population by the new law of conscrip-
tion. Whether the eyes of the people will be
opened before the next general election is very
doubtful, as the Government servants are only
actuated, like the Emperor himself, by the
desire to prolong their tenure of office, and do
not consider the real interests and honour of
their country. If the people could be shown
the sad mistakes that have been made, they
would send to the next Assembly men of prin-
ciple and integrity—men who place the honour
of their country above the question of pay and
the idol called Louis Napoleon ; men who un-
derstand the policy of the ancient monarchy,
and who know that a country cannot prosper
single-handed and without an ally. They would
then do away with those paid servants kept in
slavery by an oath to keep up despotism, and
to approve of every measure however ruin-
ous to their country. But they cannot see the
consequence of breaking the treaties of 1815.
No doubt those treaties had been framed to
restrain France, but they had been modified
by the ancient monarchy which used them as