Year: 1871

review of the month, and it is from one OF
those reviews that we shall quote. In q
late number, on resuming this publication,
Mr.. De Pressense says:


'No words can describe the emotions feel in
taking up my pen again after an interval Of six
months. The comparison between the two epochs,
then and now, is so overwhelming that shrink
from yelling upon it. 1 am tempted to repeat
the celebrated antlthesis OF Bossuett "What a
state-and what state!" Before the war,-a
country rich, prosperous, confding in its own
strength and causing all Europe to contide in 1t
also; trusting even that it was about to secure
true liberty without passing through any violent
shocks. Now, it is France vanquished and dis
membered, after the most noisy and unheard-oi
display of its military strength. 1t is not enough
that it has been mucted at such a ransom price.
It's enemies have wrenched away from it part OF
its very heart and it will not be comforted, be-
cause its most cherished children have been taken
away.


! And yet this excessive misfortune, under which
we are crushed, is better than the state which
preceded and prepared the way for it for our
prosperity and our strength were nothing but a
false show and if the illusion had lasted longer
it would have infallibly ruined us, and ruined us
without remedy. The moral gangrene was daily
extending, and nothing but fire and knife could
arrest it. The shameful imperial regime was rot
ting the country to the very marrow. Il has been
our greatest misfortune well our greatest
fault, that we supported it so long. AS weak as
it perverse, in falling it stroye to drag down
France with it, accusing it and betraying it in
the presence Of its enemies, with snarling criti-
cism which is the climax of its dishonor."
T. IL 4t,,4
was unable at once to get rid of the virus
that had been injected into her veins by
the Napoleonic regime. The spirit of
Ceesarism, the spirit of authority which
pretends to save society by tyrannical acts
which pays no regard to right and lib
erty if it can only secure it's ends. This
spirit has been found rampant among the
demagogues, whom, while struggling
against Napoleonic or Prnssian imperial
ism, have had recourse to the same arbi-
trary policy These demagogues, who
! finally raised the standard of rebellion,
made trouble even during the siege, COM
promised or weakened the successful de-
fence of Paris aud put a damper in the
province on that patriotic order and aotiy-
! ity, which soon manifested itself after the
fall of Napoleon and which the gravest
political faults cannot make us forget.


1t is evident to the writer, who has
kept fully conversant with the events that
have transpired in France for the last
twenty-five years, that the great want of
that unfortunate country is pure Chris
tianity. AT present the people are either
given up to skepticism or superstition, the
truly and intelligently pious are lost in
the crowd. Add to that the twenty-five
years of imperial regime, during which
the nation had really nothing to do in its
government, and it is not to be wondered
that patriotism was at low ebb. Says
| De Pressense


The idea of country was veil nigh oblitera. -
ed in a great portion of our people Too often
the peasant buried it in his field, and the laborer
in the city only saw it dimly in his fellow work
men. The materialIsm which was gaining upon
us, both in theory and practice, has great sgnih-
cancy in this moral vacillation. The same tend
ency which shuts man up within the circle OF
terrestrial and faite things turning away his
thoughts from God and heaven, makes him a
prisoner in the little corner of this lower world
where he fluids at the same time his food and his
pleasure. Country is but general idea. 1t has
in it nothing tangible and sensible, like square
yard of ground or ones own home. Thus 1t is
that spiritualism begins. Shut out from a man
the higher the Divine world and by the same
act you shut him up in his cell, behind his hedge
and he is more likely TO ask to be restored again
to his Basle than to suffer and die for his coun-
try. Religion, Ill understood and transformed
into slavish devotion, produces the same eff
feet as doctrines avowedly materialistic,


For more than twenty years we have had
government which has only speculated upon the
lowest sentiments of human nature; a govern
ment which has allowed no chords to vbrate but
the chords of interest; which has kept its market
in every commune in France. Is it then surpris-
ing that great devotion is waning in the masses,
and that resistance has been only short-lved l
am not exaggerating. Icon end that, apart from
these defects, tie country hOnored itself in not
accepting such peace as was offered t) 1t after
Sedan that Paris covered itself with glory, dur
ing the siege, by its resistance and its suerings;
that the provincial armies did more than could
be expected of regiments neither drilled
ganized that Alsace gloriously sealed with its
blood the indssoluble compact which joins it to
France; and that, after all, there has been hero
ism enough in this unequal struggle to compen-
safe for those weaknesses which We are forced to
confess"


will leave the readers of this paper to
reflect over this view of France, intending
soon to give more light on the subject, to
help them to form correct view of q
country which is too often misrepresented
and unjustly judged.


WINTERING STOCK.-As the crop OF
hay is likely to be very short in this coun-
ty, if not generally, it becomes matter
of special interest to devise the ways and
means of carrying our stock through the
coming winter. Many have sowed south
ern corn-not less than eight hundred
bushels having been sold for that purpose
in this town. From my own and other
experiments, I am satisfied that eight
bushels of corn and one ton of hay are
fully equal to two tons of hay in winter
ing any kind of stock. So, also, one ton
of potatoes and one ton of hay are equal