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After reading Mr Arnold's essay we could appreciate all the better Bishop Ellicott's remark in the book already alluded to-to the effect that "there is a steady drift toward Socinianism, or what is euphemistically called a widening of the basis of the National Church."

We have a very decided antipathy to some of the tenets of the High Church party; but we are free to say that, on this question, we should vote with Pusey, and Liddon, and Moberley, and Trench, and Ellicott. With all their sacramentarianism we think that they are truer to Christianity than Jowett, than Stanley, than Maurice, than Kingsley, than Arnold.

National Degeneracy of France.

THE collapse of France in the late war has led one of her savants to investigate the proximate causes of the fatal degeneracy she then exhibited. M. Jolly, a distinguished member of the Academy of Medicine, has recently read a paper before that learned society, in which, with considerable show of reason, he attributes the powerlessness then evinced to the combined effect of Alcohol and Nicotine upon the national character. Tobacco, says Dr Jolly, although of only recent introduction, has gained upon its older rival. Imitativeness and "moral contagion" have done their work, until the use of this poison has penetrated everywhere, has enslaved the nation, caused personal and racial degeneracy, enervated the entire army, and made it slow to fight, and powerless in action. The use both of spirits and tobacco has frightfully increased, and human depravity could scarcely devise a worse compound than the mixture of brandy and tobacco, which is the latest liquid novelty patronised by Parisian sensualists. . We are accustomed to think of the Germans as great drinkers and smokers. In warfare, however, they are pitilessly severe against the crime of intoxication. The French consume more tobacco than any other nation. The cigar has become inseparable from almost every function of civil and military life. In this matter the proverbial French politeness is far behind that of England. On this side the Channel there are still certain places and seasons at which the most devoted slave of the pipe would not dream of smoking; but France has cast off all restraint. M. Jolly says, "She has found it simpler and easier to poison herself freely."

Tobacco costs Paris 500,000 francs a day-enough to find bread for two million people. The wild saturnalia of blood and destruction which has been held in Paris is, M. Jolly continues, only the natural result of the double intoxication of alcohol and nicotine. These two plagues have been more disastrous to fair France than war itself, and have contributed largely to the defeats of her armies. French soldiers, muddled and blinded by drink and tobacco, have fallen easy victims to the hardy Teutons. Wounded drunkards cannot be cured; all, or nearly all, die, whilst sober individuals with graver injuries readily recover.

Nervous diseases have multiplied. The increase in the number of lunatics Dr Jolly finds to be in definite proportion to the amount expended upon strong drink and tobacco. They are chiefly of the male sex, and especially of the military profession, i.e., that portion of the population most given to the use of stimulants and narcotics. Such are some of the striking facts contained in M. Jolly's paper. They are certainly worthy of careful attention. It is wisdom to profit from the

misfortunes of others by avoiding the errors which have caused them. Let the wreck piled on the French shore be a beacon to the English mariner. Let England to-day look to her own enormous and yearly increasing consumption of alcoholic liquors and tobacco, or, when too late, like France, with dissipation and degeneracy, she may find that she has sown the wind and reaped the whirlwind.

The Confessional.

THE following disclosures of the secrets of the Confessional are taken by the Rev. Dr M'Neile from a pamphlet written by a clergyman,-the Rev. L. J. Nolan,-who was once a Romish priest. Dr M'Neile says of Mr Nolan,

"He was converted to the faith of the Gospel, and addressed several pamphlets to his Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen. He challenged inquiry, but no priest responded. He lived several years after his publication, but is now dead. His third pamphlet, published in Dublin, in 1838, at pp. 23-25, contains this statement:- But, my friends, the most awful of all considerations is this, that through the confessional I had been frequently apprised of intended assassinations and most diabolical conspiracies, and still I dared not give the slightest intimation to the marked-out victims of slaughter. But, though my heart now trembles at my recollection of the murderous acts, still my duty obliges me to proceed, and enumerate one or two instances of the cases alluded to.

'The first is the case of a person who was barbarously murdered, and with whose intended assassination I became acquainted at confession. One of the five conspirators (all of whom were sworn to commit the horrid deed), broached to me the bloody conspiracy in the confessional. I implored him to desist from his intention, but alas! all advice was useless. No dissuasion could prevail, his determination was fixed, and his only reason for having disclosed the awful machinations to his confessor seemed to have originated from a hope that his wicked design would be hallowed by previous acknowledgment of it to a priest. Awful to relate! yes awful! and the hand that now pens it shudders at the record it makes; a poor inoffensive man, the victim of slaughter, died a most cruel death by the hands of ruthless assassins. Oh! my dear Protestant countrymen, you will now naturally ask, whether am I or the perpetrators of the bloody deed most to be censured-I, who knew the murderers and the murdered previous to the act, I, who had met the intended victim of slaughter in the public streets but a short time antecedent to his death?

"I must now proceed to the recital of another case.

"It is that of a female administering poison to her parent. Her first attempt at parricide proved ineffectual, owing to an immediate retching that seized the man after taking the draught. The perpetrator of this foul deed came to confession and acknowledged her guilt; but circumstances proved that she only sought for priestly absolution to ease her mind and prepare her for a speedy repetition of the heinous crime. Again she attempted the act, and it proved successful. I was called on to attend the dying parent. The unnatural throes and convulsive agonies of the unfortunate man convinced me that the disease was of no ordinary nature. The previous confession of his daughter, who at the time made her appearance, rushed upon my mind, and suggested that VOL. XXIV.

the parent was a second time poisoned. From what I had known in the confessional, I could not even hint at the propriety of sending for medical assistance, for the Romish doctrine impressed inviolable secrecy on my lips, and prevented my giving the slightest intimation of the malady, whilst the poor parent, unconscious of the cause of his death, died in the most excruciating agonies. Oh, monstrous system of confession! Oh! thou iniquitous tribunal! Thou cloaker of crimes,thou abettor of wickedness-thou brutal murderer.'"

Bunsen's Blunders.

THE primitive Babylonian kingdom is declared in the tenth chapter of Genesis to have been Cushite. Baron Bunsen held that there were no Cushites out of Africa, and that "an Asiatic Cush existed only in the imagination of Biblical interpreters, and was the child of their despair." But an analysis of the earliest documents recovered from Babylonia has shown that the primitive Babylonian people, that which raised the first structures whereof any tract remains in the country, and whose buildings had gone to ruin in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, was (at any rate to a large extent) Cushite, its vocabulary being "undoubtedly Cushite or Ethiopian," and presenting numerous analogies with those of the non-Semitic races of modern Abyssinia. Hence, modern historical science, in the person of one of its best representatives, M. Lenormant, commences now the history of the East with a "First Cushite Empire," which it regards as dominant in Babylonia for several centuries before the earliest Semitic Empire arose.-Rawlinson.

The Papacy and the War.

WHILE the Council sat, as, indeed, in the two previous years, the Pope never made a secret of his conviction that a great international conflict would be shortly kindled in central Europe. It would be a formidable ordeal, entailing intense suffering, but chastening the nations and restoring the moral balance of the world. It would do away with the religious and political abominations of the present period, and result in a Romanist revival of incomparable splendour and saving sanctity. It would be a thunderstorm gathered by the Almighty, and poured out upon the evil and the good to purify the atmosphere and dispel the poisonous vapours of rebellion and heresy. As often as in the course of the last few years peace seemed menaced, the Pope would refer to these prophecies, and speak of the coming crisis as imminent, while when the clouds broke and a moment's sunshine was accorded to the anxious multitude, he would shake his head, and sadly observe that there were breakers ahead, and that they could not hope to steer clear of them. Comparing the hints of the Papal organ with the personal opinions so often enunciated by the leading member of the Church, liberal Catholics easily arrived at the conclusion that the Ecumenical Council had been convened not without an eye to the political events of the day. Indispensable as it might appear to declare the Pope infallible, and raise him to the sphere of superhuman intelligence, it peeped out that the date for this deification had been chosen with a

shrewd appreciation of the doings of this terrestrial race. If the Pope believed war to be inevitable, and if his papers looked forward to it as a guarantee for the triumph of the ecclesiastical cause, that war, it was obvious, must be waged by Catholics against Protestants, and lead to the defeat of the latter. In other words, France, who was then earnestly endeavouring to gain Austria's support against Prussia, was, in the Pope's opinion, sure to take up arms as soon as possible, and might, with equal certainty, be expected to be the victor. Heretic Germany crushed, and absolutism consolidated at Paris by military success, the day would have arrived for the head of an irresponsible Church to proceed from theory to action, and recover the ancient ascendancy of his predecessors in office. . . . To be ready for this grand opportunity the Council was convened in the nick of time, and invested its originator with every authority calculated to strengthen his position and assist his claim to universal supremacy. These opinions are very general among that portion of the German Catholic clergy who at first opposed the Council, and are now anxiously waiting for an occasion which shall permit them to discard it.-Times' Berlin Correspondent.

Was St Peter Twenty-five Years, or ever, even for a Day, Bishop
of Rome?

SIR,-In the Times of to-day I see noticed a marvellous gathering of the so-called "Catholic Union," on Wednesday last, the 21st June. The object was the uniting of its members to send their congratulations to the Pope on occasion of his having on that day completed twentyfive years of his Pontificate, and so attained to "the years of St Peter," that is, of St Peter's supposed tenure of the Bishopric of Rome; its result being the transmission forthwith of the following telegram to the Pope :-" Catholica Britannorum Societas Beatissimo Patri sedem Petri tenenti, Quòd annos Petri vidisti pleno amore gratulamur."

I call the gathering marvellous, from consideration of the ill-suited relationship between the message sent and the parties sending. For, seeing that the members of the Union so assembled were not young children, or men notoriously weak in intellect, but men of grave years and a certain reputation in society, one might surely have expected that, before sending their congratulations to the Pope for having attained to the twenty-five years of St Peter's Roman episcopate, they would have taken care to ascertain that that tradition about St Peter is a demonstrated truth, and not, what it really is, a notorious myth and falsehood. Not so, however, with these gentlemen. It

sufficed them that it was a Roman tradition.

Allow me to trespass at some little length on your columns, in order to show that not only was not the apostle Peter twenty-five years Bishop of Rome, but that he was never its Bishop even for a single day. I feel urged to this not merely from general considerations of the importance of the subject, and the too common ignorance and want of inquiry about it among both clergy and laity of the Church of England; but more particularly from having observed in sundry recent publications how the Petrine question, as between Protestants and Romanists, is too often put and argued on another and a mistaken issue ; besides that, the evidence seems to me susceptible of being set forth

more exactly, strongly, and yet briefly, than I have seen it done elsewhere. By the mistaken issue spoken of, I mean that of representing as the point to be argued, the question whether or no St Peter was ever at Rome; not whether or no he was ever Bishop of Rome. So, for example, in sundry letters on the subject which appeared lately in the Times, with the heading, "St Peter at Rome;" so in the otherwise really valuable little book by Mr Maguire, bearing the title, “St Peter Non-Roman in his Mission, Ministry, and Martyrdom ;" and so again, mainly, in a review of that book in the last number of the Guardian. Whereas, could it be proved that the apostle had visited Rome twenty times, but not that he had ever been Bishop of Rome, the Roman Popes subsequently could never refer to him as the head of their line; and consequently, on their own principles, could have no right to ascribe to themselves, as his successor, the all but divine prerogatives which (quite inconsistently with themselves) they suppose Jesus Christ to have bestowed on Peter, distinctively from the other apostles, in the representative character of Rome's first Bishop, and so head of the Roman Episcopal or Papal line. Nay, were it even proveable (which however it is not) that it was Peter who first founded the Christian Church at Rome, this would not suffice for the Papal theory. We know from the Book of the Acts that he did instrumentally found the Church at Jerusalem. But what Romanist ever thinks on that account of calling St Peter the first Bishop of Jerusalem ?

In what follows it may be well for me to state first the SCRIPTURAL evidence, then the PATRISTIC, on the general question of St Peter's tenure at any time of the Roman Episcopate. After which a few words may be usefully added on the particular twenty-five years Petrine Episcopal theory; although, of course, the disproof, if made out, of the general will involve that of the particular. The public talk which there has long been among Romanists everywhere about this must make my notice of it very seasonable.

I. Preliminarily to my SCRIPTURAL evidence on the general question, let there be noted a few important dates from the Pauline chronology. They are dates approximately agreed on by the best New Testament chronologists; and for which full proof will be found subjoined to the Pauline chart in the Appendix to my Confirmation Lectures.

The dates to be attended to are the following :—A.D. 37, St. Paul's conversion;-A.D. 40 (as fixed by Gal. i. 18), his first subsequent visit to Jerusalem, to see Peter ;-A.D. 43-4, Peter's imprisonment at Jerusalem by Herod Agrippa, shortly before Herod's death in 44 ;—A.D. 50 (being in the course of the 14th year after Paul's conversion, as stated Gal. ii. 1), the Jerusalem Council;-A.D. 55-6, St. Paul's writing of his Epistle to the Romans ;-A.D. 59 or 60, Paul's arrival, and entrance on his two years' imprisonment at Rome; during which two years he wrote the Epistles to the Colossians, Philemon, Ephesians, Philippians ;A.D. 66, Paul's martyrdom at Rome.

This much premised, I ask,

1st, Is it credible that, if Peter had visited Rome, and there founded the Christian Church in the six years' interval between Herod Agrippa's death and the Jerusalem Council, as Bellarmine would have it, or indeed, if he had done so before Herod's death, in the three or four years' interval between that event and his previous first meeting with St Paul after his conversion at Jerusalem,-is it credible, I say, that in either case he would at that Council, when giving his views on the all-important question of the liability or non-liability of

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