A CATHOLIC JOURNAL DEVOTED TO RELIGION, EDUCATION, GENERAL LITERATURE, SCIENCE, No. 2.] &c., &c. [By Episcopal Authority, and under the Invocation of St. Vincent de Paul.] SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1852. THE CONVOCATION. [PRICE ONE PENNY. severed from the ancient trunk, but that it possesses the powers of duly revising its articles of belief, and, in a word, the internal capability of reforming those errors which they lament, and which they admit mar her beauty, and destroy her free action. In spite of the deadening influence of the unholy connexion which links the Church of England to the State, there are still to be found men among the Queen's ministers who sincerely sigh after liberty of conscience, and who would, if they could, infuse vitality into that religion which they It is not strange that earnest Anglicans conscientiously believe has been com- who perceive the downward tendency of missioned to teach the truth-to us who their Church, should sigh for the power of enjoy that liberty which they vainly seek, arresting her in her headlong career; but it and who clearly understand the anomalous is strange that they cannot perceive the imposition of the earnest and the pious within possibility of rescuing the self-doomed the parliamentary pale, it is a matter of corporation. Their predecessors basely surprise as well as regret, to see men, yielded up their rights to a power that clever and acute on all other subjects, anxiously pursuing a shadow which recedes as they advance, and which, under the present constitution of this half-clerical half-secular corporation, cannot by possibility be overtaken. never will restore them; indeed that cannot, without exercising an amount of selfsacrificing virtue that Potentates and Parliaments have never yet displayed to the world. The Monarch of England, by deed of gift, was made Supreme Ruler of the It is known, we presume, to the majority State Church. The power, the patronage, of our readers, that when the Monarch of the dignity thereby conferred, are attributes these realms issues writs for the assem- of British Royalty, of too important and too bling of a new Parliament, concurrent writs flattering a nature to be readily reare issued to the Archbishop of Canterbury linquished; and Queen Victoria, amiable and the Archbishop of York, directing them and mild, and womanly, though she is, to summon a Spiritual Parliament or a Con-understands her prerogative too well to vocation of the Clergy. This, we need sacrifice her own rights, and the claims of scarcely say, is done in imitation of the usages of the Church, in England, before she threw of her allegiance to the See of Peter, during the time she enjoyed freedom of action, before she renounced her dignity, natural rights, and high privileges, and placed them in the keeping of a layman, a female, an infant, as accident may determine. her successor to the cry of any section of that community which she graciously rules both as temporal Sovereign, and as chief Pontiff, so to speak of a Lady!! No, there can be no such thing as a Protestant Synod or a Protestant Convocation. We Catholics, despite all cavil, can, and will have ours-Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Ranters, Mormons, any sect, if they be so minded, may have theirs, but the Anglicans never!-for, such a deliberative and legislative assembly is totally incompatible with the Supremacy of the Crownbond-slaves to the State; the Prelates and Clergy of the Parliamentary Church are incapable of independent action, and must remain so till the Providence of God shall see fit to release them, and give them freedom by re-uniting them to their Imperial and Infallible Mother! Among those persons who are desirous to disenthral the Church and free her from the State millstone that hangs about her neck, the Bishop of Oxford and Exeter, in the province of Canterbury, and Archdeacon Wilberforce, in the province of York, stand pre-eminent. These men, with those whom they represent, seem resolved to make an effort to bring the question of the Convocation to a crisis, with a view of testing the vitality of the faith which they profess, and proving to the world that the Anglican In the Protestant Church, the summonEstablishment is not a rotten branching of convocation ever was, and hereafter to they will turn from her in sickness of soul, must continue to be, a mere sham; a per- and come it must when they shall see fect insult to the zeal and even common that Erastianism has eaten up the spiritusense of those members of the Anglican ality of "The Church of their baptism”sect who place the slightest value upon when there is nothing further to hope for, common sense, or desire in their public worship, to be guided by ritual or rubric. What can be more galling to pure and sensitive minds, than to be summoned to meet solemn conclave, ostensibly for holy purposes, and then, without performing any grave or spiritual act, save electing a speaker, But suppose for argument's sake that the to be rudely ordered about their business! ardent wish of the advocates of Convocation, Now this may be said to be the history of provincial and diocesan Synods should be the Protestant convocations in these coun- granted, would the Concession benefit their tries, since Protestantism was known; but Church as a teaching body, or might it tend it has been literally so since the 14th year of to elevate their own individual position, or the reign of George II, when all transactions give them increased influence among the of real business was withheld from that once people over whose spiritual interests they spiritual and important body. Yet so ab- have been ordained to watch? We doubt it surd are the ministers of the supreme head very much. Nay, from the unstable nature of the Anglican Church, and so tame are of the fabric, which it is their object to her bishops and parsons, that the farce of under-prop, we are convinced that the liberty issuing writs, and the pantomime of meet- they claim would be the fertile source of ing in St. Paul's, for Canterbury province, fresh disputes, renewed bickerings, interand in St. Peter's, or the Minster, at York, minable dissensions, and crying scandals, for that province, never cease to be per- which would still further split up the State formed, to the disgust of the nation, and Church into countless discordant factions, the deep chagrin of many unwilling actors. and make confusion more confused. Such Now we believe there is a very respectable, would, such must be the case. Why is and as regards numbers, no inconsiderable Because in an assembly of divines, where section of the Anglican ministers quite re-no centre of unity attracts, where no ac solved to get rid of this sickening sham, and knowledged authority exists, where every bring the question of the convocation to a man encased in the panoply of private decision. These men, we admit, are en-judgment, and armed with the dead letter titled to our respect, but we confess we ad- of the Bible, stands on a perfect level with mire their zeal more than their sound his neighbour, and ignores all control, all judgment. Would they reflect for a moment interference with his private opinion, they would readily see that no effort of theirs whether coming from primate or suffragan, can rescue them from the bondage under how could even an approach to unanimity which they groan. The state is perfect prevail? the thing is a natural as well as a master the Parliament will not relinquish moral impossibility. Let us see suppose its power, will not release the Church, will an Exeter and a Gorhama Wilberforce not denude the monarch of her highest pre-and a Cantuar, members of the same conrogative, nor permit Convocation to sit as a clave. Suppose that the vexatious question co-ordinate, anindependent, deliberative, and of Infant Baptism were again brought upon legislative assembly-in fact, as a fourth the tapis-and what an uproar should at power in the state. The thing is absurd. once be raised! In Convocation there could But should the advocates of Convocation be no authority, lay or clerical, to which all persist in their demands, what then? Why must bow there would be no Sir H. Jenner they must be refused, they will be scouted. Fust to explain the law, to rebuke disorderly And hence we anticipate- much trouble and zeal, and decide upon sacred mystery, or vexation of spirit through all the sections canonical dogma. There would be no into which the State Church is divided. Queen' in council to silence obstreperous But there will likely be another, and a very belligerents, and significantly hint (of the important result. These men that are pain of unfrocking) the necessity of a modest agitating for the re-establishment of Convo- submission to supremacy, which, by the act cation, and the freedom of Synodal action, of renunciation, then predecessors; had are earnest and single minded; they feel created, and which by their own supineness that the fatal connexion between the Church or cowardice themselves had maintained, and State, has degraded the former into a sustained, and even in late-dayși have so mere secular instrument in the hands of the meanly and outrageously landed as Engminister of the day, and in their simplicity, land's proudest privileged gou believe that could she be rescued from State If English Churchmen were wise, they thrall, she might yet be purified by a cere monial, rubrical, and doctrinal reform; and hence they hope, and hence they struggle, but when the disappointment shall come, - ་ would never ask either for Convocation or Synod-First, because it cannot be granted by the Crown, till the Crown in turn renounces that Supremacy so long confided to its keeping. Secondly, if these privileges to the Immaculate Mary ever Virgin-here were granted, the immediate breaking up is the article: of the State Church into countless frag MIRACLES IN FRANCE.—The Union de ments, would be the inevitable consequence. L'Quess publishes the following letter, ad No, no! there is not, there cannot be the dressed to it by M. Simillien, professor of slightest hope for spiritual regeneration in mathematies, at theol of Arts, Angers. the Anglican establishment. The very In your number the 15th ult., you anmen who are agitating for it have no faith nounce from a letter which I had sent you, in it Dr. Pusey, has no hope in its that some surprising facts had occurred on vitality, though by some fatal infatuation the holy mountain of La Salette, on the first he clings to the decomposing body. Arch of July, the eve of the fete of the visitation 10 send you the details. deacon Wilberforce is an accomplished of the virgin. Inoe religious establish scholar and a clear-headed man, yet, on A young pupil, १४ I this question, he evinces a simplicity that ment of the Visitation of Valence, who had is painful to his friends and admirers. It been for three months completely blind, is the belief of many very many who have from an attack of Gutta Serena, arrived at marked his course through life, that he is La Salette, on the 1st July, in company with capable of sacrificing much in the cause of some sisters of the community. The extruth; if so, and we think his upright treme fatigue which she had undergone, in nature gives strong evidence in favour of order to reach the summit of the mountain the opinion, why is it that past experience at the place, of the apparition, caused has not enlightened his mind, and showed some anxiety to be felt that she could him the futility, not to say the absurdity of not remain fasting until the conclusion attempting by soothing applications to cure of the Mass, which had not yet coma virulent uleer that eventually must come menced, and the Albe Sibilla, one of the to the knife? Why is it that the example missionaries of La Salette, was requested of his early friends has been lost upon him. to administer the S Sacrament to her before Must he not admit that in point of talent, the service began. She had scarcely reof natural gifts, of great acquirements, of ceived the sacred host, when impelled by eloquence, of purity, devotion, and all the a sudden inspiration, she raised her head, virtues a Newman, a Manning, (not to and exclaimed, "Ma bonne Mere Je vous speak of others) was quite his equal-was vois." She had, in fact, her eyes fixed on a quite as ardent at one time in the cause he statue of the vigin which she saw as clearly advocates as he can be now, and yet these as any one present. For more than an great men were driven from the hopeless hour she remained plunged in an ecstacy of task!were constrained by Divine Grace to gratitude and love, and afterwards retired mourn the fruitless labour, and accept the from the place without requiring the assistpeace of Christ, where alone that peace ance of those W who had accompanied her. may be found, Would that Archdeacon. At the same moment, a woman from Gap, Wilberforce and his co-labourers would, by nearly 60 years of age, who for the last an effort of common sense, remove the veil 19 years had not had the use of her right that obscures their mental vision, cease to arm, in consequence of a dislocation, sudpursue a phantom, and in the spirit of true denly felt it restored its original state, the once paralyzed humility, seek the light which has been and, swinging round t vouchsafed to thousands who once belonged limb, she exclaimed in a transport of joy to what they call "The Church of their and gratitude, And I also am cured." Α Baptism." Jnuoma yiotouleiter is enistas third cure, though not instantaneous, is not godtg poor sins berisi son on the less striking. Another woman known Toto MIRACLES IN FRANCE in the country for many years as being ong vidoir god, and odorbagy uns paralytic, could not ascend the mountain What a wonderful agency, either for good but with the greatest difficulty and with oncevilo is the press! There is only one the aid of crutches. On the first day of the other influence operating in mundane affairs Neauvaine, that of her arrival, she felt a that can be said to surpass it, and that one sensation as if life was coming into her legs which had been so long dead. This feeling is public opinion." Both have been of late went on increasing, and the last day of the maliciously directed against our holy faith, Neauvaine, after having received the commuand yet both are occasionally forced to pay nion, she went without any assistance to homage to the truths it inculcates, and the the Cross of the Assumption where she hung up her crutches. She also was cured." Virtues which adorn it. Behold, Reader! behold the Times announcing t 66 + Now, strange to say, the Times has given the above paragraph without note or comment without sneer or insult. We sin cerely wish that he would always pursue the same simple course of justice. My good Mother I see you. Society of St. Vincent of Paul. "Give me one who fixes his affections on God alone. A soul, who, wrapped in divine contemplation, finds nothing amiable but God, and rests in him in an ecstacy of delight without troubling himself about his neighbour. Then give me one who loves God with all his heart, and who, for love of Him, loves also his neighbour, though rude, though coarse, though imperfect, and who employs himself in his service and does all in his power to lend him to God. Which is to be preferred? TRANSLATION FROM THE PARIS Paris, April 8th, 1852. with favors, and called it the brightest gem in his episcopal crown-which he visits very often, and in its bag frequently empties his purse. Without doubt, the degree of prosperity at which we have so happily arrived, is due to the zeal which his Lordship has brought to bear in forwarding the interests of our Conference. Should a stranger arrive at Puy, furnished with a recommendation, marking him out as a religious man, immediately his Lordship persuades him to become a child of St. Vincent de Paul. saloons and furniture of the Palace are at our disposal. During a journey which his Grace took to the natal place of the blessed The of the tree under which the great Saint was wont sometimes to repose during his youth. Three other Conferences are established in this diocese, and are proceeding admirably. We extract also from the report of the general meeting of the Conference of Puy, held upon 21st December, 1851, the following passages, which appear were fitted to make us acquainted with the interior life of that Conference: Too poor, above all, too much encum-Vincent de Paul, he did not forget to bring bered with the poor to allow of the expense us a souvenir, which decorates our place which the printing of our annual report of meeting; it is a crucifix made of the wood would occasion, we are reduced in this respect to the necessity of remaining debtors, for the present, to a great number of conferences; it is a debt which the future may perhaps liquidate; meantime, we wish much that we had the means of transmitting to them the cordial thanks of their sister of Notre-Dame-du-Puy. We are too happy to receive similar communications, our zeal finds therein an aliment too precious to permit us to fail in the important and easy obligation. "In a little circle where several of the We prosper, Sir and dear brother-our members of the Conference meet, they play labors and our responsibilities are always at whist twice a week-the stakes were increasing, but our new brethren also aug-moderate, five centimes the counter, they ment incessantly our strength and our re- agreed to play one game out of two for the sources. Since the general assembly of benefit of the poor. Which was happier, 11th December, we have received sixteen the losers or the gainers? I could not inform active and eight honorary members, among you gentlemen, but it is certain that at the whom are one of the Grand Vicars, the Prefect, and the Receiver General; we have also been recruited by a number of young men, some of whom are possessed of an exemplary piety, and an indefatigable zeal, so that our meetings are more numerously I don't say the whole proceeds of your attended than they have ever been before. end of the reckoning, no one regretted his evening amusement, and the Conference was enabled at the end of winter, to lay by a sum of thirty francs. Now, what can hinder you from consecrating to the poor, amusements, but the fourth, or the fifth part of the profitable results. It is, of course, the mistress of the house, who, in such a case, becomes the treasurer of the poor, and the sum is handed over when it attains a satisfactory amount. Hitherto, the conference has had in the year but one general meeting, only one Mass and but one religious solemnity-the fété of our holy patron. Still further penetrated by the spirit of the Society, thanks to your unceasing counsels, better acIf we have not received this year either quainted with the duties prescribed by the straw, firewood. or potatoes; on the other rules and the circulars inserted in the hand, our wardrobe has been richly proManual, we have entered upon a new vided. We have received an enormous bale path. The fété of the 8th of December has of clothing in two parts, we know not from been celebrated this year by our members, whom, nor whence it has come. It was and followed by a general meeting. The brought to our clothes depot, at the house first Sunday of Lent has been similarly ob- of the good sisters of "La Mere Agnes," by served, and his Lordship, who has hitherto a servant who had received orders to keep continued to say Mass for us upon our fété secret the name of the pious donor. We are days, has had the consolation of beholding then quite ignorant of the name, but our poor united for the holy communion, a certain who have obtained by means of this rich number of our active members. offering warm pantaloons, have not forgotten I could not, without ingratitude, overlook to pray for their benefactor. And he who in this letter, the extreme benevolence of scrutinises the depths of consciences has his Lordship, the Bishop of Puy, towards wished to grant to the prayers of our unour Conference, who has overwhelmed it fortunate dependents, the direction which No they should take. And one day ere long, they call us. Do you now regret the to-morrow, perhaps, our co-operator, our un-pains you have taken, and the rep ugknown brother passing from time to eter-nance you have had to overcome? Certainly nity, may hear resounding these words of not, and to-morrow you will be with us, for our Redeemer: Come, you chosen of my a heart beats within your breast. Father, for I was naked and you clothed doubt you have not time to give us, but me, &c." your zeal will enable you to find sufficient; "Would you assist at a visit which one of we require but little for our work, and our active members is about to make at the you give so much to amusement. houses of the poor? Penetrate with us into Let us now enter this neighbouring street, one of the most narrow and ill-conditioned no less tortuous-no less narrow-no less streets of the town, into the Rue Granou-infected. Let us stop at No. 34, we must illes; let us ascend the narrow stair which again mount to the third story; but, here leads to the third story; we enter a room, the staircase is so dark, that we must grope cold and unfurnished, whose dilapidated our way, and in a manner count the numstate makes the heart ache; whose heavy ber of steps. We are now at the top, in a and vitiated air oppresses, and whose offen-corridor, still darker than the stairs, let us sive odour repels us. You hesitate, but we look for the door, it should be upon our must enter nevertheless. Beside a window left, here it is without doubt, but I enall disjointed, the greater part of whose deavour in vain to open it. The poor old panes has been replaced by paper, we per-woman whom we have come to visit, has ceive a human form bent upon itself; let probably gone out; we must return ere us advance. The poor man has heard us- long, otherwise hunger would anticipate us. he salutes us by a look, for he cannot rise For the present, let us descend as well as from his chair; we must sit down besides we can. Fortunately a neighbour as poor as him, although you may feel some repug- our protégé has heard us, she is about to nance; we must sit down, for we do not light her lamp in order to assist us in come here to administer nourishment to the recovering our way. If you return later, body only. His wife, almost blind, is just you will find, in a chamber four metres now at the Hotel Dieu, his child is at school; square, warmed by a little fire, a woman, as for him, he is busy, he mends old shoes; 70 years old, bent upon the floor. Her and this occupation sometimes brings him inflamed and weak eyes scarcely permit her in forty sous by the week. If we demand to work; others in her condition would of him why he does not open his window confine themselves to begging, and they occasionally, he replies to us that the cold would beg with success, for she is well gives him a shivering that impedes his stricken with years and infirmities, and labour, and he cannot make a fire. For be- well fitted to excite the pity of the passer sides being unprovided with wood, he is by. If you sit down beside her upon the unable to walk from his chair to the fire- only bad chair which constitues her furniplace of his miserable hovel, and do not ask ture, it is not, however, of her own misof him to work convenient to the hearth, fortunes that she will speak to you, she will till lighted up by means of the order for not occupy you with the low price of lace firewood which you are about to give him; work, she will tell you of her fears respectyou see clearly that he cannot remain there ing the fate of a son, who is at this moment on account of the darkness. He has not in Africa, This is her only sound-her always been in this state of destitution; he constant occupation. She will demand of had another trade which sickness prevented you, news from Algeira; she will endeavour him from continuing, and rather than beg to read in your eyes, whether her son upon the highway, he learnt the business of incurs any danger, and will immediately a cobbler. He has not the strength requi- commence to sob if you hesitate to reply to site to tighten sufficiently the strap which her. Through what anguish, has the heart fastens upon his knee the article he works of this mother already passed! Enrolled in at, he is obliged to press against his breast the 3rd battallion of Chasseurs á piéd, the the shoe which he is repairing: that is why soldier in question, took part in the exwe found him bent forward upon himself. pedition to Italy, and after having freed the He must feel dull thus alone in his hovel; capital of the Christian world from barand he must moveover be fatigued very barians, he left, to expose his life in the quickly. "Then I take my rosary," said mountains of Kabylia. He is, however, the he, "and say a decade, and next, I turn to eldest son of the widow, and the sole my work." suppost of an infirm mother, he was so at Do you feel, gentlemen, the full extent of the moment of departure, although his this misery? Do you perceive how much father lived until a few days before that despair would exist in this human heart, event; his father was accidently killed but for the heavenly consolations of prayer? during the time which intervened between And for whom this prayer, so acceptable the revision and the departure of the to God? For the kind visitor-for the conscript, gentlemen of St. Vincent de Paul, as Ah! if you could shorten, by some |