PROTESTANT MAGAZINE, MARCH 1, 1862.

refusal of the French Emperor to allow the Bishops of France to repair to Rome at Pentecost, according to the Sovereign Pontiff's invitation; and the Resolution unanimously adopted by the Right Rev. Bishop of Ardagh and the Catholic clergy of Longford, and made public by them, to the effect that Colonel White's acceptance of office under a Government so indifferent to the wants and so hostile to the interests of Ireland, is a betrayal of his constituency; that he has thereby forfeited their support, and that they are prepared to receive the address, and to canvass the merits, of any honest and independent gentleman who will offer himself. is more than we dared to hope; for it shows how deep and general This is, indeed, encouraging; this the feeling has become within the last two years, which, when first expressed, had to encounter such a storm of prejudice. When we wrote, a fortnight ago, on the acceptance of the Treasury Lordship by Colonel White, and hoped that his re-election would be opposed, and showed that he might easily be beaten, fancy took no higher flight than the calculation that if in 1857 Colonel White polled 1,561 votes, Colonel Greville, 1,197, and Captain Forbes, 722, there could be no doubt that even in Longford the number and influence of those Catholics who have renounced Liberalism, and are anxious to redeem the Catholic constituencies of Ireland from the stigma of returning to Parliament supporters of Lord Palmerston, Earl Russell, and Mr. Gladstone, must be quite sufficient to transfer from the Liberal candidate to a Conservative candidate an amount of support that would ensure the defeat of the former.

"We felt very confident that the Right Rev. Bishop of Ardagh would not support Lord Palmerston's Lord of the Treasury; and, without a very decided exercise of Episcopal power on the behalf of the Whigs, in preventing the clergy from taking any part in the election, except as supporters of the Whigs, we know that a portion of the clergy would oppose a Whig. But in the diocese of Ardagh no such exercise of Episcopal power is thought of, and therefore if a candidate could be found we knew that a Whig must be beaten. how far within bounds were our modest speculations, is proved by the article which we print elsewhere from the Meath People,' and the But Resolutions of the clergy of Longford, presided over by the Right Rev. Bishop of Ardagh. That is a demonstration which has filled the Whig soul with dismay, and has gladdened every man values the honour of Ireland, and has hopes of the future of Ireland. who

"The only question now is, Will a candidate be found? he, and who? The Meeting at Longford, to decide on this point, will be held within an hour or two of the time at which we write, and we Where is shall await that decision."

From the "Times" of Monday, Feb. 24, it appears that a candidate has been found. "Our own Correspondent," writing from Dublin, Saturday evening, Feb. 22, says :

"The Roman Catholic clergy of the county Longford held an adjourned Meeting yesterday, with their Bishop again in the chair.

It was as exclusive as the former one, no layman being present. There was not a word said about the electors. From the proceedings which have been published it could not be inferred that the electors of the county had anything whatever to do with the return of a Member to the Imperial Parliament. It would appear to be altogether and exclusively the right and privilege of the parish priests of the county, represented on this occasion by eight of their number. They resolved, 'That Major Myles O'Reilly, Knockabbey, be adopted by this Meeting as the Independent candidate to contest the county at the coming election.' In a second Resolution they undertake, as a pledge of their earnestness, To bear him free of expense through the approaching contest.'

"Major O'Reilly is well known as the commander of the Irish volunteers who left their country to fight for the Pope. Considering the assumptions of the clerical gentlemen who have nominated him, they could not have a more appropriate candidate. Should he be returned to the Imperial Parliament, he will be as truly in the service of the Pope as when he was at the head of his volunteers in Italy. The Conservatives, who have been hoping to get into office by means of the Ultramontane Alliance, may see by this selection to what uses the priests would turn a connexion which the Protestants of this country regard as unnatural and unprincipled, and which the Irish. Conservative journals, with scarcely an exception, agree in denouncing. It is not known whether Major O'Reilly will respond to the call and go to the hustings. If he does, the contest will be very exciting. Of course no Protestant can vote for the Pope's Major. The issue will depend upon the extent to which the priests can command the Roman Catholic laity, and drive them to vote against their landlords and against the Government under which they enjoy advantages, rights, and privileges not surpassed in any country in the world."

THE POPE, THE FRENCH BISHOP, AND THE EMPEROR. THE "Tablet" of 22d February says:-"The two most important events of the week appear to us to be the refusal of the French Emperor to allow the Bishops of France to repair to Rome at Pentecost, according to the Sovereign Pontiff's invitation, and the resolution unanimously adopted by the Right Rev. Bishop of Ardagh and the clergy of Longford" with reference to the election about to take place for Longford. Having at some length dilated upon this latter subject, it thus proceeds :

"In thus magnifying the Longford Election, we are not forgetting the French Emperor, and his refusal to allow the French bishops to repair to Rome. But the fact is, that the step taken by the Bishop and clergy is the best and most efficient counter-move that could be made. For every new blow against the Church, let a Whig pay the penalty, and let us see which will be tired first, we, or the Whigs.

"The French Government has expressed the thought that the bishops ought not to quit their dioceses, or ask for any authorisation to quit the empire, except in the case of their being called to Rome by grave diocesan interests.' There is no doubt that this is one of the gravest acts of the reign of Napoleon III.

"We are not that Sovereign's advisers, and his interests are not dear to us. He sees his own hand and plays his own cards, and he ought to know better than a stranger how to make his own game.

"Yet we cannot refrain from speculating whether he has not now committed a blunder. He ought to be the best judge, but (quite independently of all considerations of religion, of justice, of decencywhich would be out of place in estimating his proceedings) we cannot see the policy of thus smiting the whole Episcopacy of France in the face, and throwing this fresh supply of fuel on the already fiercely burning flame of Catholic indignation.

:

"The organic articles of Germinal, year X., in the 20th article contain the following provision concerning the residence of bishops :They shall be bound to reside in their dioceses-they shall not be able to go out of them except with the permission of the first Consul.' "But think of a Government in the year 1862, and of a Government in France, which can assume to give or to withhold permission to a bishop to travel for a fortnight wherever he may like. That, however, is not the point; the important point is that the Emperor has deliberately chosen at this moment, by a public act, to call the whole world to witness that he wishes to spite, to insult, and to defy the Pope, the bishops, and the Church. He offers an insult, and he chooses the most contumelious way of doing it."

SUPERSTITION IN FRANCE.-ROMISH MIRACLES.

THE papers have recently given some very extraordinary disclosures with reference to alleged Romish miracles. Every sincere Protestant, and even, we believe, enlightened Roman Catholic must lament the sad delusions under which those labour who believe in such pretended miracles. Not only the poor peasant girl, but the Romish bishop, and many of the people of the neighbourhood where the alleged miracle is said to have taken place, are more or less the victims of delusion, a delusion fostered and favoured by the blinding influence and tendency of the Roman Catholic religion.

It is four years since the alleged miracle is said to have taken place. We should rather use the plural number and say miracles, for no less than eighteen times is the Virgin Mary said to have appeared to the child Bernadette, to have smiled, also, on one occasion, when holy water was thrown on her, and actually to have spoken.

The Bishop of Tarbes, in an elaborate pastoral, has expressed his belief in the miracles.

"We are informed," he writes, "that at one of the appearances one Sunday, in order to satisfy herself whether the mysterious being came from the Lord or not,' the young girl three times threw holy water on it, and received in return a look full of meekness and tenderness.''

We are at a loss to see how such a procedure can be taken as anything else but another instance of the delusion of the poor child.

But another miracle,-indeed a cluster of miracles, is at hand. Bernadette is told by the Virgin to return at the end of a fortnight, to wash herself, and drink of the fountain, and eat of some herb to be found there. Not seeing any water in the grotto, she was going towards the river, when the apparition called her and pointed to a spot of the grotto where water would be found. The child did as she was told. No water, however, was there. But on scratching the dry ground with her hand, water appeared which she drank, and ate a kind of cress which she found there.

She was then charged to tell the priest a chapel was to be built there, and daily for about a fortnight she saw the same apparition in the presence of an innumerable crowd, who, says the Bishop, "also went to the spot; but could neither see nor hear

anything.'

We expect they were far more sensible than the poor girl or the Bishop, who certainly would have been more justified in believing the actual existence of the apparition had he and they, who were all present at the second time, been conscious of the fact. Miracles which agree with evidence are credible; but who ever heard of believing a miracle contrary to evidence? There were not even the two or three witnesses by the mouth of whom a fact could be established; but, on the contrary, all those who were there saw nothing: they can merely say they saw nothing of a miracle, that they saw the girl Bernadette, who said she saw something, and that is just all, unless they should like to add, that they believed she really did see something, or that she thought she saw something.

On another occasion, Bernadette asked her who she was, and the "apparition" then raised her hands, crossed them on her breast, and, lifting up her eyes to heaven, said, with a smile, "I am the Immaculate Conception." It does not, however, appear that any one was present when this alleged dialogue took place. Melancholy and pitiable as the delusion is as far as these parties are concerned, it is still more melancholy to be told that thousands of pilgrims have ever since flocked to the miraculous grotto, the waters of which, the good Bishop assures the faithful, have wrought wonderful cures !

This alleged miracle appears one of the most puerile and flimsy of the many false miracles, to the power of producing which the Church of Rome so blasphemously lays claim.

Will not the more intelligent Roman Catholics feel ashamed of it? And how ought we as Protestants to rejoice in being free from the bewildering, benighting superstitions and soul-destroying influence of the Papal apostasy!

"The papers have of late been making merry at the expense of the Bishop of Tarbes, who, in an elaborate pastoral letter, has pronounced on the validity of a 'miracle' which took place four years ago at the grotto of Lourdes, in the neighbourhood of that town. A girl of fourteen, named Bernadette, deposed to having seen an apparition of the Virgin, not once or twice, but eighteen consecutive times, and the Right Rev. Prelate, after taking four years to think over the matter, comes to the conclusion that Bernadette was not an impostor, nor the victim of an hallucination, but that the Virgin had really appeared to her. The document in which the bishop expresses his convictions has just been published by the Journal des Débats, and one can really not be surprised at the annoyance of some sensible members of the Catholic clergy (such as Cardinal de Bruald, Archbishop of Lyons, for instance) at the publication of so extraordinary a document in the year 1862. I subjoin a few extracts; nothing so extravagant has appeared in print from a clerical pen since M. Veuillot's story of the Flying Friars,' who, by the mere force of their will, were lifted up beyond the region of clouds every morning, to enjoy, I presume, greater quiet for their pious meditations, and were gently let down again at supper-time. The extraordinary effusion I am about to lay before you is dated January 18, 1862. After a short introduction, Monseigneur Bertrand-Sevère holds forth as follows:

6

"At all periods of the human race, my well-beloved co-operators and my very dear brethren, miraculous communications have taken place between heaven and earth. At the beginning of the world the Lord appeared to our first parents to reproach them with the crime of their disobedience. In the following ages we see Him converse with the patriarchs and the prophets; and the Old Testament contains the history of the celestial apparitions with which the children of Israel were favoured.

"Those Divine favours were not to cease with the Mosaic law; on the contrary, they were destined, under the law of grace, to become both more numerous and more striking.

"From the birth of the Church, in those days of sanguinary persecution, Christians received the visits of Jesus Christ or of the angels, who came sometimes to reveal to them the secrets of the future, at others to deliver them from their chains and to keep up their strength in the trials they had to go through. It was thus, according to the idea of a judicious writer, that God encouraged those illustrious confessors of the faith, when all the mighty of the land united their efforts to stifle in its bud the doctrine which was to save the world.

"These supernatural manifestations were not the exclusive privi