the cardinal prefect of the propaganda has issued a brief, stating that "the Holy Father, in virtue of his prerogative of universal pastor, to whom in a special manner belongs the care of all the churches," has commanded him to exhort all patriarchs, primates, archbishops, and bishops, and all the faithful, that "acting in the spirit and under the influence of that holy Catholic faith which they prize so highly and love so ardently, they would assist the right reverend the bishop of Paneas-a missionary full of self-devotedness, and of zeal for the diffusion of religion, with such pious alms and offerings as will enable them to transplant the faith of Christ into those distant regions."

FRANCE.-The Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. The Doctrine of Development.-The Encyclic of Pius IX., on the subject of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin', has already been responded to by a number of the French Bishops in their mandements. In order to convey to our readers an idea of the tone in which the subject is treated in France, we shall transcribe a passage or two from an article contained in the Ami de la Religion, from the pen of the Jesuit Ravignan.

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Mary is, next to God, the most august and the most touching object of the faith and piety of Christians. One of the most glorious privileges of that faith, that to which the heart seems disposed to give the preference over every other privilege, is, albeit certain in the eyes of the Catholic populations, still placed in a kind of secondary rank, not sharing the infallible dignity of the revealed and defined doctrines of the faith. This privilege is celebrated and believed in throughout the whole world; it now awaits a solemn definition; and all the wishes of the pastors and the flocks call for that definition. The divine and sovereign sanction stamped upon the belief in the Immaculate Conception of Mary by the hand of the successor of Peter, would be the crowning achievement of the gravest labours of sacred science, an abundant fountain of joy opened to Christian souls in these days of sadness and of horror; an additional act of homage rendered to heaven by the earth; a further tribute of praise to the honour of the Mother of God, the spotless Virgin. We ask for it, we sue for it, we hope for it; and our Fathers in the faith, the bishops, convey the eloquent and lively expression of their thoughts on this subject to the very heart of the exiled Pontiff."

After this burst of rhetoric Father Ravignan proceeds to examine the question, whether the promulgation of a new article of the faith be admissible; a question which he answers in the affirmative, upon the strength of the following fundamental principles of his Church.

"The Church has received from her Divine Founder the power of defining and fixing for ever, by a sovereign and infallible sanction, the dogmas of the faith, the revealed verities.

"Of this authority of definition there cannot be a shadow of doubt in the mind of any one who bears a Catholic heart in his bosom.

i See the Intelligence in our last number, pp. 238-241 of the present volume.

"But it is no less indisputable that this Divine power to define the faith is subject, from its very institution and its infallible nature, to no limits either of time or doctrine.

"The Christian ages have broken in upon the world like a perpetual day without night and without cloud, which infallibility will illuminate to the last. No intermission, no eclipse is perceivable here; this sun of truth, once risen, knows of no decline and no setting; it shines and rules perpetually over the world in all the brightness of its strength.... "Here is a doctrine, the Immaculate Conception of Mary: without a doubt it is universally believed in the Church. It has not yet been defined as a dogma of the faith; why should it not be so defined now? What is there wanting to the infallible authority for its definition? Is it light, or power? Certainly not. And if the whole body of pastors supplicate the vicar of Jesus Christ solemnly to proclaim this dogma, if the august and venerated Pius IX., deeming the wishes of the Catholic world in accordance with those of his own heart, and with the inspirations of divine help of which he has the promise, accomplish this great act of his reign, which so many pontiffs before him have desired and prepared, what faithful Catholic would not rejoice with the angels in heaven, what man of sense even could object to this majestic exercise of the supreme power of definition, which is ever abiding and present in the Church till the consummation of all the ages?

"The Church can therefore, if she sees fit, define the spotless Conception of Mary, or any other point of revealed faith."

In reply to the doubts and fears of "timid consciences" who might think this a dangerous stretch of authority on the part of the Church, Father Ravignan appeals not only to his own arguments, but to certain weighty testimonies :—

"Far weightier authorities, our most learned Bishops, among others, their lordships the Archbishops of Cambrai and Rheims, and the Bishop of Mans, have eloquently determined in what sense a development of the faith, and dogmas newly defined are possible in the Church, without any addition to, or alteration of, the primitive deposit of revelation. It is well, also, to remember what the illustrious Doctor Newman has written, at the moment of his conversion, touching this power of expansion and development of the faith. What appears at first sight daring in this theological theory, is, when properly understood, nothing more than a most simple truth which every body must of necessity admit."

GERMANY.-Separation of Church and State.-We have, on a former occasion, drawn attention to the state of utter confusion to which the Protestant Communions of Germany have been reduced by the recent political events in that country. All that has since transpired being in fearful keeping with the picture then presented to our readers, we deem it superfluous to enter into any of the details of a kindred nature which

* English Review, vol. x. pp. 477–484.

have since then accumulated under our hands, but shall confine ourselves to the one great practical question which is at this moment under discussion among the Protestants of Prussia, and which, in its further progress, will be decisive of the fate of the Protestant establishments, not only in Prussia, but indirectly throughout Germany. The twelfth article of the Constitution granted by the King in December of last year, having made the separation of the Church from the State one of the fundamental principles of the new order of things, it became absolutely necessary to take measures for the reorganization of the Church in a manner adapted to her new position. Accordingly, the Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs invited the consistories, and the theological faculties of the different universities, in January last, to report on the steps most advisable, in their opinion, to be taken under existing circumstances. The replies to this invitation are both numerous and voluminous, and while they are being printed in extenso for official use, copious extracts and abstracts, and, in some instances, even copies of them, have found their way into the public prints. Meanwhile, the importance of the questions involved in this inquiry was not lost sight of by the rationalistic and democratic party; their veteran leader, Uhlich of Magdeburg, who has been reinstated in his parochial cure of St. Catherine's, convened a meeting in that city, on the 18th of April last, at which the best mode of bringing about a General Representative Assembly of the Church was debated; and steps were taken to organize a general movement on the principles agreed upon by the meeting. As the proceedings of this body represent the extreme democratic and rationalistic view of Church matters, and the report of the theological faculty at Berlin, on the contrary, the opposite conservative, and (in the German sense of the word) orthodox side, we shall place the two in juxta-position, beginning with the former, as tending to explain and to justify much of what is contained in the latter.

In the first place, it was unanimously affirmed by the meeting at Magdeburg, that a General National Representative Assembly of Protestants should be convened with as little delay as possible. The convocation of such an assembly requiring, as an indispensable preliminary, a law of election, that subject was next taken into consideration; and it was agreed that this law must originate with the people themselves,

3 We must make an exception from this rule in favour of an extract from one of the last epistles of John Ronge. After detailing the formation of several new congregations, among them one of female German Catholics, presided over by a Jewess, the writer proceeds to give the following account of his liturgic reforms :— "I have simplified the ritual, or rather I have laid aside the rags and crutches derived from the Protestant and Catholic Churches, which are still retained in many of our congregations, so as to make the externals of worship tally entirely with the theory. In baptism, for instance, I have introduced by way of symbol a nosegay, which is handed to the child by the congregation. With a view to give to our Church a more national character, confirmation is combined with a popular festival, for which several neighbouring congregations assemble together, and at which the national colours are publicly delivered to the newly confirmed.”

and be drawn up at once, without giving the authorities time to impose a law of their own framing. These two points being settled, it was further determined, that electors should be chosen, one from every congregation under five hundred souls, two from every congregation above five hundred and below one thousand, and one more for every additional thousand; the electors of each district or town to meet together, and elect between them one clerical and two lay representatives for the General Assembly, which is to act as a constituent assembly, negotiating the terms of separation from the State on the one hand, and on the other hand framing a new ecclesiastical constitution. The next question was as to the qualifications which should confer the power of voting, and render the party eligible as a Church representative. Here various points arose, which were successively disposed of as follows:-The voters and the parties to be elected shall be subject to the same qualifications. These, as settled by the meeting, are-citizenship and full age (twenty-four years); the only religious test, the declaration of the party himself that he considers himself a member of the Evangelic Church, in the widest acceptation of the term, without distinction of existing communions. The proposal to restrict the right of voting, and of representing the Church, to communicants was unanimously rejected, on the ground that all external tests were objectionable. The question whether an unblemished moral character should be required, was, after some discussion, likewise decided in the negative, on the ground that it was impossible to draw the line of moral disqualification; that an immoral character, whom the law could not reach, was, in reality, no better than a convicted felon, and that, as the Church does not refuse the Sacrament to penitent criminals, it would be inconsistent to draw the line more strictly in the matter of Church representatives. The result is that, according to the views of the party represented at this meeting, any man who has the right of Prussian citizenship, and has completed his twenty-fourth year, be his creed or his moral character what it may, is qualified not only to give a vote in the choice of representatives, but to be himself elected as a representative of the "Church of the future" in her constituent assembly, which is to have full and sovereign authority of deciding all questions, both of faith and of discipline.

After this summary of the views of the democratic party of the Church, the following report from the theological faculty of Berlin will both be better understood and read with greater interest, as an exposition of the actual state of religion in Germany. The report sets out by stating that many of the questions proposed to the faculty are not discussed in it as they related to the mode of convening a constituent assembly of the Church; and the faculty had come to a decidedly nega→ tive conclusion upon the preliminary question, whether such an assembly should be convened at all. The reasons for this conclusion, which constitute the most interesting part of the report, are thus stated:"Considering the spirit which is abroad, the convocation of a general assembly would raise a mighty tempest, unless, indeed, it were constituted upon a democratic basis. If it were so constituted, the

A true represen

Church would receive from it the most vital injury. tation of the Church can only consist of such members as are powerfully imbued with her spirit. But how should such real and worthy representatives be obtained by the election of a constituency consisting of a disorganized multitude, whose relation to the Church is of a purely external character? Our Church has possession of rich and precious treasures. She has as yet preserved the jewels of pure doctrine and of faith in God's Word. To make the preservation of these treasures dependent on the decision of the majority of an assembly constituted by universal suffrage, would be a most unjustifiable proceeding. The notion of securing the Church's profession of faith by reserving it, as not subject to the cognizance of the general assembly, would soon be exploded by the event. The general synod being once recognized as the true representation of the Church, it would be impossible to circumscribe its powers. It would in that case be subject to no limits, except those which arise out of the nature of things; and if it chose to overstep those, nothing could arrest the progress of destruction. Besides, the Church is not called upon to frame a constitution for herself; she already has a constitution; she is not a chaos, but, however great may be her defects, a living organization. This organization would be destroyed by the convocation of an assembly chosen by universal suffrage. The ecclesiastical authorities would lose all their influence, and a process of dissolution would ensue, all the more pernicious, since it may with certainty be predicted that the new edifice to be substituted, in an age far more expert in pulling down than in building up, would not be of a permanent character. Our Church is rent by parties, whose antagonistic principles are not merely such as have at all times been held in the Church, and are inseparable from her very existence, but relate for the most part to the substance matter of faith. We cannot but express our earnest desire that these antagonistic principles may not lead to external schisms, in the hope that the spirit of religion, combined with theological learning, inspired by faith, grounded and exclusively dependent on the Word of God, may yet at some future time penetrate the masses and reunite the discordant elements. But the first condition of such a consummation is that no general assembly be convened for the present, and until a return to the faith shall have taken place. The only bond which has hitherto kept these discordant elements together, is reverence for existing institutions. Let these be once shaken to their foundation, let the erection of a new edifice he taken in hand, and the Church will be scattered to the four winds of heaven. It is wholly impossible for the different parties to agree in the construction of the new edifice. Those who shall find themselves in a minority in the Constituent Assembly, cannot be expected to do otherwise than separate, and attempt to form Church communions of their own. sidering the prevalence of the spirit of individualism, which would in that event exhibit itself in its worst features, the principle of separation, once brought into action, would not rest till it had VOL. XI.-NO. XXII.-JUNE, 1849.

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