1824, is 30 millions, 50 thousand francs. The difference between the two epochs being 105

MILLIONS.

"Then," he continues, "before the revolution, the clergy of France consisted of 412,419 individuals comprising the two sexes; now, alas! it hardly contains 40,000 priests and 36,000 pupils, in the different seminaries educating for the priesthood. This number of 40,000, is insufficient-it ought to be raised to 50,000," (if 50,000 are sufficient, how ridiculous the number of 412,419) "while instead of 82,580 women devoted to the church, we have now but 19,000."

It would be unjust to dispute the facts of this holy writer; facts, indeed, which he subsequently establishes, clearly proving that the church was far more numerous and more wealthy as a body than it is :-but he never proves, nor deems it worth while to provethat the church's piety was in any degree promoted by its numbers or possessions.

Compare, I say, the clergy of those times— when Dubois was cardinal, and St. Simon gives as a reason for admitting the Bishop of Troyes into the council of the regency, that he had lain with all the ladies of the court; compare the clergy of those times-when the spruce little abbé in his violet coat and brass buttons went

modestly to a loge grillée in the theatre, just to see the folks damning themselves, whom the church refused to bury; compare the clergy of those times-receiving their 135 millions of francs with the clergy who receive 30 millions at the present day-make this comparison, and say what you think religion has lost or gained by the wealth of her ministers!

When a man tells me that he wishes the church to be wealthy because he has a son who has taken orders-when a man tells me that he wishes bishops to have 30,000 a year because he has a brother, the college friend of the prime minister, who will certainly be a bishop —when a man tells me that he wishes clergymen to be gentlemen because he has a dandy nephew who is just the thing for a parsonI shake him heartily by the hand, and rejoice, for my part, that the state provides for so honest and frank-hearted a fellow. But, really, when your solemn-faced puppy, pharasaically remarks, that though many of his family are in the church, he, God knows! wishes to see the church wealthy for far other and higher considerations, that he wishes to see a church mingling with the aristocracy and endowed with large possessions, merely be

cause he believes that an aristocratic and wealthy clergy best promote the interests of religion-when some sinful toady of the peerage demurely says this-such impudence, I confess, puts me out of countenance, and I have hardly sufficient presence of mind to reply:-"Look to the Catholic clergy of Ireland! look to the dissenters of England! look to the pious, and excellent, and exemplary body of men forming the clergy of France,-who constitute, without dispute, the most respectable part of French society, and who, if they want in some respects the intelligence of the times in which they live, have all the simplicity, and more than the virtue of a darker age!"

"The priests here appear to be a very good and amiable sort of men. I always pull off my hat to any of them that I meet, and they always return the salutation with great politeness and humility.

"They dress not only while at church, but at all times, in a long sort of coat gown, called a soutane, made of black cloth, and wear the old-fashioned cocked hat. You cannot mistake the priest in France for any other than he is. His devout manner, and the simple and sacred habiliment that he always appears in, make

you acquainted with his profession at once. This is not the case with the divines of our country. In the famishing curate we do, to be sure, very often see an example of piety and mildness—but the religious character of the beneficed clergyman is not at all times to be recognized in his manners and personal appearance: he, though quite as sincere, no doubt, as these meeker priests in France, is very often admired as the most venturesome rider in the fervor of the fox-chase, as being a good shot, or the best hand at a rubber of whist, etc."

I quote from a little pamphlet which contains some interesting details.* But to make a comparison such as that which its writer has made, is not my intention; because it is never just to judge one part of a society without considering it in all its relations with other parts of that society; what would be intolerable in the members of a profession in one country, might be perfectly harmless and unexceptionable in the members of that same profession in another country.

* Mr. Cobbett, Jun.

G 2

I leave, therefore, my reader to his own conclusions-but I cannot leave him to those conclusions without saying, that the picture drawn by Mr. Cobbett of the rural clergy in France is, according to my experience, and I have mixed with many of them, correct.

The greater part of these holy men are peasants by birth, and frequently born in the village where they afterwards exercise their functions. Their habits then are simple, and they mix naturally with their followers, of whom they understand the wants, the habits and the language. They exercise a power-not so extensive as that of the Irish priests over their flocks—but a power, mild and conciliatory-and are usually beloved and respected by the villagers, at whose christenings they preside, whose marriages they arrange, and whose quarrels they compose.

To the presbytery the poor may go with the satisfaction that they will find a friend—a friend not entirely removed from their condition, and who can have no rivalry in their affairs; a friend willing to listen to their complaints, to give them counsel they understand, and to preach, with a mixture of brotherly tenderness and spiritual authority, that divine doctrine of humility and resignation which