affection for the young royal couple, but I hope my readers will admit that I must have seen some fine qualities in them to provoke that regard. If the noble character of Don Carlos does not belie itself, Don Carlos will be the most popular and beloved king that Spain has ever had. I trust in God that he will not change. His sureties are the Christian education he has received, the frankness of heart and intensity of judgment so happily united in his character, the prayers of his pious mother, and the constant example of his sweet, tender, and most exemplary wife. Dona Marguerite de Bourbon is enchanting. I have seen her often beside her child's cradle, occupied with household cares like Isabella the Catholic. Her universe consists of that cradle and her husband. How simple is her manner, how great her goodness to the poor, how unceasing her charity towards the sick! When she speaks with her lips, her heart speaks, and all she says is beautiful, for she possesses that rarest of gifts, exceptional intelligence, and is unconscious of it. Happy the man who calls her his wife. Happy the people who shall one day salute her as their queen. There is something to our mind deeply touching in the enthusiasm with which this old and gifted Spaniard gives all the loyal devotion of his heart and soul to the cause of this prince and princess, whom he found in their modest mansion in a little street at the back of the Madeleine, but whom we hope he may soon salute at the Escurial as King and Queen of Spain. We have some reason to believe that his praise of them is by no means exaggerated-that Don Carlos is a young man of a serious, studious, and resolute character, internally impressed with a faith in his mission, and whose whole life is devoted to prepare himself for the task to which he believes God has called him-a king of men by natural gifts as well as hereditary right. Every one who has had the good fortune to know the Princess Marguerite must have been struck by her high intelligence, her brave spirit, and the charming dignity of her manner. Public opinion in this country certainly ignores their right, indeed almost ignores their existence. Some twenty-five years ago there was a somewhat similar case. There was a pretender to the crown of France, who had lived in this country for many years. He had not, however, contrived to make himself agreeable to the leading spirits of the class who manufacture public opinion. In those days, if he was ever spoken of at all, he was spoken of with supreme contempt, as a sort of addle-pated charlatan who kept a tame eagle, and talked in the turgid style of a bulletin. But one fine day he became President, and then Emperor; and in addition to his other distinctions there is one quite original, which may now be safely predicated of him. He has been the subject, or the object, of more leading articles than any human being born since Adam, written by the self-same writers in every strain, from unbounded panegyric to unmitigated vituperation. The Prince who at present aspires to the crown of Spain at a moment when Spain is in quite as dangerous a condition, to say the least of it, as France was in 1848, is a very different character from the Prince Louis Napoleon; but he is like him in this respect, that he has a fixed faith in his right, that he is ready to risk his life for it, and that he has made the aspirations and interests of Spain the study of his life. The moment has not yet, perhaps, arrived, but we believe it is near at hand, when Don Carlos will only have to show himself to the Spanish people to be hailed as, in a very real sense, the saviour of society, and the worthiest king his country has had since the death of Charles III. The topic of Spanish royalty is indeed one whose interest, vital to Spain itself, is one of deep moment to all Christendom. An ancient and illustrious kingdom, a noble and pious people, have now for nine months been the booty of a handful of military adventurers. Elsewhere the revolution has been able to build up as well as knock down; but in Spain, those who hold power know that its foundation must be Catholic; and all they can do is to maintain a precarious interregnum, in which every sort of opinion is tolerated except that which sustains one cause. That cause is the cause of Don Carlos. Occasionally Mr. Reuter informs Europe that a number of Carlist officers have been arrested, or that a band of peasants who shouted for Charles the Seventh has been fired upon. General Prim's instinct leads him to see that the great danger of the present Government, and of Prætorian Government in general, lies in the growing disposition of the mass of the Spanish people and clergy towards a Carlist restoration. Such a restoration would, we believe, be not merely the saving of Spain through the revival of what was once the freest and the most Catholic of monarchies, but a blow to the revolution throughout Europe hardly second in importance to that dealt to it at the battle of Mentana. ART. X.-A GLANCE AT CATHOLIC HOME POLITICS. TH HERE are two subjects of imperial importance now actively agitated, in which Catholics have an especial concern. Indeed, the interest and life of the Catholic Church enter, as the woof into the warp, into these critical and national questions. We refer of course to the Irish disestablishment and to popular education. On the former of these questions, events are hurrying on with giant speed to their conclusion. Mr. Gladstone having had the good fortune to be in full harmony with the people of these realms, has, with a tact and decision surpassed by no former statesman, already steered the principle contended for through both houses of the Legislature. Amidst the rapid throng and pressure of events, it would be impossible to draw out theories or to exhibit arguments in this number of our REVIEW, which could in any way practically touch the question. The last throes and efforts of the dying Establishment party will have passed away, almost by the time these pages are in the hands of our readers. The grand legislative enactment of this session will naturally form the subject of our study and estimate in its complete shape; and what very few comments we now can offer, must be considered by our readers subject to more or less modification, as possibly resulting from more mature reflection. But our present impression is that, so far from the House of Lords and the Conservative policy having stood in the way of the Catholic Church, it has, by a fortunate combination, promoted her interest. Had the Bill become law when it had passed the third reading of the Commons, the result would have been that the Protestants would have retained a large proportion of their property, and the Catholic Church would have had its large Maynooth endowment commuted for an insignificant sum. The Protestants would have been in possession of the enormous revenues of Trinity College, while the Catholics would have been almost entirely stripped of their educational fund. And more than this, though Irish Anglicanism would have been disestablished, it is by no means certain that the retention of houses and glebes and churches by the Protestants, while the Catholics continued on in their poverty, would not have left throughout the country the savour of a dominant spirit. The Lords, however, as we write, show themselves inclined to remedy this defect and injustice. Although they may make larger grants to the Protestant communion, yet if the effect of this is to give houses and glebes to the Catholic Church, they will, pro tanto, have improved the status of the Catholic clergy and their people. They will have taken away the stigma of inferiority, by giving equal rights in houses and lands to the Catholic Church with the Protestant communion. One point must be clearly borne in mind. The Catholic Church in Ireland will accept no stipendiary grantnothing which can present even a superficial appearance of dependency upon the State. The grant of glebes and of houses will be nothing more than a very inadequate act of restitution; and yet the Church would certainly decline to receive even these, unless they were vested in the control and authority of the hierarchy. A cunning game might be attempted by an astute politician, of placing rights in houses and lands in the hands of the priests, to be played off against the bishops; and such an effort may, very possibly, in fact be made in order to divide the clergy. This has been attempted more than once before, and has always failed. The priests themselves are as determined as the bishops, that nothing shall separate their interests from those of their hierarchy. They feel, as all must feel, that the only condition on which glebes and houses can be accepted is, that they be placed irrevocably in the hands of the Church, to be settled and regulated by proper authority; just as it is proposed that the Protestant communion shall exercise control over whatever may be eventually given to it for its share of the spoils. We think also that Catholics have every reason to rejoice, in whatever may strengthen the House of Lords as a substantive and independent power in the state. The peers' recent resolve to be led by Lord Salisbury rather than Lord Derby, may have important results in this respect; nor could anything be more thoroughly satisfactory, than the former nobleman's exposition of the true legislative position of the Upper House. In this very session we have to thank that House heartily, for its important mitigation of the odious Scotch educational measure introduced by Government. And as time goes on, Catholics will more and more turn to that House and to the Conservative party, for protection against the bigotry and tyranny which liberalism so prominently displays, in all matters connected with education. And this brings us to the second great question which we mentioned at starting-the question of Catholic popular education. During the winter a series of meetings were held all over London upon this subject. On the 24th of June a large and enthusiastic gathering of the Catholics of London assembled in St. James's Hall. It will be sufficient if we indicate in the briefest terms the advance made during the past three years in the diocese of Westminster. The Archbishop who presided at the meeting began his speech by drawing the following contrast between the opening and closing of the first period of three years since the founding of the Diocesan Fund. First:- 1. In the two years preceding the formation of the Diocesan Fund, the number of children attending our schools had diminished by 500. 2. In many of the most populous parts of London additional schools were urgently needed. 3. The number of pupil teachers had greatly decreased. 4. The Reformatory School at Brook Green was overcrowded, and insufficient for the number of boys constantly committed by the magistrates. 5. S. Nicholas's Industrial School at Walthamstow was still more over crowded, and a still larger number of boys were being committed by the magistrates to Protestant schools. 6. In the Middlesex Feltham School there were about eighty Catholic boys educated as Protestants. 7. S. Margaret's Industrial School (Queen's Square) for girls was in a very unsatisfactory state. 8. In the workhouse schools of the metropolitan district only there were from 1,200 to 1,500 Catholic children systematically educated as Protestants, and not one as yet had been rescued. 9. There was no fund for education in the diocese. Second: 1. At the close of these three years (i. e., at the present date), 3,000 children have been added to our schools. 2. Thirty additional schools have been formed. 3. The pupil teachers have increased by nine in the last year. 4. A house and 11 acres of land have been purchased in Essex for the reformatory school, which will be enlarged by the outlay of £3,000, so as to hold at least 200 boys. 5. S. Nicholas's Industrial School has been removed to a large house with eight acres of land in Essex. The house has been enlarged so as to receive 250, and a chapel and refectory are about to be built. 6. Not a Catholic boy remains in the school at Feltham. 7. S. Margaret's School for girls has been removed to Finchley, and is in a most satisfactory state. 8. 230 children have been removed from the Poor Law Schools, and 170 more have been applied for. 9. The Diocesan Fund has received and is receiving such support, as to warrant our confidence that its work is not only permanent, but will extend itself every year. Not the least remarkable and important feature that we have to note, is the perceptible increase in interest in, and the determination among all classes of Catholics to promote, the proper Christian development of popular education. The meeting held in St. James's Hall was an indication of this feeling. It was largely attended, and a settled resolution seemed to have taken possession of all present to look upon the Christian education of the poor as among their paramount duties. If we have dwelt with some particularity upon the working of the Westminster diocesan system of education, it is because by so doing we conveniently register the efforts which Catholics are making throughout Great Britain in the cause of education. We conclude with quoting some remarks from the "Tablet" on one especial feature of the St. James's Hall meeting:— Two feelings seemed to run through every speech, and to animate the enthusiastic audience which crowded the hall. The one was a strong, quiet |