terre, or wherever else he may please. For, with respect to the Jesuits, there are now two somewhat inconsistent laws in force in the Italian kingdom. There is the Piedmontese law of 1848, which suppresses the Order and banishes its members, and there is the Italian law of 1867, which suppresses all religious Orders, in the sense of depriving them of all civil rights and freely disposing of their property, but allows monks or nuns to live together under any rule they may adopt, upon the principle of perfect freedom of association, and subject only to such restrictions as the common law puts upon that right. By the letter and spirit of that law there is nothing to prevent Franciscans, Barnabites, White, Gray, or Black Friars, Trappists, or even Jesuits, reopening their convents, and there is even nothing to prevent the Jesuits reopening their schools, provided only they comply with the laws of the country. In the opinion of the Deputy Mancini and the "Ultra-Liberals" of the Left this law is "too liberal" not to be fraught with danger, so far, at least, as the Jesuits are concerned. To the Loyola brethren, according to these men, no quarter is to be allowed, and, following Prince Bismarck's example, they are to be arrested and banished, wherever they may be found. Extreme views on the other side were supported by the Tuscan Deputy, Ubaldino Peruzzi, formerly a minister, and now the mayor or syndic, who is so successfully "Haussmannizing" Florence, a man who despises the Jesuits as "shallow humbugs;" who thinks the country never had anything to fear from their "diabolical arts," except so long as the Order was backed by the overwhelming force of despotic Governments; that the Jesuits are owls that could only prey in the dark; and that as there is now light in Italy, the Jesuits should be allowed the full benefit of it like other beings, and blink and flutter in it as best they can. Apart from personal vagaries, with which it would be difficult to amuse the English public, the whole argu. ment on both sides reduces itself to what has been condensed in the few words above. Mancini and the Left are afraid of the Jesuits; Peruzzi and the Right have faith in liberty. The so-called "Liberals" are partial to the measures of Germany; the so-called Conservatives follow the theories and the practice of England. But there is something to be said respecting both views of the question. To those who fear and would gladly put down the Jesuits, one might ask, “Can you do it?" Have not the Jesuits been suppressed, expelled, persecuted, and hunted out of all countries, and have they not invariably come back stronger and more mischievous than before? Was not Switzerland divided into two camps for the sake of these very Jesuits at the time of the Sonderbund War, and has not the victorious party decreed the perpetual exclusion of the Order from the Confederations? Yet is not the Confederation “plagued " with the Jesuits at the present day? Then we must conclude the Jesuits will thrive, in spite of all repressive measures. They will grope in the dark, in spite of all obstacles which may be raised against them. On the other hand, have not England, America, Belgium, and other countries, put their trust in freedom to discredit Jesuit teaching, and allowed the Jesuits the full benefit of the most liberal laws? Are not the Jesuits allowed, within the limits of the civil institutions of the country, to live in convents, to open schools, and to do what all other citizens have a right to do? Yet are not the Jesuits in Belgium the real sovereigns of the country, and are not their establishments flourishing in Great Britain and the United States as they flourish in no other community? Then the Jesuits will thrive in spite of liberal institutions; they will thrive equally in the full light of unlimited freedom of inquiry and discussion. With respect to the Italians, action is to a great extent impeded by political considerations. Were they even inclined to follow the example of Bismarck, and deal what is supposed to be a final blow to the Jesuits and their kindred Orders, they would be restrained, first, by the peculiar relations in which they stand with foreign, and especially with Catholic, powers; and, second, by the restrictions which they put upon themselves when they voted the Bill of Papal Guarantees. Moderation in their dealings with the Jesuits, with the other monks, with their three hundred bishops, with their three hundred thousand priests, is the price that the Italians voluntarily undertook to pay for Rome. They declared that they only claimed the right to take from the Pope and the Church their temporalities, and that in return they would allow them the full and free exercise of their spiritual authority. They could not touch the persons of the Jesuits or of their general, Father Beckxo, the "Black Pope," as he is called. But their property in lands or houses was at their discretion, and it was only by way of a further effort towards reconciliation that the King's government had proposed to allow the heads of Orders and the general of the Jesuits the permanent enjoyment of their premises. This the Parliament will not brook. It reduced the occupation of their houses by the Heads of all other Orders to a very short period, and insisted on the immediate eviction of the general of the Jesuits. The government has had to yield the point with a good grace, and was virtually defeated. Are we to conclude that they greatly regret the course things have taken that they are much grieved that the Chamber should have been stronger than themselves? I believe their defeat is not unwelcome to them. The Italians saw no other way to show their ill-will to the Jesuits; they simply slapped the Jesuit general in the face; and the ministers had no greater tenderness for the Black Pope than the rest of their countrymen. Now that the "moral slap" is administered, the Jesuits and their general need fear no further interference.-Correspondent of the "Times." PROFESSOR ROSSEUW ST. HILAIRE ON THE EVANGELIZATION OF FRANCE.— At the late Annual Conference of the British Organization of the Evangelical Alliance, held at Brighton, Professor St. Hilaire was present, and addressed one of its assemblies in a remarkable speech, of which the following is the substance. He spoke with a strong French accent, but with much emphasis and feeling; and he was listened to with earnest attention. Having expressed his regret at the absence of his friend, Pastor Monod, who was to have spoken upon the progress of evangelization in France, he said that the subject allotted to him was a dangerous one,-that of endeavouring to explain why Protestantism obtained in the north and Catholicism in the south. This was a great question; but there was another which dominated the whole. True Christianity had no home on the globe. It was a plant which grew everywhere,— received by the savage, in order to civilize him; and by the civilized, in order to sanctify and purify him. The angel of the Lord was spreading the Gospel everywhere, and the nineteenth century had seen more missions than the whole of the eighteen centuries that had preceded it. He thanked the Lord for this blessing. If Christianity were spreading and growing everywhere, he must confess there was a wide difference in its extent. He must confess that, as the rule, Protestantism prevailed in the north and Catholicism in the south; but there were many exceptions to this rule. In his own country,France, poor France!-where had Protestantism taken deepest root? It was in the south, in those mountains which they knew by name and honoured in their memories. The Protestants in the south were those who held fast in their arms the great King, le Grand Roi! Having devoted his whole life to the history of Spain, and having been in every corner of that country, what did Spanish history tell him? In the sixteenth century, the precious seed of the Christian truth was sown in the south of Spain,in Andalusia; and though smothered then by torture and flames, it was not destroyed; and three centuries afterwards-in 1859-it sprang up in a remarkable manner. Like the grains of corn in the tomb of the Pharaohs, it was destined to yield a glorious harvest, after having slept for so long a period. He hoped political events would not kill the noble movement of the Gospel in Spain. If he spoke to them of their own country, he was struck by one fact. He would not like to offend any one; but, having been everywhere in Europe except Russia, and having seen many forms of Catholicism in different countries, he had seen it nowhere so bad as in Ireland, though that island formed a part of Great Britain. The precious seed he was speaking of was mingled everywhere-it might grow everywhere; though generally the north was Protestant, and the south was Catholic. Why was Catholicism a plant growing more easily in the south? Because the south was more sensual, and required a material religion, which caught the people, and appealed to the external. Why was Protestantism a plant of northern growth? Because the people of the north had more reflective powers, were less impressionable to the outward senses, and were more open to the inward speaking of the Lord to the soul. This, he believed, was the general explanation of the fact. Did they think that Catholicism would soon die? Ah, no! it could not die: it was immortal. Sin was at he bottom, the very bottom of their nature, and no human religion knew how so to accommodate itself to sin as Romanism had done. Nor did he think reform possible. Romanism was irreformable; and he was happy to say this before an English audience. No; it could not become better. Did they know why? He was now seventy years old, and his whole life had been dedicated to that question. At twenty-eight years of age, having religious wants that could not be satisfied, he tried honestly and sincerely to become a stanch and faithful Roman Catholic. He practised for one year, but he did not read the Gospel; and here was his error and his weakness,and he could not satisfy himself. For this reason he left Romanism, and for seventeen years he was without any religion. He was ashamed to speak of this; but it was not of him. self, but of millions of French people who, like him, when they were going to Jesus, were stopped on the way by Romanism. O, could they but know the pangs he felt at that time! To feel that the Lord was before him, but that the priest, or the Pope, or the Virgin, or a whole army of saints, was placed between him and Jesus, so that he could not reach Him. Don't pity him, because he had found the truth. men. 64 But he pitied his dear country. He had been rambling in France, from city to city, since the war, talking politics to them as a way to go to the Gospel, speaking upon social questions in order to awaken them, through these, to the Gospel truth. The French listened to what he said. An English gentleman had told him that he did not know there was a man in France who could tell so many truths and have people to listen to him. But they could do everything in France, except make lasting impressions." Professor St. Hilaire next proceeded to speak, in impassioned language, of the Reformation and of the spread of the principles of the Reformers. He (the learned Professor) would soon die; and his only regret was not to have seen the Gospel taking deeper root in his own poor country. England had told the world that liberty and religion must be allied; England had taught the world that true liberty must have a real and everlasting basis. It was a great joy to him to look upon his brethren in Christ, and to know that, though they were all different by birth and education, they were all one by faith in Jesus. He expressed his intense horror of war, and asked, how should they be able to arrest it? How but through Jesus Christ, and by the union of all deno minations and all towns and all countries? The curse of Babel might be taken off if they felt that they all spoke the same tongue, not by words, but by deeds. He thanked England for what she had done for the wounded soldiers and the distressed peasantry during the late war; and, in return, warned England to take care of Roman Catholicism. He loved England, he had seen the dangers of Romanism, and he warned her against its power. Roman Catholicism still kept its hand upon them; England had not sufficiently got rid of it. "Take care were his last words to England and his dear brethren of the Evangelical Alliance.-Evangelical Christendom. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. MR. THOMAS CRABTREE, of Shipley, was the son of godly and devoted members of the Wesleyan-Methodist Society, of which his father was for many years a leader, and his earliest associations were favourable to the formation and culture of religious habits. But spiritual religion is not hereditary, and to the children of the most eminent saints, the exhortation of the great Teacher, "Ye must be born again," needs to be solemnly and earnestly addressed. His convictions of sin were deep and pungent, and his struggles for complete deliverance were, it is believed, protracted. His conversion to God occurred about the year 1819. With peculiar pleasure he pointed out to the present writer the place, in Cliff Lane, where, burdened with a painful sense of the Divine displeasure, he laid down the work on which he was employed, and, kneeling upon a portion of the loom at which he was engaged, obtained an assurance of God's pardoning love. By faith in the Atonement, he became "a new creature" in Christ Jesus. Of the verity of that change he never entertained the slightest doubt; often referring, both in the earlier and more recent class-meetings which he attended, to the blessedness of that hour, and to the abounding peace and joy which he there received. He began to meet in the class of his esteemed father, and was greatly beloved by his early associates in the Christian life, some of whom still remain, and refer with deep emotion to their blessed intercourse with him. His attendance on all the public and social means of grace, including the early Sunday morning prayermeeting at six o'clock, was, so long as health permitted, most exemplary ; while his uniform consistency of character, and his devotion to the cause of Christ, were grateful to the Church. His excellent father, perceiving hopeful promise in him of more extensive usefulness, requested him occasionally to meet the class, an exercise acceptable to the members of it, and improving to his own piety and gifts. Mr. Crabtree's engagements as a local preacher commenced about 1828 or 1829, when his name appeared on the Bingley plan. His entrance upon this work was preceded by great searchings of heart, arising from deep convictions of its solemn responsibilities. Evidence of his careful preparation for the pulpit is furnished by his memoranda, which present "sound" words which could not be "condemned," and testify to his successful efforts to bring out of the treasure of his heart "things new and old," and thus "commend himself to every man's conscience in the sight of God." In the selection of the texts of his earlier discourses he showed himself to be a discreet and thoughtful, as he was a modest and humble, man. During a blessed revival of the work of God at Windhill, about the year 1832, he experienced a special visitation from on high, and entered into various religious movements with all the freshness and zeal of a soul "in its earliest love." The tone of spiritual feeling was so greatly elevated, and the impressions produced on the minds of multitudes were so powerful, that large numbers crowded to meetings held during the interval allowed for dinner. On one occasion Mr. Crabtree, mounted on one of the large baskets employed in the worsted manufacture, exhorted, or led the devotions of the assembled worshippers, and had the pleasure of directing many to "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." With a steady zeal, which was ever tempered with wisdom, he continued to render valuable service to the cause of God, and the religious interests of the neighbourhood. Up to this period he had been somewhat reticent, but the gracious baptism of the Holy Spirit which he now realized, and the scenes of spiritual success he now witnessed, gave a new impulse to his religious life, and brought out more fully and clearly his excellent qualities. He was appointed a leader; an office for which he was peculiarly qualified, and which he retained to the close of life. He also sustained for many years the office of Circuit-steward. He was twice married, on both occa sions" in the Lord;" and having devoutly sought the guidance of Divine providence, these unions proved the occasion of much domestic and spiritual blessing. Among the more prominent traits of Mr. Crabtree's character, we may notice his cheerfulness. His was a peculiarly happy type of Christianity. "Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice," was a precept which found a faithful exposition in his radiant countenance, which, when lit up by animated conversation or religious engagements, revealed the sunshine of a joyous heart. In the service of song, either in the Church, or in the social circle, he greatly delighted, "singing and making melody in his heart to the Lord." In his earlier years he assisted to conduct the psalmody in the chapel, and to the last to render such service was an unfailing pleasure; to few persons might the jubilant resolve of David have been more fitly applied, "I will bless the Lord at all times: His praise shall continually be in my mouth." His attachment to the Church of Christ was constant and warm. Having obtained the blessing of per sonal salvation under the spiritual ministrations of Wesleyan-Methodism, his love to its doctrines and discipline was intense and abiding. Kind and catholic in his relations to other Churches, and cultivating friendship with all who love the "Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity," his devotedness to Methodism was the result of careful observation, and intelligent and prayerful study. His confidence in it |