those of Porentrui and Nice; and ed, by a circular letter, to join that of Avignon had not assumed in the council. The general his functions. In the newly-united answers given to this invitation departments of the north, four bi- were comprised in a few words; shops had emigrated, and three had such as "wolves, foreswearers, in died natural deaths; the other two truders, robbers, heretics, schismawere only titular. Of the emigrant tics." Of these indignant sons of bishops, it appears that forty had the church, Camille Jourdan had died in foreign countries: one, the been the apologist, by stating, that, bishop of Dol, had been shot as a in the papers sent to the council rebel at Quiberon; and others, it of five hundred by the directory, appeared had held ecclesiastical sy the commission had not found that nods in different countries, and the non-jurors had formed more been active promoters of counter- opposition to the laws than the conrevolutionary projects against the forming clergy. The reporter had republic. probably not read the papers; for the account of the bishop of Blois is very different. "I am perhaps the only one," says Gregoire, "who has had the patience to read over the enormous collection of about three thousand packets, laid before the council. To prevent the sale of the national lands, and the payment of taxes; to give protection to deserters and emigrants; to hinder the youngmen from repairing to the service of their country; to order the cutting down the trees of liberty; to tread under foot the characteristic signs of liberty; to be in an habitual state of planning conspiracies; to trouble the peace of families; to preach hatred and vengeance against; the conformists is the analysis of this voluminous collection."

When the episcopal seats were vacant in various places, presbyteries were formed, whose office it was to hasten the nomination of bishops. Of fourteen presbyteries three only had followed the mode prescribed in the encyclical letters, published the preceding year. Some few dioceses, that had neither formed presbyteries, nor named bishops, were under the direction of, some other kind of administration, and fifteen others remained without any spiritual government or adininistration whatever. To re-orginise public worship and ecclesiastical government throughout the republic was an arduous and difficult task. For this purpose, extensive correspondences were established; periodical publications, such as the annals of religion, were circulated; and societies formed in imitation of the Teylerian society at Harlem: many works were pub. lished, and many were in the way of publication, among which was the Bishop of Landaff's Apology for the Bible.

After attempting to re-organise the administration of the church, the next solicitude of these bishops was to attempt to call back their non-conforming brethren, for which purpose they were invit1798.

Such was the ecclesiastical state of France previous to the holding of this national council. From the report made of the state of the church, with respect to the colonies and foreign missions, it appears that Corsica, which before the revolution was under the spiritual jurisdiction of five bishops, had now but one. In the number of the faithful which this island contains, is a colony of Greeks, descendants of the ancient Spartans, who emigrated from that classic

S

country

country at the close of the last cen- self a slave at the time of the revo tury, and who had shaken off their lution), had published a proclamaspiritual allegiance from their su- tion which breathes a spirit of perior, the Greek archbishop of the piety scarcely expected to be found College of St. Athanasius, at Rome, in a general, much less in the sable at the epoch of taking the civil commander of negro armies. oath, and had put themselves under Of the Spanish part of St. Dothe guidance of the new bishop of mingo ceded to the French by the their diocese. The church in the late treaty, the archbishop, who ap West Indies, particularly in St. peared inclined to favour the conDomingo, had partaken of the com- vocation of a national council, had motions of that colony, of which been translated from thence to a twelve priests had divided the eccle- richer bishoprick in Mexico. The siastical labours. The apostle of inhabitants of the other islands in that colony, as well as its civil de- the West Indies had been too much liverer, appears to have been the occupied about their physical and negro general, Toussaint Louver- political existence to pay due atture, who, "by his christian vir- tention to spiritual concerns; but tues, bis attachment to liberty, and in the French settlements in South his military talents, merits univer- America, Cayenne, and Guiana, sal esteem." This general, who the progress of religion among the has been called the man predicted Indians, as related by father Jacby the abbé Raynal, as the aven- quemin, who resided upwards of ger of his race, and their redeemer twenty years in those parts, is not from slavery (and who was him- less pleasing to the political œcono

*“Brethren and friends, beware of thinking that in any circumstance, in which success has crowned my undertakings, I have had the vain presumption of attributing the gory to myself. The light of religion, that sure and faithful guide of my conduct, has always shown me to whom I was indebted-to God!-to that infinite Being, by whom we live and move, whose power extends over the whole of the human race, and whose invisible hand guides and governs the universe. If the example which I gave you had been sufficient to fix in your hearts the love of that Being who has heaped on us so many benefits, I should not how have been compelled to have awakened in you again

the remembrance of them.

"After seeing yourselves lightened of those fetters beneath which you have so long time groaned, and after having recovered your rights, you may, perhaps, in the delirium of your joy, have attributed your change of condition to human means alone; but if such has been your blindness, open your eyes; and be assured, that the will and act which have accomplished the revolution that has shaken off from your necks, and those of your fellow sufferers, the shanicful yoke, are of God alone: his beneficence and justice has placed you again in the rank of men: study to practise and fulfil your duties as well towards him as towards society, of which you now form a portion. It is therefore time that you should persuade yourselves of the indispensable necessity of acknowledging two objects to which you owe veneration, submission, and affection; these two objects are, God and the law.

"Officers and soldiers of the army, the first of your duties is to honour God, the next to serve your country. The first obligation consists not only in the observation of a worship which all nations of the earth are agreed to render to the Supreme Being, you must join to this external mark of respect the exercise of every virtue: let your example lead those over whom you may have influence to the remembrance of a religion which they seem to have forgotten, and inspire them with sentiments necessary to the purity of morals, without which the re-establishment of order and peace will become impossible: let your example especially, and, if it be necessary, your authority, correct that frantic passion of gaming, the fatal effects of which are not less frequently attended with the loss of honour than with that of life, &c. &c."

1

mist, as the means of spreading ci-
vilisation and knowledge, than it is
affecting to the pious mind, solici-
tous for the cultivation of those
sentiments which give their just
value to both.

council with respect to the missionaries in China is a transcript from the interesting voyage written by sir George Staunton, and the reporter has not lost sight of the tribute of praise paid by that elegant writer to the humanity of these missionaries, in the double salvation which they offer to exposed infants, nor failed to put in contrast the effects of the precepts and practice of the gospel, with the ferocity of paganisin, and the ignorance of those European philosophers who boast the superior mildness of its institutions, and the beneficence of its laws.

With the other colonies belong ing to the French in Africa and Asia little communication had taken place. The administrators of the islands of the Mauritius had sold the estates of their clergy, and had paid them regularly their pensions. One of these islands had ten priests, but the morals of the people were not in the highest state of purity; another had twelve, and the harvest of piety was abundant. They were formerly under the juris-blishments in the east, on the shores diction of the archbishop of Paris, but at present acknowledged no supremacy.

Such is the present state of the catholic faith in the countries dependent on France. Of the welfare and prosperity of the church in foreign parts, the destruction of the seminary of foreign missions at Paris, and the irreparable loss of the manuscripts and correspondence belonging to that society, together with the interruption necessarilyoccasioned by the war, leave this part of its modern history imperfect. In the eastern part of the world, according to a memorial presented to the constituent assembly, there was at that epoch six French bishops, and thirty-eight priests, who superintended six colleges, and were assisted by Indian acolytes, and catechumens. The establishment of Pondicherry maintained, besides two bishops, nineteen missionaries, and a college. At Camboya, Siam, Tunguin, and Pegu, there were also missionaries, and about three hundred thousand believers. From the impossibility of communication with the east, for the reasons above mentioned, the report made to the

Of the different religious esta

of the Mediterranean,little has been learnt. The christian college of Damascus is praised by the vicar of the Holy Land; but all in that quarter have not, it appears, the same claim to his approbation. At. Grand Cairo, the Latin and Greek priests share the same church, and live together in mutual charity and toleration. This liberty of worship, it seems, reposes on a charter granted by Mahomet, or which made part of a treaty concluded at that period with the Christians. This treaty has been spoken of by various publicists. A copy now existing in Paris has been translated very lately, and the printing of it in the French and Arabic, with a preface establishing its authenticity, was begun at the presses of the republic. Behenam, a Chaldee priest of Mosul, near ancient Nineveh, and who is now in Paris, asserts, that the original of this treaty is in the hands of the religious order of the Jacobites. Application had been made to the late apostolical vicar of Babylon, who is now gone as consul to Mascat in Arabia, and to Gallois, a consul at Bagdad, as well as others, to make diligent S2

search.