i85o 183 Holy See. They dare not speak out what is in their minds, and expose fraud or superstition, lest they should be ruined in credit, in position and in purse. If a bishop or a priest has an independent mind, in France the method of ruining him is for the Ultramon-tanes to spread scandalous reports relative to his moral character, and make his position so intolerable as to force him to resign. Of late years, by this means, two French bishops were driven out of their sees, and disappeared. I am inclined to think that in both cases the charges were false, and merely trumped up to get rid of them. I have been assured that the accusers do not scruple to bribe false witnesses against a man they seek to destroy. It may well be seen how cowed bishops and clergy are with this menace threatening them, so that when any gross abuse or fraudulent miracle is brought under their notice, they shrug their shoulders, and say that the responsibility for these lies and absurdities rests with the Pope. The curse of Ultramontanism weighs fatally on the French Church, and of late years, by the folly of the Republican Government, there are thousands of clergy who are cordially in sympathy with the Republic, yet for their bread and butter are forced to submit to Ultramontane discipline. There is, however, another class, to which belonged the simple-minded cure at Areit. It comprises those who have been so besotted by the training in the Little and Great Seminaries that their common intelligence has been atrophied, and who will believe any bit of tomfoolery that is approved by authority. Thus, if His Holiness were to proclaim that the moon was made of green cheese, they would be certain that it was so, and would point to the shadows on its disc as evidence that there were bubble-holes in the cheese. It must never be forgotten that the Roman Church holds, and has ever held tenaciously, the great truths of Christianity ; that it has ever maintained the first principles of worship. But then it has overlaid the truths of the Gospel with such a mass of superstitious trash, that men of intelligence, impatient of this rubbish that meets their eye, reject all that the Church is authorized and commissioned to teach. Whilst at Chateau d'Areit, we never attended Mass. My father read matins in the parlour on Sunday. However, not
