The spirit of confidence has fled; the demon of mistrust has entered in; and there is no charmer now to lure it away by the music of his song; no exorcist to bid it avaunt by the power of his word. One panacea alone remains-the authority of an infallible Church, and the gift of a childlike faith. The second act of the drama which I am engaged in evolving, opens with the publication of the celebrated 90th Tract, upon which, if such be the editor's kind pleasure, the curtain shall rise in a future paper. Before concluding, however, I must briefly advert to an event which belongs to the period we have just traversed, and not to that upon which we have still to enter. Mr. Froude had now passed away from the scene of his earthly labours. Towards the close of his mortal career his opinions appear to have undergone some change, which was perceptible to many of his friends even in his outward demeanour. He associated less than formerly with the old High Church party of the Establishment, as he became convinced that the ills of the Church must be cured by sterner and more unworldly methods of discipline than that party was prepared to accept. An air of gravity and a tone of severity, even in general society (so far as he mixed with it), had replaced that bright and sunny cheerfulness which was characteristic of his earlier days; and this change of exterior was greater than could be explained by his declining health, against which he bore up with exemplary fortitude. Together with a more anxious view of the state and prospects of the Establishment, he had apparently taken up a less favourable opinion of the Catholic Church, at least, in its actual manifestation. A visit to the Continent had operated, from whatever cause, unfavourably upon his judgment of Catholics, whom he now first stigmatized as "Tridentines,"-a strange commentary, certainly, on the view put forth later by Mr. Newman, to the effect that the prevalent Catholic system was erroneous, in that it had deviated from the Tridentine rule, -not in that it represented that rule. This and similar dicta (some of a still more painful import) have led such of Mr. Froude's friends as have clung to the Established Church to believe that, had he lived, he would have remained on their side. Such a question will naturally be determined, to a great extent, according to the personal views and wishes of those who speculate upon it. Certain, at any rate, it is that, had he come to us, the Church would have secured the humble obedience and faithful service of a rarely gifted intellect; while, had he stayed behind, he would have added one more to the number of those whose absence is the theme of our lamentation, and whose conversion the object of our prayers. It is part, however, of the historian's office to investigate such questions according to the evidence at his disposal; and, in the instance before us, that evidence is far more accessible and far more satisfactory than is usually the case in posthumous inquiries. Mr. Froude's "Letters to Friends," published in his "Remains," give an insight into his character and feelings, with all their various developments and vicissitudes, such as is commonly the privilege of intimate personal acquaintance, and of that alone. His bosom friends could hardly have known him better than the careful student of these letters may know him, if he desire it; indeed, it is to such friends that he discloses himself in those letters with almost the plain-spokenness of the confessional. Now it must be admitted that these letters leave the question as to the probability of his conversion very much in that evenly-balanced state in which, as we have just said, the wishes of friends or partisans come in to determine it on either side. His letters contain, on the one hand, many passages from which, if they stood alone, it might be concluded that he was, at certain times, almost ripe for conversion. They also contain others apparently of an opposite tenour. In the former class must be reckoned those indications of antipathy, continually deriving fresh fuel from new researches, to the English Reformation and Reformers.* Mr. Froude's theological sentiments had long passed the mark of the Laudian era, and settled at the point of the Nonjurors. He thinks "one might take" for an example "Francis de Sales," whom, by the way, he classes with Jansenist saints.‡ Again, he was most deeply sensitive to the shortcomings and anomalies of his communion; he calls it an "incubus" on the country, and ascribes to it the blighting properties of the upas-tree." It is evident that he was in advance both of Mr. Keble and of Mr. Newman: he twits the former, in friendly expostulation, with the Protestantism of his phraseology in parts of the "Christian Year," and laments the backwardness of the latter on some questions of the day. On the other hand, and in the same direction of thought, he expresses admiration of Cardinal Pole; The scruples about speaking against the Catholic system-even its "seemingly indifferent practices ;** he can understand, on the principle of reverence, * Froude's Remains, vol. i. pp. 389, 393, 394, &c. § Ibid. pp. 403, 405, &c. the communion under one species *-perhaps the greatest of all practical difficulties to many Anglican minds. Moreover, when at Rome, he evidently opened the subject of reconciliation to a distinguished prelate whom he met there.† Per contra, we have painful sayings against supposed practical abuses in the Church. He "really thought," as he tells us, "that certain practices" which he witnessed abroad are "idolatrous;" he charges priests with irreverence, ecclesiastical authorities with laxity, &c.t Yet even these opinions he partially qualifies, and is disposed to attribute to defective information. He shrinks from speaking against Rome "as a Church" (p. 395). Unwilling as I am to hazard conjectures on the subject, especially against the judgment of any among his more intimate friends, I do not think it unreasonable to conclude, from a comparison of these passages, that Mr. Froude's objections were chiefly directed against imaginary abuses, or possible relaxations of discipline, which time and reflection would have shown him to be entirely independent of the real merits of the controversy. I find it also difficult to believe that, as the principles of the English Reformation received those illustrations in the Established Church which we have lived long enough to see,-as her constituted tribunals were found to give up in succession the grace of the Sacraments, the authority of the Church, and even the inspiration of Holy Scripture itself, as necessary truths,-his clear and honest mind would not have accepted some or all of these tokens of apostasy as a summons to enter the True Fold. Assuredly, too, we have known no instance of a mind equally candid, intelligent, and instructed, whose advances in the direction of the Truth (especially where assisted by extraordinary acuteness of conscience and purity of life) have stopped short, as time has gone on, of the logical conclusion, except in cases where the progress of such a mind has been arrested by conflicting tendencies of deeply ingrained Protestant or national prepossession-such as in his instance were singularly absent. There is, however, one phase of Mr. Froude's mind with which it is far more difficult to reconcile the belief of his probable conversion than any other. This phase, indeed, seems to have been a characteristic of himself, as compared *Froude's Remains, vol. i. p. 410. See the passage, "If I were a Roman Catholic Priest," &c. + Ibid. p. 306. These passages are collected in the Editor's Preface to the "Remains," p. 11, et seq. § See Preface, p. 14, et alibi. with nearly all of those who took a leading part in the movement, including even Mr. Keble, who, on the whole, was the nearest to Mr. Froude in general character. The peculiarity to which I refer, is that of an extraordinary leaning to the side of religious dread, and a corresponding suppression of the sentiments of love and joy. Mr. Froude's religion, so far as it can be gathered from his published journal, seems to have been (if the expression be not too strong) more like that of a humble and pious Jew under the Old Dispensation, than of a Christian living in the full sunshine of Gospel privileges. The apology for this feature in his religious character, and for any portion of it which appears in those of other excellent men of the same period, is to be found in the ungraceful and often irreverent form in which the warmer side of the Christian temper was exhibited in the party called by courtesy Evangelical, whose language, based as it was upon grievous errors of doctrine, had a tendency to react in religious minds on the side of severity and reserve. Such a form of religious spirit, however, where exhibited in the somewhat unusual proportions which it assumes in Mr. Froude, must undergo almost a complete revolution before it can be naturally susceptible of the impressions which Catholic devotion has a tendency to produce, or even tolerant of the language which pervades our approved manuals. It is certainly difficult to find in the Mr. Froude of the "Remains" a compartment for devotion to our Blessed Lady, for instance, or even to the Sacred Humanity of our Lord, in all its attractive and endearing fulness. Yet, taking the phenomena of his case as a whole, and duly estimating the respective powers of the two conflicting forces, I cannot help thinking that the Church would more easily have conquered his prejudices than the Establishment have retained his allegiance. (To be continued.) FREDERICK OAKELEY. 191 THE FRENCH ELECTIONS. [The paper that follows is from the pen of an excellent Catholic, who has access to unusually good sources of information on the subject of which he treats, and whose opinions are worthy of most respectful consideration. We believe, therefore, that we do our readers a service in publishing his remarks.] ABOUT a month ago the French world was taken by sur prise; and though a few wiseacres had sapiently nodded their heads, and foretold some sort of modification in the Imperial system of government, yet the public in general had not expected such a thorough change in the heavings and workings of that dark spirit which, either for good or for evil, rules at present over Europe. And so-again I repeat it-France was taken by surprise. However, when the first burst of astonishment was over, every reflective mind felt that this new move on the part of the Emperor in the right direction was, after all, the effect of a certain cause, the practical result of a long string of leading circumstances. Leaving metaphor aside, the late changes wrought in the French Cabinet by the Arch-will, were due to the General Elections of 1863. So, all of a sudden, the grand elector M. de Persigny marched out of the Home Department; whilst three other ministers, M. Delangle, M. Rouland, and M. Walewski, were politely waved out of the Cabinet. Again, M. Baroche, who for twelve long years has been labouring like a galley-slave, both in the Corps Législatif and in the Council of State, is allowed at last to court a more quiet life in the Ministry of Justice and Public Worship. This poor man, so lately buffeted about and bruised by his quarrelsome friend, De Persigny, must surely exclaim with the poet : Libertas quæ sera, tamen respexit inertem ; Whilst he adds, surely, in the secret of his own heart : Deus nobis hæc otia fecit. The god, indeed, has spoken; and the same powerful words which made the above-mentioned gentlemen topple down from their heights, have likewise conjured up new puppets, destined |