son learnt by heart, and the words of another
man.

"Women follow willingly the strong. How comes it, then, that in
this case they have followed the weak?

"It must be that there is an art which gives strength to the weak.
This dark art, which consists in surprising, fascinating, lulling,
and annihilating the will, has been investigated by me in this
volume. The seventeenth century had the theory of it, and ours
continues the practice."

We shall not follow the writer in his review of Jesuitical influences
in the seventeenth century, though it contains much that might excite
remark and deserve attention. We hasten to the more urgent question--the
state of matters as they exist at the present hour.

The root of the evil, as Michelet thinks, lies in the position of the
priesthood. We are far from adopting all his views, and would decline
any indiscriminate condemnation of a body of men who, under any form of
Christianity, must do good in many quarters, and must contain numerous
examples of faithful and fervent piety. But in so far as the system of
the Romish church is vicious and injurious, it is of vital moment that
we should trace the effect to its cause. Much evil, we think, is
ascribable to the doctrines of that church, and of every other that too
highly exalts the powers and functions of the priest as compared with
the people. But, dismissing these for the present, the peculiar
discipline of the Romish system deserves our immediate consideration;
and here our attention is first attracted by a striking characteristic,
the CELIBACY of the clergy. Let us hear how so important a peculiarity
is thought to operate by this acute observer:--

"We think, without enumerating the too well-known inconveniences of
their present state, that if the priest is to advise the family, it
is good for him to know what a family is; that as a married man (or
a widower, which would be still better,) of a mature age and
experience, one who has loved and suffered, and whom domestic
affections have enlightened upon the mysteries of moral life, which
are not to be learned by guessing, he would possess at the same
time more affection, and more wisdom.

* * * * *

"Why torment a blind man by speaking to him of colours? He answers
vaguely; occasionally he may guess pretty nearly; but how can it be
helped? he cannot see.

"And do