have withheld them from applying their own principles more freely and more consistently to it, that they continue in possession of any of its blessings. True it is, that as the proper functions of the Catholic party are thus elevated, much time and toil and self-denial will be required before they can be deemed altogether fitted for their task. But here again it is gratifying to reflect that their enemies are their truest friends and teachers. The Catholic party will not be condemned to study in silence and retirement the part they have to play. They may at once enter upon their duties as guardians of the Constitution and exponents of Catholic policy, and work will be ready to their hands. For as it has been chiefly in the treatment of Catholics that the Constitution has hitherto been violated, so now the conspiracy against us assumes the old form of an attack upon constitutional rights, and we cannot defend ourselves without at the same time defending the best interests of our country. And, again, as it has been in the treatment of Ireland that the worst outrages on the Constitution have been committed, as it is through the side of that ill-fated sister that the worst blows against justice and liberty are still threatened by the dominant faction; so the Catholic party in the Legislature have an additional security in their course by their special connexion with that portion of the empire. We are here reminded of one fruit of the Papal aggression, often quoted against us, viz. that only one English constituency has returned a Catholic member. We admit both the fact and the inference. It is a temporary misfortune. But let us see if we can profit by any of the uses of adversity, "Which like a toad, ugly and venomous, We sincerely declare that the fact gave us unmistakeable pleasure. We hope to turn it to a good account. We rejoice that the Catholics of England are thrown so unreservedly upon Irish magnanimity. We trust that it may prove a lesson to our self-conceit. We have obligations to Ireland which we can never repay, but which we have not always been sufficiently ready to acknowledge. Under God, we owe to Ireland our emancipation, our present safety, and the best portion of our future prospects. It is not too much to say, that, under God, we owe also, in great measure, to her example and support even our perseverance in the faith. And if there are any who in times past have shewn themselves forgetful of these facts, it is well that the lesson of our dependence upon Ireland should be thus pointedly enforced, so that selfinterest may suggest what honour has failed to impress. We have spoken of Catholic union; let us advert to what we prize yet more highly, Catholic isolation. For three-andtwenty years Catholics have been members of parliament. It was reserved for the present year to see them in a position to work according to their ability. Even under that mighty leader who, having broken down the barriers which excluded them, led them triumphantly within the pale of the Constitution, they were never absolutely free. Some compact with the Whigs, some apprehended danger from the Tories, kept them always in the leading-strings of faction. But no Catholic need now refuse to bring forward a grievance lest it should embarrass the Government, or to denounce an anti-social and destructive policy for fear of helping the Opposition. On international questions, on our foreign policy, but above all, on the condition of the people, on poor-laws, on education, on penal or reformatory measures, on the rights of labourers, tenants, landlords, soldiers, sailors, prisoners, and paupers, a Catholic can now labour for the honour and happiness of his country, with all the advantages which he derives from the teachings of his religion, and without any reference to the effect of his vote upon the stability of a Whig administration. We hope we shall not be suspected of anticipating too much from the formation of an independent Catholic party in the House of Commons; we are well aware of the difficulties and dangers which beset their path, and which may hinder them from effecting much real good, not in this parliament only, but in the next, and in a third or fourth it may be: and if we do not dwell on this dark side of the picture as fully as we have done on the brighter, it is not because we are blind to it, but because we are satisfied that our readers are sufficiently familiar with it already. We have no need, like the Egyptians of old, to introduce a skeleton into our banqueting-halls by way of tempering our festivity. There is always an abundance of them ready to our hands; they follow us as faithfully as our own shadows. We cannot take up a daily newspaper but that we find one staring us in the face. If it is not in the parliamentary debates, it will be found in the police-reports; if it is not a prominent feature in the leading article, we may reckon upon it with certainty in the columns of "our own correspondent." We shall probably return to the subject of our duties, and the special work which it behoves us to undertake, on another occasion; at present our space is exhausted, and we will only say a few words, in conclusion, against a very common, but, as we think, capital error, which would treat the No-Popery agitation as a consequence of the bull of Pope Pius IX. or the pastoral of his Eminence Cardinal Wiseman. The truth is, the causes and real springs of these outbreaks are quite independent of the occasions on which they shew themselves. When a man goes into convulsions at the offer of a cup of water, we do not say that the water has caused the hydrophobia, of which it has evoked the symptoms, any more than we blame the windmill as the cause of the madness which induced the knight to treat it as a giant. What the bite of a mad dog or a disease of the brain are in these cases, hatred of our religion and anger at its spread were in the late agitation. When the disease has arrived at a certain stage, it must evince itself, and accident decides the immediate occasion of its appearance. The No-Popery madness of England is an eversmouldering fire, which may break out at any moment, but which is never so dangerous as when men have forgotten its existence. It is a great blessing, that not only our own eyes, but those of all the wise and good men of the nation, have been opened to its existence and its dangers; and it is a great satisfaction to reflect, that if in the late sudden outburst, when every body was taken by surprise and when every thing seemed in its favour, it was yet got under without doing us any material injury, we have still less to fear from a relapse. We will add too, that we cannot help thinking it very fortunate that it happened when it did; fortunate that that wise and necessary step, the restoration of our hierarchy, which, in medical phrase, served to "bring out" the disorder, was not delayed till the progress of our faith had made the wrath of our enemies still more furious, or our own numbers more imposing. Had the numerical force of English Catholics been greater, the insults and injuries to which they were subjected might have provoked retaliation, and the fires of Stockport might have blazed in every town. That it was not so, we have every reason to be thankful. Those thanks, however, are certainly not due to the English Government, whether of Lord John Russell or Lord Derby. VOL. XI. DEATH-BED BEQUESTS; OR, CATHOLIC TESTATORS AND PROTESTANT CONSPIRATORS. A TRUE STORY. SIXTY years ago, a young man, named Mathurin Carré, who had been intended for holy orders, and had already received the tonsure, escaped for his life from France, then raging under the horrors of revolution, and happily reached England in safety. He took up his residence in London, of course in utter penury, and for his support adopted the course which so many emigrant Frenchmen, clerical or lay, at that time pursued, of teaching his native language in schools or private families. A certain air of dignity which he possessed, with a tall, commanding form, and all the courtesy of his country, with something too of that subdued tone which he would have naturally contracted from intercourse with the French clergy, caused him to be called Abbé; and we can easily conceive the associations and recollections which the little word must have often awakened in his mind. On his arrival in England, he appears to have applied himself with energy to the vocation he had adopted; and with unwearied industry he went to and fro to the various places where he was engaged, usually for a paltry pittance, to instruct children or others in his native tongue. Very naturally and properly, commencing in poverty and working so hardly for his living, he practised the utmost economy; and in process of time, quite as naturally, this became a habit of extreme parsimony. He lodged in the poorest of rooms, lived on the meanest of fare, and never allowed himself the slightest superfluity of any sort. Thus he lived and laboured, and as he saved small sums, hoarded them until they had accumulated to an amount with which he was enabled to buy a little stock. Having invested it in the Three per Cents, he still went on saving from what he earned, and adding savings and dividends together, and investing them in the same way, until he had at first hundreds, and then in the course of years thousands standing in his name in the Consols accounts at the Bank of England. For the greater part of his life he resided at Somers Town, near the Catholic chapel of St. Aloysius, of which the Rev. J. Holdstock was for twenty-five years one of the priests. M. Gasquet, a French Catholic, who has practised there as a medical man for nearly thirty years, remembered Carré all that time, and could recal curious traits of his character. About twenty-five years ago, two French Abbés, brothers, named De Coudray (both long since dead), officiated at the chapel; and he remembers they spoke of him as un avare. In 1830, after Charles X. was expelled from France, one of them was stopped by Carré (in coming out from the chapel), who said, with an air of kindness, that he must be much inconvenienced from his pension as a French emigré being stopped, and that he (Carré) would be happy to assist him. The Abbé at once accepted the offer, and borrowed 51. of him. But in a day or two Carré repented of his generosity, and came to askthe Abbé for the money, saying that the loan entailed a loss of interest. The Abbé told the story to M. Gasquet, who advanced the money to repay Carré, whom they made very much ashamed of himself by offering him the interest accurately calculated, which came to about a farthing. The allusion to the emigrants reminds us that Carré, although during the last twenty years of his life really a rich man, continued down to the very last to receive an allowance of 157. per annum from a public fund provided for the support of poor French emigrants, to receive which he was compelled to swear to poverty. He certainly lived in poverty; the few coals he used to have in winter were kept in a corner of his single room, which served for sitting-room and parlour, bed-chamber, pantry, and coalcellar. For the last eighteen years of his life Carré lodged at the house of a man named Hamilton, who of course became aware that he had a miser for a lodger, and paid him great attention, entertaining expectations of having his money bequeathed to him, more especially since no intercourse was carried on between the old man and his relations. They lived at Lavay, in the department of La Mayence, and about ten years ago comprised a brother and two married sisters. He had heard nothing of them until 1845, when, hearing that he was rich, they began to make inquiries after him; but he repulsed all efforts on their part to renew any intercourse, satisfied of their selfishness, and often saying that he knew they only cared for his money. He used to attend the Catholic chapel, but always sat in the free seats, behind the poor girls' school founded by the late venerable Abbé Carron, and on some occasions expressed an interest in the schools. When asked sometimes by a friend as to what he meant to do with his money, he would say that he hoped to leave a lamp to burn behind him, and would now and then refer specifically to the schools. For the last three or four years of his life, when he went to confession, it was to Mr. Holdstock. In February 1847 this old man had attained the age of seventy-seven, having lived half a century of incessant indus |