in the way we have proposed, and as universal practice prescribes the real difference between a Catholic and a Protestant minister. The one holds a certain place in an invisible and spiritual order of things, stands between God and the people, is endowed with certain high powers, and is the dispenser of precious blessings to the children of men; and he is called by a name which belongs to this supernatural order of things, and expresses more or less distinctly the idea we have given of his character whereas the other occupies rather a certain position in the hierarchy of this world, belongs to a certain grade of society, and so forth; and he is spoken of accordingly. However, without pursuing these etymological speculations any further, and insisting too strenuously on distinctions that may seem to some offensive, it will be agreed on all hands that there is a most real and substantial difference between a Catholic and a Protestant-what must we call them? minister or clergyman, we suppose, since there is nothing to prevent the application of these words to either class, though we must confess we have a cordial aversion to them both precisely for this very reason, because they are common, and so enable people to cover up and put out of sight an essential difference by means of a fallacious middle term. But let this pass. We repeat then, there is a most real and substantial difference between a Catholic and a Protestant clergyman; and we propose in the following pages to point out one striking symptom of this difference in the education and discipline which they receive in order to prepare them for their respective offices. Independently of its own intrinsic interest and importance, the subject is worth insisting upon at the present moment, were it only for the opportunity which it affords of correcting an opinion, by no means uncommon among a certain class of converts to the Catholic Church, viz. that every unmarried Anglican minister, who by God's grace becomes a Catholic, is under a kind of moral obligation immediately to commence ecclesiastical studies, and incurs a certain degree of blame if he do not persevere to the end and become a Catholic priest. We have heard language used upon this subject which really falls very little short of what we have said, though probably the speakers would have hesitated to enumerate the propositions in the broad, unqualified manner in which they have here been stated. Nevertheless, they have certainly spoken in a way that seems to indicate a very inadequate appreciation of the distance between the two classes of priests and parsons; and it is on every account desirable that this distance should not be lost sight of, or thought to be less than it really is,

We will at once proceed, therefore, to institute a com

parison between them in this essential particular, of the education which they receive as a preparation for their respective duties. And here we are met on the very threshold of our subject by the startling phenomenon, that the Establishment has not provided and does not require, does not even seem to recognise the necessity of any education at all, properly so called; that is, of any strictly professional education for the clerical office. In this respect the Established Church of this country is far behind many other of the Protestant sects around her; for of these the more numerous and wealthy have built for themselves colleges in which candidates for the ministerial office receive a certain degree of special instruction and training, with a view to preparing them for their future occupation. But the clergy of the Establishment receive for the most part no such preparation at all. There are indeed certain private institutions, of recent origin, in a few dioceses, where an attempt has been made to supply this deficiency. But these are frequented but by few students, who either being impressed with a higher notion of the sacredness of their calling than was common among their forefathers, or feeling themselves to be incompetent to satisfy even the meagre requirements of an episcopal examination without some special cramming, voluntarily have recourse to them. There is nothing official about them, they are not the recognised ecclesiastical colleges of the Establishment; and in fact, there are none such. Putting out of sight, therefore, these and any other insignificant exceptions, the necessary antecedents of an Anglican parson may be briefly stated thus: an academical degree; personal presence at the delivery of a few theological lectures, but without any guarantee that those lectures have been even decently listened to, still less that they are thoroughly understood and remembered; testimonials of good conduct during the last three years; and to pass an examination that shall be satisfactory to the episcopal chaplain. Of these four postulates, which for the last three hundred years have been deemed abundantly sufficient to make a man competent to undertake the cure of souls in the Church of England, the first has so remote a bearing upon the end proposed, that it need not be spoken of atall; the second, which until the last few years was scarcely more than a nominal obligation, is even now utterly inadequate to any practical purpose whatever; the third is always granted, excepting in cases of very gross immorality detected by the college authorities; so that the fourth is, in fact, the only one which bears even the semblance of being a true and satisfactory test. This, too, will prove upon closer inspection to be far better in its promise than its reality; for here every

thing depends upon the taste, and fancies, and the capabilities of an individual; so that we have seen episcopal examinationpapers of which a man might have answered every question, and yet have been utterly ignorant almost of the very first elements of theology; or again, which he might have been wholly unable to answer, and yet have been in every way admirably qualified to discharge all the functions of an Anglican clergyman. Hence it is far from being a strange thing in the Establishment to see a young man with the sole charge of a parish upon his hands, who but a few months ago, or even a few weeks perhaps, was a student in the university, not having yet received his academical degree; or on the other hand, there may be instances of young men taking their degrees at an unusually early age, and having plenty of time, therefore, wherein to prepare for holy orders, yet this time may be lost, or turned to very poor account, for want of any adequate and authorised direction in the way of study. We ourselves knew a case in which a person under these circumstances actually applied to his bishop, or bishop's chaplain, to mark out for him a course of theological study which might occupy him during the three years that he had to spare before he was of sufficient age to be ordained; and he received for answer the very novel and important announcement, that when he presented himself for examination to the bishop, he would be expected to display "a competent knowledge of the Bible and Prayer-book," and that he would find in the works of Pearson and Hooker much valuable information serviceable for this purpose. Truly a compendious system of theology is this; a precise and complete course of study, to propose to a young candidate for holy orders having three years of leisure, which he was willing and anxious to bestow upon a diligent preparation for what he deemed a high and holy calling. Is it to be wondered at that, under such guides as these, or rather with such an utter absence of all guidance, theology should be so little understood as it is by the great majority of English parsons? To most of them it is a science wholly unknown, and it is much if they even recognise it to be a science at all. Other things, such as logic and mathematics and history and geography, and the works of heathen poets and orators and philosophers, they have been taught carefully and scientifically; and they have obtained, it may be, a sufficiently accurate knowledge of them. But for theology, this has been left to mere chance, to the influences of home or of school associations, to their own individual researches, or to the accidental opinions and zeal of some college companion or tutor; it has never been set before them as an independent and most important

science, still less have they been required or encouraged to enter upon it as the one great study of their lives. In fact, it is not too much to say, that the education of an English clergyman differs in nothing from that of any other English gentleman who receives what is called " a liberal education."

This strikes one at first sight as something strange and perplexing; and if the Established Church were really what it professes to be, a religious body commissioned to teach a certain system of religious truths, it would indeed be a most extraordinary and anomalous phenomenon. It becomes perfectly natural, however, and nothing more than was reasonably to have been expected, if we look upon the Establishment (as the great majority of her members practically treat it, and as it is considered by the world at large), simply as part and parcel of the British Constitution, a particular department of the government of the country. Viewed in this light, its ministers need no special course of instruction to fit them for their office, any more than county magistrates or members of parlia ment require such a training; and to profess oneself a member of the Church of England is only another form of claiming the rights of British citizenship, and acknowledging the authority of Queen Victoria. A very amusing illustration of this occurred the other day, which, though rather foreign to our present subject, we cannot forbear quoting, because we do not observe that it has received elsewhere the notice which it deserves. We allude to "the interesting ceremony," as one of the popular London journals described it, "of the admission into the Christian Church of the Princess Gouramma, daughter of his Highness Prince Vere Rajunder, ex-Rajah of Coorg." The same authority went on to speak of it as "an event more than commonly satisfactory, inasmuch as it is one of the few instances on record of the abandonment of the Hindoo faith for the truths of the Christian religion." This very interesting and satisfactory ceremony, then, was the baptism of a child of eleven years of age, "the offspring of one of his Highness's favourite wives." It was performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the private chapel of Buckingham Palace, her Majesty standing as sponsor to the child, and giving her her own name of Victoria. On this solemn occasion, the ex-Rajah, her father, took the opportunity of addressing to his daughter, "the following instruction and prayer" (we still quote from the London Journal): "My dearest daughter, endeavour to gain every day more and more the grace, and to merit the love and kindness"-of whom do our readers imagine? "of Almighty God, of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and of all the saints?" not at all, but "the grace, the love and kindness”

"of her most gracious Majesty the Queen, that thereby all Europe, India, and the rest of the world may hear and be pleased with your good conduct and fame! May Heaven bless you, and keep you always under its divine protection and special care! This is my advice to you, my dearest daughter, and my most earnest prayer to the Almighty in your behalf." Probably our readers will agree with us in thinking that this reads far more like an abandonment of the Coorg country for the security and distinction of an English home, than an "abandonment of the Hindoo faith for the truths of the Christian religion;" and that there can be no great necessity for any special theological education for the ministers of a religion of which "her most gracious Majesty the Queen" is so thoroughly and exclusively the head. But to return to our subject. We have said, that clergymen of the Church of England do not in fact receive any professional education at all; let us look now at the other side of the picture, and see what is the education of a Catholic priest. Even from the very first, as soon as the friends of a youth have determined on bringing him up as an ecclesiastic, he is (in a Catholic country) sent to a school specially set apart for the purpose; the little seminary, or minor college of the bishop of his diocese. Here he remains for six or seven years, engaged in the same studies as other boys of his age elsewhere, receiving in fact an ordinary classical education; but with this great difference, that he is already surrounded by an ecclesiastical atmosphere, so to speak.

"The bishops pay great attention to this minor college," writes an English resident in Belgium.* "Our own bishop visits his, which is situated at Roulers, every month for the purpose of examination, which is carried on in the presence of persons invited for the occasion, and trifling rewards and honours are bestowed upon the most meritorious. Here the personal character of each child is thoroughly studied, and a discreet judgment exercised as to who among them shall be presented for examination and consequent admission into the great college, where only such as are thought really fit to persevere in their preparation for holy orders can be received. Students once admitted into the great college are immediately subjected to a life of holy training and discipline, with the intent of weaning them from a world to which they have bid adieu from the moment they determined to become priests of God."

[Hence, we may observe by the way, that feature in the character of the ecclesiastical student which excited so much surprise in Sir Francis Head in his recent visit to Maynooth:

* What follows is quoted from an unpublished letter by the author of the spirited Sketches of Catholic Life in Belgium, originally addressed to an Anglican clergyman, but containing so accurate and pleasing an account of the subject of which it treats, that we cannot do better than print it at length.