RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN FRANCE.

It appears from the following statement of facts, taken from Blackwood's Magazine, that religious liberty in France is not as permanently established as many seem to have supposed. It was natural to conclude, that, after the struggles through which the nation had passed to emancipate itself from civil and religious oppression, provision would be made effectually to guard against a recurrence of either. But a moment's reflection ought to satisfy us that such a hope was visionary. Infidelity is not the foster sister of vital godliness. It is naturally intolerant and vicious toward it under any circumstances.

True, the infidel leaders in France found it to their interest to excite public indignation against the intolerance of the church, during their revolutionary course. It was not, however, because they had any respect for religious freedom more than those they opposed, but only to effect their overthrow. We are not at all surprised, therefore, to find the spirit of persecution roused in France simultaneously with the revival of pure and undefiled religion.

The event, however, does not alarm our fears with respect to the progress of the gospel in that nation. Whatever may be the disposition of the present rulers, acting under the dominant influence of a corrupt philosophy, whose principles and axioms were everywhere inculcated to produce an entire change of the civil and religious policy of the country, the people have in the process been taught lessons on the question of human rights of which they can never be divested. They have learned their own rights, and whenever called to do so, will assert them with a firmness and decision that will not be misunderstood. All correct observation on the state of the country goes to show that a spirit favorable to the spread of the gospel and the principles of evangelical piety is abroad in the land, and rapidly increasing. Let then the spirit of persecution break forth in its fury-let only a few more such outrages as are detailed in the article below be perpetrated, and it will rouse the people to defend the persecuted, and place their rights upon a firm footing. Nor is this all. It will call up their attention to the cause in which they suffer. A smooth, quiet course may be pleasant, and, on many accounts, desirable. But it is not in the nature of things, that an extended and thorough revival of evangelical piety should take place in such a country as France-and in the midst of so much infidelity and irreligion-without persecution. The labors of a few ministers professing evangelical principles, performed quietly and without opposition, would lose their effect upon such a mass of corruption, were nothing to occur to agitate the community and turn the eyes of the listless multitude toward them. For this

very purpose God has always wisely overruled the persecutions of his people, and thus caused the wrath of man to praise him. It may therefore be presumed that the persecutions which the few faithful ministers in France are now called to suffer, will ultimately result in the furtherance of the gospel in that nation.

"It is generally thought that, since the priestly power has been humbled, as perfect a religious liberty prevails in France as in any other part of the world; or even more than this, that if several other nations enjoy a legal toleration and freedom in this matter which leaves nothing to be desired, the principle, at least, of liberty of worship is more largely, more liberally, more philosophically understood in that country than anywhere else. And this in a philosophic sense may be the case. The doctrine of toleration was originally propagated in France through the exertions of the infidel philosophers. It sprung consequently out of an indifference, or rather an impartial hostility, toward every form of Christianity. This gave a roundness, a positiveness, an absolute tone to its expression, which among other people, where there were attachments and preferences given to particular creeds and systems, was not to be met with. Hence it has happened that France has got the character of being superlatively enlightened on the subject of religious liberty. Excepting the Catholic priesthood from this praise, it has been universally deemed justly due to the great body of the nation. But the truth is, the doctrine of freedom of worship has in that country been hitherto little more than a philosophic dictum. Since it has been promulgated so roundly, there have been few opportunities of practising it. The revival of the national Reformed Church did not furnish one of these. That event was a matter of state policy, and considering the lethargic condition of French Protestantism at the time, its re-establishment, limited and crippled by the very nature of its organization, could hardly alarm the most susceptible bigotry, or the most malignant infidelity. Since then, till within the last year or two, there has been no religious movement in the country at all, and a dogma proclaiming complete liberty of worship, has been inscribed in the Charte. And while, on the one hand, this dogma remained unchallenged by events, and, on the other, there was a perfect stillness and passiveness in the religious world, it was only fair to believe that this solemn proclamation of freedom was synonymous with its virtual possession and enjoyment. But several striking facts have lately shown that this is not the case. Certainly there can be no doubt that Frenchmen cherish liberty of worship, as they do every other kind of liberty, as an abstract principle; but this principle, it would appear, they have recorded in their great national code barely as a philosophic maxim never intended to be carried out into practice. It was not indeed, in order that the gospel should put forth fresh shoots of life that religious liberty in France was made the law of the land, but rather that all denominations of Christians should alike live in equal contempt, security, and quietude. That antichristian philosophy which was the parent of French toleration, could neither design nor desire more than this. And, if we compare this state of sufferance, which is all that

is intentionally provided for, with the free and unlimited scope given to all religious opinions and religious establishments among ourselves and in other Protestant countries, we shall find that, in practice at least, freedom of worship is among our French neighbors yet in its infancy. It is only where we see such a spectacle as Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Independents, Baptists, and other numerous sects flourishing together, that we can say religious liberty is truly exhibited. Its spirit, however, may be shown without such a variety of examples. But this kind of liberty has never been in the contemplation either of French philosophy or of French law. A personal right to worship according to one's conscience is fully and cordially recorded, but whenever the Protestants of France have pushed this right in an aggressive direction, and have been successful in making proselytes, they have invariably encountered resistance, which has been frequently seconded and rendered triumphant by legal decisions against them. It is only lately indeed that such facts as we refer to have happened, for it is only lately that the awakening zeal of French Protestantism has provoked them. The consequence which has resulted is, that the limit of liberty granted by the French law, according to recent interpretations, is now marked; and it behooves the Reformed Churches of France early and unanimously to show that this limit, arbitrarily assigned, is in effect a denial of their rights altogether; and to contend manfully and fearlessly, as a body placed in the very vanguard of Christian truth in their country, for their undoubted and chartered privileges.

We have alluded above to certain flagrantly iniquitous and tyranical sentences pronounced against French preachers of the gospel within the last few months. We should not, however, think it incumbent on us to interfere in the matter, but should leave the battle to be fought out by those more immediately interested in it, if the sound part of the Reformed party in France did not labor under peculiar difficulties. In the first place, they have no audience in the nation. Whatever injustice may be done them, the people in general know nothing and care nothing about it. Their appeals to the public never extend beyond their own circle. Secondly, they are a timid race. Having been so long accustomed to persecution, and to act the part of meek and silent sufferers, or to express unbounded gratitude for mere tolerance, they hardly know how to assume the port and demeanor of bold asserters of truths and rights in the face of society at large. Thirdly, they have wisely and conscientionsly kept themselves apart from politics, and consequently, being identified with no political party, they possess no influence with the government to uphold their cause. Fourthly, grievances which affect even bodies of men, thus without power, are generally overlooked by the French legislature as unimportant. Petitions, or representations from particular parties or descriptions of persons, are huddled up in a common miscellany or farrago of minor matters in the chamber of deputies, and excite not so much national sympathy or sensation as an injury done to a single individual does among us. Fifthly, England has ever stepped in as the defender of the Reformation in France whenever its doctrines have been tyrannically opposed; and often has a voice of indignation from this side of the water, and sometimes even direct interference,

stayed and averted acts of oppression which would otherwise have fallen on our French Protestant brethren. And, sixthly, and chiefly, we know that there is only a feeble section of the Reformed population in France truly zealous for the spread of their creed, and that the efforts of this select division are rather thwarted than assisted by the great majority of their co-religionists. We feel it therefore becomes our duty to bring our aid to those with whom we are convinced the cause of the gospel in their country exclusively resides. It may be thought, perhaps, that we have spoken slightingly of this party, inasmuch as we have accused them of timidity; but if they have this defect, or rather, if they want enterprise and hardihood, not in propagating their faith, but in confronting their adversaries, this arises from a singular meekness and gentleness, and purity, and simplicity, and candor, and unworldliness of mind, which it would perhaps be impossible to find in any other society of Christians throughout the world. These traits of their character, so rarely combined with that daringness of spirit which accompanies a sense of strength and prosperity, only gives them in our estimation additional interest.

The cases we have now to expose, regarded even as isolated facts, are crying acts of injustice and oppression; but considered as precedents, as mere initiatory trials of power, to be repeated with increasing emphasis and authority whenever occasions may present themselves, they assume a significance which jeopard the very existence of religious liberty. If means be not speedily found of reversing the decisions which have been lately pronounced in French courts of law, we have no hesitation in saying that the gospel will be more effectually suppressed in France than it could be by open and violent persecution. These decisions remaining uninvalidated, every petty authority in that country will have an extinguisher ready to put upon the Reformed creed whenever there is the slightest prospect of its extending beyond the walls of the national temple; and within those walls, as we have shown in some late papers, there is but a slender prospect of its showing much life, if not acted upon by an external impulsion from the unsalaried churches. The question, therefore, before us, appears so important that, although we have been for some time designing to give our readers some farther accounts of French Protestantism in general, we think it better to treat of our present subject separately, that it may receive the full measure of attention it deserves. The matter which actually engages us is not French but Protestant, and concerns much more nearly those who are interested in the progress of the Reformation, than it does either the French government or the French people, to both of whom it is a topic essentially alien.

We now come to the exposition of the facts which have called forth the above reflections, and in doing so we must request our readers' patience, for we have a question of law to unravel which is indispensable to the understanding of the case before us. In the month of Febuary last, Mr. Oster, a minister of the Reformed Church of the confession of Augsburg, was summoned by the mayor of Metz, in which place he was residing and officiating as a minister of the gospel, to shut up the apartment which served him

for a chapel, and to discontinue the meetings which were held there for religious purposes. The mayor of Metz considered himself authorized to take this step by the 294th article of the penal code, which is directed against all associations not expressly permitted by a chief magistrate. The pastor, Oster, in his defence appealed to the correctional police of the town, and that tribunal, in an energetic sentence, declared, that according to the 5th article of the Charte, which proclaims a complete religious liberty, the defendant was perfectly justified in holding assemblies for religious worship without the authorization of the mayor. Upon this that magistrate carried his case before the Cour Royal of Metz, and obtained a sentence which has condemned the pastor. It is necessary here to transcribe a few heads of this sentence, that its logic may be known. "Considering," it says, "that J. P. Oster, calling himself a minister of the Christian church of the confession of Augsburg, has in the course of December last, without permission from authority, and in spite of its forbiddance, given an apartment in a house which he occupies, for an assembly of twenty-three persons met together for the purpose of worship: considering that this act is provided against and repressed by the precise dispositions of the 294th article of the penal code: considering that Mr. Oster pretends that these dispositions have ceased to exist since the publication of the 5th article of the Charte of 1830, with which they are irreconcilable: considering that without doubt this abrogation has not been expressly pronounced by any law, and that it can therefore be but tacit: considering that the principle of liberty of worship is formally proclaimed by the Charte in its 5th article, as individual liberty is by the 4th article, and the liberty of the press by the 7th article: considering that the liberty of the press and individual liberty are unquestionably as precious to Frenchmen as liberty of worship, and that nevertheless it cannot be contested that both one and the other are subject to numerous precautionary restrictions, and to the surveillance of the police: considering that liberty of worship must inevitably be subject to the same restraints; that no one has ever pretended that this liberty is so illimitable that it can be subject to no measures and no superintendence of the police, and that, in fact, from the admission of such a proposition there would result consequences utterly incompatible with the existence of all organized society:" considering these, and many other matters, which are mere flourishes of rhetoric or appeals to precedents of times of despotism and persecution, the Cour Royal of Metz condemned Mr. Oster, and suppressed the worship of which he was the minister. Mr. Oster then appeals to the Court of Cassation of Paris, and that tribunal has confirmed the judgment of the Cour Royal of Metz, going over the same arguments in the sentence it delivered.

In order to unravel the sophistry of the judgment we have just quoted, it is necessary to enter somewhat at length into its detail, and first to state the question in its true light. By the 5th article of the Charte complete liberty of worship is roundly proclaimed; but, lest this should have the character of a naked abstract maxim-the character now sought to be given to it-special provisions, of an an. terior datec ertainly, are fortunately connected with it, which show that it was not intended to be laid down as a mere first principle