Government and the People, and some of the Clergy. Religion suffers by this struggle: if it is prolonged, the People may lapse into irreligion, and if irreligion prevails, Revolution will soon follow. Many Bishoprics are now vacant in Italy. The Government is exposing itself to the charge of indifference to religion, by keeping those Sees void, and by sequestering their revenues. But if the vacant Episcopal Sees of Italy are filled up with loyal, learned, and religious men, then the Spiritualty and Temporalty would co-operate in harmonious efforts for the religious and secular welfare of the people. The importance of this question is placed in a still clearer light, when the statistics of the Italian Episcopate are examined. The Dioceses of Italy are very numerous: and wherever there is a Bishop, the Pope has now a person who is bound to him by oaths of allegiance, and who exercises an almost unbounded power over the Clergy. In Piedmont there are thirty-three Bishops, in Venezia eleven, in Lombardy five, in Tuscany twenty-one, in the old Ecclesiastical States seventy, in the Duchy of Modena eight, in Sicily and Naples one hundred and nine. If

these Sees were filled by pious, learned, enlightened, and loyal men, not trammelled by unrighteous oaths, but appointed according to the laws and usages of the ancient Catholic Church, Italy would rise to a position such as it has never yet occupied in the history of Europe and the world.

Since the above remarks were written, a calculation has been made, from which it appears that there are now (Nov. 1862) no less than thirty-four Bishoprics vacant in the Kingdom of Italy.

CHAPTER IV.

MILAN (continued).

Wednesday afternoon, May 21st.-At halfpast two attended Vespers in the Cathedral. Canons about twenty in number came out of the Sacristy in procession,-attired in white, red, and green, and went up to the raised stalls at the east end of the choir, where they seated themselves in a semicircle according to the usual ancient arrangement, the Bishop being supposed to occupy the seat in the middle of the apse. Few persons were present. A young priest with his "Diurnum Ambrosianum" in his hand, very reverent and attentive. There are four Canonries now vacant, and they cannot be filled up, because the Vicario Capitolare, the deputy of the Archbishop,-will not give institution to the nominees of the Crown.

I procured a copy of the Diurnum Ambro

VOL. I.

E

sianum, and on comparing it with the Roman Ritual I observed many deviations between the two. Let me specify some in the ritual for the present month, May. The Roman Church has canonized two of her Popes, Gregory VII., and Pius V., and their festivals occur in May. That of Pope Pius V. is on the 5th of this month; and in the services appointed for that day he is lauded as "having discharged the duty of an Inquisitor with inflexible courage," and having "crushed the enemies of the Church,' doubtless with reference to his conduct to Queen Elizabeth, against whom he issued a Bull of excommunication and deposition (on Feb. 24, 1567), commanding her subjects to rise up in rebellion against her.

Similarly Pope Gregory VII. is eulogized in the Roman Breviary on May 25th because "he strenuously resisted the Emperor Henry IV., and deprived him of his crown, and released his subjects from their allegiance'."

These words stand in the Roman Breviary, and are recited by her in her Churches at this

1 The words in the Roman Breviary are, "C regno privavit, atque subditos populos fide ei datâ liberavit."

day; it is clear from them that the Church of Rome has never renounced her claim to dethrone kings; and to release their subjects from their allegiance; on the contrary, she now worships as saints those Popes who asserted those claims, and who also put them in force.

On looking into the Calendar of the Milanese Church, I see no mention of either of these Popes. It is well known also, that many Roman Catholic Princes forbade these portions of the Roman Offices just specified, for these two festivals, to be printed in the Breviary used in their dominions. They were expunged from the Breviaries of Naples, Venice, Spain, and France. But it is very remarkable, that these very offices which were suppressed by Bourbon Princes, have now reappeared in the Breviaries of France, under Napoleon III., the Sovereign of the popular choice! Popes of Rome are now eulogized in all the Churches of France for having deposed kings! The Church of Rome has had a temporal end in view, in supplanting and displacing all the national Breviaries of France, and in substituting the Roman Breviary in their