which so much has been said the simplification of certain formalities-they are not even permanent and certain; since a Ministerial circular is not a law, and binds neither the judges, nor the Minister's successor, nor the Minister himself.

But this is not all: M. Briand's circular positively aggravates the injustice of the Separation Act in its dealing with the seminaries. He lays it down that the professors of a seminary form to all intents and purposes a veiled association (dissimul e); and on this flimsy pretext determines that they are to be for ever deprived of the use of buildings erected at the cost of the faithful, even by lease from municipalities. Surely nothing could be plainer than the intention of the Government to strike directly at the very existence of the French priesthood.

Whether his action has been wise or not judged by diplomatic standards, the truth is that the Holy Father has recognised clearly the spirit of relentless aggression which the French Government desired partially to veil, and has acted on that recognition. Far from inventing a state of persecution, he has brought into relief a real state of persecution which its authors wished to disguise. An indignant protest, coupled with a great act of renunciation which must disarm those who would accuse the Church of unworthy motives, has appeared to him at once more effective and more characteristically Christian than any endeavour to negotiate indirectly with inveterate enemies who are likely in the end to outwit him in strategy as they are his superiors in physical force. In one weapon and one only the Church is stronger than the State-in the moral force of principle and a good cause. To denounce the anti-Christian campaign which is designed to destroy her power by inches, to draw up her forces in unity, zeal, and apostolic poverty-this was the best policy just because it was no policy. And it was the most direct and urgent form of appeal to the people of France, and to Catholics throughout the world.

Its actual effect in Paris made a great impression on me during my recent visit. Nothing struck me more than the whole-hearted way in which the action of Rome has been accepted by those who at first had urged a policy of conciliation. One may wish the general to adopt one kind of strategy,' said M. Thureau-Dangin to me, 'but if he adopts another, the great thing is to obey orders and show a united front.' The Radical Papers had said with their customary politeness that the grasping ecclesiastics would most certainly do anything to keep their property. On this account the refusal to form the Associations was not feared. The action of the Church has thus wholly disconcerted them. In the event, whatever may be said from the standpoint of human policy, the action of the French Church stands out as a very remarkable moral protest and a display both of the apostolic spirit and of absolute discipline at a moment when especially union is strength.

I spent some time on the morning of Monday the 17th with Monseigneur Amette, the coadjutor to the venerable Cardinal Archbishop. He told me that on Saturday the 15th a police commissioner had called and said that the Archbishop must leave his palace that day. Two days of grace were, however, in the end accorded; and now in a few hours the old man of eighty-eight was to leave the house which the Archbishops had lived in since 1831-the house of Monseigneur de Quélen, of Monseigneur Affre, who was shot on the barricades in 1848, of Monseigneur Darboy, who was killed by the Commune in 1871. St. Sulpice was to be also closed in two days, and all its sacred memories, beginning with the days of M. Olier, violated. The formation of Associations Cultuelles would not have averted this destruction of historic landmarks and traditions. It would only have postponed it for two years. The coadjutor Archbishop described the clergy as resigned and absolutely united. He looked forward to a great renewal of life and influence for the French Church to be won by the sacrifice of her worldly property, and the zeal which comes of persecution. On the absolute unity displayed-so great a power in time of war-he was very emphatic. That unity has indeed deeply impressed outsiders to the Church, as may be seen in words lately published in an English journal which has stood almost alone in extending to French Catholics that sympathy in their persecution which was so general among Englishmen when similar treatment was accorded to them in 1793. The Saturday Review of the 15th of December thus refers to the united stand which French Catholics have made :

Their attitude is historically remarkable, for never before in the struggle between the State and the Vatican in France has French Catholicism so unanimously ranged itself on the side of the Papacy. When Louis the Fourteenth raised the standard of Gallicanism against Innocent the Eleventh he could count on the aid of Bossuet and the flower of the French episcopate. Even Pius the Sixth's condemnation of the civil constitution did not prevent four bishops and a large section of the French clergy from giving their adhesion to the religious establishment inaugurated by the National Assembly. In the stern contest between Pius the Seventh and Napoleon, a large section of the French clergy were Imperialists. Why, if there is a grain of truth in the allegations of the English supporters of the régime of persecution, is no such aid forthcoming to M. Clemenceau and his merry men to-day? True, the French Church may be more papal in sentiment to-day than it was of yore; but certain recent controversies-for instance, those on Anglican orders and Biblical criticism— have revealed the important fact that a considerable section of the French priesthood is not in sympathy with extreme Ultramontanism. Such facts render the solid unity in the Catholic Church of France, and the united resolution of its members to suffer undeserved loss and shameful persecution, the more impressive. Only an issue of the first moment could have united so great a body, hampered as it is by Erastian traditions, in so magnificent a protest. For the time the clouds are black, and there seems little hope of a popular reaction against Jacobinism in the land of St. Louis. From the greater part of Christendom, to its shame be it said, there comes but scant sympathy with the

persecuted Church. History, happily, may be trusted to set the matter right, and to do a generous if tardy justice to the brave men who are fighting the battle of religious liberty before the world, and are preserving for France the faith of Christ.

It used to be the fashion in England to treat as the fanaticism of credulous Catholics the attribution of the campaign against the French Church to the influence of the Freemasons. The revelation of the masonic delations in the Army in 1904, which led to the resignation of General André and the fall of M. Combes, gave a shock to this view, and ought to have killed it once for all. Englishmen learnt with astonishment of a system of espionnage whereby Catholic officers were denied promotion because they were reported to the Lodges as being the husbands of devout wives, or themselves churchgoers, or as having sent their children to Catholic schools. For a time the reality of masonic persecution was realised among us. But old prejudices are hard to kill. The incident has been forgotten, and, though maintained with less confidence, some of the old scepticism on the subject has returned. On the reality of masonic influence in the present war on the Church, no one with whom I talked in Paris was more emphatic than M. Dimnet, whose worst enemies could not accuse him of undue credulity. Dr. William Barry, in the National Review of July 1905, placed the matter beyond doubt for those who really desire to know the facts.

The anti-Catholic fanaticism of French and Italian Freemasons is, indeed, no secret, although Englishmen are slow to believe in a temper which is so uncongenial to them that they are unable adequately to realise it in imagination. The Revue Maçonnique, in December 1902, published a frank avowal on the subject. 'Freemasonry,' it says, 'is not understood everywhere in the same fashion. The Anglo-Saxons have made of it a brotherhood which is at once aristocratic and conservative in politics and religion. . . . As for Latin freemasonry, it owes its distinctive peculiarities to the battle it is waging against Catholicism.' The sayings of MM. Clemenceau and Briand, quoted above, show at least that if from motives of policy they judge it well to help on the campaign in question, there is nothing in it repugnant to their own sentiments. M. Camille Pelletan, Clemenceau's old friend and colleague, naïvely avowed a few days ago that Pius the Tenth seemed to be the providential instrument of their designs. At a time when they desired to confiscate the Church's property, but could not venture to do it at once, the Pope solved the difficulty by giving it up rather than accept the new law. M. Viviani, the new Minister of Labour, addressed the Chamber last November in a speech which had the true masonic ring in it. He treated disestablishment as the seal set to the extinction of the light of religion in the land, and the exposure of its falsehoods. We have extinguished in heaven lights which will not be rekindled,' he said; 'we have taught the toiler and the destitute that heaven contained

only phantoms.' The speech was vehemently applauded and publicly posted in the streets. These speeches have been reported in the English Press. I refer to them here only as illustrations of the fact of which French Catholics are as a body convinced, that what is going on is not legislation with the view to the ultimate liberty of the Church, designed to purge Catholicism of political elements, but is on the contrary, in the minds of its chief promoters, part of a campaign directed through the Church against Christianity. To exhibit this view as the true key to understanding the present attitude of the Vatican, and its unanimous and, for the most part, enthusiastic acceptance by the French Church, has been the main object of this article.

WILFRID WARD.

AFGHANISTAN AND ITS RULER

THE coming visit to India of Ameer Habeeb-ullah again brings into prominence the relations of the Indian Government with the ruler of the Afghan State, and suggests the question whether the time has not arrived for a revision of the existing engagements in order to place those relations on the solid basis of mutual trust. For, however much we may regret the fact, it cannot be denied that our policy towards Afghanistan has not been so definite or so clear as to leave no room for doubt or misapprehension on the part of the Ameer.

No one underrates the value of firmness in international politics, especially with regard to a State over which we exercise a controlling influence, but minatory language without any real necessity, mistrust when sound policy required confidence, a constant suspicion that Afghanistan may prove a frail reed to rely on-do not seem to anybody watching the course of events from an independent standpoint, as the proper method of dealing with a sensitive nation.

I do not hold a brief for the Ameer; my object is to present the other side of the question in what I conceive to be the true interests of the British Empire, in the hope that the point of view of an independent observer may have its use in looking at the general question.

The present ruler of Afghanistan is still under forty. Without his father's severity, he combines much strength of character with a benevolent and kindly disposition, which has been construed by some of his critics into weakness. He is conversant with several languages, including English, all of which he speaks with fluency. He is well-read in the history, literature, and traditions of Islam, and is thus able to hold his own against any of the mullahs or priests of his country. From all accounts he is neither an obscurantist nor a bigot, although like Western sovereigns he has to keep in check any personal latitudinarianism out of deference to the prejudices of his people. He has a fair knowledge of contemporary history, and is said to have watched with peculiar interest the struggle between Japan and Russia.

In 1884, I met, during a visit to Karachi, a notable figure in Afghan history-Sirdar Shere Ali Khan, ex-Wali of Candahar, who only a short time before had been expelled from his principality by the Ameer Abdur Rahman. Afghanistan was still in a chaotic condition; the tribal organisation was still unbroken, and many of the chiefs