go to form a rule of conduct for me. Besides laws, properly so called, there are commands or orders of legitimate superiors which, when made aware of them, I am bound to obey. These, too, contribute to make up my rule of conduct, though, in obeying them, I am really obeying the laws, Divine or human, that confer authority on the superiors by whom the orders are issued, and exact obedience on my part towards them. However, for greater distinctness of ideas and greater completeness of view, I will describe my rule of conduct as consisting of all the laws to which I am subject and which are known to me, and, besides, of all the orders or commands permanently or passingly given to me by legitimate superiors and also known to me. The operation of these laws and commands is often dependent or conditioned upon undertakings of my own, such as vows, promises, contracts, which, once existing, I am required to fulfil. I am speaking of a strictly obligatory rule of conduct, and therefore say nothing of mere counsels remaining such, and not made binding on me by any act of mine.

We have got here a pretty comprehensive rule, a voluminous code. Neither the whole of this rule nor any part of it is conscience. It is all a remote rule; conscience is the immediate or proximate rule. Conscience takes cognisance of those parts of the code that regard any act to be done or omitted at this or that particular time. Among the elements of this huge aggregate, considered as they are in themselves, and, still more, if some of them be misapprehended, as continually occurs, there must be not unfrequently a real or apparent opposition. The opposition may again be really or apparently certain-in that wide or loose sense in which merely apparent certainty can be admitted-or else doubtful. There is another opposition, too, not between obligation and obligation, but between alleged obligation and our rights or interests. In all these cases of opposition, conscience has troublesome work to do, or rather, the judgment in which conscience consists is hard to pronounce. The guiding principles to be kept in view are simple, namely: that regularly and ordinarily all laws are to be observed, all orders of superiors to be obeyed; that, in uncertainty about the legitimacy of commands. unquestionably issued, there is a presumption in favour of authority; that hardships incidental to obedience must commonly be borne, and not made a pretext for declining to comply; for painful things are very often justly exacted. These are the guiding principles taught us by reason and religion.

But, as to obedience, there are exceptions, especially in the contingency of real or seeming collisions between authorities. The law of God, whether natural or revealed, must hold the first place, and, where sufficiently ascertained, carries all before it. The natural law rightly understood admits of no deviations. The same is true of revealed Law as to the cases it is intended to comprehend. The same may be said too of universal laws of the Church or Pope. But it may be doubtful how far Ecclesiastical or even Divine Law really goes. Other laws or orders may sometimes be in real opposition with those just referred to. Among the rest, a particular command of the Pope might be at variance with Natural or Divine Positive Law.

Well, then, in the common course, conscience exacts the fulfilment of each law and of each order proceeding from an otherwise competent authority. Whence a law or an order is seen to be opposed to what is prescribed by a higher power, or is seen to be in excess of the jurisdiction from which it professes to derive its force, conscience will refuse to recognise it. In cases where there seems to be such opposition or excess, conscience, first of all, dictates that the question should be well weighed; and, this process having been gone through, an ultimate conscience is arrived at as best it may, either absolutely determining the course which must be followed, or allowing an election between two courses, either of which, considering the obscurity of the question, may be followed.

I am not writing a treatise on conscience, but have been endeavouring to explain, in a superficial way, its nature and office, with a view to pointing out its relation to Papal precepts as distinguished from definitions and universal laws, and, at the same time, meeting Mr. Gladstone's comment on what he considers an unwarranted limitation of the Vatican Decree as regarding obedience to the Pope. I return now to the precise point at issue. Conscience is the appointed guide of every man's free actions, great and small. It is the immediate guide, subordinate to all precepts imposed by God or man, as much as the judges of our courts and their decisions are subordinate to the common and statute law which they apply. It is impossible for any man to do any good or bad action without obeying or discbeying conscience. An action not related one way or the other to conscience is not a moral action at all. Conscience rightly understood is not another name for self-will. Conscience is not an authority set up for a purpose, for the purpose of resisting commands of the Pope or of any other legitimate ruler. But as the most legitimate human ruler may, perchance, in some instances, prescribe what is wrong, or what he has no power to prescribe, and as, in such cases, he either ought not or need not be obeyed, and as the practical decision to that effect must, if made at all, be made by conscience, just as the opposite decision would have to be made in the common course, so it is conscience which withstands the unwarranted precept. There is certainly no Protestantism in this.

What did Protestantism do? It cast off the divinely constituted authority of the Church in Faith and Morals. It overturned the system which Christ had established for the religious government of men. It proclaimed the all-sufficiency of the Bible, interpreted according to each one's fancy; without heeding the inability of so many to read the written Word of God, of so many more to study it as it would have to be studied in order to make out a creed from it, of so many more again to understand it. Protestantism proclaimed an unbounded liberty of belief, and then condemned those who used that liberty. Every one was to explain the Scripture as he might feel himself disposed to explain it, while, by an inconsistency which, up to a certain point, was useful, doctrines were taught and insisted on, and people were not left to themselves. I say this was useful up to a certain point, because some sort of Christianity was maintained longer

than it could otherwise have been, and the process of total religious dissolution, to which Protestantism naturally ten ls, was made slower; and even imperfect Christianity is better for society than the entire absence of it. Then, in this state of things, there may be many indivils who, through simplicity on the one hand and the influence of God's grace on the other, have real Divine Faith in those revealed doctrines which they hold, and belong in a certain true sense to the Church, which they do not explicitly recognise. Here that invincible igwrance which is occasionally spoken of may enter to excuse, and I would observe that there is a great affinity, and even identity, between invincible ignorance and an invincibly erroneous conscience. Yet, one difficulty that stands in the way of Protestants, and of their sincerity and good faith, arises from the fact that their professed religion is a religion of inquiry, and the neglect of inquiry is the neglect of an apparently recognised duty. But I am digressing.

I would observe that conscience does not serve as a valid plea before the outward tribunals of the State or of the Church. If a person misconducts himself, and outwardly violates precepts to which he is subject, the mere allegation of a conscientious dictate will not avail to obtain him impunity; and this is not attributable to any mere legal maxims or presumptions necessary for the protection of society. The law, for instance, will not listen, in many cases, to defences on the score of ignorance, though that ignorance may be real and excusable and excusing in the eyes of God, because public policy forbids the admission of what may often be pretexts. But the reason why conscience cannot be pleaded for clearly wrong things is, that, as a le, it cannot be true that conscience-at any rate an invincibly erroneous conscience-exists to dictate them. It would be easier to suppose madness; and yet other circumstances may negative such a supposition. Hence, even ou side of courts, human society will not recognise those appeals to conscience. Still, if, by a possible or impossible hypothesis, a man were in reality acting, in the worst of these cases from an invincibly erroneous conscience, he would be free from guilt before God.

THE LAMP OF THE SANCTUARY.

FAITHFUL Lamn! how like the sweet star shining
O'er Bethlehem's lowly cave,

When Mary to the world in darkness pining

Its Light and Saviour gave.

Like to that star the Eastern Sages guiding,
Thy gentle radiance tells

Where the Eternal Word made flesh abiding,

Love's willing prisoner dwells.

Here, though unheard, are angels' harpstrings sounding,

And angels' voices raise

Triumphant hymns, as when, that cave surrounding,
They sang the lafant's praise:

E

And, ever from the countless choirs adoring

The hidden Godhead there,

Bright bands to heaven, on starlit pinions soaring,
Our humble homage bear.

Even to-day as yesterday unchanging,

O Lamp! thy tender flame,

'Mid all around from cold to fervour ranging,
Burnest alway the same.

When through the tinted pane on arch and ceiling
The mellow sunshine flows,

And many a form is round the altar kneeling,
Unquenched thy lustre glows.

Or when the shades of night are overspreading
The city's nameless guile,

Thy pure light gleams, though not a foot is treading
The long deserted aisle.

O wondrous thought! O purpose high! excelling
All earth beside may boast-

To guard for aye God's chosen earthly dwelling,
With heaven's attending host.

So may my soul, O beacon softly beaming!
With love unfading shine,

Till o'er its vision breaks the glory streaming
Down from the Throne divine.

W. R.

A GOSSIPING LETTER FROM CALCUTTA.

[The writer, whose lively French is spoiled in this translation, did not mean his letter to be published, but only to be read by his friends at home. The visit of the Prince of Wales to India lends a certain timeliness to these descriptions of "Our Indian Correspondent," though they were not at all written for the occasion.]

You

OU ask me to give you an idea of this country, and a detailed account of our life in this climate. I am at your disposal for the whole of this afternoon, if you come to join me at Park-street, Calcutta.

It is very hot. The thermometer, which I have just consulted, is 101 Fahrenheit, in the shade. In whatever direction you look from my windows, you can see nothing but white houses, which, turned to the four winds, have no shade on any side, except from their eaves, and a little further on in an old cemetery, a number of obelisks, without shade upon any of their sides, so completely vertical is the sun! And although dressed very lightly-a white calico cassock, without buttons, a white band, white trousers, and white shoes-we still feel the burning of the tropical sun a good deal. Happily we have a

breeze, which, without lowering the thermometer, refreshes us con-. siderably. But we are sometimes without it, and when that is the case, the floor is watered with great drops of perspiration as big as a florin. Those who then wish to supply the place of the breeze are punkah`d. What is that? To understand it, come into S's room. He is seated, dressed entirely in white, at his desk, in the middle of a large room; about a yard above his bald head hangs a great white rectangle, about three yards long, horizontally, and about a yard high; a string is tied to it, which passes through a pulley fixed in the wall, and ends in an Indian, crouched on the ground, dressed in his black skin and a strip of cloth. This human machine has no other occupation but to pull the string, which causes the other machine which I have described to you, the rectangle, and which is called a punkah, to swing continually over S-'s head. Now don't go and imagine that S is a sybarite. There are punkahs everywherein the parlour, in the refectory, &c. Many people are punkahed in bed all night. These instruments are not in use in the Catholic churches; but every man and woman in the congregation continually uses the fan, which is also called a punkah here. Different countries have different customs: a punkah here is more necessary than a coat; and to make up for this there is not a single fire-place in the whole house.

No fire-place, you will say; do you eat your rice raw then? To this I have two answers: first, that the kitchen with us, as with our neighbours, is not in the house, but in the compound :—that is, the large space which surrounds the house. And next that the kitchens, without a single exception, are without fireplaces. These black Indians, who are our cooks, are accustomed to light the fire without caring for the smoke, which escapes where it can, through the windows, or the skylight, or through the holes in the roof. If you were, as I am, philosopher enough to eat cockchafers, I would introduce you into the kitchen: but I think you would hardly like to go into that hovel for fear of losing your appetite for ever. Let us leave the Indians in their dens, and go into the refectory to sit under the punkah. To-day we shall have mutton and fowl, to-morrow fowl and mutton; sometimes nothing but fowl. As for vegetables-but if you trust me, you will not touch them; they taste of nothing but stagnant water. Besides the morning breakfast, and dinner which is at halfpast three, we have two other meals a day. One at noon, called tiffin, is composed at most of a glass of beer, a crust of bread and some fruit; for many amongst us it is reduced to one of these things, and for several, an me in particular, to nothing at all. The other meal at eight in the evening, consists of a cup of coffee, with or without bread. And now let us leave this place of misery to return to it no

more.

Come and see my room. It has no punkah, but four windows open night and day; two on the south, where the sun never comes in, and two on the east, where outside shutters prevent its entrance every morning. My bed is a kind of large sofa, on which there is a something which is neither a palliasse nor a mattress. It is a flat sack, not