taking an untoward turn, and who M. de Fajole was, whether priest or layman, the sister knew not, for she had never been acquainted with any such person, nor even heard of his name. And this is the proof which is to silence all cavillers, and set the stamp of authenticity upon her revelations! For, just at this time, the Romish bishops, to whom the Abbé submitted her papers in England, signified to him their approbation, which was what the Devil meant by an untoward turn; and there was an Abbé de Fajole, who, though he approved those papers when they were shown him at Jersey, urged the Abbé to burn them in London, upon the ground of certain private information he had received concerning them-information which the Abbé, not more sagaciously than charitably, supposed him to have obtained from the same Devil who appeared as the ghost of the nun!

Before her death the sister left some oral exhortations concerning the manners of common life. She condemned, as works of the devil, balls, dancing of every kind, cards, plays, public amusements, novel-reading, patches, paint, and all the implements of coquetry. False hair she absolutely prohibited for women, as a breach of the baptismal vow and a species of apostacy; but periwigs she permitted to the male sex, because men had frequently occasion to uncover their heads. There was also a manner of pinning the handkerchief with such studied negligence as to leave it partly open, which she spoke of with great severity. She died on the day of Our Lady's Assumption 1798, with the crucifix before her, the formula of her profession on her breast, and holy water at her side, with which, according to her desire, she was repeatedly sprinkled; and thus, having supported jusqu'au bout son grand personnage, she expired in the sixty-eighth year of her age. She was buried in the cemetery of Languelet according to her own desire. Her grave is become celebrated. Persons resort thither to commend themselves to her prayers; and extraordinary facts are related in consequence, of which the candid and cautious biographer says, it does not appertain to him to judge. Others may think as they please; but for himself it is not necessary that God should work any new miracles to make him believe, provisionally at least, in the beatitude of a soul, whose virtues, writings, life, and death, appear to him a series of miraculous events, not permitting him to entertain a moment's doubt of her sanctity. She may be regarded, he says, as the prodigy of her age, and worthy in all respects to be compared with the greatest and most extraordinary persons of either sex who are honoured by the church. For she yields nothing to them in virtue, nor in the austerity of her manners; and without learning of any kind, without education, without even the power of expressing herself,

but

but being obliged for that purpose to employ another hand, she has in her writings equalled, perhaps surpassed, all that others have produced, whether in the class of inspiration or of spirituality. What then would the work have been, if, exceeding as it does in its present state, the most impressive passages of St. Teresa, she had been able, like that saint, to clothe her own conceptions in her own words?

Yet with a modesty worthy of himself, the Abbé anticipates and answers the question, whether or not he himself was endued with a certain degree of infallibility, as necessary for his conduct both in directing such a personage as the inspired nun, and in thus compiling the book of her revelations. Without entering into any reasons for or against such a supposition, he declares himself to be utterly unworthy of such a favour, but avec la même candeur et la même naïveté, he adds, that if the inspiration of the sister be allowed, he does not see why, for the same object, a certain degree of supernatural assistance should not in mere grace be bestowed upon the unworthy instrument whom heaven had chosen to assist her; and when he calls to mind that those who are the most weak and despicable in themselves are precisely the instruments by whom, in such cases, God is usually pleased to work,-upon that ground, and that only, it appears to him, that no one could have been more fitly chosen than himself.

Juridical information and canonical processes could, he says, prove nothing in this case, being, in fact, wholly inapplicable. What passes between God and the soul can never be matter of external testimony. Inspired writings must always, as they always have done, carry in themselves the proof of inspiration. That there can have been no collusion in the matter between himself and the nun is proved by the last remarkable dream in which the Abbé de Fajole is mentioned! And that the nun must have been inspired is placed beyond all doubt by her frequent use of scripture, which she had never read; and by the perfect conformity of every thing in her writings with the true import of the scriptures; and by her absolute exemption from any of those errors into which the ablest commentators have sometimes fallen. Finally, if the Revelations of St. Bridget have been approved by the Popes and by a general council-if the writings of Magdelene di- Pazzi, Catharine of Sienna, St. Teresa, St. Gertrude, and others, are viewed as works of inspiration, why should not this be regarded as a NEW APOCALYPSE-a title indeed which he had once thought of prefixing to the work?

There the Abbé speaks truth. He may appeal with full confidence to the history of the Roman Catholic church, and ask why

VOL. XXXIII. NO. LXVI.

DD

his

his story is not entitled to the same credit which that church has given to so many of the same class, resting upon no better authority. For it is by a series of impostures that the corruptions of the papal church have constantly been supported, legends having been invented, miracles got up, and inspiration pretended for every false doctrine, every pretension of the priesthood, every usurpation of the popes, every scheme of the monastic orders; and this from the earliest times. A perpetual succession of such frauds can be shown from the Letter of Tiberius and the lives of the apostles by the imaginary Abdias, down to the Life and Revelations of La Soeur Nativité. None of all these exceeds in effrontery, though many may vie in impiety, with the production before us, which is of our own times, and was got up with the approbation of the heads of the emigrant clergy in England, and the chief Roman Catholic priests and prelates of our own country. Nor could better proof be given than this illustration affords, of the truth of those memorable words of Mr. Francis Plowden, himself a Roman Catholic;

If any one says, or pretends to insinuate, that modern Roman Catholics differ in one IOTA from their ancestors, he either deceives himself or wishes to deceive others.'

ART. VI.-1. Reflections upon the Value of the British West Indian Colonies, and of the British North American Provinces. London. 1826. pp. 39.

2. Observations upon the Importance of the North American Colonies to Great Britain, by an old Inhabitant of British America (Mr. Haliburton). Halifax. 1825.

'I MUST have ships, colonies, and commerce,' was the angry mandate of the most inveterate and the most powerful foe that Great Britain ever had to contend with; and he was right -because, as he well knew, it was by the possession of these alone that our little island was enabled to resist, and to persevere in resisting, the gigantic power, which, in the sequel, her perseverance subdued.

An itinerant professor of political economy, that 'most exact of moral sciences,' came down from Scotland, a short time ago, to the metropolis of England, to teach our senators wisdom.' Among the many new and wonderful doctrines which he developed by virtue of his art, he astonished the graver part of his audience by demonstrating that colonies are incumbrances, that

merchant

merchant ships are not necessary to produce seamen for the navy, and that commerce may flourish without either of them. Consistently with such principles, we find it recommended, in a recent number of a contemporary Journal, in which these new lights are usually promulgated, that we should get rid of our colonies as speedily as possible, and take no concern about merchant shipping,-which is declared to be but a very roundabout way of breeding sailors for our navy.' We are not indeed advised to give up commerce also; but that, we are told, so long as we can manufacture cheaper and better than other nations, will assuredly come to us of its own accord, without our seeking it.

Our ancestors certainly thought and acted very differently from what is here set down; but their boasted wisdom would seem, in our more enlightened times, to be accounted little better than foolishness: they, simply enough, imagined that commerce required ships, that ships produced seamen, and that colonies were the surest means of augmenting both; and thus thinking, they passed what they considered to be salutary laws for the encouragement and protection of all three. We are not disposed to undervalue the researches of those who labour on the debateable ground of Political Economy, though we are very far from thinking that to be the most exact of moral sciences, on the terms and definitions of which no two of its votaries are agreed; but it is the mere and palpable quackery of it that we are now about to arraign. We are ready enough to admit that length of time and change of circumstances may have called for some modification both of statutes and of opinions; but we do hope that, whatever party may direct the government of this country, the great principles, by an adherence to which our naval power and superiority have been established, will never be abandoned for wild and visionary theories, hatched in the brains of Scotch metaphysicians, or certain political economists of the new school, which Sir Thomas Browne would have been very apt to designate as Saltimbancoes, Quack-salvers and Charlatans.'

One of the main positions laid down by these theorists is, that no colony is worth retaining, unless the mother-country derives from it a revenue equal to the expenditure upon it.' This doctrine may unquestionably be considered as consistent with that bare, rigid, and penurious economy, which would reduce every thing to a question of pounds, shillings, and pence. It is a creed suitable enough for the Domestic Economy of the merchant and the shopkeeper, who will do well to regulate all their transactions by it; but the views of a great nation, like England, should DD 2

not

not be thus fettered by considerations of paltry gains, and calculations of how many shillings her important possessions may send into the treasury of the mother-country. We have contemptuously been called a nation of shopkeepers :-Let us adopt the theory of the northern sages, and we shall deserve the reproach. There are few people, we believe, who, if they dispassionately consider the subject, would not rather regard the colonies of Great Britain as so many outworks by means of which her citadel is strengthened and secured, as so many limbs through which her language, laws, and religion circulate and are spread to the remotest parts of the earth-limbs which, if once cut off, would leave little of life in the mutilated trunk. It was once the boast of Spain, and may now be England's, that the sun never set on her dominions-let us not, at the instigation of political quacks, consent to abridge our brilliant day, but rather lengthen it, if possible, by extending our foreign possessions.Let us regard these as constituent parts of one great empire, inhabited by children sprung from one common parent.-Let us act towards them in such a manner as not to estrange them from looking upon our happy island as their mother-country.-Let them not be taught to consider England as an unnatural parent, whose only concern about them is how much revenue she can extort from their industry.

With these feelings, we would ask, if there be any one, except a cold calculating economist of the new school, so base as to propose the voluntary surrender of the rock of Gibraltar, merely because the military expenses annually voted by parliament for preserving it to England somewhat exceed its revenue? yet this is a case which falls precisely under the position assumed by these sages; according to their principles, most unquestionably this colony is not worth retaining.' The Cape of Good Hope is another colony that requires an annual expenditure for the maintenance of the garrison; yet the late Lord Melville (then Mr. Dundas) declared, in his place, that the minister who should give it up would deserve to lose his head; he knew that it might be, and the event soon proved that it was, of incalculable value purely as an outpost to our Indian dominions, where a healthy body of men might be seasoned, trained, and cheaply maintained, in readiness for service, when wanted in that quarter.

Again, the great and flourishing colonies of New South Wales and Van Diemen's land have not returned anything hitherto, and may never make any direct return, in the shape of revenue, to the treasury of the mother-country, but, on the contrary, may require,

for