THE FRENCH PRESS ON THE MARQUIS OF RIPON'S CONVERSION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 85, 12 December 1874, Page 10

THE FRENCH PRESS ON THE MARQUIS OF RIPON'S CONVERSION.

Wb find that intelligent Frenchmen think something like ourselves at to the gross vulgarity of the Proteßtant Press in its dealing with the fact of the conversion of Lord Bipon. We quote the following from the ' Journal des Debats,' and which comes from the pen of John Lemoinne The veteran writer has hit off with wonderful correctness and with terrible cruelty the " atrociously funny" character of what is peculiarly the " English religion," as the old Irishwoman nicknamed Protestantism: — " For our part, we have nothing to remark about JJord Ripon's conduct 5 it was no doubt dictated by reasons of conscience, which no man has a right to enter into. But when we consider all the recriminations which it has raised, we ask what has become of that freedom of conscience, of that individual liberty, of which the English are so fond of boasting ? The fact is, that the English religion is purely a national, a local, a purely territorial religion— that when a man abandons the National Church, he is accused of deserting his country. We have read somewhere that the religion of the English is not Christianity, but England herself ; it is not Gospel they consider, but Magna Chaita. - For an Englishman, the history of the Holy Trinity w nothing but the equilibrium between the three estates of the realmcrown, lords, and commons. The Englishman is religious through patriotism ; he respects all national institutions, and tbe Established Church is one of them, just as trial by jury, the habeas corpus, horseracing and portrait painting. Thus, by the mere fact of becoming a Catholic, in the eyes of all true Britons Lord Eipon ceases to be an Englishman ; in other words, there is no such thing as human cpn. science— there is nothing but English conscience,