Dating its restoration from only thirteen years ago, the new congregation of the Oratoire is still not numerous, and remains little known; it is poor, and it desires to remain so; it has need of extension and of support, but at the very outset of its new career it proved itself faithful to its origin and worthy of the words of Bossuet. One of its founders, the Père Gratry, took his place at once in the first rank of the Christian apologists, moralists, and writers of the day: he is a man at once animated and gentle, full of his peculiar ideas and sentiments, which he carries to an enthusiastic height, but without pride and without jealousy, and ardently propagating them by his books, his lectures, and his conversation. These are all distinguished by eloquent appeals to human sympathies, touching even where they do not convince, and leaving the mind always in emotion at the prospects which they open. Another member of the new Oratoire, the Père Valvoger, has given a succinct account, in a learned work, ("Introduction historique et critique aux livres du Nouveau Testament,") of the Researches and Evidences of Christianity, by the principal foreign theologians. {71} Under the strong influence of the opinions of its first founders, and at the same time comprehending the mind and the requirements of France at the present day, the rising congregation of the Oratoire does not evade examination or discussion; it respects science, and in the religious truths which it teaches, and its relations with the souls that it summons to believe, it does not shrink from accepting fearlessly the terms and the forms of liberty. In the midst of this great movement of men's minds in matters of religion, what has been done since the opening of this century by the chiefs of the Catholic Church of France, by their bishops and by the clergy, called, by their alliance with the State and by their own rights, to assume the education and the Christian direction of the human soul?