During these last and most solemn days of Lent, I have been endeavouring by every means in my power to discover how much fasting, of any kind, was going on. If they fast at all, it is certainly performed in most strict obedience to the very letter of the gospel: for, assuredly, they "appear not unto men to fast." Everything goes on as gaily as if it were the season of the carnival. The _restaurans_ reek with the savoury vapour of a hundred dishes; the theatres are opened, and as full as the churches; invitations cease not; and I can in no direction perceive the slightest symptom of being among a Roman Catholic population during a season of penitence. And yet, contradictory as the statement must appear, I am deeply convinced that the clergy of the church of Rome feel more hope of recovered power fluttering at their hearts now, than they have done at any time during the last half-century. Nor can I think they are far wrong in this. The share which the Roman Catholic priests of this our day are said to have had in the Belgian revolution, and the part, more remarkable still, which the same race are now performing in the opening scenes of the fearful struggle which threatens England, has given a new impulse to the ambition of Rome and of her children. One may read it in the portly bearing of her youthful priests,--one may read it in the deep-set meditative eye of those who are older. It is legible in their brand-new vestments of gold and silver tissue; it is legible in the costly decorations of their renovated altars; and deep, deep, deep is the policy which teaches them to recover with a gentle hand that which they have lost by a grasping one. How well can I fancy that, in their secret synods, the favourite text is, "No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment; for that which is put in to fill it up, taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse." Were they a whit less cautious, they must fail at once; but they tickle their converts before they think of convincing them. It is for this that the pulpits are given to young and eloquent men, who win the eye and ear of their congregations long before they find out to what point they wish to lead them. But while the young men preach, the old men are not idle: there are rumours of new convents, new monasteries, new orders, new miracles, and of new converts, in all directions. This wily, worldly, tranquil-seeming, but most ambitious sect, having in many quarters joined themselves to the cause of democracy, sit quietly by, looking for the result of their work, and watching, like a tiger that seems to dose, for the moment when they may avenge themselves for the long fast from power, during which they have been gnawing their heart-strings.