Visitors to Paris during the season may get a very erroneous impression as to the true state of religious life. A few of the leading churches may be filled, e.g., the Madeleine, S. Sulpice, S. Clothilde, and some others, but one has to take into account the fact that Paris is much under-churched for the population, and that many of those attending in the season are from the provinces, and, I am sorry to say, some English Churchpeople. So with regard to Sunday. A great change has taken place in France. Visitors of twenty years ago will remember that the shops in Paris were for the most part open, but now they are very generally closed. It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that this change arose from a religious feeling. It is rather that France had decided to keep one day in seven for pure pleasure, and Sunday has been chosen as the most convenient day. The theatres and other amusements are open, and thronged as before. During the last sixteen years—with the exception of the monumental building upon the hill of Montmartre, I never saw any important new church in building, or heard of one being erected. And what is the reason of this state of things, from which we as a Church may gather some lessons? They are many. Rome in France, as in other countries, is rather a political than a religious system. She was involved more than was generally known in the Dreyfus affair. The banished Orders were sowing the seeds of disloyalty to the Republic. S. Cyr (the military school) was largely under the influence of the Jesuits, who are not Republicans, and the struggle had to come. “France is democratic and progressive. In spite of eminent exceptions, the Roman Catholic body has offered a sullen and stubborn opposition to economic and social reform. It reaps what it has sown.” And this is an object-lesson to ourselves. Now the attitude of the nation towards Roman Catholicism is one of distrust and aversion. A Church—a clergy—these, though he may not personally use them—the average Frenchman will have. But what he will not have at any price is a Government influenced by priests—a Roman Catholic “party”—or the intervention of Rome, secret or avowed, in French politics. The fact is that Rome has asked the people to believe too much, and they have ended by believing very little. It is a sad spectacle. But what has the Church offered to combat the growing materialism of the country? Only the poor substitute of superstition, such as is manifested at Lourdes and other places. This and the Dreyfus affair, and the scandal connected with the name of Leo Taxil, have done much in late years to alienate thinking Frenchmen from religion.