178 KEV. CHANCELLOR J. J. LIAS, M.A., ON THE DECAY OF 
Portuguese Beformers also appeared at the Congress, and asked 
for, and received, expressions of sympathy. 
Bishop Van Thiel, of Deventer, announced that applications 
had been received from France, and that as soon as properly 
elected candidates to preside over Old Catholic sees there had 
been presented to the Dutch Bishops, they were prepared to 
consecrate them. The republic of Bolivia, having disestablished 
its Church, sent a deputation to Europe not long ago to report 
on the condition and working of the Old Catholic Churches. It 
is clear, therefore, that, in spite of the repeated prophesies 
that Old Catholicism was either dead or dying, it is very 
far from being either one or the other. On the contrary, it 
is extremely likely that, in the chaos into which Borne is being 
reduced all over the world, large numerical additions to the Old 
Catholic Churches will take place in the near future, since they 
have both a stable organization, formularies, and a definite creed, 
and make their appeal to the ages when the Church of Christ 
was visibly one. 
I have spoken at length on the Old Catholic movement, 
because it is the first in our time, and the fact that it has not 
been crushed out has bad some effect on what has followed. I 
must now glance at some other movements, still in their infancy, 
which at once manifest the inner weakness of the Boman 
Church and tend to increase it. The history of France and 
its Church since the Bevolution is unfortunately very little 
known in England. I am indebted to the fascinating volume of 
my friend the Bev. A. Gal ton for most of the details I am about 
to give, though since 1895 I have been personally and rather 
closely acquainted with some of the numerous priests who have 
seceded from the Boman Church in France, and have been work- 
ing for reform. For the sake of brevity, I must begin at the 
French Bevolution. In 1790 the Legislative Assembly dealt 
with the affairs of the Church, and, naturally enough, approached 
them from a democratic point of view, and under the impression 
that, under an aristocratic regime the rights of the poorer clergy 
had been very much neglected. Mr. Galton thinks that 
the Constitution Civile du Clerge which it drew up has been 
unfairly represented, and in defending it he has, I think, made 
out a good case. The attacks of Ultramontanes upon it may 
well be explained by remembering the fact that they are never 
satisfied unless they have the absolute control of State as well 
as Church. Next comes the Concordat between Church and 
State, approved by Napoleon in 1802. Of this it is sufficient 
to say that its provisions have been so manipulated by the Pope 
