180 REV. CHANCELLOR J. J. LIAS, M.A., ON THE DECAY OF 
naturally seriously alarmed. The immense wealth of the 
Orders, or “ congregations,” as they are sometimes termed, and 
the determined way in which it was employed to the prejudice 
of the popular cause, roused the Republicans to action not less 
resolute. 
We must remember that these orders — so-called “ religious ” 
— are not simply, as many English people believe, associations 
of pious folk for purely religious purposes. Many of them, as a 
Roman Catholic correspondent of the Guardian has frankly 
admitted, are purely money-making institutions. More than 
one of the male orders is largely engaged in the manufacture of 
liqueurs. Many orders of women are occupied in laundry or 
dressmaking work. Not unfrequently they have been enabled 
to obtain for themselves exemption from the rules relating to 
sanitary matters, and hours of work, which are imposed on 
ordinary traders. And it is also matter of common knowledge 
among people abroad that a very lucrative traffic is carried on 
in the names of St. Joseph and St. Anthony of Padua, in the 
way of intercessions with the Court of Heaven for persons on 
earth who desire sundry material benefits.* The “ teaching 
orders,” too, had managed almost to monopolise the education of 
the young. It may fairly be said for the French Republic that, 
had the “ congregations ” kept themselves entirely to religious 
matters, instead of meddling in political intrigue, and trying to 
overthrow the form of government which the country had 
deliberately adopted, they would have been left alone. As it 
was, they were simply required to enter into reasonable 
engagements to behave like loyal citizens, and to conform to 
regulations of no very great severity laid down by the civil 
authority for its own protection. And, as Mr. Galton tells us, 
“ the Republic has only applied laws which every French 
government has administered without question. ”f The point to 
which I would ask your attention is this : that three successive 
administrations have approved the measures taken in the 
interests of public order by MM. Waldeck-Rousseau and 
Combes, and that the separation of Church and State, including 
the turning the Bishops out of their palaces, has been passed by 
* See the articles by St. Genix — a Roman Catholic — in the Con- 
temporary Review , afterwards published in a separate form by the 
Imperial Protestant Fedei'ation. 
t History of Church and State in France , p. 260. The words “ without 
question ” are undoubtedly too strong. But the Ultramontanes have 
frequently acquiesced in such application, and have only denounced it 
when they felt strong enough to do so. 
