if any workman should be discovered having a vicious connection in the suburbs, the prevot of Paris should be informed; and he will make him leave the city, or have him chastised for his folly.* In the trade of tapiz nostrez, or coarse carpeting, no one shall employ any thread-fors que de file de laine bon et loial-Et ce ont establi li preudomes du mestier pour le commun profit de touz et pour léauté.† Of the foulons, if any workman in the trade should discover that there is any fellow-servant who has been a bad character, he should make it known to the master, under pain of a fine. The stocking-makers swear that they will use strong thread, which has not been rotted by the dye; for if the thread should be thus rotted, the stockings shall be burned and the maker must pay a fine of five sous, four to the king, and the rest to the guardians of the trade, for their trouble. No glover shall work by night-à clarté de feu ne de lumière, quar l'uevre qui est fête par nuit n'est ne bone ne léal. In the bridle trade, if any old work be painted over and regilt, or mended, and exposed for sale, the work must be burned, and the seller fined. Of linendrapersnule qui soit eslongiés de son paiis por mauvès cas, l'en ne le doit recevoir on dit mestier.** In the trade of tapiz Sarrassin no one shall employ a strange workman until he knows that he is a preudome et loial.†† Tailors were obliged to cut their cloth in an open shop à la veue du peuple, to prevent any suspicion of fraud. Such are the rules to secure integrity, which may assuredly be said to form an opening through the dense thicket that reveals the force and practical character of the Catholic religion, since, wherever else we turn, there is such cause for complaining in those words of Dante :

++

"Why, thou cursed thirst
Of gold! dost not with juster measure guide
The appetite of mortals? "§§

But if the justice of the rules furnish one avenue to the workman, enabling him to discern the true centre, their provision for his due repose and religious interests supplies another opening by which he may advance towards it with equal assurance; for most clearly do they proclaim the faithful spouse, who knows that though men should work as a religious duty, yet not so strictly hath our Lord imposed labour as to debar us when we need refreshment. The labour which Catholicity would impose on those immediately devoted to it,

* Tit. 1.

+ Tit. lii. ‡ Tit. liii. § Tit. lv. || Tit. lxv. Ordonnances sur les Métiers, depuis 1270 jusqu'à l'an 1300. ** Tit. xix. + Tit. xxiv. ‡ Tit. xxvi. §§ Purg. 22.

is, as we before observed, generally for all men, conducive, not destructive, to the health of bodies and souls; and the English poet contemplates no other, though he does not give praise where it is due. The Church only uses words like his, saying

"O mortal man! who livest here by toil,
Do not complain of this thy hard estate;
That like an emmet thou must ever moil,
Is a sad sentence of an ancient date;
And, certes, there is for it reason great.
For, tho' sometimes it makes thee weep and wail,
And curse thy star, and early drudge and late,
Withouten that would come an heavier bale,

Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale."

While infidelity imposes penal, such as human tribunals adjudge for criminals, Catholicism prescribes medicinal labour; and the difference is sufficiently great to attract the attention of all observers; for if religion, says the Archbishop of Cambray, knows how nobly to appreciate labour, she knows also how to regulate it. By the side of the law which imposes it, she has placed the law which moderates and controls it. Of the seven days, which compose the circle of the week, she abandons six to the labours of the body, to the solicitudes of material life, but she reserves one to satisfy the wants of the soul. She is acquainted with the extent of man's strength, and willing as she be that he exert it, she will not permit its exhaustion. She is also equally aware of the exigencies of his twofold nature, and holds with a firm hand the balance between his various faculties, to maintain that equilibrium which would otherwise be soon destroyed by any predominance of the earthly over the supernatural and divine element. Let us add, that for the benefit of both master and workman, the religious observance of stated days of rest would be sufficient to solve the political and social problems which are presented for discussion by the new phases and probable destinies of industry. The conditions of wages, respect for the dignity of man and citizen, public security, guarantee against the degeneracy of the species and the impoverishment of generations, exact affinities between consumption and produce, all legislation, all the economy of labour, centre in observing holy days as Catholicity requires, while their renouncement will in time throw forth inexplicable themes for insurrection's arguing.

This assertion is demonstrated by a very simple process of reasoning. Reduce the number of working days, and you proportionably raise the value of the labour done. The days

of labour will thus feed the days of rest. With the same amount of wages, the workman will have the relaxation which repairs and renews his strength, the prayer which purifies, the word of God which consoles, the pleasures which moralize. Society would then no longer dread those coalitions, those popular insurrections, which too often terminate in blood-stained struggles. There might, indeed, follow from this observance a slight diminution in produce; but have we not as much to fear from its excess? An easy and regular flow would not occasion so frequently the clogging of the outlets, the sudden fall in the price of merchandise, those commercial crisises, those ruinous pauses, those hasty stop pages of the wheels of industry which leave without work and without bread entire populations of working men. Or, where, after all, would be the evil, if produce were abated? Is it necessary that the manufacturer arrive at a fortune in full gallop, with the promptitude of the steam that sets his machinery to work? Are fortunes the most rapidly acquired the most durable?

So, while Protestantism and what is termed philosophy are either unwilling or unable to interfere for the effectual protection of children and women for assuredly their measures are inadequate the prelates of France are thus raising their voice to protect both, and the interests of all classes against the cruel graspings of unbounded cupidity. Should every ear be deaf to their remonstrances, they will not be silent. They continue their exhortations, rebuking in season and out of season, and, without concealing from the workman the full extent of his duty, they not the less forcibly recall to the minds of those who hold his lot in their hands, the sacred duties of nature and humanity. They protest against that oppression of the feebleness of infancy, and the feebleness of the sex, imitating the worst days of pagan violence, which compelled the miserable parents to immolate, day and night, their sons and their daughters to the wicked spirits of machinery and manufacture, cruel Moloch, insatiable Mammon, which devour generations in the flower of youth, and smother within them every ray of mind, every germ of virtue. No, certainly, continues Geraud the archbishop, it will not be Catholicity, which has at all periods protested against the infamous traffic of African slaves; it will not be the religion of liberty and love that will suffer her own children to bow to the yoke that she removes with horror from the neck of the stranger and barbarian; and, if her motherly voice be despised, she will carry the cry of the oppressed even to the tribunal of God, who will render to every one according to his works.

But let us return to the ages when Catholicity universally prevailed, and to the rules of the thirteenth century. Late work forbidden, as we have just seen, through consideration for the interest of the consumers, was no less denounced as unlawful through regard for the needful repose of the workmen, who owe to Catholicity and the manners of faith, their exemption from the inhuman servitude to which the world, in their absence, is sure to subject them. Let us again hear Stephen Boileau. As for cutlers-nus ne puet ne ne doit ouvrer en charnage puis vespres sonans, ne en quaresme puis complie sonant.* Charnage signifies the whole year, with the exception of Lent. Beaters of brass or copper ordain that no master or servant, or apprentice in this trade, may work at night; and they are bound to leave off work each day at complin-pour ce que leurs mestiers est trop penibles.† No locksmith may work by night-quar la veue de la nuit n'est pas souffisante à faire si soutil ævre come il apartient au mestier de serreurie. In the trade of wiremakers-li mestres et li vallet ont leur vesprées por eus reposer; c'est à savoir en quaresme quant complie est sonée, et en charnage au segont crieur du soir; et doivent aler les vallet chascun an I mois en aoust, si il vuelent.§ In that of fringe-makers, no one shall work or cause to work in any season after the queuvre-feu is tolled at St. Merri, nor on Saturdays en charnage after the first toll for vespers at Nostre Dame, and in Lent after the toll for complin. || Among chaplet-makers all must leave work in charnage as soon as the bell of their parish church tolls for vespers, and in Lent at the first toll for complin in Nostre Dame. The drapers' servants are to leave off work as soon as they hear the first toll of the bell for vespers in their parish church; but they may fold up their work after these vespers.** In the trade of the foulons the workmen have their vespers-li vallet ont leur vesprées; that is, they leave off work at the first toll of the bell of Nostre Dame for vespers in charnage, and in Lent at that for complin. No currier shall work between Brandons‡‡ and St. Remi after the tolling for complin at Nostre Dame-et se ont establi li preudome du mestier pour eus reposer, quar les jours sont Ionc, et li mestier est trop pénables.§§ Among the makers of ladies' bonnets, or embroidered head-dresses, no mistress or apprentice may work in winter or summer, either morning or evening, unless with daylight.|||| No maker of tapis Sarrazinois shall work after the first toll of the bell for vespers in his parish church under pain of a fine of five sous.* The workmen of Paris had no privilege over those of London in Catholic ages in this respect, though there were then some as now who would complain, as we can collect from Stowe, who says, "This bell of St. Mary Bow being usually rung somewhat late, as seemed to the young men 'prentices, and other in Cheape, they made and set up a rhyme against the clerk, as followeth :

'Clarke of the Bow bell with the yellow lockes,

For thy late ringing thy head shall have knocks.'

Whereunto the clerk replying, wrote

Children of Cheape, hold you all still,

For you shall have the Bow bell rung at your will.'"

Mathieu Paris says, that "in 1256, when certain workmen in London were struck with lightning, some attributed the event to the circumstance, that on the day before they had been occupied with servile works till an unlawful hour." † Thus far the rest enjoined is intended for the body chiefly; but the following rules indicate the care with which Catholicity seems to provide for the religious interests of the workman, by ordaining many intervals of repose to enable him to join with the rest of the faithful in the worship of God, and the sanctification of solemn days. The Catholic Church raises her voice against that detestable oppression of the conscience, when workmen are condemned to the cruel alternative either of yielding obedience to impious commands, or suffering their family to perish in the agonies of hunger-and also against that monstrous code of crimes and penalties, insolently arbitrary, which taxes prayer, submits to a certain tariff the hours devoted to Christian instruction, inflicts a penalty for assisting at divine service, and closes the door of the workshop against all who place some value on their souls, and will not sink to the level of the brute. "What!" exclaims Giraud, Archbishop of Cambray, "is it necessary that the workman perish, body and soul, that his master may rise rapidly to the summit of opulence? ? Is it absolutely requisite that the edifice of pride and ambition should be raised upon the ruins of degraded intellect, broken down health, perverted conscience, and souls lost for eternity?" At least such is not the Catholic judgment; and the laws and manners of past times, and the remonstrances of the Catholic clergy at the present day, bear witness.

* Ordonnances, &c. xxiv.

+ Ad ann. 1356.