23 DECEMBER 1876, Page 2

It is believed that the contest between the Orthodox and

Liberal, or, as Englishmen would call them, the Evangelical and Unitarian sections of the Huguenot body, approaches a crisis. M. Dufaure, before his resignation, signed a decree ordering the triennial election of the Huguenot Synod in February, and it is believed that this decree will work in this way. The Synod will reject all members who have refused at their ordination to sign the declaration of faith, and the majority being thus orthodox, the ultra-Liberals will retire, and form a Church un- recognised and unpaid by the State, and therefore, as Frenchmen think, exceedingly weak. The proceeding is considered unfair, as the Liberals were discussing terms of compromise ; but the dis- ruption, sooner or later, was all but inevitable. A Church can exist with a broad creed, but there are limits within which there must be some common faith, and these limits seem scarcely to exist in Protestant France. The main evil of the disruption, and it is a great one, will be the introduction into the recognised section of the Huguenot Church of a great mass of nominal con- formity, kept together by the great difficulty and annoyance of ex- isting without State pay.