^0^\^^.<^ IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) ^o M €/./ V ^ / ^ .:v c*'^ K, ^t/ Photograpliic Sciences Corporation J' WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y 14580 (716) 872-4503 w m. ^ Wf ■■ CIHM/ICMH Microfiche Series. CIHM/ICMH Collection de microfiches. Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions / Institut canadien de microreproductions historiques Technical and Bibliographic Notes/Notes techniques et bibliographiques The Institute has attempted to obtain the best original copy available for filming. Features of this copy which may be bibliographscally unique, which may alter any of the images in the reproduction, or which may significantly change the usual method of filming, are checked below. D Coloured covers/ Couverture de couleur □ Covers damaged/ Couverture endommag^s □ Covers restored and/or laminated/ Couverture restaur6e et'ou pelliculde D D D □ D Cover title missing/ Le titre de couverture manque □ Coloured maps/ Cartes gdographiques en couleur □ Coloured ink (i.e. other than blue or black)/ Encre de couleur (i.e. autre que bleue ou noire) Coloured plates and/or illustrations/ Plancnes et/ou illustrations en couleur Bound with other material/ Reli6 avec d'autres documents Tight binding may cause shadows or distortion along interior margin/ La reliure serr6e peut causer de I'omb.e ou de la distortion le long de la marge int6riaure Blank leaves added during restoration may appear within the text. Whenever possible, these have been omitted from filming/ II se peut que certaines pages blanches ajoutdes lors d'une restauration apparaissent dans le texte, mais, lorsque cela 6tait possible, ces pages n'ont pas ^t6 filmdes. L'Institut a microfilm^ le meilleur exemplaire qu'il lui a 6t6 possible de se procurar. Les details de cet exemplaire qui sont peut-dtre uniques du point de vue bibliographique, qui peuvent modifier une image reproduite, ou qui peuvent exiger une modification dans la m4thode normale de filmage sont indiquds ci-dessous. □ Coloured pages/ Pages de couleur r~y Pages damaged/ I I Pages endommagdes □ Pages restored and/or laminated/ Pages restaur^es et/ou pellicul^es I — I Pages discoloured, stained or foxed/ Pages ddcolor^es, tachet^es ou piqudes Pages detached/ Pages d^tach^t^s Showthrough/ Transparence Quality of prir Quality in§gale de I'impression Includes supplementary materi< Comprend du material supplementaire Only edition available/ Seulo Edition disponible D I I Showthrough/ I I Quality of print varies/ I I Includes supplementary material/ j — I Only edition available/ n Pages wholly or partially obscured by errata slips, tiscues, etc., have been refilmed to ensure the be?c possible image/ Les pa&bn totalement ou partiellement obscurcies par an feuillet d'errata, une pelure, etc., ont 6X6 film6es d nouveau de fa^on ck obtenir la meilleure image possible. D r~~l Additional comments:/ Commentaires suppl6mentaires: This item is fMmed at the reduction ratio checked below/ Ce document ost filmd au taux de reduction indiqu6 ci-dessous. 10X 14X 18X 22X y 26X SOX 12X 16X 20X 24X 28X 32X The copy filmed here has been reproduced thanks to the generosity of: Library of the Public Archives of Canada L'exemplaire film6 fut reproduit grflce d la g6n6rosit§ de: La bibliothdque des Archives publiques du Canada The images appearing here are the best quality possible considering the condition and legibility of the original copy and in keeping with the filming contract specifications. Les images suivantes ont dt6 reproduites avec le plus grand soin, compte tenu de la condition at de la nettet6 de l'exemplaire i\\m6, et en conformity avec les conditions du contrat de filmage. Original copies in printed paper covers are filmed beginning with the front cover and ending on the last page with a printed or illustrated impres- sion, or the back cover when appropriate. All other original copies are filmed beginning on the first page with a printed or illustrated impres- sion, and ending on the last page with a printed or illustrated impression. Les exemplaires originaux dont la couverture en papiur est imprim6« sont film6s en commenpant par le premier plat et en terminant soit par la dernidre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration, soit par i" second pCat, selon le cas. Tous les autres exemplaires originaux sont filmds en commenpant par la premidre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par la dernidre page qui comporte une telle empreinte. The last recorded frame on each microfiche shall contain the symbol —^ (meaning "CON- TINUED "), or the symbol V (meaning "END "), whichever applies. Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la dernidre image de cheque microfiche, selon le cas: le symboie — •► signifie "A SUIVRE", le symbols V signifie "FIN". Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre filmds d des taux de reduction diff^rents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul clichd, il est film6 d partir de Tangle sup6rieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images ndcessairo. Les diagrammes suivants iilustrent la mdthode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 ^(^ t. PRICE TEN CENTS. f 5) ORANQISM, CATHOLICISM, AND Sir Francis Hincks, BY J". J^. A. Xj Xj -A. IsT, KINGSTON. Reprinted from the October Number of the Canadian Monthly AND National Review. > TORONTO : HART & RAWLINSON, 5 KING STREE f WEST. r- \ i PRICE 10 CENTS. ORANGISM. CATHOLICISM. AND Sir Francis Hincks. BY J". -A.. -A.XjXjJL2sr, KINGSTON. Reprinted from the October Numbe- of the Canadian Monthly AND Natio,\a„ Review. TORONTO : HART & RAWLINSON, S KING STREET WEST. 1877. PREFACE. The argument in the following pages is not directed against Catholics, but against Catholicism. This may be regarded by some as a distinction without a difference. But it is not so. My plea is for civil and religious liberty the world over. I argue neither for nor against any particular form of religious dogma, but only for the right of every man to thmk, and to express his honest thought ; and against the employment of force or compulsion of any kind, with a view to the dominance of any particular creed, otiier than that of argument addressed to the understanding and the conscience. To this, my statement of civil and religious liberty, Catholicism, as a theology, is distinctly and definitely opposed. But there are hosts of Catholic people, both here and elsewhere, throughout Christendom, who are not so opposed, but who have struggled, and are at this moment struggling earnestly, for the estab- lishment of the principle I here advocate. In Germany, in catholic Belgium, and Spain, and P'rance, and Italy, yea, in Rome itself— the very cradle and centre of Catholicisjii— the inborn, the inex- tinguishable sense of justice of mankind rebels against the doctrine that men ought to deforced to adopt any particular faith ; and this too, in spite of the counsels and thunders of the Vatican, backed by the voices of its armies of priests, and by a press devoted to its interests. And here I wish it to be understood, that whatever may have been my adhe- sion to any particular party in the commonwealth, and whatever may be my sympathy with particular views and individual men, I am in a nearer and more especial sense the friend of every man — Protestant or Catholic, Tory or Liberal, Conservative or Reformer — who keeps steadily in view the great paramount principle of civil and religious liberty ; beside which every oiher question, important or less important, fades into insignificance, and all party shibboleths seem light as air. In perfect liberty only can there be perfect peace— each in the enjoyment of his own rights, ancl each respecting equally the rights of every other man. But till this doctrine, so simple to the unbiassed judgment, gets rooted as a conviction in the general mind, no suie peace can be. It is, indeed, crue, as that Catholic nobleman, Lord Acton, shows,* that such is the inconsisiency or inconsequence of the human min..!, that there is always a wide difference between the theory men dare avow and the deeds they dare not practise ; or, to use uis own words, ' some exaggeration in the idea men form of the agreement in thought and deed which authority can accomplish.' Still, as so much has been accomplished in the past, we prefer not to depend for our safety on the iticonsequence of the human mind, which might fail us at an awk- ward moment ; but to look rather to the general prevalence of a wholesome public opinion, and to the consistency of a mind, which; knowmg something of the laws which govern mind, believes and openly avows, that all persecution for opinion-sake is unchristian, irrational, and inhuman. Inconsistency seems such a poor staff for men to lean ca for their lives, yet is it the best that Lord Acton has to offer. How easy for the Pope to decree us a higher assurance, if only he would ! If not, we have these still to look to — the poor human incon- sequence that half-way halts between thought and action, and our own resolve to take and enjoy what of right is ours, whether conceded to us or not. J. A. A. * See note, page g. / I Orangism, Catholicism, AND SIR FRANCIS HINCKS. In past uncivilized times Protestants persecuted Catholics, and Catho- lics Protestants, and we and they had equally our penal laws. Ikit now, wherever the English language is spoken, Protestants have proclaimed all persecution for religion's sake as, in practice and principle, immoral and irreligious. To force a man to profess wi-.->t he does not l)elieve, we regard as grotesque and horrible. This is of the very essence of our mode of thinking — an intci^ral portion of our Protestant faith iind of our Protestant selves. Whatever differences among us may exist, there is no difference here. To this we have grown irreversibly under the tuition of a common Protes- tantism. But can the same be said of Catholicism ? Has this, too, been rising out of the slough of the past ? Has the teaching of the Ages impressed the same les- son on the Church of Rome ? Now, that that lesson has never been learn- ed there, is what fills the minds of Protestants with a feeling of insecurity ;. and this feeling the late decree vesting infallibility in one man, the ma- king absolute submission to the will of the Pope the duty of all Catholics, and the news of a new ' Universal Catholic League,' having for its end the annihilation of all individualism and of the free play of the human faculties, have tended largely to augment. Is the Protestant mind alarming itself needlessly ? When, in Si)ain,an arch- bishop commands the people to vote for no one who toli-rates the heretical doctrine of libtrty of speech or liberty of worship, and this (he says) be- cause the Pope commands it ; and when he and his subordinates try to gag the press and so strangle in its cradle this Hercules of our liberties, what are we to infer? And then compare the magnificent men of that magnifi- cent country, now plunged in half-anarchy and whole ignorance, with the same country under its Moorish rulers, holding up the beacon-lights of learning and science to a dark and distracted age. Is it not a strange phenomenon, which the results of Christian teaching have brought into such relief on the very foreground of our human history, that a religion oased on the paramount claims of conscience and the purity of the affections, and of which it is a fundamental principle, tiiat, what- ever other gifts we may possess, ' without charity we are as sounding brass and a tinkhng cymbal,' should, through the perversity and dogmatism o£ ORANC.ISM, CATHOLICISM, AND SIR FRANCIS HINCKS. the human mind," be so transmuted, that men have hated one another with the hatred almost of fionds, and persecuted to the death, with fearful tortures, their fellow-men, under the horrible delusion that they were hon- ouring God by destroying His creatures ?t And this seems especially strange when it is considered thai the Founder of their Faith had not only rebuked all persecution, but had laid down the broadfist principles of universal toleration ; for, when appealed to on this subject by His disciples, He replied, let the tares and the wheat grow up together in the world until the harvest at the end of it, then will (iod see that the bad be separated from amongst the good (Matth. xiii, 24-30). It is singular, too, that that which is not formally and precisely defined — the dogmatic creed — should have usurped the place of that which is of essential and primary importance — the character of the individual ; and that instead of man's destiny being made to depend on his obedience to the behests of his conscience according to the best lights he can attain to, he is believed to be a subject for punishment however fearful, because of not believing some dogma, which, owing to the native build of his mind, or the fashioning conditions of his life, or to both, it is morally impossible that he ever can believe. And yet men have persecuted one another for not being able to scale this wall cf iron imjiossibility. They might just as well persecute them for not being able to climb to the moon. One would think that a man might be saved, who, trying to believe aright, strove conscientiously to do his duty to God and man, whether he held to transubstantiation or btlieved it an absurdity ; or that the earth rol's on its axis and not the sun round it : for what have these outside questions of the intellect to do with the ethics of the heart, or the goodness of the life, or the spirituality of the man ? But, then, the ecclesiastic mind is something wonderful. But it is said ' let him hear the Church.' He may be gentle, generous, true, and noble in all the relations of life ; but this one fatal flaw of not be- lieving the infallibility of one man in Rome — for it really amounts to this — spoils all, and he, for this, becomes an outcast from heaven. And yet we read in these sacred writings, that ' pure religion, and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their afflic- tion, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.' And, really, this looks not so ill beside the decrees of Trent — anathemas and all ! But then religion and theology stand very wide apart. But the whole thing looks so grotesque and unreasonable, that prior to its adoption into the creed of any sane man, the foundation for such a be- lief ought to be subjected to the most searching criticism. We proceed, then, to examine the whole passage, text and context. If, says Christ, (Matth. xviii, 15) — 'if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between him and thee alone ; and if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, take vi^ith ihee one * The Latin proverb — ' Deorwii offensa Diis cura,' OfTences against the gvXs are the gods' affair, which may thus be paraphrased : Crimes against man are man's cc -xem ; the gods are competent to guard the rights of gods — is worth attending to. If this sh. vt proverb had been duly weighed ; if the command of Christ, to suffer the tares and the wh' it to grow together until the end of the world, had been obeyed ; what oceans of bluv^d, what crimes, and murders, and miseries, and madnesses would have been spared the world. This would, indeed, have been a gospel of peace ; but what has ' Infallibility' done for us, but set the world by the ears, embittering existence and poisoning humanity at its source. + The reader — and every one ought to be a reader here — will find some very able and striking remarks on this aspect of our subject, in an article on ' The Ethics of Vivisection, in the July number of the Canadian Monthly. ORANOISM, CATHOLICISM, AND S»R FRANCI«! HINCKS. It then are the em ; the proverb to grow k1, what •Id. This us, but urce. able and isection, or two more, that in the mouth of two or th'-ee witnesses every word may be established. And if he tK'glfct to hear them, tell it to the Church {eccUsiOy assembly) ; but if he neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.' Now remark that the cas*; put by Christ is not one ol faith at all — not one of orthodoxy or heterodoxy — but simply o{ wrong done by one member of the Church in any particular locality to another member of the .same. U he neglect to hear you privately, or the bretliren yon take with you, or the church ; if he ignore or spurn all advice tendered from every (juarter ; he must be content to be henceforth to you no more than any other outsider ; and all this being premised, God ratifies your decree of exclusion against him, till at least he repents (v. 21, 22, iS:r.V Of course, the church means the asseinbly of believers /'// i hat place ; for that every private misunderstand- ing between man and man should be carried to Rome could scarcely have been contemplated. Hut what has all this to do with the Council of Trent and its whole lumber of obsolete, unbelievable dogmas, or with the Vatican Council, or with the Pope's infallil)ility ? And what a monstrous super- structure to build on so slight a base — nay, on a positive nisconceptiov. of the whole passage ! Did the world ever behold the like of ic ? But ' thou art Peter' : what do you make oi that i I certainly do not make o* it, that Peter is Pope Pius the IX. Hut to i)roceed : ' Thou art Feter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell (Hades) shall not prevail against it.' Now the argument takes this shape : the word Peter (Petros) means a rock, and on this rock (Petra) Christ built his church. But Peter (Petros) does not mean a rock, but only a rock-fragment. The Greek word for rock, i, e., the underlying rock on which a building would be nised, is quite a different word — P'-tra. Now in this, the true sense of the word, Paul tells us that ' other (owi. ition can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus' (i Cor. iii, 11). 11 this be admitted, then mt Peter but Christ is the foundation rock, the Petra, on which the church is built. But there is a sense in which Peter and the other A])o^tles might be said to be the foundation of the building, to wit, if it, the building, commenced with them as its first or foundation stones, each of them a petros. But whar, in the name of common sense, has ' thou art Peter' to do with an old gentleman in Rome 1800 years after. Peter had just said, ' thou art the Christ, the son of the living God.' Whereupon Christ says, 'thou art Peter (Petros), and • upon this rock (Petra) will I build my church.' I atn the Christ, and upon this rock, this basis of thy confessi'-'\ or myself, I will build my church. It was a mode of speaking, ch acteristically Christ's own. When (John ii.) he drove the Jews out of the .emple, and they demanded a miracle in proof of his assumed authority, he said, ' destroy this teii'ple, and in three days I will raise it u]).' Then said the Jews, ' forty und six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days.' But though he does not seem to have vouchsafed them the slightest in- timation of the temple that was in his thoughts, his di;5ciples inform us that he was all the while talking of the tempie of his body. But in whatever way the similarity of sound and the affinity of sense of these two cognate words may strike, at first sight, the casual reader of this passage, the far more obvious literality of interpretation involved appar- ently in the words ' this temple' (in or close to which they were then stand- ing), ought to lead to extreme caution in giving to an obscure passage an interpretation which enfolds such fearful consequences; just as their inter- pretation of ' the sun stood still,' &c., once led the Roman Church to ORANGISM, CATHOLICISM, AND SIR FRANCIS HINCKb. infer that the earth was the centre of the universe, as pooi Galileo found to his cost, and that wur present system of astronomy was a fearful hc'esy. In this connection, it is curious to notice that when Pope Gregory VI L stripped Henry of his Crown and conffrred it on Rodolph, he employed thi.- hexameter — 'Petra dedit Petro, Petros diadema Rodolpho ' i.e., the Rock gave the crown to Peter, Peter to Rodolph ; so that 1 have infalli- bility with me in my interpretation. But if it be still insisted that the chjrch is built on Peter, what can that have to do with Protestantism or Popery? Nothing, absolutely nothing. But He does not sny that he will build His church on Peter, but changes the word petros (a masculine noun) to petra (a feminine noun), ? word of an altogether uitferent mean- ing ; petra being the word a Greek would employ in speaking of the under- lying Silurian rock-.stratum of this part of Canada, as v.'e say the Silurian rock. We build 7vith a Petros on a Petra. But only look at the absurdity ofthf thing. Christ built His church on Peter; ergo, an old man in Rome — and, oh, how chosen ! — long centuries aftei, has the sole power to declare what every man in the world shnll think and how he shall act. But, adds Christ, whatever be the sufferings of the church in this world, whatever its fate cr vicissitudes in lime, 'the gates of Hades,' — the place o£ the dead — shall not avail to hold them in, for my people shall rise again in immortality, having burst the barriers of death and hell. ' The gates of hell shall not prevail against them.' But he is Peter's successor/ Of that you know as little as 1 do, and that is !i\^ ..ly not/ting ai a//. But what if he be? How does that alter the case ? Lid Christ say likewise that the church is built on the successors of Peter? If so, then 1 say, God he!]) them ! What ! Built on Nicholas III, on BonifacK VIII, or Alexander VI, with his sweet Cardinal son Caesar Borgia, or on two popes excommunicating one another, or on three ! Surely, in so stupendously important a matter we ought not to be left with- out the clearest and minutest in/ormatian. But we read nothing about it — nothing of a stationary infallible tribunal in Rome for shutting down the valves of thought, and gagging the Galileos of science for venturing to af- firm what every man to-day, irom the Pope to his postilion, equally be- lieves, as one of the ^olidest, most unassailable facts of the world. And what is the use ot an infallibility, which the more it dogmatises, the more certainly it goes wrong? Suvely by this time they ought to give it up as a most unfortunate business. But Popes have been so confessedly fallible in sc many instances, that ecclesiastics have had to invent for them an ex cathedra way — or new church patent — for getting over that. Still now arises a nr ■■ question, as to what is ex cathedra and what is not, some affirming, some denying, so that they will have to call another general council to determine that. But, perhaps, they will not, since it is a handy kind of doctrine ; for when one prefers any particular notion, he can affirm the ex ciithedra ; and if he find it in- convenient, he may take the other side. So tliat, as Dean Swift once wit- tily said, they might as well be without infallibiiity as not know where to find it when they want it. But then Dean Swift was a blockhead, for this kind of moral see-sawing just answers to a nirety the views of die eccle- siastics. Still — and he;e is the peril — an occasion might arise to quicken men into mianitnity, and then, ah then But I must hasten to another arm of my subject. Now the Pope and Sir Francis Hincks have no strong liking for Ornnge- men. The Pope is opposed to all secret societies, and therefore institutes the greatest the world has ever known — this new 'Univeksal Catholic Leaguk,' which is lo 'absorb all existing associations, such as Catholic more IS a s, that lurch what t tliey rhaps,. )rcfers it in- ice wit- lere to for this eccle- uicken slen to rnnge- stitutes THOLIC !;itho)ic ORANGISM, CATHOLICISM. AND SIR FRANCIS HINCKS. 5 Clubs, Militia of Jesus Christ, and the like', with its 'centre in Rome,' and its fingers in every man's aflTairs.* And yet, in preseiice of this vivid, gigantic, all-ramifying secret society, how pales and dwarfs this little as- sociation of Orangemen. To give some idea of the objects of the League, and of the scheme of its organizatio.i, I shall present the reader with some extracts from the London Daily Netvs : 1. The centre of the Leagi;e shall be at Rome- 2. The general presidence of tiie League shall reside in the Vatican, and, with it, the personnel of a general sectarial hoard. 5. Tiie office of a general presidence shall have seven directions, each with a head ■division, and with secretaries. Division first — Union of Catholic jurists; second, Catholic workingmen'.s societies; third, central committees ; fourth, Catiiolic regions ; fifth, diocesan functionaries ; sixth, gtncrpl depot ; seventh, academic committee for the union of the learned in the scientific ■efforts of Catholicism. ^ The League shall have for its objects : 1. The defence of right and freedom in face of the laws restricting the church and the Pcpe. The restoration of the temporal power, of which the Pope has been despoiled in violation of the rights of the Holy See and Christianity — a restoration to be effected in the sight of ju.stice, human and divine. 2. To expound and d::"nonstrate the dangers of liberty falsely so-called. 3. To combat individualism. 6. To countermine he press. 9. To re-unite all t!ie forces oi' civilized society, iis intelligence and its material resour- cei, for the benefit of the holy cause. 10. To institute a central press for the reception and distribution of communications to all Catholic journalism. 11. To institute popular schools for technical instruction; to institute Catholic libra- Ties, banks for the immediate advance of money, mixed clubs of the nobless-5 and bour- geoisie, directing clubs for the active agents of the League, woikmen's aid societies. 13. To effect the coalition of the noblesse and the clergy in the grand struggle for the freedom and ultimate empire of the church ; to consolidate the union of the clergy with the bishops, and of the bishops with the pope, ' All for One and One for AH." 14. Pecuniary largess anc. formation of the bonds of fellowshfp between the several cities, communes, boroughs, and persons, for the maintenance of the directing mission- ary priests, and for promoting harmony of the means of action. 15. Establishment of telegraph!'^ bureaus in the great centres in correspondence with the central one at the Vatican, for the concurrence of all the Catholic forces in union. The real objects, however, may be reduced to the one of Article 3 — 'to combat individualism.' Yes, that it is agaiust which has been directed from the infancy of the world, the enginery of all the despots, political and jeligious, the world l.as ever seen — to grind down, in their mill, the man ; \o fuse him into the mass ; not indeed to destroy his thinking powers, but to index the direction they are to take, the groove they are to run in ; to comb him down and sleekly disciplit.e him to the service of ecclesiasti- cism ; to rob him of the brain that n;Uure has given l.im, and to give him one clipped and pared to the pleasure of the Pope ; and by stinting and stunting to reduce the stalwart limbs, and so force some grand Coper- nicus into the breeches of a dwarf. And poor Gal'leo ! This man, of a free, bold intellect, had embraced the doctrine of a central sun and a ro- tatory world. This was then a frightful heresy. Summoned 10 Rome, and the terrors of the Inquisition brouglit to bear on him — and he knew well ■what they meant — the poor, terrified soul of him, humbled and broken, uttered this shameful lie : 'With a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, I ab- jure, curse, and detest the said errors and heresies.' Had he not learned with a vengeance what 'combating individualis i' meant ? And is it to be * Were this League to be dissohed to-morrow, or t-j be non-e'''stent,my reasoning would 'Jiot be thereby invalidated. ORANGISM, CATHOLICISM, AND SIR FRANCIS HINCKS. iiiil iili ! h wondered at if we Protestants have some repugnance to this system of de-^ individualization ? Article 13 simply means that, in this crusade against the liberties of man- kind, ' the noblesse and the clergy,' the Aristocrats and the Ecclesiastics the world over, are to unite their forces —a new nineleenth-century oligar- chy of the two great castes of the world to bend their efforts to achieve for the new age what they had effected so happily for the old ; to issue, as it did before, in the darkness of a night of centuries, in priestcraft and indul- gencris, in inquisitions and autos-da-fS ; to react again in the volcanic ter- rors of French Revolutions — the final outcome of the outraged feelings, the inhuman niiseries, and the insulted rights of mankind. No ; we want no little Churchies with their fingers in our British pie. Stand off, gentle- men, your meddling has never been for good with us — or with any. And for this ' holy cause ' (An. 9) is invoked the union of all the forces of civilised society, its intelligence, and its ' material resources.' Forewarned is forearmed — said to be. Material resources, mark ! Yes, that sounfls like business, and has a new-old ugly look about it, and summons up no very pleasant pictures of the past — of Albigenses, and Waldenses, and St. Dominies, and Philips of Spain, and Dukes of Alva, and dark deeds of horror which ring through history with wailing and warning sounds. And if Orangemen, Sir Francis, read of these things, and can put two and two together and not make five of them, is it any wonder if they are not, at all times, very calm. They are aien. Sir Francis, only men. And men cannot always be an impassive as — well, to make a dash at it — as other men may re- quire them to be ; and when, after yielding wisely, they fin'" that a great wrong is done, their blood will sometimes boil. If, when \ oor Hackett was murdered, you and I, Sir Francis, had been Orangemen, and had gone with Orangemen to Montreal, with no intention to harm any one, only out of sympathy to our dead brother, and a resolution not to be put down while paying the last dues of sepulture to the poor dead, who had been murdered at noonday, in the midst of our civilisation (!), in a public thoroughfare of a large city, after eighteen centuries of Christian teaching, I suppose we (like the others) would have been set down by Alderman Donovan as ' blackguards and ruffians and cut-throats,' whom no law was bound to protect. Can Alderman Donovan never look at any question from the standpoint of another? Can he not imagine — granting even that they were absurdly mistaken — that they might have been enthusiastically earnest, all aglow with the intensity of their feelings, wound up to the point of being ready to ven- ture all, even life itself, in the heroic resolve to stand by the right, or what seemed to them the right ? Armed though they were, they were only a handful among thousands armed too. Thev meant to do no harm, and ihey returned without doing any — only to bury a dead brother, and with their lives in their hands, they resolved to do or die ; and they proved at least their manhood, if they did nothing else. All honour to the brave and true ! All honour to the men, who, whatever else they be, can look grinning death in the face, and can dare to be martyrs for a principle and to die for a right. I have ever shewn myself the friend cf Catholics; but of Catholicism I am no friend. I consider it a religion in clear and definite opposition alike to the teaching of Christ and to the reason of man ; buc I can feel for and with the honest Catholic. I can look at things from his standpoint, feel the rockingr of his emotions, the tremblings of his heart. How could 1 be in- tolerant or unfeeling toward him. I say to myself, the Pope even cannot ORANGISM, CATHOLICISM, AND SIR FRANCIS HINCKS. ven- what )nly a ihey their least true ! nning ie for ism I alike ■)r and el the be in- annot help himself ; he was born to his creed like n^ost of us ; moulded and kneaded in soft childhood to a fixed mental cast, which became indurated with manhood and advancing yea-s, till the twist of culture became the set of brain. How dare I be intolerant, then, when I know that the mere ac- cident of birth, the geographical limits within which we are born, become the very force which determines the creed of the millions of mankind, Protestant, Papist, Turk, Greek, and Hindoo. But the man who expects me to admire the stout-hearted, iron-willed, fiery-souled Loyola, refuses his admiration to the Orangeman who dares all things for a principle, and who, judged by a true standard of right, has generally such a sense of it as the great Jesuit leader seems never to have approached. The Orangemen and the Catholic are only phases of our civilisation. Both are of one blood, with the pulses of a common humanity beating beneath their skins. That they differ in opinion can scarcely be a reason why they should murder or injure or hate one another. ' 7 iie wrath of man worketh not the righteous- ness of God,' while the command ' be pitiful,' is too often overlooked. Yet controversies ougiit to go on. How can I, if there be any good in me, see my neighbour possessed of an opinion injurious to himself or to society, without trying to instil a better. I am ' my brother's keeper,' and he is mine. And i honour Catholics and Pi ">testants, and all, who, believing that they possess an ennobling idea, are zealous to propagate it. I am not angry with the Pope or his subordinates for their U. C League. Knowing, as they do, no belter, they give us the best they can. Thinking that the enthralment of the intellect is for good of the soul, they give us the decrees of I'rent, with the anathemas affixed, to alarm us ; and, half or whole-con- vinced that they alone know all things, feel themselves quite competent to undertake the education of the world. Tliis we Protestants dispute. We do not think them competent. We think that in the past they have shewn themselves to be failures ; that they have retrograded in religion from the Christianity of Christ ; that their philosophy, t-ithered to theology, rendered the darkness darker still ; that their discipline was not sucii as to make us long for its recurrence ; and that in science they made an awful mess of it. In the programme of the future, too, we discover few indications of amendment. Roma semper eadem seems shininr; through every line and ringing m every sentence. What individual Or.ingemen may think I am not in a position to learn, but I do know that as a body — and gnnvingly so — they do not wish to injure in person or estate, or to curtail the rights of, any Catholic. But Orangemen, do, I think, fear, not that Catholics would injure them, but that the doctrines of the church are such, that, if a time should come when it would be no longer unsafe or inexpedient or startling to the general mind to avow it, the leaders of Catholicism might revert to the old policy of persection, with a view to force Protestants within the fold, and thus render the world once again one huge Aceldama — one vast field of blood. They liope, they hope ardently, that this day may never come ; but they wish, so far as their little organization is con- cerned, to meet it not wholly unprepared ; and, with all their fliultsand in- firmities (and they are many), they are raen of stout heart and steady re- solution, who, like Cromwell's immortal Ironsides, would never disappoint the general that led then to the fray, and who might, in any crisis, become the nucleus round which could rally, in defence of civil and religious liberty, the hosts, not of Protestantism, only, but of protesting Catholics — for there are millions of such — Catholics who would tell the ecclesiastics that before they were Catholics they were men ; that liberty was a boon too precious to 8 ORANGISM, CATHOLICISM, AND SIR FRANCIS HINCKS. iS h i be parted with for theoretic considerations ; and that no man ought to be forced to lie to his conscience, or say that what he believed not, he believed. But while we learn that a great, organized corporation, with its head- quarters in the Vatican, and its ramifications throughout the civil "^ed world ; with its devoted missionaries in every city and town and village of the land, and of every land ; with its keen and disciplined spirits to direct its movements to the one common end of putting everything at the feet of Rome — our religion, our institutions, our civilisation, our liberties, and our laws, and of planing down all the diversities of intellect, sentiment, and aspiration to the one dead level of uniformity, to the destruction of all thought not in harmony with the thonght of one man in Rome — one man who, sitting in the central office of the world, sends his mandates through a thousand wires to tell us what to do and how to think ; — is Protestantism to sit by with folded arms waiting to be devoured ? This is the question, I suppose, that Orangemen ask themselves. And how can they avoid this feeling of uneasiness ? In one way only, — by an authoritative declaration of a complete reversal of the whole secular policy of Rome ! We have here to-day the Pope's Legate. Let him declare to his Holiness the wishes of these men and of ourselves. Let him tell him that he may call us schisma- tics, heretics, disturbers of the peace of the church, 'the tares 'of Christen- dom, and the enemies of religion, and that he may assail our common Pro- testantism by every we.ipon in the armory of ihe Vatican, wielded by all the ablest and most practised officer.5 of his churcli, (/"he will only pronounce it ex Cathedra as a principle, that no man ought to enforce religion by phy- sical penalties, and that all persecution of every kind for theological opinions is immoral and inhuman. Then only will there exist any solid ground for peace. That greatest of Parliamentarians, John Pyra, said, in the famous Parliament of 1640, ' By this means a dangerous party is cherished and in- creased, who are ready to close with any opportunity of disturbing the peace and safety of the state. Yet he did not desire ■at.vj new laws against Popery, or any rigorous courses in the execution of those already in force; he was far from seeking the ruin of their persons or estates ; only he wished they might be kept in such a condition as should restrain them from doing hurt. It may be objected thut there are moderate and discreet men amongst them, men of estates, such as have an interest in the peace and prosperity of the kingdom as well as we. These were not to be considered according tc their own disposition, but according to the nature of the body whereof they are parties. The planets have several and particular motions of their own, yet are hey all rapt and transported into a contrary course by the superior orb ichich comprehends them all.' So, he adds, ' the Pope's com- mand will move them, against their own private disposition^ yea, against their own reason and judgment, to obey him.' Now this was the deliberate judgment of one of the coolest and calmest brains in England — of a student of history and of man, who, looking at his subject on all sides of it, and weighing well every fact in its every aspect, drew the only conclusion he thought warranted by the fiicts. And if this subtle and powerful athlete can find no means of escaping the toils of the retiarius, is it to be wondered at if a few uninstructed Orangemen feel sometimes impatient and inclined to snap their fingers at it all. But then, Sir Francis, 'Nemo mortalium omnibus horis sapit,' even possibly Sir Francis. Was this conclusion of the great Pym the result of ancient prejudice ? We shall see presently. Mr. Gladstone lately published a pamphlet with the ORANGISM, CATHOLICISM, AND SIR FRANCIS HINCKS. llmest lat his jpect, " this )f the II feel I then, incis. I? We ]h the object mainly of proving that the late Vatican decree of infallibility, and of the obligation of passive submission in all things to the will of the Pontift on the part of every Catholic,had changed the whole aspect of Catholicisnn towards tlie civil rulers of every country ; and that 'the world at large . . . are entitled on purely civil grounds to expect from Roman Catholics some declara- tion or manifestation of opinion, in reply to that ecclesiastical party in their church, who have laid down, in their nanie^ principles adverse to the purity and integrity of civil government.' He also showed that at the period when a generous public wished to grant Catholic Emancipation, and when some Protestants, taking these views of Mr. Pym, got alarmed, ' the eminent and able Bishop Doyle did not scruple to write as follows : ' We are taunted with the proceedings of Popes. What, my Lord, have we Catholics to do with the proceedings of Popes, or why should we be made accountable for them?' Now this might seem to lead to the inference thai British Protes- tants were by these representations deceived, or misled. To this question. Lord Acton,* a Catholic nobleman, replies thus : Dear Mr. Gladstone, the doctrines against which you are con- tending did not bee^in with the Vatican Council. At the time 'vhen the Catholic oath was repealed, the Pope had the same right and power to excommunicate those who denied his authority io depose princes that he possesses now. The writers most esteemed at Rome held that doctrine as an article of faith ; a modern Pontiff has affirmed that it cannot be abandoned without taint of heresy, and that those v/ho questioned and restricted his authority in temporal matters, were worse than those that le- jected it in spirituals, and accordingly men suffered death for this cause as others did for blasphemy and atheism I will explain my meaning by an example. A Pope who "ved in Catholic times, and who is famous in history as the author of the first crusade, decided that it is no murder to kill excommunicated persons. This rule was incorporated in the Canon laiv. . . It appears in every reprint of the " Corpus Juris." It has been for 700 years, ard continues to be, part of the Ecclesiastical law. Far from having been a dead letter, it obtained a new application in the days of the Inquisition Pius V., the only Pope who had been proclaimed a saint for many centuries, having deprived Elizabeth, commissioned an assassin to take her life ; and his next successor, on learning that the Protestants were being massacred in France, pronounced the action glorious and holy, but comparatively barren of results ; and implored the king, during two months, by his nuncio and his legate, to carry the work on to the bitter end, until every Huguenot had recanted or perished.' In short, he argues that Protestants ought not to have been misled. But why quote more, and worse, of what is utterly sickening, and which degrades Christianity into literil Thugism. If this had been written by an Orangeman,half the world and Sir Francis would cry 'shame,' and would feel bound to protest against it as an insult and most disgraceful caricature. * The question which Lord Acton had to answer was, as adopted and expressed in his own letter, the following : ' How shall we uersuade the Protestants that we are not acting in defiance of honour and good faith if, 'ving declared that infallibility was twt an article of our faith, while we were contending for our rights, we should, nmv that we have jrot what we wanted, withdraxu from our public declaration, and afifirm the contrary.' But he thinks (and I think) that ' there has been, and I believe there is still, some ex- aggeration in the idea men form of the agreement in thought and dc^d which authority can accomplish. As far as decrees, censures, and persecution could cou'.mit the Court of Rome, it was committed to the denial of the Copernican system.' Such is his state- ment. Nevertheless, as he shows, nous avous change tout cela. 1 ought to add that here and elsewhere I have taken the piivilege of italicising freely. 10 ORANGISM, CATHOLICISM, AND SIR FRANCIS HINCKS. Yet it is the statement of an able and courteous Catholic Nobleman. But is Sir Francis Hincks's indignation so wholly expended on Orangemen that he has none left for this ? No swellings of indignation ? No word of cen- sure or reproof? Yet what, compared with this, is our little Orange affair, even (say) with its ascendancy, and colours, and regalia ? Is there not in it, Sir Francis, much to justify the utmost extravagance imputed to the most extreme Orangeman in his most excited moments ? But I be- lieve there are millions of Catholic people who repudiate these doctrines of ecclesiastics, and I cannot help hoping that the enlightenment which is gaining ground, the advanced statesmanship of the age, the pity of the human heart, the sense of justice that is born with us, the growing know- ledge of the foundations of belief, the principles of toleration inculcated by Christ and by all the good and wise of every age, and the public con- science of Ciiristendom, will present such a moral inertia of resistance to this mad fever movement of Ecclesiasticism, as will save the world from the worst evil that can befall it — a government of priests. Do they im- agine ac Rome that the world is a toy for them to play with ? Do eccle- siastics forget that for evoking such a spirit the world would hold them re- sponsible? that they would not be those who would suffer least or last? that reprisals and fearful vengeance would take the place of law and I- jace ? and tliat society itself must cease to exist, were their theories to be reduced to practice ? But if Catholic theologians think that some verse in the Bible leads to this stupendous and inhuman result, how much wiser, if driven to it, to be- lieve tliat such isolated passage — not having any necessary connection with what goes before or follows after — has been inserted into the text by mi'^take, from some marginal or interlined comment of an early copyist of a New Testament manuscript, and so has crepe into general adoption ; or even by design, in the interest of pnest-power or of a foregone conclusion, as, beyond all reasonable doubt, some texts have crept in, — than to believe that God has handed over mankind, tied hand and foot, absolulely, unre- servedly, for their belief and their conduct, their political institutions, and social and domestic arrangements, for their literature and their science — for it conies to thai — to one man of a succession of men, some of whom were, acknowledgedly, foolish men, some indifferently good, and some bad men. It is a notion so extraordinary that every man of strong sense re- jects it as an absurdity /;/ livtine, no matter by whom or by what asserted. I am no theologian. I only try to understand the meaning of a passage in the Bible as I would that of a passage in any ancient book — of Xeno- phon and Horace, say — by text and context interpreted by common sense, and in that way 1 have questioned the text 'hear the Church,' and tried to elicit its meaning. But I should like to put a question to the Pope. You, Pius the 9th, have mtuh faith. Now a text of Scripture affirms that if you havo, only a '^rain of faith, you can remove a mountain (Matthew xvii, 20). Now — I drop the second person as seemingly irreverent — there are Vesuvius and the Himalayas — don't laugh ; it is a subject more pro- perly for tears — let him try his hand on them, for is it not a text as clear as 'thou art Peter.' Tliere are many engineering difficulties in the world where it would be very convenient to employ this power. Let him trans- plant Vesuvius — the farmers in its neighborhood, I am sure, would not complain — into the deadly Pontine Marshes at his very door, and he will do more towards removing the unbelief of the Orangemen in him than by a thousand musty tomes of bog logic in bog latin. Why spend his time in weaving moonbeams into arguments, when practical life lies before him, ORANGISM, CATHOLICISM, AND SIR FRANCIS HTNCKS. II where he can be, if he has the tiniest grain of faith, o ?al assistance ? But why all this ? I reply, in order to show how a theolo^. n — and,