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Tha following diagrams illustrata tha mathod:. 1 2 •it- 3 L'axamplaira ,f ilmi fut'raproduivgrlca.i la g^nArosit* da: Soqiete du Nusee du SMrinalr* de Las imagas suivantas ont 4ti raproduites avf c la plus grand soin. compta tanu da la conditibn at da la nanat* da I'axampiaira film*, at an ^ conformity avac las conditions du contrat da filmago. > . : taa axamplairaf originaux dont la eouvartura an papiar ast ImprimAa sont fiimds •n commancant par^la^amiar plat at an tarminan| soit par la darnii^a paga qui comporta una amprainta d'impraasion ou'd'illustration. soit par la sacohd - plat, aalon lo caa. Tous las auttas axamplairas originaux sont filmds an commandant par la pramiAra paga qui comporta una amprainta d1mj»raasion ou d'illustratjon at an tarminant par la darniAra paga qui comporta una tf Ha i ampjtfinta." ■ .\. Uh daa aymbolaa suiVants spparaltra sur la darnlAra imaga da chaqua microfiche, salon la cas: la symbols — ^ signifia "A SUIVRE". la aymbola ▼ signifia "FIN". < Laa cartaa. pianchas. tableaux, etc.. peuvent Atre filmds A des taux da rAduction diff Arents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour Atra raproduit en un soul cliehA. il est filmA A partir de Tangte supArieur gauche, de gauche A droite. et do haut an baa. an prenanf le nombre d'imagea nAcaasaira. Las diagrammes suivants illuatrant la mAthoda. . 1 2 3 ■ *•'■. ' * 4 5. 6 -■ ' ' ■ ■1.-,— ,■———— . , ■ --^- -' -^'' -■%'. t . \'" * • ^i %xt\hm\ai^ d ^airferl s . •^.' •' DECISION ON THE POOLE CASE, TOGETHER WITH AN ABtlCLE FROM THE <• TIMES" THEBEON. \~ i From the Qael edibsdAyr April 13,1859. bet; PRIMTIO BT MIDDLETON ft DAWSOK, SHAW'S BUILDINGS,. LOWIB lOWK. - 1859; ■ t "! %^, ,^ ■■*• ili^^-^j •.'....mj^Sm ^ i y '*.' ■•«;'■■. :-'>i-^' • . % ■*'-^ h K V" i" a' s' « „ r ■ ,^-.«.„ ' • • ' ■ - • * * « 1> *-^ ■. t. t f * _i . ".i.-'sV": '■■■ _ ■■ ~-f-^:- ■'""^> "" ^--x ^ ■^v,^. , • '. ■ ..|^-S * - -■•''" b iBfc/V "^ ^v^ - «P> . \ - /V :, t THB TO WHICH IS ADDKO TJMAIICBBISHOP OP CANTERBURY'S DECISION ON THE POOLE CASE, Tp OETOER WITH AN ARTICLE FROH TBS ••TIMES" TAEREON. (From the Quebec Gazettet Wednesday, April 13, 1859o h K . V" «%*., We publish the following papers connected with the case which has famished matter for Quebec Confessional conversation through the city for some months past. It may not be incumbent on* us to interpose any animadversions upon the merits of a question which is" exposed inofficial docu- ments : but as Common observers, we feel free to - state that there is an air of truthfulness about the plain story and reasoning of the coknplainant, whicj^ strongly bontrast with the special pleading of the report. Particularly we are at a loss to understand why a commission of enquiry declined,-to collect • all the testimony offered to themi and then based their report upon a statement that the evidence 7 4- I /^i />. rTi 1 was insufficient. This does appear to us to have been a mistake. But we leave our readers to judge. , V,v Statement of Thomas Gibson, living at No. 62, Richelieu street, St. John Suburbs : — " I am a member of the Church of England ; my wife has been sick a long time, and is on her death- bed. The Rcvd. Mr. Roe has visited her often and been very kind to us. One day, about two or three months ago, after reading and conversing with her upon religious matters, my wife expressed her regret at her neglect of her church. He said, * My dear Mrs. Gibson, it is a sad thing to have suQh sins on your mind?' She asked, ' In what wiy .» He then put the following questions :— -OyDJid'youeverdoa^^ to your father or m^her?" i ,,^" Did you ever steal ?" " Did you ever commit murder ?" " Did you ever swear ?'* " Did you ever say anything bad of your neigh- bours, and know they were not deserving of it ?" " Did you ever commit adultery ?" I " My wife was very nAich shocked at this, and thought it very curious. But she said nothinfe about it till after Mr. Roe was gone. She ^cairie into the room where I was working, and told me he had put these questions, which made me WW ?.i- r " lave s to . 62, ; my ealh- ofteii two rsing essed said, have what her or » it neigh- of it ?" ■ i IS, and lothing ^oanoe old me le aiid her feel very angry. She wanted me to speak about them at once, bat I told her that we nev^ had « a clergyman to visit us before, and perhaps that^ was the way in the church, so that we had better wait a little, though we thought it very improper to ask such questions. After she had answered, he said that he did not want her to confess to him, but he was glad she had Spoken the truth. After i the sixth and eighth eommandments, he asked her to be sure she had not broken them. » -f >s. " Now, I think this way of going on is not right, and thc^ questions not proper, especially to a youngs woman like my wife, who is only 25 years old. But I think it my duty to make it know^a to you, because I do not think it right that the ^wives or daughters of English churchmen should have sucb, questions put to them. As I have before said, Mr. Roe has been very kind to us ; and at first I did not know the rules of the church, and I did not wish to hurt any one; but, as a husband, I think I owe it to others to keep them from such questions, even though it is unpleasant to do so. " I do, therefore, request that your Lordship will please to consider over the matter, as, unfortunate- ly, by some means, it has got known, and great addition^ made ; and, as I declare tO your Lord- ship that I am innocent of the report that is circu- lated, I do, therefore, out of justice to Mr. Roe £|nd myself, wish that the truth should be known to you, and do, therefore, hope that yoiir Lordship a2 L( II I 6 Will please to'answcr this in writing, and let mc know what decision you h4ve come to. "i do declare the above to be a troe statement of foots. X . Her V ' "Ew-iN K GiBsowiX^ mark. " Jhomas Gibson. ■ „.; A John Worlhington, . Witness, { William Taylor. Quebec, February I4th, 1859. REPORT. Having been requested by your Lordship to in- vestigate the circumstances connected with a com- plamt made by one Thomas Gibson, agamst the Revd. Henry Roe-a written statement of which, signed by Mr. and Mrs. Gibson, in the presence of witnesses, was transmitted to us by your Lordship, ^e beg to make the following report of the pro- ceedings taken by us, and of the opinio^ which we have formed on the subject. 1 . On the 28th ult., we met at the Rectory, and Mr. Gibson, attended by the Hon. F. W. Primrose as his adviser, and Mr. Roe, were P^^f '^'r^***! son, on being questioned by us, stated that he had no further or other complaint to make against Mr. Roe than that contained in his written statement. \ r In (Consequence of the conversation between Mr. Rbe and Mrs. Gibson, upon which the charges are founded, having taken pl&ce in the absence of any third party, find fron^our haying discovered one inaccuracy in the document .laid beiore us, we were at first disposed to dismiss the case for want of evidence to support the charge made against Mr. Roe^ » Believing, however, that it would be satisfac- tory to all parties to have the matter investigated as far as possible^ we examined the husband of Mrs. Gibson, , and received a written stalemeixt from Mr. Roe (which we beg to enclose) in refu^ tation of the chSirge made against him. This let- ter was read by us in the presence and hearing of Mr. Gibson, on hearing which he remarked that Mr. Roe's stateraient was^ incorrect in two particu- lars : first, that when on the Friday evening men- tioned towards the conclusion of the letter, he had- requested Mr. Roe to return and ^||||:-fais' wife, he did not wish him to do so in iKRjharacteip of a clbrgyman, but merely as a friend, and with the hope that by w>me explanation the misunderstand- ing existing between them might be Removed ; and second, that when Mr. Roe did retuni to his l^ouse on the evening of the 13th February, ^e was not specially requested to do so. It will be observed that neither of these asser- tions, made by Mr. Gibson, is at all inconsistent with Mi. Roe's letter, and that the facts which he \ *i r r ■■* disputes Iftre in themselves quite unimport^nt.—Mr. Gibson did not impugn the correctneiis of Mr. Roe*8 statement in any other particular. It may, * therefore, l?e assumed that Mr. Roe's letter is ad- - thitted by. Gibson* excepting so far a^s it is contra^ i dieted by his written stateinept, , to contain a cor^ rect narrative of the occurren^^. "X. In presenting this report, we must advert to the great suspicion w^ich is necessarily thrown upon '^ , the story as now told by Gibson, from the circum- stance that the alleged questions were said to havg been put by jyfr. Roe,, when he commenced his visits to Mrs. Gibson in the early part of October last; that faltHough they felt very " angry" at the time, and thought Mr. Roe's conduct " very im- proper," they, nevertheless, permitted 'him to continue his visits almost daily for a period of» four months, without haying even adverted in the most distanf manner to the^eonduct at which they now profess to have been sht)ckc(l,' \or asked any explanation (rrfm him on the subject; and that Gibson was 6nly induced to make the present com- « plaint after he. had been interrogated as t\ . ■M r M • r, ^^0^ and one which her husband still cannot altogether acquiesce in. In following out this subject, it seems that Mr. Roe lequested Mrs. Gibson to in- terrogate her own heart upon tho several points ^ referred to by our Lord, and to see whether she had not been guilty of every one, and begged her to make confession, not to himself (f6r this is a par- ticular expressly admitted in the document Hbcfore us) but to God, the searcher of hearts, and by sin- cere repentance and faith in^ Christ to seek for- giveness of her sins. We believe, therefore, that there has been (as before stated,) a misconception in the mind of Mrs. Gibson, upon^he manner in which Mr. Roe treat, ed the subject above alluded to, and that conse- quenUy there is no real ground of complaint. March 12, 1859. ' 1 (Signed), Geo. Irvine, r Geo. V. HousMAN, Robert Arnold, Rort. Geo. Plees.. V To the Rt. Rev. Lord Bishop of Quebec. \-, .BISHOPS LETTER. , Tfe Bishop of Quebec desires to inform Mr. Gibson^jfhat he feceived yesterday,^ after divine iervice, the Report of the Commission which h© <%.. •'W:-'^. ■■■■ ■■ V, ' « had appointed for ascciitaining whether there were any grounds made good, in the complaints brought by Mr. Gibson against the Rev. Mr. Roe, for offi- cial animadversion upon the proceedings of , that cleigyman : and the Commission has reported that no such grounds are found to exist. Bardfiild, 14th March, 1859. # id (To ihe^ Editor of the Quebec "Gazette.) / SiR,-^l beg^ space for some remarks upon a few points in the above Report. I. make no remark uppn the general spirit of it, because the public can judge how far it is an im- partial doljcument, and how far the work of a law- yer defending a client. Neither do 1 notice several smaller matters, which 1 could easily, &nd did, explain, because only the main p9ints are important^ and I wish to be brief. \ _ The Commission state that there was want of Evidence, becausp a third party was not present when the questions were put. But no clergyman would put such questions in the presence of a thiid party. The confessional of the church of Rome is private. My wife's- affidavit of the truth of her statement was laid before the Commission. I also offered any two of the gentlemen a personal inter* view with her, thai they might examine her them- =^ I W .--i. •;. f «elve8 ; but this was declined. Relative to my wife's veracity, one said that he knew Mr. Boe and did not know Mrs. Gibson, and therefore would believe Mr. Roe. Another (if not all) said that as the questions were in themselves proper, it did not signify whether they were put 05 not/ Another re- marked that it should be remembered that my ^srife's statements were supported by oath, whilst Mr. Roe's were not. Yet many things in the Re- port are based solely upon Mr. Roe's statements. If the evidence was insufficient, why did not the Commission come to my house to hear for them- selves ? Mr. Housman was a witness of a con- versation in Mr. Roe's house, and is afterwards a judge in the case. But what I then said is mis- represented, but I never admitted that my wife was wrong, only that if Mr. Roe would come (which I invited him to do), and convince her that she was, I would give him my handwriting for it. Although what I said in the presence of Mr. Hous- man is alluded to, I was stopped when I wanted to speak of my wife having repeated the questions m the presence of Mr. Sewell, with Mr. Roe also present, when he^ld her that she told an « infam- ous lie." I also said that she had repeated the same things to several persons, from the yery day when the questions were put, and when all was fresh in her memory. Mr. Roe, on the day Mr. Sewell was there, said to Mr. Brown (the Roman Catholic lodger, who on the day of the quesUons I ■ ■ 13 had joked her about being at hetr confession) that she was an obstinate woman, but he replied — '" Well, sir, she has stuck to the same story from the very first." My wife's affidavit was thought insufficient evi- dence ; but on what evidence do the commission say that they " imagine^^ the chargfe to have been founded, &c. ; and that some persons *' appear*^ to have been anxious to destroy confidence in Mr. Roe, &c. J and that it ** 5eem«" that Mr. Roe, &c ? If so scrupulous about evidence supported by affi- davit, why do they indulge in mere conjectures involving the motives of others ? If the evidence was insufficient, were not the commission bound to try and get better if they could, by ^ coming to see. and cross-question my wife, as I offered ? But, with her affidavit and my unaccepted offer before them, they conclude that Mr. Roe never did put the' questions. at all ! Why we did not complain sooner is\easily ex- plained. We had never had sicknes's before, and did not know the ways of the clergy. Mr. Roe him- self would not have been the right person to ask whether he had not put improper questions; so, although my wife often wanted me to complain, we went on until we learat from some other mem- bers of the Church that such questions were not the ways of Protestant clergymen, but of Roman Ca- tholic priests ; then I told Mr. Roe, and complain- ed to the Bishop, who has not yet answered whe- B ^ iilA,-iti>£^tatSiS-r>3 v.; '4; I iher such questions are proper or not. As to my wifeV^being always pleased with Mr. Roe's visits the coqitaission,who declined to see and question her for themselves, and think her affidavit insuffi- cient evidence, have only Mr. Roe's word for it— which throughout, they believed rather than my wife's affidavit. I believe she was thankful to any one who came to see her ; but from what she said she evidently had some doubt about his teaching all along, and latterly said to others that he us^d to bewilder her. IVe never pretended to be well mstructed in religion ; but many who knew my poor wife before she died, can testify that she was quack and intelligent about matters of fact, and about what was said to her. I, for my part, can- not Jielp believing that she swore to the truth, and that the questions were put to her, notwithstand- ing all the excuses the commission make lor Ifr. Roe. But she is gone no^, and the questions cannot hurt.h6r, only I have wished to do my duty to other wives and daughters, as well as to her and to myself. A&d, having dolie this, I now leave the whole thing as U is with the public. Thomas Gibsow. Quebec, 11th April, 1859. ^ By way of addendum, we copy the following irom the London Evemnff Mail of the 24th ultim^ n,. Ai referring to another celebrated confessional case :— The Confessional in the Church of Eno- i,AND.— Judgment in this case, in which the Rev. Alfred Poole (of confessional notoriety) waa ap- pellant, and the Bishop of London the respondent, w.as delivered at Lambeth Palace on Wednesday. ' The Archbishop of Canterbury was/ assisted by Kis assessor, Dr. Lushington. After the assessor had read his report, giving a detailed exposition of the law and the facts of the case, his Grace pro- nounced the following judgment :— " With the as- sistance of my learned assessors I have given the merits and the circumstances of this appeal my •most serious and careful consideration. I am of opinion that the proved and admitted allegations afford, in the language of the statute, good and reasonable cause for the revocation of this license, and that the Lord Bishop of London has exercised a good and sound discretion in revoking the same ; aad I am further of opinion that the course pursued by the appellatit is not in accordance with the ru- bric or doctrines of the Church of England, but most dangerous, and likely to produce most serous mischief to the cause of morality and religion." The decree and revocation was then formally re- corded, and the court adjourned. Mr. Poole has at length arrived at the result for which he has long been striving ; that is, an em- t 'M sw.^.aMJ «,,'t / 16 phatic condemnation, by the highest ecclesiastical authority, of his peculiar views upon the subject of confession, and a formal confirmation of the sentence by which his licence was revoked. There IS not another word to be said against the manner in which these final procieedings have been con- ducted although, undoubtedly, the Archbishop of Canterbury had been misled in the first jnstance by wrong advice. It was a monstrous thing that Mr Poole should have questioned women in a locked vestry upon tKeir violation of the Seventh Cogirnandment. It was almost equally monstrous that he sltould be condemned unheard. The Court of Queen's Bench has put the Archbishop right and-llie Archbishop has put Mr. Poole right, and the matter is now brought to a satisfactory conclu- sion. Henceforward let us hope that the Arch- bishop and his successor^ will not visit curates with so severe a penalty as the revocation of a licence implies, without giving them a full oppor- tunity of defence ; and further, that curates will abstam from walking in the steps of Mr. Poole in this particular matter. It is but fair to that gentle- man to state that the Bishop of London, after due investigation, seems to have arrived at the conclu- sion that he had not addressed to his penitents the filthy questions of which we have heard so much. Of this he stands acquitted ; on the other hand, it seems fb be equally clear, upon his own admission, that he had interrogated women upon the matters \ referred to; and that i he justified his conduct as consistent with the ribricis and doctrines of the- Church of England. The Archbishop of Canter- buiy and the Bishop of, London now tell us that this is not so ; that the views of Mr. Poole on the subject ©f Confession gendfally, and especially upon Confession where a violation of the Seventh Commandment is at issue, are of .dangerous ten- dency, and calculated to bring scandal on the Church. „ . i \ ' It is curious. to mark hiw numbers of excellent people, simply by dwelling for a length of time ex- clusively upon one idea, <|an arrive ultimately at conclusions wMch they wlould have spumed before the process of intellectual land sentimental incuba- tW began. Here is Mrt Poole, now-;^ve doubt ndt a most excellent and linoral man— who, aiter a duX course of the one-idfia fever, found himself ^ith a woman in the vestry of St. Bar- jtting searching tjuestionsto her upon the subje]>/of herunchastity. ,Butbe it most clearly and .bro^y understood, that/we do not mean to sug- .^. the faintest shadov^ of an inference against ..fr. Poole's personal m<(>rality. We quote him but as an example of an e^^cellent but simple-young t.rasA» whose brains had got muddled on the point /of^Aiiricular Confessioh, just as Don Quixotte's ^ wits were turned up6n the subject of chivalry. t Could the Knight of Ifa Mancha, when in his sob^r 'senses, and be'fore he iook to his library of romance, J- . V-' Y-. f !33 \ *-.•■■ ♦jave seen a picture of himself charging the wind- mills or stabbing the wine-skins, he would surel^ haye said, "Why, that'sthc picture of a madman!" ^n the same way, |iad Mr. Poole, before his head was addled by the perusal of such little volumes of nonsense as the one wTiich Mr. Gresley litis given to the world upon this particular subject— had he, we say, seen himself locKed up in t'he vestry of St. Barnabas and conferring with a Pimlico Magdalen V upon the Seventh Commandment, he would have deemed himself a fit inmate for Bedlam. Granting —as we are fully prepared to grant— that Ife him- self was pure as the topmost drift of snow on the crown of Mount Blanc, would it be so with|)thers? Was thia a practice which would be tolirat^d m the British Islands— save by the Roman Catholic portion of the population -in the year 1859 ?^ There is no doubt that, step by step, a man may ascend the ladder of mental delusion until he has forgotten how far he has left the solid e^rth, upon whibb human beings must be content to walk, beneath him. Ordinary men of our time, however, have ho sympathy with those acrobats of imagination; As was well remarked by an old divine, though not one of Mr. Poole's school, « True religion is the most common-sense thing in the whole world." While you arrive at such conclusions as Mr. Poole deduced in the vestry of St. Barnabas, tfiere is something false in your premises or your reasoning. Your conclusion is a practical absurdity, and, ^ ^■ ^' ^ „^' ^- ■w^' '^''"■-'-.'t'^ ■■■.., . ■ • therefore, some or all of the steps by >vhioh yotf reached it ar^ false. The subject is so delicate an one that we almost iear to remark upon it at all; yet surely it cannot be wrong that an inderpendent voice sHould be up- lifted somawhere to warn these excellent young gentleman that they really must abstain -from cross- examining EiigUi^h women upon such subjects. Withthe great buik of the middle classes they can da. but little harm, for there they have to deal with . occupied and educated people. The sect ta which Mr. Poole belongs niay be fashionable' for a season in Belgravia and oth^r polite quarters, bj^titcame m like crinoline, anAlike crinoline it will go out. In those regions its su\«es8 is based upon the idle- ness and ennui of the Population and generally of thafgraceful and interesting section of it which is composed of young ladites under 25 years of a^. With the humbler classey the evil is greater, fw with regard to them, no doubt, the priest has the advantage of knowledge Wnd position, as opposed to ignorance and no posit^ at all. The machi- nery of charilies, and dolfes, and customers, and employers, aWlady.visit(^s, too, can be thrown into gear for tW benefit with starthng effect. It is just the old stoix of electioneerlnt' oppression as applied to matters of religion. Certain of the hum- bier classes are at/he mercy of their employee and patrons, apd^these persons choose to establish- a religioji»*tfest as the piice of their favors. \^ .^ ^ .<^ .^' % 'I ii ^ .'^ " i /'* 20 , must in justice to the High Church party say that in- stances of a similar system of oppression commit* ted by the other side have been bi-ought under our notice. Such and such an Evangelical minister, again, has before now been AS much the spiritual inquisitor of his flock (and the Crooks of these gen- tlemen have been pretty long ones) as any Angli- can priest who ever labored at the Confessional. It does not signify much if the inquisitorial process is to take place at.all,. whether the penitent be' stand- ing, sitting, or kneeling. It is not a question of a posture, but a fact, and the fact is the abuse of priestly power. The abuse of this pow|6r has been brought very offensively before the public ih this case of Mr. Poole, but we are far indeed from as- serting that cognate abuses do not take place on the other side. The matter must be left, after all, to the discretion of the heads of families. It is* their business— indeed, one of their highest duties —to guard all persons under their authority from such dangerous delusions. In case of abuse it only requires that the facj should^be-made public, and publicity will soon/ supply a retneKJy sharper than any in the laborat0]^ of- Bishop oi Arch- bishop. . i.' . * ^- \ i' ^ k \ v/- -s \ «f. w V- ?i^'^';|^'Jr IfPt. 't i.*#, ^ /-' n "*■ f I 1H||^|||. -/■■a v^ ^#" •tfl ■rf^' \ - •IP f ^ S^,*-r . ' '.',■' . %■ ' •* '. - ,*■ 1 |- , ; - '^ - V' t ■.^ • ■ " „- - \ *« ..H, J „ ■ , ■ ^ -v;" .. •. ^ . '^ . ^ ■ ^■-:^ „ "- / >■ Clfc -<• •■ 8 . ' ' '' v d» ■f. r/ , - 1., V • * M s., * ' . " • ^ ■ " ■' ■ .' , . ^ . "f^ •*" ' ■ ,- ' ■ ' « « ■ >._ " 9 ; ■ I! ^ ■■ ■ * -f' ' ''1 • .' ' , ■ /'^ - f ;. ■ - , ' -« . " ■ ^ * •"fc • ■ ■P"=r- ^ ■ ^ ' r, ' ^ '' ^ ^ ■■ '* " • ' rv ' ♦ ■ .;. .p , ■ ■" - ■. ^ ar, • ** fv ■ - - • A 1^