members his own compatriots, neighbours, and former friends, he either ignores facts, or frames apologies. 66 We have already admitted that Englishmen as a nation are undoubtedly alive to the virtues which concern the intercourse of man with his neighbour; we also think, that, on the other hand, their protests against Catholic amphibology, are not a little pedantic and unreal. Despite all their eloquent invectives against our doctrine on equivocation, which of them is there who hesitates to act on that doctrine in the ordinary affairs of life? How many excellent people positively sanction, how many more. indolently tolerate, how few unequivocally condemn, the conventional fictions "Not at home," "Not guilty," and the like? Who of them would encourage in practice, however he may seem to sanction in controversy, a view of morality which would give all the Paul Pry's of society a right to ask any impertinent question they might please, with the certainty of receiving either a true answer, or such an one as at any rate they might construe into a virtual acknowledgment of the fact at which they desired to arrive? Such a doctrine as these men profess would in fact amount to a complete premium upon impudence; no final objection to it we admit if it were sanctioned by the law of God, but any how an antecedent difficulty in its way; while in fact it is found to derive no countenance whatever from the practice even of our Blessed Lord Himself, to say nothing of Saints of the Old Testament. Was Sir Walter Scott, for instance, bound to avow himself as the author of Waverley, to every coxcomb who chose to put the question to him? Was he bound to give an answer which would have been tantamount to an avowal? Will Protestant moralists do us the favour of devising for an author in such circumstances, a reply which will at once give, and suggest, no information whatever to an impertinent questioner, and yet stop short of a denial? Or will he take the opposite line and argue that an author has no right over his own secret? Carry the same consideration from the province of authorship into that of law, of medicine, of commerce, and see whether everywhere you are not obliged to tolerate, and even allow, a practice at variance with your fine theory; or, if you will not go so far as this with us, candidly acknowledge that the whole subject is so beset with difficulty, as to make any scientific analysis of it a gain, and at any rate to deprive of the right of objection to what pretends to be such, those who have no counter theory to produce. If you choose to say that Protestants tell fewer lies without a theory than Catholics with one, we take leave to deny your assertion, and beseech you to bear in mind, that there are men on our side who have tried both systems, and have therefore a better right to be heard than those of you who have tried but one. Nor let it be forgotten that those Protestants are not many who would be prepared to assent to the uniform teaching of our theologians and spiritual writers; viz., that it is not lawful to tell one venial lie, though a man might thereby ransom all the souls in hell.* In the pamphlet to which we have already given too large a share of our attention, there is one insinuation which we must not altogether overlook, because it has lately found an echo from a quarter where such a response might least have been expected. At page 19 of this pamphlet, we meet with words which can mean nothing less than to imply that priests are to be found, who would, upon occasions, violate the seal of confession. We Catholics know not when and where we are secure. We had thought that if there were any charge which, by consent even of our enemies, was supposed too monstrous to bring against us, it had been that of an indifference, on the part of priests, to the sanctity of this particular obligation. We had believed in our simplicity, not that any supposed respect for laws human or divine, any sentiment of honour, any sense of the duties reciprocal to an act of reposed confidence, or other creditable motive, but that our character for prudence, our proverbial eye to the security of priestcraft, to the maintenance of ecclesiastical power and influence over subservient flocks and too confiding disciples, would have saved us with the world from the effect of this peculiar calumny. But it seems we were mistaken. All against which we have actually been protected in the pages of "Pascal the Younger," has been the overt charge of this especial baseness. An innuendo definite enough to *The words of St. Ignatius (the Founder of the supposed school of lax Theology) are "Tantum ac tale est malum," (peccatum veniale) "ut, teste Sto. Anselmo, nec pro salute omnium angelorum atque hominum expediret fieri vel unicum peccatum veniale." awaken suspicion, not so distinct as to provoke retort, was a masterpiece of controversial ingenuity too effective to let go. A more ingenuous and high minded writer, whom it is painful even to name in such company, has openly brought the same charge against a portion of the clergy in a foreign city. Perhaps he was too artless to observe the slip in controversy, more probably he was too candid to care for it, but at any rate disputants more subtle and more determined, will hesitate, for once, to borrow a calumny against the Church, because they will see it to involve a self-contradiction. They will be quick to discern that the whole power of the confessional, as a spiritual engine, hinges upon the inviolability of the Seal.* Even Protestants, we should think, will admit that from the very nature of the case, no evidence can be producible (as none is produced), sufficient to overcome the antecedent improbability, to say the very least of any confessor, who had once so abused his trust, having future opportunities of repeating his offence. On the other hand, as every well instructed Catholic knows, there is the strongest antecedent probability, that (supposing the story to have any foundation at all) what looks like a revelation of secrets learned in confession, although essentially other and altogether innocent and lawful, might, where the recipient of the tale is not a Catholic, or the informer a bad, or ill-instructed one, be mistaken for that most dreadful, even among sacerdotal crimes. And now, in conclusion, let us once more guard the reader against mistaking this article for what it is not. That which it is not, is an Essay on the principles of Catholic Morality; a conceivable, perhaps a desirable work, but one, at any rate, which does not fall within the scope and profession of this attempt. All which that attempt undertakes is, to review a book, which, although a single and a small one, is an average specimen of its class. This book professes, in a triumphant strain, to shew up the current morality of the Church, as sophistical and wicked. What we have undertaken, and, as we claim, with success, is to convict this book itself of the dishonesty and wickedness which it imputes to us; a grave accusa * We find, however, that the "Guardian" apparently credits the statement in question. tion indeed, but one from which the utmost latitude of Christian charity will not suffer us to take refuge, save in the supposition of an amount of ignorance and dullness, which would involve, of necessity, no fault at all if combined with modesty, but which, when committed to the cause of swelling a senseless and wicked outcry against the Christians of north, south, east, and west, with their ecclesiastical rulers, from the Supreme Pontiff, down to the humblest missionary Priest, assumes the character of such inexcusable presumption, as is separated by but a faint line, from more subtle forms of iniquity. But we rather fear that the hypothesis upon which charity, as regulated by truth, must compel us to settle, is that which subjects the work before us to the charge of moral perverseness and intellectual incompetency together; of malice combined with ignorance, which, while in no degree forming its apology, is abundantly sufficient to supply its antidote, with all readers who do not start, like the great majority of our Protestant fellow-countrymen, with assuming it as a first principle in the controversy, that the Catholic Church is more likely to be in the wrong, than any man, woman, or child, who chooses to assail her. ART. VI.-The Lady and the Priest. An Historical Romance. By MRS. MABERLY, Author of "Emily," "Leontine," "Fashion," &c. 3 vols., 8vo. London: Colburn, 1851. Melanthe, WHEN regret at his having been kicked in Dublin, Dr. Johnson declared that, on the contrary, it was rather a subject of congratulation. "He is rising in the world," said the doctor; "when he was in England, no one thought it worth while to kick him." If Catholics needed anything to console or cheer them under the manifold abuse, insult, and misrepresentation, of which they have been the object for the last twelve months, they might well apply this philosophic observation to themselves. If the past year presents, in this respect, a striking contrast with those which had preceded it, the true reason is to be found in the increasing numbers, influence, and activity of the Catholic body. If Catholics are beaten and abused now, it is because they have become formidable, If the storm of violence with which they have been visited, was not earlier raised against them, it was not because there was any want of disposition on the part of the assailants, but because it was "not worth while to assail them.” There are very few, we imagine, who will not now admit that the so-called Papal Aggression was but the pretext, or, at most, the occasion, for this fierce and sustained assault upon Catholics and Catholic principles, the consummation of which seems now to have arrived. The real source of the heart-burning lay far deeper. The real aggression upon Protestantism came from within. It lay in the revelation, which the events of the last ten years have made, of its own internal hollowness and weakness. When those who had been accustomed, from earliest youth, to look upon their Church as one of the institutions of the empire, which, however it might be assailed from without, at least rested securely upon its own foundations, and held by unchanging tenure the allegiance of its own subjects, discovered upon a sudden that doubt had began to arise and to become diffused; that doubt was deepening into distrust, and that distrust was rapidly turning to discontent, and even to disaffection; when they found disaffection assume a definite form and purpose; when they saw distrust of the authority of England gradually shape itself first into respect, then into reverence, and eventually into submission, to that of Rome; above all, when they saw piety, learning, reputation, rank, earnestness, and influence, withdrawing from their side, and ranging themselves with her whom they had hitherto despised, or rather, in the fulness of their contempt, ignored altogether; then it was that the natural decay of Anglicanism was assumed to be a result of the aggressive policy of Rome. The discontent, and jealousy, were the same, and had long existed; but they now found a new object. The bitter ingredients so long fermenting in the caldron, at length reached the boiling point, and the overflow was but the more fierce and more universal, that it had been so long delayed. And thus it is really wonderful how skilfully and how VOL. XXXI.-No. LXI. 10 |