servitude, however abject, will not satisfy the party now dominant in the Latin Church: the State must also be a slave.

Our Saviour had recognised as distinct the two provinces of the civil rile and the Church: had nowhere intimated that the spiritual acthority was to claim the disposal of physical force, and to control in its own domain the authority which is alone responsible for external peace, order, and safety among civilised communities of men. It has been alike the peculiarity, the pride, and the misfortune of the Roman Church, among Christian communities, to allow to itself an unbounded use, as far as its power would go, of earthly instruments for spiritual ends. We have seen with what ample assurances this nation and Parliament were fed in 1826; how well and roundly the full and undivided rights of the civil power, and the separation of the two jurisdictions, were affirmed. All this had at length been undone, as far as Popes could undo it, in the Syllabus and the Encyclical. It remained to complete the undoing, through the subserviency or pliability of the Council.

And the work is now truly complete. Lest it should be said that supremacy in faith and morals, full dominion over personal belief and conduct, did not cover the collective action of men in States, a third province was opened, not indeed to the abstract assertion of Infallibility, but to the far more practical and decisive demand of absolute Obedience. And this is the proper work of the Third Chapter, to which I am endeavouring to do a tardy justice. Let us listen again to its few but pregnant words on the point:

"Non solum in rebus, quæ ad fidem et mores, sed etiam in iis, quæ ad disciplinam et regimen Ecclesiæ per totum orbem diffusæ pertinent " (h).

Absolute obedience, it is boldly declared, is due to the Pope, at the peril of salvation, not alone in faith, in morals, but in all things which concern the discipline and government of the Church. Thus are swept into the Papal net whole multitudes of facts, whole systems of government, prevailing, though in different degrees, in every country of the world. Even in the United States, where the severance between Church and State is supposed to be complete, a long catalogue might be drawn of subjects belonging to the domain and competency of the State, but also undeniably affecting the government of the Church; such as, by way of example, marriage, burial, education, prison discipline, blasphemy, poor relief, incorporation, mortmain, religious endowments, vows of celibacy and obedience. In Europe the circle is far wider, the points of contact and of interlacing almost innumerable. But on all matters, respecting which any Pope may think proper to declare that they concern either faith, or morals, or the government or discipline of the Church, he claims, with the approval of a Council undoubtedly Ecumenical in the Roman sense, the absolute obedience, at the peril of salvation, of every member of his communion.

It seems not as yet to have been thought wise to pledge the Council in terms to the Syllabus and the Encyclical. That achievement is probably reserved for some one of its sittings yet to come. In the mean

See further, Appendix B.

(h) For translation of thie passage, see p. 33, third page of cover.

time it is well to remember, that this claim in respect of all things affecting the discipline and government of the Church, as well as faith and conduct, is lodged in open day by and in the reign of a Pontiff, who has condemned free speech, free writing, a free press, toleration of nonconformity, liberty of conscience, the study of civil and philosophical matters in independence of the ecclesiastical authority, marriage unless sacramentally contracted, and the definition by the State of the civil rights (jura) of the Church; who has demanded for the Church, therefore, the title to define its own civil rights, together with a divine right to civil immunities, and a right to use physical force; and who has also proudly asserted that the Popes of the Middle Ages with their councils did not invade the rights of princes: as for example, Gregory VII., of the Emperor Henry IV.; Innocent III., of Raymond of Toulouse; Paul III., in deposing Henry VIII.; or Pius V., in performing the like paternal office for Elizabeth.

I submit, then, that my fourth proposition is true; and that Englan i is entitled to ask, and to know, in what way the obedience required by the Pope and the Council of the Vatican is to be reconciled with the integrity of civil allegiance?

It has been shown that the Head of their Church, so supported as undoubtedly to speak with its highest authority, claims from Roman Catholics a plenary obedience to whatever he may desire in relation not to faith but to morals, and not only to these, but to all that concerns the government and discipline of the Church: that, of this, much lies within the domain of the State: that, to obviate all misapprehension, the Pope demands for himself the right to determine the province of his own rights, and has so defined it in formal documents, as to warrant any and every invasion of the civil sphere; and that this new version of the principles of the Papal Church inexorably binds its members to the admission of these exorbitant claims, without any refuge or reservation on behalf of their duty to the Crown.

Under circumstances such as these, it seems not too much to ask of them to confirm the opinion which we, as fellow-countrymen, entertain of them, by sweeping away, in such manner and terms as they may think best, the presumptive imputations which their ecclesiastical rulers at Rome, acting autocratically, appear to have brought upon their capacity to pay a solid and undivided allegiance; and to fulfil the engagement which their Bishops, as political sponsors, promised and declared for them in 1825.

It would be impertinent, as well as needless, to suggest what should be said. All that is requisite is to indicate in substance that which (if the foregoing argument be sound) is not wanted, and that which is. What is not wanted is vague and general assertion, of whatever kind, and however sincere. What is wanted, and that in the most specific form and the clearest terms, I take to be one of two things; that is to say, either

I. A demonstration that neither in the name of faith, nor in the name of morals, nor in the name of the government or discipline of the Church, is the Pope of Rome able, by virtue of the powers asserted for him by the Vatican decree, to make any claim upon those who adhere

to his communion, of such a nature as can impair the integrity of their civil allegiance; or else,

II. That, if and when such claim is made, it will even although resting on the definitions of the Vatican, be repelled and rejected; just as Bishop Doyle, when he was asked what the Roman Catholic clergy would do if the Pope intermeddled with their religion, replied frankly, "The consequence would be, that we should oppose him by every means in our power, even by the exercise of our spiritual authority."

In the absence of explicit assurances to this effect, we should appear to be led, nay, driven, by just reasoning upon that documentary evidence, to the conclusions:

1. That the Pope, authorised by his Council, claims for himself the domain (a) of faith, (b) of morals, (c) of all that concerns the government and discipline of the Church.

2. That he in like manner claims the power of determining the limits of those domains.

3. That he does not sever them, by any acknowledged or intelligible line, from the domains of civil duty and allegiance.

4. That he therefore claims, and claims from the month of July, 1870, onwards with plenary authority, from every convert and member of his Church, that he shall "place his loyalty and civil duty at the mercy of another :" that other being himself.

V. Being True, are the ProPOSITIONS MATERIAL?

But next, if these propositions be true, are they also material? The claims cannot, as I much fear, be denied to have been made. It cannot be denied that the Bishops, who govern in things spiritual more than five millions (or nearly one-sixth) of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom, have in some cases promoted, in all cases accepted, these claims. It has been a favourite purpose of my life not to conjure up, but to conjure down, public alarms. I am not now going to pretend that either foreign foe or domestic treason can, at the bidding of the Court of Rome, disturb these peaceful shores. But though such fears may be visionary, it is more visionary still to suppose for one moment that the claims of Gregory VII., of Innocent III., and of Boniface VIII., have been disinterred, in the nineteenth century, like hideous mummies picked out of Egyptian sarcophagi, in the interests of archæology, or without a definite and practical aim. As rational beings, we must rest assured that only with a very clearly conceived and foregone purpose have these astonishing reassertions been paraded before the world. What is that purpose?

I can well believe that it is in part theological. There have always been, and there still are, no small proportion of our race, and those by no means in all respects the worst, who are sorely open to the temptation, especially in times of religious disturbance, to discharge their spiritual responsibilities by power of attorney. As advertising Houses find custom in proportion, not so much to the solidity of their resources as to the magniloquence of their promises and assurances, so theological

*Report,' March 18, 1826, p. 191.

boldness in the extension of such claims is sure to pay, by widening certain circles of devoted adherents, however it may repel the mass of mankind. There were two special encouragements to this enterprise at the present day: one of them the perhaps unconscious but manifest leaning of some, outside the Roman precinct, to undue exaltation of Church power; the other the reaction, which is and must be brought about in favour of superstition, by the levity of the destructive speculations so widely current, and the notable hardihood of the antiChristian writing of the day.

But it is impossible to account sufficiently in this manner for the particular course which has been actually pursued by the Roman Court. All morbid spiritual appetites would have been amply satisfied by claims to infallibility in creed, to the prerogative of miracle, to dominion over the unseen world. In truth there was occasion, in this view, for nothing, except a liberal supply of Salmonean thunder:"Dum flammas Jovis, et sonitus imitatur Olympi." *

All this could have been managed by a few Tetzels, judiciously distributed over Europe. Therefore the question still remains, Why did that Court, with policy for ever in its eye, lodge such formidable demands for power of the vulgar kind in that sphere which is visible, and where hard knocks can undoubtedly be given as well as received?

It must be for some political object, of a very tangible kind, that the risks of so daring a raid upon the civil sphere have been deliberately run.

A daring raid it is. For it is most evident that the very assertion of principles which establish an exemption from allegiance, or which impair its completeness, goes, in many other countries of Europe, far more directly than with us, to the creation of political strife, and to dangers of the most material and tangible kind. The struggle, now proceeding in Germany, at once occurs to the mind as a palmary instance. I am not competent to give any opinion upon the particulars of that struggle. The institutions of Germany, and the relative estimate of State power and individual freedom, are materially different from ours. But I must say as much as this. First, it is not Prussia alone that is touched; elsewhere, too, the bone lies ready, though the contention may be delayed. In other States, in Austria particularly, there are recent laws in force, raising much the same issues as the Falck laws have raised. But the Roman Court possesses in perfection one art, the art of waiting; and it is her wise maxim to fight but one enemy at a time. Secondly, if I have truly represented the claims promulgated from the Vatican, it is difficult to deny that those claims, and the power which has made them, are primarily responsible for the pains and perils, whatever they may be, of the present conflict between German and Roman enactments. And that which was once truly said of France, may now also be said with not less truth of Germany: when Germany is disquieted, Europe cannot be at rest.

I should feel less anxiety on this subject had the Supreme Pontiff * En. vi. 586.

frankly recognised his altered position since the events of 1870; and, in language as clear, if not as emphatic, as that in which he has proscribed modern civilisation, given to Europe the assurance that he would be no party to the re-establishment by blood and violence of the Temporal Power of the Church. It is easy to conceive that his personal benevolence, no less than his feelings as an Italian, must have inclined him individually towards a course so humane; and I should add, if I might do it without presumption, so prudent. With what appears to an English eye a lavish prodigality, successive Italian Governments have made over the ecclesiastical powers and privileges of the Monarchy, not to the Church of the country for the revival of the ancient, popular, and self-governing elements of its constitution, but to the Papal Chair, for the establishment of ecclesiastical despotism, and the suppression of the last vestiges of independence. This course, so difficult for a foreigner to appreciate, or even to justify, has been met, not by reciprocal conciliation, but by a constant fire of denunciations and complaints. When the tone of these denunciations and complaints is compared with the language of the authorised and favoured Papal organs in the press, and of the Ultramontane party (now the sole legitimate party of the Latin Church) throughout Europe, it leads many to the painful and revolting conclusion that there is a fixed purpose among the secret inspirers of Roman policy to pursue, by the road of force, upon the arrival of any favourable opportunity, the favourite project of re-erecting the terrestrial throne of the Popedom, even if it can only be re-erected on the ashes of the city, and amidst the whitening bones of the people.*

It

It is difficult to conceive or contemplate the effects of such an endeavour. But the existence at this day of the policy, even in bare idea, is itself a portentous evil. I do not hesitate to say that it is an incentive to general disturbance, a premium upon European wars. is in my opinion not sanguine only, but almost ridiculous to imagine that such a project could eventually succeed; but it is difficult to overestimate the effect which it might produce in generating and exasperating strife. It might even, to some extent, disturb and paralyse the action of such Governments as might interpose for no separate purpose of their own, but only with a view to the maintenance or restoration of the general peace. If the baleful Power which is expressed by the phrase Curia Romana, and not at all adequately rendered in its historic force by the usual English equivalent "Court of Rome," really entertains the scheme, it doubtless counts on the support in every country of an organised and devoted party; which, when it can command the scales of political power, will promote interference, and, when it is in a minority, will work for securing neutrality. As the peace of Europe may be in jeopardy, and as the duties even of England, as one (so to speak) of its constabulary authorities, might come to be in question, it would be most interesting to know the mental attitude of our Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen in England and Ireland with reference to the subject; and it seems to be one, on which we are entitled to solicit information.

For there cannot be the smallest doubt that the temporal power of Appendix C.