LECTURE IX.

DUTIES OF CATHOLICS TOWARDS THE PROTESTANT

VIEW.

In this concluding Lecture, my Brothers of the Oratory, I shall attempt, in as few words as possible, to sum up what I have been showing in those which preceded it, and to set before you what I have proposed to myself in the investigation.

You know, then, that at this time we are all in considerable anxiety, and some risk, as regards the future prospects of Catholicism in England. Open threats in the most influential quarters are put forward, as if we might even lose the rights of British subjects, and be deprived of the free exercise of our religion. There has been an attempt to put our convents, in the eye of the law, on a level with mad houses; and one of the Anglican Prelates in Parliament has constituted himself judge, whether the dimensions of our Churches were sufficient or too large for the "accommodation," to use the Protestant word, of our people. A bill too has been passed, about which all of us know enough, without my having the trouble to give it any designation.

The duty of the Catholic Church is to preach to the Ff

world; and her promise and prerogative is success in preaching; but this is a subject which has not come into the scope of our discussions in this place. What I have been saying has no direct reference to any such end. I have not urged it on you, as I well might, as knowing you to be of their numbers who love their religion so well, that they wish others to enjoy the benefit of it with them. What I have said does not presuppose this; it has not sprung out of any duty we have of extending the limits of the Catholic pale; it would not have been superseded, if we had no such duty. I have not been aiming at the conversion of any persons, who are not Catholics, who have heard me; I have not been defending Catholic, or attacking Protestant doctrines, except indirectly and incidentally. The condition or hypothesis, on which I have been entering into the discussion, has been the present Anti-Catholic agitation; and my object has been that of self-defence. In the present state of things Catholics must, from the mere instinct of self-preservation, look about them; they are assailed by a very formidable party, or power, as I should rather call it, in the country; by its Protestantism. In the Protestantism of the country, I do not include, of course, all who are not Catholics. By Protestants I mean the heirs of the traditions of Elizabeth; I mean the country gentlemen, the Whig political party, the Church Establishment, and the Wesleyan Conference; I cannot over-estimate their power; they and their principles are established; yet I should be unjust, on the other hand, to whole classes in the community, if I made Protestantism, thus explained, synonymous with the mind and the philosophy of the whole country. Well, I say we are menaced by this tremendous power; this is the condition of things; what must we do? put our

selves on the defensive; this then has been my scope. I have not been aggressive but on the defensive; and what is the first step of those who are getting ready for their defence against a foe? to reconnoitre him. It is simply this that I have been doing in these Lectures.

This, I say, has been my object, a reconnoitring or survey of a strong and furious enemy, undertaken with a view to self-defence. And I report as follows:

I find he is in a very strong position, but that he takes a very incorrect view of us, and that this is his strength and our danger. Different from the case of actual warfare, in which ignorance is weakness, here ignorance is power; and in truth he does know as little about us as well can be conceived. He has got old pictures and old maps made years and years ago, which have come down. to him from his fathers; and, instead of deigning to look at us, and learn any thing about us, he adheres to them as if it were a point of faith to do so. This was the subject of my first Lecture; I showed that the English Protestant had a view of our monks, Jesuits, and Church quite his own; unlike that of his more learned brethren abroad; and moreover that he was apparently ignorant of the existence of any view besides it, or that it was possible for any sane man to doubt it, or any honest man to deny it.

Next came the cause of this phenomenon, and it was this:-Protestantism is established in the widest sense of the word; its doctrine, religious, political, ecclesiastical, moral, is placed in exclusive possession of all the high places of the land. It is forced upon all persons in station and office, or almost all, under sanction of an oath; it is endowed with the amplest estates, and with revenues supplied by Government and by chartered and

other bodies. It has innumerable fine churches, planted up and down in every town, and village, and hamlet in the land. In consequence every one speaks Protestantisın, even those who do not in their hearts love it; it is the current coin of the realm. As English is the natural tongue, so Protestantism is the intellectual and moral language of the body politic. The Queen ex officio speaks Protestantism; so does the court, so do her ministers. All but a small portion of the two Houses of Parliament; and those, who do not, are forced to apologize for not speaking it, and to speak as much of it as they conscientiously can. The Law speaks Protestantism, and the lawyers; and the state Bishops and clergy of course. All the great authors of the nation, the multitudinous literature of the day, the public press, speak Protestantism. Protestantism the Universities; Protestantism the schools, high, and low, and middle. Thus there is an incessant, unwearied circulation of Protestantism all over the whole country, for 365 days in the year from morning till night; and this for nearly three centuries, has been almost one of the functions of national life. As the pulse, the lungs, the absorbents, the nerves, the pores of the animal body, are ever at their work, as that motion is its life, so in the political structure of the country there is an action of the life of Protestantism, constant and regular. It is a vocal life; and in this consists its perpetuation, its reproduction. What it utters, it teaches, it propagates by uttering; it is ever impressing itself, diffusing itself all around; it is ever transmitting itself to the rising generation; it is ever keeping itself fresh, and young, and vigorous by the process of a restless agitation. This, then, is the elementary cause of the view which Englishmen are accustomed to take of Ca