PREFACE. "Quid me scribendi tam vastum mittis in æquor? ON presenting to the public the following work in defence of the primitive Christian truth, I may be permitted to make some preliminary observations. For the office of an instructor of my fellow-countrymen, through the medium of the press, as I have always hitherto felt anything but an inclination, so I may unaffectedly say, that I feel I possess very insufficient abilities. Nature has been parsimonious to me, in its bestowal of those talents, which are required for the making of any lasting impression upon the mind of a reader. Preferring, moreover, a quiet seclusion from the world, more adapted to my favourite pursuits, and better fitted to a constitution of extreme delicacy; but three years ago, nothing would have persuaded me that I could have allowed myself to be brought forward from my tranquil retreat, to become a bold, and, I trust, unflinching vindicator of that holy cause, to which, I hope, I have already been an humble instrument of some good service. That my unobtrusive career of private usefulness would have become now almost merged into the far more arduous, and often more thankless office, of a public defender of the faith, is what I never could have expected. My mind would linger with peaceful content upon subjects of religious contemplation, much rather than be animated with the hope of the most glorious victory in the arena of religious dispute; and though not equal, from ill-health, to a constant devotion to my library, yet few sympathise more feelingly than I do, in the sentiments thus elegantly expressed by the present accomplished Secretary-at-War, the Right Hon. Thomas Babington Macauley:"I feel this more strongly, perhaps, than many others may, arising from some peculiarities of my own mind; for I can say, that books have been to me dear friends; they have been my comforters in grief, and my companions in solitude; in poverty they have more than supplied me the place of riches; in the midst of much that has been vexatious and distressing, they have contributed to keep my mind serene and unclouded.” An occasion at length presented itself which forced me from my quiet retirement; an occasion, too, well known near the spot where I am writing. The celebrated and very amusing trial of Breeks versus Woolfrey-or, more truly, of Protestant principles versus Catholic truth-has not yet been entirely forgotten. Great was my joy, that if I were bound in honour to take a prominent share in the responsibility of publicly urging on a case, upon which I had been privately advised with, in its every movement, its trial was crowned with a glorious victory to the professors of the ancient, pure, and undefiled religion. And if some of the clergy of the Church of England are so unwise as to continue commemorating, as a yearly festival, on the 5th of November, the happy termination of the contemptible conspiracy of Catesby; they should set apart, in their calendar, the 1st of April, to do honour to the memory of the glorious exhibition we made of their cause, before the British nation, in their own Court of Arches, during the year of our Lord 1838. This victory was soon followed by a controversy of a very painful and distressing character, which I was compelled to enter into with an unfortunate apostate priest. But that return to the bosom of his ancient mother, the holy Catholic Church, which he and his accomplices have attributed, under God, entirely to my unworthy exertions-the signs he manifested of deep sorrow for his dreadful guilt-and his subsequent retirement to a religious asylum, there to bewail for the remainder of his days, the insane folly he was guilty of, in rejecting the primitive truth, for one of the new-fangled systems of the sixteenth century's religious innovations-gladdened every Catholic heart, while it overwhelmed me with consolations which no one can take from me. Having thus lent my helping hand, I have not been permitted to return to my former pursuits. Upon attacks being made upon Catholicism, I have found myself singled out to repel them; and I trust, therefore, that the small works I have already published, as well as the present volume, will, with meek and unprovoking spirits, derive no little interest, from none of my combats being of my own seeking. The present may not, too, be the less appreciated, on account of the novel character of our polemical gladiatorship, and of the new ground chosen by the Knight of Newark, for the ordeal of our wager of battle. While I certainly shall strive so to select my armoury, that the weapons which I hope successfully to employ against him, may be shown to be fully adequate even to the discomfiture of any other antagonist, who may, in a love for contention, wish again and again to contend with some other of my Catholic brethren, upon the same field where I am meeting a very able and distinguished opponent. The work of Mr. Gladstone, entitled The State in its Relations with the Church, already in its third edition, was placed in my hands, for the first time, on Friday, the 3rd of last July; and upon an intimation, received from an eminent divine and dear friend, that religion demanded the exertion, I reluctantly consented to prepare an answer to a work, held by a certain party in the Church of England, in the very highest estimation. Yet I hope that I shall have the good fortune to convince all candid and unprejudiced readers, that instead of, under the cloak of a pretended reformation, introducing injurious and fatal novelties into the great Christian family, it would have been far better for England had she still maintained the Catholic and conservative principle expressed in the language of Cicero: "De sacris hæc sit una sententia, ut conserventur." Even Mr. Gladstone's very dedication of his book, contains a virtual acknowledgment, that the illustrious University of Oxford, founded by our Catholic ancestors, and held by them, until they were robbed of it by the oppressor and the spoiler, in the profession of Catholic Christianity, for seven long ages, tried and not found wanting, was a fountain of blessings, spiritual, social, and intellectual, to this and other countries. To another kind of ordeal to which I am also now approaching, and one of which so many writers feel such painful apprehensions-viz., that of criticism-whilst not able to foresee how numerous may be the burning shares that will probably be placed to try me--I must own, I look with cool indifference. For though public approbation may be grateful to the ear, and words of kindly encouragement fall like the most gentle and refreshing dew, yea, like drops of honey, to sweeten the toil of that labourer in literature, who, like the busy bee, profits not himself by his labour, but works entirely for the benefit of others-sic nos non nobis--yet he who is so unwise as to seek for that applause, which may be withheld from caprice, may be denied from prejudice or envy, weakly places himself in that painful situation elegantly described by Dr. Johnson :-" When once a man has made celebrity necessary to his happiness, he has put it in the power of the weakest and most timorous malignity, if not to take away his satisfaction, at least to withhold it." Now, being determined never to place my peace of mind in the power of another—with the pleasing assurance of my conscience, that I have done my duty in defending my religion with the poor share of abilities I am master of—I shall leave the effect of my exertions in the hands of that divine Being, to support the cause of whose ancient faith my labours have been entirely directed. "Still happier, if I till a thankful soil, And fruit reward the honourable toil." It may not, however, be inexpedient, concludingly to remark, that, while dedicating this book to the learned and illustrious member for the city of Dublin, and thus paying him a mark of grateful respect, I in no manner pledge myself to any one single article of his political creed. In politics I never meddle. In public I am not to be seen but in the duties of my station; in private my whole attention is devoted to the arduous obligations of my state, looking forward to the ineffable consolations of a happier existence in a better world. And as to this work, no one will, in all probability, read a single line of it, until it comes from the press. Gratitude we all owe to Mr. O'Connell, because, but for him, no English Catholic nobleman or gentleman would now be a freeman in the land of his birth. But otherwise I am totally independent of him; I never met him but once in my life; I probably may never have the honour of seeing him again; and I covet nothing that he can give me except his esteem. His bitterest political opponents, therefore, as well as his most devoted partisans, may take up the following pages in the fullest assurance, that while they defend the religion of Mr. O'Connell, they do not pledge me to a support of his private political opinions. Only let my readers follow the counsel of Lord Bacon:-" Read not to contradict or confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk or discourse, but to weigh and consider." My appeal is from Mr. Gladstone, who has misrepresented both my faith and his own, to the superior judgment of my honourable fellow-countrymen. We both stand at the bar of public opinion. I have no fear of the result. |