Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

82

THE INQUISITION, AND LIBERTY IN THE ROMAN STATES. WITHOUT at all pledging ourselves to the principles generally understood to be advocated by the Review from which the subjoined extract is taken, or going the entire length to which it would seek to carry its readers, we cannot avoid drawing attention to the following remarks, which we have reason to know have been written by one well acquainted with the internal state of the country :

"The tribunal of the Inquisition is extant there in all its strength, and with all its demoralizing modes of espionage-secular in all its numerous secret agents, religious in the confessional. We shall not recount the numerous persecutions of the Jews, that under Leo the Twelfth forced the richest families to emigrate, with a loss to the State of 400,000l., and which now almost always resolve themselves into exactions of money to an amount predetermined; but we invite our readers to form an exact notion of the spirit animating the ecclesiastical police, by the perusal of an edict of the Monk Ancarini, InquisitorGeneral for the province of Romagna, dated from Forli, the 14th May, 1829, and an edict of Cardinal Guistiniani, Bishop of Incola, 3d June, 1828. In the first they will find secret accusation formally organized; and in the midst of absurd regulations about necromancers and the blasphemers of God, and especially those offending against the Holy Virgin, an immense field opened to arbitrary action in articles relating to prohibited books, and to all those who obstruct, or shall obstruct, the Office of the Holy Inquisition, or who have assaulted, or shall assault in any manner whatsoever, by themselves or others, in his person, character, or property, or otherwise, any officer, servant, informer, or witness of the Holy Office. In the second, they will find a premium of ten years' indulgence for informers, and a most aristocratic tariff of punishment for offences of impiety, such as blasphemy, couched in uncouth language. For the first offence, a conviction for blasphemy is with a fine of five-and-twenty crowns of gold, fifty for the second, one hundred for the third; but if the guilty party was a poor plebian, a povero plebeo, for the first offence he was to make the amende honorable, during an entire day, at the door of the church; for the second offence he was to be whipped; and for the third to have his tongue bored and to be sent to the galleys. In case of fine, the informer would pocket a third, in addition to the ten years' indulgence. What might be taken as blasphemy may be judged from the following: a dramatic poet was fined by the Censor acting for the Cardinal-Vicar, for having Homerically styled Atrides king of kings.

"The same savage spirit prevails, with a much increased activity in execution in all that regards political opinion: accusation is proof; suspicion is enough for punishment. The poet Sterbini was exiled (and remains so) for having in a tragedy called La Vestole, irreverently handled the mummeries of the priests of Pagan Rome. Those individuals, the advocate Battoni, and the lieutenants Bocci and Piolanti, were imprisoned for eleven months, fettered and without seeing the light of day, as guilty of an attempt at assassination on the person of

Cardinal Rivarola, on the mere assertion of two fellows, who, as appeared by an agreement afterwards discovered, had conspired to gain the reward of 640l. offered to whomsoever would denounce the offender. Processes, summary and expeditious (in via sommaria e spedita), became sheer lists of proscription, hastily filled up to get rid of those against whom no proof could be obtained. La publica voce e fama (public talk and rumours) was taken as their basis. Five hundred persons were condemned to banishment in 1825, in virtue of this compendious plan, and were presented with the order of expulsion before they had learnt there were any proceedings against them. Cardinal Rivarola pushed this process sommario e speditivo to such a length that in his famous commission in Romagna he condemned individuals who had been dead before the commencement of the proceedings, and others who could never be identified in consequence of the confusion of names and designations. In the list of the convicted was to be found Francisco Piana, advocate of Bologna: there was a Piana, an advocate in that city, but his baptismal name was different; there was a Francisco, but he was not found guilty. Among the condemned also was the advocate Agostino Javeggi, of Ferrara; there was an advocate Javeggi, but Agostino was not his prenomen; and there was an Agostino Javeggi, but neither an advocate nor of Ferrara. The slightest word from an informer, or the merest breath of rumour (voce publica), was sufficient for the Cardinal to inscribe a name on the roll of the condemned.

"Those who escape the process sommario are still to be reached by this precetto. This is an injunction not to be from home before sunrise or after sunset, not to frequent coffee-houses or other public places, not to be idle, &c. Its first result is to take away the possibility of the employment that it prescribes, for such as are under the ban of the precetto, and are known to be objects of suspicion to the Government, are rejected at every work-place. Its deep abomination is that it inflicts penalties on those whose conduct is proof against any other criminal proceeding. And this precetto, that has been known in critical times to be launched against hundreds and thousands of citizens, is an attribute, not of the courts alone, but of every chief of police, without the necessity of accounting anywhere for its use."— West-. minster Review,

1845.

THE MINISTRY AND POPERY.

A DOCUMENT under the hand of Mr. Macaulay appears in all the papers, wherein one line strikes us as remarkable. It would seem that, by the Whig disclaimer, it really is the intention of Peel to go a-head in paying the Romish priests of Ireland. An article in the Times of Thursday speaks ominously of the "religious government of Ireland being placed in a midway position between England and Rome, which it cannot possibly long maintain." It also speaks of a new era, and of Peel as the man for the new era. The meaning of all these obscure swelling words of vanity is, that the Establishment of Ireland is to be Romanized by law.-Dublin Warder, January, 1846.

84

POPERY IN VAN DIEMEN'S LAND.

(To the Editor of the Protestant Magazine.)

SIR, A clergyman from this colony is now in England, having come over for the purpose of raising money by private subscription, to complete the building of a church for the use of the convicts transported thither. I believe that it is now the only penal settlement except Norfolk Island. The Government gave 2,000l. towards this church, but they gave at the same time an equal sum to the Church of Rome. There is a Popish bishop in the colony and an establishment of priests, who are represented as being exceedingly active in making proselytes. All that they require of those who join their persuasion, is, the only condition, that every one will bring two more. Similar accounts are received from other colonies, and the Romanists seem in a fair way of getting full possession of them all. It is very mortifying that, as a Protestant nation, we should be taxed to the annual amount of 26,000l. in support of Maynooth, whilst a Protestant church for our own unhappy countrymen in a distant colony, is obliged to be built by private benevolence. AN ENGLISHMAN.

CHRISTIAN BOOKS WANTED IN ITALIAN.

"AN interest should be taken," says Dr. D. Aubigné, "in the translation and publication of good Christian writings in Italian. There are many English who travel in Italy; will they content themselves with admiring its Apollos and its cathedrals? Will they not also try to do some real good to this people who need it so much? Would it not be possible to engage Christian tourists to unite in companies, cach to furnish funds for the translation of a work? There is much of vanity in these Italian tours! Let us put therein a little of reality. These travels have been hurtful to many English, let them, then, be the means of saving some Italians. We have the means of procuring excellent Italian translations, and the Pope himself is helping us. This is not said in joke. You know that in his last Encyclical Letter against the Bible, he had the kindness to insert a paragragh against my' History of the Reformation:' that work was not then translated into Italian: and I do not know how the Pope heard of it. The immediate effect of this prohibition was, that some friends set about a translation of the History of the Reformation ' into Italian. The work is now finished, or very nearly so, and measures are taken for its publication. You see, therefore, that I have reason to be very thankful to the Pope. But if the Evangelical Society of Geneva thinks of foreign countries, she does not forget her own land, Switzerland. You know that for some time the Radicals, while declaring war against the Jesuits, have called the Evangelical Christians also Jesuits-Protestant Jesuits. But whilst the poor Radicals, who have attempted to drive away the Jesuits with the sword and muskets, have been completely beaten before Lucerne, we have employed against Jesuitism the Word of God, and victory has crowned our efforts, and shown that it is with these spiritual weapons that we

[ocr errors]

must combat the power of Rome. A fortnight ago I was myself in a Swiss locality, where from fifteen to twenty Catholics were examined, to participate in the communion of our Evangelical Church on WhitSunday; I myself saw them, and questioned them. None are

received who do not find their consolation in salvation by grace. Every second month a similar examination takes place for converted Roman Catholics.' Help us to fight our common war with success. Rome knows very well how to choose the place where she intends to engage in battle. She chooses first Belgium, then Tahiti, and now Ireland; to-morrow it will, perhaps, be England. Let us choose, likewise, the place where we shall fight the battle with Rome. It is in France, it is in Italy, that the force, the nerve of Popery, is to be found. If Popery is overcome there, it is overcome in all the world, O Christian brethren of England, come over and help us: the moment is arrived for a great Christian union against the great Roman league

a Christian union of every people, every language, every communion. Let us all form in Christ one alliance, one army, one nation-the nation and the army of Him to whom the Lord says, 'I will make thine enemies thy footstool.' 'Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto the Lamb for ever and ever!"-Christian Spectator.

and her national greatness and use

SPEECH OF THE REV. HUGH fulness.
M'NEILE,

AT A RECENT MEETING OF THE LI-
VERPOOL PROTESTANT OPERATIVE
ASSOCIATION.

WE invite the attention of our
readers to the following con-
densed report of the wise, prac-
tical, and spirit-stirring speech of
the Rev. Hugh M'Neile, at a
recent Meeting in Liverpool :-

The Rev. Mr. CONNOR having offered a most impressive prayer,

The CHAIRMAN addressed the Meeting as follows:

Friends and fellow-labourers, I have much pleasure in presiding once more at your Annual Meeting, and giving you any encouragement in my power to persevere in your Christian exertions. The objects of your exertions are threefold.

1st. To keep and extend among the working-classes the true spirit of the Reformation, to which England is mainly indebted, under the Divine blessing, for her national character,

Secondly. By spiritual arguments and in a Christian spirit to convince those members of the Church of Rome with whom you may have communication, of the dangerous errors which they are taught to venerate as religious truths.

Thirdly. To resist, by every lawful effort, the national encroachment of Romanism as a system, opposed as it is to the best interests of civil liberty, as well as to the fundamental doctrines of true religion. These are your three objects. They are objects well worthy of a Christian and a patriot. In the first of them you have been eminently successful. For, whatever may be the state of things amongst other classes of the community, whatever defection there may be in some of our colleges, extending its poisonous influence into some of our pulpits, and into the families of some of our aristocracy and gentry, I do believe that at no period since the noble army of our British martyrs sealed their testimony with their blood, were the working classes of England more completely,

more intelligently, and more resolutely opposed to Romanism, than they are at this day. (Loud cheers.) Their intelligence and determination on this point are such, that considering their numbers and the influence they now possess in the state, and, backed not by the hundreds in this room only, but by many thousands in all the large towns of the kingdom, I would send it as a message from this platform to all whom it may concern, candidates for Parliament, or candidates for Cabinets, that no Government under the sun can impose Romanism upon England. (Immense cheers.) Many Romanizing steps have been taken, but they have not yet reached the point of imposing Romanism upon you. When the spring is squeezed tight enough for that, the recoil will astonish him that is at the top! And, as for our Church, -our beloved Church, whatever may be said against her at home or abroad, she has not her equal upon earth (cheers) for comprehension, combination, order, and activity, dignity and zeal, animated fervour and chastened gentleness, solidity of truth without any childish or frivolous fables, and elegance of diction without rudeness or vulgarity,as for our Church, whatever annoyance may be felt for a time, or may be occasioned by certain young gentlemen of architectural tastes or accomplishments, whatever pain may be experienced because of the defection from our pale of certain brethren whom we loved, and from whom we expected better things; still, I believe that all the Jesuits in England,-and they are not a few at present,-cannot succeed in Romanizing the Established Church. (Enthusiastic cheers.) I would, however, take the liberty of adding, with all due respect to the Most Rev. and the Right Rev. Prelates of our Church, that if in trying times like these, they leave the defences of our Zion in the hands of the Protestant operatives, they are not adopting the course likely to secure in the sequel that well-balanced order, and that dignified moderation which we all prefer, though we might not be able to maintain it. If, through the difficulty or impossibility of agreeing among themselves, they refrain from

"setting their house in order," and from removing disorderly servants, by whom is the house to be set in order? Peaceably, it seems impossible; and a different description of sweeping is what none of us would advocate. We are earnestly desirous therefore to see the right exercise of authority in the Church of God. Authority belongs to her officers, submission to her children; and I believe the officers of our Church do not calculate, as they might, upon the dutiful submission of her children, if their authority were exercised as based upon the Word of God.

With regard to your second object, I think the less that is said in public about your proceedings upon that point the better; but I would earnestly entreat you to practise kindness and gentleness in all your conversational controversies. I would entreat you, my friends, to beware of any hasty expressions of temper. Remember, in all your controversies with Romanists upon subjects of deep and vital importance, that the "wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God." Remember, that speaking face to face with them, they may mistake your honest indignation against their system for personal anger or ill-feeling against themselves. And therefore you should restrain your expressions even of honest indignation against their system in the hope of winning a fair hearing from them to what you have to say for your own. Example is a more powerful teacher than the best of precepts, and "a soft answer turneth away wrath." I know and am willing to admit to you how difficult it is to be calm when the heart is engaged, when zeal inflames the tongue; but it is the prerogative of the real Christian, in whom the Spirit of God dwells, to combine discretion and selfrestraint with zeal. I speak to you then, as to persons engaged from day to day in controversy, amicably, with Roman Catholics, and I entreat you to have respect to their feelings, though you cannot respect the falsehoods they have been educated in; have respect to their feelings and use language which shall convey your own sentiments without wounding their feelings or causing you the loss of their attention. In the third branch of your

« ElőzőTovább »