in these countries it has no force whatever*.' No equivocation, I trust, lurks under the ambiguity of the epithet, Expurgatorius. If the Rev. PETER KENNEY, Superior of the Jesuits' seminary at Clongowes, who was examined by the Commissioners in 1826, and discovered his acquaintance with, at least, the last edition of the Instituta Societatis Jesu, or the Rev. CHARLES BROOKE, President of the College of the same order at Stonyhurst, Blackburn, Lancashire, could he have been examined, had been called upon to give the information which was required on the subject of the Roman Indexes, they would, one,

Fourth Report, 17th May 1825, p. 202. In Phelan's and O'Sullivan's Digest, the reference is rather different; but the passage is the same. As a specimen of the talent with which the examination by the lay assembly of divines at Westminster was conducted may be adduced the following:-'What is the distinction you take between schism and heresy; is it that the one is voluntary and the other involuntary?—No. Schism and heresy are different things; schism refers to the government and discipline of the church, and heresy to its doctrines.'-Second Report, p. 244. The answer is Dr. Kelly's, Titular Archbishop of Tuam; and he must have felt his superiority while condescendingly instructing his examiner. Whoever the examiner might be, he deserves to be immortalized. Lord Viscount Palmerston was in the chair. This display will account for the intelligence discovered respecting Protestantism in the speeches of the late Mr. Canning, and the living Lord Grey, and likewise for the source from which their illumination was derived.

and both, at least have been able to produce from that portion of the Instituta which is entitled Regula Societatis, and in it from the division inscribed Regulæ Præfecti Bibliothecæ, the first rule, which is this: Indicem Librorum Prohibitorum in Bibliotheca habeat, et videat ne fortè ullus sit inter eos ex prohibitis, aut aliis, quorum usus communis esse non debet. I quote from the edition of Antwerp, in 1635; and there the page is 230. In the Compendium Privilegiorum of the same edition, pp. 124-126, is a title Libri Prohibiti. The last edition in 1757, folio, differs in some respects from the Antwerp one, as is particularly stated by COUDRETTE in his Hist. Générale de la Comp. de Jesus, tome v., pp. 470, et seq. The laws of this society, however, are not the most inflexible; and those to whom the administration of them is committed, may conceive it superfluous to bear in mind such as it is not convenient to observe. But every such institution must have a Library, and some regulations respecting it. And yet any knowledge of the documents, which are most expressly and authori

tatively intended to state and enforce those regulations, is virtually disclaimed; and questions implying that knowledge are answered with the well-assumed air of intelligent surprise, or affronted innocence. But, after all, the question is, are the facts denied?

The ignorance expressed on this subject, whether real or fictitious, does certainly subserve the profitable purpose of screening from the imputation of the bigotry and intolerance which these documents so forcibly breathe; and the fact, if allowed, that, as in some other countries, so likewise in this, they have no authority, might be considered and alleged as an argument against the presumed argument of the present work. But the contrary supposition is by no means necessary to the main argument of the following It is sufficient to leave that argument in pages. all its strength, provided it be only allowed, that the instruments which they detail and describe, emanating from, and bearing with them all the sanction of, the supreme head and main body of Roman Catholicism, exhibit the genuine, unal

tered spirit with which it is animated, and which never fails to produce its natural effects, wherever the power is present. And this, separate from its historic interest, is, I contend, a matter of no mean importance, particularly as the collation of power is concerned.

But, even in this liberal age, which not unfre quently confounds liberality with its opposite, it is possible to be ultra-liberal. And we approach pretty nearly to that imputation when we allow that the Roman Indexes are of no authority with any class of those who denominate themselves Romanists, or subjects of the papal see. The Roman Index is said to have no authority in France, in Austria, in Spain, in the Netherlands, in Portugal, in the kingdom of Naples, in Piedmont, in the papal portions of Great Britain and Ireland. Almost all of these nations, however, have a peculiar Index of their own, identical, except in some secular particulars, with the Roman; and in Spain and Portugal, till of late, more intolerant, but still essentially Roman. In countries where the prevailing religion is not

Roman, the non-observance, and therefore nonobligation, of some of its decrees, even upon the portion subject to the Italian jurisdiction, is a matter not of option but of necessity. It would be not only hopeless but injurious to its claims, to press them. Opposition and reprisals would be the inevitable consequence. Rome well understands the politic economy of regulating the rigour of her injunctions by the probability of their being efficient and profitable. Of this, a striking instance, which ought to be more known and noticed than it is, is recorded in the Execution of Justice in England, &c., published by authority of Lord BURLEIGH, of which I use the second edition in 1583, purporting to have 'some small alterations of things mistaken or omitted in the transcript of the first Original.' The Bull of Pius V. in 1569, excommunicating and deposing Queen Elizabeth, and enjoining disobedience upon her subjects, reduced the subjects of the spiritual sovereign, from want of power, to great difficulty. They therefore applied to the pope to have the bull so understood, ut obliget semper illam, et hæreticos,