to be informed. He is certainly All When the resolutions were proposed | expressed in them," I should be glad to be put together to save time, they having been read separately, an individual ascended the hustings, and proposed that those regarding catholic emancipation should be put distinctly by themselves. The chairman, with the utmost impartiality, asked if any one was ready to second this motion, but not a man came forward to do so. Consequently the proposition fell to the ground, but the proposer had the liberty of objecting to the resolutions, and there can be no doubt had I been in company with Mr. Hunt, I should have had the same privilege of stating my dissent to any of the resolutions that I disapproved of. If I am not at liberty to distinguish the resolutions of a meeting into objectionable and unobjectionable, where I ask is the freedom of opinion? Is this fair reasoning? We admit the principle of emancipation, and we consequently approve the advocacy of our parliamentary friends, but are we to withhold our praise of their exertions in our favour, because they may introduce matter into their speeches which cannot be approved of on catholic principles? Or are we not rather to bestow our meed of approbation, qualifying it with dissenting from the objectionable matter introduced? Is it not a common practice in parliament for members to approve of the principle of a bill, yet object to particular clauses? And why will RATIO deny me this privilege in regard to the Smithfield meeting? Is this fair reasoning on his part? I appeal to the reader if my conduct is not more congenial to My correspondent reason and common sense, and on certainly found himself closely pinchthis ground I limited my commenda- ed on this point, or he never would tions to the principal basis of the have sought to screen himself by meeting. How RATIO came to dis- such miserable paralogy as this. cover that the catholics were evi- What! is it no matter of importance dently wished to adopt and approve to the character of an assembly whethe resolutions of that meeting in- ther it is composed of riotous or discriminately, and adopt the spirit peaceable individuals? RATIO stated Before I quit the political part of this question, I must be allowed to rotice the unfair mode which RATIO has adopted, to controvert my defence of the conduct of the Spafields meeting. He tells me, "it matters little, as to the main point of the argument, whether the rioters left the ground before or after the business of the meeting, or even whether they were headed by a spy or not, (the latter is easy to say) as the outrages still shew how dangerous it is to public security and private property for such assemblies of the peoble to be called together with minds filled with discontent and inflamed dispositions." the result of the Spafields meeting | for entrapping them into illegal acts, to be riot and outrage. I clearly proved that the persons engaged in the riotous proceedings formed no part of the meeting, as they were instigated by a spy to commence their attacks before the assembly commenced deliberations, the result of which deliberations was the passing of resolutions and an address to the king (then prince regent) in the most orderly manner, and afterwards dispersing without the least confusion. On this RATIO contends that it is very easy to say the rioters were headed by a spy, and that it matters not whether they commenced their business before or after the meeting assembled. In the first place I told RATIO that it was proved they were headed by a spy; this proof took place in a court of justice on the trial of four individuals on a charge of high treason connected with these riots, and they were acquitted in consequence of this testimony of the infamy of the chief actor, who turned king's evidence. The insinuation that it is easy to say a man is a spy I despise; I have no interest in deceiving my readers, and I recommend RATIO to act candidly in future, both towards himself as well as towards me. In the next place, if it matters not whether the rioters began the word of destruction before the meetingers began the work of discussion, the riots which took place in Derbyshire might as well he imputed to the Spafields assembly, as the riots in London; and with equal propriety might RATIO contend that men should be prohibited from shaving themselves with razors, because some are instigated by the devil to cut their throats with these instruments, as to contend that public meetings are dangerous to the general security and private property, because some desperadoes are to be found willing to follow the instigations of a wretch, paid If my correspondent's mode of rea- to me, to convict a popular meeting of a charge he brought against it, and to justify laws which deprive the people of this country of their constitutional rights; and this too at a moment when his catholic brethren are engaged in claiming a restoration of these same rights. With this explanation I flatter myself both RATIO and "the candid part of my readers will be of opinion, that his mode of reasoning tends to justify the measures which have been enacted against the catholics since the reformation." No body of men have suffered so much from calumny and misrepresentation as the catholics, since the introduction of protestantism ; a new era is commencing; the people of this country begin to see their error; religious intolerance has been succeeded by national distress; the sufferers call out for a removal of their grievances, and suggest a remedy for the same; but the monopolists of place and power, and those who live by the system, raise a clamour against them, give them nicknames, as the old reformers did the catholics, and slander and falsify their intentions. And will catholics be so base, will they be so besotted, will they be so wicked and so foolish, as to join those who have traduced and persecuted them, and become the slanderers and revilers of the suffering part of their countrymen, who have been the first to disavow religious intolerance, and proffer the hand of political friendship? Forbid it justice! forbid it charity! forbid it heaven! correspondent writes, "You could advance the catholic religion by no method so much, as by coolly and dispassionately combating the blindness so prevalent at this day, by which the divine word is made the sport of erroneous human reason, and even subservient to it." And in another place he says, "You also admit, that infidel principles are disseminated in this country as well as they were in France. But contrary to your opinion, I do not hesitate to say, the same cause will produce the same effect; and as in France a vitiation took place by the dissemination of vicious principles, so likewise must the same be apprehended in this country, where there is greater liberty in the propagation of them than there was in the former at that time. Reflect (he adds) a moment on the number of copies of Paine's Age of Reason sold by Carlile; the cheap vicious publications which have for a length of time inundated the towns and villages of the kingdom. The spirit of shameful and open contempt and confusion of every thing, civil and religious. Sober, calm, and unbi assed reflection will, I doubt not, draw the conclusion, that the effects of the doctrines and principles abovenamed have made great progress in this country, and are approaching to a crisis." That this country is approaching to a crisis, the consequences of which no one can tell, nor the stoutest heart like to contemplate, I will not deny; neither will I dispute the soundness of the proposition, that "the same cause will proLeaving the political side of the duce the same effect." But, as RAquestion, and I feel enough has been TIO and myself both admit this prinsaid to convince the unbiassed reader ciple, consistency and common pruat least that RATIO is not only defi- dence tell us, that it is necessary, nay cient in his logic, but ignorant of the imperative, that we, and every friend subject, I will now take a view to religion and his country, should of the more serious part of the con- endeavour to remove the cause that test between us, namely, the spread the effect may be prevented. With of infidelity, and the attempt to sub-this view, I shewed by historical facts, vert ecclesiastical authority. My in my number for February, that the ORTHODOX JOUR. VOL. VIII. 2 H evils which have afflicted France, were originally occasioned, not by a vitiation of the public mind, but by the factious spirit of some of the cler gy, aided by the avarice and extravagance of voluptuous courtiers, which engendered the spirit of discontent among the people, and made them an easy prey to the wild destructive doctrines of infidel philosophism. "Sober, calm, and unbiassed reflection," after reading the above-named number, would, I doubt not, draw the conclusion, that since so many disastrous consequences have followed the departure from principle, a return to the strict rule of economy, both religious and civil, is essentially necessary to avert similar evils. In the days of catholicity, or, as they are now commonly termed, the dark ages, the sovereign pontiff occasionally assumed a power over the temporal sovereigns of christian states, but then it was exercised generally for the benefit of the people, in opposition to the impositions and corruptions of irreligious and oppressive monarchs. But since the days of Luther, Calvin, and others, who, according to the quotation selected by RATIO, from the Disquisition on the Jesuits, "discarding all spiritual power, and substituting the pride of intellect for a christian tradition of ages, gave a convulsive shock to the foundations of every government, and set the four corners of the civilized world in flames;" since these days, be it observed, it has been the object of ca-milarity of our situation for the tholic monarchs to infringe upon and last thirty years, and the siretrench, as far as they could, the tuation of religion in France and the divine authority of the catholic Low Countries, from the commencechurch, and thus weaken the stabi- ment of the 17th century down. lity of their own thrones. In these wards. The heresy of Jansenism "vicious principles" the people had drew its existencee from a cabal, no share, but sorry am I to say, which was linked to overthrow rekings could find ministers of religion ligion, under pretence of being its ready to sanction their impious inno- greatest friends. Conscious, howvations, and truckle to the under-ever, that an open attack of the docminers of that authority derived from trines of the church would lead to their crucified Master "The Al- a complete detection, they hoped to I mighty imposed laws, and appointed authorities to see them observed," writes RATIO, and he should have added, some of these authorities, instead of seeing these laws observed, treacherously consented to have them infringed by other authorities appointed by man. Here is the prime cause of the latter evil deplored by RATIO and all good men; and I must be here allowed to express my astonishment, that my correspondent, in the exercise of "sober, calm, and unbiassed reflection," should not have discovered, on reading my account of the rise and progress of Jansenism, that the catholics of this country are in greater danger from the propagation of this most subtile of all heresies, than from the spread of infidelity in the ranks of protestantism. Yes, I have no hesitation in proclaiming to RATIO, and to my catholic countrymen, that we have more to dread from the pernicious errors and practices of JANSENISM, which is taking deep root amongst us, than from the circulation of Tom Paine's work by Carlile, or the adoption of radicalism by catholic politicians in their civil creed. Let RATIO re-peruse pages 60, 61, 62, and 63 of my Journal for February last; let him exercise, sober, calm, and unbiassed reflection," and if his "intellectual capacity be endowed with quickness in perceiving a rectitude of ideas," he must be struck with the vast si tended to reduce the attachment of the faithful to the holy see, by detracting from her authority, and adding to that of the temporal monarch. The Jansenists and Calvinists had kept up a close correspondence, and as they were both by principle equally hostile to regal and episcopal governments, this clashing of interests between the two powers was a matter of exultation and pleasure to them, nor did they fail to take advantage of it. In this state of dissension and alarm, the Jesuits made a bold, a vigorous, and successful stand against the wily innovations of the Jansenists, and the open attacks of the Calvinists. By a disinterested fulfilment of their missionary functions, a gain by stratagem what they could not effect by publicity and strength of reason." They publicly avowed the tenets of the catholic church," writes Mr. Reeve, in his History of the Christian Church, "but, by straining the observance of her practical precepts to a point too rigid, and too impracticable to be complied with, they tacitly undermined the foundation of all morality and religion. Each chief of the cabal had his task assigned him; an excessive severity of morals was the lesson which each one had to teach; its obvious effect was to deter men from the practice, and to lead them by degrees into a disbelief of re, ligion, which, according to their new teachers, exacted duties above their strength." The promoters of Jan-powerful and irresistible force of senism professed the utmost submission to the holy see, but when the propositions of their patriarch, selected from his famous, or rather infamous, work, entitled Augustinus, were condemned by the apostolic chair, they attempted, by fine spun sophistry and subtle distinctions, to perplex the question, and render the decision: doubtful. Thus they undermined the respect due to ecclesiastical authority, and menaced the independence of the divine and 14 sacred establishment of our Saviour. Shortly after these divisions arose in the church, the sovereign of France claimed a power to nominate to vacant bishoprics, which the pope considered an innovation of his spiritual jurisdiction. The dispute grew high, an assembly of bishops was held, who were more disposed to datter their sovereign than maintain the spiritual authority of the church, and these prelates presumed to define limits to that power which was derived from God, and which they had sworn to obey. The declaration made by them, it is true, was not contrary to any known article of faith, but it was new; it reasoning, a mild and judicious en forcement of the laws of God, and an exemplary demeanour of conduct, they insured public opinion iu their favour, and countless numbers of the people, both in Germany and France, returned to the path of truth and rectitude, from which they had unhappily strayed or walked in from their infancy. This laudable zeal on the part of the society of Jesus to uphold the doctrines and authority of their divine Master, was an unpardonable offence in the eyes of those who had imbibed the novelties of Jansenism, which the fathers of that society had demonstrated to be semi-protestantism. Every artifice, therefore, that the most cuning treachery and refined malice could invent, was put in requisition to work their destruction. Calumnies were circulated amongst the people, representing the Jesuits as favourers of loose doctrine. Insinuations were carried to the court, holding them forth as ambitious men and the enemies of kings. With the public, however, the enemies of the Jesuits made little progress, but with the rulers of the people they |