always schismatical and heretical in the eyes of Rome; but there are many unpleasant relations in society which it is not necessary publicly to express. It were more polite, as well as more consonant with the actual state of things, to manage the Ecclesiastical affairs of the English Roman Catholics without an ostentatious collision with the Church which is actually in possession. The Sovereign of the Ecclesiastical States has often been beholding to the friendly interference of England; and it might have been well to avoid insulting the most Conservative party in the State, at least till they could be effectually injured.

"It is an innovation in the practice, if not in the pretensions, of Rome, to divide a territory into provinces and dioceses without the consent of the government of the country. Even in Ireland, where the succession of diocesan bishops was not interrupted by the Reformation, the Roman Catholic body acquiesced in the suppression of territorial titles, under the provisions of the Relief Bill. Ancient custom, combined with ecclesiastical ambition, has, indeed, in many cases, prevailed over the law; but there is a wide difference between a titular pretender who has lost his dominions, and a new potentate appointed by a foreign power, without the consent of his so-called subjects. Perhaps this insolent and foolish encroachment may satisfy Lord Grey that he was in error in assigning a secular rank to the Roman Catholic bishops in the colonies. When prelates preside over real congregations, and are themselves personally esteemed, there is no danger that their rank in society will be lower than that to which they are fairly entitled; but the principle of attributing official precedence to the nominees of a foreign authority is in no way countenanced by any rank conferred, whether wisely or unwisely, by the State. Even those who are most prejudiced against the secular pre-eminence accorded to the dignitaries of the Establishment, cannot deny that, however objectionable they may deem it, it is founded on actual law. Foreign ranks and titles have a claim to courteous recognition, so long as they are professedly foreign; but it would be imprudent to acknowledge the pretensions of a Russian Prince of London, or of a Turkish Pacha of Ireland. Dr. Wiseman is, we believe, a respectable gentleman, but we know of no Archbishop of Westminster. The whole question is, perhaps, insignificant. In protesting summarily against an impertinent pretension of a not very formidable potentate, we cannot persuade ourselves to be seriously irritated by an encroachment that is confined to words. It is the tendency of this proceeding to revive sectarian animosity which alone materially concerns us. We have already appealed to the moderate and prudent members of the Roman Catholic body to use their influence to check the political priesthood in the teasing activity of their movements. Let them preach, and argue, and convert at their pleasurewe shall neither interfere with them nor blame them; but it can never serve the interests of their cause to insult the vast majority whom they cannot influence Their wisest leaders know how thoroughly England is opposed to the spirit of their Church. They cannot hope to turn the current of popular feeling; but they may, we fear, easily revive the jealous antipathy from which they have, in former times, suffered so much injustice. At present they are alienating and alarming all the friends of toleration, who could look with complacency on the uneasy exertions of a sect, but for the reasonable fear that these may soon arouse the dormant passions of a more powerful enemy. If the Pope selected his counsellors from Exeter Hall, he would certainly have been advised by a sagacious enemy to consecrate an Archbishop of Westminster."-[The "Herald" here proceeds to quote a long extract from the " Catholic Magazine," deducing the temporal power of the Pope over English subjects from his treatment of Bishop Baines.ED. MAG. AND REG.]

From the "Standard."-"It is unlawful for the Pope to depose Queen Victoria, or to give her kingdom to any faithful son of the Church. It is unlawful to burn heretics in Smithfield, and it is just as unlawful for the Pope to nominate to an Archbishopric of Canterbury or a Bishopric of London. We hold that to accept a nomination to any territorial Bishopric in England, whether with a title already occupied or not, is an offence against the statute of Premunire; but even they who do not agree with us on this point must acknowledge that by the Securities Act of 1829, to accept a Papal nomination to any Bishopric already occupied is a misdemeanor punishable by fine and imprisonment. Upon this point there can be no doubt. Let Dr. Wiseman (who, by the way, is not, as is generally supposed, an Englishman, but a Spaniard) assume the Archbishopric of Canterbury instead of Westminster, and try the experiment."

From a letter to the "Morning Post," on the Hierarchy, by the Rev. F. Oakley." But changes of time and circumstances require corresponding changes in government. However little many may like to confront the fact, certain, at least, it is, that England is now no longer in the same state relatively to Rome as she was. Rome has within her a vast population, bound, indeed, by the duties of English citizens and subjects; but, in spirituals, acknowledging no head but the chief Bishop of Christendom. In London alone there are as many Catholics as in Rome itself. The most accurate data wich can be gained do not admit of a lower estimate than 170,000. In Liverpool, I think I am correct in saying one-third of the population is Catholic; in Preston, nearly, or quite half of it; while in Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, and all our large towns, there is a vast settlement of Irish Catholics, and it might be added, a constant accession from our native population. For here is another consideration. Converts are regularly accruing to us, and in an increasing ratio. Nothing is known, except to ourselves, of the vast majority who join us. The papers announce a few of the most conspicuous instances; but there are multitudes behind, known but to God and the clergy. I speak from experience. I have by no means one of the most important chapels in London under my care, and those who know me best can testify that I have too much to do among my own people to aim at conversions. In this church, few controversial sermons are ever preached, and our ministrations are primarily and chiefly confined to Catholics; yet not a week passes in which we have not applications for admission into the Church. I do not think people generally are at all aware of the numbers who come over to us, simply from the fact of a Catholic Church being situated in their locality.

"All this being so, I cannot see how there is anything strange in the Holy See considering that England ought no longer to be treated as a Heathen country, but that the actual state of its Catholic population is such as to justify the introduction, at least in a modified form, of a more settled organization.

"But the Holy See has shown itself most anxious to avoid collision, not merely with law, but with national feeling and cherished association, by keeping clear of all the sees which have passed into Protestant hands. Surely, if Rome had exercised to the full what she considers her strict right, as the head of a spiritual empire, she could not have been more assailed, than she has been actually assailed, though she has waived it in favour of our Protestant Government and constitution. It is in deed, her ill fate to be blamed anyway. In a public journal it has actually been made a reproach against her that she has actually called into existence a new see. Who can doubt that she has sacrificed her own preferences to the desire of conciliation? That except out of forbearance and compliance, she had rather have reclaimed the ancient Archbishopric of London or Canterbury, the see of her first missionary to Saxon

England, than have incurred this charge of novelty by seeking to found new associations instead of availing herself of old ones?"

FROM THE "CHURCH AND STATE GAZETTE."-"Free as is our Church, and lax as is her discipline both towards clergy and laity, a boundary must be placed somewhere, if only at high treason. Suppose the Pope to establish a hierarchy here, would the Queen permit it? Suppose he come to reside here, would it be allowed? The Synod of Thurles has snubbed the British Government-will the insult be borne? They have condemned national education-will it be endured? Truly England may be the land of the free; but to be easy under these circumstances seems impossible."

In another article of the same number, the "Church and State Gazette" consoles itself with the following argument :-"In England the so called 'Cardinal-Archbishop' will have no legal status-no more than if he were called 'King of Little Britain.' He may, out of scorn or indifference to his own sovereign, accept titles from another, to whom he pays no divided allegiance; but he will be simply, as far as that goes, in the condition of those martial gentlemen who went to Spain with several aliases, and fancied to obliterate them all when they returned under the sounding title of 'Captain.""

The following letter appears in the "Times" of October 18th." To the Editor of the Times.' The Temple, October 16th.-Sir,-I am confident that I shall not in vain appeal to your sense of justice and fairness for permission to say a few words, as a friend of Cardinal Wiseman, respecting your observations on his elevation to the spiritual office and rank of Archbishop of Westminster.

"I submit that the act in question does not, if impartially considered, imply, as I am certain it was not intended to convey, any slight or disrespect to the Crown or the British nation, nor infringe the Royal prerogative. The case stands simply thus:-The Roman Catholics in England have for some time felt that their Church ought to be put on a regular and perfect foundation, instead of being, as heretofore, in a mere missionary form, under the government of Vicars Apostolic. The desired change could only be made, in accordance with the discipline of the Church, in one way, i. e., by the appointment of diocesan bishops.

"The statute 10 George IV., c. 7, s. 24, forbids the Catholic clergy from assuming the style of any bishopric or archbishopric of the Established Church. It is necessary, therefore, that the proposed diocesans should be created under new titles. Hence the erection of the Archbishopric of Westminster, which is a purely spiritual office, and no more illegal than that of the Vicars Apostolic; it neither affects, nor professes to affect, any temporal legal rights, but merely regards the spiritual concerns of those of Her Majesty's subjects who are, or hereafter may be, in communion with the Church of Rome.

"The erection of that office does not, moreover, involve any exercise of temporal jurisdiction within this realm by the Pope, for the creation of a bishopric is not, in se, an act of sovereignty or of temporal jurisdiction.

"In support of this position I need only refer to the fact, that the Crown of England a few years ago erected a bishopric in parts beyond sea where Her Majesty's writ runneth not—to wit, at Jerusalem. The warrant, under the royal sign manual and signet, for the consecration of Dr. Alexander, the first bishop of the newly created see of Jerusalem, recites (among other things) that, by stat. 5 Vic., c. 6, it is enacted, that the bishop or bishops to be consecrated under its provisions, mav exercise, within such limits as may be from time to time assigned in any foreign country by the Queen, spiritual jurisdiction over the ministers of British congregations of the United Church of England and Ireland, and over such other Protestant congregations as may be desirous of placing themselves under his or their

authority.' And the warrant concludes as follows:-'And we are graciously pleased to assign Syria, Chaldea, Egypt, and Abyssinia, as the limit within which the said Michael Solomon Alexander may exercise spiritual jurisdiction pursuant to the said Act, subject, nevertheless, to such alterations in their limits as we, from time to time, may assign.'

"Here we find the British Crown creating a Protestant Bishopric of Jerusalem, and assigning to it a diocese including Syria, Chaldea, Egypt, and Abyssinia! And I need scarcely remind you that Italy, including Rome itself, is within the diocese of the Protestant Bishopric of Gibraltar, and that the Right Rev. Dr. Tomlinson, Anglican Bishop of Gibraltar, has actually performed episcopal functions in Rome. Yet the Roman Church and Government made no compalint.

"I trust that these observations will be received as they are meant, and that after this explanation Her Majesty's Catholic subjects may welcome their illustrious prelate on his return home next month, without incurring any imputation or suspicion of disloyalty to their beloved Sovereign, or of any breach of that proper respect which they owe to the opinions and feelings of the majority of their fellow-countrymen. I remain, Sir, your obedient servant, "G. B."

FROM THE "TIMES" OF OCTOBER 19.-"It is reported by those who profess themselves better acquainted than we care to be with the intentions of the Court of Rome, that the promotion of Cardinal Wiseman to the titular Archbishopric of Westminster is only one portion of a complete scheme for the revival of the Romish hierarchy in this country. Twelve bishops of the Romish Church are said to be designated by the Pope to fill the sees into which it has pleased His Holiness to divide the Queen's dominions; and the Cardinal Archbishop is, ere long, to return to England, armed with full Papal powers for the government of the affairs of the Roman Catholic body in his province.

"We have no means of ascertaining the accuracy of this statement, and we should be glad to learn that no such project has been entertained; or, if entertained, that it is not likely that a scheme so calculated to revive amongst the people of England the strongest feelings of suspicion and aversion against the Popish authorities of the Roman Church will be executed. But the specimen Pius IX. has recently given us of his policy and intentions, and the imprudent exultation with which we are told that a lost nation has been recovered and reclaimed by this very act to the fold of St. Peter, may justify an apprehension that a more ostentatious and ambitious display of the pretentions of the Papal Court is actually at hand.

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Assuming, therefore, that these facts have not been over-coloured, we may ask what they mean. For if they have any signification at all beyond an idle distribution of spurious titles. they mean that the Pope conceives that he can, in the 19th century, resume and exercise the direct spiritual government within this realm of a considerable portion of the Queen's subjects, and that by means of a regularly-established hierarchy, accountable to Rome only for its actions, as long as they are not absolutely at variance with the mild tenor of our present laws, he can divide with the Crown the allegiance of our fellow-countrymen. It is not. as we remarked on a former occasion, on theological grounds that we repudiate these arrogant clains, and that (to use the term which the Reformation stamped upon our branch of the Church of Christ) we protest against them. We respect the sanctity of religious opinions, we recognise the inviolable rights of conscience under every form of worship, and we profess the liberal principle of the age we live in, that no civil disabilities ought to be annexed to religious distinctions. But, with the utmost deference for these principles of religious freedom in the person of every Englishman, we are not the less, but rather the more,

bound to uphold the polity of this kingdom, to reject with indignation the attempt of a foreign power to fasten its authority upon our divisions, and to resist the reconstruction of those great engines of the Romish hierarchy which it is the glory of our forefathers to have expelled and overthrown. For if these projects are ever fulfilled to the letter, the Court of Rome will have recovered a greater power over that portion of the nation which admits its authority than it enjoyed for centuries before the Reformation, as far back as the reign of Richard the Second, when the introduction of unauthorised Papal bulls incurred the penalties of a præmunire; and England, with her Protestant establishment and her oath of supremacy, would concede to the Roman Catholic hierarchy and to the Pope a greater latitude of authority than they have enjoyed for ages in the most Catholic States of Europe. That is actually, it must be confessed, the present state of Ireland, and the Synod of Thurles with a host of evils which afflict and degrade that country are the clearest indication of its effects. These effects will probably only be mitigated when means shall have been found to define hy compact the mutual obligations of the Romish Church and of the State; and meanwhile we may make allowances-perhaps too great allowances-for the Church which has maintained so dark a superstition and bred so constant a disaffection amongst a large portion of the Irish people.

"But here in England we live and move in the heart of this empire; it is here that we preserve, in the sanctuary of our laws, the traditional polity of the nation; and whatever humours may affect other parts of our frame, it is by the consent of the free people who cluster round these abodes and crowd this island that we are what we are.

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"Is it, then, here in Westminster, among ourselves and by the English throne, that an Italian Priest is to parcel out the spiritual dominion of this country to employ the renegades of our national Church to restore a foreign usurpation over the consciences of men, and to sow division in our political society by an undisguised and systematic hostility to the institutions most nearly identified with our national freedom and our national faith? Such an intention must either be ludicrous or intolerable-either a delusion of some fanatical brain, or treason to the constitution. We have emancipated our Roman Catholic countrymen from the last vestiges of civil proscription, and for tolerance sake we have done well; but of those who most zealously fought in that cause there was not a man who would have endured the thought of a direct encroachment on the spiritual independence of England by that faction from whom these restrictions were to be removed. "Our Roman Catholic countrymen have, as a body, probably no active part in these proceedings of the alien authority which they acknowledge. On the contrary, they are more likely to lose than to gain by such rash innovations, and the enjoyment of their religious liberties was more respectable when it was more silent. But since Rome is itself the seat of these ridiculous contrivances, we may fairly regard such attempts at spiritual aggression as a mark of hostile impertinence, to be met with due vigour by the British Government, not in England, but in Italy.

"In the present state of the Pope's dominions, while the feeble remnant of his temporal power excites the compassion of the Catholic States and the contempt of his subjects, the direct opposition of England and a bold resolution to shake the rotten edifice to its foundations might prove more form:dable dangers to the occupants of the Vatican than the presence of a shan Archbishop to the Protestant citizens of Westminster, in proportion as the vitality of the Romish Church declines at its centre, it revives at its extremities; and by the strange contradictions of its nature a Sovereign who is too weak to defend himself in his palace against a mob who insult him with impunity acquires a sort of parastic existence in countries not subject