IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE: A POLITICAL EXPOSTULATION. BY THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1874. The right of Translation is reserved. 67561-B. CONTENTS. I. THE OCCASION AND SCOPE OF THIS TRACT. Four II. THE FIRST AND FOURTH PROPOSITIONS. (1) "That Rome has substituted for the proud boast of semper eadem a policy of violence and change in faith." (4) "That she has equally repudiated modern thought and ancient history." III. THE SECOND PROPOSITION "That she has re- furbished, and paraded anew, every rusty tool she was thought to have disused." IV. THE THIRD PROPOSITION-"That Rome requires a convert, who now joins her, to forfeit his moral PAGE THE VATICAN DECREES IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. I. THE OCCASION AND SCOPE OF THIS TRACT. IN the prosecution of a purpose not polemical but pacific, I have been led to employ words which belong, more or less, to the region of religious controversy; and which, though they were themselves few, seem to require, from the various feelings they have aroused, that I should carefully define, elucidate, and defend them. The task is not of a kind agreeable to me; but I proceed to perform it. Among the causes, which have tended to disturb and perplex the public mind in the consideration of our own religious difficulties, one has been a certain alarm at the aggressive activity and imagined growth of the Roman Church in this country. All are aware of our susceptibility on this side; and it was not, I think, improper for one who desires to remove everything that can interfere with a calm and judicial temper, and who believes the alarm to be groundless, |