We have given proof of an almost Quixotic desire to
let the Roman Catholics of the Empire expound their precise position in answer to Mr. Gladstone's charge against them that they had been guilty either of grave mutability or of the gravest treachery, by admitting three very able and in a historical point of view very elaborate letters, —of unconscionable length by the way,—from "An Irish Catholic" on the subject. We are by no means desirous of any continuance of a controversy which has always seemed to us one of purely historical interest, though we shall of course admit, as we have already admitted, any apparently successful attempt confined within moderate limits of length, to impugn the facts or inferences of our correspondent. But we shall probably sum up the view of almost all impartial readers of this discussion, when we say that " An Irish Catholic " seems to us to have reduced the historical justification of Mr. Gladstone's accusation to very in- significant limits iindeed. He has, we think, finally disposed of the assertion that, except in one instance, there was at any time any authorised, public, or official renunciation by the Catholics of either kingdom, in exchange for civil or political privileges, of . the right to hold the dogma of the Infallibility of the Pope. He has shown that in that one instance, when the English Vioars- Apostolic, whether in haste, or error, or wile, did no doubt commit themselves to what seems to us a de- liberate renunciation of the right, they publicly withdrew from that position before the advantage which they had hoped to derive from it had been gained, and that both the Irish and English Catholic authorities repeatedly and publicly avowed doctrines inconsistent with it ; and that ever afterwards the English and Irish statesmen took the very sound view that while guarantees for the loyalty of Catholics were very desirable, they cared but little about the actual doctrine officially held by Catho- lics as to Infallibility, and nothing at all as to the possibility of any future development of that doctrine. If Grermantr bad the calm good-sense to take the same view now, Europe would be spared an infinity of peril, heartburning, and perhaps blood. Bat even the most eminent statesmen of to-day seem to be them- selves infected, somehow, by the ecclesiastical spirit.
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