13 APRIL 1895, Page 16

LIFE OF DR. PITSEY.

[To TEl EDITOR 01 TRH "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Mr. Clarke has read very carelessly the passage which he criticises. His quarrel is with Cardinal Newman, not with me. The words with which he finds fault, "in the interests of truth," are avowedly a quotation from the Cardinal; and Mr. Clarke must forgive me if I add that I consider Cardinal Newman a greater authority than himself on any question relating to the Arian controversy. Does Mr. Clarke think that " heretical pravity "—the phrase applied to the conduct of Liberius by Jerome—is a venial offence, and in a Pope too, when committed " under the influence of intense fear " Why, then, were " the lapsed " condemned so severely P

I have not " blundered about the devotion paid to the Blessed Virgin " by Roman Catholics, for I said nothing whatever on the subject. I am familiar with the distinction which Roman Catholic writers draw between dulia and latria ; but I made no reference to the question in the article which Mr. Clarke criticises. I quoted a passage from the famous "Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine" as "a good instance of Newman's passion for theorising ; " but I was careful to say that "the Church of his adoption was too cautions to accept his theory, and some of her leading divines wrote strongly against it."—I am, Sir, &c.,

YOUR REVIEWER.