UL'FRAMONTANISM AND ULTRA-BRITONISM.

WE have no wish to misrepresent our contemporary the Pall Mall, or indeed any other contemporary, but, as has been often- observed, the right way of judging whether there has been

mieeepresentation or not of any particular view, is, not to go by the ee.te judgment of the writer of the statement criticised, any mote than by the sole judgment of his critic. The thoughts and teederreies involved in a man's line of argument usually go very

fat beyond what he himself is -conscious of ; and when they are holdup to him in the form in which they impress a different mind, heilf very apt to shrink from them, and to be so anxious to dis- ave*.them, that on the strength of a very slight modification of tone in the mode of presenting a view, such a writer will indig- nantly' deny that he has ever advanced anything of the kind. In fact-hardly any man is fully conscious of the whole drift of his own thou-gilt, end wise men will learn something from their critics, we do not say as to what they deliberately meant to convey, but as to

svhatztheir own mental tendencies hurried them into aotually con- veying, over and above what they meant to convey. The Pall Mall is. hurt nt our criticism on its very blatant article of last Monday week, 17th March, on Ultramontanism at Home and Abroad,' and in a inneli more moderately toned article, of which we should never have spoken as we did of the one in question, takes us to task for our reeding of its -contents, and the phrase which we applied to it, " non- eensical bounce." Now, of course, it is very easy, by extracting one or two sober sentences and ignoring all those to which such phrases .could properly be applied, to make our criticism seem unjust. The passage which chiefly earned, and, as it seems to us, very richly, earned that description, was as follows, and we cite it, not for the rather trivial purpose of justifying our own phrase, but for the.sake of drawing attention to the extraordinary simi- larity; a similarity as we believe due to kindred origin, between the sound and fury of Ultramontane pastorals and the sound and fury of these ultra-British rejoinders. In relation to the Ultra- montane' policy our contemporary concluded thus :— " An inarticulate growl is to be heard in many quarters which one day may swell into a roar to this effect : 'Well, if you must have it you shall have it. If we must either submit to you or cast off a great deal which we bare hitherto treated with civility, our choice will not be difficult. Whatever may be true, you and your creed are unquestion- ably false ; and by the heavens above and the earth beneath—nay, by the breeches-pocket and all that therein is—we will not only not be bullied by you, but we will consider very seriously how far we are justified in allowing you to bully your dupes.' Once in its history the English nation had occasion to express in an emphatic way its opinion of the Pope and all his works. If it is baited beyond a certain point, it will be apt to express the same opinion still more emphatically and with a wider sweep ; and if it does, it is to be hoped it will make much cleanse work than it did before."

NOW that is either gravely mischievous, or it is, to use the most charitable language possible, "nonsensical bounce." If it was meent, terwe hope, to convey no more than we are now told by the Pall Mali of Monday last that it did mean, we fear we must say that even the Irish Catholic Bishop of Aleath does not bellow in more violent disproportion to his real dangerousness, than our aceom- plishecl contemporary. - We are now assure that it means no more than this :—

" It is only when the path of the Roman Cathelic Church cressea-the path of the-civil gowernment that it is neeeseary-fot the civiltgovem- ment to form or express any opinion about`it but when the- two do cross each -other, it is necessary for each to know what it thinks of the other ; and the nature of the case is-such that the choice of the State lies between falling down and worshipping on the one hand, and acting upon the other on principles which do 'really involve the conclusion that the Roman Catholic creed is in its essence a Inisohievous superstition."

You cannot have gentler roaring than that. We do not, agree with the latter part of it, indeed, becauseit isnot goodsense; for if the State has no reason to form or express any opinion abouVRoman

Catholicism except where it coma across thepath of the civil gove.rn- ment, it would seem reasonable to assert that, where-it-does come across that path, it is quite sufficient and indeed most desirable to oppose it steadily on that ground, and not on the much .wider ground that it is a "mischievous superstition," — an- Resump- tion which would warrant a very different kind of- hostility in- deed, and a hostility by no means limited to the individual points

at which it comes into collision with the State. But lan- guage like this of our contemporary's, so-obviously expressive of a mind which shrinks in practice from its own theoretical con- clusions, we should not have thought worth attack. But when an article begins by insinuating seriously, though' very guardedly we admit, that the Catholic Emancipation Act was a mistake, and ends in the language 'we have just quoted about making a." wider sweep" apparently of "the Pope and all his worke,"-thfue we have ever made yet, we think it is time to draw attention to it, as bittster precisely of the same dangerous kind as we hear onthe opposite aide

of the Irish Channel proceeding out Of the mouths 'of the least reasonable and most furious of the Pope's band. If, as now seems to be the case, our contemporary wishes to withdraw this bluster, and to substitute much calmer and saner language, we are ready to welcome this -return to a right mind. Only, cul- tivated- writers who choose to fan the heats of British. anti- Catholicism into a' glow, who mutter obscurely that the Liberals were all-in the wrong in emancipating the Roman Catholics and that we may have before long' to-make a cleaner sweep of -what is left of them than we made- at the time of the Reformation, should remember that there are thousands of ignorant zealots who will take their words as encouragement to raise a very different kind of cry from that which the Pall Mall now asserts that it approves; and that the words " dupes " and "imposture," with which it so freely seasons its attacks on the Chorea of Rome, are not words of which-it can recall at pleasure the irritating effects.

" Dupes" are the victims of conscious' impostors ;, and impostors are conscious of dishonesty. No one calla a Swedenborgian a dupe of Swedenborg, and very few would call. Swedenborg himself an impostor, and those who Would, would -maintain that his visions were intended to deceive the world without having deceived himself. An "imposture," if properly so termed, ought to be punished. And when our contemporary, even in the more moderate article of last Monday, says- of Roman

Catholicism that it is an imposture, "not, indeed, to be punished as a crime, but to be discouraged in every way when it comes under the notice of the State," he shows that he knows that he is

using language that he cannot defend, and of which he himself is compelled to qualify the force by deprecating the. penal eon. sequences which it naturally suggests.

But it was not only by the violence of the original attack that our ultra-British contemporary reminded us of the Bishop of Meath and the Ultramontanes. Even in the article of Monday last, from which, as we have said, the blatant element has almost disappeared, the tone having become altogether more moderate,–.

owing, we may modestly hope, to the influence

of our own criticiem,—there is a very curious passagewhich, if we understand it rightly, is almost an avowal that the writer justifies a distorted and discoloured estimate of any politi- cal influence which he desires to see diminished. We are not quite certain of the drift of the passage, for it is curious enough that in treating of the Roman Catholic Church, a writer whose style is usually singularly lucid and masculine, becomes so guarded and reserved that we can sometimes only guess his exact meaning.

It was so in relation to the Catholic Emancipation Act, of which, in the article of March 17, he appeared to insinuate a hesitating oon- demnation ; and it is so in the following passage from the paper of last Monday :— "The Spectator observes that 'the weak point in all -these fulmina- tions is that their authors never seem able to tell you distinctly of what they are afraid.' There is one thing of which we are afraid which can be very distinctly specified, and that is the influence of Popery on minds

which like to compliment it about its great literature and wonderful history,' and the virtues of monks and nuns. There is in the present day, and there long has been, a farm of scepticism which runs in the direction of timidity, which shrinks from the roughness of truth. and which displays on all occasions an all but invincible reluctance to call things by their right names. If the Roman Catholic Church were dead , and buried, and if transubstantiation and other such doctrines were as ' much things of the past as sacrifioes to Jupiter, much might be said in its favour ; but when these doctrines are passed upon the world as i truths of the most sublime sort, which ought to be received as such on pain of damnation, when ecclesiastical power is regaining in detail and by all sorts of delicate manceuvres much of whieh it had been dis- possessed, a good, firm intimation to its supporters of their true char- acMr and position is a matter of some importance, and the policy which in our opinion should be pursued towards it is that of fair, but open and outspoken enmity. An exchange of compliments is either a very poor kind of hypocrisy, or else a false step towards submission."

Now, that passage begins apparently by condemning us very severely for speaking what we conceived to be, —so far as regards certain influences exerted over the Irish poor, —not merely the literal truth, but a truth whieh every educated man acknowledges. But before the blame is half out of his mouth, we find our con- temporary admitting, as we suppose, that were it but all over with the Roman Church, he might say of it pretty much what we have said,--only this is not politic while the Church still lives, and while her influence ought to be steadily discouraged, instead of fairly appreciated. Is that the meaning? Then we submit that. it is we who have, by the author's admission, called the things we spoke of by "their right names," and our contemporary who in- sists on exebangieg "the right names" for the names most politic at the moment. He appears to intimate that be could say some very hearty things of Roman. Catholicism, if it were but judicious to give an ' open enemy' ay . credit her his better qualities. If, that be, as we suppose, the drift, how curiously this ultra- Britonisse approaches- in policy the Ultramontanism it so vehe- mently assail. It was alleged everywhere that the episcopal declarations against the decemed Irish University Bill were even more strategic than genuine, and that they overshot their mark.. This was, we fancy, true in some cases, though false in Olen? but anyhow, it would .appear, if we interpret our contemporary's drift aright, that be .not only uses language for stra6egic purposes, rather than for those of truth, but that he thinks it fair to censure the plain and. natural -course as if it were due to a timidity- " which shrieks from the roughnees of truth, and which -displays.- on - all. occasions an all but invincible reluctance to call things by their right names." What we intended to , do was, precisely to call things by their right names, end unless we misunderstand, our contemporary hints that were he but at liberty to talk as he would talk if his language. were not likely to have a bad effect on living men, he would speak in a similar strain. We .think the advantage is altogether en our side. We do not speak of the Roman Church as an imposture, because we do not believe it ,t be governed in the main by impostors. There are impostors in the Church, no doubt, —and-ouch as there are, are probably, owing to the very magnitude of their pretensions, impostors of a very bad kind. We fear there are not a fewo—perhape of a milder kind,—in most. other Churches. But for the most part, we have no doubt that the Roman Catholic bishops and prieets are as sincere be- lievers -in the infallibility of their Church and its head, as the Anglican bishops and priests are sincere believers. in the truth of the via. media, and Free-Kirk Calvinists in the West- miwiter Confession. There is.nothisag.new and nothing wonderful in the existence of noble zeal and deep piety founded in false, thong h lion estly credited, pretensions ;.artd thevery last way in which, as we should have thought, the dangerous influence of such zeal and piety could be sneeessfully resisted, would have been to suppress diplomatically, the sympathy and respect -which such zeal and piety ought to create. That is a lesson learned out of the books of the Jesuits, and- not out of specially British precedents ; but itshows how exteemea meet. We believe, as we have strongly asserted in the very paper for- which we Are blansied, that the Roman Church is founded in dangerous, and false pretensions which lead to a most mischievous distrust of the intellect, a severe suppression of many natural. and healthy human impuleee,.aud an in3periolie temper which is often dangerous -to civil order. But we do uot believe thet -those evils are to be dinairrished by ignoring the virtues which/every honest man's experience shrews to,be consistent_ with -theme by -spealthog.,as if the Roman -Church. were a mass. of mischievous, sepenetitioa, and. by bellowing about .

and dupes. That, does not seam to us . calliog.thioge "by their • right names," but by their , wrong slump, and we are still as mach., in the dark As ever as to what the .practical. drift of the Pui44ial1 is, We have only got it as yet to oonfese that one of its purposes is to condemn us for speaking frankly of what we hold to be good in Irish Catholicism as well as of what is bad. It is childish to suppose that this is its main object. And while Prince Bismarck in a neighbouring country is legislat- ing with a view to snaking every Catholic priest virtually liable to suspension at the discretion of the civil government, and while the Pall Mall never mentions Prince Bismarck's speeches ad his policy save with a kind of envious admiration, and. while further it hints that the Act of Catholic Emancipation was a mule- take,—it is reasonable, we think, rather to suppose that our contemporary's remarks tend in a very dangerous and mis- chievous direction, than that they have no practical bearing on the relation of Ultramontanism to the British Governmeut at all,—which is what he sometimes seems to hint. We believe, on the contrary, that Roman Catholicism is gaining rapidly in Germany by the kind of persecution to which, it is there submitted, and that it is losing in England and Ireland by the policy of pure equity. And we explain a good deal of the Irish Episcopal wrath against the _recent University Bill, by a half-instinctive fear of the results of a policy of equity, i.e., of the loss of their last serious grievance.