Campion, who was brought up before Sir Thomas Owden. on
Monday, described himself as an inventor of agricultural imple- ments, and wanted to justify himself by pleading the wrath of God against idolatry, and the apathy of the law in putting it down. Sir Thomas Owden, however, very rightly remarked that if there was anything illegal in the service, there were legal means of putting an end to the illegality ; but that no one could be allowed to interrupt a religions service, Roman Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, or Freethinking, by an act of violence of this kind, and he entirely refused to go into the Ritualistic argument into which the prisoner sought to divert the case. Eventually, as it was asserted that Campion's wife was ill, and even dying, on promising the Court never to be guilty of such violence again, he.was only fined 25,—the fine being paid by a friend,—and got his discharge almost too easily, considering the violence and irreverence of which he had been guilty. Never- theless, we cannot regret the lenity of the Court. It is always well, where it is possible, to treat genuine fanatics with excep- tional lenity, partly because fanaticism is a disease which is greatly aggravated by severity, partly because it is not altogether ignoble, and is generally due rather to ignorance than to malice. In many Protestants there is still a sort of physical horror of what they call idolatry, though they are quite unable to define even to themselves in what idolatry consists, except it be in the use of solid religions symbols under a certain size. The Gothic arch does not seem to excite this superstitious fury,—we suppose because it is too big,—but the Christian cross and the Jewish candlestick do.
Previous page
