rro THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."J SI11,—I hope you will
not conceive the idea that all Catholics are of Mr. Gainsford's way of thinking with regard to this question of toleration. More than once has my blood boiled to hear you describe the hero of Drogheda as " a typical Englishman." But with his dictum, quoted by you, that " liberty of conscience is a natural right, and he that would have it ought to give it," I entirely and unreservedly agree. The man who would imprison or burn me because I do not believe as he does is my enemy, quite as much as he who would enslave or murder me for his own ends. Toleration is not a distinct virtue, but a branch of natural justice. I fear you would not allow me space to controvert Mr. Gainsford's sophisms about "a man's inherent right to damn himself," and will content myself with saying that God Almighty has not chosen to give to any man, or any body of men, either the power or the right to save men's souls against their will; so that, strictly speaking, as against his fellow-man, every man has the right, as he certainly has the power, to damn his own soul if he will. And for my part I cannot see the difference between Mr. Gainsford's position and the doctrine that it is lawful to propagate Christianity by the sword,—a particularly vile and blasphemous heresy. The crimes of Mary, or rather of her counsellors, have made the name of Catholic so hated in England that even now, after all these years, the bulk of Englishmen regard the religion and its followers with suspicion and an inward shrinking which make the return of England to the Catholic faith (humanly speaking) an impossibility. Two things I find it difficult to understand, —why good Catholics, who would not in real life commit the least of the atrocities, should defend them in principle ; and why men should be less honest in religions controversy than they are in private life. For my part, I cannot read such an exposure of cooked statistics as appears in another column of the Spectator of August 30th without a feeling of shame and indignation. If such things are to be done, I, for one, would prefer that they were done on the other side of the hedge from that on which I live.—I am, Sir, &c.,
A ROMAN CATHOLIC.
[Of course we do not for a moment entertain the notion that all, or, indeed, any but a minority of English Roman Catholics agree at heart with Mr. Gainsford. We deplore, however, with our correspondent the fact that more of the many Roman Catholics who agree with him in reality will not abandon the foolish and pettifogging habit of making no admissions in religions discussion. We are delighted to find our correspondent giving his adhesion to Cromwell's admirable doctrine of toleration.—ED. Spectator.]
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