LEO XIII. ON REBELLION.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—Mr. Archer Gurney thinks that the Pope is endeavouring "to advance in the direction of true order and liberty ;" and you call the Encyclical "a very sensible sort of document." As the text was not, I believe, published in England until last Friday, you may not have had time for its full consideration ; and I still hope to see this view replaced by a very different one, in next week's Spectator. To me, Leo's last move seems a bid for alliance with the Princes against the people,—a proposed scheme for the repression of aspirations which are inconvenient to the Vatican and the Palaces.
I am neither Socialist, Communist, nor Nihilist, so far as I un- derstand the current definitions of those rather vague terms ; but I cannot regard a hand-shaking by Leo and Bismarck, across the scourged backs of the Socialists, as "an advance of great pro- mise."—I am, Sir, &c.,
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