Irttpro to
PROTESTANT PANIC.
If the world, at this time of day, needed fresh facts to convince us of the falsity of the adage " What's in a name ? " it could scarcely seek for on:. -- more apt than the -howl of indignation surprise on the one hand, Tel; Crvpe and the ecstacy of triumph on the other which b nit forth on the change in the nomenclature of the Romanist' ecclesiastical organization in this -coon- try. For, in reality, what change is it, but one of name, from Yiear-Apos- tolie to Bishop or Archbishop ? 'What power, influence, or authority, can St. Pudentiana-Cardinal-Priest Nicholas. Wiseman "Archbishop of West- minster " exercise over man woman, or child, Protestant or Papist,- which Vicar-Apostolic Nicholas Wiseman, "Bishop of Melipotainus," could not and did not exercise ? Yet Father Newman tells us, that. 'in this r simple change "the mystery of God's providence is now fulfilled"—'! Me holy hierarchy. has been restored; the grave is opened, and Christ .is coming out" ; 'while St. Pudentiana Wiseman congratulates.us on "the greatest of blessings " On the other the hpTlignbcTetirt.,j7usnit beeisitndull=rdeoes;.(rrit an order of day is issued in reply. by " the Church of England here upon earth," * bidding the , drum ecclesiastic beat through the length and breadth of the great diocese of London, while the leading daily journals are ringing the alarm through the country, and calling .Protestants to arms. For the life of me I cannot see the'reasonableness of this outcry and disturbance. No man's faith-is in jea• pardy, no milies civil or ecclesiastical relations one whit altered from what they were a month ago—more than they would be if the Wealeyan,Method- ists had chosen six Presidents in place of one at their last Congress. We have been accustomed to hear that the Roman Catholics enjoyed full tolera.- tion under the modern law of England: why then should we express either surprise or indignation at their availing themselves of this toleration to re-. distribute their ecclesiastical offices, and name the persons holding them, ac- cording to the theory and usage of their. Church ? Moreover, what indignation the public does feel at the metonymy, -should, be launched not at the poor Pope, who has done what he was bid, and,only accepted a spiritual submission which was voluntarily tendered to him, but at those weak members of the Church of England, both clerical and lay, who, brought up in a theology less narrowed by dogma, and a more free,: • humane, and social ecclesiastical system than that of Rome i- have taken re- fuge, in Rome's vague claim of spiritual- authority and infallible guidance, from the high and manly duties imposed on them by their National_Church. —of faith in the harmony of revelation and science, and in the rfunction of reason and conscience to work out under Providence, by individual and.poli- teal action, the great ends of the Supreme in the creation of our race. These are the true offenders ; and:eve.n towards most of them one must feel quite as much pity as indignation, as towards men:who under complex be-• - wildering impulses,have forfeited light and freedom for slavery and dark superstition.
The remedy for this mischief—or rather, the preventive against its spread: —is to besought, not in legislative enactments of increased strictness or larger, scope against open and formal manifestations of religious:beliefs and ecclesi- astacal theories, but in that which can alone go to the root of the,matter by preventing, or at least checking, that development of intellect and growth of character which hears its fruit in such belief and theories; in a sounder and , broader education, not only for the people at large, but for the clergy and the professional classes; an army of sehoolmaeters against an army-of priests-5
• Sydney Smith's first Letter to Archdeacon Sinfeton, page 54. •
goodly array of learned, active, genial professors, against twenty. times.their number of battalioned friars, "white, black, and grey, with all their trum- pery?' We fear not for the result. We believe in the people of England.; we believe in the nineteenth century ; we believe, above all, in history ; and we can appropriate Father Newman's own avorda, so ominous, if read without Forearuat spectacles, for the. cause whose fancied triumph.he is celebrating- " He did not recollect any people on earth, except those of Great Britain, who, laving once rejected the religion of God, were again restored to the bosom of the.Church." Father Newman is right; humanity is not retro- gressive. Joshua once caused the-sun to stand still in Ajalon ; but not Pope
Cardinal Wiseman, Father.Newman, and,the whole College of the Teo- paganda,. can make the sun.of human improvement stand still one day, one
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