The Times, for some purpose of its own, apparently wants
to. hound on English feeling against the Roman Catholics, as if there were any need of inflaming the hate and dread with which they have been regarded by the masses of the English people ever since the Council of the Vatican declared the Pope's infallibility, and Prince Bismarck gained something like popularity here by appealing to the popular fanaticism of Germany to expel the and harass the Church. In yesterday's Times an article was devoted to the subject of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, and English readers were assured not merely that the Pope struck a medal in honour of it, knowing precisely what it was, but that no. Roman Catholic of any authority to speak for his Church even now disavows or regrets that bloody deed, or thinks it "a crime, or even a mistake." We do not profess at the present moment to recall the exact story of that horrible event, but our impression,—not one biased in favour of Roman Catholic persecutions,—certainly is. that the Pope's medal and rejoicings were instituted on the first- ex puree account of the event as told by the envoy of Charles IX., and that our own Elizabeth herself, on the ex parts statement of the French Minister, La Motto Fenelon, was so far taken in as to. thank the King for his communication. But even if we are too favourable to the Pope in supposing that his rejoicings were proclaimed under a false impression of what had happened, what. can be more wicked than deliberately to spread the impression that the most eminent Roman Catholics of to-day approve and justify that hellish deed ? Dr. Lingard, the Roman Catholic his- torian, who wrote at a time when the feeling against religious. persecution was certainly not so strong as it is at present, speaks of "the infamy" of the deed, and we should be surprised to hear that a single eminent Roman Catholic in England would characterise it in milder terms. It is an ominous and discreditable symptom of the passions of the day, when a great paper like the Times uses its influence deliberately to inflame religious. animosities by statements palpably untrue.
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