The Press. — London, England, 1856-11-08 00:00:00

1060 Sortigit 6orrrspanbcitte. BRUSSELS, Nov. G. M. VERIIAEGEN, in his speech on the opening of the University, made the following observations : It was the practice, formerly, to stop free opinion by putting the opinionists to death, and therefore the rack of Innocent I I 1., the axe of Philip 11., and the arquebuse of Charles IX., were called into requisition. Public opinion, fashioned by philosophy and morality, arrested the cruel tyranny of popes and kings ; and the progress of instruc tion, in teaching the true principles of social virtue, has developed the human intellect, and led to civilisation. It is against the one and the other that the Roman priest is at war. An edict of the Inquisition, of which the following is an abridgment, has been officially placarded on the walls of Rome, and forwarded to the ecclesiastical authorities in Belgium and elsewhere:— A GENERAL EDICT OF THE HOLY OFFICE. (At the head appear the pontifical arms, sur mounted by the triple crown, with the keys of St. Peter. On one side are the gures of St. Peter and St. Paul, and on the other is a two-edged sword of decapitation.) We, Tommaso Vincenzio Airaldi, of the order of preachers, professor of holy theology in the towns and dioceses of Ancona, Osimo, Cignoli, Jesi, Sini3aglia, Loreto, Itecanati, Macerate, and Tolen tino, dzc., Inquisitor-General of the Holy Apostolical See, and especially charged with the extirpation of heresy,— De4rous, according to our sworn duty to the Roman Catholic faith, without valich, as St. Paul writes to the Jews, there can he no salvation, that such faith should be pure, immaculate, and free from heretical stain or contagion, and, moreover, experi ence having taught us that there are divers per verted, malicious, sinful, and disobedient persons who do not, as they are hound to do, denounce heretics to the Holy Office, and, abstaining from such pious act, thereby wickedly injure the cause of the Roman Catholic religion,—We order and decree, that not longer than a month from this present, each and every one shall denounce to us, to our vicars of the Inquisition, or to the other officials of the Holy Office, regular and secular, those ,who are heretics to the Roman Catholic faith, as follows, that is to say : Those who are heretics, or supposed so to be, or defenders, or supporters, or connivers of heresy, or who shall pracuse the rights of Judaism, Mahome tanism, Paganism, or who shall have otherwise pro testantly apostatised from Roman Catholicism. Those who by any positive acts shall have made a compact with the devil, in order to exorcise, &c. Those who shall be familiar with the arts of necromancy, dec. Those who, not being priests, according to Roman Catholic ordination, shall have sacrilegiously usurped the privilege of administering the Holy Communion of our Lord Jesus Christ, be they who they may, not Roman Catholics. Those who shall thus defile by abuse both the holy elements and the holy places, contrary to the decrees of the apostolical constitutions. Those who shall hold secret assemblies and be long to associations adverse to the Holy Catholic religion. Those who, in hostility and in denial of the Blessed God, of the Holy Virgin Mary, and against the Saints in Heaven, shall have heretically blasphemed them, or shall have insulted or caused to be profaned the holy graven images (eacri immagini), set up and sanctified for worship. Those who shall interfere with or hinder in any way the functionaries of the Holy Office in discharge of their duly, according to the ball of Pius V., of holy and blessed memory, beginning "Si to prote gendis." Those who shall have reviled or published writings against the Sovereign Pontiff, the Holy College, the dignitaries of the Roman Church, or shall have in any way defamed or called in question the Holy Church or aught appertaining to her holy establish ment. Those who shall have in their possession libels or books containing heresies, bringing into doubt the especial holiness and supremacy of the Roman Catholic Church, and treatises "ex profess° " in desecration of the one and only Roman faith (i.e. of religion), and shall disseminate such wicked books under any pretext. Those who, without express permission, shall themselves eat, or give to others to eat, meat. eggs, or milk, on days forbidden oy the Holy Roman Church. Those who shall have participated in the crime of aiding persons by persuasion or otherwise to depart from the holy Roman faith, and to join an heretical sect contrary and opposed to Roman Catholicism, or, on the other hand, shall prevent Turk, Jew, or Infidel, from being baptised into the Roman Church. This present edict does not annul or alter any THE PRESS. former canonical and apostolical ordinance, or change the other edicts of the Grand Inquisitors (whereby fathers, mothers, husbands, wires, brothers, and sisters, arc called upon to denounce each other, and are subjected to the punishments of fire, rack, the wheel, decapitation, &O. But it is again declared, that unless the faithful denounce the delinquents in the several cases above named, then excommunica tion and the other punishments decreed by the Roman Church apostolical (as above) will surely follow. It is ordered that this edict of the holy Inquisition shall be publicly made known, and that a copy shall be placed in all the churches and chapels. It is further commanded that all book sellers, printers, custom•house officers, innkeepers, publicans, and shopkeepers, shall have a fair copy affixed in a conspicuous place in their several houses and offices, and that the priests and curates shall from time to time read the same in their parishes and from the altar. EXHORTATION. The principal and indeed the only object of the Holy Tribunal of the Inquisition is for the glory of God, the exaltation of the Holy Catholic Church, and for the salvation of souls. Therefore, those who shall faithfully obey the Holy Office,and of their own accord come forward voluntarily to confess sincerely and penitentially their sins against the Church, shall be received into the ample bowels of her charity (ampie viscere di carita), and treated with that singular clemency and mercy for which the Holy Inquisition has ever been memorable. PARTICULAR ORDERS. Being anxious to obey strictly the orders directed against the license of the press, we expressly forbid that any book or books shall be circulated without first having received the permission of the Holy Office, and any one violating this order shall be rigorously punished according to the decrees of the apostolical constitutions, and especially of those pro mulgated by Clement VIII. and Gregory XV. Fur ther' we order and command that uo Christian shall hold commerce with any Jew—that is to say, to eat, drink, play, dance, or have any relation, social or commercial, with him, and to abstain from the slightest familiarity and confidence with the people of this denomination. Both Jew and Christian who shall be disobedient to this order shall be punished in the modes duly prescribed (as above) by the bull of Clement VIII., " caeca et obatirata." Given at the office of the Holy Inquisition, at Ancona, this Bth of August, 1856. TOMMASO VINCENZIO AMAMI. Pesaro, Imprimeria d'Armesio Nobili, 1836. The Whigs, not excepting Lord Lansdowne, have always insisted in Parliament and on the hustings that their Roman Catholic clients, from whom they received a fee, and to whom they paid back a fee, were liberal and accomplished gentlemen—grateful for kindnesses, generous of heart, and especially tolerant when treated with a corresponding spirit ; that they had ceased to be bigoted, and were the first to acknowledge, in the benignity of their nature, the progress of an intellectual and spiritual civilisa tion which superinducee that cardinal virtue of charity without which whosoever liveth is declared to be counted as one that is dead. Who can have faith in the political word of a Whig ? Where is the hope for Roman regeneration in the spirit ? and where the charity in the above Roman and Vatican manifesto The Roman mummeries of Lord John Russell at Vienna have been admitted; his genu flexions were performed before the face of his co- Minister, the Earl of Westmorland ; and bis pos ture and imposture excited the attention of the Imperial Court. lie was then standing on the threshold of Popery, and he is now gone to visit the Holy Father of his adoption with an exceptional petition in favour of his colleague Baron Rothschild. Everywhere on his way, at Perugia, Spoleto, Terni, Viterleo, Civita Castellana, Ronciglioni, even unto Baccano and La Storta, this edict of the Inquisition is placarded on the walls and stares him in the face. It is Vie,work of the Whig. It is the blight resulting from a family conspiracy for power. By the 'Whig intro duction of a Roman Catholic attorney and swindler into the Privy Council of the Queen—by elevating a felon and forger to the position of a Lord of the Treasury—by prostituting Government patronage in favour of the Romanists of Ireland—and by the late and frequent conversions of persons of high estate in England to the Roman faith, the Romunists on the continent of Europe have been taught to believe that the powers of Papal Rome are gaining ground in Great Britain. They have deemed the time ripe for their work, and, having sound themselves together in a Popish and continental league, they have openly declared by this manifesto of the Inquisition at Rome that the intolerant supremacy of the middle ages is in force; and in Belgium they have pro claimed, through the bold bacchanal of Ghent, that the persecution of liberty in word and deed is at hand. Let three things be noted in the edict of the Inquisition :—first, that the Deity and the Virgin are SATURDAY, joined in name, ignoring that of Christ our Saviour; secondly, that the worship of graven images, idola try, is directly and literally acknowledged ; and, thirdly, that a claim is put forth wanting only the power to possess the cathedrals (luoghi) of Protes tantism existing before the Reformation. And this edict emanates from ultramoutane Italy. C. A. H. PARIS, Nov. 5. Ix political circles the recent Moniteur article is still a prevailing topic. Few amongst the French, however, know to what it refers. The English public are at no such loss. The infamous slanders on the character of the Emperor and Empress, in sinuations as to the objects of the fornier's visits to Plombieres, &c., may justly have called for a rebuke on the part of the Emperor Napoleon more severe even than was administered. At the same time it is to be regretted that prints under the control of the censorship here should be allowed to use such language in regard to England and the alliance as the Union, Assemblie Nationale, and Gazette de France, are constantly in the habit of em ploying. The latter is now the most virulent and abusive of all, and I perceive in the English papers attention has been called to its articles. As if to make matters worse, Lord Palmerston's Sunday organ, the Observer, has conveyed by a sarcastic hit in reference to Count Walewski an imputation of something very like treason. So much for the Palmerston policy of quarrelling with everybody and insulting every power in turn. Letters from Naples report all as quiet there, and a Queen's messenger, just arrived with despatches, informs me that there was title excitement visible when he left a few days ago. The Narvaez Ministry in Spain is gaining strength daily for the present., and is understood to be looked upon with favorable eyes by the Emperor Napoleon, in a great degree owing to the tact and good demeanour of Serrano, the ambassador here. Efforts are being made to raise a loan here for the Almanga Railway Company in Spain, and application was made to the Credit Mobilier on the subject ; but it was doubtful that they could grant money for any undertaking out of France, at least as originally constituted ; and, in truth, that association rests altogether on a false basis, as the shareholders therein may yet find to their cost. Lately, however, money has been freely advanced for foreign railways in Austria and Russia, &c. Few people understand its nature. The Bourse is much excited, and estranger gains the im pression that the actionnaires are ready to tear each other to pieces. Thirty or forty men, with scraps of paper in their hands and hats, shouting, gesticulating, struggling, and grimacing at each other across a circular spot railed in in the centre of a vast hall, which is filled with a dense crowd all bellowing, elbowing, floundering, kicking, and shoving each other about regardless of smashed hats, torn coats, blackened eyes, sore throats, and other little egrimens incidental to operations on the Paris Bourse. This, to a stranger, must look odd, to say the least of it ; but an habitue here sees the same scene of uproar and confusion from one to three o'clock every day in the leer; and his eyes, at least, if not his ears, get used to those daily financial opera tions which have so much the air of a revolution in its zenith. The alliance between Austria and England, so much talked of, is not favorably looked on here, and the articles written thereon in the English press are decidedly productive of much mischief. The French are naturally a most excitable people, and anything like ridicule or sarcasm wounds and exasperates them in a manner which the English—who take these things so coolly—cannot understand. It is doubtful now if the Court will go to Fon tainebleau. As yet the Parisians have troubled themselves little about the proceedings in reference to the Austrian occupation of the Danubian pro. winces and the British fleet in the Black Sea, con tent to leave such matters to the wiser heads of Count Walewski and Napoleon 111. ; but I appre hend ere long more public attention will be drawn to these facts, and certainly Lord Palmerston's present policy is eminently calculated to place England in an invidious position. There is no concealing the fact that the English are by no means so popular here now as they were even a few weeks since. This I ascribe mainly to the bad management of the English Envoy at the treaty of Paris, who left every loophole for future difficulty and disagreement. Frenchmen cannot understand (and no wonder) why " Sir Peel," as they call him, is allowed to be ever lastingly making speeches telling exactly everything that he should not, and insulting anyone whom ab sence renders it safe to attack. They ask, naturally enough, if this is really a son of the cautious, clear-