The Press.
London, England, 1855-01-13 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

likely. The mail is going soon, and I want to finish
another letter. A.

PS.—Dec. 22.—Last night the Russians made a
grand sortie on the English advanced works, gained
great advantages at first, but were driven out by the
38th at the point of the bayonet. One field officer
killed, and three officers of the 50th taken prisoners
into Sebastopol. I am going down to the same
place to-night, and hope they don't make another
attack and take me prisoner.

MISS NIGHTINGALE AND HER NURSES.
TO THE EDITOR OF "THE PRESS."

Sir,—l am glad you gave publicity last week to
Mrs. Herbert's letter. Will you oblige me by in-
serting my remarks upon it. They were made in
reply to the gentleman who favoured me with a copy
of her letter. Your assurance that Miss Nightingale
is free from Romish tendencies" will go far to
allay those apprehensions respecting her benevolent
undertaking which have been excited by Mr. Sidney
Herbert's Anglo-Catholic partisanship, and by his
choosing to connect her with a mission of nuns and
Sellonists who have already been found in the way,
and have produced so strong a prejudice against
Miss Nightingale.—l am, sir, yours obediently,
January 11, 1855. B. W.

December 28th, 1854.
My dear Sir,—l am very much obliged to you for your
letter, and especially for favouring me with a copy of Mrs.
Sidney Herbert's note to Mrs. —, which 1 greatly
wished to see, having heard of the correspondence which
has taken place.
It is quite an Anglo-Catholic curiosity, and worthy of
being classed with the " lithographed" letter of her hus-
band to Miss Nightingale, which, of course, he only
intended for private distribution amongst the initiated ;
but which, happily for the cause of truth, and the exposure
of his own incapacity, obtained a much wider circulation
through the public press than he desired.
If I wanted any further testimony beyond that supplied
by Mr. Sidney Herbert himself of the nature of Miss
Nightingale's religious opinions, this letter of his wife's
would furnish it. The endorsement of that lady b' two
such Anglo-Catholic Dissenters as Mr. and Mrs. Sidney
Herbert, is quite conclusive of the character of her creed,
notwithstanding Mrs. Herbert's extraordinary assurance
that she is " what is called rather low Church." I have
always understood her to be an Anglican Papist, and every-
thing that has appeared in the public journals, of different
shades of ecclesiastical politics, has confirmed this im-
pression. As such 1 have described her, and will con-
tinue to do so until I am convinced of the contrary by
better evidence than that which is supplied by Mrs.
Herbert's note, and the Dissenting paper she seems so
anxious to recommend.
You must see that in these days, when English Church-
men, of Mrs. Sidney Herbert's school, have discovered a
method of holding what they call " the truth, as it is
explained in the decrees and canons of the Council of
Trent," her recommendation of Miss Nightingale as " a
member of the Established Church of England" can be of
no value whatever.
The pervert Mr. Manning is said to be constantly at
the War-office, and his testimony would weigh more
with me in a matter of this kind than that of a Tractarian

partisan.
According to Mrs. Herbert, the learned, but now lapsed,
author of the two works entitled " The Doctrine of the
Holy Eucharist," and "The Principles of Church Autho-
rity," would probably have been deemed a sound member
of the Established Church previous to his being driven
out of it, althoughhe set forth, in the first of these books,
the doctrine and adoration of the mass, to the great delight
of the Papists, and proved to his own safaction in the
second, that the Pope's chair ia the only seat of spiritual

supremacy.
So also those twelve Tractarian clergy at Leeds who, a
few years ago, decided unanimously that the submission of
the English Church was due in matters of faith to the
Papal See, might be pronounced by the same authority to
be sound members of the Church. And thus, lastly, Mrs.
Herbert would probably accredit as a good Churchman the
Rev. Walter Blunt, the reputed author of " osaries com-
piled for the Use of English Churchmen," R
in which the
grossest idolatry and superstition are recommended.
I am not surprised at tne " indignant" tone of Mrs.
Herbert's letter. The Anglicans have been very much
annoyed at the exposure of their pretty little plot, and, if I
may adopt one of their own words, " conspirators" do not
usually like the light to be let in upon their plans and
operations. It is my full conviction that a Jesuit conspi-
racy is in active peration for the subjugation of England
and the ruin of her Church; and a Popish and profligate
Government whether consciously or unconsciously 1 do
not care to know—have played the game of the conspira-
tors. I believe that this scheme which the Secretary-at
War, probably at the suggestion of Mr. Manning, seems so
anxious to carry out—namely to send Itomish and semi-
Romish nuns to the East, in the place of good, plain,
common-sense nurses, to have been one fruit of this con-

spiracy.
Mrs. Herbert's denunciations against myself, as "the
mouthpiece of slander," have fallen very harmlessly on
my head. You seem to consider " her denial very spirited,"
but I cannot acquit her of the usual fault of her party—
mystification and the endeavour to throw dust into one's

eyes.
When, in order to recommend her Anglo• Catholic friend
to such a population as that of my parish, she condescends,
pro hoc vice, to adopt terms, the sentiments implied by
which she must utterly abhor such, for instance, as