The Press.
London, England, 1858-11-27 00:00:00

THE PItE S S, NOVEMBER 27, 1858.

1146

between the institutions and usages of France
and of her nearest neighbour and closest ally,
but a voice of warning, and a defiance, not from
home, not from the men of intellect in France
seeking emancipation, but from abroad, from
the Hierarchy of Rome, angry and alarmed for
the security of their position.

Now, if this be a correct view of the relative
positions of the French Government and of M.
DE MONTALEMBERT, it cannot be denied, how-
ever much we may find fault with the retribu-
tion, that the former have received much provo-
cation, and that M. DE MONTALEMBERT does not
stand truly quite so clear of offence and inten-
tion to offend as many suppose. Are we not
right ? Consider for a moment the events
which at the time when the pamphlet was pub-
lished were in progress, and the attitude which
the Emperor of the FRENCH and a considerable
party among the nation had assumed in the face
of Rome and her Policy. The young MORTARA
had been kidnapped, and doctrines had been
enunciated with regard to the rights of
the Papal Church and the power of Her
Pope which had compelled the interference of
the Emperor of the FRENCH, and had induced in
a Government journal the republication of the
famous letter to EDGAR NEY in 1848, in which
LOUIS NAPOLEON insisted strongly upon the
policy of secularizing the Papal sy_stem—a
policy urgently advocated by M. DE FORCADE
and other able and eminent men. Can our
readers perceive no connection between these cir-
cumstances and the publication of the " D6bat sur
" ? Do they not see behind that singular
pamphlet Rome dealing a buffet against NAPO-
LEON, suspected of a design to make the Church
in France Galilean, with an Emperor for its
Head—a buffet intended as a warning and as an
exhibition of what Rome could do if She would ?
We are not surprised, then, that the Emperor
should try to put down this work of reprisal
with the strong hand which the suffrage of the
People has given him, and should endeavour to
grasp M. DE MONTALEMBERT within a law
which, however repugnant it may be to the
notions of Englishmen, is still the duly enacted
and fully recognized law of the country of which
M. DE MONTALEMBE irr is a citizen. Whether it was
politic to take such a step is another question.
We do not think it was ; neither do we think it
was just or wise to attempt to hide the light of
M. DE MONTALENIBERT'S defence under a bushel.
When, under circumstances of great diffi-
culty, and with Ireland well-nigh in a state of
Rebellion, the Government of this country found
it necessary to institute a prosecution against
O'CONNELL, the utmost publicity was given to
the whole of the proceedings, and the utmost
liberty of comment was accorded, and it is
much to be regretted that France has not
taken our conduct at that crisis as her
guide and her example. We are quite aware
of the difficulties of the Empire but newly
consolidated, and menaced by more than one
Claimant for the Throne ; but, even making full
allowance for this circumstance, although we do
not agree with the Saturday Review in regarding
the proceeding as an outrage to the English
nation, or in comparing its author to CHARLES
IX., and the prosecution itself to the Massacie
of St. Bartholomew, we think it would have been
more just to have administered the law in a
different manner, and more politic to have over-
looked the offence altogether.

inflicts a fine, or sends the party inculpated to
prison, or he orders him to be well whipped, his
nose to be sliced open, his ears to be pared away,
or his head to be chopped off, and there is an end
of the matter. The judge has exercised his
functions; justice has been administered. Expe-
ditious, however, and conclusive as is this mode
of administering justice, it is somewhat too
Oriental for the meridian of London ; and was,
accordingly, pronounced to be so by the Court of
Queen's Bench on the application of the Rev.
ALFRED POOLE for a rule calling upon his Grace
the Archbishop of CANTERBURY to show cause
why a mandamus should not issue, commanding
him to make, or cause to be made, inquiry into
the matter of the appeal made to him by the late
Curate of St. Barnabas against the revocation of
his licence by the Bishop of LONDON.
In listening to this application, the Court of
Queen's Bench exhibited an almost nervous, and,
all things considered, by no means unnatural,
anxiety to preclude the introduction into the
pleadings of Counsel of any of the facts or state-
ments which constituted the original ground of
complaint against Mr. PooLE, or of any argu-
ments bearing upon the doctrine and practice of
confession as held and permitted, or condemned
and disallowed, by the Church of England. This
wise caution of the Learned Judges who granted
the rule nisi the public will do well to imitate in
following the further progress of a cause involving
questions of the gravest importance and of the
most exciting nature—questions on which the
religious mind of England is entitled to ask that
an authoritative decision shall be pronounced, in
accordance not merely with the letter of the for-
mularies, but with the spirit of the faith, of the
Church of England. That decision, however, it
is not the province of the Court of Queen's
Bench, any more than of the public meetings
collected at St. James's-hall and elsewhere, to
pronounce ; and in commenting upon the case
in its present stage we shall best consult the
Interests of truth and justice by seconding, within
the sphere of our influence, Lord CAMPBELL'S
laudable desire to maintain a clear distinction
between the different points in issue.
Those points are substantially four in number.
It remains, in the first place, to be ascer-
tained—for by no inquiry deserving the name of
a judicial investigation has this as yet been done
—whether there is any truth in the statements—
too filthy to be read in any public place, as Mr.
Boviu. observed—respecting Mr. POOLE'S alleged
method of hearing confession, which a clerical
" brother " of the late Curate of St. Barnabas not
only transmitted, as the basis of a formal com-
plaint, to the Bishop of LONDON, but made, to
the very verge of indecency, the staple of his
harangue to a public meeting. To some extent
this question has been answered by the Bishop of
LONDON'S declaration that he considered those
statements unworthy of credit ; and if this con-
clusion of the Ordinary had been arrived at upon
testimony regularly proctuced and sifted before
him in accordance with the recognized rules of
evidence, his Lordship's verdict upon this point
might have superseded, or at least rendered un-
necessary, the not very edifying spectacle which,
we fear, is in store for the public when the cause
" Poole v. Baring " shall be brought into court.
The next point in issue is the main question—
a question of the deepest importance to the whole
Church of England,—the question, namely, whe-
ther the system of formal and habitual " auricu-
lar " confession, such as it is advocated by
theologians of the extreme Tractarian school, and
confessedly practised by the Hon. and Rev. Mr.
LIDDELL, Mr. POOLE'S Incumbent, and other
clergymen of th at school, is, or is not, consistent with
the doctrine and discipline of the Church of' Eng-

land, as set forth in her formularies of faith and
worship. To this question, also, an answer has
been given, though not in connection with the
exercise of his judicial function; by the same
Right Rev. Prelate whose declaration acquits
Poor of the indecencies laid to his charge by
Mr. BARING, while his judicial decision—the re.
vocation of Mr. PooLE's licence—has been made
the subject of an appeal to the Archbishop. The
exposition of the Church's principles upon tloi
point by the Bishop of LONDON ill his Primary
Visitation Charge—which, although not equiva-
lent to an authoritative decision of the whole
Church, is yet, as the deliberate opinion of a
Chief Pastor of the Church delivered ex cuthedrf;,
entitled to the most respectful consideration—
will command the assent of all sound and tem-
perate Churchmen, and is of great value, not only
because it is calculated to clear up and settle
men's minds on a matter rendered needlessly
intricate by casuistic subtlety, but because it
goes a great way to relieve the collateral issues
arising out of the proceedings against Mr. Poop:
of the weight of this, which is the main question.
Doubtless the exposition given by the Bishop of
LONDON of the Church's doctrine and intended
practice with regard to confession is subject to
the revision of higher authorities than that of a
single bishop ; but it is an exposition which, in his
Episcopal Charge, it was competent for him to give,
and which, unless called in question and set aside
by a superior decision, constitutes the rule by
which the clergy of his diocese are, in foro eon•
scientue, at all events, bound to regulate their
conduct. Nor do we apprehend that, before
whatever superior tribunal, and in whatever
form, this question may yet come to be can vassed,
there is the remotest chance of any decision being
pronounced at variance with the Bishop's lucid
and accurate exposition.

Feeling, as we do, deeply grateful to the Right
Rev. Prelate for the manly straightforwardness
with which he treated that important and, at
the present moment, so exciting subject in his
Charge, we no less deeply regret that we are
unable to speak with the same confidence re-
specting the course pursued by his Lordship in
regard to the third point involved in Mr. PooLE's
case—the question, namely, whether the Ikv.
AL FRED POOLE was duly convicted of such an
infringement of the doctrine and discipline of the
Church of England as to justify the extreme
severity of the sentence pronounced by the Bishop
—the revocation of his licence. On this point
several questions of great nicety arise. In the
first place it may be asked,—when the Bishop of
LONDON had, no matter by what process, arrived
at the conclusion that the statements on which
the complaint against Mr. PooLE was founded
were wholly unworthy of credit, was not the
Bishop, assuming the justness of his conclusion,
bound to dismiss the complaint altogether ? Was
he justified in extracting from the statements or
arguments advanced by Mr. POOLE, in his defence
against a charge which broke down altogether
from the discreditable character of the evidence
adduced in its support, materials for a totally
different charge—a charge preferred, not before,
but by the Bishop, combining in his own person
the characters of prosecutor and of judge? Fr,
ther, it may be asked, was he justified in passing
sentence upon Mr. POOLE on the ground of the
new charge improvised by himself in the coarse
of the proceedings arising out of the original
complaint, without furnishing the accused wit!'
the data upon which every judicial sentence Is
supposed to be based—that is to say, the specific.
acts by which the party sentenced is accused. of
having violated the law—and without affording
him the opportunity of making his defence, by
showing, if he can, either that he has not com-
mitted the acts limputed to him, or that they do
not involve a violation of the law ? Still further,
it may be asked, assuming in regard to these
preliminaries everything to have been done as
justice required, and Mr. POOLE to have been
duly convicted of a violation of the doctrine and
discipline of the Church of England, was thi,
sentence pronounced by the Bishop commensa-
rate with the offence, or was it excessive
it
question becomes the more important, since t
entire countenance and sanction of his Incumbent,
appears that in what he did Mr. PooLE had the
who, very naturally and very p
the circumstances, offered to take the onus of the
alleged offence, for which his Curate was called
in question, upon himaelf—an offer all the more
roperly, undhcr,