The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-02 00:00:00

PR1C1T...... 1..4d.
STAM FED ....sd.

The " Times" on Count Montalembert,

Count Montalenabert'srand burst in favour of
liberty of conscience at the Congress at l‘faiines
seems almost to have taken the breath out cf that
venerable assembly. It was pruclantly qua ijfied
indeed, with denunciation of the " intoleran
the "intolerant 6wetrienng-
e'f
land of former days,"
to day," with encomiums on " Thomas Morns," the
victim of Anglican persecution, and the "pious
Jesuits who bathed cruel England with their blood,"
and with lamentation over butchered " Vendtte,
starved Ireland, and agonising Poland." Here lie
carried his audience all with him. But when he
turned the tables upon them, and declared he hated
the Spanish persecutor as much as he did the French
terrorist, applause was mingled with " sensation."
Count Montalcmbert, however, drives the whole
system of toleration, with all its contents, straight
down the throat of the assembly ; swallow it they
must and they shall, he allows no quarter ; it is a
stiff mouthful for them, but " it will do them good."
He allows no exception, no qualification ; the full
and absolute rights of conscience—the right of every-
body to hold, utter, and preach, by word of mouth
or by writing, whatever he thinks to be true, with-
out let or hindrance, without penalty or restraint—
are his watchwords. No Dissenter, Methodist, In-
dependent, or Baptist, could say more. " Without
' mental reservation and without hesitation, I declare
myself an upholder of liberty ofconscience. I frankly
accept all its consequences. . . . Can one at the
present day demand liberty for truth and refuse it
to error ? I distinctly say No.' . . . I how
before all the texts, all the canons that may be cited
to me, and not one of them will I contest or discuss.
But I cannot to-day repress the conviction which
reigns in my conscience and in my heart. . .
I declare that I feel an invincible horror for all tor-
tures and violence inflicted upon humanity under the
pretext of serving or defending religion. . . .
The fagots lighted by a Catholic hand inspire me
with as much horror as the scaffolds on which the
Protestants have immolated so many martyrs." So
far, however, the speaker only protests against vie-
lence and bloodshed. Is he in favour of intolerance in
any milder shape, as a negative principle checking
the spread of obnoxious doctrine, allowing people
to hold their own opinions, but interfering with
their efforts to convince others of the truth of them ?
He casts it to the winds, and will have nothing to do
with any modification of intolerance. The gag
forced into the mouth of whomsoever lifts up his
voice with a pure heart to preach his faith—that
gag I feel between my own lips, and I shudder with
pain." This is the full charter of liberty of con-
science—the right to promulgate opinion, to pro-
selytise, to attack publicly the dominant creed, and
establish any new sect you please, so long as you
confine yourself to the weapons of argument and per-
suasion. This is " a fair field and no favour," and
Count Montalembert advocates it not only as a
debt to justice, but also "in the interest of
Catholicism."
All this is in keeping with Count Montaiembcrt's
public spirit, and with that signal and enthusiastic
advocacy of political liberty which brought him so
Prominently before Europe some time ago. And
vet such language in the mouth of an ardent Ultra-
montane arrests us, and takes us at first by surprise.
And why ? Because we should have expected be-
forehand that M. Montalembert would have liked
the Spanish Inquisition, and that kind of persecu-
tion ? Not at ail. We could never have dreamt of
pis having any other opinion of the Spanish Inqui-
sition than that which he now expresses. But M.
Montalembert says what he thinks, and says it
openly, honestly, and without the least reserve or
disguise ; and that is an unusual and extraordinary
fact. Every educated Catholic, every prelate, every
ecclesiastic of the slightest mind and information
in the Roman Church, must know that the Spanish

Inquisition was an abomination, and that other
things which were done at the instigation of the
Church in those days were utterly indefensible. He
would not uphold for a moment the acts of those
days ; he must in his own mind give them up. But
he will shrink from denouncing them in public.
" It will not do to say so. It will not do to own this.
No, that is impolitic. It will not answer to aban-
don the past in this way, and sacrifice a page of
history. We must not throw our friends overboard.
They meant well, those old lighters of faggots ;
they were earnest men, though somewhat stern ;
they were devoted sons of the Church ; we
must not part company with them ; we must
carry them along with us on the road of time, and
say as little about them as we can." That is the
attitude of the educated Romanist world towards
the atrocities of the past which shock the moral
sense. It is one of those reticencies, and suppres •
sions, and shirkings in which human nature delights.
There is nothing so easily avoided and escaped as
owning the truth. The debt to truth is such a mere
nominal affair, hardly to be called a debt at all ;
nobody need pay it unless ho likes. There is no-
thing so easy as to shut your eyes. In this way
human nature—especially on religious questions—
defies all cros:examination, and stands fairly at
bay, in the comfortable assurance that the pincers
have not been yet invented which can extract the
truth from it. It is, therefore, a surprise to us7an
agreeable surprise—to hear a man simply saying
what he knows to be true. It is an unusual act,
partaking of the miraculous in the world of religious
speech. M. Montalembert throws the Inquisition
overboard, and denounces the persecuting acts of
the Roman Church. Ho sacrifices a whole page of
the past.
Bat this is not all that M. Montalembert does.;
He declares his hostility to all the existing remains
of this system—to that modified persecution which
consists in simply prohibiting the spread of new
doctrines, and coercing the agents in such efforts,
imprisoning them, and fining them. But this
is the system now in Spain ; it has only just
been abolished by Sardinian rule in the greater
part of Italy; end it is in full action at this moment
in Rome. Anybody in the Papal States can be put
in gaol for disseminating obnoxious doctrine. Will
M. Montalembert try to convince his Holiness of
the impropriety and inexpediency of this policy ?
Will he urge upon the Holy Father the noble duty
of throwing open, " in the interest of Catholicism,"
the religious area over which he rules, and admit-
ting all sects to preach and spread their doctrines
at Rome by whatever peaceful. means they can ?
Let there be no gag. The gag forced into the mouth
of the pure-minded, disinterested preacher of any
doctrine whatever is a gag to M.
Montalcmbert
therefore really a
himself, and gag to the Pope, if
he could but feel it. Every gag upon a heretic is
a gag upon the. Roman Catholic also. It is a source
of weakness, discouragement, and stagnation to the
Boman Church, accustoming her to depend upon an
arm of flesh instead of upon the intrinsic purity and
sublimity of her faith, keeping her within barriers,
and preventing her from throwing herself upon the
heart of Catholicism, and giving free vent to all her
powers and energies. That is M. Montalembert's
opinion, and if he can convince the Holy Father of
the truth of it, he will do a work which will, at
any rate, gain him the praise of every Protestant in
T;Airoue irunudiately, and eventually, upon his own
assumption, of every Boman Catholic.

Dispatches were sent yesterday, from the Colonial
Office, to the governors of the West India Islands, British
Columbia, and Bermuda,
QUEBEC TIMBER TRADE. —PLYMOUTH, TUPsclay.
—The ship Jessie Boyle, Captain W. Symons, which left
Quebec August 12th, arrived here yesterday, the 31st, only
two days after the owner's receipt of the master's sailing
letter, which eame by inail steamer. The Jessie Boyle sailed
from Plymouth July 3, and has therefore accomplished the
voyage out and home in ono month and 23 days. Like others,
she made a voyage in the spring. Unless the Shannon has
arrived at Greenock, or the Jane at Liverpool, the Jessie
Boyle is the first ship home to England on the second voyage
this year. The -Eliza and. City of Ottawa were left loading.
They belong to Plymouth, which has this year despatched
nine other ships on their second voyage to,Quebee.

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