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

STAMPED ....sd.

The " Times" on Count Montalembert.

Count Montalembert's grand burst in fo your of
liberty of conscience at the Congress at .Malines
seems almost to have taken the breath out of that
venerable assembly. It was prudently quolified,
indeed, with denunciation of the " intolerant Eng-
land of former days," the " intolerant wedon of
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 " Vendee,
starved Ireland, and agonising Poland." Here he
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 Montalembert, 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, ho 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-
depeadeOfor-Btptist, could say more. -41-Without
mental reservation and without hesitation, I declare
myself an upholder of liberty of conscience. 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 bow
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." Se
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 Montalembert'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
nis 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 he likes. There is no-
thing so easy as to shut your eyes. In this way
human nature—especially on religious questions—
defies all cross-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 us--an
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. I\l. Montalembert throws the Inquisition
overboard, and denounces the persecuting acts of
the Roman Church. He sacrifices a whole page of
the past.
Bat this is not all that M. Montalembcrt does.,
Re 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 ; and it is in full action at this moment
is Rome. Anybody in the Papal States can be put
in gaol fur 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 tho 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 pureentinded, disinterested preacher of any
doctrine whatever is a gag to M. Montalcmbert
himself, and therefore really a gag to the Pope, if
be 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
Roman 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. Moutalembert'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
Europe immediately, and eventually, upon his own
assumption, of every Roman 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, Tuesday.
—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 C El 0 by mail steamer. The Jessie Boyle sailed
from Plymouth July 3, and has therefore accomplished the
voyage out and home in one month and 28 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. Quebec.

A supply of :the new description of 4-inch ta-
pered
armour •Dlates. wh;-h Mo 'rs. Brown and Co.,
of Sheffield _ .ve contraeLe- supply to the Ad•
miralty for the stem and other parts of the iron
frigate Achilles, 6,000 tons, building at Chatham,
have arrived at that dockyard, and are now in the
hands of the mechanics to undergo boring, planing,
and bending processes preparatory to their being
affixed to those portions of the exterior of the
Achilles for which they are destined. The plates,
which are of the best possible description of rolled.
iron, are considerably larger than those used in
plating the broadsides of the Achilles, the whole of
the latter having been manufactured at the Park-
gate Works, Yorkshire, by the same firm which
4-inch iron irtohnicpk Insets:.
supplied the plates required in building tho Royal
and the
athpepartaenpte,rhinogwefovremr,
Oak. In their manufacture the "bloom" is rolled
afterwards given to the slabs of iron by the planing
toan
machines. This operation increases the cost of the
tapered plates as much as 25 per cent. over the or-
dinarythat in constructing an iron vessel, the chief merit
of which will consist in its shot-resisting power,
the whole of the plates should be as thick as it is
possible to produce them. T • This point has not
escaped the attention of the Admiralty, and
future iron
in the
construction of the Bellerophon and futu,
sels the tapering form will be given to theolalhiicE:
planking on which the plates are laid, and not
to
the plates themselves. The minimum thickness to
which each plate is planed is 3in., and these will be
affixed to those portions of the exterior of the Achilles
where it is scarcely possible a hostile shot will ever
strike her. On the exposed portions of the Achilles
the; plates are In thiCkness; but in the mu-
struction of the Bellerophon, which is to be imme-
diately commenced at Chatham, plates of a thick-
ness of 6in. will be used. The whole of the broad-
side plating of the Achilles has been completed, so
that the entire broadside on both sides the frigate
for a length of nearly 300 ft. presents an unbroken
surface of iron, the caulking of which can scarcely
be detected. About 50 only of the stern plates re-
main to be fixed. As soon as the Achilles has been
floated out of dock several hundred mechanics will
be at the disposal of the Admiralty, and these will
immediately commence the construction of Mr.
Reed's new iron ship the Bellerophon, the dockyard.
officials being anxious to retain the services of the
' hired hands, who during the time they have been
employed in the Chatham yard have attained re-
markable proficiency in iron shipbuilding. A por-

tion of the shipwrights will at the same time Com-
mence the iron-clad wooden frigate Lord Warden,
which is to be proceeded with simultaneously with

he Bellerophon.

His Prussian Majesty's frigate Adler, 4, Captain
Klatt, from Dantsic, last from Yarmouth, has ar-
rived in Plymouth Sound. After being supplied
with coal and provisions she will sail for Constan-
tinople and Athens.

Her Majesty's corvette Wolverene, launched on
Saturday at Woolwich, was yesterday hauled into
the inner basin, to be fitted with her boilers and
machinery, supplied by Messrs. Ravenhill, Salkeld,
and Co., of Millwall.

The screw steam troop ship Orontes, having been
repaired at Devonport, embarked seamen, marines,
and marine artillery on Monday, and yesterday
morning left Plymouth Sound for Gibraltar, Malta,
and the Mediterranean.

The screw steam gun-vessel Snipe, 5, from Sheer-
ness, arrived yesterday morning in Plymouth Sound,
for the purpose of replenishing with fuel, prepara-
tory to sailing for her destination, the West Coast
of Africa.

The following appointments have ben made at
the Admiralty :—Henry A Close, assist.-surg., to
___

the Royal Adelaide; Isaac B. Moorman, assistant-
paymaster in charge, to the Fox ; W. 0. Greens-.
dale, assist.-clerk, to the Racoon; and Charles F.
Roberts, assist.-clerk, to the Jackal.

THE ARMY.
The 21 Battalion of the Grenadier Guards, under
he command of Col. Bruce, returned to Welling-
:on Barracks yesterday morning from Aldershot,

where they hay() been doing duty under canvas for

the past four weeks.
The 19th Regiment left the Richmond-barracks
in Dablin, for Queenstown, on the 26th ult., and

embarked for Burmah on the 27th, in the Fanny
Fawcett and the Trafalgar.

A draught of the 70th Regiment, consisting of
Lieut. Monteith, one ensign, two sergeants, and 117
rank and file, are under orders to proceed shortly to
New Zealand from the camp at Colchester. About
50 volunteers from the various regiments have ar-
t he
rived at the camp for the purpose of joining

regiment.
The troops garrisoned in Portsmouth yesterday
were reviewed on Southsea.common by Major-Gen.
Lord W. Piulet, C. 8., the General officer command-
in.. the fortress of Portsmouth and the S.W. nun.
tary district.
The Secretary of State for War has considered it
expedient to establish uniform mks in regard to the
grant of public holidays to the artificers, labourers,
&c., in the various branches of the War Depart-
ment, and has therefore decided that in future the

following days only shall be observed as holydays

with pay :—Good Friday and Christmas My, the
latter, if falling on Sunday, may be observed on the
following day ; the anniversary of the Coronation
of the Sovereign; and the day fixed each year for

the observance of the Sovereign's birthday.
The new Government storehouses for ammunition,
and military clothing, on the Surrey side of the
river and close to the Charing-cross Railway, are
now completed, and will be shortly appropriated

for the reception of stores.
Capt. Seymour, Lieuts. Richards and Kennedy
six sergeants, six corporals, and 115 privates Royal
Marine Light Infantry, in duty on the Victoria
Victualling-yard at Deptford, returned to head-
quarters, Woolwich, yesterday, and were replaced
by a detachment, consisting of Lie'its. Wright and
Rule, six sergeants, six corporals, and 150 rank
and file from 'Woolwich.
The E and 1' batteries of the Horse Brigade and
No. 7, 13th Brigade Royal Artillery, under the

separate command of Capt. Newbolt, Lieut.-Col.
the Hon. D. Fraser, and Major Craufurd, were
yesterday relieved at Shoeburyness from Woolwich
by the C and G batteries, in command of Capt. Gore
and Major Newton. The troops arrived and de-
parted in the steamer Medusa, tender to the Cumber.
land, guard ship, of the steam reserve at Sheerness.
The barrack buildings formerly occupied by the
Sappers and Miners at Woolwich, and appropriated
for some years past to the use of the gentlemen
cadets of the Royal Military Academy, have been.
again vacated and transferred to the corps, now the
Royal Engineers, in consequence of the reduction of
the strength of the cadet company from 300 to 240,
the latter number being the maximum until new
arrangements are made. Many of the rooms are
in consequence occupied by three and four beds.
The deaths of the following officers have been
officially reported at the War-office since the Ist of
August :—Field-Marshal Colin Lord Clyde, G.C.8.,
K. 5.1., Colonel of the Coldstream Guards; Generals
J. Oldfield, K.H., Colonel-Commandant of the Royal
Engineers, and Lord Downes, G.C.8., Colonel of the
29th Regiment; Major-Gen.; W. Dunn, Royal
Artillery; Lieut.-Col. I. H. Burke, 31 Buffs;;
Majors J. Fraser, 60th Rifles, and R. Shepherd,
76th Regiment ; Captains W. Edgeworth, 3d Prince
of Wales's Dragoon Guards ; A: D. Gordon, 102 J
Royal Madras Fasileera ; W. R. Mulliner, 3d Writ
India Regiment ; H. T. Fox, Royal Marines ; N.
Furnace, 60th Il fles ; T. H. Trafford, Royal
Artillery ; J. Thomson, Gold Coast Artillery
Corps; W. Smith, 6th Regiment ; S. Milder, 15:h
Regiment ; J. Busteed, 16th Regiment ; W. Von
Lubeck, Brunswick Cavalry ; and J. N. Stober,
Cliasseurs Britanniques ; Ensign W. S. P. Keene,
2d West India Regiment ; Quartermasters W.
Mansfield, 22d Regiment, and F. de Bothtmer,
Brunswick Cavalry ; Inspector-Gen. of Hospitals
A. Stewart, M.D.; Surgeons F. 0. Barker, M.D.,
90th Light Infantry, and J. F. NiYison ; Assist,.
a
Surgeons T. F. Langstaff, and G. Rutherford, M,D.I
Veterinary Surg. M. Poett.