The Sun.
London, England, 1865-01-13 00:00:00

Apologia pro vita sua. Of Cardinal Wiseman, Dr.
Newman there spoke, it may be remembered, in
terms eminently significant, of his being, in truth,
facile princeps among his co-religionists. Speaking
of what he regards as the harmonious continuity of
Cardinal Wiseman's career, the Reviewer takes
occasion, in the course of this paper in the cur=
rent number of the Dublin to remark as follows :
It is full of interest to trace out the early working of a
mind which for the last five-and-twenty years has partly
been mixed up with all the great movements which have
restored the Catholic Church in England, and partly has
led and directed them as their head and chief. We seem
to see in them the germs of what we now see in its matu-
rity. And the bearing of it upon our present state is so
intimate and direct, that we cannot refrain from notic-
ing it somewhat more fully. The first feature which
strikes us in all that has come from the pen of the Cardinal
Archbishop of Westminster, from his first volume of Lec-
tures to his Pastoral of last summer, is its perfect same-
ness. We do not see anywhere the changes, precipitations,
the alternate advances and retreats, the modifications and
uncertainty of judgment which characterize the public life
and published writings of so many men of acknowledged
learning and power. A certain steadfast growth always
expanding itself from one centre, and always homogeneous
and identical with its past, is the character of the writer's
mind, Few men have written more variously : works on
the Syriac language, on Catholic Doctrine, on Polemical
Theology, on the Evidence of the Fathers, on Art, Taste,
History, Biography, Reminiscences of Pontiffs, Poetry ;
works of pure imagination ; essays on the most miscella-
neous subjects ; and yet in their great variety one mind
pervades all, and one spirit quickens all—the mind and
spirit of a true Christian and an ultramontane Catholic.
From first to last there is no wavering, no uncertainty, no
minimizing of the doctrines and laws of the Church. It
is seldom that such'a sameness can be found tlifough a life
so long, and so externated by both words and writings.
This seems to be the peculiar benefit of a Catholic forma-
tion. And perhaps few men in England, at this day, have
had it more completely. Born in Catholic Spain, reared
at Ushaw, educated in Rome, where all his early life was
spent, the Cardinal has never known what it is to have a
mutilated faith or an incoherent theology. To the twenty
years•spent in Rome must be ascribed the peculiar large-
ness of apprehension as to the office and action of the Catho-
lic Church, which has marked his whole career. Looking
back upon it, who can doubt that it was the providential
formation for the mission which awaited him in England ?
There are two things which Rome does for a priest, and
which we believe no other place can do in the same de-
gree. The one is to expel from the mind the national,
local, personal prejudices derived from race, education,
social usage, family tradition, and to give it a breadth, com-
prehensiveness, and variety in its appreciations of the
Church, her mind, her instincts, her organization, her re-
ligious orders, her devotions. Rome, as the focus of the
Universal Church, contains in germ all that exists through-
out Catholic Unity. There, as S. Cyprian says, " the
Sacerdotal Unity takes its rise," and from thence every re-
ligious order derives itself ; to it all refer—there the secular
and religious clergy live in an unity which arises only from
a consciousness of their reciprocal needs and duties, and
that the perfection of each depends on the other ; there,
too, all nations have their churches. •` The nations of the
redeemed," as S. John writes, "walk in the light of the
Jerusalem of the New Law." Any one who has lived in
Rome will have received an impression of the unity, and
universality of the Church, and of the diversity of her
spiritual creations, which will for life govern his judgment,
and suggest a multitude of undertakings by which the
the spirit and action of Rome may be reproduced in
all parts of the world. Witness the last fourteen years in
the Diocese of Westminster.
Apart, however, completely, from the importance
appertaining to him by reason of his ecclesiastical
character, Cardinal Wiseman occupies, no doubt, a
conspicuous position in the eyes of Protestant
England, not only by reason of the scope and
depth of his ripe and rare scholarship, but beyond
that, by reason of his being a man of undoubted
genius—as evidenced by his exquisite tale of
FABIOLA—a tale in which his vivifying imagi-
nation has created a soul under the ribs of death
in the vast and awful solitude of the Catacombs.

Proclamation by President Davis,

President Davis has issued the following procla-
mation respecting the attempt of Bennett G. Burley
to capture the United States steamer Michigan :
"By authority of the Confederate States of
America : Whereas,- it has been made known to me
that Bennett G. Burley, an acting master in the
navy of the Confederate States, is now under arrest
in one of the British North American provinces, on
an application made by the Government of the
United States for delivery to that Government of
the said Bennett G. Burley, under the treaty known
as the extradition treaty now in force between the
United States and Great Britain ; and whereas it

has been represented to me that said demand, for
the extradition of said Bennett G. Burley, is based
on a charge that said Burley is a fugitive from jus-
tice, accused of having committed crimes of robbery
and piracy in the jurisdiction of the United States ;
and whereas it has further been made known to
me that accusations and charges made against
the said Bennett G. Burley are based solely
on the acts and conduct of said Burley in an enter-
prise or expedition made or attempted in the month
of September last, 1864, for the capture of the
steamer Michigan, an armed vessel of the United
States, navigating the lakes on the boundary line
between the United States and said British North
American provinces, and for the release of numerous
citizens of the Confederate States, held as prisoners
of war by the United States at a certain island,
called Johnson's Island :
And, whereas, said enterprise or expedition for
the capture of said armed steamer Michigan, and
for release of said prisoners on Johnson's Island,
was a proper and legitimate belligerent operation,
undertaken during pending public war between the
two Confederacies, known respectively as the Con-
federate States of America, and the United States
of America, and which operation was ordered,
directed, and sustained by the authority of the Go-
vernment of the Confederate States, and confided
to its commissioned officers for execution, among
which officers is said Bennett G. Burley.

" Now therefore, I, Jefferson Davis, President of
the Confederate States of America, do hereby de-
clare and make known to all whom it may concern,
that the expedition aforesaid, undertaken in the
month of September last for the capture of the
armed steamer Michigan, vessel of war of the
United- States, and for the release of the prisoners
of war, citizens of the Confederate States of Ame-
rica, at Johnson's Island, was a belligerent expedi-
tion, ordered and undertaken under authority of the
Confederate States of America against the United
States of America ; and the Government of the
Confederate States of America assumes the
responsibility of answering for the acts and
conduct of any of its officers engaged in
said expedition, and especially of the said Bennett
G. Burley, an acting master in the navy of the
Confederate States. And I do, therefore, make
known -to all whom it may concern, that in orders
and instructions given to the officers engaged in
said expedition, they were specially directed and en-
joined to abstain from violating any of the laws
and regulations of the Canadian and British autho-
rities in relation to neutrality, and that the combi-
nation necessary to effect the purpose of said expe-
dition must be made by Confederate soldiers, and
such assistance as they might, you may draw from
the enemy's country. In testimony whereof, I have
signed this manifesto, and directed the same to be
sealed with the seal of the Department of State of
the Confederate States of America, and to be made
public.
" Done at the. city of Richmond, on the 24th day
of December, 1864.
(Signed) " JEFFERSON DAVIS, President.
‘z J. P. BENJAMIN, Secretary of State."

ROYAL MILITARY ACADEMY, WOOLWICH.—In
consequence of an article which has appeared in
print reflecting prejudicially upon the character of the beer
supplied by Messrs. Ind, Coope, and Co., of Romforj,
to
the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, that firm having
memorialised the Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of Cam-
bridge, his Royal Highness at.once ordered an investiga-
tion into the circumstances, the committee of which was
composed of the leading officers of the Royal Artillery sta-
tioned at that depot. The result of this inquiry may be
gathered from the following official document :—" The
Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief having caused the
memorial addressed to him by Messrs. Ind, Coope, and
Co. to be referred for the report of the Lieutenant-Governor
of
~the, Royal Military. Academy, Woolw'ch, the Military
Secretary has now received his Royal Highness's directions
to forward to Messrs. Ind, Coope, and Co. the proceedings
of a meeting of the Gentlemen Cadet Mess Committee con-
vened for the purpose of considering the purport of their
memorial. A statement of the medical officer of the Cadet
Company is also inclosed. These documents exonerate
Messrs. Ind, Coops, and Co. from the charges they allude
to regarding the quality of the beer supplied by them to
the institution.—lioree Guards, Dec. 20, 1864,"