The Sun.
London, England, 1867-12-03 00:00:00

BRITONS, STRIKE HOME !

The meeting to be held in St. James's Hall on
Wednesday evening, will be a successful demon-

stration, in proportion as the English Catholic
public realizes its true position in the common-

wealth of this country. We anticipate, there-
fore, with confidence, that the tone of the speeches
to be made, and the numbers who will assemble
there, will reflect credit on us as a body. We
believe it will vindicate our character as being
not behind the age in which our lot is cast—not
unable (as says Napoleon III.) to comprehend our
epoch.
If there be one thing which has always com-

manded the respect, and elicited the sympathy of
Englishmen, it is an outspoken honesty of prin-
ciple on public occasions. Men like to know
about their fellow-men what:they really mean, how
far they personally mean what their principles seem
to pledge them to, or--as the common phrase runs
—" where to find them." When this has been
ascertained, with regard to Catholics, by plain,
unmistakable Catholic utterances, a considerable
portion of non-Catholic prejudice and antipathy
has been disarmed. For there does exist, though
most groundlessly, an impression which has made
itself felt in the popular tradition regarding the
Church, that the Catholic mind has more than its
share of arrierepensees reticence—to use the thrice-
slain Kingsley's word—economy. We are supposed
to be not a little economical and diplomatic.
Hence the floating opinion about us seems a kind of
converse of Burke's very questionable statement,
that vice loses half its evil by losing all its gross-
ness. Popery would be felt to have lost half its
evil by losing all its assumed finesse.
Various causes have combined to produce this
impression of our reticence. By no means the
least of them is the undeniable timidity with
which Catholic principles were at one time put
forth and advocated. Must we not go further and
say, the servility, the faint-heartedness, with which
they have sometimes been apologised for ? No
doubt, this partly arose from the necessity of
the case. It was inherent in the circumstances
of the Catholic cause in England up to forty
years ago. We have been almost creeping—our
evil-wishers would say, we have been stealing,
into something of our due position. There has
been no such conversion of the Empire as has en-
abled us in a moment to merge from the catacombs
below and occupy the basilicas above. There has,
indeed, been a process Emore ordinary, and one
(apart from miraculous exertions of Divine favour)
more healthy. The public mind has gradually,
and by growth of years and experience, changed
its hostile attitude towards us. Vetus error abuit,

and partly on positive grounds, constructively,

partly by contrast of the established religion
fading and perishing away before the people's
eyes, the stock prejudices have been relegated to
the chronicles of old-world time when George 111.
was King.

In the days of the Gordon riots the meeting
in St. James's Hall would have been as impossible
as in those of Titus Oates. In the days of Charles
Butler and his clique it would have been un-

thought-of, if not impossible. Had a Milner
proposed it a junta of so-called Catholic laymen
would have protested against it. But our day is
not the day of Lord George, nor is it the day of
Charles Butler. We are as little likely to encoun-
ter the cold half-belief of the one school as the
frenzied fanaticism of the other. We now hear
comparatively few from without, calling us idola-
ters. There is now hardly one within who would
have us call ourselves anything like "Protesting
Catholic Dissenters." A straggling exception may
be found on either side to prove the rule. As a
rule, the non-Catholic opinion towards us is every
day fairer. And we, in quietly asserting our
position among our fellow-subjects—not as con-
cession, but as right—are every day firmer.
Very directly does all this bear upon our
attitudeo
rm
sympathies
pi na t theies a
‘4riel notonaan question." As Catholics,
ulimited within the four seas
of our native land. The head and centre of our
religion, in the true metropolis of our best affec-
tions, has been suffering under the threats of a
crew of godless marauders. They have aimed at
everything of his which constitutes public action,
political existence, and even at his personal life.
Letters from Rome, given in another column will
be found amply to bear out what we now say. We
are not, cannot be, indifferent to these things.
We should cease to be Catholics if we could be so.
Charles Butler himself, were he to rise from his
grave, would be found wending his way to St.
James's Hall. It is very much to us whether the
Eternal City shall still be protected by the chival-
rous nation which at Mentara, as before it, has so
well earned its title of eldest child of the Church.
It is very much to us whether the faithful in Great
Britain and Ireland shall send more largely than
hitherto their quota of devoted volunteers, whose
personal character shall beseem the sacred cause
in which they engage. It is very much to us
whether a Conference of Christian Powers shall
be held to debate the soundest measures for up-
holding the centre of Christianity. And it is very
much to us, as Englishmen jealous for the honour
of our country, what part England shall take in
these momentous European transactions. We look
out with lively interest to know whether the
narrow-minded isolation of the times of Tudor,
Stuart, and Guelph is still to hold. We ask
whether England is to stand aloof while the rest
of the European family is swayed into emotion
and sympathy to and fro : or whether, more dis-
creditably, we are still and ever to cast our in-
fluence into the wrong scale ? Are we still to wear
the red shirt abroad, and swear in the special
constable at home? Shall we deify Garibaldi at
Monte Rotondo, while we call out the troops and
hang Fenians at Manchester ?
Much may be done to answer such imminent
questions by the meeting in St. James's Hall. It
is an appeal to public opinion by the united ex-
pression of our own. And as public opinion must
needs rule such a country as ours, it is in fact
carrying up our s'rong petition to the footstool of
the Sovereign.-- Westminster Ga:ette.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE WESTMINSTER GAZETTE.

THE GARIBALDIANS AT MONTE
ROTONDO.

S:r,—The two accompanying letters from Rome
cannot fail to interest your readers. They contain
graphie details of late events from persons on the
spot, and they are signed by names which, were I
at liberty to publish them, would sufficiently
guarantee the opportunities possessed by the writers
to know the truth. As it is, you must please to
accept the amount of authentication afforded by,
my own card, here enclosed. I have been com-
pelled" to abridge them, especially that part of the
second letter which speaks of the outrages com-
mitted by the Garibaldian freebooters in the Church
of Monte Rotondo.—l am, sir, yours faithfully,

SACERDOS.

6 Nov. 12.—As you may easily imagine, we have