The Sun.
London, England, 1868-09-07 00:00:00

ST. THOMAS A BECICET.

In Archbishop Manning's lecture, delivered
on Wednesday evening at Beaumont Insti-
tution, two points especially arrest attention.
One is the idea which he desired to impress
upon his hearers, that in raising a church to
St. Thomas at Rome the Catholics of England
were not merely providing another place of
worship and another shrine to St. Thomas, but
were bearing outward testimony to the unity
of principle which bound Catholics of every
country and every age together in their vene-
ration of St. Thomas, and giving visible ex-
pression at a time when it was most needed of
the homage felt by every Catholic for the
principles for which St. Thomas died ; for
St. Thomas, as the Archbishop observed, was
not only "a Saxon saint and English mar-
tyr, but a saint of the Catholic Church
and martyr for the Church Universal." This
idea is a complete answer to a common but
superficial objection that churches are more
needed in England than in Rome. But what
is in reality more needed even than churches
is that spirit, we may say that Catholic in-
stinct, which at once sees the moral fitness,
on occasions, of rising above local wants and
necessities, and taking part in a public act
belonging to a higher order of ideas, and
manifesting a deeper union of heart and mind
than is ordinarily called for. The building
of this Church of St. Thomas at Rome by
English Catholics at this special juncture is, as
we look at it, one of those rare occasions of
testifying the higher union which links Catho-
lics of other days, like St. Thomas, with the
Catholics of to-day in a community not only
of faith but of trials and of dangers. It
bespeaks the spiritual affinity which exists
between us.

In days like the present, when the evil prin-
ciples which raised the arm of violence against
St. Thomas are active in instigating violence
against the Successor of St. Peter and the
Holy See, it behoves Catholics to testify, by
some visible act, their veneration for the spirit
which led St. Thomas to lay down his life for
the freedom of the Church, and which animates,
in like manner, the Vicar of Christ in his de-
fence of the independence of the Holy. See
against the. viek„nce off'' an impious revolution.
The other poilifalluded. to lay Archlish4 M4n,
fling, we need only briefly refer-to. It is his
courageous adherence to the fact which he has
so triumphantly vindicated against critics in-
numerable in the Protestant press, that St.
Thomas laid down his life in defence of reli-
gious liberty against the usurpations of the
Civil Power and the arbitrary acts of the King
done in violation of the law of England. Dr.
Manning shows also that the principle of the
independence of religion from the interference
of the State is a principle dear to-day to
the hearts of the Dissenters of England. St.
Thomas is also an exemplar whom Anglicans
ought to strive to follow, for no religionists
in England have lost so much of the spirit of
religious independence or fallen so much under
State control as the unfortunate members of
the Anglican Church. The Royal Supremacy
in spiritual matters, which St. Thomas died
rather than submit to, has been abjectly ac-
cepted by Anglicans. If they wish to regain
Catholic liberty and Catholic truth they must
begin by imitating the spirit of St. Thomas
of Canterbury. They, beyond all others, ought
to be grateful to Dr. Manning for bringing the
name and conduct of our great English martyr
so prominently under public notice, and we
hope that not a few of them may have the
grace to take part in Catholic homage to St.
Thomas and his principles, by contributing to
the building of a Church in his honour at
Rome.— Westininster Gazette.

THE LEGAL-TENDER ACT.

- -46- -

(From the Anglo-American Times.)

The Supreme Court of the United States is about 1
to deliver a judgment on the constitutionality of
the Legal-Tender Act of 1862. Those who best .
understand the composition of the Court are con- :
vinced that it will decide against the legality of the
Legal Tender. Of the eight judges,- four are De-
mocrats, whose party always affirmed the uncon-
stitutionality of the irredeemable currency, and two
incline towards that party. The judges, DUDLEY,
FIELD, GRIER, CLIFFORD, and NELSON, will, it is be-
lieved, pronounce the Act to be invalid, so it is pre-
sumed will Judge DAVIS and even Chief Justice
CHASE, who, though the author and nicknamed "Old
Greenbacks," will, it is said, favour the same opinion.
The effect of such a judgment will be momentous
and ramify over Europe, where millions of the
national Securities are held. The greenback con-
troversy would then cease, and the question of re-
pudiation assume a naked form, and cease to be
disguised for the benefit of those tender consciences
who desire to be dishonest, but require a plausible
pretext. Should the Court, from which there
is no appeal, pronounce this judgment, the
Government could not tender to its debtors
as money that which the law of the
United States decided not to be money, and
Repudiation, narrowed to its simple issue—to be,
or not to be—would require its advocates to stand
forth shorn of all disguise. Then, too, would dis-
appear, the contrast so generally used to excite a
mischievous feeling, " one currency for the rich
and idle bondholder, and another for the poor hard-
working labourer." It is not easy to realize what
the immediate effect would be. The greenback
promises to pay must, of course, be fulfilled ; but
those who carried these notes to the Treasury to be
exchanged for gold would merely lose their time,
for though the Treasury can manufacture green-
backs it cannot manufacture gold. An inconvert-
ible paper currency quickly attains the one end of
sending the precious metal out of the countyr, for
it depreciates the money it replaces, while the
metal retains•its value elsewhere, and according to
the laws of trade the discrepancy is equalized by
its flow elsewhere. In case of the anticipated
judgment, the old currency having evaporated
while the new is declared to be no currency, what,
under such circumstances, is that great nation with
i:s great trade, thus deprived of every medium to
barter, to do ? Legal or illegal, the people would
be compelled to circelate greenbacks, and as such a
decision will force the Government to redeem its
depreciated paper at par, it ought to enhance, not
lessen, its value. So many more additional millions
of obligation would press for immediate settlement,
and the holders would be compelled to hold till
the Treasury could meet the claim. It is not by
affecting the value of greenbacks that the decision
would be felt, but in the innumerable transactions
of barter, and what that effect would be is impos-
sible except for those intimately acquainted with
the trade of the United States to predict. The law
which made greenbacks a legal tender sacrificed
millions to one class in expunging a large propor-
tion of the liabilities of debtors. Men who had
lent gold on mortgage received back perhaps half
the sum as the legal repayment, and in a country
where one man's surplus is readily lent to develope
the property of his neighbour, the loss to the lending
class was enormous. The expected judgment would
exactly reverse this, making the lender the gainer,
for the sum he gave in greenbacks must be re-
funded in gold. Twice the Senate passed a bill for
• allowing contracts to be made for payment in gold,
1_ but in each case the House of IZepregentatises re-

fused to concur. With such a judgment hanging
over the country men will fear to lend, to borrow,
or to make any contracts which bind them to a
money payment at a distant period. Had the
Senate's bill been passed this danger would have
been avoided, for the contracts could then have
been made in gold and legally be enforced, whereas
now if gold be specified the contract is binding in
honour, but not in law. Perhaps in saying this we
go too far, as we understand that the Courts have
lately inclined to enforce specie contracts, which
with care may be so drawn out as to be legally bind-
ing. Security and a power of accurate calculation are
main elements in the prosperity of trade, in which
there are risks and liabilities enough without any
legislative addition. Although we cannot fully esti-
mate the derangement likely to ensue on such a judg-
ment, we are convinced that among so acute a people,
who so readily adapt themselves to circumstanc:s,
they will quickly devise expedients to meet the
case. One thing, however, looms through that
mist—a forced return to specie payments. This
will be severely felt, breaking hundreds of paper for-
tunes, and searching out everything weak and de-
ceptive. It would .be a strange end for the finan-
cial quidnuncs of the United States to have arrived
at if the Supreme Codrt pronounces the Legal ren-
der Act unconstitutional, that the national trade,
the second only in magnitude ou earth, should be
without a currency.