The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1868-09-13
Archbishop Manning on Thomas A'Beckett.

In speech delivered in Leeds on
Wednesday week, for the purpose of raising
subscriptions toward the restoration of the
Church of Saint Thomas of Canterbury in
believed that the principles which St.
Thomas of Canterbury vindicated by his
death would not be found to owe their
existence to an Established Church. He
would not enter, however, upon what would,
perhaps, be q painful and needless digres-
sion, but he would make certain references,
SO that those who had affirmed to the con-
trary might consider them at their leisure.
He wished any one who had that opinion
to read q work entitled "The Penal Laws
Against the Catholic Church," and DR..
Moran's work on the penal laws applied to
Ireland, and he thought SO doing would
satisfy any impartial mind that it was not
the legal establishment of a religion which
had produced civil and religious liberty in
England, either to those who were Nom
conformists OF Catholics, or in ireland. If
that was not enough, he commended them
to the book by Mr.. Skeats, the barrister,
he believed a Noncomformist, under the
title of History of the Free Churches
In one word, the last mentioned book
traced the history of Nonconiormity from
the time of Queen Elizabeth to the time of
Queen Victoria, showing how one-half of
the English people, unable to endure the
intolerable yoke of State religion, had re-
leased themselves from it, and had obtained
religious freedom by rejecting that which
had been said to be the guarantee for civil
and religious liberty. (Cheers.) He would
not refer to Scotland, but as some people
might say the first two books were written
by the Roman Catholics, and the last by a
should read Macaulay's history. Let any
one read his account of the Star Chamber,
and of the Court Of High Commission. an q.
finally, of the attempt to establish episco-
pacy in Scotland. If these references were
not sufficient to show that our civil and re-
ligious liberties had not been guaranteed
by the establishment of a religion, but been
vindicated and obtained only in proportion
as that legalized establishments had been
undOne, he would give up the attempt to
prove anything from history. (Cheers.) So
much for the first circumstance, as he would
call it. 1t was said day or two ago, in an
exceedingly temperate, and he must say
just and respectable letter, signed Gree
Kirk" that he had said st. Thomas of
Canterbury died because he had refused to
allow the temporal power to nominate
bishops, and it was to deceive the English
people to say that what he died for was
what English people held sacred.
What he had said was that the Free Kirk
would not allow the civil power to nominate
their bishops; but substantially his argu-
ment was, that st. Thomas died for the lib
erty of the Church, which meant the liberty
Of the clergy; but the liberty of the laity
was contained in the liberty of the clergy.
God had ordained that they should be pas
tors and leaders of the focks, to go first
into the conflict, and to lay down their
lives, rs st. Thomas did, for the liberty. of
the flock. When you speak of an army,
you speak of the rank and file, and not of
the officers only; but he was a bad officer
who did not lead his men. They had heard
of the old officer who ran away, but told
his men to keep on fighting. Catholics
held, however, that those who should lead
the laity in the conflicts where liberty of
conscience and religion were at stake, were
those whom God had appointed to be pas
tors, and those pastors were unworthy who
did not expose their lives to peril and death
before any layman came into conflict.
(Hear.) Not to lay down their lives for
the sake of such liberty, was a thing i'm
possible in the Catholic Church. Possible
it was in those bodies separated from her
unity. Quite possible, he thought, in Scot
land-impossible in Ireland. Impossible in
Ireland because she was Catholic. Impos-
sible among the Catholics of England, and
impossible throughout the Church in all
the weld. There was a most remarkable
proof 0fsNhe truth of this in the Times of
Tuesday. In that paper there was an ex-
ceiient article, commenting upon the pain
full uncertainty in which certain muniticent