Daily globe., 1881-07-31
Rer s. G. sr,.ttn,s misauosat,ons.

To the Editor OF the Globe:
Perhaps should apologize TO the read
ers of the GLoBE for taking this further
notice of Rev: S. g. Smith. The peculiar
tactics, however, of the reverend gentle
man seem to require me to do so. AS
Ibefore, he pleads innocence of any otfense
III point of quoting authorities, and
charges criminality in that respect upon
me- If the omission of words in scrip
ture text that are thought not to have any
bearing on the point under consideration,
is mutilating of scripture, then have
the wisest and best Of men been guilty of
such mutllation. In my spoken discourse
I | NAV or NAV not have cited the text In
full, as | spoke without notes, and several
times IN the course of these lectures re-
cited the same text IN full; besides, there is
scarcely a text, in the Bible that was more
| familiar to my hearers than the text in
question, and they could supply
at once IN their own minds the
we'll known words if they were omitted.
In the manuscript the words which SEEM
ed to me unimportant were left out for
the sake of brevity only, and their omis-
sion indicated by asterisks. If Mr.. Smith
chooses 10 call this mutilating scripture
he is perfectly at liberty to do so.
As to the charge that forged new
Manning Mr.. Smith should show in
what respect misrepresented Cardinal
| Manning. | found two quotations from
the cardinal in Mr.. Smiths lecture, and
placed them together for the purpose of
commenting upon them. l thought l
had indicated that the quotations were
not consecutive by my '.favorite' aster-
| isks, but somehow, n this case, these
were omitted. What It behooved Mr..
Smith to show when making his charge,
was. that this eollocating of the sentences
changed in some way the meaning or
bearing of the words in either. This MIR.
Smith will not dare to assert. l COM
mented on each of the quotations with
out reference whatever to the other.
Where, then, is the bad faith on my part
which Mr. Smith insinuates! For
gerry? Why my chief task
throughout this controversy has been
to defend the true Manning against Mr..
| Smiths counterfeit presentment OF him.
/ should be glad if my arraignment Of
Mr. Smith were in any degree as unjusti-
| fable as his charges against me. That
he gave the passage from Cardinal Man.
ming in full in his spoken discourse when
the words could easily escape observa-
ton, is no excuse for his suppressing
them in his written report furnished to
| the press. The passage stood in his print
ed lecture as complete, without quota
ton marks, in which an essential clause
was suppressed and no Indication given
| that there was any omission Of words
Mr.. Smith should know that the con-
troversy turned upon the authoritative
printed abstracts or lectures, and not upon
the reports Of stenographers or others.
And | beg to say here to the
Rev. Gentleman that ''asterisks" and
'sinverted commas hGee value and
significance, and to make light Of them
as he does, betrays a want, to say the
least, of literary honesty, and in the pres
ent case, Of something more than literary
honesty.
Mr. Smith in mis- last card puts in as
an excuse for his garbling of this passage
that the words suppressed ''do not change
the meaning of the passage in the least"
Were this his candid thought at the
time he omitted the words, the excuse
might be admissible, though as an excuse
not be. But he makes his candor more
than suspected by the fact
that in every instance in quoting
Cardinal Manning, he carefully
evades words Immediately preceding
and following in the context that qualify
and determine the meaning of the words
in the passages quoted. Now, as fact,
the words suppressed by Mr.. Smith are
important. They qualify ''history, " and
indicate the point of view from which the
cardinal is treating Of these histories.
The words refer not alone to uninsplred
and secular histories, but histories from
many causes untrustworthy, and often
written with malice towards the truth, or,
in the words Of the text, histories written
by men mot seldom inspired by any other
than the spirit of Cod
The divine constitution Of the church,
with its prerogatives of authority and
1nerrancy, is as much a revealed truth as
is the divinity of Christ, or the divine
character of the Christian religion.
These truths stand on the same
foundation IN the solemn words
and declarations Of Jesus Christ:
they are equally matters of divine faith
AS right reason cannot contradict faith,
so cannot true history contradict faith.
The treason" and the history in either
case, supposed to contradict faith, must be
at fault; that is, the reason is not right
reason, the history is not a true history,
or the inferrences from either are not
warrantable. This is the key to the un-
derstanding of Cardinal Manning which
Mr.. Smith falsified at the beginning OF
his course of lectures by substituting
for Cardinal Manning's woads, words OF
his own, ''facts of history for the Car
dinal's difficulties Of history" This is
the light which illumins all that the Car
dinal asserts and which Mr.. Smith tries
to darken, whether through wilful mis-
apprehension or through malice shall not
say. But this is to ''postulate infallibility."
Certainly it is. 1t is to postulate infalli-
bility against questionable and doubtful
alleged facts of history as affect the
truths of revelation, in the same way as
Mr. Smith, If he has faith, postulates the
| divinity of Christ against the arguments
of Renan, and postulates the divine at
tributes of Christianity against Gibbon
and Hume 1t is in regard of such
| writers as these and the pretended his
| torical critics of our times IN England
| and on the continent, that this passage
of Cardinal Manning, quoted so arro-
| gantly by Mr.. Smith, refers: "The pre-
tentious historical criticism of these days
hoe ,,rovaiIad apd will nrevaiI tn under