been published; whereas if they cannot all be proved to be true, however much their publication may have been for the public benefit, and however laudable the motive, there is no justification. This was not always the law of England. When that law was in conformity with Catholic theology, the test of justification was not truth, and still less proof; but reasonable ground for belief, and laudable motive for publishing. Truth may be published malignantly; and for the law to excuse it because for the public benefit, is for the public to take advantage of a private wrong and personal sin. On the other hand, that which cannot be proved true may nevertheless be true; and that which is not true may be published innocently and laudably; and to punish a man who has proved some charges, not only for those he has not proved but for those he has, is surely both irrational and unjust. But, above all, to punish a man for not proving in particular detail charges he has proved in substance, is absolutely iniquitous. And Dr. Newman did prove the substance of all his most serious charges, so far as the general character of the crimes went, though not as to the precise degree or the particular detail. Even as to that he gave legal evidence in many instances; moral evidence in all; and he swore to his belief in all, on grounds which the court confessed to be just; yet he is mulct in ten thousand pounds! Was it, then, any fault of his that Rosa di Alessandris was just now unable to travel, or that the Neapolitan police-officer was aged? that the archives at Viterbo were burnt, and the documents at Naples not duly authenticated to Lord Campbell's critical taste? Does legal or moral responsibility rest on such an accident as the absence of a witness or loss of a paper? Such is English law, the law of the "most enlightened among the nations of the earth."

Mr. Justice Coleridge in passing sentence spoke of shame. We hope he felt it (as we do) not for the illustrious defendant, but for the hypocrisy of English law and the iniquity of Protestant justice, and, above all, for the hollowness of Anglican morality. His Lordship, in a tone of affected solemnity, embraced the occasion (with admirable taste) to deliver himself of a homily on Anglicanism, in which he spoke of candour, yet at the very same time condescended to borrow some of the coarsest and most contemptible topics of the prosecutor's counsel. Sir F. Thesiger, for example, having cross-examined one of the Italian witnesses as to how she came to tell the story of her shame, received for answer that her curate had told her it was right that she should do so for the honour of the Church and the glory of God; whereupon, with the most impudent perversion of the truth, he went on to represent

this speech not as an exhortation to the woman to come and speak the truth, but a temptation to commit perjury; and Mr. Justice Coleridge, after six months' reflection, actually retails this atrocious calumny from his judicial chair: "The honour of the Church and the glory of God," he said; "venerable names, but too likely in the minds of the uninstructed to lead to error and exaggeration :" strange names these, by the by, as applied to statements which, if not what they professed to be, strictly true, could only have been most wilful perjury. And this is not the only part of Judge Coleridge's homily which was unworthy of him. He went on to observe, that it was strange that one so immoral as Achilli was described to have been, should yet have been so caressed and promoted in the Catholic Church. Miserable misrepresentation! He well knew that the unhappy man (as he called him) was neither caressed nor promoted in any diocese, after his offences were discovered; but that, on the contrary, expulsion followed quickly upon detection; that he was forced to leave Viterbo in 1833, to secularise in 1839, and was arrested in Naples in 1841, and perpetually suspended in the same year. His lordship knew perfectly well that Achilli after his expulsion from Viterbo never continued long in the same diocese or even the same country, and in seven years was finally deprived. So much for the candour of Mr. Justice Coleridge.

But he was critical as well as candid. He did not like the style of Dr. Newman, and thought himself severely sarcastic when he said that the illustrious man's writings had not been characterised by personal accusation while he continued in the Anglican establishment, and conducted his controversy with Rome. The sarcasm may be easily retorted. The reason is, that in controversy with the Catholic Church there is no scope for such accusations. She seeks not her champions in men of tainted morality. She entrusts not her sacred cause to those whose life is impure. Her theologians are venerable for virtue as well as learning; her champions are selected for their sanctity not less than their ability. She may have unworthy sons, but she does not make them her patterns, or put them forward as her favourite children; but visits them, however mercifully, with condign chastisement and ultimate condemnation.

Another point in the judicial homily was a most unseemly attempt to take advantage of the case of Achilli, as affording not only no argument against Protestantism, but an argument against Catholicism. "Assuming him to have been as bad as had been represented (Coleridge said), Achilli was not brought up in the Protestant Church." But according to his own

account, he has been, all through his career of crime, really and in truth a Protestant. Ever since 1829 he declares that he has disbelieved the doctrines of the Catholic faith; and since 1832 has been "perfectly persuaded of their imposture," and has held so he affirms-the distinctive, negative views of Protestantism. We beg to ask what more could be required to constitute him a Protestant. What is Protestantism but disbelief of Catholicism? What other common ground have all its numerous sects? This has been amply illustrated in the case of Achilli himself. Church-of-England men, Independents, Wesleyans, Baptists, Methodists, all could combine to cherish him as their champion against Rome. They could concur in hate, though not in their love; in their unbelief, though not in their belief. Assuming Achilli's own account of himself to be true, he was as good a Protestant as the best of them. He believed as much as any of them, and much more than many. The Catholic Church, then, can certainly have no responsibility for a man who from his youth cast off her authority, disbelieved her doctrines, and discarded her discipline. From the moment Achilli disbelieved one of her doctrines, he became in heart a Protestant, and all his subsequent career was the career of a Protestant. He himself says in his book he never was really a monk; and he clearly shews that since 1830 he has not been a Catholic. The Church might as reasonably be deemed responsible for the morality of Luther after his apostasy, as for that of Achilli since his secret renunciation of Catholicism.

The mention of Luther reminds us of the remarkable parallel which was drawn by our Protestant judges between him and Achilli. Repeatedly they referred to the resemblance between them; and they evidently considered Achilli as a kind of modern Luther. When his book was quoted against him, acknowledging that for years after he had become "persuaded" of the falsehood of Catholic doctrines, he continued to teach them, he said, "that is only what your reformers did!" And Lord Campbell quite acquiesced. Again, when he was accused of violating his monastic vows by marriage, "Oh! (said Lord Campbell) Luther not only married, but married a nun." We accept the parallel; we recognise and acknowledge the likeness. It would be gross injustice perhaps to the German heretic to compare him with Achilli as respects his morality in practice. The one was as bad in theory as the other is alleged to have been in practice. Anyhow, they both display the indissoluble union between pride of heart and impurity of life between idolatry of the intellect and indulgence of the passions-between the right of private judgment and the laxity

of personal morality. This last point was admirably illustrated at the trial of the modern Luther. The Attorney-General of England, speaking of the great body of her gentry and clergy, declared the deadly sin of impurity to be one which but few among them could venture to disavow! Had Dr. Newman written this, what a clamour would have been raised! And, at the same time, the scrupulous law-officer of a no-Popery government vindicated his right to be considered a good antiPopery man, by imputing to Catholics a readiness to commit perjury "for the glory of God and the honour of the Church;" and to the inquisitors and other ecclesiastics of the Holy See a perfect capability for forgery. And lest these coarse calumnies should be deemed the ebullitions of excited advocacy, Mr. Justice Coleridge, a churchman of the high Anglo-Catholic school, grave, dignified, and solemn, lent his sanction to them all, and condescended in substance to repeat these detestable insinuations. While sentencing an alleged libeller, his lordship scrupled not to suggest that venerable ecclesiastics might be capable of conspiring to suppress the truth; and while speaking of candour and Christian kindness, he could insinuate that Catholic priests when exhorting a witness to confess the truth for the glory of God and the honour of the Church, intended to incite to perjury! What can be said more? We sum up all with the exclamation of the illustrious defendant at the commencement of the alleged libel, “Oh, the one-sidedness of Protestantism!" It was this text Dr. Newman undertook to illustrate when first he made mention of Achilli's history; and the subsequent proceedings have only multiplied the illustrations a hundredfold.

THE PRIEST AND THE PARSON.

A CONTRAST.

THERE are few words in our language, of cognate sense and once interchangeable, yet now suggesting to the English mind more distinct and opposite ideas, than those which we have placed at the head of this article-priest and parson. The parish priest is, or once was, the persona, the principal person, or parson, of every town and village in the land; and the term was originally intended as one of dignity and respect. By use, however, it has come to be considered rather a word of reproach, or at least of disparagement; and certainly nobody at the present day would think of using the two titles indiscriminately of one and the same person, excepting only in the

way of malicious antithesis, where it was desired to contrast the greatness of some man's pretensions with the meanness of his performances; as for instance, "Such a one claims all the powers and privileges of a priest, and is no better than a parson." Amongst ourselves, indeed, this latter word has become practically obsolete; no one ever dreams of calling a Catholic priest a parson; and until very recently the converse of this was equally true, viz. that no one ever thought of calling an Anglican parson a priest. Of late, however, there has been a change in this respect; and a few ministers of the Established Church, scattered up and down throughout the country, may now be found eagerly and even ostentatiously appropriating to themselves this coveted title, as an index of their claim to the possession of sacerdotal powers. Nevertheless the practice is as yet so extremely partial, that we feel we shall not be fairly liable to any charge of incorrectness or injustice, if in the following remarks we take the word 'priest' to mean only an ordained minister in the Catholic Church, and a 'parson' to mean only an ordained minister in the Establishment; and this without any reference to the invidious sense which modern usage may have affixed to either word, but simply considering them as words expressive of different ideas, and appropriated to different classes, which could not now therefore be interchanged without manifest impropriety. It is the same with regard to some other expressions which vary in different religious communities, and whose variations are equally significant: thus you may hear one Protestant ask of another, in a town where there are two or more places of worship belonging to the Establishment, whose church or chapel do you go to? and the question naturally falls into this form, because with them it is the individual minister, the preacher, who makes all the difference between one church and another.* Catholics, however, not recognising the pulpit as the great standard of measurement, might ask, Where do you hear Mass ?—but the name of the priest would never be to them the distinguishing characteristic of the church. Again, members of the Establishment and other Protestants always speak of sitting in such or such a part of the church, whilst a Catholic would use the word kneeling; and the different word denotes what is also a real difference in fact. Just so we seem to recognise in the use of the words now before us-priest and parson, distributed

*We lately heard this form of speech still further improved upon, and carried to what we should conceive must be its highest degree of perfection, by a poor woman, of whom we inquired where she went to church on a Sunday, with a view of ascertaining to what "religious denomination" she belonged. She immediately replied, "Sir, I am an unworthy partaker of Mr. B's table;" naming one of the Anglican ministers of the place!