LETTER TO A REV. MEMBER OF THE CAMDEN SOCIETY

I first thought that the Camden Society was merely a scientific body, pursuing an object which, like ail branches of hislory, is of the utmost importance to religion, and with which ail religious minds could associate , but like the French Comité historique , not setting up the flag of any spécial ecclesiastical dénomination. On a nearer study of your publications, I hâve percehed that they are carried on, with the professed intention of blending together the interests of Catholic art and of the Church of England , and of identifying the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages in England with the Anglican schism begun by Henry VIII and Cranmer, and professed at présent by ail those who agrée to the Thirty-nine Articles. Against this intention, I, as an honorary member of the said society, beg to enter my most earnest and most Catholic protest.

First, and principally, I protest against the most unwarranted and most unjustifiable assumption of the name of Catholic by people and things belonging to the actual Church of England. It is easy to take up a name, but it is not so easy to get it recognized by the world and by compétent authority. Any man, for example, may come out to Madeira and call himself a Montmorency or a Howard, and even enjoy the honour and considération belonging to such a name, till the real Montmorencys or Howards hear about it, and denounce him; and then such a man would be justly scouted from society, and fall down much lower than the lowliness from which he had attempted to rise. The attempt to steal away from us and appropriate to the use of a fraction of the Church of England the glorious title of Catholic, is proved to be an usurpation by every monument of the past and présent ; by the coronation oath of your sovereigns, by ail the laws that hâve established your Church, even by the récent answer of

your own university of Oxford to the lay address against Dr. Pusey, etc., where the Church of England is justly styled the Reformed Protestant Church. The name itself is spurned at with indignation by the greater half, at least, of those who belong to the Church of England, just as the Church of England itself is rejected with scorn and detestation by the greater half of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom. The judgment of the whole indiffèrent world, the common sensé of humanity, agrées with the judgment of the Church of Rome, and with the sensé of her 150 millons of children, to dispossesss you of this name. The Church of England, who has denied her mother, is rightly without a sister. She has chosen to break the bonds of unity and obédience. Let her, therefore, stand alone before the judgmentseat of God and of man. Even the debased Russian Church, that Church where lay despotism has closed the priest's mouth and turned him intoa slave, disdains to recognize the Anglicans as Catholics. Even the Eastern heretics, although so sweetly courted by Puseyite missionaries, sneer at this new and fictitious Catholicism. It is repudiated even by your own hero, Laud, whose dying words on the scaffold, according to the uncontradicted version of contemporary history, were : Idie in the Protestant Faith, as by law established (a pretty epitaph, by-the-bye, for the life of the future St. William of Canterbury ! ! ) Consistent Protestants and rationalists are more Catholic, in the etymological sensé of the word, than the Anglicans; for they at least can look upon themselves as belonging to the same communion as those who, in every country, deny the existence of Church authority, or of revealed religion ; they hâve at least a négative bond to link them one with another. But that the so called Anglo-Catho-

1 See Hierologus.

lies, whose very name betrays their usurpation and theïr contradiction, whose doctrinal articles, whose liturgy, whose whole history, are such as to disconnect them from ail mankind, except those who are born English and speak Eng- Jish ; that they should prétend, on the strength of their private judgment alone , to be what the rest of mankind deny them to be, will assuredly be ranked amongst the first of the follies of the 19th century. That such an attempt, however, should succeed, is, thank God, not to be expected, unless it should please the Almighty to reverse ail the laws that hâve hitherto directed the course of human e vents. You may turn aside for three hundred years to corne, as you hâve done for three hundred years past, from the torrent of living waters; but to dig out a small channel of your own, for your own private insular use, wherein the living truth will run apart from ils ever docile and ever obedient children, — that will no more be granted to you, than it has been to the Arians, the Nestorians, the Donatists, or any other triumphant heresy.

I therefore protest, first, against the usurpation of a sacred name by the Camden Society, as iniquitous; and I next protest against the object of this society, and ail such efforts in. the Anglican Church, as absurd. When the clergy and Catholic laymen in France and Germany, when Mr. Pugm and the Romanists of England, labour with ail their might to save and restore the monuments of their faith, — unworthily set aside by the influence of that fatal spirit which broke out with the so-called Reformation, and concluded with the French révolution, — they know that they are labouring at the same time to strengthen, in an indirect manner, their own faith and practice , which are exactly and identically the same as those followed by the constructors of those glo-

Œuvres. VI. — Art et Littérature. 24

rious piles, and by ail the artists of Catholic âges : and this object sanctifies their labour. But is this the case with the members of the Camden Society? Not in the least. They are most of them ministers of the « reformed Protestant Church as by law established ; » pledged under oath to the thirtynine articles , which were drawn up on purpose to separate England from Catholic Christendom *, and to protest against ail the barbarous superstitions of the darkages. By attempting to re-establish their churches, chalices, or vestments, in their original form, they are only setting under the most glaring light the contradiction which exists between their own faith, and that of the men who built Salisbury and York. Surely no man in his sensés can prétend that Dr. Howley and Dr. Mant profess the same faith, or folio w the same discipline, or acknowledge the same spiritual head, as William of Wykeham and Gundulph of Rochester : and no man in his sensés can deny that Dr. Wiseman and Dr. M'Hale do at least profess to obey the same Holy See, to preach the same doctrines, and to practise the same spiritual rites and sacraments, as ail the English episcopacy of the middle âges. Let, then, the Camden Society put itself under the authority of Dr. M'Hale and Dr. Wiseman, and then every thing will be right : but as long as they do not, and remain under Dr. Howley and Dr. Mant and their fellows, they are

1 It is asser'.ed by modem High-Church Anglicans, that the Church of England never rejected the communion of Catholic Chrislendom, but merely threw off the usurped supremacy of the Roman Pontiff. This assertion is overthrown by the history of the Reformalion. It was the unanimous opinion of the British Reformers that the visible Church had aposlatized, that lier chief bishop was Antéchrist, and that communion with lier was unlawful. The Homilies of the Church of England assert this in the most décisive manner. (Vide Third part of the Sermon against peiil of idolatry, p. 224, éd. Oxon. 1831.) For tostimonies of individual reformers , and other Anglican divines, see Essays on the Church, p. 323, éd. 1838. See also the Archbishop of Canterbury's charge just delivered.

nothing but parodists, and inconsistent parodists. If St. Dunstan and St. Anselm, St. Lanfranc, St. Thomas of Canterbury or Archbishop Chiche! y, could be called out of their tombs to résume their crosiers in any English cathedral, their horror would be great at seeing married priests reading English prayers in those desecrated édifices. But assuredly their horror would be much greater still , if they were to find, beneath copes like their own, and at the foot of altars like theirs, and rood-lofts with crucifixes, and every other exterior identity, thèse same married priests carrying in their hearts the spirit of schism, glorying in the revolt of their forefathers, and pledged by insular pride to insuit and deny that infallible see of St. Peter, from which ail those great saints had humbly solicited the pallium, and for whose sacred rights they so nobly fought, and conquered the insular pride and préjudices of their time.

Catholic architecture and Catholic art in ail its branches, are but a frame for the sacred picture of truth. This one holy truth is beautiful and pure, even amidst the worthless clergy and decayed discipline of Funchal, even, and still more so, amidst the missionary diocèses of Polynesia; although, both hère and there, she is deprived of the frame which the humble genius of Catholic générations has worked out for her in western Europe. But without her, — or with her, defaced and adulterated by insular pride, — the most beautiful frame is fit for nought but for the antiquary's shop. Supposing the spirit of the Camden Society ultimately to prevail over its Anglican adversaries, — supposing you do one day get every old thing back again, — copes, letterns, rood-lofts, candlesticks, and the abbey lands into the bargain, whatwill it ail be but an empty pageant, like the tournament of Eglinton Castle, separated from the reality of Catholic truth

and unity by the abyss of three hundred years of schism? The question, then, is — Haye you, Church of England, got the picture for your frame? hâve you got the truth — the one truth — the same truth as the men of the middle âges? The Camden Society says, yes : but the whole Christian world, both Protestant and Catholic, says, no : and the Catholic world adds, that there is no truth but in unity, and this unity you most certainly hâve not.

Who is to judge between thèse conflicting assertions, on earth? Before what tribunal, before what assembly, is this most vital cause to be brought forward, to the satisfaction of those who hâve renounced the jurisdiction of the Holy See, and that of the last œcumenical council? I know of none; but one thing I know, that before whatever earthly tribunal it may be, as well as before the judgment-seat of God in heaven, against the Church of England and her so-called Anglo- Catholics, will appear in formidable array the seven millions of real Catholics, whom you call British and and Irish Romanisls, and who will thus arraign the Anglicans on the behalf of ten générations of their ancestors, and on their own : — « For the love of unity and obédience, we hâve endured from the hands of thèse pseudo-Catholjcs every extremity of cruelty, of robbery, and of insuit. We hâve stood fîrm through every variety of military, légal, civil, and religious persécution. In the holes and corners where thèse persecutors hâve confined us, we hâve kept true to every traditional beauty which they would fain now recover. We hâve nothing to restore, because we hâve never destroyed anything.Wewdiïd no erudite quibbles, like Tract No. 90 ; no dissertations on long-forgotten rubrics, to enable us to believe in justification by works, or in baptismal régénération, to honour the blcssed Virgin, to pray for our dear departed.

\Ye havc never doubted any article of Catholic faith, and never interrupted any practice of Catholic dévotion. Hère we are with our priests, our monks, and our bishops, and with the flame of Catholic unity, which we hâve fed with our substance, and with our blood. If thèse men, who after having robbed us of every temporal good, would fain now rob us of our name, are Catholics, then we are not; then we hâve been mistaken fools, and not we alone, but thirty-five popes, and ail the Catholic bishops, and ail the Catholic nations in the world, who hâve till now praised us, helped us, loved us, prayed for us and with us, as their brethren. If they are Catholics, then Catholicism is but a shadow and a name, and a paltry vestment, fit to be put on and off at the world's pleasure. »

To this language the Church has answered long ago, in the words of the Divine spouse : « Oves meœ vocem meam audiunt, et ego cognosco eas, et sequuntur me; ego vitam

œternam do eis, et non rapiet eas quisquam de manu

mea. »

Does the Camden Society, that lays such a stress on history and tradition, think that thèse mines are closed to every body except itself, or that the world will not dig into them for any other purpose than for archaeological or architectural curiosities? Do the Anglo- Catholics think that the world is blind to their own history? that the events of the Reformation in England are unknown abroad? that the word apostacy is erased from the dictionary of mankind?

If you had pushed on a little further your Spanish tour, you would hâve found at Granada, depicted by the pencil of a monk, the martyrdom of those holy Carthusians of London, who were hanged, disembowelled, and quartered, for having denied the supremacy of the author of Anglo-Catliolic

Reformation. What! shall the tombs of unknown knights and burgesses be treated with the deepest révérence , and singled out for admiration and imitation, becanse the y are in brass, or with a cross fleurie, or à dos d'âne? and shall the blood of our martyrs be silent, and their noble memory buried in darkness and oblivion? Believe it not. Such will not be the case; no, not even in this world of sin and error, and how much less before the justice of God? Believe not that \ve shall ever forget or betray the glory of Fisher, of More, of Garnett; of those abbots who were hanged before the gâtes of their suppressed monasteries ; of so many hundreds of monks, of Jesuits, of laymen, who perished under the executioner's knife, from the reign of Henry VIII down to the palmy days of Anglican episcopacy, under the first Stuarts? Were they not ail Romanists? Did they not ail die for the defence of the supremacy of the see of Rome against the blood-thirsty tyranny of Anglican kings? Were they not the victims of the same glorious cause which St. Dunstan, St. Elphege, St. Anselm, and St. Thomas had struggled for? and were they ours or y our s ? I know that he modem Anglo-Catholics would attempt to throw back on the Puritans. of 1640, most of the sacrilegious dévastations that attended the Reformation; but I know also that Pugin, in that article of the Dublin Review which you were good enough to lend me, has completely demolished that false pretence, and irrefutably demonstrated, that every sacrilège committed by the Puritans had been inaugurated on a much larger scale by Cranmer and Elizabeth : and I hâve looked in vain through ail the publications of the Camden Society for one word of answer to this most damning accusation. As for moral sacrilège, if I may so say, as for the surrender of spiritual independence and Christian freedom

to the sanguinary pride of royal theologians, assuredly the Anglo-Catholic fathers of the sixteenth century baye surpassed in that respect every example of the kind, both in Pagan and Christian times. That debauched and murderous tyrant, called Henri YIII, could find his models amongst the monsters who reigned at Rome while the Church was in the Catacombs. But the slavish subserviency of the English apostate bishops, to this baptized monster's caprices, has remained unequalled since their days, as it had been before them. Where was Latimer, that father and martyr of the Anglican Church, on the 30th of May, 1538? preaching at the stake where a Catholic friar was burning, for haying denied the king's supremacy over the Church of which Latimer was a bishop ! Where were Cranmer and the other preïates, from whom the modem English bishops prétend to dérive apostolical succession? sitting at the council-board of the tyrant, voting in his parliament, helping him to butcher his wives, his principal nobility, his best and most innocent subjects, and acquiescing in his judgment against St. Thomas of Canterbury ! Has not Cranmer come down lo posterity branded with the monster's eulogium, « that he was the only man who had loved his sovereign so well, as ne ver to hâve opposed the royal pleasure?» (Vit. Cranm. MS. apud Legrand, ii, 103.)

ls there anything, even in the annals of continental Protestantism , to be compared to this origin of a Reformed Church? And has this Church purified the dark and bloody stain of its origin by its subséquent conduct? Was there ever a Church, except perhaps the Greeo-Russian since Peter I, which has so basely acknowledged the suprême right of secular power, the absolute dependence of spiritual jurisdiction on royal and parliamentary authority, from the days of Cran-

mer clown to Archbishop Whately's last motion on Church government, debated upon, as he says in print, « with the tacit acquiescence of ihe whole episcopal body?» Was there ever a Church, not even excepting the Russian, which so completely sacrificed the rights and dignities of the poor to the rich, as the writer of the Ris tory of Pues must know better than any one? Was there ever, under the face of heaven, a more glaring focus of iniquity, oppression, and corruption , than the existence of the Church of England in Ireland, as denounced, not on! y by the groans of the Catholic victims, or by those foreigners who, like myself, hâve seen and cursed the abomination in its own den, but by your own authorities, such as Straffords Correspondence with Laud, and Monk Mason's Life of Bishop Bedell? Hâve not thèse pseudo-Catholic bishops been sitting for centuries as Lords spiritual in a parliament whence has issued that pénal code against fellow Christians , the like of which has never been seen or imagined even under the reign of terror and atheism in France? Hâve they not for centuries, and without ever lifting up a dissentient voice, witnessed, approved, and, for ail I know, themselves taken those tremendous oaths against the most sacred mysteries of the faith of the whole Catholic world, both Greek and Latin, in that assembly « where, » to use the words of an English writer, « the Holiest of holies has been chosen as the favourite object of the profanest treatment, and pierced day after day by the jeer of the scoffer; where alone déniai of the blessed Eucharist has been made a public, a légal, a national, a royal act; and where more impious blasphemies hâve been uttered, more sacrilèges committed , more perjuries pronounced , against the divine sacrament than in the whole world besides? » And shall thèse men, forsooth, beacknowledged by us as our brethren,

or as our spiritual fathers? Shall ihe perpétra tors and inheritors of thèse unexpiated, unrepented, unforgiven sins, eome in quietly and sit down among the Catholic churches and nations of the world, with bundles of tracts about hierurgical antiquities and monumental brasses under their arms : and shall we not one and ail arise to reject and expel them? God forbid that we should do otherwise ! There is a place in the Catholic Church for public pénitents, whence many saints hâve risen on the wings of humility and contrition to the glorious eminence of an Augustine : but there is no place for proud sinners, who would shake off the chains of isolated error, without confessing their guilt and that of their forefathers.

I dislike every mixture of nationality with Catholicity ; and the fatal example of England is well calculated to justify this dislike in every Catholic heart. But I cannot, in this circumstance, refrain from reverting, with legitimate pride, to the différence between the conduct of the English bishops of the sixteenth century, and that of the French hierarchy, when exposed in 1790 to the fury of a much more formidable tyrant than Henry YIII, to the whole French nation. The French bishops of that period were far from being saints or ascetics ; their high birth had been generally the only reason for their promotion. They had to struggle, not like the English bishops, at the issue of long âges of faith, of dévotion, of popular enthusiasm for Church ; but after more than two long centuries of secular invasion and monarchial despotism. Their people were not, like the people of England, up in arms for their monasteries and their orthodoxy; but, on the contrary, had been intoxicated during a hundred years by the poison of scepticism and philosophical scurrility. Lastly, the Gallican Church was not, like the Angli-

can, the immédiate daughter of the see of Rome : she had not been founded by a papal legate in the sixth century, but by St. Irenœus, St. Denis the Areopagite, and other disciples of the Apostles. The reformation which was imposed on her, was not obédience to a theological tyrant, but a pretended return to the primitive Church, giving the élection of bishops to the people, and allowing them to communicate with the holy see. And yet, out of a hundred and thirty-six French bishops, four alone betrayed their trust; the hundred and thirty-two other s gladly went forth to imprisonment, to exile, to death. When you go to Paris, pray visit the Carmes, an ugly, insignificant, low, square-built, modem chapel, vvithout any vestige of archaeological symbolism, but where the pavement is still red with the blood of the bishops and priests, who were murdered there for having refused the oath to the Civil Constitution of the clergy H There you will learn at what price a national Church can purchase the rights of talking about apostolical succession, and styling itself « a branch of the Church Catholic. »

But now let me suppose that the Camden Society and the new Anglo-Catholic school bave both gained their point; that liturgy, architecture , and theology, are brought back precisely to the point they were, at the cîose of the reign of Henri VIII, when, as Dr. Lingard so justly says, « to reject the papal creed was heresy, and to admit the papal supremacy was treason. » Supposing ail this, what will you hâve gained after ail? Nothing at ail, I should say, groumding myself o» Mr. Newman's own words. Does he> not say, « We cannot hope for the recovery of dissenting bodies, while we are ourselves alienated from the great body of Christendom. We cannot hope for unity of faith, if we, at our own private

1 See the British Critic» No. LXIV-, p. 286-288.

will, make a faith for ourselves, in this our small corner of the earth, We cannot hope for the success among the heathen of St. Augustine or St. Boniface, unless, like them, we go forth with the apostolical bénédiction. Break unity in one point, and the fault runs through the whole body. » (Sermons bearing on subjects of the day, 1843, pp. 149-50.) But when the work in which you are engaged shall be achieved, you will be as far from unity as ever, and you will only hâve alienated your Church from the great body of Protestant Christendom , to which you were formerly accounted to belong, by that gênerai feeling which led the poor king of Prussia to give you his Protestant money and Protestant sympathies, in order to endow Protestant bishoprics in Syria. But you will not hâve corne one step nearer to unity, because, as Mr. Newman says; «Break unity in one point, and the fault runs through the whole body.» The Greek Church has been at the point you aspire to ever since the eleventh century ; and can any thing be further from unity with the Latin Church than she in the nîneteenth? Every Catholic will repeat to you the words of Manzoni,as quoted by Mr. Faber : «The greatest déviations are nought, if the main point be recognized; the smallest are damnable hérésies, if it be denied. That main point is the infaillibility of the Church, or rather of the pope. » The Coptic, Maronite, and Catholic Armenian Churches, although differing in every thing outward from the Church of Borne, are in unity, since they acknowledge her suprême authority. The Anglican Church, even brought back to the most Catholic externals , can ne ver be in unity as long as she dénies her legitimate mother.

One thing quite certain is , that individuels or Churches cannot be both Catholic and Protestant; they must choose

between one or the other. In polities, in littérature, transactions and compromises are advisable, and indeed are ofter. the only thing possible; but in religion, in eternal truth, there are none. Notwithstanding Dr. Jelf,there will never be any via média between truth and error, between authority and rébellion, no morethan there is between heavenandhell. If Fisher was right, thenwas Cranmer wrong; theycannotbe both right, both themurderer and the victim. If Archbishop Plunkett was a martyr, then Archbishop Laud was not. If the Church of France is to be admired for having held out against schismthroughmartyrdom and exile, thentheChurch of England must be blamed for having given way to schism. It is like the ostrich that thinks it saves itself from the hunter by refusing to look at him, to say that the présent English Church is a holy although less distinguished branch of the Church than that of Rome. If the Church of Rome, when she maintainsthat out of her pale there is no salvation, and that she alone has the power of governing the Christian world, is not infallibly right, then she is infallibly wrong; and so far from being a distinguished branch of truth, she is founded on imposture or error ; and in neither case can be a true Church. On the other hand, if the Church of England is not the only true Church on earth, then she is an apostate rebel.

There is only one sure way of passing from error to the one sure truth; that which St. Remigius showed to the fîrst Christian king of France. When baptizing him, he said , « Row thy head, proud Sicamber; burn what thou hast adored, and adore what thou hast burned. »

It is true that to reconciled and forgiven rébellion may be granted certain privilèges , as conformable to the weakness of a fallen Church. The Anglican Church may demand

what was granted in 1595 to the united Greeks of Poland — the degrading exception of a married clergy, and the use of the national language in the Liturgy . Thèse concessions are not incompatible with the essentials of faith or authority ; but they would make the re-united Church of England sadly différent from what she was in the days of St. Dunstan or St. Anselm.

I am not a doctor, nor a minister of the Church ; I am only her soldier, faithful though unworthy. But I can fearlessiy assert that among the millions who belong, like me, to the Church of Rome, there is not one who, being led by leisure or duty to consider attentively what is now going on in England, would arrive at a différent conclusion from mine. Seeing the profound ignorance which reigns among even the best informed Anglicans (such as Mr. Faber) on the feelings and duties of churchmen out of England — seeing also the furious préjudices which animate the new school against English and Irish Catholics, probably on the old pagan principle of Odisse quem lœseris, I hâve presumed to think that it might not be quite useless to you to hear the opinion of a continental Catholic, than whom no one can be more interested in England's welfare, or more attentive to her présent struggles. Fas est et ab hoste doceri.

Need I beg of you to acquit the warmth and asperity of my language of any intention of personal disrespect to you ? No, surely not. I hâve much too high an opinion of you not to be certain that you will perfectly understand the motives that hâve dicta ted my words ; and I hope that you will see on the contrary, a mark of deep respect on my part for your turn of mind and your personal character. I hâve written to you as to a man who knows the value of truth and the value of an immortal soûl. I should certainly not hâve done so to most members of your schism . Al though taught by conscience

and authority to look upon the Church of England as one of the most awful forms of sin and pride that hâve ever appeared in the world, I hâve loved and esteemed several of her chiidren. I feel a compassionate sympathy for those of her ministers who know the weight of their présent dégradation. But, at the same time, I feel a most legitimate terror for the fate of their soûls, when I see them, after having removed the rubbish which their forefathers had piled up to the very clerestory of the church, close their eyes against the light which, from the past and présent, is now pouring down upon them. They are thus losing that invincible ignorance, which is the only reason which the Church admits for not belonging to her! This feeling has inspired me with the thought of thus writing to you. This feeling mnst plead my excuse, if I hâve wounded your feelings. Indeed, I wish I may hâve done so. Truth is a weapon intended to wound and destroy everything that is not truth. Non veni pacem mittere sed gladium. Convinced as I am that you do not belong , as you say I do , to a distinguished branch of the Church, but that you are in error, and that wilful error is mortal sin, I hâve spoken for the love of your immortal soûl. If I hâve done so roughly, it is the roughness of love. Is there not more charity in pulling roughly back a man who is on his way to perdition, than in bowing him civilly on to the brink of the précipice?

This letter requires no answer. We are not called upon to carry on a controversy with each other. The ground on which we stand is unequal, and the odds between us would be uneven. To convert you, as well as ail heretics, is and must be my désire, but not my province. To convert me can neither be your province nor your désire. You cannot look upon me as being in a state of rébellion, as I do you. What

would becpme of me, if I was to be convinced of the truth and right of the Church of England? I must then imnœdiately doubt the truth and right of the Church of France , which acts and teaches the very reverse ; for what is true and right on the north of the Channel cannot surely be otherwise on the south. And yet, according to the principles laid down by Mr. Faber and the British Critic, supposing m y self convinced oftheerror and misconduct of my own Church, 1 must wait till she recognizes it herself, before 1 hâve a right to act up to what I think true, and to save my own soûl. Alas ! what a lamentable nondescript sort of thing I sliould be !

Our position is, therefore, quite différent. The faith I profess, the authority I obey, the holy sacrifice of mass at" which I assist , the very prayers I daily say, are fitted for you, for me, for the Portuguese ox-driver who is passing under our Windows as well as for the savage who is at this moment being baptized in Oceania. Your faith, your spiritual superiors, your liturgy, can be of no use but to those who are English born and English bred. This shall be my last argument, for it would alone suffice to show which of us is the Catholic. You cannot, in conformity with your own doctrine, wish me to be what you are. I can, and indeed I must, wish you to be what / am. To you I can say, like Paul to Agrippa, « Opto apud Deum et in modico et in magno. . te., hodie fieri talem qualis et ego sum exceptis vinculis his; » or rather as Bossuet beautifully modifies this text in speaking, I believe, to one of your own communion : Prœsertim vinculis his, the bonds of faith, of obédience, of unity with the past, the présent, and the future.

In conclusion, let me beg your acceptance of the enclosed papers 1 , that will show you how the torrent of grâce is

1 Ànnals of Archconfraternity of the Holy and Immaculate heart of Mary.