I shall both weary and offend you, my Brothers, if I proceed. Even absurdity becomes tiresome after a time, and slanders cast on holy things and persons, when dwelt on, are too painful for a Catholic's ears; yet it was necessary for my subject, to give instances of the popular views of us and our creed, as they are formed by the operation of the Tradition of Elizabeth.

Here I am reminded of another sort of tradition, started by a very different monarch, which in the event was handled very differently. It is often told how Charles the Second once sent a grave message to the Royal Society. That scientific body was founded in his reign, and the witty king, as became his well-known character, could not help practising a jest upon it. He proposed a question for its deliberation; he asked it, as I dare say you have often heard, to tell him how it was that a live fish weighed less heavily in water than after it was dead. The Society, as it was in duty bound, applied itself to solve the phenomenon, and various were the theories to which it gave occasion. At last it occurred to its members to determine the fact, before deciding on any of them; when, on making the experiment, to their astonishment they found, that the hypothesis was a mere invention of their royal master's, because the dead fish was not heavier in water than the living.

Well would it be, if Englishmen in like manner, instead of taking their knowledge of us at a royal hand, would judge about us for themselves, before they hunted for our likeness in the book of Daniel, St. Paul's Epistles, and the Apocalypse. They then would be the first to smile at their own extravagances; but, alas! as yet, there are no signs of such ordinary prudence. Sensible

in other matters, they lose all self-command when the name of Catholicism is sounded in their ears. They trust the voice of Henry or Elizabeth, with its thousand echoes, more than their own eyes, and their own experience; and they are zealous in echoing it themselves to the generation which is to follow them. Each in his turn, as his reason opens, is indoctrinated in the popular misconception. At this very time, in consequence of the clamour which has been raised against us, children in the streets, of four and five years old, are learning and using against us terms of abuse, which will be their tradition, all through their lives, till they are grey-headed, and have, in turn, to teach it to their grandchildren. They totter out, and lift their tiny hands, and raise their thin voices, in protest against those whom they are just able to understand are very wicked and very dangerous; and they run away in terror when they catch our eye. Nor will the growth of reason set them right; the longer they live, and the more they converse with men, the more will they hate us. The Maker of all, and only He, can shiver in pieces this vast enchanted palace, in which our lot is cast; may He do it in His time!

ON THE

PRESENT POSITION OF CATHOLICS

IN ENGLAND:

ADDRESSED TO THE BROTHERS OF THE ORATORY.

BY

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, D.D.

PRIEST OF THE CONGREGATION OF ST. PHILIP NERI.

17, PORTMAN STREET, AND 63, PATERNOSTER ROW.

LECTURE III.

FABLE THE BASIS OF THE PROTESTANT VIEW.

It was my aim, Brothers of the Oratory, in my preceding Lecture, to investigate, as far as time and place allowed, how it was that the one-sided view of the great religious controversy, which commenced between Rome and England three centuries since, has been so successfully maintained in this country. Many things have changed among us during that long period; but the hatred and the jealousy entertained by the population towards the Catholic Faith, and the scorn and pity which is felt at the sight of its adherents, have not passed away, have not been mitigated. In that long period, society has undergone various alterations, public opinion has received a development new in the history of the world, and many remarkable revolutions in national principle have followed. The received views on the causes and the punishment of crime, on the end of Government, on the mutual relations of town and country, on international interests, and on many other great political

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