could be produced in support of what I had advanced. Here, Sir, I am compelled to trouble you with some little repetition both of your own words and of mine, from which the argument cannot in this place be disentangled. "The following passage, you say, "will be read by Roman Catholics with surprise and concern. A vision is related, said to have been seen by Laurentius, one of the missionaries. This, it is asserted in the Book of the Church, must be either miracle, or fraud, or fable: many such there are in the history of the Anglo-Saxon as of every Romish Church; and it must be remembered, that when such stories are mere fables, they have for the most part been feigned with the intent of serving the interests of the Romish Church, and promulgated, not as fiction, but as falsehood, with a fraudulent mind. The legend which is here related, is probably a wonder of the second class. The clergy of that age thought it allowable to practise upon the ignorance and credulity of a barbarous people, if by such means they might forward the work of their conversion, or induce them, when converted, to lead a more religious life. (There is a sentence omitted here, which I shall

* Page 30.

notice presently.) Whether they thought thus or not, it is certain that thus they acted, and it is not less certain that a system which admitted of pious fraud opened a way for the most impious abuses." In the next chapter it is said, "the missionaries were little scrupulous concerning the measures which they employed, because they were persuaded that any measures were justifiable if they conduced to bring about the good end which was their aim."

assertions.

Here... (I am proceeding now with your comment upon these passages)..." here we particularly lament your avowed plan of withholding from your readers your authorities for your To support this charge against the Anglo-Saxon clergy, it was incumbent upon you to bring authentic evidence to prove their having published or practised fictions in the manner you have described: to produce instances of it so numerous as must justly fix the guilt on the general body of the Anglo-Saxon clergy; and to show that they acted on these occasions, not in consequence of the general weakness or pravity of human nature, but under the impulse or sanction of their Church, or her doctrines. Nothing of this kind have you brought forward; all, therefore, that you say,

...

is mere accusation." And again* "You must admit that the principle which you impute to the Anglo-Saxon missionaries, is most nefarious, and fraught with the worst consequences. You must also admit that a charge of this nature, when it is brought against an individual, can only be proved by producing either his own acknowledgement of it, or else such facts as establish it by just inference; and that when it is brought against a body of men, it can only be proved by producing a multiplicity of such acknowledgements, or a multiplicity of such facts. But in the present case, where are those acknowledgements? Where are those facts?"

Where are those facts! Sir, if you ask for them as relating specifically to the British and Anglo-Saxon Churches, I refer you to Bede and Capgrave passim; or to your own authority, Father Michael Alford; or to that industrious and faithful compiler, Father Serenus Cressy, whose "Church History of Brittany" I recommend all persons who may have read Dr. Lingard's Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church, to examine as supplementary to that work, because it contains the whole series of pious frauds and falsehoods which the able modern historian has

* Page 52.

found it convenient to discard. If you require such facts as relate, not to the Anglo-Saxon alone, but to the general, or, in Romish language, the Universal Roman Catholic Church, then, Sir, I refer you to your own Breviaries; to the one-and-fifty folios of the Bol-. landists; to all collections of that kind, that of your kinsman included, (for, prepared as it has been for the English scale of credulity, by weeding, it still contains a choice assortment of the facts desired;) to every biography of a Romish Saint, or candidate for Saintship; and to all the chronicles of all the Monastic Orders in all their varieties and subdivisions. These references are not given at a venture, after the manner of an advocate, who recks not whether what he affirms as a fact, or appeals to as an authority, be true or false,.. careless of after detection, so his immediate purpose may be answered by the profligate and audacious artifice. I am conversant with the books to which I appeal. A collection from them of such miracles as bear directly upon the charge that a system of falsehood and imposture has been regularly carried on by the Romish clergy, (more especially the Regulars,) and sanctioned by the Popes, would fill more volumes than Dr. Rees's Cyclopædia; and, without intending any disparagement

to your production, such a collection might, with much greater propriety, be entitled the Book of the Roman Catholic Church. You call for proofs and authorities, Sir, and you shall have them. Midas was not more fully satisfied in his desire for gold, than you shall be with both.

The assertion which you have so complacently pronounced to be mere accusation, stands in the Book of the Church warranted and approved by the fact with which it is there introduced. You have past over that story with noticeable dexterity, calling it a "vision related to have been seen by Laurentius," and saying nothing more of it. To use your own mode of interrogation," is it equitable,.. is it candid,.. is it consistent with fair controversy," to treat a charge of fraudulent practices as a direct and groundless calumny, and thus to slur over the particular instance which gave occasion for introducing the general remark? Look at the story, Sir, and say whether it be not either miracle, or fraud, or falsehood. I set it before you now, not as I had there compressed it in few words, but that you may have no pretext to complain either of subtraction or addition, in close translation from Bede... the well-head, as well know, for all this portion of our history. It is necessary to premise that Mellitus and

you