up my mind one way or
the other, surely my most logical course is "_not_ to be sure." He
continues, "Dr. Newman 'does not see _why it may not have been_ what
it professes to be.'" Well, is not that just what this writer would
say of a great number of the facts recorded in secular history? is it
not what he would be obliged to say of much that is told us about the
armour and other antiquities in the Tower of London? To this I
alluded in the passage from which he quotes; but he has _garbled_
that passage, and I must show it. He quotes me to this effect: "Is
the Tower of London shut against sight-seers because the coats of
mail or pikes there may have half-legendary tales connected with
them? why then may not the country people come up in joyous
companies, singing and piping, to _see_ the holy coat at Treves?" On
this he remarks, "To _see_, forsooth! to _worship_, Dr. Newman would
have said, had he known (as I take for granted he does not) the facts
of that imposture." Here, if I understand him, he implies that the
people came up, not only to see, but to worship, and that I have
slurred over the fact that their coming was an act of religious
homage, that is, what _he_ would call "worship." Now, will it be
believed that, so far from concealing this, I had carefully stated it
in the sentence immediately preceding, and _he suppresses it_? I say,
"The world pays civil honour to it [a jewel said to be Alfred's] on
the probability; we pay _religious honour_ to relics, if so be, on
the probability. Is the Tower of London," I proceed, "shut," etc.
Blot _twenty-eight_.

These words of mine, however, are but one sentence in a long
argument, conveying the Catholic view on the subject of
ecclesiastical miracles; and, as it is carefully worked out, and very
much to the present point, and will save me doing over again what I
could not do better or more fully now, if I set about it, I shall
make a very long extract from the Lecture in which it occurs, and so
bring this Head to an end.

The argument, I should first observe, which is worked out, is this,
that Catholics set out with a definite religious tenet as a first
principle, and Protestants with a contrary one, and that on this
account it comes to pass that miracles are credible to Catholics and
incredible to Protestants.

"We affirm that the Supreme Being has wrought miracles on earth ever
since the time of the Apostles; Protestants deny it. Why do we
affirm, why do they deny?