summary
of events, questioned only on one point,--the extent of the censure
which was proposed. So that in the account which the Cardinal quoted
from our pages there was no substantial statement to correct, as in fact
no correction of any definite point but one has been attempted.

How this innocent statement has come to be suspected of a hostile
intent, and to be classed with the calumnies of _The Patrie_, is another
question. The disposition with which the Cardinal sat in judgment upon
our words was founded, not on anything they contained, but, as he
declares, on the antecedents of the conductors of _The Home and Foreign
Review_, and on the character of a journal which no longer exists. That
character he declares to consist in "the absence for years of all
reserve or reverence in its treatment of persons or of things deemed
sacred, its grazing over the very edges of the most perilous abysses of
error, and its habitual preferences of uncatholic to catholic instincts,
tendencies, and motives." In publishing this charge, which amounts to a
declaration that we hold opinions and display a spirit not compatible
with an entire attachment and submission of intellect and will to the
doctrine and authority of the Catholic Church, the Cardinal adds, "I am
only obeying a higher direction than my own impulses, and acting under
much more solemn sanctions. Nor shall I stand alone in this unhappily
necessary correction."

There can be little doubt of the nature of the circumstances to which
this announcement points. It is said that certain papers or
propositions, which the report does not specify, have been extracted
from the journal which the Cardinal identifies with this Review, and
forwarded to Rome for examination; that the Prefect of Propaganda has
characterised these extracts, or some of them, in terms which correspond
to the Cardinal's language; and that the English bishops have
deliberated whether they should issue similar declarations. We have no
reason to doubt that the majority of them share the Cardinal's view,
which is also that of a large portion both of the rest of the clergy and
also of the laity; and, whatever may be the precise action which has
been taken in the matter, it is unquestionable that a very formidable
mass of ecclesiastical authority and popular feeling is united against
certain principles or opinions which, whether rightly or wrongly, are
attributed to us. No one will suppose that an impression so gen