ation of the Pope's proceedings
throughout England was prodigious, and can hardly be conceived by us
at this day. Every county, city, and almost every town, held meetings
in the utmost alarm and indignation; and resolved on petitioning the
Queen and Parliament to do something or other to prevent the Pope's
measures from taking effect; and especially to annul all claims to
local and territorial jurisdiction in this country. The universities;
the clergy in their dioceses; the Bishops collectively,--even Philpotts
of Exeter, though intoxicated with zeal for those Oxford notions which
had done all the mischief; the municipalities; almost all organized
bodies, whether of Churchmen or Dissenters;--discussed and resolved.
Amongst these meetings one was held at the Guildhall of London, which
was crowded with the merchant princes of that great city, and all that
could represent its wealth, intelligence, and energy. One Masterman
opened the proceedings, made a vehement speech against the Bishop of
Rome and his pretensions, and proposed a stringent resolution, which
was carried by acclamation.

"'At a dinner given by the Lord Mayor, at which were present many
of the Ministers of the Crown, the Lord Chancellor Wilde spoke very
boldly, and, as some thought, unadvisedly, on his possible future
relations to the Cardinal.

"'Cardinal Wiseman published a subtle defence of himself and the
Popish measure, which he addressed to the people of England; and,
whether consistently or inconsistently, pleaded in the most strenuous
manner for the inviolable observance of the principles of
"religious liberty."

"'A singular and indeed inexplicable circumstance occurred in the
course of this controversy. In a lecture, delivered at the Hanover
Square Rooms, a certain Presbyterian clergyman had asserted that
the oath prescribed in the Pontificale Romanum, which the Cardinal
Wiseman must have taken to the Pope when he received the Pallium as
Archbishop of Westminster, notoriously contained a clause enjoining
the duty of persecution. This clause, a facetious Englishman said,
ought to be translated, "I will persecute and pitch into all
heretics to the utmost of my power"; and every one knew that the Pope
of Rome looked upon the English as the greatest heretics in the world.

"'When Wiseman heard of the representations thus made, he caused his
secretary to write to the Protestant lecturer, to say that the clause
in the oath to which he had referred w