“’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 was not insisted upon, in his (the Cardinal’s) case, by the Pope, and that, if his calumniator chose to go to the Cardinal’s library, he would see that it was cancelled in his copy of the Pontifical.  The Protestant accepted his challenge and went to the said library.  He was then shown the oath, and found the clause in question, totidem verbis; not cancelled, however, but marked off by a line in black ink drawn over it, and (as it seemed) very recently.

“’Pamphlets were published on this curious circumstance on both sides; the Roman Catholics contended that the mere fact of Wiseman’s challenge was a sufficient proof of his consciousness of rectitude.

“’On the whole, after half a year of perpetual agitation, both in and out of Parliament, a measure was passed which was notoriously inadequate to suppress the offence, and which was broken with impunity.

“’It is gratifying to add, that, notwithstanding the dangerous and vehement excitement which so long inflamed the minds of the people, no life was lost except on one occasion.  The sufferer—­contrary to what might have been expected—­was of the dominant party a policeman, who was endeavoring to repress the party violence of some Irish Catholics in the North of England.’” ____

“Now it need not be said,” proceeded Harrington, “that these sentences contain what is perfectly well known by you—­for myself I say nothing—­to be the merest matter of fact, narrated in the simplest language, without any art or embellishment.  Would you like to hear how Dr. Dickkopf, of New Zealand, or Kamtschatka, or Caffre-land, might treat such a document eighteen hundred and fifty years hence, amidst that imperfect light which we well know rests upon so many portions of the past, and which may, very possibly, be felt in the future?  I think it would not be difficult for him to show that the ‘Papal Aggression’ was impossible.”