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APPEAL OF A PROTESTANT
TO THE POPE
TO RESTORE THE
LAW OF NATIONS.
REPLY TO SIX QUESTIONS
ON THE
BUSINESS FOR THE ANNOUNCED
SIXTH LATERAN COUNCIL.
BY
DAVID URQUHART.
“ When the true notion of Justice becomes obscured, material force
takes the place of Right.”—Pius IX.
LONDON:'
DIPLOMATIC REVIEW OFFICE,
24, EAST TEMPLE CHAMBERS,
1868.
�This exposition arose out of an application to the
writer to put down concisely the substance of several
conversations.
The heads were given as follows:
“ 1st. The former universal observance of Interna
tional Law.
“ 2nd. Its present total disuse.
“ 3rd. The absolute necessity if Society is to be saved,
of a general reacknowledgment of International Law.
“ 4th. The Catholic Church, with the Pope at its head,
the only power capable of enforcing this.
“ 5th. The approaching General Council the occasion
for doing so.
“ 6 th. The means to the end being (in part) the for
mation of a Diplomatic College at Rome.”
�THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL, &c.
The Priory, January 18, 1868.
If it were possible to be concise it would be superfluous to
write. What I have to say every one formerly knew. They
do not know to-day, because of the fallacious terms and erring
propositions, which form the sum of every man’s intellectual
being.
The removal of these—the unteaching—is the work. It can
only be done by conversation. If made in writing, the attempt
must consist in more than statement or indication. The case
itself would be all contained in these words : “ Do what is right,
“ you who have no interest in doing what is wrong.”
1st
and
2nd.
PASSAGE FROM LAW TO LAWLESSNESS.
The two first questions resolve themselves into one. It cannot
be said that the Law of Nations was formerly universally ob
served; nor that at the present time it has fallen into total
disuse. Both questions are directed to obtaining a definition
as to that portion of the public Law which has been disregarded,
and to fixing the limit of time at which such change has
taken place. It is in this manner, therefore, that I shall give
my answer.
The Law of Nations is a Code which regulates the intercourse
of communities, as if they were individuals. The difference be
tween an individual and a Nation consists only in number,
leaving rights, duties, and obligations precisely the same. In
a 2
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the one and the other case, all Law is founded on the Ten Com
mandments, and specially on the four:
Thou SHALT NOT kill.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou SHALT NOT bear false witness.
Thou shalt not covet.
All which Commandments are broken collectively when a Nation
makes war upon another, without necessity, without just cause,
and without due form. That is to say, when it makes war with
a deliberate purpose of doing wrong, that wrong consisting in an
invasion or attack, which cannot be made without killing inno
cent individuals, without robbing and destroying their property.
Then these acts must of necessity be accompanied by alleging
falsely against the innocent guilty acts, and coveting that which
belongs to them.
The purpose to commit those things must exist somewhere
when they are committed. That purpose need not co-exist nu
merically with the community; it may be confined to a few, or
even to a single individual; it will be found in the brain of the
community, wherever that brain happens to be. Nevertheless,
the guilt is common to all, because it is the result of their acts,
whether perpetrated by their hands, or accomplished through
the taxes they contribute, and the assent which they give.
And as this co-operation and assent, in so far as it is blind, can
result only from the resignation of judgment in regard to
matters affecting religious conscience and political duties, the
guilt becomes twofold. Such a people is at once a felon and a
slave.
No war is made except in so far as one of the parties to it has
been reduced to this condition. When such an event has oc
curred, some one people has been thus guilty: whilst some other
people, resisting the crime, has become the protector of public
and private innocence and liberty throughout the World.
That the Law shall cease to be appealed to by the State that is
attacked, is the lowest condition to which humanity can be re
duced; it is the destruction of all human Society. It is our
present condition.
No nation can proceed honestly against another, save for acts.
It must suffer from these acts. Otherwise it cannot come into
court. It cannot proceed to pass sentence on such acts, and to
carry that sentence into execution by levying wrar, until it has
exhausted every means for obtaining redress or security, and has
thus put beyond the possibility of doubt or even cavil, the
existence on the earth of a Power resolved and prepared to dis
turb the repose of the human race. Such must be the course,
without any enactment, of an honourable or a wise nation. This
�LAW TO LAWLESSNESS.
5
also is what the law prescribes. This is the law and rule which
each people has to enforce the observance of, on its own Govern
ment. In this consists and is shown its domestic liberty. In
this resides the means, and the only means, of preventing wars
and preserving peace; that is to say, of preserving it when not
broken by a real necessity, such as the incursion of barbarous
tribes or the outburst of some military genius at the head of a
great martial people, itself alone superior to all its neighbours.
These are the rare but sole contingencies on which the know
ledge of the law by the various communities, and the enforce
ment of it on their sovereigns and his servants, would not suffice
for the preservation of peace. All the recent wars of Europe
have arisen solely from the cessation of this restraint; in other
words, from the absence of integrity in the men composing these
communities.
It may be useful to quote an instance :
A country (Hanover) can be invaded in full peace without
declaration of war, without ground or pretext of any kind on
which to found such declaration, there having been no act what
ever done by it. It can be, thereupon, conquered (through a
succession of military treacheries) and incorporated with an
other, while the rest of Europe remain unmoved witnesses of
the crime. The victim makes no appeal to the Law !
This can only be because the law is dead. The other nations
have not remained silent; they have applauded. They are led,
having lost the standing ground of integrity, by mercenary
writers of daily comments. This can be done, because the assault
of one body on another, having ceased to be judged of on its
own grounds, is judged of on other grounds which have no
connexion with the case itself. These grounds consist in the
emotions of each man’s mind, and may be resolved into and
classed as speculations on ethnography, on philology, on geography,
on forms of government, on dogmas of religion, out of which he
draws conclusions and says, “ This people shall be united to or
“ dissevered from that people ; this king shall reign in that
“ country! such country shall expel its king, and have a re“ public; that country shall abrogate its republic, and have
“ a monarchy. This being my desire, whoever achieves it is
“ an estimable person, and whatever means he adopts are good
il means.” Thus it is that at any and every moment the occasion
is open for the employment of the last resort of man—blood
shed. For bloodshed no reason whatever need now be offered;
no wrong need have been done, attempted, or so much as
dreamt of.
Here is the test by which to separate the base from the
Upright. Every man who, being himself upright would stop
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evil ancl reclaim his fellow-man, must discipline himself so as
to be able to convince and convict, by showing each man with
whom he converses that, in so far as he pursues a speculation
and indulges in desires in reference to the affairs of other people
with whom he has no business, he lives without law and without
faith in the world; and lends his aid, so far as it can go,
to that universal trouble, out of which will, in due course, be
brought the domination over all of one grinding political and
religious despotism. So true is it that the Law is the foundation
of States and the only security for peace and goodwill among
men, that when it becomes obliterated, as it is to-day, nothing
can be held permanent or secure, not even their own opinions.
This deplorable condition springs from the perversion of lan
guage through the use of false and ambiguous terms; thence
the unbridled passion for destruction. Whatever is not ourselves
is hateful to us, from overweening vanity and presumption in
regard to what we imagine ourselves to be.
It is not only that the truth is hateful to them; it is con
temptible. They despise it quite conscientiously, when by the
rarest of chances, any of them hears it. Thus you say to a man,
“ Bloodshed without cause is murder, no less on the battle-field
“ than in a dark alley.” He answers, “ Oh, you must be a
“ Quaker, and will have peace at any price.” You answer him,
“ I did not speak of peace, which is a consequence; but of
“ crime, which is the cause, and of justice, which is the remedy.”
He replies, “ Oh! all wars are unjust.” He does not see that he
is confounding the commission and the punishment of crime,
and substituting felon for judge, and judge for felon. If, by
management, you at last succeed in showing him his error,
instead of being rejoiced at being emancipated from it, instead
of earnestly and hopefully entering on the new field thus opened
to him, he is only angry because proved to have been wrong,
and has no thought save that of afterwards misrepresenting to
himself that which has passed, and of reviling to others the
person from whom he has heard it. Thus it is that the truth
cannot be known. Unless shame and repentance come with
sight, blindness is not removed. This period of compunction
and of shame has passed for our age, save for very powerful
minds, very young persons, or exceptional cases of remarkable
conscientiousness, which suffice to conquer the universal passion
of self-love.
Those who are the depositaries of this truth have, therefore,
to undergo a life of trial; suffering in the sight of the uncon
sciousness around them, pain in every attempt to remove it, selfreproach in every possible occasion unemployed, persecution as
soon as the nature of their thoughts and character is appre
hended.
�LAW TO LAWLESSNESS.
7
Physical truth (discovery) is gratifying to the investigator,
and is accepted with gratitude by the rest. Moral truth is the
discovery of error in all, and is hateful to those to whom it is
presented.
What the desire of food is for animal nature so is for the in
tellectual being the desire of being right. That is, it is the main
spring on which all depends. Each virtue has its corresponding
vice : this, which is not a virtue, but the source of all virtue,
must, therefore, have in its counterpart the source of all evil.
That counterpart is the fear of being found out to be wrong; in
other words, the desire to appear to be right. This condition is
expressed by the word self-love. To say, then, that this is the
character of an age, is to express the very worst condition to
which a people can be reduced. The sign of it is offence at
being told that they are wrong. It is conscience, the stay of
integrity, perverted so as to become its enemy. This is the
evil of our times, and it must be boldly looked in the face and
known to be the real enemy we have to combat, concealed
behind all the disguises it puts on of political opinion, philoso
phical maxim, and religious pretence.
When an individual murder is committed, the heart of every
man is moved; human indignation is at work to trace, detect,
and punish. The extensive organisations of police, criminal and
legal functionaries, pursue the guilty as a business and a trade.
The conscience of the guilty is itself at work, paralysing his pro
ceedings, betraying his steps, pursuing him during his defence,
and finally overtaking him on the scaffold or the death-bed.
What prevents these safeguards from exerting their power in
the case of multiple murder ? It is only that it is not seen to
be so. It is not so seen from the progressive servility of decay
ing nations before power; whilst neither secular nor religious
instruction has applied itself to inform them in childhood as to
the nature of crime and sin in this respect, and so brought them
up as just, virtuous, or even conscious men.
That association in India known by the name of Thugs pre
sent a striking and instructive analogy. Amongst these persons
the same sense existed as to individual murder that in modern
Christendom exists as to aggregate murder. A Thug, reverting
to the sense of crime in such acts and endeavouring to convict
his fellows of guilt, would have stood in reference to that com
munity in exactly the same position as an inhabitant of
modern Europe in making the same attempt in reference to his
contemporaries. Such a person will in vain appeal to the com
mon religion of the land, any more than to the common instincts
of humanity.
The picture is, however, entirely reversed if such words are
spoken by the highest religious authority, recognised already by
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PASSAGE FROM
millions as the vice-regent of God upon earth. The offence ceases
for them, at least, and all will exclaim, as at the Council of
Clermont “ Died le veut !” It is the will of God that there
be peace on earth and goodwill among men, which can be onlythrough justice. St. Paul preached the kingdom to come, but
he first preached of <( judgment and justice.”
The first step backwards and out of this labyrinth of darkness
consists in regaining a clear and distinct perception of the various
acts which we include to-day under the general term War, and
of those other acts to which the term no ways applies, but which
we equally include under it.
Wars have to be classed under three heads. First, necessary;
second, just; and third, lawful.
An unnecessary war may be one to which the character of
just also applies—that is, when the Declaration has been had
recourse to, without the other preliminary steps which might
have forced the adverse party to do justice, or when the requi
site business-like capacity has not been employed, to bring the
negotiation to a fortunate issue. Thus, when Mr. Disraeli
called the Russian war of 1854, “ This most just and most un
necessary war,” the idea was presented of a war that might have
been just had the means been adopted which should have ren
dered it unnecessary; implying, that though just by occasion
being given for it by guilty acts on the other side, it wTas so no
longer, when on our side the available means had not been taken,
either to prevent the acts of which we complained, or to force the
satisfaction which we demanded.
An unjust war is one in which that is demanded which we
have no right to claim, and the adverse party is under no obli
gation to concede. Such, for instance, as the war against
France in 1806, which was made after the adjustment of all
matters respectively affecting England and France; and when,
thereafter, England made further demands, unjust in them
selves, and put forward by a third Power (Russia). The re
course in such a case is to the constituted authorities of the
State against the Ministers ; but the formalities being observed,
such as the statement of the case (Rerum Repetition, the announce
ment of the Penalty (ultimatum), the Record in Chancery, the
Proclamation to the Subjects, the Denunciation to the Enemy,
and the Commission to “ kill, burn, and destroy,”—the military
oath of the soldier is saved, and weapons can be drawn and used
lawfully.
The third case is that which, being unnecessary and unjust,
has further been made without the due and above-stated forms;
and where, therefore, there is no warrant for the use of weapons.
Any man so using them exposes himself to the last of penalties,
�LAW TO LAWLESSNESS.
9
not only as regards the State assailed, but also as regards the
criminal and martial laws of his own country.
*
As regards the
world, this is piracy; as regards the country, it is the levying of
private war. When any case arises under it in our courts of
law, it will be disallowed, as carrying no legal consequences, as
was shown in the first Chinese war.}
Unlawful Wars have happened in the history of mankind; but
they have been of the rarest occurrence. Consisting chiefly of the
outbreak of hordes who have devastated extensive portions of
the Earth, they may be considered rather as convulsions of nature
than as operations of man. These cases have been indeed con
sidered by jurists, but only to dispose of them in a phrase to the
effect that they do not constitute war, but consist simply in
robbery and piracy.
Every man engaged in such enterprises is liable to be dealt
with, and ought to be dealt with, as a pirate; that is to say, hung
without trial if taken with arms in his hands. Thus it was that,
when Geneva, in 1602, was attacked without Declaration of
War by the Duke of Savoy, the inhabitants of that town
hung upon its walls every Savoyard they had captured. Stress
is laid upon The act by the Jurists, specially by Vattel, as a
precedent of authority. It is particularly noted that no attempt
at reprisals was made by the Duke of Savoy, and that a general
assent on the part of all Nations followed this display of vigour
and of justice, by which has been preserved the independence
of that small State.
.Unlawful Wars, when they did occur otherwise than as the
migrations of hordes were treated exactly as piracy on the high
seas, or the enterprises of Bandits in a forest; or as murders and
robberies in Town or Country.
It is to the latter category that belong the operations of fleets
and armies in this age. It may, therefore, be designated as that
of lawlessness. Those who receive and execute the commission
to murder and to rob are not aware that they are doing aught
* “ At the table of the Commander-in-Chief, not many years since, a young officer
entered into a dispute with Lieutenant-Colonel------ upon the point to which military
obedience ought to be carried. 4 If the Commander-in-Chief,’ said the young officer
like a second Scid, 4 should command me to do a thing which I knew to be civilly
illegal, I should not scruple to obey him, and consider myself as relieved from all
responsibility by the commands of my military superior.’ 4 So would not I,’ returned
the gallant and intelligent officer, who maintained the opposite side of the question.
I should rather prefer the risk of being shot for disobedience by my commanding
officer than hanged for transgressing the laws and violating the liberties of my
comtry. 4 You have answered like yourself,’ said His Royal Highness, whose attention
had been attracted by the vivacity of the debate ; ‘ and the officer would deserve both
to be shot and hanged that should act otherwise. I trust all British officers would
be as unwilling to execute an illegal command as I trust the Commander-in-Chief
would be incapable of issuing one.’ ”—Sir Walter Scott's Memoir of the Duke of York.
I See case of Evans v. Hutton.
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PASSAGE FEOM
amiss, and those who suffer are not aware that they can protect
themselves by inflicting on the criminals their due punishment.
It is by the abstaining of the sufferers, through the loss of the
sense of law in their own breasts, from hanging the pirates who
assail them; and, on the contrary, treating them when captured
as innocent and honourable men, that is, as prisoners of war,
that that judicial blindness has fallen on the eyes of all. As
violence is not summed up in its particular performance, but
assumes to establish a despotic authority over the human race, so
is innocence when assailed invested with supreme attributes, if it
duly performs its duty of protest, resistance, and punishment. It
is in this sense that the maxim of Roman law — Justice is in
the keeping of the injured — receives its counter-application in
the present day.
Each of these crimes does not spring from the active pre
sence of so many millions of individual passions hurrying them
on. It springs solely from two causes: 1. Blind obedience to
the Executive; 2. Absence of penalty from the injured.
Having thus circumscribed the field, a very encouraging con
sideration presents itself. It is that of its simplicity. To ap
prehend it, neither legal, constitutional, diplomatic, nor historical
studies are requisite. The simple instincts of the most illiterate
of men suffice to embrace it and apply it. It only requires to be
stated to be accepted by all. There may arise difficulties in
reference to the means of rectification; but there can be none
as to the consequences to the human race, unless the remedy be
found.
As to the period of this momentous change, it cannot be fixed
to a year and by an event; it being in the course of nature that
change should be progressive. Unnecessary and unjust Wars
had long to be made and often repeated, before the new course
of ferocity became easy or possible. It may be needful severally
to trace these steps: and the more so, as the people of this
country is entirely ignorant of the acts done by itself.
As regards England, the first great disturbance took place
under the influence of polemical hatreds, and in connexion with
a Revolution, a change in the Succession of the Crown, and the
establishment on the throne of a Foreign Prince. This was the
war of the Spanish Succession. It arose out of a treaty in
which, for the first time, the legal and constitutional element
in an International proceeding, though not openly set aside, was
virtually extinguished. The signature of the Lord Chancellor
was appended to the blank parchment, which so transmitted to
William III., then in Holland, was filled in at his arbitrary
pleasure. To have protected this Empire, and with it Em-ope,
from the consequences of this crime, it would have been
�LAW TO LAWLESSNESS.
11
requisite to have put Lord Somers on his trial for his life. This
course not having been adopted, this first step was followed by
others in the same direction. All legal and all constitu
tional checks were successively withdrawn, whether as to the
making of wars, whether as to the negotiating and signing of
compacts with foreign States, out of which war arises. Simul
taneously the Royal functions were withdrawn from the super
vision of the body through which alone “ they could be exer
cised” and remitted to the disposal of an illegal body, to which
the designation of “ King’s Cabinet” was affixed. It is now
most falsely and most fatally held that the signing of treaties
and the making of war belong to the Royal Prerogative; whilst
such Royal Prerogative is held to be duly exercised, not by the
King in Privy Council, but by the accidental body brought
into power by a parliamentary majority, and which is called the
Cabinet.”
The wars, from that of the Spanish Succession, have been,
like it, unnecessary and unjust without exception, whilst, in carry
ing them on, the real power of England, in her naval means,
has been restrained rather than employed, by the successive
holders of office. But down to the close of the great wars of
the French revolution, a remnant of respect and of decency had
so far prevailed, that such forms as were of absolute necessity
to guard the consciences of soldiers and sailors were observed.
The warrant for destruction accompanied hostilities, and the
orders to kill, burn, and destroy were duly issued.
It is, then, since the European wars ceased, that commences
the era of uncloaked brigandage. The first incident (Navarino)
took place in 1827, which, though originating in a lawless treaty,
was not followed up by other operations (at least by England),
and was explained as the result of a mistake.
We have to come down eleven years nearer our own day for
the first positive and complete case of a buccaneering expedi
tion, undertaken and carried through by a constituted Govern
ment. This was the invasion of Affghanistan. The year
1838 may therefore be fixed upon as the period when war
ceased, and when the mere killing of men by the orders of
Governments commenced.
The Affghan war was made on the allegation that a certain
ruler was “ unfriendly” to England. This allegation, in itself
no ground for war, was supported by various sets of documents
presented to Parliament. These documents, being received by
the Envoy employed, they were declared by him to be a “ tissue
of falsehoods.” He consequently sent home for publication true
copies of his despatches. After many years and repeated motions
in Parliament, the original despatches were produced. The truth
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of the statement of Sir A. Burnes was then established; and it
was proved that the allegation against Dost Mahomed, and on
which the war to upset him had been explained and accepted, had
been made out, through an elaborate falsification of the official
despatches of the British Envoy.
The war therefore was unnecessary; it was unjust, for it was
not just to attack or upset a foreign Prince ; and being neither
necessary or just, it could not be, by any “ formality” rendered
legal, nor was there so much as the attempt to do so. The
document which appeared, though entitled a “Declaration,”
declared no war, but was restricted to observations in reference
to “ the service of troops across (beyond) the Indus.”
No ground was taken in Parhament on the law for resistance
to, or punishment of, this crime. After the whole of the ex
pedition had perished, a motion for mere inquiry was defeated,
and a second invasion was planned for the purpose of naked
vengeance.
But before this positive and hot-handed revolt against all laws
of God and man, preparations had been made for screening those
guilty in this respect from punishment. The English Government
negotiated with Spain a treaty (Elliot convention), according
to which they should no longer shoot the foreigners taking part
in the Civil contest then raging, and who were, and could only
be treated as pirates. The matter was managed with art.
There is no mention made of these foreigners. The English
Minister is only moved by the interests of humanity. It was
in the name of that great Moloch that both parties were called
upon not to shoot men after the battle was over.
*
In the Affghan war commencing the new era for mankind,
is found combined every order of guilt together with loss and
injury. It was to be expected that the licence thus obtained
should soon produce corresponding effects, and so it has proved.
Thirty years have now elapsed. During that time no Conqueror
has arisen: there has existed no necessity for war; yet wars, or
the operations to which the name has been affixed, have followed
uninterruptedly from that hour to the present; first in Asia,
then in Europe, after that in America, and now at last in Africa ;
all resulting either from the direct act of England, her indirect
encouragement, or through the operation of the general law
lessness which her practice has introduced or her authority
established.
This proceeding on the part of England awakened no atten
tion on the Continent of Europe. The sense of law was already
so far obliterated that the character of the new crime was not
• In the collection of Treaties published by the English Government this Conven
tion is wanting.
�LAW TO LAWLESSNESS.
13
perceived; the people against whom the blow was levelled wTas
remote ; they were looked upon as cc infidels” and (i uncivilised,”
and in respect to whom no Laws had to be observed. They did
not perceive that the reaction would afterwards fall upon Europe
herself. Indeed, France had herself a few years before com
menced the same lawless course in Africa, and had afterwards
continued it in Mexico and South America.
The invasion of Affghanistan was immediately followed by the
first Chinese War; a war, so far as the Chinese were concerned,
but piracy only on the part of Grreat Britain, as was formally
established.by the English Courts. Then came the destruction
of the British army in Affghanistan, and the second invasion for
the sake of vengeance. This was followed by the second and
third Chinese wars with their revolting incidents of atrocity
and barbarity. Then came the two Persian Wars, the two
attacks on Japan, the Bombardment of Jeddah, and now the
Invasion of Abyssinia. All these wars are of the same cha
racter, that is to say, unnecessary, unjust, profitless, and unac
companied by the forms requisite to make a just and necessary
War a lawful one.
It has to be remarked that whilst there was no gain to be
obtained by these operations, so was there no passion of an
internal kind to be gratified. The British Nation was on every
occasion surprised into them. Falsification of documents to the
extent of forgery, and every kind of misrepresentation were em
ployed to bring them about. These artifices were directed not
only against the public and the Parliament, but also against the
Colleagues of the Minister, and the Sovereign. And the im
punity, success, and pre-eminence of the sole Minister who
managed them, was secured by the idea that the honour of Eng
land was compromised and had to be maintained. Whilst, in
the universal sense of mental weakness and public insecurity,
confidence was given to the one man, in whom the rest recog
nised resolution and capacity.
Amongst the incidents of this order of which Asia has been
the field, we have to enumerate the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857,
it having been produced by the transmission from England to
India, in defiance of the standing orders of the department, of
cartridges prepared in a manner which inflicted pollution on our
Eastern subjects. The design in this case was the same as
in all the others ; and it was practicable and successful like the
others, only through the extinction of all the restraints hitherto
imposed on evil doers.
Thus from the year 1838 down to the year 1868 there has
been a scarcely uninterrupted series of piratical expeditions on
the vastest scale, the effects of which have been to shake the
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power of England in the East, to sap the basis of society and
the means of Government throughout these vast Regions, by
imposing heavy pecuniary obligations, and breaking down Con
stitutional restraints. Whilst, not there only, but throughout the
World, has the sense of law been obliterated from the minds of
men.
We have now to review the occurrences in our own quarter
of the globe.
The settlement of 1815 was one which, not restoring the con
ditions that had been disturbed and the rights that had been
infringed, prepared the way for what was to follow. It was
almost immediately followed by the Treaty called the Holy Alliance, which, pretending to establish a common right of Govern
ments to lend mutual aid to each other against their subjects,
had for effect that which was the object of its original proposer
—to generalise Revolution. All Governments were to lend
their troops against all subjects; all subjects were consequently
to combine against any Government. The distinction of alien
and subject was effaced, everybody could interfere with every
body and everywhere, and the right was established for every
man to fly at every other man’s throat. This heinous and sacriligious Treaty—for it pretended to act in the name of Christ—
introduced the unlawful system of Congresses. These generated
unlawful Wars; thus from it came the invasion of Naples by
Austria, and of Spain by France, and that general confusion
of opinions and affairs which has prevailed unto the present day.
Concurrently with these operations there was the intervention
in the East for the so-called “ Pacification of the Levant,” but
which was directed to the overthrow of the Ottoman Empire. The
Greeks had been insurrectionised by Russia. England, whom
it was found impossible to draw into the Holy Alliance, on the
withdrawal of the Russian Minister, made herself the organ of
Russia at Constantinople. The Turks resisting, a Treaty was
signed between England, France, and Russia, to constrain the
Turks. It stipulated that the means of action should be left
at the disposal of their representatives. This treaty was, there
fore, not a beneficent compact, but an outrage and an infamy.
It was, moreover, the surrender by each of the three Govern
ments of all control over their own actions, and placed their
respective forces at the conjoint disposal of their agents; that is,
of the one of these agents who happened to be more dexterous
than the others. Out of this came the butchery of Navarino,
and the destruction of the naval power of Turkey, followed im
mediately by the Russian invasion of Turkey, and the with
drawal of the representatives of England and France; so that it
was a common war of the three Powers against an Empire which
�LAW TO LAWLESSNESS.
15
two of them had entered into the negotiation with the avowed
purpose of protectingI
Meanwhile the Ruler of Egypt, secretly invited to revolt, first
by England and afterwards by France, twice rebelled, imperil
ling all Europe. After ten years of confusion, the result of
these negotiations and acts, a rupture was effected between Eng
land and France in reference to Egypt. A treaty sent from St.
Petersburg, and signed by England, Austria, and Prussia,
behind the back of France, all but produced a general European
war, and left everything in utter confusion, with an immense
increase of the warlike charges of France, and the fortifications
around Paris.
Not one of these steps could have been taken had there existed
in the Minister of any State “ respect for the laws or fears
“ for his person.”* They could not have taken place had the
Executives not usurped the power of making war without the
assent of the Estates of the Realm. They could not have taken
place had the Privy Council not been displaced from within the
Executive. They could not have taken place had the habit not
arisen of permanent Embassies, by which the internal condition
was invariably subjected to external considerations and influence.
Finally, they could not have taken place had the churches of
Christendom taught that murder in the aggregate was not less,
but the same sin, as murder in the individual. For then war
would no longer have been possible on the mere motion of the
Minister; letters and despatches would have remained without
effect to produce convulsion; and that maleficent power desig
nated “ moral influence ” would have been lifted off the human
race.
The pressure of taxation, the disturbance of every basis of
judgment; the absence of all authoritative exposition of what is
right in maxim, or profitable in practice; the periodical convul
sions arising from a fictitious monetary system; and the expen
diture of large sums of money and endless activity on the part
of one Government to organise secret and revolutionary societies,
had now prepared Europe for the repetition on a larger scale, in
1848, of the convulsion of 1830.
This event, to which our present state more immediately
belongs, was led and managed for Russia by England. It began
in Switzerland by double-dealing with the parties in the Civil
War. This was followed by the celebrated despatch of October,
1847, announcing designs of Austria on Italy, and threatening her
on the part of England. Then came the mission of Lord Minto
to all the Governments of Italy openly to impose on them in* Words used in the House of Commons, February, 1848, as applied to the English
Minister.
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ternal measures, and openly to invite the various populations to
revolt. No point of Europe was neglected. The ground was
everywhere mined by Russian revolutionary agents, whilst
England openly invoked rebellion. Thus, on a given day, in the
beginning of 1848, from Copenhagen and Bucharest, to the
Mediterranean and the Atlantic, every people was convulsed
and every throne upset.
When after a time the re-establishment came, there was,
in all respects, a difference. The Governments were more sub
servient, the people more discontented. The military organisa
tions were augmented, the debt and taxes were increased.
Hitherto the north of Europe had been spared; one people
in Europe was tranquil, had no factions, and was attached alike
to its institutions and to its Prince. It was now to be drawn
into the European vortex, and whilst made the victim of its order
and ‘loyalty, was to be converted into a more terrible lever of
convulsion than any other of the fragments of the confederacy
of European States, which had severally been used as dupes and
instruments. This people were the inhabitants of the Duchies
of the Eyder. The King of Denmark had been induced, on
perfidious councils from Paris, to infringe the rights of the
Duchies on the plea of including them in a general representative
constitution, which would make the “ United Danish Monarchy”
a barrier against Russia. Being thus prepared to be acted on
by the convulsion of 1848, a civil war with Denmark broke out,
which, by the management of England, was kept on for three
years. She interfered each Autumn by mediation, and prolonged
the situation till the warlike operations could be resumed in the
Spring, which were then allowed to take their course. Prussia
lent her aid to the same work by pushing on the Duchies,
getting the command of the conjoint forces, and then betraying
them in the field. After four years of this bloodshed and perfidy,
matters were brought to a head, and an arrangement took place
at Warsaw between the Russian Czar, as head of the House of
Oldenburg, and the King of Denmark, by which the succession
of the crown was altered, so that almost the whole of the inter
vening and numerous heirs were cut off; a successor named
to the Royal line, at the option of the Emperor of Russia, and
his own title as heir-general established, both to the Kingdom
and the Duchies.
Such a compact, unlawful as all the rest, was also offensive in
the last degree to Denmark, and alarming to all Europe. It was
impossible for the Danish Government to present to the Diet of
Copenhagen a law to carry it into effect. The Compact or Pro
tocol had been kept secret. To impose it on Denmark, and to
impose it on Europe, it was taken up by England. A Treaty,
�LAW TO LAWLESSNESS.
17
embodying the Warsaw Protocol, was signed in London, May
Sth, 1852, rehearsing that the arrangement had already been
made, and that the Treaty was only to give to it a “ European
sanction.” On this it was proposed to the. Danish Diet, as a
“ European necessity.” After repeated dissolutions, the constitu
tion was changed, and so the Treaty became law for Denmark.
These points are given, as out of this transaction—certainly
the most monstrous and insane, that the world has ever witnessed
—has come directly the phase of convulsion around us.
Whilst the Danish incident had been running its internal course
of five years, from the letters patent of 1846 to the Warsaw
Protocol of 1851, and its European course of fifteen years,
from that Protocol to the battle of Sadowa in 1866—in the
Italian Peninsula the harvest from the seed sown by the de
spatch of 1847 and the mission of Lord Minto was being
gathered in. Whatever the attractions for Russia of the Penin
sula itself, whatever the necessity of stopping a productiveness
which interfered with several, and endangered one of her own
staple products—whatever the occasion which it presented now,
as in all time, by the extended and exposed structure of the
*
land and the debased character of the people for exciting the
rivalries of neighbouring powers and bringing the fall of Dy
nasties—Italy, for Russia, meant the Pope. He was in Italy the
only real thing. He from Italy could restore law, order, and
peace in Christendom. He was head of the Western Church,
which the Czar works to destroy and pretends to incorporate.
The East was involved in Italy, no less than the West, and
Poland and Russia herself, no less than Europe and the East. To
revolutionize Italy was the means to reach the Pope. By that
process he could reach the sovereignty of the Bishop of Rome,
and so upset his spiritual power; that "is, that spiritual power not
exerted at present, but, as she well knew, capable of exercise in a
judicial fashion, and for which the first condition was that he
should be subject neither to a foreign Prince nor be protected
by foreign bayonets. That these must have been her desires
and her objects it is facile to perceive, and it is in evidence that
towards them, events have marched. But what is not so easy to
perceive, and might have appeared impossible to accomplish, is
what really did take place, and of which we possess the evidence.
It is that in bringing about this convulsion (1848) she concealed
from the Papal Government her part therein—concealed from
its eyes alike her secret connexion with revolution and with the
English Government, and made it believe that she was doing
her best to protect the Pope against both. She made the largest
* “ Divided by the Apennines ; surrounded by the sea.”
B
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offers in money ancl troops, and accepted the grateful acknow
ledgments of the Pope for having, by her influence, obtained
for his protection the presence of French troops at Pome.
*
It was not that the Pope had forgotten Poland, or the substi
tution by the Czar of himself for Patriarch, or his pressure in
the East on his spiritual subjects; but all were then powerless
to comprehend that Russia made use of revolution. They all
believed her to be its opponent. However, the anomaly of the
goodwill thus shown by the Russian Cabinet had to be explained.
The explanation offered and accepted was that St. Petersburg
and Rome were on “ the same line,” that being the “ line of
order.” It is curious that the Revolutionists at the very same
moment were attributing the pecuniary support they received
from her to the same cause, that of being “ on the same line
with her.” They understood that line to be “ disorder.”
The historian of the Revolutions of Europe remarks that,
from the commencement of the eighteenth century, history had
become difficult to write, in consequence of the non-observance
of public law. Now that the very idea of law has disappeared, or,
which is even worse, its name only used to misapply it and to
affix it to some monstrous deed, the affairs of mankind have be
come one mass of incalculable confusion. They now pretend
to substitute for the law they have abrogated, what they
call an “ International Law,” which is to consist of Treaties.
Strange as it may appear, it is not the less true that there has
not been a single treaty signed during this period, that of Vienna
inclusive, that has not been violated, till at last treaties are
looked upon as some miasma pervading the air.f The idea
of any value as resulting from a positive compact having disap
peared, they now propose to substitute them for the Law of
God and of Nations.^
* “So early as the mouth of February, 1848, the Cabinet of St. Petersburg thus
addressed itself to the Court of Rome :—
“ ‘It is beyond doubt that the Holy Father will find in His Majesty the Emperor
a loyal supporter in effecting the restitution to him of temporal and spiritualpower, and
that the Russian Government will apply itself to all the measures that may contribute
to this end, seeing that it nourishes in respect to the Court of Rome no sentiment of
rivalry and no religious animosity.’”—Farina Stato Romano,vol. Hi. p. 215.”—From
“ The East and the West,” by the Hon. H. Stanley.
f “ The Treaty of Gastein was now losing its vitality.”—M. Rouher.
j “ The most manifest and repulsive indication of that aspiration for Omnipotence
which popular sovereignty affects is the contempt of that elementary right which the
public honour and good sense have called the faith of treaties.”—M. A. Re Broglie,
in the Li Revue des Deux Mondes.” Thus the perception of the evil is powerless in
this age to lead to the perception of the cure. The first proposal of substituting
Treaties for Law and calling them Law was made by Russia, in 1806, as one of the
conditions on which she would have accepted the peace then on the point of settlement
between England and France. As a step towards this result, at the Treaty of Vienna
no anterior Treaty was restored, so that the peace became a generality.
�LAW TO LAWLESSNESS»
19
In former periods of anarchy and violence a remedy was pos
sible. The idea of it spontaneously arose. It was that of Law. At
that time—-that is to say, in all previous times, crimes only were
committed. The hearts of men were corrupted, but their under
standings were left to them; and speech, the instrument of
reason, was under each man’s hand to use if prompted thereto.
To-day the disturbance does not come from hordes lusting for
territory, or conquerors for battle-fields. Those who commit the
crimes suffer from them. It is the understanding that is per
verted; it is speech that is falsified; and therefore is the restora
tion at once most easy and most difficult—most easy, because all
would be on the side of right, did it find an interpreter; most
difficult, for where is the interpreter to be found in an age which
has fallen into this chaos by reason of false speech in use, and
true speech forgotten ?
When such terms as “ Public Opinion,” “ Civilisation,”
“ Progress,” can be uttered, who can speak of Law, of Justice 2
and how, therefore, can there be peace on earth and goodwill
among men 2
All these terms have been already condemned by the Pope ;
but in condemning them he has not analysed them to show their
vacuity. Let us take an instance. To say that the word
“ progress ” should not be used, is of the greatest service to any
human being who will obey the injunction ; because it will save
him from a large amount of distracting volubility, evil habits of
mind, and erroneous conclusions. But only abstaining from it
because it is forbidden, and not knowing it to be unmeaning, he
will not be freed from its effects when it falls from the lips of
others ; noi' will he be able to show to others why it is objection
able. Being incapable of giving a reason for his objection to its
use he will sink in the estimation of his interlocutor, and in his
own. The benefit of discipline is not secured to him. Instead
of the regenerating effect of discarding a false term, his obedience
only justifies the contempt of the “ man of the age,” who holds
religion to be superstition, and its professors to be weak-minded.
Let us suppose this Catholic to be instructed by his priest,
himself instructed by the Head of the Church, and so enabled
to deal logically, and not religiously or authoritatively, with a
logical perversion. How differently wrnuld he stand! He
■would then proceed to call his opponent to account, even as
Christ did in the time of the Pharisees, or as Socrates did in
the time of the Sophists. He would question him as to his
meaning; he would ask him to explain the relation between a
substantive of motion and a method of reasoning. He would
call for a definition of the geographic field over which motion is
predicated, and for the contents of the entity represented as
b 2
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marching over it. He would persist in drawing forth the forms
of the unknown future towards which the progress is to be made.
He would force him to declare whether his “ progress ” was
towards or away from knowledge of cases, the correct definition
of laws, the due regulation of constitutional checks, the restraints
on the exercise of political power, the control over the public
expenditure, the supervision of transactions between States, and
the inhibition of public acts not beneficial, not just, not lawful.
He would have always in reserve to show, and by questions to
bring out the avowal, that on all these heads, since the word in
question came into use, there had been a progressive deterioration
of the human species. Thus would he confound and confute
his antagonist, and show that to employ amphibologies is not the
perfection but the extinction of the human faculties.
Men can go on, with the pen in their hand, making phrases—
the weakest as well as the strongest. They are at once pulled
up by a question, and will equally be baffled by it—the strongest
as well as the weakest.
It is impossible to separate man and speech. There may be
base men using language correctly, but there can be no people
upright whose speech is debased. No branch of human science
can be followed, or even so much as exist, if the terms be not
defined. No legal act is binding into which terms not legal are
introduced. An article of faith consists entirely in the definition
of the terms.
What is here in evidence before us in the introduction of new
terms into all the languages of Europe, and that all these have a
double meaning: concurrently therewith, there has been a dis
turbance of all settled convictions.
The connexion is therefore established by two distinct pro
cesses. Ambiguous terms must bring, we say, malversation in
affairs and infidelity in belief. They have been introduced, and
have been accompanied by these results.
It follows, therefore, that the rectification must commence by
the exclusion of such terms ; and the Pope ha's put his hand to
this work, condemning as unchristian and uncatholic those
very terms which had already, on philological grounds, been
shown to be unmeaning and deceptive.
For doing this Catholics have a great advantage in the Sacred
Writings, having to study them, in the first instance, in the
natural sense. This is a preparation for confounding fallacy
by throwing men back on themselves, and for calling men to
Repentance without reference to dogma. These are among the
latent intellectual powers of the Catholic Church, which it knows
not itself, and which will be known either to itself or others only
when exerted.
�LAW TO LAWLESSNESS.
21
Concurrently with the obliteratiou of the common instincts of
man as regards the taking of life, there has arisen in Europe a
parallel change in the conduct of affairs, by which one subordinate
branch of government has been rendered supreme in each. The
department of Foreign Affairs dealing extra-nationally, has got
this mastery, and out of it has come an enthralling secresy. This
revolution has been worked out of the “ Intervention in the
“East.” That operation has converted international business
into a labyrinth. The very existence of which is unknown save
to those who had been connected therewith, before the Greek
episode commenced. Each Foreign Department uncontrolled,
unquestioned, can bring about wars, can, consequently, exert
“ moral influence ” on other states; and so can disturb internal
affairs, overthrow internal liberty, augment military establish
ments, increase charges, impose taxes, augment debt, produce,
indirectly, disloyalty and unbelief; and whilst directly foment
ing revolution in particularly selected countries, prepares for it
in all; tending in a direction, which at some point must render
all government impossible: and so preparing for the general
domination throughout Europe of some power or people whose
understanding and speech has not been similarly vitiated.
Before closing this branch it is desirable to revert to the act
of Geneva in 1602. It is not only a great lesson, but also a
prominent landmark. It is such a limit between two order's
of existence, such as that traced by Tacitus in summing up the
history of Rome, where he says, Hie finis cequi Juris. It explains
how small states have been in later times absorbed, and how
they remained up to these times, to be absorbed. When a crime
against which human nature revolts does not receive its due
penalty, of course it spreads, and, spreading, changes its cha
racter. So it has happened. Bandits being normally sent forth
by established governments, come at last to constitute themselves
on their own account, and to combine to assail this country or
that. The penalties having ceased to be applied to the first, are
then no longer applied to the second, so that a trade in piracy is
established, and the inducement of impunity, which would apply
to a band of false coiners, applies to the enterprises carried on
against the Sultan or the Pope. The Sovereigns so attacked,
not exercising the functions of sovereignty in this respect, be
come themselves in reality accomplices in this breaking down of
all things. They have, moreover, no passions to mislead them,
and no real or supposed advantage to gain. It is therefore the
result of weakness only—the greatest of all sins in the holder
of delegated authority. Firmness in some would at any moment
of past time have stopped the course of evil. Firmness would
stop it even to-day.
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SOCIETY TO BE SAVED ONLY BY THE LAW.
It is not, however, correct to designate these adventurers
as . Bandits or Pirates. The latter have a positive object of
gain in view. They may be driven to guilty deeds by ne
cessity. They have the excuse of degrading associations. They
incur positive danger; and, lastly, they are conscious of thenown acts. Far different is the man who imbrues his hands in
the blood of his fellow-creatures without such inducements,
such risks, or such consciousness, and who is moved by the
passions of the understanding—the most ferocious and' most
hopeless that can take possession of the human heart—the more
hopeless and base, the loftier and the holier the pretensions which
he puts forward to himself or others. The passions of the heart
are the passions of the animal or the wild beast which lie down
when satisfied. The passions of the understanding are those of
the human being perverted from the image of God to the pur
poses of the Devil. It is before this outburst that the execu
tioner gives way !
Had the hired assassins of the King of Sardinia met the
fate of those of the Duke of Savoy—had there been in 1862 a
township in Sicily with hearts of the men who lived in 1602,
Italy would have been spared, the “ making” she has had, and
the unmaking she will presently have to undergo.
3rd.
SOCIETY TO BE SAVED ONLY BY THE LAW.
The third question is already answered. It is more than an
swered, for the method to be adopted has also been shown. It
consists in the extrication of the mind from a few fallacies, all
which disappear of themselves, from the moment that a man
sees that to kill, to rob, to covet, to bear false witness, is no less
a crime when committed by many against many, than when
committed by one against one, or a few against a few. Not to
know this is to be under judicial blindness. Whilst that blind
ness endures, the case, as regards the conduct, conscience, busi
ness, and existence of a people is exactly such as, in regard to
material objects, it would be, if natural and artificial light were
suspended, and the human race were left to grope their way in
the dark. Efforts, if made, would avail nothing, resources un
bounded within his reach would satisfy neither hunger nor
thirst, and he would perish miserably in the midst of the stench
of his already putrifying fellow-creatures, despite all that Pro
vidence might have otherwise supplied for his comfort, and
fortune assorted for his pre-eminence.
�SOCIETY TO BE SAVED ONLY BY THE LAW.
23
The expression “International Law” has, however, to be put
aside. The epithet alone reveals this hopeless and abject con
dition. It reveals the intellectual debasement out of which that
condition has sprung; it reveals the loss of respect for the rule
of right, without which neither would the understanding have
been debased, nor circumstances disordered. The Law is
supreme, the Law rules, the Law is from on high. It is above
all. Thus the Law of Nations is a holy law; but the sacred
character vanishes before the preposition “ between.” In English
you could not say it. If you did, you would know that it was
nonsensical and feel that it wTas vile—“the between-NationsLaw.”
The Law of Nations is otherwise termed the “Law of
Nature,” and, again, the “ Law of God ”—of Nature and of
God because of its essence; of Nations, because ruling all and
accepted by all. It is the Ten Commandments as applicable to
communities. By observing these a people preserves its faith,
its honour, its liberty, its power, and, if capable in other respects,
will live for ever. When a people causelessly assails another,
it has lost innocence, honour, liberty, and faith. It contains no
longer one citizen, one Christian, or one gentleman, save amongst
the protestors, if there be any.
Finally, it is peculiarly the Law of Nations because it, and it
alone, deals with and adjudicates on their aggregate acts. It is
the civil and criminal municipal law applied to the whole com
munity. An eminent English judge has thus defined it:—
“ The Law of Nations,” says Lord Mansfield—“ that uni“ versal Law, which will be carried as far in England as any“ where—which is here adopted in its full extent by the Common
“ Law, and is held to be a part of the Law of England ; which
a Acts of Parliament cannot alter : which is to be collected, toge“ ther, together with the rules of decision concerning it, not from
“ Acts of Parliament, but from the practice of different nations
“ and the authority of writers; of which from time to time Acts
“ of Parliament have been made to enforce, or decisions to facili“ tate, the execution, and are, therefore, considered not as intro“ ductive of any new law, but merely as declaratory of the old
“ fundamental constitutions of the kingdom; and finally, without
“which the kingdom must cease to be a part of the civilised
“ world.”
This Law is, moreover, emphatically that of Nations, because
the Nations have themselves to enforce it. It is against their
Governments that they have to enforce it. It is by
taking care that their rulers “ shall do that only which is law
ful,” that peace can be possessed or preserved on earth. The
contrary must happen if that Law of Nations is remitted to the
�24
SOCIETY TO BE SAVED ONLY BY THE LAW.
agents, that is. the Governments, to apply, to interpret, and to
change at. their pleasure. It is thus that a people falls into the
last condition of<£ taking for law that which their rulers do.” To
recover them from it, some must arise different from the rest, to
reprove and to teach them.
There remains behind a still graver consideration for the
future. If the Law of Nations is not observed, it will neces
sarily come to be perverted, and its name, forms, and authority
will remain as a blight on the world. The Law transformed
into a mask and cloak for the designing will thus become the
most fruitful of all sources of war and discord.
A small chink lets in light. It is not willingly that nations
err, sin, slay, and suffer. Therefore is it that those who among
such a generation do see, are filled with zeal, 'are incessant in
toil, and endued with power. Few and insignificant, as in them
selves they may be, their work may bear fruits.
Operations depending on thought are independent of numbers.
This present condition of the human race has been brought
about by a single man.
n
It is not bloodshed alone that we suffer from, and that has to
be put a stop to, but lawless acts of all kinds; whether these
consist in commission or in omission : of wrongs perpetrated or
wrongs endured. Had there been a body of upright men in
England, there would have been no waiver of the means of co
ercing her enemy in 1854, no giving away of her maritime power
in 1856, no fitting out of Piratical vessels in 1863, no refusal of
reparation for their depredations in 1864-7, no endurance of the
transfer by sale of territorial possessions amongst our neighbours,
or any foreign Powers, no submission to Blockades where war
of no kind had been made, no interference in the internal juris
diction of Eastern States by our Consuls, no proposals to shake
the very bases of all society in destroying the indefeasible alle
giance of the subject;—none, in fact, of these novelties, which
come upon us to-day in overwhelming and inextricable shoals,
and which were unknown in the world among all its previous
generations. All these and all that are to follow are the neces
sary effects of dispensing ourselves from the observance of any
rule of conduct. Surely a remedy so simple and so comprehen
sive ought to have attractions, if only from its novelty. We do
run after new things and strange things; one more new or more
strange is not to be found than Justice.
�DUTY OF THE POPE TO RESTORE THE LAW.
25
4th.
DUTY OF THE POPE TO RESTORE THE LAW.
Whether the Catholic Church is capable of this restoration
must depend on the qualities of the men it possesses at this
hour. It is placed under the necessity of making the attempt,
both because of the new characters which crime has recently
put on, and because of the assumption of authority over the con
sciences of its flock.
The words spoken by the Pope, while containing a promise,
also suggest a fear. By them the Church steps out of its poli
tical disability, asserting its appellate jurisdiction. Four years
have elapsed since the pretension was advanced, but it has re
mained unexerted. No preparatory steps have been taken for its
exercise. The question therefore arises as to the sense attached
to the words themselves. In any case the position of affairs is
no longer the same after they have been spoken; for from that
hour the sanction of the Church must be assumed to have been
given in all cases where it has not rebuked and condemned.
It did not, however, require the assertion of this claim in this
authoritative manner to convey a religious sanction to political
crimes. It may be put in this very self-evident and simple
fashion : Granted that the Church of England or of Prussia is
not called upon to determine the lawfulness of a war made by
the respective Governments of these countries, it does not there
upon follow that the Church of Rome can dispense itself from
this duty, seeing that its pretension is to be universal, and that
its flock will be engaged on both sides; so that there is for it
no possibility of not sanctioning crime, as there is an impossi
bility of both sides being innocent.
The case has been stated by a distinguished Prelate (the
Bishop of Mayence) in the following terms :—
u In the last centuries, after abandoning the commandments
“ of God, an inert form has been substituted for them, derived
from the scales in which merchandise is weighed. . . . This
“ separation of the Rights of Nations and the Law of God—
“ this fiction that the end and means of Policy stand in a horizon
“ superior to those of vulgar morals and justice, brings an im“ mense peril for the peace of the world. This is war in perma“ nency, or a simple armistice—the prelude of a war of all
“ against all.
“ It is thus that we have to deplore bitterly that Religion has
“ been rendered the accomplice of this policy. They have been
“ very ill inspired who in these latter times, have suggested to
“ Religion and its ministers, to give a sort of religious consecration
�26
DUTY OF THE POPE TO RESTORE THE LAW.
“ to all these violences. For how many victories have TeDeums
“ been chanted that have no ways been for the glory of God,
“ but which were cursed by God from heaven ! ”
It is thus that the Bishop of Mayence—without having
perceived the distinction between wars that are unjust and those
that are unlawful, and taking the first ground alone, and sup
posing that to be the guilt and danger of our times—still with
grief and indignation, and also with horror, points to the
desecration of religion, in the blessing by it of opposing arms.
Here speaks a disturbed conscience and a grieving heart; but
how unavailing those emotions, even when combined with high
intellectual powers, to find and apply the remedy, when the re
quisite knowledge of circumstances is wanting, is singularly illus
trated in the veiy work from which the above extract is taken.
It is entitled “ Germany after the War of 1866,” and necessarily
deals with the causes which brought about that war. The
author sees none of them. He makes statements as to Denmark
which are not correct. He then speculates thereon. Finally,
he reverts to that terrible and sacrilegious compact, the Holy
Alliance, through which Europe has been convulsed, as a great,
and good, and beneficial operation, attributing to its non-iulfilment the present condition of things I
Although, therefore, the instances of Gregory the Great,
Gregory VII., and Innocent III. must necessarily present
themselves to any hopeful mind, whatever its religious pro
fession, and whether or not it admits of any faith or belief at all,
yet Popes are required nowadays for far graver purposes than
to interdict uncanonical marriages, to excommunicate Royal
assassins, to restrain unlawful taxes, or even to condemn unjust
wars.
At the present time it is no active interference that is called
for in the State; it is simply adjudication on criminal matters
that is required. The povrer so to be exercised will be appre
hended only after it has been exerted; and it can be exerted
only by the possession of those eminent qualities, that perfect
knowledge, and that unbounded self-sacrifice and devotion
which, in the person of Gregory, created that wonderful
system which we designate the Church of Rome; and which,
in the person of the present Pope, if it please Providence
to grant him time and aids in men, may restore that Church,
and with it retrieve and preserve human society—that society
which, in his own words, is “ crumbling to pieces.”
A French philosopher (unbeliever) says :—
“ Do not tell me that Gregory, Leo, Urban, Innocent,
“ and so many others were Saints a thousand years ago. . I want
�DUTY OF THE POPE TO RESTORE THE LAW.
27
“ you to-day to be one yourself, in order that all the moral world
“ may, without dispute, fall down at your feet.”*
A Protestant clergyman and the actual Dean of St. Paul’s, in
writing of the past, shows what is practicable in the present:—
“In the person of Gregory, the Bishop of Rome first
“ became, in act and influence, if not in avowed authority, a
“ temporal Sovereign. Nor were his acts the ambitious encroach“ ments of ecclesiastical usurpation on the civil power. They
“ were forced upon him by the purest motives, if not by actual
“ necessity. The virtual Sovereignty fell to him as abdicated by
“ the neglect or powerlessness of its rightful owners; he must
“ assume it or leave the people and the city to anarchy. His
“ authority rested on the universal feeling of its beneficence.”!
But the Pope is also a crowned head. He is one of the com
munity of Sovereigns; yet he has not taken part in those
proceedings which have reduced Europe to a chaos of mind and
affairs. He has never recognised the Treaty of Vienna which
is the fountain of these evils; he has unceasingly protested
against it. He has also specially and vehemently protested
against some of the crimes (in Poland and Italy) perpetrated
under the conjoint influence of the extra-national management
to which Europe is now subject.
It is, therefore, no less the duty of the Pope, as a king, to
protest against crimes in which he has no part, and of which he
is the victim, than for the Pope, as head of the Roman Catholic
church, to teach every adult as every child belonging to his
flock, that bloodshed without cause is murder; and to refuse
the offices of religion (as he does to the conspirators in England
known as Fenians) to any man directly engaged therein,
by planning or executing them, or indirectly by approving of
them, and contributing money towards them in the shape of
taxes. His kingdom is indeed small, but in the eye of the Law,
as of human reason, all sovereignties are equal. So also in our
circumstances, the smallest State in Europe can equal the
greatest. The affairs of all nations are interwoven. They are
all conducted in secret. The entire European community is
thus at the mercy of the most dexterous ; and being all destitute
of the requisite qualifications by which to detect what is being
done with them, the web is gradually woven round their eyes, as
the snares are prepared for their feet. There is no extrication
for them save integrity and capacity in some one government,
and such a Government however minute its territories, could
render them this service.
* “ Christianity,” by Quinet, p. 59.
f Milman’s “ Latin Christianity,” vol. ii., p, 130.
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TIIE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
But with these qualifications the Court of Rome becomes, at
a bound, the most powerful on earth; and it has already
taken its stand against that Government which manages all the
others, and is leading them on to their mutual destruction.
The acquisition of these intellectual means is, therefore, the
question. For this,. individual powers, the most rare in the
history of mankind, are requisite. An eminent ecclesiastic
has put it in a form which cannot be improved upon. “ For
this,” he said, “ giants are required; and there are no giants
“ to be found either within the Church or without it.”
Has the attempt, therefore, to be abandoned in despair ? By
no means. The first and greatest step is made when some have
recognised its difficulty.
5th.
THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
No Council is required for this work. There is nothing new
to be discovered or enacted, no new tribunal to be instituted. In
the Council there is danger only, and it is thus that it may
be counted gain.
These propositions are of the highest quality by their nature,
and of the vastest bearing in their application, now and in all
future time. If to any design the word great can be applied, it
applies to this one. Therefore can it be worked out only by
individual minds. A public assembly, however constituted, is
unfitted for the task.
The bases, metaphysical and legal, have been already laid
down by the Pope. The superstructure is wanting.
As respects terms, he has condemned them as erring; they
have to be shown to be unmeaning, to give intellectual life to his
flock, and enable them to make wai' on the fallacies in which all
error is enveloped and contained.
Among the vast resources available for this purpose is that
portion of education which in England is termed “ classical,” and
in France “ profane.” The literature so studied is that of States
(Greece and Rome) which, in their corruption and decay, are to
us at once warnings and models—warnings by their fall, models
by their thoughts. Homer is a code of the Law of Nations. In
Demosthenes we possess a remonstrance against our actual
habits, on which the seal of value has been impressed by the fall
of Athens, as a result of its neglect. Socrates has been held
by Fathers of the Church to have been the harbinger of Chris
tianity. His teaching consisted in unravelling the errors con
tained in false terms. During the flourishing, and therefore
�THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
29
corrupt, period of Rome, we have the two dangers constantly pre
sented, which threaten the communities of Europe to-day—false
terms and injustice—and the two are linked together. It is not
only moralists, but statesmen, favourites, and popular poets who
thus speak. I cite some of them, for these are the words which
meet our need.
Cato told his fellow-countrymen that they had lost true
speech by adopting false speech (“nos vera rerum vocabula
amisimus”). Seneca tells them that they no longer had law,
since they took for law “ whatever their rulers did.” Cicero,
in the sublime description of what a community ought to be,
which he places in the mouth of Africanus, has'these words :
“ The State (res publica) is not only synonymous with justice,
“ but exists only by and in the highest justice.” Virgil makes
the shades of Hades echo with the great voice of Theseus :—
“ Discite justitiam moniti et non temnere Divos.”
The lyric of the Augustan age presents Virtue unteaching men
their false terms, and thus securing a safe condition of life:—•
. Virtus populumque falsis
dedocet uti
Vocibus.”
“.
.
How is it that such things are known to the school-boys, and
are forgotten by the men of Europe ? How is it that there are
none to be found to take advantage of such teachings in the
past, to turn them to profit for the present, and so bring up the
Youth, knowing what is wrong, and loving what is right ? But
what did the fallacious terms of the Greeks or Romans amount
to? For the first, it was but meshes woven out of their own tongue.
For the second, it was but a very slight importation of Greek
terms. With us, it is a vast influx of both Greek and Latin
terms, and these jumbled up together and used in senses that
would be utterly unintelligible to Greeks or Romans; while
always displacing the simple and appropriate words of our own
tongue. The mass of these will astound when it is considered
that every word ending in ty, in ence, in ion, in ite, ism, and ze
belong to this category, when used in the second intention. The
effect on the human being placed in the hopeless condition of
having to learn these, and to believe that they mean something,
may be apprehended, when it is stated that every such term is
unmeaning in itself, illogical in its construction, and perverting
in its use. These terms may be used—have to be used—for
others. The danger lies in being used by them; that is, tbinking in them and through them, and imagining that there is
meaning in them.
It was the duty of the teacher to prevent the use by the child
�30
THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
of vague or unmeaning terms ; so would he have put a stop to
erroneous ideas which came in as the explanation of these
terms. The teacher has not done so. It is now for the Church
to render this service to the adult.
The task may be difficult, but the obligation is imperious. If
difficult, it is not impossible. If it -were so, there could be no
safety and no hope. If men arrive at false totals because they
are working with false figures, you may hope to put them right;
and strive to do so. But if you accept the figures as correct,
then there remains nothing to do. If the evil that is done arose
from a purpose in their hearts, again the task would be hope
less, and words would be without power. It is only because
they are deceived by their terms, and thereby cheated into doing
what they do not desire, that human speech can avail for human
good.
But for this there must be the perfect and absolute conviction
of the nothingness of all that is held to be, in this age, intellectual
power and philosophical culture. Any one can arrive at this
certainty for himself, who will take any sentence of any modern
writer, whoever he may be, and strike out of it the Greek and
Latin terms, and then read it over. He will then see that these
terms were all superfluous; that the sense, if sense there was,
comes out free, or that the fallacy remains naked and exposed.
It has to be made apparent that those speculations in which
modern society is engaged are not only politically futile, and re
ligiously and morally heinous, but also that intellectually, they
are contemptible.
This branch, then, the metaphysical, is the first which has
to be undertaken for the Council.
As regards crimes, the basis was equally laid when the Pope
asserted his “ power over the consciences,” not of individuals
only, but also “ of communities, nations, and their Sovereigns.”
This power he has never exerted, nor can he till he specifies the
Law. That has to be done not only in reference to wars, but
also in reference to Congresses, Treaties, and Protocols. For
besides the modern practice of making wars without form, has
come that of holding Conferences without cause; of making
compacts (Treaties) vicious in matter of form, and lawless in
substance; of substituting Protocols for Treaties; of violating
Treaties when made; and of superimposing on all this a new
invention, which they term “ Declaration,” and by means of
which the internal condition of each State can be reached and
upset. There has, therefore, a rule to be laid down according
to which, in all these respects, Catholics may be able to dis
tinguish what is lawful from what is criminal. Then, and then
�THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
31
only, can and will the Pope exercise “power”—judicial power
“ over communities, nations, and their sovereigns.”
It can only be attributed to the indistinctness that prevails in
regard to these matters being common to all, that the Pope,
being recently called upon to act magisterially by a most
heinous attempt of foreign bandits on his State, his subjects,
and himself; did not in his own courts vindicate the Law, and
use “ the power of the magistrate” for the repression of evil
doers and the protection of the innocent. Had he done so, he
would by his own act have commenced the restoration of
human society, and would have gained for the promulgator of
this new order (himself) the respect and confidence of mankind.
Crime leaves no option. It must be either pursued or accepted.
To condone crime, is to be criminal. It is so in the private man,
how much more so hi the magistrate ? How strange that these
things have to be said; how much more so to know that, speak
ing them, they are not understood.
This Code of “ Christian Legislation” having been enacted,
then no grander spectacle could be witnessed, and no holier
work conceived, than the assembling of the body of the Church
to accept it, ancl to take counsel together for its application.
The danger consists in the work being left to be done by a
Council composed of men who are ecclesiastics only, and neither
lawyers, metaphysicians, nor diplomatists; at a time when the
Church has ceased to be what it was in the middle ages, the
fountain of Law; in an age when the common talk is fallacy,
and when the affairs of nations are enveloped in a secret and
mysterious web of deception.
The superior minds who have somewhat approached the
subject have felt this danger. One of the most eminent has
used the words “ The Council will kill or cure.” In this__in
the perception of this danger—lies that hope which has been
above expressed, namely, that some will thereby be induced to
make the effort necessary to have the work for the Council done
and well done, beforehand.
It has to be considered that the whole field of public morals
has been left untouched by modern speculation. It remains to
be trodden by the Church. Among all the subjects submitted
to investigation, the stopping of wars has been omitted. In all
our speculations for the improvement of the human race, no
plan has been suggested for arresting the progress of public ex
penditure. In all our associations for protecting the injured and
the weak, not one has appeared for the protection of public
honour, morals, and interests. In all our projects of reform,
there has not been one for the restraining of the Executive, and
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THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
preventing it from disposing at its arbitrary pleasure of the
money and blood of the subject.
As this Council is not for the settlement of dogma or disci
pline, at least as primary objects, but to devise means for arrest
ing general disorder, it is not for Catholics only, but for
mankind. If the results obtained are for the good of any, they
must be also for the good of all. Those who are thus con
cerned should be admitted. At the Council of Trent, the
Protestant States were invited to attend by their represen
tatives. Such an invitation, it is true, would be accepted, if
accepted by the European Governments, only with the view of
preventing any just solution, and to produce confusion. But
the domain of Law, belongs not to Executives, nor even to socalled Legislative Assemblies, but to legists. An appeal, there
fore, to men whose studies have been so directed would natu
rally fall into, as it would be a necessary part of, such a design.
The Law of Nations, which overrules all Municipal Law, and
which, as regards England, is still part and parcel of the law of
the land, has never been enacted by parliamentary statute, nor
promulgated by royal authority. Its expounders have been, in
modern times, private individuals. The chief of these have
been Protestants (Grotius and Vattel). Their compilations
include the laws and practice of pagan times and people; and
especially of Ancient Rome, where the jus gentium was the
common law, but which had for its external application a
special judicatory. Processes with foreign States were referred
exclusively to that judicatory, and withdrawn from the civil
power. Neither King nor Consul, neither Senate nor People,
could so much as interfere in such matters, or could declare war
or make peace. The “ Government,” in such cases, "was con
sidered as a “party” merely in the dispute, and its acts were
inquired into. It was the Fecial College, a body having no
political character or functions, and which was invested with a
legal and religious character, into whose hands the case was
remitted so soon as a difference arose between the Roman Ex
ecutive and that of any other people.
It is therefore on the example of this gieat people that those
few private individuals whose minds have been turned to this
branch of human science, have chiefly relied in expounding
those principles which have obtained for them pre-eminent
authority in the courts of all modern kingdoms, and which
have, in so far as they have been maintained, secured order
and peace in the world. If private men, endowed with publicmindedness, have become the lawgivers and benefactors of
their species, what might not be effected by the Church of
Rome, if it entered on the task in a similar spirit, having no
�THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
33
longer laboriously to work out, but simply to employ and
apply the materials ready to its hand?
But Europe is not entirely Christian. A great Mahomedan
Power dwells on its soil, and holds possession of the point not
only of greatest geographical and political importance in Europe,
but in the world. This system, so far from being opposed to
the great design of the Pope, is associated therewith, and is
the only Government not directly and essentially opposed to it.
It is so not only as being, in common with the Pope, exposed to
the direct assault of bandits or to the insidious combinations of the
other Powers, but it is so also as having preserved in its constitu
tion the same laws and practices that prevailed in Pagan Rome.
The effects of this original constitution are still evidenced in this,
that it has alone abstained from forming designs against its neigh
bours, or combining to subvert their independence by interfering
in their affairs. The Sultan and Divan of Turkey can, no more
than could the Consuls and Senate of Rome, decree or levy war.
The Ulema in the one country, as the Fecials in the other, have
first to render their sentence (Fetva). Were a Sultan without
such warrant to declare war, he would find no one to obey him.
*
The common Mussulman soldier would make no distinction be
tween the individual murder of a fellow-citizen and the aggregate
murder of a foreign regiment. Without the Fetva of the Sheik
ul Islam, he would hold himself no more bound to obey his officer
in firing on such regiment, than an English soldier would do, in
firing on a mob without the reading of the Riot Act.
It will be, of course, supposed by Europeans, judging by their
own habits, that Turkey is not herself aggressive or intriguing, like
the other Governments, solely because she is the object of attack on
the part of others; but it is not so. Had it not been from her own
maxims and character, she would have been the most dangerous
Power in Europe, if, possessed, as she is, of the positions the
most important, she had yielded to the combined inducements
of unjust profits to make, and legitimate animosities to gratify.
Take as instance the year 1812, when, after suffering from the
several violences of England and France, an offensive alliance
was proposed to her by Russia, under which their naval and
land forces were to be combined, their joint fleets to issue into
the Mediterranean, and their armies to invade Lombardy. The
dream of Mahmoud H. was paraded before her eyes, and not
Italy only, but the Southern Provinces of France, offered
* In the only case of such usurpation presented by the annals of Turkey, the
Sultan (Mahmoud IV.) was put to death. He had recommenced war with Austria
before the expiration of a truce. Even under the new order commenced in this gene
ration, the most eloquent and popular preacher at Constantinople denounced the
surrender of Belgrade as an act of infidelity, as well as usurpation, no fetva having
been obtained for it.
�34
THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
to her ambition. The good sense of certain men might, in
deed, have sufficed to overrule the suggestions of the tempter;
but even if there had been found in the Divan a Kaunitz, a
Beust, or a Bismarck, still the craft and corruption of such
men must have failed in face of institutions which required
the plans of a Minister, before execution, to be submitted to a
public Divan and approved of by a legal Fetva. The Grand
Vizier at the Treaty of Belgrade said to the Ministers of Austria
and France, “You do not understand our Government. One or
“ two men cannot decide at Constantinople, as they do at Paris
“ and Vienna.”
This rule of the Boman State was that of all human society in
the origin (the Romans only copied those who were before them,
and specially the Etruscans). It is also that which we still hold
to in common practice. The “ Government,” and even the
“ Crown,” comes into the British courts exactly as a private indi
vidual, when it has a civil case to urge. So also it is itself brought
into court by private individuals when they are plaintiffs, and
the judge deals with it simply as a party in a suit, examining
its acts, and pronouncing sentence for it or against it, according
to the merits of the case and the law which determines it. So,in like manner, in regard to external operations of the nature,
now improperly termed, of war, when they affect the subjects,
not of Great Britain only, but of foreign States, and are of a
nature to be brought into court.
In the first Chinese war a case arose between shippers and
insurers in consequence of losses incurred through the operations
then being carried on. It came for trial, on the plea that the
loss was incurred through the effects of war. The judges unani
mously decided that there was no war.
Lord Mansfield, in trying a case in which Danish subjects
had been injured by acts of the British Government, when the
orders of that Government were quoted, said (case of the Diana},
“ The word ‘ Government ’ is not one that can be used in this
“ place, being nonsensical (without meaning). If the orders were
“ lawful, the law gave them their value; if unlawful, they could
“ not be rendered lawful, by the source from which they
“ emanated.”
In like manner, had a charge of murder of a Chinaman been
brought before the Central Criminal Court against any soldier,
private or officer, or sailor employed in China, that court must
have passed sentence of death on such soldier or officer. The law
is still there, only there are no men to enforce it.
It is true that in modern Turkey, these restraints on human
passions, these safeguards of the innocence and life of com
munities, preserved there from ancient times for our instruc
�THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
35
tion, are fading away before the pressure of European diplo
macy and the contamination of European ideas; but, never
theless, such ideas are not there, as in Europe, strange ; are
not incomprehensible nor offensive. The Government, after
all, is itself still composed of Mussulmans; it may and does ap
preciate the injury resulting from its own unwilling usurpations ;
it does feel the danger resulting from the pressure upon it of the
lawlessness of European Governments. It is therefore unques
tionable that the Sublime Porte would hail with joy the .proposi
tion of the Pope, would aid it to the best of its ability (and that
ability, in such a case, would not be small), and might thereby be
led to a wholesome return to the past, and a respectful considera
tion of the profound and beneficent maxims, lying neglected and
obscured in the foundations of its own institutions.
*
In the time of Christ Christians lived under the dispositions
of Moses. The “Church,” then in its most perfect form,
obeyed rules for the conduct of men in all essential matters of
life, viz. low taxation, cleanliness, charity, and politeness. Islam,
in common with all primitive religions, followed the same rule,
and prescribed how wars can be lawfully made; what taxes can
be lawfully levied; how and when the body is to be washed;
what proportion of a man’s income shall be given in alms; and
how a man is to salute his fellow-creatures. By rules on these
points society can alone be considered as duly constituted, or
capable of durability. The absence of these may make up, in
deed, a condition of “ civilisation,” but, clearly, a community
destitute of such restraints is not one that can be either reli
gious, virtuous, cleanly, charitable, happy, or durable.
These restraints being imposed by Religion, Religion became
sanctified to man by its benefits; and, consequently, that dis
belief which we now see spreading over Europe was unknown.
In the origin Religion was everything to man. It was Govern
ment as well as Faith. Secular Government arose from its
decay. Finally, Government having at last come “ to consist
“ of those practices which it was instituted to put down,”f re
pudiate Religion, as a guide for its acts, while it makes use
of its authority to sanction its crimes. Thus it is that Re
volution and Atheism prevail and spread. They have not yet
however made way among those nations that still hold to Law
as a part of Religion, and who have not drawn the distinction
now established in Christendom between the Law as applied to
the acts of the individual and to those of the community.
To judge of the view which the European Governments will
Not in the Mahomedan only, but in all the Asiatic systems. Law has always
been held a part of religion.”-—Thomson's Akklak-i-Nasiri^ p. 121.
f Lord Lyttleton.
c 2
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THE CECUMENIC COUNCIL.
take of the matter, we must consider what the consequences
will be to them of his success—consequences which they will
perceive at a glance.
The Pope will be successful when nations commence to
question acts in reference to their lawfulness. This will present
a new obstacle to despotic power. It will endanger that “ pre
rogative of peace and war” which has been usurped by Execu
tives from both Sovereigns and Representative bodies, or, as in
France, by the Sovereign from the Representative body.
*
Executives, no longer able to plunge their country in foreign
wars, will have to surrender ambitious schemes of conquest
and annexation.
Executives no longer able to kill men at pleasure on the
battle-field, words of menace will no longer be capable of
disturbing the world, whether spoken on a New Year’s Day
presentation, or written in despatches, or secret instructions, or
“ private” letters. Diplomacy will disappear. Danger and
alarm ceasing, military establishments will be reduced.
For the same reason taxes will be cut down.
Permanent embassies will be looked on with suspicion and
alarm.
On all points the tendency will be the reverse of that at pre
sent pursued ; it will be to escape from despotic executives, extra
national combinations, ruinous military establishments, and an
unbearable accumulation of taxes—all which constitute the
power of office and its attractions.
. But the appreciation of these effects will not be confined to
diplomatic, men, but extend also to the active and managing
spirits among the class of infidels and revolutionists. They, in
like manner, will perceive that it is a blow struck at their im
portance, and at their occupation. The food and fuel of infi
delity and revolution are public crime and national suffering—in
other words, . Wars and Taxes. Governments and clubs, the
ambitious Minister, the aspiring demagogue, the spirit of rest
lessness, on whatever side it breaks out, the powerful interests
of the press, which lives by news—that is, crimes and agitations
—are all smitten by this proposal of the Pope.
Indistinct and problematical as the benefits may appear to the
vast mass of well-disposed and indifferent men who are to reap
the profit, to the moving, acting, and ruling—though in numbers most insignificant—portion of the community, the loss is
very distinct and very positive. They clearly understand that
to attempt to restore the supremacy of the Law is to attempt to
supersede their calling.
* The Revolution of 1848 had withdrawn this power from the President (except,
in case of defence); it was regained by the Coup d’Etat.
�THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
37
The consequence of this judicial blindness has been, in an
other sense, fatal to the peace and well-being of communities,
and to the judgment and integrity of the individuals comprising
them. This consists in the putting away the idea of punishment
in regard to persons filling ministerial offices. The arm of the
soldier is placed at the mercy of the political adviser. He is
expected to slay when ordered to do so by the Minister, and the
law is not to reach him when, acting on the oath to obey “ lawful
orders,” he obeys unlawful ones. Then it was to be expected
that the acts of the political agent should be looked into with
peculiar severity, so as to bring the full responsibility of the
measures themselves on those who had acquired the facility of
causing their subordinates to overleap the law. But this is not
the case. The reverse has happened. First, these advisers are
suffered to give such orders without prior sanction or even know
ledge of so much as their intention on the part (in England) of
the body constituted to advise the Crown in its exercise of the
prerogative of Peace and War.
In the second place, they are not held responsible for their
acts after the event, however blamable or however disastrous; so
that at once every check has been removed from human frailty,
purpose or passion, whilst every possible encouragement is
heaped upon those persons to yield to such tendencies, in the
vastness of the uncontrolled power placed in their hands, in the
enormous sums of money afforded by modern taxation, and its
concession into military materials and troops.
It is not merely that the idea has vanished of punishing
Ministers for any act, but that the neglecting to clo so has
become a maxim, and a maxim which the present generation
pronounces with much self-satisfaction, as honourably distin
guishing them from, and placing them above all former times
and people. That maxim is, “ The days of Impeachment are
gone by.” To say that there should be a class of men who shall
not be punished when they do amiss—they not acting for or by
themselves, but by the power confided to them—is what could
not enter into the imagination of men, where such had not
become the practice: so is it impossible to cause the contrary
idea to enter into the imagination of men, where such has be
come the practice.
Nor is it that this class is held to be by nature free from
human imperfection. They are by no means considered sinless
and wise: while their acts are taken for law, their word is not
taken for truth. They are periodically expelled from office because
they are condemned or despised; and any one of them who
should put his own hand in the pocket of another, or knock off
his hat, would be taken up by the police. Nevertheless, un
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THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
questioned and unopposed, one of them can send hundreds of
thousands of his fellow-creatures to death, and cause myriads
of arms to be plunged in the pockets of hundreds of millions
of men, subjects of the Crown he serves, or aliens.
*
There have, during the last thirty years, been found some
individuals throughout Europe who have perceived, if but for a
moment, that unlawful battle was assassination, but no one
whatever has perceived that the present normal bloodshed and
convulsions are results of the maxim—that Ministers shall never
be exposed to punishment. But if the real nature of this practice
were understood, and human indignation were thereby evoked,
and directed itself to suppressing it, then would men naturally
turn upon those who, quietly and unendangered, in their closets,
ordered such crimes ; and the cry would be, “ The days of im“ peachment are not gone by.” All this the men of this class
feel and know, and instinctively connect with the general pro
position of applying the law to the conduct of States. Those
who propose to move in this matter have anxiously to ponder
and clearly to comprehend, what is the depth and intensity of
the opposition they will meet, and the vastness and variety of
the disturbing and corrupting influences that will be brought
to bear against them, in order to stop or frustrate their pro
ceedings.
No such dangers would assail, or pitfalls surround, the
attempt, were it made by any other Church save that of
Rome, as on the other hand, no corresponding benefits would
accrue. Had it been the Church of England which proposed
to restore the law, that restoration would only be, quoad
its own members. The purpose settled in its own mind,
it would only have to deal with its own Government. If so
minded, there could be no struggle and no difficulty; the
English Government could not make lawless wars in face of a
hostile Bench of Bishops, to say nothing of lay Peers, of
Members of the House of Commons, and the whole Anglican
community, resolved that wars should not be unlawfully and un
justly made. Neither France, nor Austria, nor Prussia, nor
Italy, nor any, nor all Foreign Powers, could in the slightest
degree, or for a moment, disturb or influence the decision of
such Church, nor would they, save indirectly, be affected
thereby.
The Anglican Church, like the Fecial College of Pagan
Rome, would have in view one side only: namely, its own
government. In a proposed war with Austria, it would be com* Since these operations commenced, dating them from the introduction of Lord
Palmerston into the Foreign Office and the sacrifice of Poland, the charges of Europe
for military purposes have increased threefold.
�THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
39
promised only in regard to the English Crown ; it is free, if our
side is just. Not so the Church of Rome. It would have to
bear on its conscience crime equally on both sides. It is not
free, if one side is just. Both must be in the right for it to be
blameless; and this is impossible. There is no possible escape
for it save by adjudication. 1st. It has to judge in reference
to the war; 2ndly. It has to excommunicate the side that is
in the wrong. No Community, great or small, can be called
just that does not exclude from its breast dishonourable men—
that is, excommunicate them. To fear to use the weapon of
excommunication is, above all things, to mistake the age in
which we live; which, more than any that has preceded it,
affords a field, and has in readiness a crown, for capable
daring.
Excommunication is a power which every individual possesses,
by which and which alone he retains, or can retain, his integrity.
We know a gentleman by this, that he will not know a dis
honourable person. This power is the safeguard of public as of
private morals. The real restraint over Ministers is this, that
public crime being also private guilt, honourable men will not
associate with them.
With Rome it is widely different. That Church is co-existent
with no State. Its decision has no reference to its own particular
State—not making itself unjust wars, or any wars; having never
used its power for the extension of its limits, when even that
power was the greatest in Europe; and not having engaged in
any of those diplomatic operations which are to-day directed
against the independence, not of the small States only, but of
the greatest also.
Its action, therefore, is without, and not within ; and with
out, it reaches them all and all equally. This action would in
effect be greatest on the States not publicly united to its faith ;
for the aggressive States which endanger the world are, with
one exception, not Catholic; and that one, Catholic in name,
is in essentials the reverse of Catholic, whether we term it
Gallican in its religion, or heathen in its Government. It is
therefore more logical to say that none of the dangerous Powers
are Catholic. These are four: England, Russia, Prussia, and
France. Of these, the three which are nominally not Catholic,
are those on which the action of the Court of Rome, under
our hypothesis, would be the greatest. The case can be only
stated here, not elaborated. Enough, perhaps, has been said
to show that the body of Catholics in England, or rather a
minute fraction of them, would suffice to stop nefarious and
injurious proceeding in the Government. Take from Russia
the active co-operation of England, and not only hei’ power
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THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
expires, but the process commences of restoring the power of
England herself. But, in like manner, Rome has spiritual sub
jects in Russia and in Prussia. The method of proceeding is
one for all. Rome has also a few subjects left in France.
All the political influence of these Governments will be
brought to bear on Rome, directly on the Pope and his Go
vernment, indirectly through the Prelates and Ecclesiastics
connected with each State; and here Austria, too, comes in,
and will prove of all the most dangerous. Finally, the
common talk of diplomatic and political circles will be directed
to the crushing out of whatever idea may arise that is just,
wise, and beneficial. The Church of Rome knowing what it
is about, the fallacies of argument and the shafts of ridicule
would fall harmless. But the bare threat of such an intention
will cause measures to be hastened for crushing the Roman
State. During the interval it will be agitated with troubles
and tortured with alarms. In the Council the Pope has
raised up a stone; a great, a desperate, and a saving effort is
required to prevent it from falling back, and to cause it to fall
on and crush the reproved of mankind.
“ When religion is banished from civil society, and Divine
“ Revelation rejected, the true notion even of justice be“ comes obscured and is lost, material force takes the place of
“ justice and right, and certain men dare to proclaim that the
“ will of the people, manifested by what they call public
“ opinion, constitutes the supreme law, independent of all right,
“ human or divine; and that, in politics, acts consummated, and
by the fact that they have become consummated, have the
“ force of right. (Facta consummata, eo ipso, quod consumu mata sunt, vim juris habere.)”
Such is, perhaps, the leading idea of the Allocution of 1864.
This is the flag wrhich is raised. It has to be observed to
those who would object, because not adhering to the Church
of Rome, or because adhering to no church whatever, that
this proposition is not a religious dogma, but an assertion
which every man can examine, and of which he must recog
nise the truth. For no one can deny that what they call
“ Public Opinion” exists only in substituting something else in
the place of right, and that the people of Europe do accept
whatever is done on no other grounds than that it has been done.
It is, therefore, for all who see that this is so, and that it is
wrong, and must bring evil consequences, to apply themselves
to find the means of effecting a change.
It has further to be remarked that for them (the non-Catholics
and unbelievers) this is simply the assertion of a man. It is a
man, like each of us, who calls on his fellow-men to warn them,
�THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
41
and who, moreover, invokes their aid to stop nefarious proceed
ings, distracting and endangering, not one only, but all the
nations, first of Christendom, and then, by their example and
their acts, of the entire world.
The Pope speaks, in the first instance, to his own flock;
they differ in no respect in conduct and idea from those who
are not Catholics. That they do possess a religion no ways
changes their position from that of those who have none.
They neither protest against public crimes, nor denounce
“Public Opinion,” nor refuse to accept “consummated acts.”
In fact, the separation of religion and politics has had for
effect that there is no difference in practice and perception
between the believer and the infidel; and that condition of
slavish submission, arrived at by the latter through the throwing
off of all religious conviction or restraint, has been arrived at
equally by the former, notwithstanding his observance of the
ceremonial, and his profession of the symbol, of a belief.
What is here proposed is no more than what it is the duty of
each individual to do for himself; for it consists of the means to
be taken, so that in thought, word, and act he may not err.
Whilst each nation lived by and in itself, when the incidents of
conflict occurred at the interval of generations only, no such
duty was imposed on ordinary men. Not so when all these con
ditions are reversed, and when there is an incessant forming and
expressing of opinions. These opinions must be false, unless
they are true; and there is no possibility of their being true
save by taking the necessary steps to discard error, and that is
by ascertaining the law by which on each occasion we have to
be guided, and the history of the events to which it applies.
To commence this study a man must be possessed of the con
viction that it is his duty to be right, and consequently of the
knowledge that the idea prevalent among bis compatriots that
it is impossible to be right, and that it is human to err, is the
mere result of their not having taken the trouble to understand
the matters of which they speak. In this respect the doctrine
of infallibility of the Catholic Church comes greatly in aid.
To it, at least, we can boldly say, “ You recognise the duty of
“ being right, since you profess yourselves to be incapable of
“ error.”
There is, however, an objection which has been raised, viz.
that this is “extraneous work” and must interfere with the
regular work to come before the Council. The answer is, There
is no work before the Council.
The minds of men are, indeed, filled with vague and tumul
tuous notions as to a vast number of things that ought to be
done, and which they fancy the Council will in some way be
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THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
able to reach. All these vanish on close inspection. It is first
of all expected that some dogmatic sanction will be obtained
for the “ Temporal Power.” When you ask how and in what
terms such an article is to be framed, you will get no answer;
and when you go on to say, “ The Temporal Power is simply a
ci state of possession, which can be disturbed only by an act of
“ violence; security against such is only to be found in the Ten
“ Commandmentsyou will have put the case in a form to
convince any one, not only that an article of faith cannot be
framed so as to meet the case, but also that it is superfluous, and
that the desired end can be reached only by a return to the Law
itself. The various’propositions may be classed under the fol
lowing heads:—
1. Temporal Power;
2. Secular Intervention in nomination of Bishops ;
3. Religious Education;
4. The Eastern Catholics ;
5. Relation of the Church to Governments (“ entre l’Eglise
et la Politique”).
As to the interference of Kings in the nomination of Bishops,
all that can be done by a Council has been done already by the
1st Article of the Council of Trent.
As to Education, it is a matter which regards the internal
legislation of each country. That legislation, as it exists, does
not, at least, prevent the priest from teaching the child what sin
is, and what the particular sin from which wTe suffer; which the
priest does not teach the child at present, because he himself
does not know, and which to teach is to stop.
In regard to the settlement looked to in the East (meaning
Turkey), there is nothing to do. The Porte leaves the Catholic
body perfect freedom on all the points on which Rome has been
at variance with the- Christian Governments of Europe. It does
not persecute, it does not constrain conversion, it does not con
fiscate property, it does not interfere in education, in the election
of Bishops, in the appropriation of testamentary bequests, or in
the public ceremonies. As to the discipline of that Church,
the Pope himself, and proprio mota, has made a change the
most momentous—that of assuming the direct nomination of the
Bishops. He has done so without consulting either the com
munities of the East, or the Consistory, or the Academia Sacra
at Rome. If he has determined the major point by reversing
immemorial practice, he can determine the minor ones, if so
minded, without the aid or intervention of a Council.
On the 5th and last point, “ the relation of the Church to
Politics,” it is difficult to imagine what it can mean.. This is
certain, that when the question is put nothing definite can be
�THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
43
extracted. The conclusion therefore is, that there exists at pre
sent no work foi’ the Council to undertake in the view of
realising its avowed purpose of “ preventing human society from
crumbling to dust.”
At the time of the announcement, the phrase was current at
Rome : “The Pope looks to the Council; the Cardinals to the
^Temporal Power,” meaning that the Pope had objects in
view which were not those of the Cardinals. Doubtless those
views are to be found in germ in the Allocution and the Syllabus.
But these are not all. There must lie at the bottom apprehen
sion of a new danger impending over the Church.”
Those who have considered the dangers that threaten Europe
from the disturbance of hereditary succession and from the matri
monial alliances of royal and princely houses, especially since the
new dynastic arrangements in Denmark and Greece, have had
one ground of consolation—namely, that the Pope was neither
an. hereditary monarch, nor capable of contracting matrimonial
alliances.
If the election of a Pope depended exclusively on a Conclave
of Cardinals, there might be grounds for such confidence. But
it is far from being so determined. Conflicting influences
operating from without prevail, and it is possible to suppose a
case when these influences, hitherto balancing each other, might
be combined. In such case, that elective source of the Papal
sovereignty, instead of affording any guarantee, would, on the
contrary, present the greatest of perils.
When a Frencli Sovereign conferred temporal possession on
the Bishop of Rome, it was in reason that precautions should
have, been taken to prevent the election from falling on a person
inimical to France, or in alliance or confederacy with those other
Governments with which France was in conflict, and for whose
rivalry and competition, Italy and the Papacy afforded the chief
field. In succession of time and events, other Governments
extorted and secured a similar guarantee. This consisted in the
right to.veto the election of one candidate. Three nations have
up to this time acquired this veto. These are France, Austria,
and Spain.
The first of these countries is in the hands of the man who
sent French troops to the Crimea. The second is in the hands
of a Minister who owes his position to Russia, and who has
declared himself openly against the Pope. Of the third, it
may at least be said that there is in it no capacity to take a line
of its own, and. that a Russian Ambassador has ruled as abso
lutely in Madrid as formerly at Warsaw.
To veto three candidates is to decide the election. Three
candidates amount to the number of eligible persons. By com
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bining the vetoes, the negative faculty of three, as hitherto pos
sessed, is converted into the active faculty of one. To the holder
or suspected holder of this influence, all candidates and all
electors would look.
That the Pope sees this danger is unquestionable. It does
not follow that he connects it with Russia; at all events, he
must connect it with the Ruler of France. Louis Napoleon
has sought consecration at the hands of the Pope. The Pope
has refused it. Threats and offers (money included) have been
unavailing to move him from his purpose. The Pope must,
therefore, foresee that every means will be used to obtain a more
pliant successor.
If a Council convened on the occasion can interpose so as to
bar the foreign vetoes, then some light may be thrown on the
motives to which the Pope has yielded, and some explanation
afforded, for a difference in this respect between himself and
the Consistory. It would also explain how there should be
mystery in the matter. At all events, it is clear that the fate
of the Catholic Church may turn on the election of the next
Pope, and that with that election this Council is immediately
connected. It more immediately explains the vagueness of the
terms of the instruction to the Sub-Commission as to deter
mining the relations of the Church to Politics.
Nor is this all that would be explained. The vehemence with
which Russia has denounced the Council, the monstrosity of the
pretensions she has put forward in respect to it, could hardly be
accounted for by any dread as to the effect it would have in
withdrawing Europe from her control, and the more so as the
language so used has given to the act of the Pope an importance
in the eyes of Catholics which it by no means had before. But
if she sees in it the indication of a design to frustrate the action
of foreign diplomacy in reference to the next election, the
vehemence of her words and their apparent indiscretion will
be alike explained.
But the power of applying these vetoes to candidates likely to
maintain the independence of the Roman See, is only a subsidiary
one. Doubtless the candidate has been long ago fixed upon.
The election will be made to turn in the Consistory, not
on French or Austrian influence, not on Cis or Transalpine
doctrines, not on liberal or anti-liberal tendencies, but on the
maintenance of the “ Temporal Power.” Louis Napoleon
is placed on the Temporal line; the Consistory is on the Tem
poral line. His candidate will be their candidate. That can
didate will be the Russian candidate. It matters not that Russia
has not now, and may not have even then, a representative at
Rome. It may be advantageous not to have one there, so as to
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45
awaken no attention. It may be, that for this very reason the
rupture of intercourse was managed. Besides she has already
declared herself (1848) for “ the restoration of both the Spiritual
“ and the Temporal authority of the Pope.”
If there be a member of the Consistory who desires to know,
or rather who does not shrink from knowing, the truth, let him
render to himself an account of the operations of Louis Napo
leon since his accession, both externally and internally. Let
him inquire into the circumstances and agency which placed
him on the Imperial Throne. Is it France that has benefited
by his enterprises abroad ? Is it any Government which can
profit by what he is doing within ?
The “Temporal power of the Pope” is a word that has been
got up, just as the “ Integrity of the Danish Monarchy” and the
“Pacification of the Levant.” It will be used for a similar
purpose. This is the particular danger that threatens the world
at this moment, and that in conjunction with all the others;
for all are interwoven. There is no escape but in unravelling
the threads of the web of fallacy out of which it has sprung, and
in clearing away the false conclusions and the passions resulting
from the long series of measures by which Italy has been worked
up to her present state—measures which commenced in 1795, in
which the hand of Russia can be traced from the beginning,
and in which France, England, Austria, “ Italy,” and “ Revolu“ tion” have all been made successively, severally, and conjointly
to play their blind, servile, and suicidal parts.
Russia’s operations are secular. Her antagonists, who are but
dupes, revolve in the narrow limits of months and days. She
acts; they speculate. The horizon of their universe is made up
of the emotions of their own minds, for which she has furnished
the pasture out of the anterior acts which she has made them per
form ; and which acts they themselves, nevertheless, have for
gotten, never having known what it is they have done, because
haying no law in themselves, their eyes are without sight.
It is the “ Commandments of the Lord ” which “ enlighten the
the eyes.” Escape from this present terrible and hopeless danger
can only be by restoring the Law of God and man. Thus only
can the Consistory or the World be made to understand that to
speak of “ the Temporal power of the Pope” is to utter words
base and shameful, and is to weave a snare for their own feet.
.Why are the words “ Temporal power” substituted for Sove
reignty in the case of the Pope alone ? No one speaks of the
Temporal power of the Emperor of the French or of the Queen
of Spain. Yet there is no difference in regard to these Poten
tates as to the nature and quality of the supreme functions which
they exercise as rulers. It is true that the Pope superadds to
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THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
the prerogative of Justices of Peace ancl War another quality
or Prerogative which is spiritual. But so does the Emperor of
Russia and the Sultan of Turkey, and yet no one speaks
of the “Temporal Power” of either. So does the King of
Prussia and the Queen of England, who dispose of the “ Tem
poralities” of their respective churches.
If, then, the “ Sovereignty” of the Pope has received a special
designation which is not applied to other sovereignties, it is that
there lurks beneath an insidious intention. That intention is to
deprive him of that Sovereignty by making men believe it to be
something different from other Sovereignties. Thus a discussion
can be raised respecting it on grounds which exclude all received
notions of right. It will so come about that men who would
not admit for a moment a proposition to take the crown off the
head of the Queen of England or of Spain, and to give it to
Victor Emmanuel because it- is a “ Temporal Power,” would
accept, and urge on that ground, the same proposition as regards
the Pope.
They will then go a step further, and say, “ We propose to
“ give—we who have no business therewith—the lands, cities,
“ and fortresses belonging to the Pope to the descendants of the
“ Dukes of Savoy (for that is the end in view), in order that
“ we may confer a great benefit on the Roman Catholic Church.
“We wish to improve and purify it. We wish to wash it clean
“ from all secular taints we desire to see it entirely spiritual, and
“ in all this we are actuated by the spirit of justice and the love
“ of Religion.”
Thus will this class of simple and perhaps devout persons find
themselves engaged in a common cause with those who seek to
“ abrogate all laws,” to revolutionise every Government, and to
upset every belief—men who not only work for “ disorder,” but
who avow to themselves that they do so.
To these, others join themselves with another motive—that of
Proselytism. They will see in this operation the breaking
down of the Catholic Church, and in the hopes of gaining con
verts to Protestantism, will join in the same clamour for the
“ unity of Italy.” Thus it is that the whole of England has not
only in effect aided and wildly applauded the atrocious proceed
ings of which Italy has been the theatre, but bowed itself down
before the man who has been the instrument employed for that
end, although as a man he combines every disqualification capable
of excluding him from intercourse with respectable persons.
This combination established, those on the other side will
“ accept the language of their enemies.”* Instead of unravelWords of the Bishop of Orleans at Malines
�THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
47
ling the fallacy of their terms, instead of exposing the immo
rality of their proceeding, instead of unmasking the perfidy of
their design, and the fatal consequences it must bring, they will
simply accept the term—which is accepting all—-and their rally
ing point will be to maintain the “ Temporal Power.” Thus it is
that a candidate coming forward as in favour of the “ Temporal
power” may be accepted by a future Consistory on that word
alone, and yet be the very agent selected for the undoing of
that very knot which links together this great and wonderful
system, which, unless it did possess a sovereignty in the sense of
territorial possession, could only be the dependency of some one
the Governments of Europe.
. It is in this sense that the case has been judged up to these
times by the Protestant Governments. They have always held
that the independence of the Pope was a vital point for them on
this ground : that the loss of his independence—which they saw
equally in external influence exerted at elections or in revolu
tionary movements affecting his authority—would be to the
benefit of some Catholic power and against themselves. It was
thus that England exerted herself, and at great expense, to secure
a free Consistory at Venice in 1799—Venice, which has now va
nished from the list of free states, and of which act she reaped so
signally the benefit a few years later, in being, by the aid of the
Pope, enabled to meet the effects of the Berlin and Milan De
crees. It was thus that she provided, at the settlement of 1814-5,
for the full restoration of the State and Possessions of the
Roman See.
Again, when the convulsions of Italy were beginning, and
the Revolutionists, expecting to be favourably looked on "by the
Protestant Governments, applied to the Representative of Prus
sia, they were told (by Mr. Bunsen) that they were “ greatly mis
taken if they thought that the Protestant Powers would favour
“ them because of religious differences with the Catholics.” The
above-stated reason .was then put in precise terms; the Prussian
Secretary of Legation explained why his Government could not
abet proceedings which, whatever the views and intentions of
those immediately engaged, could have no other result save that
of reducing the Pope to a condition of subserviency to some one
of the Catholic Governments, which then would turn his spiritual
supremacy over his flock, to its own advantage, against other
Powers.
The Pope has never sanctioned, or admitted, or employed,
the terms “Temporal power” as applied to his possessions. In
speaking of his sovereignty over the States of the Church, it is
always designated by him as the Civile Imperium, or the Principatus Civilis. (Syllabus, § ix. Errores de civile Romani Pontificis
4
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THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
principati, Prop, lxxvi. et seq.) The word 44 Temporal Power,”
in Papal documents, refers to temporal judgments, and to the
effects attaching to excommunication. (Syllabus, § v. De Ecclesia ejusque Juribus Prop. xxiv. xxv. et al.) In fact it applies
to other Governments.
Those who desire to understand have got within their reach
the case of Denmark. There they may study Russia’s mode of
procedure in such matters. There 44 the Powers” combined to
impose a candidate. The internal laws were upset to let him
in. He was Russia’s nominee, yet she held aloof. She is now
mistress of Denmark, with all the advantages of not appearing to
be so. On that occasion the deceptive amphibology prepared for
men’s lips was “ The Integrity of Denmark.”
Who dreamt that there was anything in contemplation
against the Crown of Denmark, even on that morning (11th
May, 1852) when the Treaty was announced in the Times news
paper, although that profound and extensive conspiracy had
been in existence for eighty-five years ? Who has now compre
hended it, with the results before them1? If it be unquestionable
that those who do not anticipate events cannot counteract them,
so is it equally true that those who do not foresee them before
they happen, cannot understand them when they have taken
place. This is no reason for despair ; it is, on the contrary, an
inducement to strive, and in the first instance to study.
No doubt the Pope in the words he has spoken and in the
measures he proposes, offends the Catholic body This is his mis
*
fortune, not his fault. It is also his duty. He has the greatest of ex
amples to guide him, an example which is also a command. That
example is that of Christ. Our Saviour to the then 44 Church”
preached repentance. In the New Testament the words 44 con
vert” and 44 repentance ” are synonymous, so also 44 salvation.”
44 Saving the people from their sins,” is the expression used to
designate the object of the preaching of St. John, yet the sins
of that 44 Church” of Judea did not go to the extent of daily and
wholesale assassinations. St. Paul says of the 44 Christian”
after the crucifixion and ascension and the coming of the Holy
Ghost, 44 He that does not provide for his own household has
* The following words from the Monde show the schism introduced by the Syl
labus, “ Les divisions viennent de ceux qui refusent de comprendre les paroles de
Pie IX. dans le Syllabus : il y a injustice à mettre sur la même ligne avec eux les
Catholiques qui ne se sont pas départis des principes posés dans les Encycliques. Si
la voix du pasteur est écoutée, le camp des Catholiques se fortifiera, et leur action
peut devenir prépondérante. C’est à l’i/mon de VOuest et à la Gazette de France à en
prendre leur parti. Elles se bercent d’illusions si elles s’imaginent guider les Catho
liques, en restant dans leurs doctrines équivoques.
“ Elles croient servir la liberté; mais jusqu’ici elles n’ont servi que la liberté de
leurs adversaires. Ce métier de dupes ne vous va pas, quoique nous ne nous dissi
mulions pas que les Catholiques ne sont pas encore en mesure de faire prévaloir leur
volonté. L’inanité des doctrines modernes ramènera, après une longue expérience, et
s’il plaît à Dieu, les populations à uneyrnZ/i/yae chrétienne.-’
�DIPLOMATIC COLLEGE.
49
“ denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.” Yet he
spoke of neglect only, and neglect in reference to things which
had they been done would only have proved useful. With what
feelings would the apostles to-day behold, and in what terms
denounce, that community calling itself Christian 1 A true
successor of those apostles will feel and speak in like manner.
Pius IX. combines qualifications at once so dissimilar and so
eminent, that he appears to have been Providentially raised for
the need of the World, being at once an Ecclesiastic who has
applied his mind to analytical inquiries, and a Sovereign who is
so not in name only, as the other Sovereigns of Europe, but in
power also.
But there is in him not only capacity and qualifications. He has
put his hand to the work ; and that work is rendered by his own
words better than by any Commentary. He has said, “The
“ World is lost in darkness; I have published the Syllabus to be
to it a light, and to lead it back to the road of Truth.” And
again :—“ When the Pope speaks in a solemn act, it is that his
“ words shall be taken in their literal sense ; and that which he
“ has said, he has intended to say.”
Were the Catholic World of the same mind as the Pope, the
work would be done, or rather, it would not require to be clone.
But unfortunately it is not so; his difficulties are with his
own flock, alike incapable of following the thought, and of com
prehending and admiring the courage, displayed on so many
occasions by the greatest Pontiff that has ever sat on the throne
of St. Peter.
6th.
diplomatic college.
The really important point, and on which all hinges, is the
knowledge of what is doing in the world.
The subject is so vast, that to travel over it volumes would be
required. But, fortunately, it is also so simple that it can be
taken in at a glance. It has been thus enunciated by a
Prelate :—“ It must be laid down as the very first point that the
“ Church is ignorant, and that that ignorance must cease.”
There is an immediate and a practical point pressing for
instant solution, and bearing specially on the Church of Rome,
as a Church.
Russia, assuming to be the Eastern Church, aims at the de
struction of the Western Church. It is now at last known
that she has employed revolution as her instrument. It is
D
�50
DIPLOMATIC COLLEGE.
now by her openly acknowledged that to this end of subverting
the spiritual authority of the Pope, she has thrown Italy into
the hands of the King of Sardinia.
* This (as all the other
troubles and convulsions of Europe and the world) has not been
brought about by the power of Russia acting on circumstances,
but by hei capacity acting on opinion. That capacity consists
in her drawing from without able men wherever they were to be
found, and causing her own men to pass through an elaborate
mid laborious, discipline, such as the nations of Europe them
selves do employ to obtain legists, surgeons, or engineers. If,
then, the Papal Government would defend itself against the
Russian, or even know whether defence be possible and easy, or
difficult and impossible, it must employ the process which Russia
employs, that is, educate men.
Twenty-four years ago this plan was under contemplation by
Gregory XVI., but time was not granted him for its execu
tion. Yet then the belief of universal peace prevailed. They
thought “ that there were to be no more wars.” j- Confidence
in general wisdom prevailed. The year 1848 was still at a
distance.
Nothing is done in the world, but because at some previous
moment day, month, or year—two or three Russian diploma
tists have sate down to devise it, and also because there have
been none to sit down to consider how it could be prevented.
Some private individuals, engaged on the other side, have
prevented much that was in progress. They have prevented
great wars. These things may come out hereafter, in posthumous
memoirs; but they may also be known now to any who will
study. They have delayed, at least, the march of events, so
far as to afford time for the Church of Rome, at last to act.
The Council may take years; and what years are before us !
It suffices for one man of authority in the Roman State to be
informed, for prevention and counteraction to commence. This
is easy beyond expression, for whoever knows what is doing, and
at the same time has access to the saloons of Ministers. It is out
of false measures in each State that Russia works her way.
These come either from delusions that are spread, perfidious
counsels that are offered, falsified news that is presented, or
traitors that are employed. A Papal Nuncio duly informed, or
say a Prelate or a Priest, or a simple Layman, in a position to
be listened to, can rectify such false conclusions, or unmask
The Moscow Gazette says:—“To Russia it is necessary that Italy should be
united; but united she cannot be except at Rome, her natural capital. Is not the
fall of the Temporal Powers the triumph of orthodoxy (the Greek Church) in Rome
itself? Yes, it is in a higher capacity than that of mere spectators that we watch
this culminating point of Italian history.”
t Mr. Stewart Mill.
�DIPLOMATIC COLLEGE.
51
such secret agent. Russia has only the vices of men to use
to the undoing of each particular State. We have the virtues
of men for our allies, and we work for the honour and interest
of each Sovereign and each people, and for the common good
of all.
The repugnance of the Governments of Europe to the forma
tion of Diplomatic men for themselves, has to be well considered,
and perfectly understood, to perceive, how the proposed measure
would affect the world.
No public man, in England, France, Germany, or Italy, will
refuse to admit, if pressed in conversation, the following propo
sitions :—
1. That Russia is more dexterous than any other State.
2. That it is dangerous to allow her to proceed unwatched,
seeing that the affairs of all countries are mixed up together, and
— are conducted in secret.
3. That she cannot be watched, unless by persons cognisant
of her purposes and methods.
4. That it would be very desirable to have a body of men,
chosen and trained, as she chooses and trains her Diplomatists.
If, on these admissions, it be proposed to him to introduce a
measure for the carrying out of such a design, he will decline,
and start back in fear or aversion. The cause of this repugnance
is, that each would consider the mere proposal an offence and an
insult to himself individually, for it implies not only that he had
been wrong, but also that he is ignorant, and unfit for the station
he holds, has held, or aspires to hold. Also that “ public opinion”
has been wrong, and is ignorant. Dread, aversion, and disgust
must therefore be excited by the proposition, proceeding from
a Sovereign who exercises a practical and social influence over a
large number of the subjects of every other State, many of
whom sit in the representative assemblies, in the Senates of those
States, and who approach the Sovereign and share his councils.
These Governments would stand towards such a body exactly
in the position of a society of criminals, or at least of persons
not hitherto under the restraint of police or fear of the law, to
wards a newly introduced court of justice.
.The Law of Nations is not the only law violated by a public
crime, but the municipal law also. In the preceding pages this
branch has not been referred to, but it must be noticed to com
plete the subject.
The Law of Nations requires that war shall be declared only
by the sovereign authority. The municipal law defines the
conditions under which such functions shall be exercised. In
this country the Prerogative of Peace and War, as all other
Prerogatives, can be “ exercised only through the Privy Coun
�52
DIPLOMATIC COLLEGE.
cil.” It .is, indeed, through the evading of this law, and by the
surreptitious substitution of another body, to which also the title
of council has been given (Cabinet Council), that the disorder
has crept in, and that causeless and lawless wars have been
made.
It may therefore so happen that a war may be lawful and
just and necessary as regards the enemy, and nevertheless cri
minal as regards the subjects and the servants of the Crown.
The Pope, in his endeavour to bring back public business to
a normal state, must take this matter into consideration, and lav
down the obligation in nations possessing such institutions,
though neglected now, to restore them.
In doing so he will, as regards England, point to a far more
practical means of prevention than any other, whilst it comes as
supplementary to the rest.
Further, in urging on the nations the adoption of legal and
constitutional means of controling the executives, and thereby
putting an end to the violences which have called for his inter
vention, he will, whilst pointing, out the most feasible means of
obtaining the desired end, prevent much of the hesitation, oppo
sition, or abuse which may be provoked by his act. He will
show that it is not power that he covets, but crime that he
.abhors.
Rome has a Diplomacy and a Diplomatic College already.
Objections and fears are therefore out of place. It is true that
it is not connected with treaties and ordinary transactions, but
with concordats, and confined to the religious aspect. The
basis, however, exists, and is capable of extension. The system
dates from the period which preceded permanent embassies, and
when, therefore, the intercourse of nations took place only when
there was something to do, not when a subsisting intercourse
was converted into the means of giving them something to do.
Diplomacy derives its origin from the Byzantines. The word
.signifies “ duplicate,” and the office was equivalent to what we
now term archivist. It was a record of contracts; it was not the
having of agents reciprocally located in the various courts to
interfere day by day in all affairs.
It is by no means the object of this proposal that the Court of
Rome should involve itself in this odious and maleficent system;
but, on the contrary, that, being cognisant of it, it should frus
trate the deceptions it produces, and counteract the false maxims
.which it propagates, and by which it is suffered to exist.
*
* Prince Adam Czatoryski, formerly Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, says, in his
work, “ La Diplomatie—■“ It passes belief that nations should allow themselves to be
disposed of by a body of men having another conscience and another God, and also
hat they should look thereon, not only without abhorrence and fear, but consider it
tust and proper.” This was written in 1826 !
�CONCLUSION.
53
The “Academia Ecclesiastica ” has a branch entitled “Diplomacia Sacra,” of the nature of the Byzantine College. It is
devoted to the record and study of concordats, and the jurispru
dence thereto belonging. Through it the Nuncios pass, to pre
pare them for their functions. A natural subdivision of this
body would be a college of Secular Diplomacy, the fundamental
and primordial studies of which would necessarily consist of
Jurisprudence and the Law of Nations. This would be the
most simple and natural course, but it is not the only one.
These studies are not special. It is requisite that every man
born into the world—far more every teacher of other men—
should be possessed of them. Duties have reference to circum
stances. Before the epoch of lawless wars, such studies were
not needed, being superfluous ; but they become of the last ne
cessity to every single conscience in an age, when no one knows
what constitutes a lawful war, and when, consequently, unlawful
ones can be made without hindrance or comment.
There is the whole Priesthood to be instructed. There are the
numerous regular Oommunities, with power, devotion, libraries,
and leisure, to be employed. The resources of the Church of
Borne are overwhelming from the moment that it is perceived
that it is by the culture of the intellectual arm that the war is
to be carried on against religious infidelity, social disorganisa
tion, or the plots of those who employ these means and spread
this corruption.
Conclusion.
Danger has come near. It has been seen under its most re
volting and alarming features. The Papal Court must now see
in the destroyer of Poland, the patron of Revolution, and the
mover and the director of all the Governments, of Europe.
But that Cabinet has now itself thrown off the mask and pro
claims its identification with Italian “unity,” not as directed to
subvert (as heretofore put forward) the “temporal,” but also
the “ spiritual ” authority of the Pope. It pretends, at the same
time, to enter the CEcumenic Council; not to enter only, but to
displace from it alike the Pope and the Western Church,
offering its faith and its power for the restoration of religion,
harmony, and political rest in Christendom. Warning cannot
further go, nor provocation.
In respect to courage, that great quality is not wanting.
The Pope has already defied Russia, denounced her, and dis
missed her 1 epresentative. The time must have come for him to
�54
CONCLUSION.
think of devising means to restrain and counteract her. These
have but to be sought to be found. This great power can come
into being only on the condition of perfect knowledge and
of perfect integrity. These may appear beyond the reach, not
of this, but of every age. Still, no more is required than that
which Russia possesses in every one of her Diplomatists, and
all would be achieved with such a man as England recently
possessed in Lord Stowell. Nothing more is wanted than
what could be obtained from a British Court of Justice to-day,
were a case framed so as to be brought before it.
The affairs of States which appear under the present condition
of secret mismanagement and malversation on the part of rulers,
and of confusion as produced by parliamentary discussion and
ephemeral comments in the Press, are in themselves of the
utmost simplicity, and present neither difficulty nor ambiguity
when approached with the knowledge of the law and with
sincerity.
Unless a stop be put to our present course, Christendom, after
passing through long agonies of internecine strife, must pass
under the Muscovite sceptre, and thus reap a just and merited
retribution.
Such are the convictions which inspire with fervour and in
dustry those who do see; and in all times of peril, the fate of
armies, or of nations, or of ages will and must depend on single
men : nor is their station and capacity much to be taken into
account; it suffices that they see where the others do not.
Slaughter on the battle-field, without just cause and due
warrant, is individual murder. This no man can deny when
the case is put to him. The question with which the Church
has now to deal is thus reduced to very narrow limits. It is—
TO DECLARE MURDER TO BE SIN.
On this simple issue depend all the afore-stated sequences.
On the one side, the acceptance of all causes of social degra
dation ; on the other, the reversal of the present course of im
morality, financial dilapidation, political despotism, agitation for
change, rebellion, and apostacy.
If Rome is to restore the law, it is in this fashion that it has
to be done—that is by making individuals upright; in other
words, by making them citizens and gentlemen. Ten just”
men might have saved Sodom and Gomorrah. Ten just men
can save England, by preventing successively each of the acts,
by which she is perishing.
The great compiler of the “Law of Nations” concludes in
these words:—
“ May God (who alone can do it) inscribe these things on the
“ hearts of those who have the affairs of Christendom in their
�CONCLUSION.
55
“ hands, and grant them a mind intelligent of divine and human
“ Right, remembering that it is appointed by Him to govern
“ man, a creature most dear to Himself.”*
Grotius was not a member of the Church of Rome. If
his life was expended on the study of that Public Law then
obscured, and overthrown by religious wars and animosities,
so likewise was his heart given to the composing of religious
strife, and the reconciling of the rival Churches which equally
acknowledge Christ as their head. The Protestant Grotius,
dedicated his work to the Catholic King of France, Louis
XIII. In doing so he appeals to him, in the name of Justice, that
he may “ revive her buried Laws, that he may oppose himself to
“ a declining age, so that it may submit to the judgment of that
£i former age which all Christians acknowledge to have been
“ truly and sincerely Christian : and thus restore peace amongst
“ men. The task,” he says, “ is difficult, but nothing is worthy
“ of such excellent Princes (Louis XIII. and Charles I.)
“ but that which is in itself difficult, and which is even despaired
“ of by all others? ”f
* St. Chrysostom. Serm. de Elemosyna.
f Difficile negotiatium, propter studia partium, glesentibus in dies odiis inflaminata:
sed tantis regebus nihil dignum, nisi quod difficile, nisi quod ab aliis omnibus des
peratum.
�NOTE ON GROTIUS.
*
Note
on
Grotius.
The Bishop of Orleans has recommended the study of
Grotius as an essential part of education. He has added,
as an inducement, that Grotius was about to adhere to
the Church of Rome at the time of his death. This does not
appear from his common biographers. Were it so, the case
would not be altered, as his work was composed whilst he was a
Protestant, and the authority of his writings depend, not on his
religious belief, but on the soundness of his propositions. He
has, moreover, drawn largely, not only from the Sacred Writings,
but also from the early Fathers, whose words are reproduced in
almost every page.
It might have been supposed that the Protestant character of
this writer would have been seized upon by the Bishop of
Orleans, and made use of, to urge his co-religionaries by very
shame to apply themselves to this, the highest and most essential
branch of human knowledge, the foundation of all society, and
the ^handmaid of all religion. It is true that at the time that
B
* ishop
the
of Orleans wrote his treatise on Education the
Syllabus of the Pope had not appeared, and no General Council
had been announced; so that nothing was then in contemplation
by the Church of Rome, as a Church, for the rectification of the
human understanding, or the arrestation of the decay of human
affairs.
THE END.
LONDON:
'UHINTBD BY c. "WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSE, STRAND
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Appeal of a Protestant to the Pope to restore the law of nations: reply to six questions on the business for the announced sixth Lateran Council
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 56 p. ; 21 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by G. Whiting, Strand, London. Contains bibliographical references.
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Urquhart, David
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1868
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Diplomatic Review Office
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Catholic Church
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Appeal of a Protestant to the Pope to restore the law of nations: reply to six questions on the business for the announced sixth Lateran Council), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Text
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English
Catholic Church
Conway Tracts
Foreign Relations
International Law
Protestantism