deed, though it is not lawful to lie, or to feign what is not, yet it is lawful to dissemble what is, or to truthcover the with words, or other ambiguous or doubtful signs, for a just cause, and when there is no necessity to confess." Of equivocation in general, Liguori says:

"Double speaking can be used in a threefold manner,-1st, When a word has a double sense; for example, volo signifies, to wish, and to fly. 2d, When an expression has a double principal meaning, as, This is Peter's book, can signify either, that Peter is the owner or the author, of the book. 3d, When words have a double sense, one more common, the other less common, or one literal, and the other spiritual, as are these words which Christ spake of the Baptist, 'He is Elias,' and the Baptist said, 'I am not Elias.'

"These things being established, it is a certain and common opinion amongst divines, that for a just cause it is lawful to use equivocation in the propounded modes, and to confirm it with an oath. Thus many divines say, that simulation is useful, and on an occasion to be used; which St Thomas, explaining, says St Jerome uses the comprehensive term simulation for any sort of feigning. The reason is, because, on the one hand, we do not deceive a neighbour, but permit him to be deceived, for a good cause; on the other hand, we are not bound to speak, so that others may understand us, if a just cause exists. But, a just cause is any honest end, in order to preserve good things for the spirit, or useful things for the body." (Oh! St Liguori.)

But still further, on mental restriction :

The accused, or a witness not properly interrogated, can swear that he does not know a crime which in reality he does know, by understanding that he does not know the crime concerning which legitimately he can be inquired of, or that he does not know it, so as to give evidence concerning it."

A false witness, or one who, in making a contract deceives another, by swearing equivocally, may be absolved, and is not guilty of perjury.

"But here it is enquired,-1st, If such an accused person, or one who, making a contract, deceives by swearing with equivocation, may be absolved, unless he makes known the truth? Some not improbably answer in the negative, but more probably, Sanchez and others say, that he can be absolved; because in such an oath (which cannot be called a perjury) he has not sinned against commutative justice, but against legal justice, and due obedience to a judge, whose command to unfold the truth is transient, and only lasts while the judge interrogates. And the same thing Sanchez says of a lying witness."

"It is asked, 2d, Whether the accused, legitimately interrogated, can deny a crime, even with an oath, if the confession of the crime would be attended with great disadvantage?

"Ebbel denies that he can, and, indeed, more probably, because the accused is then bound for the general good to undergo the loss. But sufficiently probable, Lugo de Just., Tamb., Sanchez, with many others, say, that the accused, if in danger of death, or the prison, or exile, cAN DENY THE CRIME EVEN WITH AN OATH (at least without great sin), by understanding that he did not commit it, so that he is bound to confess it, only let there be a hope of avoiding the punishment."

"He who hath sworn that he would keep a secret, does not sin against the oath by revealing that secret, when he cannot conceal it without great loss to himself, or to another, because the promise of secresy does not appear to bind, under this condition, if it does not injure me."-Liguori.

"He who hath sworn to a judge that he would speak what he knew, is not bound to reveal concealed things. The reason is manifest!!"

The reader will observe, that the above extracts are from Liguori. The following are a few more from the same saintly pen :

"It is asked, 2d, Whether an adultress can deny adultery to her husband, understanding that she should reveal it to him? She may assert, equivocally, that she did not break the bond of matrimony which truly remains; and if sacramentally she confessed adultery, she can answer, I am innocent of this crime, BECAUSE BY CONFESSION IT WAS TAKEN AWAY. Cardenas, however, here remarks, that she cannot affirm it with an oath, because in asserting anything, the probability of a deed suffices; but in swearing, certainty is required. To this it is replied, that in

swearing, moral certainty suffices, as we said above, which moral certainty of the remission of sin can indeed be had, when any, morally well-disposed, receives the sacrament of penance."

"In answer to an enquiry, Salm. n. 144, with Soto, say, that a woman cannot deny adultery, because it would be purely mental restriction. Cardenas, however, n. 60, admits that, when in danger of death, it is lawful to use a metaphor, common in Scripture, where adultery is taken for idolatry, as in Ezekiel xxiii. 37, 'Because they committed adultery, and were guilty of fornication with idols.'" (!) Then comes an edifying array of ratiocination, showing, that not only those who have promised marriage, but those also who are actually married, can assert to a judge, even with an oath, that they did not enter into either of these engagements; meaning thereby, that they did not enter into them freely, or so as to be bound by them. Nevertheless, if a man has promised to an harlot, with an oath, that he would not know any other, he is bound by that oath! So that oaths which may be disregarded between married persons are held to be binding between fornicators!

Now, let us give one fearful extract from Liguori (p. 419), of doing evil that good may come.

66

Therefore, the second opinion is the more probable one, that it is lawful to induce a man to commit a less evil, if he has already determined to perpetrate a greater. The reason is, because he that persuades does not seek an evil, but a good-to wit, the choice of a lesser evil; thus Sanchez, and many others, think it probable. Hence, Sanchez, &c., teach, that it is lawful to persuade a man determined to slay some one, that he should commit theft or fornication, and he proves it from St Augustine. For, if he is about to do that which is not lawful, in that case he may commit adultery, and he may not commit homicide; and though his own wife be alive he may marry another, rather than shed human blood." From which words, he may commit adultery,' Sanchez and others prove, that the doctor not only was speaking of permitting, but even of persuading. And Sanchez adds, that it is lawful not only for private persons, but even confessors, parents, and others, upon whom the duty is officially incumbent, to prevent the sins of those under them.'

Then comes an interesting question-" Whether it may be lawful to co-operate materially in the sin of another?" Thus,

“It is asked, 4th, Whether from fear of death, or of great loss, it is lawful for a servant to stoop his shoulders, or bring a ladder for his master ascending to commit fornication, to force open the door, and such like? Viva, Melante, and others, deny it; because, as they say, such actions are never lawful, inasmuch as they are intrinsically evil. But Busembaum, Sanchez, &c., speak the contrary, whose opinion, approved of by reason, (!) appears to me the more probable." !!

On the subject of theft, Liguori not only teaches that it is allowable for servants and others to steal, but he furnishes a regular "scale of thefts,” to inform thieves how much they may steal from persons in the various ranks of life, without committing mortal sin.

In Book III. No. 521, he discusses the point, and begins thus,-" Note here the thirty-seventh proposition of Innocent XI., which said Domestic servants, men and women, can steal from their own masters for the purpose of compensating themselves for their own labour, which they judge to be greater than the salary they receive.'

66 A poor man, absconding with goods for his support, can answer the judge that he has nothing (Salm. n. 140.) In like manner, a master who has concealed his goods without an inventory, if he is not bound to settle with his creditors from them, can say to a judge, that he has not concealed anything, in his own mind meaning those goods with which he is bound to satisfy his creditors."

In Dubium II. he considers what quantity of stolen property is necessary to constitute mortal sin.

"These things are not to be measured mathematically, but morally; not only according to the value of the thing stolen, but also according to the circumstances of the person from whom it is stolen-to wit, if he would suffer great loss, or christian charity be grievously violated; wherefore, in respect of a very rich man,

or even of a king, one or two aurei appear something notable; but in the case of a man of moderate wealth, about four regales, or the half of an imperial; in the case of a mechanic, two; in the case of a poor man, one."

In Dubium IV. he says

"Salas with Croix says, that a son does not commit grievous sin who steals 20 or 30 aurei from a father possessing nearly 1500 aurei; and Lugo does not disapprove of it, if the father be not tenacious, and the son have grown up, and receive it for honest purposes. Bannez says, that 53 aurei are required to constitute a grievous sin on the part of a son who steals from a rich father."

The above extracts must suffice. On what constitutes really the greater portion of the volume, we dare not even touch. But the taste and delicacy of the confessors may be surmised from the instructions of Delahogue, one of the Maynooth authorities, in cases where the instinctive modesty of the woman shrinks from the examination. "Pudorem illum superandum esse, et nolenti denegandam esse absolutionem."-(Delahogue, de poen, p. 68.)

But we should be sorry if our readers laboured under the impression, that in the above extracts they see the worst of the writings quoted from. The worst, we repeat, are precisely those which we cannot, and dare not print-which no respectable periodical would suffer to pollute its pages. Down column after column of foulness the eye wanders, till the reader in bewilderment asks himself, if such things can really be-if the individuals who wrote, who imagined such loathsome abominations, were not professed caterers for the vilest appetites-panderers in the service of "le grand monarque," or purveyors for the "pere aux cerfs." But it is not so -these hoary rascals are, or were, eminent doctors in the Romish church-men of world-wide reputation, of prodigious learning-one, and he perhaps the vilest of the lot, is by solemn fiat of the Vatican, canonised, the object of warm eulogy and emulation by living prelates of the church, one to whom the prayers of the faithful are offered,-worshipped and honoured as a saint of God! Leaving however what is not quoted, we point to what is-and ask the reader to say whether the worst reports circulated of the doctrines of the Jesuits and the iniquities of the confessional are not here exceeded by the reality? We here learn that deliberate falsehoods are in certain circumstances excusable-that dissimulation is a virtue to be retained in active exercise-that equivocation and mental reservation are often in the highest degree laudable-that theft, murder, and licentiousness of every kind may be reduced to the category of only venial sins, and are not always even that that no oath, or promise, or obligation, however sacred or precise, is binding, if the church chooses to say it is not. And if cases are named where certain doctors are of a different opinion, that opinion is at once overruled by the concurrent testimony of scores of others. For the learned writers make allusions to many who have written before them, and parade the arguments, pro and con, with an air of great impartiality; the remarkable fact remaining, that the least vicious are always in the minority. So that, bad as are the writings we have quoted from, worse may remain behind; and we cannot tell what untold horrors yet exist in the works unexplored. This task awaits some other adventurous spirit, though the qualifications requisite are seldom found in one individual-they include great perseverance, a total want of sensibility, and an acquaintance with scholastic Latin, equal to that of the Polyglot Father Prout himself.

Certain deductions are to be drawn from the above. The books from which these doctrines and that language, so unsocial, dangerous, and horrible, are taken, are used in the college of Maynooth, at our expense. We, the Protestant people of Great Britain, allow to be annually taken from the British treasury the sum of L.30,000, for the initiation into the beauties of Bailly, Delahogue, and Cabassutius, of the students who are to be the parish priests of the Irish, and in some cases of the English Roman Catholics. Saturated with these monstrous dogmas, and, we are driven to suppose, with their moral sense blunted by the indoctrination, unless in rare and novel instances, they go forth to instruct, guide, advise, a peasantry, quick in impulse, passionate in their resentments, very much devoid of cool judgment, but with enough of reverence for religion to carry out unshrinkingly any scheme which the priest has sanctified by his approval. Hence, when a Protestant landlord, a patron of Sabbath schools, and a subscriber to Irish church

missions to the Romanists, is to be shot from behind a hedge-when a benevolent lady dispensing alms among a wretched population, is to be mobbed and pelted, because she is a Protestant, by these gallant sons of Erin-or when a congregation of Protestant converts is to be annoyed, attacked, and, if possible, dispersed, when assembled in the house of prayer, instruments are never wanting to the execution of the priestly mandate. And is it at all matter of wonder, that perjury on the part of witnesses in an Irish court of justice should be so general and unblushing as to call for the marked denunciation of the presiding judge? Need it cause surprise that the association of Ribandmen, worse than the Vehm Gericht of the middle ages, remorseless as oriental Thugs, and approaching the Ansayrii of Lebanon in the patience of their pursuit and the sureness of their revenge, should be composed entirely of Papists? Need we feel surprised that altar denunciations are almost invariably followed by the death of the unfortunate object of priestly rancour, and that that same priest should afterwards deny that the curse ever passed his lips? And need we wonder that the ignorant peasant should look with indifference on the shedding of human blood, when he perceives that the guilt can be so speedily absolved; or that, on the scaffold, with the death apparatus around him, though doomed by evidence overwhelming and clear as noon-day, he should, with the priest beside him, and the cross before his eyes, declare that he is innocent, and pass into eternity with the blood of the murdered on his hands, and that ghastly lie yet trembling on his lips?*

There is no argument yet used for the maintenance of Maynooth which is sound enough to merit a lengthened refutation, It is said that the withdrawal of the grant would irritate the loyal and peaceable Roman Catholics, and drive them into the ranks of the extreme ultramontane party. As respects the clergy, that has been already done, thanks to the edicts of Thurles and the rule of Dr Paul Cullen. Between the really liberal laity who support the Queen's Colleges and the ultramontane party, there is already a breach so wide, that the withdrawal of a grant which affects the clergy only, would make no perceptible difference. Besides, none know better than the intelligent laity, that the discipline and the tuition of Maynooth have caused a sad deterioration in the mental as well as moral qualifications of the priests. The priests of a past generation-a clase now almost extinct-the Crollys, the Prouts, and the Mahonys-the alumni of St Omer and the Sorbonne,—were men of cultivated mind, of great classic attainments, of genial and liberal disposition, and of tastes altogether alien to political agitation, or to demagogueism. They lived on terms of friendship, and even intimacy, with their neighbours of a different faith, and if, as scandal hinted, they took part in the compotations of the squire, they also joined in the classic researches of the parson.† But the modern brood of priests, hatched amid the monkery of Maynooth, are altogether different,-having neither that knowledge of books which would make them enlightened, nor that knowledge of men which would make them charitable. There is scarcely a learned or moderately eloquent man among them--their learning being that of the schoolmen, or of such worthies as Dens and Liguori, and their eloquence never getting beyond vulgar and vapid declamation. Their sway is therefore of a nature intolerable to men of thinking habits and of moderate intelligence, and most of the Irish laity would willingly see an institution which has had such results numbered with the things that have been.

We have yet another remark to make on the subject of these extracts. Many of the most remarkable of the writers, such as Suarez and Escobar, are Jesuits. Now, this powerful and intriguing order no longer occupies the position of degraded members cast out of the pale of the church; they occupy a loftier position, and wield more power than ever. They may appropriate the boast of one of their

* All founded on facts.

Dr Cullen, that apocryphal member of the peerage, the "Lord Archbishop of Armagh,' nominated, some time ago, the Virgin Mary patron saint of Ireland, vice St Patrick, superseded for some inscrutable reason or other. Why this venerable patron of the orgies of Donnybrook and of shebeen shops should be so unceremoniously dismissed, we know not, unless that his name, in the minds of the scowling bigots who now preside over the destinies of the Irish Roman Catholic Church, was associated with feelings not at all akin to morose intolerance, or exclusiveness, or rancour.

greatest members, "Like lambs we entered; like wolves we devoured; like dogs were we driven out; but like eagles shall we renew our youth." The eagle's strength of wing they have, and the eagle's keenness of gaze. England and Ireland are fast becoming a location for the wiliest and most accomplished of their members; France has handed over to them the education of her youth; they are pre-eminent in Austria, Spain, and Tuscany; they are welcomed back with open arms by the Pontiff of Rome and the despot of Naples. With their usual sagacity, they are making the councils of sovereigns so many points d'appui for still wider machinations; and if appearances are to be believed, they may soon exercise a voice in the cabinet of England herself. To what depth of deceit they may go, and what variety of tortuous chicanery they may employ for the accomplishment of their cherished ends, the books of their cherished theologians tell us. Is it too much to say that we can scarcely exaggerate the mischief it is in their power to accomplish, and the danger that awaits that country entangled in their toils and perilled by their treason. A. H.

London.

THE NEW REFORMATION IN IRELAND.

A STRONG prejudice exists in the minds of Scotchmen, especially of Scotch Dissenters, against the accounts which have been current for some time, of conversions from Popery, effected through the instrumentality of the Irish Established Church. Can any good come out of Nazareth? Can a church, so pampered by wealth, and fettered by state restrictions, put forth any vigorous spiritual effort? And is any considerable measure of success likely to attend the labours in which such a church may engage, among a people stung to madness by a sense of the wrongs they suffered at her hand? Identified as Protestantism has been with conquest and tyranny, exaction and oppression, the best feelings of the Irish mind were allied against Protestants: and it is not to be wondered at, that with such a barrier in the way, the labours of the best endowed church in the world had for centuries failed to make head against Irish Popery.

Having shared to a considerable extent the prejudice to which we have referred, we yet find ourselves compelled to own, which we do most gladly, that a religious reformation of an apparently genuine character, has been going on in Ireland for the last four or five years, and that members of the Established Church have had an honourable prominence in the good work. The origin of the movement, or at least what gave it its chief impetus, it seems beyond doubt, was the famine, and its attendant horrors, which brought into play the sympathies of English Protestants in favour of the wretched sons of Erin. If the grand hindrance to the reception of the truth by Irish Romanists was, as we have intimated, the conviction, on their part, that Protestants were essentially tyrannical and unjust, it was to be expected that circumstances fitted, in any degree, to modify that conviction, would set open a door for the access of truth into their hearts. We are quite prepared to believe that a cruel and bigoted use of the calamity, and the means of its mitigation, would be made by some. Our Lord's rebuke of the narrow-minded theologians, who professed to interpret the fall of the tower of Siloam, as a proof that the sufferers in that catastrophe were sinners above all sinners, would not probably have been placed on perpetual record, had it not been seen that there would be need for it in subsequent ages of the church. We cannot, therefore, reject as prima facie improbable such testimony as the following, albeit, our admission of it may seem to be playing into the hands of Dr M'Hale of Tuam :—

"Those full-fed, government-paid clergymen, who had learned the law of love through her own bread and wine exclusively, and whose jaundiced eyes saw dark and foul spots on all surplices but her own, would be quick to discern, that the curse causeless does not come ;' and that as the Roman Catholics embodied the majority of the sufferers in Ireland, and the Roman Catholics were mostly fed on potatoes, and as God had blasted these potatoes, therefore, they ought, in humble acquiescence to say, 'Amen,' while the smoke of this torment was ascending; if not, be willing co-workers with God in the infliction of the punishment. When such did give what was entrusted to their hands, it was not always given with cheerfulness,' or