could reach Dr. Newman, I would implore him to cease from mocking, as he does most wickedly, most unjustifiably, without any right, reason, or real necessity, at living and evangelical religion; and to lay aside that self-confidence which he displays, and humble his soul as a little child; and turn from fables and polluted cisterns to the Fountain of living waters. And if I have said any thing that can hurt his feelings personally, I desire to retract it; if I have said any thing that may convey conviction to his soul, may God rivet it. And when the last day comes, may Dr. Newman and I find ourselves among the saved, having washed our robes in the blood of Jesus only, justified by the righteousness of Jesus only, and regenerated by the Spirit of Jesus only.

59*

ROMANISM NOT THE PATRON

BUT THE

PERSECUTOR OF SCIENCE.*

I AM not about to discuss, in this reply, the patronage extended to the Bible or to civil freedom by the Roman Catholic Church,- topics on which I have elsewhere spoken at length, but to meet an assertion made by Dr. Wiseman on this very platform, and within these walls, that the Roman Catholic religion has been the great patroness of learning and science. There are no doubt some things which she does patronize, and it is but fair and candid to admit it. She has been a great patroness of painting, music, and splendid architecture during a long period of her history; but mark the reason of it. Painting, and architecture, and music have nothing in them essentially and inevitably either Protestant or Popish. They may decorate. the one or other with equal facility of application. The Church of Rome is an institution adorned to the very utmost, and for a very natural and obvious reason, inasmuch as ornament is necessary in order to conceal from ordinary eyes the radical and abhorrent defects of a corrupt

Delivered in the Music Hall in Leeds, in June, 1853, in reply to a lecture delivered a short time before in the same place by Cardinal Wiseman.

and anti-Christian system. But all the painting that can be applied will never conceal from the Christian mind the dense darkness and errors of her creed, though it may conceal it from those who do not value or estimate religion by its inherent and real elements. To paint the rose, or to adorn the lily, or to gild refined gold, or to add fresh perfume to the violet, seem an excess of works of supererogation. Pure religion needs no ornaments or art to adorn it — the least adorned, it is adorned the most. It is always a suspicious sign when we see a church, whether Protestant or Romish, beginning to add to the splendor of her communion table or to the gorgeous colors of her windows; for, although it may seem uncharitable, it is natural to suspect. that the minister is conscious of the inner glory making its exodus, and is now trying to lay on the outer glory in order to fill up the wide chasm it has left behind.

There is no question that the Church of Rome has been a great patroness of music in every age, and in her churches upon the continent I have been almost electrified by hearing the performance of some of the most magnificent compositions, though my conviction still remains, that the Psalmist's strain upon a people's lips has something in its mighty mass more thrilling and significant, nobler, and richer, than organs, and flutes, and sackbuts, and psalteries.

The Church of Rome has been a great patroness of architecture, but it has been at the expense of many another more precious acquisition. From the ninth to the twelfth centuries of the Christian era, the noblest cathedrals in Europe were raised, while the great mass of the people were sunk into the deepest degradation, and when Hildebrand was putting his foot upon the necks of kings, and kindling a war of devastation and rapine throughout Europe. After all, it does not require a man to be a very great Christian in order to build a cathedral. It is possible to be a very magnificent architect, and yet a very indifferent

Christian. It is possible to build a gorgeous temple as Herod did, and yet to live and die as Herod also did. The whole earth is one vast Cathedral; ruined cities are its broken tablets, and the histories of ancient nations, the inscriptions still legible, and grass, and sand, and rock are its tessellated pavements, wind and wave, and thunder its everlasting anthem, and its high altar is the Son of God; every stone in it is eloquent with praise, and every thing contained in it preaches a sermon to the listening and consecrated ear.

But whatever the Church of Rome has done for architecture, painting, and music, I am prepared to show from facts which I have collected together at considerable trouble, that the church of Cardinal Wiseman has never been a patroness of science at any era of her history, or in any part of the world under her dominion. But before I introduce this subject, I would warn the public that Cardinal Wiseman is not so accurate in his facts as to entitle him to implicit confidence, or to spare us the trouble of examination. I must prove this. On the 28th of April, Cardinal Wiseman, at Manchester, delivered a lecture "On the Relation of the Arts of Design to the Arts of Production," and among other things he said that Bernard Palissy," after sixteen years' perseverance, produced the first specimens of colored and beautiful pottery, such as are to this day sought after by the curious, and he received a situation in the King's household, and ended his days in comfort and respectability." But what were the actual facts of the case. In "Morley's Life of Palissy, the Potter," it is stated that "Palissy, the great potter, died in 1589 in the Bastile, where he had been confined for four years as a Huguenot (that is, because he was a Protestant); the King and his other friends could defer his trial, but dared not grant him liberty." The assertion of Dr. Wiseman is rather suspicious, when we recollect that Feller and Henrion, both Jesuit Priests, assert in the Dictionnaire Historique: "Palissy