such is the justice awarded where Catholics and their religion are concerned !

secret.

To the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, then, the Pope had nothing in the world to say; and in establishing this point I have fulfilled the one object which all along I had in view. The Church of France, as such, is equally innccent of any part or complicity therein. Even Sismondi admits that the Pope's nuncio at Paris was perfectly unconscious of what was going on; indeed, he contends that he was purposely kept in ignorance of the plot; though one would have thought that if the Pope were at the bottom of the business, he was just the man to be trusted with the Another writer says that Catherine of Medicis was very jealous of the Pope's interference in her measures of policy, even as respected the Huguenots; and that the private dispatches of the nuncio indicate that "instead of sharing, he was ever labouring to penetrate the designs of the court" (Cabinet Cyclopædia). These very dispatches, moreover, which were written in cipher, and have only lately been discovered, prove, without doubt, that he knew no more about the matter than he could gather from common report. So even those writers maintain who are of opinion that the massacre was premeditated; for his dispatches go to show that it arose out of the unforeseen circumstances I have given above. Ranke, in his History of the Civil Wars, remarks that Catherine left Paris with her son to avoid meeting the Pope's legate, who arrived just after the massacre; a clear proof that she was afraid of the truth coming out, or, at any rate, was conscious that the affair, whatever the official account might be, would be any thing but favourably regarded by that functionary. As for the bishops and clergy of France, I am not aware that they have ever been definitely accused of being the instigators of the slaughter; so that I am not charged with their defence. It is matter of history, however, that in several places where the clergy had suffered most from the fanaticism of the heretics, they exerted themselves fearlessly in their defence. The Bishop of Lisieux, for instance, of the order of St. Dominic, succeeded in arresting the massacre which had begun in his diocese; and at

Lyons the archbishop opened his palace as a refuge to more than 300 Calvinists, who were thus saved from the hands of their enemies.

In short, the undoubted facts of history-and, I may add, every new fact which is established-entirely acquit the Pope and the Church of France of all sort of connection with the massacre, whoever may have been its guilty contrivers. The accusation has not only no grounds, but no shadow of a ground to rest upon; and is the pure invention of a stupid and malignant bigotry, regardless alike of rational probability and of historical truth.

At the very least, this all must allow :-if Protestant writers of credit and research are of opinion that it is impossible to decide on existing data that the massacre itself was premeditated, and many most adverse to the Catholic side are "firmly convinced" that it was not,-it follows, of course, that the charge against the Pope rests on the same problematical ground; and thus the whole matter is removed from the region of wild and fierce invective into the peaceful fields of historical inquiry,—a change of position extremely embarrassing and vexatious to those who have a zeal in upholding the established traditions of this great Protestant country.

Religious Toleration

A QUESTION OF FIRST PRINCIPLES.

Orall the vulgar charges brought against the Catholic Church, there is none, perhaps, which tells more powerfully on the popular mind than that of religious intolerance. Facts seem to be against us. It cannot be denied that Catholic governments (or, at least, such as are called Catholic) have persecuted. In old Catholic times heresy was an offence of which the law took cognisance; the teachers of heresy were sometimes committed to the flames; and what is more, the ecclesiastical authorities sanctioned the proceeding, and Catholic divines formally defended the principle of non-toleration. Thus De Castro, who (as I told you, No. 7. p. 17) publicly remonstrated against the wholesale character of the executions in Mary's reign, as "contrary to the spirit of the Gospel," maintained, in one of his theological treatises, the lawfulness of putting heretics to death. The subject, therefore, is one which cannot honestly be evaded by an apologist of the Catholic religion; much less can it safely be set aside, as a matter in which Catholics are not concerned, or of which no explanation is required.

To those who have read and carefully weighed the facts which have been brought forward in several numbers* of this series, two considerations in connection with the charge will readily present themselves.

In the first place, they will have learnt, that, even ad

* No. 7, The Smithfield Fires. No. 45. How Elizabeth restored the Protestant Religion. No. 49. Why did the Pope excommunicate Queen Elizabeth? No. 54. The Golden Days of Good Queen Bess. Nos. 40, 47. A Sketch of the Penal Laws. No. 57. The Albigenses. No. 62. The Massacre of St. Bartholomew.