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ESSAYS ON LIBERTY
smallest pains taken to verify or disprove then1 with means at hand. But this can hardly excite surprise in us who know the antecedents of that journal under another name, the absence for years of all reserve or reverence in its treatment of persons or of things deenled sacred, its grazing over the very edges of the most perilous abysses of enor, and its habitual preferences of un catholic to catholic instincts, tendencies, and nlotives. In uttering these sad thoughts, and entreating you to warn your people, and especially the young, against such dangerous leadership, believe me I am only obeying a higher direction than nlY own iUlpulses, and acting under much more solemn sanctions. Nor shall I stand alone in this unhappily neces- sary correction. But let us pass to more cheerful and consoling thoughts. If my connection with the preparation of the Address, from my having held, though unworthy, office in its Committee, enables and authorises nle to rebut false charges against it, it has further bestowed upon me the privilege of personal contact with a body of nlen who justly represented the entire Episcopate, and would have represented it with equal advantage in any other period of the Church. I know not who selected them, nor do I venture to say that many other equal cOlnnlittees of eighteen could not have been extracted from the remainder, I think they 11lig-ht; but I must say that a singular wisdOll1 seemed to 11le to have presided over the actual, whatever might have been any other possible, choice. Deliberations more rninute, more mutually respectful, more courteous, or at the sanle time more straightforward and unflinching, could hardly have been carried on. More learning in theology and canon law, more deep religious feeling, a graver sense of the re- sponsibility laid upon the Commission, or a more scrupulous regard to the claims of justice, and no less of mercy, could scarcely have been exhibited. Its spirit was one of mildness, of gentleness, and of reverence to all who rightly claimed it. "Violent courses," invitations to "draw the sword and rush on enemies," or to deal about "the major excomlnunication by name," I deliberately assure you, were never mentioned, never insinuated, and I think I nlay say, never thought of by anyone in that Council. In the sketches proposed by several, there was not a harsh or disrespectful word about any sovereign or governUlent; in anything I ever humbly proposed, there was not a single allusion to "King or Kaiser."
Our duty to the Cardinal and our duty to our readers alike forbid us to pass by these remarks without notice. Silence \vould imply either that we admitted the charge, or that we disregarded the censure; and each of these suppositions would probably be welcome to the enemies of our common cause, while both of them are, in fact, untrue. The ilnpossibility of silence, however, involves the necessity
