who, notwithstanding these arguments and these facts, are bold enough to go further and pronounce judgment in the dark, will have to render an account before the tribunal of God. Absolute certainty is here a necessity. For the smallest doubt here demands by Divine right the most rigorous forbearance."
Louis Veuillot, the journalist, editor of L'Univers, criticised Gratry with an inimitable mixture of worldly wisdom, insolent banter, and pious resignation.[1] He had fondly hoped that Gratry's friends, either by piety or prudence, would have diverted him from an enterprise which could only issue in odium or ridicule. However, needs must that offences come. To deny Infallibility in presence of a Council met to proclaim the unvarying faith of the Church, to deny it by attacks on the Prayer Book, was a masterpiece among mistakes. Nobody ever accused Gratry of possessing any ecclesiastical learning or independent power. Loss of faith explains many things. Needs must that offences come. As to the contents of the book, it was Janus réchauffé. Gratry would never convince the human mind with his Protestant, Gallican, free-thinking ideas. Gratry is described as being as innocent as a new-born babe, as having studied nothing, read nothing, but passionately advocating what others have told him. And yet this innocence is surprising in an Academician, formerly of the Oratory, author of a book on logic. This innocent is, moreover, a priest. Strangers have brought him papers which say that his Mother has told him lies; and he takes them for angels and believes them. But Gratry is also a mathematician; and all mathematicians have some curious twist in the brain. Just as Laplace the mathematician had no need of
- ↑ Louis Veuillot, Rome pendant le Concile, p. 156.
