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for mdcccxxxv. is a strange and very discreditable oversight, (for I impute no worse); when it is perfectly plain, that the edition reprinted is the last Roman one. The address to the reader by Fr. Thomas Antoninus Des-
appeared in the British Magazine, for 1839, and was copied in the Record.
But let the reader observe how this mutilation and imposition was taken by some of those, and not of the lowest authority, whom it was meant to serve. First, we have the Ursa Major of the Midland District, Dr. Milner, who, in his Inquiry into the Vulgar Opinions concerning the Irish Catholics, p. 441, writes, "Among other pious frauds of the Bible Societies in Ireland, in order to trick the Catholic inbabitants out of their religion," &c. "For this purpose they have published and circulated among the Catholic poor a garbled and corrupt translation of a letter from Pope Pius VI. to Martini, of Florence, in commendation of his translation of the Scriptures into Italian. But they have taken care to suppress the passages in which his holiness enforces the rules of the Index, and praises the work for having notes to explain difficult passages conformably to the doctrines of the holy Fathers: in fact, it consists of twenty-three quarto volumea." Whether the Bible Society did any thing of this kind I know not: but it is notorious that it was done by Popish editors, who thought it "an ingenious device," and deserving, not of rebuke, but commendation, from their superiors. It will be observed how reverently the learned Dr. Milner speaks of the Rules of the Index, which the common run of Papal controvertists now agree to treat as of no authority. Not so those who know something of their Church, and speak honestly. This is not all. The supreme authority of the Roman Church in the person of ber Pontiff, Pius VII., has confirmed the censure of the English Vicar Apostolic; and in bis breve to the Archbishop of Mobilow,
