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TWELVE YEARS IN A MONASTERY

for them in their own apologetical literature—with satisfactory solutions appended. Here again the peculiarity of the Catholic controversial method tells in its immediate favour. As one would expect, most of the objections which are formulated have been carefully prepared for the express purpose of refutation; no Catholic writer ever gives an accurate version of hostile criticism. Newman is usually said to be the most satisfactory in this respect; in fact, it is claimed that he formulates the opinion of an adversary more lucidly than the adversary himself. But take for instance the exposition of Gibbon’s five causes of the spread of Christianity in the appendix to the ‘Grammar of Assent,’ and compare it with the classical chapter of Gibbon; it is utterly inaccurate and unworthy. And not only are critics’ opinions garbled and mutilated, but their personal characters are equally perverted. Anglicans are allowed some hope of ultimate salvation, although even here there is grave anxiety; Archbishops of Canterbury, &c., are, of course, case-hardened, men like Gladstone are fully expected to make a death-bed repentance, and so on. But when we come to greater sceptics the credit of bona fides is stopped: they are one and all represented to be in bad faith. Thus every Catholic believes that the Emperor Julian (the atheist, they are pleased to call him) died in a fit of rage, crying ‘Galilæus vicit’; that Voltaire died raving for a priest to confess; that Döllinger and Lamennais were pride