Two Addresses: One, to the Gentlemen of Whitby, Who Signed the Requisition, Calling a Meeting to Address the Queen, on the Late (So Called) Aggression of the Pope: and the Other, to the Protestant ClergyRigby, N. (Nicholas)
Religion
Two Addresses: One, to the Gentlemen of Whitby, Who Signed the Requisition, Calling a Meeting to Address the Queen, on the Late (So Called) Aggression of the Pope: and the Other, to the Protestant Clergy
Rigby, N. (Nicholas)
Catholic Church -- England -- History -- 19th century; England -- Church history
[D] I have sometimes been asked, and the question has sometimes been
slyly popped to me, and to others, by certain limbs of the law, if I was
a _Jesuit_? I answer first, that I have not the honour to belong to that
learned, and much calumniated body, the Jesuits. I answer secondly, I
perfectly understood the _sly_ drift of these _questions_, and
_inuendoes_. It was as good as to say, "Jesuitism is a strange compound
of all kinds of tricks and quirks, and of mental reservations, and
deceptions. Now this little spectacle fellow, is one of them, and
therefore, he is up to all the Jesuitical trade, and is a perfect
specimen of it. Nay, I believe, that he could slyly board us with his
Jesuitical tricks, _even_ while we were looking on." Well, one good turn
certainly deserves another. And now, I must as politely as I can, tell
these limbs of the law, that if I am to judge of the law from the little,
that I have really seen, and know about _them_, and that if Jesuitism be
_really_, what they _imagine_ it is, and if the whole of England ever
became Catholic, and then, from Catholicism jumped to Jesuitism, in this
case, I certainly think that these limbs of the law, will not have to
study, the celestial arts of Jesuitism, as pourtrayed in their own
imagination; for they will be _already_, perfectly dubbed masters of
Israel in that art, and they will certainly occupy distinguished places,
in the various departments of _mental reservations_, pious frauds, and
charitable tricks and quirks upon their neighbour's pockets. Really this
reminds me of Paddy, who had just arrived from Ireland, and was
_sneeringly_ asked by a _busy_ Englishman, what kind of a crop of
Murphies, they had had in Ireland? Pat had a shillalah in his hand, he up
with it, knocked down the Englishman, and said; "And sure your honour, we
have had a very good crop of Murphies, and you may know it by the feel,
for that is the stalk of one." Now, I hope these limbs of the law, will
not be offended at me for taking up my spectacle shillalah, and just
politely flooring them, for their _Jesuitical inuendoes_ and _mental
reservations_ in my regard. I hope they will not be offended, at my
defending myself, for their own profession will teach them, that every
one is allowed fair play, whether he be a metamorphosed calumniated
Jesuit, or a limb of the law in the body of a man's pocket. But far be it
from me to adopt their extensive, and sweeping mode of argumentation,
viz., the law of the land is a heap of deceptions, and tricks, now such a
man is a lawyer, therefore he must be a sleight-of-hand gentleman in that
art. Before I make this sweeping conclusion, I ought _first_, to examine
seriously, and carefully, if the law _really is_, this strange compound
of deceptions, and I ought then, to examine and really know, that this
lawyer has really acted according to this deception, I ought to do this,
before I condemn him personally, or open the flood-gates of condemnation
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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