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From Sir John Acton. - John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton, Selections from the Correspondence of the First Lord Acton, Vol. I (Cardinal Newman, Lady Blennerhassett, W.E. Gladstone) [1917]

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Selections from the Correspondence of the First Lord Acton, edited with and Introduction by John Neville Figgis and Renald Vere Laurence. Vol. I Correspondence with Cardinal Newman, Lady Blennerhassett, W.E. Gladstone and Others (London: Longmans, Gree and Co., 1917).

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From Sir John Acton.

June 6, 1861.

. . . I must ask leave to retract anything in my letter which seemed to you expressive of impatience or of importunity regarding your silence on the present crisis of the Church. I gave in the Summary what seemed to me very good reasons and a sufficient explanation of the reserve of persons in your position. I know too well that the Temporal Power is but a very small part of a very vast question. It is in this way that Döllinger treats of it in the book he is just finishing, and which I still hope may provoke you to some criticism in our September number. What I feel is, not that I am unjustly accused and attacked, but that it is a presumption against the principle I represent that I should be the head and front of the offending cause. Half the arguments you use for keeping aloof disturb me; because, if you have no call or right to speak, I personally have none. And I believe too that you see more distinctly the signs of a coming reaction against the popular Catholic views than I do in the midst of my opposition to them. But the latter part of your letter imposes silence on me on this topic, both towards yourself and others; and I hope you will consider all this said by way, not of urgency, but of explanation. The session will be over early and I shall be impatient to get to my books, . . . which I continue to hope will some day tempt you over to Aldenham.

Monday Morning.

I have just received your note with a Letter on the Council of Trent, which will, of course, find its place in the next number. But I must express to you my astonishment that it should come with your recommendation, seeing that it altogether ignores what is really meant by receiving the Council of Trent, which is a very definite matter, on which long controversies have been carried on, in France, for instance. Again, to suppose that the Bishops are censured, when it is said that the Council of Trent is not accepted, seems to me the most unjust mode of argument, trying to interest religious reverence in a question merely of fact and history. Nor does the writer deal with the enormous consequences which follow from his statement, such as putting England and Ireland on one footing in regard to marriage.

Without your note, I should not have thought of admitting the letter. With your note, I do not of course hesitate.