THE ZEAL OF CONVERTS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3226, 1 November 1881, Page 4

THE ZEAL OF CONVERTS.

Converts have always been remarkable for the venom of their opposition to tho creed they- have deserted, and for their often Unscrupulous ardour in support of the new faith. The history of the Gunpowder Plot is a ourious instance of such conduct. "With tbe exception of a few, every man engaged in the conspiracy was not only, as Fawkes proudly boasted, " a gentleman of name and blood," but had once been a Protestant. Catesby, though the son of a convert to the Catholic Church, had been brought up as a Protestant, and had married into a Protestant family. John Wright and his brother were converts from the Anglican communion. Guy Fawkes came of a Protestant stock, and in his youth had been a Protestant. Thomas Percy was a conyert from Protestanißm; so was Sir Everard Digby j ao was Robert Keyes, who Was the son of an Anglican vicar; Henry

Garnet hm_„f _i_ not forsake Protestantism until he had been converted as an undergraduate ac Oxford. The Old Catholic element amongst the conspirators was in a minority, and only represented by the brothers Winter, John Grant of Norbrook, and Ambroso Rookwood. We have no eviileneo that the mass of the English Oatholii-ri approved of the plot; on the contrary, such testimony as we possess proves their repugnance of it, and their " horror;that such-a deed should have been considered as authorised by the teaching of their Church. The advocates of the conspiracy were the Jesuits—Eawkes and his colleagues were all members of this Order, and between the Jesuits and the secular party at that time there was so hitter a feeling, that ifc amounted almost to a schism. The majority should not bo made to suffer for the crimes of an unscrupulous minority. Tn accusing the Roman Catholic Church of the guilt of thisplofc, wo should, in all fairness, bear in mind that the conspirators belonged to a body then hostile to the Church, that the Pope knew nothing of the deed that was to be perpetrated, and that we have no evidence of any of the Catholics of the secular party being accomplices in the Treason. — Gentleman's Magazine.