REV. MR. GIBB ' QUOTES' AGAIN.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 11, 13 March 1902, Page 3

REV. MR. GIBB ' QUOTES ' AGAIN.

THE 'MANNING' EXTRACT ONCE MORE.

The following letter from the Rev. Mr. Gibb, Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, appeared in the Dunedin Evening Star of last Friday. It refers to one of the long series of misquotations of which the Rev. Mr. Gibb was convicted by Rev. Father Cleary, editor of the N.Z. Tablet, in July and August of last year. By a curious coincidence, the publication of Rev. Mr. Lilley's letter, which has been in the hands of Rev. Mr. Gibb for aome time, was delayed till almost the eve of Father Cleary 's departure for Europe. The Rev. Mr. Gibb's communication runs as follows : — Sir,— lt will be within the recollection of your readers that when the editor of the local Tablet challenged the accuracy of a quotation from Cardinal Manning which I made on the authority of the Rev. J. P. Lilley, of Arbroath (" the Principles of Protestantism "), I promised to write that gentleman as to the alleged inaccuracy of the words in question. Father Cleary asserted two things— first, that no issue of the London Tablet existed of the date assigned by Mr. Lilley ; second that the quotation was •an impudent fabrication, and contrary to Catholic doctrine.' Will you kindly publish the accompanying note which I have received from Mr. Lilley in reply to my letter of inquiry. It reached Dunedin some time ago, but came into my hands only after my return from Canada. lam sorry that two weeks have passed before I have found an opportunity of forwarding it to you, because, as I hear, the editor of the Tablet has either left or is about to leave Dunedin for a time. I wish it, however, to be distinctly understood that, even if you were willing (which is very unlikely) to reopen your columns for further conespondence on this matter, I shall not on any account be drawn into the writing of any other letter than this. I owe it to myself and to your readers to seek the publication of Mr. Lilley's letter, and with that I shall for my part be content. — I am, etc., James Gibb. March 5.

Knox Church Manse, Arbroath (Scotland), October 10, 1901. My D jar Sir, — I have just received your letter of August 19, 1901, regarding the quotation I have made on page 235 of my hand-book on The Principles of Protestantism, from Cardinal Manning's sermon. I received the precise date of the eermon from a ministerial friend in Scotland. He gave it to me as I have stated it in my book. I have since discovered that he made an error in the last figure of the year. The sermon was delivered on October 3, 1869, and was reported in the Tablet of October 9, 1869. The statement was also slightly condensed, but not a Bingle word was added oraltered. In order that Father Cleary will have all the comfort of seeing and comparing with his own eye every word that the Cardinal uttered I transcribe the whole passage. Speaking in the name of the Pope, Dr. Manning said :— ' I say 1 am liberated from all civil subjection ; that my Lord made me the subject of no one on earth, King or otherwise ; chat in His right I am sovereign. I acknowledge no civil superior ; I am the subject of no Prince ; and

I claim more than this : I claim to be the supreme judge on earth and director of the conscience of men — of the peasant that tills the field and the Prince that sits on the throne, of the household that lives in the shade of privacy and the legislators that make laws for kingdoms. lam the sole last supreme judge of what is right and wrong.' I need scarcely say that this utterance ia in harmony with the whole spirit of Manning's teaching ; and no one knew better what was believed and held in Rome itself. I could give a score of similar quotations from his writings. lam sorry that a mistake in a single figure Bhould have caused you so much persistent annoyance. Father Cleary must be a very Protestant prießt indeed if he can call Manning's statement ' an impudent fabrication and contrary to Catholic doctrine.' Pray make what use you can of this letter, and believe me, in the bonds of Christian brotherhood — Your faithfully, J. P. Lillet. THE KEPLY. These communications from the Rev. Mr. Gibb appeared in Friday's Evening Star. On the following evening the following reply from the Rev. Father Cleary appeared in the same paper :— Sir, — The friends and well-wishers of the Rev. Mr. Gibb will, I think, join with me in regretting that he has reopened, on even the narrowest issue, a discussion which cannot by any possibility add to his credit as a controversialist. This time he has a further word to say regarding one of the two irreconcilable versions which he gave some time ago of the now notorious ' Manning extract.' But, strangely enough, he makes not the slightest reference to the shockingly garbled version which he quoted in the Choral Hall, out of which the whole controversy arose, and around which (as declared by him to be ' Catholic doctrine ') it centred to the end. Here are the words of the Rev. Mr. Gibb as given in the verbatim report in your issue of July 13, 1901 : 'In the Tablet of the 9th October, 1864, the late Cardinal Manning, speaking in the name of the Pope, is reported thus : " I acknowledge no civil power ; I am the subject of no Prince ; and I claim more than this : I claim to be the supreme judge and director of the coneciences of men — of the peasants that till the field and of the prince that sits upon the throne, of the household that lives in privacy and the legislator that makes laws for the kingdoms. lam sole last supreme judge of what is right and wrong. Moreover, we declare, affirm, define, and pronounce it to be necessary for salvation to every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff." ' This alleged ' quotation ' was the cause of all the trouble. Yet the Rev. Mr. Gibb, in his letter of yesterday, has not made the remotest reference to it. I ask your readers to bear the following points in mind :—: — 1. The Rev. Mr. Gibb, in his Choral Hall speech, professed to quote from the Tablet of the 9th October, 1864. The London Tablet is, of course, meant throughout. 2. I had the Tablet for the whole of 1864 in my possession,and showed that there was no issue on October 9 of that year, and that it was not to be found in any issue for some months before and after. All this is now admitted. In his next letter (July 27) the Rev. Mr. Gibb admitted that he had not taken this alleged ' quotation ' from the Tablet, but from a statement made in an Orange newspapper and by an Orange clergyman who is noted for the violence of his utterances against the Catholic Church and body. 3. I denied the Rev. Mr. Gibb's statement (made in his letter of July 27) that the version of the ' Manning ' extract given by him in the Choral Hall and quoted above, is ' Catholic doctrine.' • Some time after the close of the controversy I discovered the report of Manning's discourse in the Tablet, volume 30, No. 1539 (October 9, 18G9), pp. 601-602, and found, as I had anticipated, that it was Garbled and Altered by the Rev. Mr. Gibb's ' authorities ' in an altogether disgraceful fashion. I published the full facts of the ease in the New Zealand Tablet of October 10, 1901, a marked copy of which was sent to the Rev. Mr. Gibb. It is not necessary to enter here into the full details of this most discreditable piece of controversial trickery, but the following salient points may be laid before your readers :—: — (a) In the Rev. Mr. Gibb's Choral Hall ' extract ' quoted above the Pope is made by Manning 1 to say : I acknowledge no civil power. Such a statement is nowhere to be found in the Tablet report (which, by the way, I am not quoting at second-hand). On the contrary, Manning, in the very same discourse (p. 601), said that ' the civil society or civil power was a thing sacred in itself. It came from God. It had God as its author and must be treated with great veneration.' And he completes a long and eloquent exposition of its rights and functions by declaring, on the authority of St. Paul, that those who resist the ordinances of even a ' persecuting and pagan ' civil power do so at the peril of their souls. The report merely credits Manning with putting into the Pope's mouth the words : ' I acknowledge no civil superior, I am the subject of no prince.' The ' prince ' referred to here was none other than Victor Emmanuel. ' You ask me,' Manning makes the Pope Bay, 'to abdicate, to renounce my supreme authority. You tell me I ought to submit to the civil power, that I am the Bubjeot of the King of Italy, and from him I am to receive instructions as to the way I should exercise my supreme power.' And this is twisted by a singularly discreditable piece of manipulative trickery, into a statement that the Pope, in Manning's idea, does not recognise the 'civil power.' (b) Again, in the Choral Hall extract Manning is said to make the Pope claim to be absolutely and without any qualification the supreme judge of conscience, of right and wrong— even the Almighty Himself is not excepted, for there is no limiting or qualifying 1 word or phrase. This is another Artful Dodger quotation. The report (which I am quoting at first hand) attributes no such sweeping statement to Manning. It only makes the Pope the highest judge in these matters, not absolutely, but ' on earth.' 1 The suppression of the two vital words ' on tarth ' is made all the more

inexcusable by the fact that (a) on the very Bame page of the report the Pope's position is expressly stated to be. not that of one who is absolutely supreme, but that of the representative, vicar, or delegate of Another ; and (b) that his teaching and executive authority ia not direct, but derived, and is for « the Christian society ' which Christ founded ' on earth.' (c) The last sentence given in the Choral Hall version of the n n U^ nef extraot ' is a misquotation and mistranslation from the Bull unavi Sanctam, of which not a trace is to be seen anywhere in the Tablet report. (d) Moreover, it is not true, as alleged by Mr. Gibb, that Manning s reported words are, or profess to be, statements of ' Catholic doctrine.' On July 27, a fortnight after the date of his Choral Hall Bpeech, and when the controversy was already in full swing, the Bey. Mr. Gibb introduced incidentally into the controversy a fresh and, of course, second-hand version of the ' Manning extract.' It waß alleged to have been taken at second-hand from a book by a Rev. Mr. Lilley, and, like the Choral Hall extraot, was said to have been taken from the London Tablet of October 9, 1864. It does not, however, alter the words ' civil superior ' to ' civil power,' nor omit the words 'on earth ' in the connection referred to above, nor add the tag from the Bull Unam Sanctam. The wording of this new extract did not enter into the doctrinal discussion, and I contented myself with say* ing in regard to it that the Rev. Mr. Lilley ' has blundered, at least in his referenaes, here.' This is now admitted both by the Rev. Mr. Gibb and the Rev. Mr. Lilley. The Rev. Mr. Gibb in Mb letter of yesterday (Friday) evening states that I described the Rev. Mr. Lilley's version of the ' Manning extract ' as 'an impudent fabrication.' I did no such thing. The words were used in my letter of July 20 regarding the Choral Hall edition of the extraot, exactly a week before the first publication of the Lilley version. In my letter of July 31 I explained that in the high-pressure speed at which your publishing arrangements compelled me to write my letter of July 20 the words ' " impudent fabrication " had escaped my too hurried censorship,' and I expressed my willingness to regard the Choral Hall extract as due to 1 a reporter's blunder and an editorial oversight.' I am now satisfied that the word ( fabrication ' is by no means too strong to stigmatise that dishonorable specimen of the ungentle art of the quotationrigger. The Rev. Mr. Lilley's letter to the Rev. Mr. Gibb makes painful reading, (a) In his book (' Principles of Protestantism,' p. 235) he professed to quote the London Tablet of October 9, 1864. In his letter to the Rev. Mr. Gibb he admits that he did no such thing, but that he had ' the precise date of the Bermon ' * (and presumably the extract as well) ' from a ministerial friend in Scotland ' ! This reminds one strongly of the Eev. Mr. Gibb's statement, when challenged by me some time ago, that he had heard a certain Abßurd Story about a papal brief from a man who had read about it in a newspaper fourteen or fifteen years ago. (&) The Rev. Mr. Lilley admits * that the date of the Tablet (1864) is erroneous. Moreover (c) his freshly-revised version confirms the statement published by me in the New Zealand Tablet of October 10. 1901, that he had dissected thirty -three words out of the body of his second-hand quotation without giving the smallest indication of this form of garbling, t 00 Again : He tore the quotation from its proper context. \ And (c) the very latest version of the ' Manning extract ' given by this ' soholarly ' clergyman in his letter to the Rev. Mr. Gibb alters two words of the text (though not so as to alter the general sense), and, by a trick of punctuation, constructs a sentence in such a way as is highly calculated to mislead the unwary reader.§ I am Btrongly inclined to believe that the Rev. Mr. Lilley is, like the Rev. Mr. Gibb, still quoting at second-hand. I am not, like the Rev. Mr. Lilley and the Rev. Mr. Gibb, quoting at second-hand, but with the Tablet report of Manning's words open before me. I am, of course, unable to say whether Manning ever used the precise words attributed to him in the report. Some of them are not carefully selected, but they are of course, not statements of ' Catholic doctrine,' but expressions of personal opinion or inferences delivered during a period of anti-papal storm and fury. In a moment of political and religious calm, the Rev. Mr. Gibb himself pleaded in the Choral Hall that ' in the heat of public utterance ' he might ' overstate his case,' and invited his audience to 'make a liberal reduction 1 for 'the fervor of the platform,' Let me assure the Rev. Mr. Gibb that the necessary exposure of the unworthy methods of controversy of those whom he has trusted not wisely, but too well, has been a painful task to me. But I shall be satisfied if it teaches a few well-meaning but uncritical opponents to learn at least a Catholic child's penny, catechism before setting up as 'authorities' on Catholic doctrine, to verify their references, and not endeavour to gain a spurious reputation for scholarship by giving, as the results of first-hand research, second-hand extracts and garbled quotations. — I am, etc., Editor 'N.Z. Tablet.' March 8.

* ' The precise date of the sermon,' as stated in the Tablet report (p. 601), was Sunday, October 3, 1869. No reference to the ' date of the sermon,' 1 whether ' precise ' or otherwise, waß made by the Rev. Mr. Lilley in his curiously blundering book (so far as Catholic matters are concerned). The reference is only to the alleged date of the publication of the report of the sermon — which is obviously quite a different thing. Here is the full and only reference given by Rev. Mr. Lilley to Mb mutilated version of the ' Manning extract ' : ' Sermon, Tablet, October 9, 1864.' As a matter of fact, the Tablet report of Manning's sermon did not appear for Jive years later, so that tho Rev. Mr.

Lilley s 'precise 1 information is a double-barrelled blunder He has completely set aside Rev. Mr. Gibb's theory that the error was the work of the printer, for he states in the letter published above that he gave the date in his book just as he go* it from his unnamed ' ministerial friend in Sootland.' Thankif to the Rev. Mr. Gibb and his Arbroath friend, we have now got to the origin of the various garbled or ' faked ' versions of the notorious ' Manning extract.' It will be remembered that, in our very first letter in reply to Rev. Mr Gibb's Choral Hall outbreak, we stated that ' October 9, 1864, fell fell on a Sunday ' •H lt ._ b « poßßible thafc this information has something to do with the Rev. Mr. Lilley's statement regarding ' the precise date of the sermon 1 ' At any rate, the Rev. Mr. Lilley was evidently napping when he penned that curious letter to Rev. Mr. G;bb. t The Rev. Mr Gißb guaranteed the 'accuracy 1 and ' scholarship • of his confrere of Arbroath. But in this, as in a number of other oases, the Rev. Mr. Lilley's ' scholarship • did not rise ta the point of consulting the authorities from whom he professed to quote at firat-hand ; and his idea of 'accuracy ' is each that he desonbes the mutilation of the Manning report mentioned above by the euphemistic term 'slight condensing'! _It is really very hard for Catholic apologists to deal patiently with 1 accuracy ' such as this. % The Rev. Mr. Lilley ' quoted ' and manipulted a mere fragment of the peroration of Manning's discourse. That peroration ia practically the summing up of the whole previous discourse, and to understand it properly, it is necessary to peruse all that precedes it ; and this, though very much condensed, occupies 134 lines of the same width and of the same kind of type as the column above this footnote. The peroration, like the rest of the discourse Jig set < solid.' It occupies 51 lines of these ; the garbled and 'faked ' extraot quoted at second-hand by the Rev. Mr. Lilley oocupies, in its complete form, leas than nine lines, taken out of ' solid ' matter, and violently torn from the qualifying and explanatory text which precedes and follows it; § Rev Mr. Lilley deals in a drastic way with the punotuation of the passage. For instance, he inserts five semi-oolons where in the Tablet report there are none, he suppresses three dashes and he puts a full point after the word 'kingdoms' where there is in the Tablet a dash. The Tablet thus connects the words ' I am sole last Bupreme judge,' etc., with the previous sentence, beginning ' I acknowledge.' But the cunning insertion of the full point instead of the dash makes a completely new sentence of the words ' I am sole last supreme judge,' etc., and thus detaches them from the governing and qualifying words • on earth,' which appear in the same sentence in the Tablet report. The Pope's claim, as stated by Manning, is to be ' supreme judge on earth ' in the matters belonging to his sphere, which are expressly stated to be matters of 'conscience, 1 ' right and wrong, 1 the evilß of godless education, etc, of 'divorce, 1 'Christian marriage,' the Church's teaching authority, interpretation of the Christian faith, etc. Of course the Rev. Mr. Lilley makes no mention of all this.