The-papacy-its-history-dogmas-genius-and-prospects-wylie

ITALIAN PRIESTS AM) BIBLE. 185suredly, no small amount of hardihood to maintain, as wefind priests of the Church of Rome doing, " that it is a greatmistake, and, indeed, a calumny against the Catholic Church,to say that she is opposed to the full and unrestricted useand circulation of the Scriptures." We do not know thatwe have ever met with a more barefaced attempt of thiskind than the following, made, too, inone would have thought, thecircumstances where,most reckless audacity wouldhave shrunk from such an attempt. The words we havequoted, charging it as a calumny on the Church of Rome tosay that she is opposed to the " full and unrestricted useand circulation of the Scriptures," were uttered at Rome inthe midst of millions sunk in the grossest ignorance of thesacred volume. They fell from the professor of dogmatictheology in the Collegio Romano, in a conversation heldwith the Rev. Mr Seymour, a clergyman of the Church ofEngland, who visited Rome a few years ago, and who hasrecorded his experience of Popery, as he found it existingin the metropolis of Roman Catholicism, in his work entitled" Mornings among the Jesuits at Rome." " The answer Imade to this," says Mr Seymour, " was, that having residedmany years among a Roman Catholic population in Ireland,I had always found that the sacred volume was forbiddento them ; and that since I came to Italy, and especially toRome, I observed the most complete ignorance of the holyScriptures, and that it was ascribed by themselves to a prohibitionon the part of the Church." He at once stated that there must be some mistake, asthe book was permitted to all who could understand it, andwas, in fact, in very general circulation in Rome." I said that I had heard the contrary, and that it wasimpossible to procure a copy of the holy Scriptures in theItalian tongue in the city of Rome,—that I had so heardfrom an English gentleman who had resided there for tenyears,—that I looked upon the statement as scarcely credible,—thatI wished much to ascertain the matter for myown information,—that I had one day resolved to test this