they are suspiciously forward in urging the restrictions imposed by the Index. If they are not prepared to prime themselves with current literature—and a not unintelligent colleague of mine once frankly admitted that he could not read even the pellucid essays of Mr. Huxley—they take care that their flock does not outstrip them. Indeed, I once heard a professor of dogmatic theology contend that even the ‘Nineteenth Century’ is on the Index, and should be forbidden to Catholics; theoretically he was right, yet so curious is the ‘economia’ of the Church that it was reserved for a Catholic writer to procure it, by his contributions, a place in the distinguished gallery of the condemned. At any rate a priest who is not studiously inclined finds ample justification for literary tyranny in the elasticity of the Church’s policy.
The manner in which they exercise their usurped responsibility is trying to the patience of the ordinary layman. The priest, especially the friar, has very little acquaintance with fiction, still less with science or philosophy, and very wrong ideas of history; and, since the majority of condemned books are not ‘nominatim’ on the Index, but simply involved in the general censure of, ‘against faith or morals,’ he has to exercise a judgment of an unusually delicate character. The result is confusion and tyranny. One priest is delighted with ‘The Three Musketeers’ and permits Dumas—sweetly oblivious of the fact that Dumas is on the Index ‘nominatim.’ Ouida is much
