1908] Tyrrell on the Caliphate 227 



ise " more easily than the Papacy. But they have their infallible corpus 

 juris tied round their necks. You would set an infallible Pope above 

 this Bible to whittle it away. That is a double-edged sword. The 

 Isidorian decretals were forged in the interests of episcopal liberty; 

 they issued in episcopal slavery. The Popes freed the people from 

 secular tyranny only to subject them to their own. It would be safer 

 to let theological ingenuity find a way out of the letter of the law. 

 It can do anything under pressure. The " Catholic Times " to-day ex- 

 plains that, in the Bishops' oath, hereticos perseqnar et impugnabo 

 means I will follow up the writings of heretics and refute them. Better 

 still, the inevitable spread of history and criticism will destroy the 

 mechanical conceptions of inspiration and infallibility for Islam as for 

 Christendom.' 



" 3is£ Dec. — The last day of the year. Politically things have gone 

 better this year in Persia, in Turkey, in India, and in Egypt, the cause 

 of liberty has been making progress and Cromer himself. This time 

 last year Cromerism, if not Cromer, seemed to be having it all his 

 own way, now the self-Government of Asia seems an admitted princi- 

 ple, even at our Foreign Office. Grey and even Morley are being 

 dragged at the heels of Eastern progress. Thus ends the year 1908. 



" 1st Jan. 1909. — An earthquake in Sicily. Messina destroyed. 



" 5th Jan. — The Government has certainly managed things cleverly 

 in India. A few days before Morley made his speech announcing his 

 reforms they arrested all the leaders of the Opposition, and impounded 

 the chief organs of the extremists at Calcutta and elsewhere, and in 

 this way silenced hostile criticism. Then they got hold of Gokhale 

 to give them a good word, and also, it would seem, telegraphed the 

 headings of Morley's speech in a more favourable sense than the reality 

 (a common Government trick), just as the Moderate Congress began 

 its sittings, thus getting declarations from it of a ' loyal ' character, 

 which, as the Extremist Congress had been forbidden to meet, has 

 been accepted as the unanimous voice of educated India. I suspect 

 that a srood deal of the more recent bomb throwing, which has hurt 

 nobody, has been managed by the police, so as to give the Government 

 an excuse for violent measures. In the meanwhile, here in England, 

 Morley had delayed his speech till the last day of the session, so as 

 to prevent his measures being discussed in Parliament. Now the sub- 

 ject of India is dropped, and we shall hear no more of it till the next 

 crisis comes. 



" 6th Jan. — I have been reading the ' Love Letters of a Portuguese 

 Nun,' the most beautiful ever written; I wish I could be sure of their 

 authenticity, but it seems to me very doubtful. They are too perfect 

 as literature for any Portuguese nun to have written, and nobody has 



