1909] Professor Mivart's Parallel Case 257 



sympathy with the Modernists, and especially with Father Tyrrell. He 

 had once said, ' I had rather my hand withered than lift it against 

 Tyrrell ' ; nor is Butt otherwise than friendly. But the position is 

 this : Tyrrell, though not technically excommunicated, was cut off from 

 the sacraments until he would recant three propositions, which he had 

 not recanted. If nothing at all had been said, the fact of his having 

 on his death-bed received absolution and extreme unction might have 

 allowed them to presume a recantation, but Miss Petre's letter makes 

 this difficult or impossible, and the Archbishop if appealed to must 

 forbid Catholic burial. To me, however, it seems that in the first 

 place Miss Petre's letter to the ' Times ' is not authoritative, however 

 true what it says may be ; secondly, burial not being a sacrament while 

 penance and extreme unction are sacraments, it would be straining at 

 a gnat to refuse the first, the rest having been swallowed. Meynell 

 thinks that if the worst comes to the worst it would be best to bury 

 him at Newbuildings where Abbe Bremond could perform the service, 

 trusting to a change in ecclesiastical opinion for his subsequent transla- 

 tion to consecrated ground. Meynell cited it as curious that he should 

 find himself connected with this cdse as he had been with that of 

 Mivart. In Mivart's case Meynell had appealed to Cardinal Vaughan, 

 who left the decision to three of his canons, two of whom decided 

 against Mivart's being given Catholic burial, so Vaughan forbade it ; 

 but on Vaughan's own death-bed he was troubled at the thought of this 

 decision. ' I was wrong,' he said, ' in the Mivart case.' And, in fact, 

 Mivart's body has since been removed (it was done privately at night) 

 and reburied according to Catholic ritual in consecrated ground. It 

 is also curious that Bourne should be just now away at Rheims, officiat- 

 ing at Joan of Arc's canonization ; Joan of Arc, who was refused by 

 the Bishops of her day burial at all, her ashes being scattered to the 

 winds lest any relic of her should be preserved, and over the place of 

 whose martyrdom were ecclesiastically inscribed the words ' Heretic 

 and Sorceress,' yet she is to-day being worshipped on all Catholic 

 altars. The same might happen, who knows, to Father Tyrrell. The 

 Archbishop's position is made more difficult because his leanings to- 

 wards Modernism have delayed the sending a hat to him from Rome. 



" The ' Times ' announces the abdication of the Shah Mohammed 

 AH and the triumph of the Constitutional regime in Persia, which is 

 acknowledged by the Russian and English Governments. This is a 

 victory stolen out of the fire, and Browne may justly claim as his the 

 whole success. But for him Persia would most certainly have been 

 annexed by Russia, or rather put under Russian tutelage after the 

 precedent of Egypt. 



" 18th July. — After luncheon I drove Meynell to Storrington, where 

 we found Mrs. Powell. The present situation is that they have got a 



