History as it is Generally Written

New Zealand Tablet, 23 July 1908, Page 30

History as it is Generally Written

In the course of an interesting review of Ranke's " History of- the Popes,' in the London 'Daily Chronicle,' Mr. 'George Sampson writes :—■' l am beginning to' believe that English history has been written chiefly by Orangemen, so narrowly and exclusively Protestant is its outlook. It puts forward Protestantism not as one view of things, but as the right view of things. The other day I found an eloborate review of Lord Actop's latest published "essays gravely assuring the world that of course this Catholic historian writes' with bias, and cannot pretend to a Protestant candor of judgment — a charmingly ingenuous assumption xin any case, but "especially fatuous in the case of Acton, surely the most fair o£ all historians. Reduced to its elements, the statement cdmes^to this: In a Catholic historian you will find Catholic views ; in a Protestant historian you ,will find the Truth. Most Englishmen read and write history , upon this assumption; and thus" grotesque sectarianism is taught and studied in -almost evelry 5 school. The _only""thing -that" children seem to learn about 'the parent Church of their native' land is that wicked Catholic" Mary • habitually burnt good Protestants 'at Smithfield. In every ''school' manual "-"of Rfstory there is' : shame* fuf unfairness to" Catholics— -unfairness of silence, and unfairness of accusation, unfairness that is only matched by an equal'unfairness to Ireland. To -me (a complete,, Englishman, .arid as far from being a Catholic as I am from adopting the Ulster creed) the English historical attitude to Rome is ridiculous and

irritating. What has history to do with Protestantism, or Catholicism, or any other ism, save phenomenally? When I read history I do not want apologetics worthy of that pleasing body the Protestant Alliance. I want adequate recognition of fact, 'and it is simple fact that in the history' 6f Europe the Church of Rome ;. for it gave" us our cathedrals, .set the form ■ of our merely, provincial, institutions. - The Church of history is not the Church, of England,: nor the Wesleyan Methodist Connexion, nor the Society of Friends, nor -the Union of Ethical Societies. The Church of. history is the ChurcKof Rome, as Newman asserts in the passage where he sadly admits that. the ;*-'. unbeliever Gibbon" is- our only worthy ecclesiastical historian.'. But I will go further, and say that the Church of English history is the Church 01 Rome ;• for: it :gave us 'our cathedrals, set the form of our prayers, marked out our .-parishes, taught us our duty, to the poor, nursed our laws and our learning, won us much of our liberty, and laid the foundation of our last four centuries of progress..* Without knowing something of this great Church, you caii" understand Very little: of English history, and to minimise the historic importance 'of the Papacy because you happen to be a Protestant is as stupid as to minimise the'-historic importance of the House of Austria because you happen to be an Englishman.'