Monday, October 28, 2002

V.I.P.
or Very Important Passage....
"Conscience has rights because it has duties; but in this age, with a large portion of the public, it is the very right and freedom of conscience to dispense with conscience, to ignore a Lawgiver and Judge, to be independent of unseen obligations. It becomes a licence to take up any or no religion, to take up this or that and let it go again, to go to church, to go to chapel, to boast of being above all religions and to be an impartial critic of each of them. Conscience is a stern monitor, but in this century it has been superseded by a counterfeit, which the eighteen centuries prior to it never heard of, and could not have mistaken for it, if they had. It is the right of self-will. "
- Venerable John Henry Newman, C.O., from A Letter Addressed to the Duke of Norfolk on Occasion of Mr. Gladstone's Recent Expostulation ....published in 1875 !
IMHO, except for the 'eighteen centuries' part, this could have been written now rather than 127 years ago.

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