Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/158

 138 The other, that it will be practically a singularly useful asset. Therefore we must have it. It is not the theologian, it is the ecclesiastical statesman who speaks in this. The centralisation of power, concentrated in one supreme individual, easily accessible, prompt to reply, was Manning's ideal. He contrasted it with the slow, deliberate method of Universal Assemblies. Errors would have time to spread, with fearful rapidity, before this heavy machinery could be brought effectively into operation. Statesmen would frustrate its assembling. If the Pope be personally infallible, apart from the Episcopate, "why," asks Manning quite naturally,

Assertion—vigorous, uncompromising, sweeping—was not only the bent of Manning's disposition; it was also cultivated on principle. What the English people wanted, according to the Archbishop of Westminster, was neither compromise nor accommodation. "Downright truth, boldly and broadly stated, like the ring of true metal, wins their confidence." When Gladstone described him as "the oracle," Manning replied, "He shall not find me ambiguous." Thus he prided himself on the quality of aggressive speech. Among his favourite phrases is the term—"it is certain." Six times in one page, applied to all manner of thingshistorical interpretations, future probabilities, indiscriminately. No shade of distinction exists. There might be no such thing conceivable as hesitation in the