Manning read several papers, and Professor Huxley and Mr. John
Morley listened with attention while he expressed his views upon
'The Soul before and after Death', or explained why it is 'That
legitimate Authority is an Evidence of Truth'. Yet, somehow or
other, his Eminence never felt quite at ease in these assemblies;
he was more at home with audiences of a different kind; and we
must look in other directions for the free and full manifestation
of his speculative gifts.
In a series of lectures, for instance, delivered in 1861--it was
the first year of the unification of Italy-- upon 'The Present
Crisis
of the Holy See, tested by prophecy', we catch some glimpses of
the
kind of problems which were truly congenial to his mind. 'In the
following
pages,' he said, 'I have endeavoured, but for so great a subject
most
insufficiently, to show that what is passing in our times is the
prelude of the antichristian period of the final dethronement of
Christendom, and of the restoration of society without God in
the world.' 'My intention is,' he continued, 'to examine the
present relation of the Church to the civil powers of the world
by the light of a prophecy recorded by St Paul.' This prophecy (2
Thess. ii 3 to 11) is concerned with the coming of the
Antichrist,
and the greater part of the lectures is devoted to a minute
examination of this subject.
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