With these saintly words our materials for writing the life of Father John Gerard abruptly fail us. Beyond what has been recorded we only know that he was sent first to Spain, and then to Rome, which he reached Jan. 15, 1623.[177] He was Confessor to the English College till his death, July 27, 1637, at the ripe age of seventy-three, and upwards.
XXX.
In this Autobiography Father Gerard has laid before us his life in all the freedom and unreserve of a confidential communication with his Religious brethren and Superiors. It is not possible, we are convinced, for any impartial person to rise from its perusal without a deep conviction that Father Gerard was a gentleman and a Christian, a man of honour and religious principle; and in many cases this sense of his integrity will be accompanied with some of that personal regard and affection with which he inspired those who lived in intimacy with him. He bore too much for principle, and made too great sacrifices, for us to think that he would deliberately and perseveringly commit sin to free himself from blame. Yet this is the supposition that is involved in an attack upon his veracity in the compilation of his Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot.
It is quite true that he, and many others, considered themselves justified, when their own lives or those of innocent persons were at stake, in the use of assertions that were simple falsehoods in the ordinary sense of the terms employed. These they called equivocations; and we find no trace in the period of which we are writing of the modern sense of the word, that is, of a true expression which is really beside the point, though it is so employed that it is very unlikely to be seen to be so by the person to whom it is addressed, who thus is said rather to be suffered to deceive himself than to be deceived. Practically the distinction is hard to draw, and it has the disadvantage of seeming to make the morality of the expression depend on the quickness and readiness of the person in danger, who may be able to think of phrases containing a real ambiguity but which yet would throw the hearers off the right scent.
According to modern feeling, Father Gerard would have been quite justified in examining the trees and hedges in search of a falcon[178] he had not lost, and inquiring of all he met whether they had heard the tinkling of the bird's bells, although it was to make them think that he had lost a falcon, in other words, to deceive [pg ccx] them; but by the same modern feeling he would be held to be guilty of a lie when he said that he was the servant of a lord in a neighbouring county, though he might, without guilt, have worn that lord's livery as a disguise if he could have obtained it, which would have been a more effectual deception than any words.
Again, according to modern judgment, John Lilly would be held guilty of a lie when he said[179] of Gerard's books and manuscripts, “They are mine;” but quite guiltless when, with the same intention of making the magistrates believe him to be a Priest when he was not, he said, “I do not say I am a Priest, that is for you to prove.” Yet the latter expression was far more likely to deceive than the former. It was more like what a Priest, under the circumstances, would have said. Present feeling would condemn him of a lie for saying simply, that the books were his, when it would acquit him if he had thought of using far more deceptive expressions, such as “I am not bound to compromise myself by saying whose they are.”
The only difference between modern morality and that on which Father Gerard acted was that now-a-days men say, “Have recourse to evasions.” Then men said, “Say what you like, it is their fault if they think it true.” It is evident that of the two courses of proceeding, the plain-spoken old way is the least open to abuse. No one certainly would have recourse to it excepting from a well-weighed plea of a sorrowful necessity. Whereas, on the other hand, evasions are not startling, and the conscience may lay but little stress on the presence or absence of justifying circumstances. For it is most necessary to bear seriously in mind that all Catholic divines then held, and now hold, that to make use of equivocation excepting under those peculiar circumstances that make it lawful, is in itself a sin, and thus no escape from the sin of lying. So Father Garnett plainly said when on his trial,[180] “As I say it is never lawful to equivocate in matters of faith, so also in matters of human conversation, it may not be used promiscually or at our pleasure, as in matters of contract, in matters of testimony, or before a competent judge, or [pg ccxi] to the prejudice of any third person: in which cases we judge it altogether unlawful.”
It is but fair that, in reading the narrative of times when many lives hung on successful disguise and concealment, we should remember that the modern sense of equivocation was then unknown. Protestant moralists have spoken out their minds plainly enough on this subject.
“Great English authors, Jeremy Taylor, Milton, Paley, Johnson, men of very distinct schools of thought, distinctly say that under certain extreme circumstances it is allowable to tell a lie. Taylor says: ‘To tell a lie for charity, to save a man's life, the life of a friend, of a husband, of a prince, of a useful and a public person, hath not only been done at all times, but commended by great and wise and good men. Who would not save his father's life, at the charge of a harmless lie, from persecutors or tyrants?’ Again, Milton says: ‘What man in his senses would deny that there are those whom we have the best ground for considering that we ought to deceive, as boys, madmen, the sick, the intoxicated, enemies, men in error, thieves? I would ask, by which of the Commandments is lying forbidden? You will say, by the ninth. If then my lie does not injure my neighbour, certainly it is not forbidden by this Commandment.’ Paley says: ‘There are falsehoods which are not lies, that is, which are not criminal.’ Johnson: ‘The general rule is, that truth should never be violated; there must, however, be some exceptions. If, for instance, a murderer should ask you which way a man is gone.’ ”[181]
This language would not have been used by Catholics. With them the word “lie” signified a simple falsehood; and an “equivocation” was a false expression used under such circumstances that if they to whom it was addressed were deceived by it, [pg ccxii] it was their own fault. They had then no right to the truth, and even in some cases it would have been a sin to tell them the truth.