Controversial literature: Day I

Today's work: Two volumes of the Christian Guardian and Churchman's Magazine (1850-51); one issue of the Protestant Magazine (1839); various Protestant Association tracts (it's still around); some sermons, speeches, and miscellaneous pamphlets.

Best-known authors: Thomas Chalmers; George Croly; Charlotte Elizabeth; Henry Melvill. 

Running themes: Papal aggression (including some irritable responses from Dissenters, who think that the Establishment types are over-reacting); Catholicism and the Antichrist; Catholicism as the religion of human nature; the unchanging nature of Catholicism; the novelties of Catholicism.

New controversies for the day: There appears to have been a dust-up in Ireland (which slopped over to England) in the mid-1830s over a) an edition of the Rheims Bible with marginal notes (I see that someone has written an article about this); b) the use of Peter Dens' Theologia Moralis et Dogmatica as a textbook.

Word of the day: "Papophobiast."

Hubris Award: "Here, controversy, in its usual sense of logic and learning, is superfluous. In all the volumes of popery which have come within my reach, I have never seen an argument, that would not discredit the brains of a child." (Croly)

Miscalculation Award: Based on a close examination of Revelation, the Rev. R. C. Dillon predicted that the Roman Catholic Church would collapse in 1864.