and a Jesuit in disguise. And now we return to the text.

(King Ethelbert said)—"I cannot approve of them" (your words and promises) "so far as to forsake that which I have so long followed, with the whole English

forbid you to preach and gain as many as you can to your religion." Accordingly, he permitted them to reside in the city of Canterbury, which was the metropolis of all his dominions.18

18 Ethelbert refused to approve of the religion of the Italian priests; he

said he could not forsake his own creed, which, by the way, was pagan; but he tolerated the Romanists; he dallied with their overtures, and he consented to their establishing themselves within his realm. In fact, he allowed them to insert the thin end of the wedge, as so many Englishmen, destined to become perverts to Rome, have done in our own days.

Truly, heresy and schism are the same in every century, and the perversion of King Ethelbert was precisely the same in its nature, its beginning, and its ending as that of the latest 'vert at the Oratory or Farm Street. Indeed, we greatly wonder that our preachers do not more frequently hold up the case of Ethelbert as a warning to those who have Romish leanings.

The permission to reside in the

king's metropolis reminds me of the shameful toleration shown to Romanists in the metropolis of this kingdom. A legal toleration may be unavoidable in an age like this, but a social toleration appears to me utterly inexcusable. The stake, the thumbscrew, and the rack are out of date; but I am at a loss to know why the duty of combating popery with social ostracism is so flagrantly neglected in the West End of London. I should like to see

hosts and hostesses, neighbours and old friends, making the social atmosphere hotter to Roman perverts than the fires of Smithfield.

Is there no danger of a repetition of the sin of Ethelbert, when Henry Edward is officially noted as Our Well Beloved? Can British vice-royalty be conferred upon a servant of the

priests

Pope, without emboldening Italians to make more expeditions of the Augustine type to our shores? Is it likely that some of the highest offices of the state can be given to Roman Catholics without pope-commissioned inferring, that although the British government "cannot approve of them so far as to forsake that which" it has "so long followed with the whole English nation," it does not forbid them "to preach and gain as many as" they can to their religion?

There was on the east side of the city (Canterbury), a church dedicated to the honour of St. Martin, built while the Romans were still in the island, wherein the queen, who, as has been said before, was a Christian, used to

pray.

In this they first began to meet, to sing, to pray, to say

mass, to preach, to baptize, till the king, being converted to the Faith, allowed them to preach openly, and build or repair churches in all places.19

19 First let us notice the remark about this church, that was "built while the Romans were still in the island." It seems probable that many of the earliest churches erected in Britain were built by the Romans. Some of our first Christian churches, therefore, were Roman, although, of course, not Roman Catholic. Now our church is Catholic but not Roman. From this it follows that our churches have been sometimes Roman yet not Catholic, and at others, Catholic yet