The disappearance of tte Guardian, which I foreshadowed a few
weeks ago, is a real loss to the religious life of the country. Founded a hundred and five years ago to strengthen the Catholic party in the Chufch of England at a time when many English Churchmen were following Newman into the Roman Com- munion, it has in recent years occupied more of a middle position, appealing to thoughtful readers both inside and outside the Anglican Communion. Now conditions have proved too hard for it, and it goes, without attempting to save itself by raising its price ; there were no doubt reasons to think that that would have had too serious an effect on circulation. So, as an editorial statement has it, " the nation loSes something that will never be replaced." It might possibly have been left to someone else to say that ; in any case I hope it is not true ; it need not be assumed that present difficulties will last to all eternity, and in easier days there will be a wide demand for the establishment of a new paper that will fill the place in the religious Press of the country that the Guardian has filled for over a century.
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