20 OCTOBER 1950, Page 6

gig Opettator, Octobrr, 190) 1850 A burst of printed indignation

has been called forth by the newly-promulgated scheme for establishing a Roman Catholic Episcopacy throughout England. . . . . . . . . But we believe that Popery cannot live in the free atmosphere of England, now becoming freer every day. Popery cannot breathe the same air with natural philosophy, with natural theology, nor with anything else that is free as the sun and wind. It can only live -within the priest-guarded, soldier-guarded, thick-walled basilica, in the incense-laden air, with opinion whispering at the confessional and bated down to the standard of issue cum privilegio et auctor- itate. In such a state, in such an atmosphere, even noW it lives with difficulty it cannot venture forth in our free atmosphere but to die—or to be transformed. Our check against it then is, to keep that atmosphere free—not to lend the Papists the advan- tage of persecution, even of the mildest sort ; but to welcome them as they come forth into the breezy salt wind of our sea- girt isle—so bracing, so alterative.