The Pope has written a very touching and affectionate letter
to the English people, the official translation of which is published in last Monday's Times, of which we have given our general view in another column. But we may add here that no one has read it without a cordial feeling of attraction towards the great old man who has shown so much moderation and good sense in all his diplomatic dealings with the various Continental Governments, and so much hearty appreciation of the justice with which England has treated the Roman Catholic Church. We do not think, however, that the Pope has any true conception of the ordinary Protestant's state of mind. To him it is almost a terra incognita, and we are far from saying that all the differences which divide us are differences in which we are in the right and the Catholic Church in the wrong. For example, in regard tcr intercessory prayer, it seems to us obvious that his deep faith in it is more in keeping with Christ's own teaching than most modern Protestants' conception of its value. At the same time, those who ask for the intercessory prayers of long-departed saints, must be conceived as asking for those of their present minds, which we may hope are often very different indeed from those of their past minds on many topics, and not for the stereotyped petitions which we attri- bute to them on the strength of what they said or wrote many centuries ago.
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