29 JUNE 1956, Page 15

A PQ ET OF THE COUNTER-

REFORMATION

SIR,—Those interested in church history will be glad to know of the new Life of Robert Southwell by Father Devlin, but on what grounds does Mr. Evelyn Waugh make these strange comments about Hugh Latimer, equally a martyr for the Faith under another regime? Were his famous last words 'spuri- ous'? Some authority for such a statement ought surely to be given. Then, contrary to what your reviewer suggests, the 'views' for which Latimer died—freedom as against the authoritarian claims of the Papacy, the supremacy of the Holy Scriptures, the spiritual interpretation of the Eucharist—arc held today throughout all the Protestant Churches, estab- lished and non-established. The seeming sug- gestion that a martyr like Hugh Latimer died

in vain is surely not tenable on sound his- torical grounds, nor is there failure to keep such in remembrance.—Yours faithfully, E. BENSON PERKINS

7'he Methodist Church, Moseley, Birmingham, 13