The correspondence which appeared yesterday week between the Dean of
Westminster and the memorialists who seemed to wish for an injunction prohibiting Roman Catholics from saying mentally Catholic prayers while visiting Westminster Abbey on the day of Edward the Confessor, was supplemented last Saturday by Canon Duckworth's assurance that on October 13th last, "a strong quadrilateral barrier of bronze" was placed round Edward's monument, "at such a distance as to baffle the most determined of relic-hunters." This was, no doubt, a very wise precaution, if it be true that on previous occasions Roman Catholic pilgrims have been so utterly forgetful of themselves as to chip off pieces of the monument by way of relics, which is what some of the Protestant alarmists assert. But we trust that the Dean's admirable letter will put an end for ever to the monstrous notion that Protestants are afraid of the very rumour that private Roman Catholic devotions take place in their cathedrals. Did any one ever hear of Roman Catholics objecting to Protestants praying silently their own prayers in Roman Catholic cathedrals ?
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