31 JANUARY 1880, Page 3

Cardinal Newman, as president of a Catholic education meet- ing

held on Tuesday at Birmingham, delivered a fine address on the decay of English Protestant prejudices against Roman Catholics, some points of which we have enumerated in another -column. Here we may add that his description of Pio Nono's uncompromising faith, courage, wit, humour, playfulness, naturalness, and the eloquence he had at his command,—which had melted a Protestant friend of Cardinal Newman's to -tears,—was in Cardinal Newman's best fashion; indeed, he makes Ms readers really appreciate the marvel that a Pope -wha had made what Protestants consider so shocking a claim for the Papacy, should have been, on the whole, so kindly thought of in Protestant England. Of Pio Nono's successor, Leo XIII., however, the Cardinal evidently thinks even more highly, referring to the "depth of thought, tenderness of heart, winning simplieity, and power answering to his name," which keep the 'Cardinal "from lamenting that Pope Pins is no longer here." Will it be the task of the more powerful Pope to restrict and perhaps pare down the meaning of his less powerful pre- decessor's claims ?