THE STATUE TO CARDINAL NEWMAN.
[To THY EDITOR OF THY "SPECTATOR."] Sza,—I have read with much pleasure in the "News of the Week," in your issue of January 30th, your remarks on Oxford's objection to a statue to Cardinal Newman in Oxford. A Protestant community trying to extinguish one of England's brightest lights, because the light happens to be a Catholic light, is not, I think, a very edifying spectacle. The essence of Protestantism is the absence of dictation from outside in
things spiritual. Every man should be allowed, according to Protestant ethics, personally to determine his religious belief. Acting on this principle, the late Cardinal became a Catholic. Why, therefore, should a people holding that every man is free to define his religions belief, condemn Newman because he defined his, defined it by submitting to the Catholic Church ? To deny one of the greatest Englishmen of the present century public honours because in the exercise of a personal right—a right conceded to him by every Englishman —he became a Catholic, is certainly not to Saxon credit.—I
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