Sin,—Surely it is Mr. Quintin Hogg whose argument is facile.
No one denies that a sinner may become a saint. Some indeed hold the principle
that the greater the sinner, the greater the saint. But when a church claims the authority to canonise its members, we can at least expect that the sinner should have turned from the error of his ways, before attaining to sainthood. If Peter had not ceased to prevaricate (to use no shorter term), or Mary of Magdala to play the harlot, or Augustine to keep a mistress, would any ecclesiastical authority have thought of bidding the'. rest of us call them saints? Even the thief on the cross, whose name is not revealed in Holy Scripture, was a penitent. About some "saints," indeed, the less said the better; but the more generously the calendar is enlarged, the less is the title worth revering.—Yours faithfully, Old Bank House, Woodstock, Oxford. W. F. Lop-mous& [Subject to Mr. Hogg's right to reply, this correspondence is now closed.—Ed., Spectator].
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