« As English is the natural tongue, so Protestantism is the intellectual and moral language of the body politic. The Queen, ex officio Protestantism : so does the court. su do her ministers. All but a small portion of the two Houses ol Parliament ; and those who do not are forced to apologise for not speaking it, and to speak as much of it as they conscientiously can. The Law speaks Protestantism and the Lawyers ; and the State Bishops and Clergy of course. All the great authors of the nation, the multitudinous literature of the day, the public press, speak Protestantism. Protestantism the Universities ; Protestantism the Schools, high and low, and middle. Thus there is an incessant, unwaried circulation of Protestantism all over the whole country, for 365 days in the year from morning till night ; and this, for nearly three centuries, has been almost one of the functions of national life. As the pulse, the lungs, the absorbents, the nerves, the pores of the animal body, are ever at their work, as that motion is its life, so in the political structure of the country there is an action of the life of Protestantism, constant and régular. It is a vocal life ; and in this consists its perpetuation, its reproduction. What it utters, it teaches, it propagates by uttering ; it is ever impressing itself, diffusing itself all around ; it is ever transmitting itself to the rising generation ; it is ever keeping itself fresh and young, and vigorous, by the process of a restless agitation. This, then, is the elementary cause of the view which Englishmen are accustomed to take of Catholicism and its professors. »
