had preceded him, were famous--mark the word--"_famous_ for the
_fulness_ of their devotion and faith towards God _and the Holy Roman
Church_," if they were all the while cut off from the Roman Church,
and denounced as heretics by that Church, if, in short, they were of
one and the same faith as the Anglicans are to-day? We pause for a
reply. Of course we know that Anglicans are very hard pressed, and in
a quandary, and that some allowance must be made for drowning men when
they stretch forth their trembling hands to clutch at straws. But
really the claim to continuity, however vital to them, should hardly
be put forward in the face of such clear and overwhelming evidence of
its falsity. The ultimate effects of such vain efforts to prove black
to be white can only be to make them ridiculous, and to discredit them
in the eyes of honest men.

In conclusion, we are persuaded that some may feel curious or
interested to see and read King Edward's letter for themselves, and in
its entirety. Some may even wish to satisfy themselves that we are
stating actual facts, and not romancing; so let us inform any such
persons that the letter quoted belongs to the thirteenth year of King
Edward III.'s reign (An. Regni xiii. Ed. Rex III.). The original, if
not at the Vatican, should be either at the Record Office or at the
British Museum. The English version, of which we have made use, may be
found on pages 126-30 of _The History of Edward III._, by J. Barnes,
Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and published in 1688. Had this
history been composed in more modern times, this famous letter to Pope
Benedict would probably have been quietly suppressed or omitted.

But in 1688 the theory of continuity had not been invented by the
father of lies, to bolster up a lost cause, so the letter actually
appears in Barnes' History, to tell its own unvarnished tale: and to
bear its uncompromising testimony to the truth.

In the meanwhile, time wears on, and the end draws near when each man
will have to give an account of his life and conduct to the Supreme
Judge of the living and the dead. And it will go hard with us if we
turn our back upon the truth. God is speaking in this England of ours,
and shedding His light, and many are finding their way back to that
glorious Faith of which they were cruelly robbed at the "Reformation".
"To-day, if you shall hear His voice, harden not your hearts," but
lend an attentive ear to His invitation, and pray th