The Sun.
London, England, 1868-09-07 00:00:00

ST. THOMAS A BECKET.

In Archbishop Manning's lecture, delivered
on Wednesday evening at the Beaumont Insti-
tution, two points especially arrest attention.
One is the idea which he desired to impress
upon his hearers, that in raising a church to
St. Thomas at Rome the Catholics of England
were not merely providing another place of
worship and another shrine to St. Thomas, but
were bearing outward testimony to the unity
of principle which bound Catholics of every
country and every age together in their vene-
ration of St. Thomas, and giving visible ex-
pression at a time when it was most needed of
the homage felt by every Catholic for the
principles for which St. Thomas died ; for
St. Thomas, as the Archbishop observed, was
not only "a Saxon saint and English mar-
tyr, but a saint of the Catholic Church
and martyr for the Church Universal." This
idea is a complete answer to a common but
superficial objection that churches are more
needed in England than in Rome. But what
is in reality more needed even than churches
is that spirit, we may say that Catholic in-
stinct, which at once sees the moral fitness,
on occasions, of rising above local wants and
necessities, and taking part in a public act
belonging to a highr order of ideas, and
manifesting a deeper union of heart and mind
than is ordinarily called for. The building
of this Church of St. Thomas at Rome by
English Catholics at this special juncture is, as
we look at it, one of those rare occasions of
testifying the higher union which links Catho-
lics of other days, like St. Thomas, with the
Catholics of to-day in a community not only
of faith but of trials and of dangers. It
bespeaks the spiritual affinity which exists
between us.

In days like the present, when the evil prin-
ciples which raised the arm of violence against
St. Thomas are active in instigating violence
against the Successor of St. Peter and the
Holy See, it behoves Catholics to testify, by
some visible act, their veneration for the spirit
which led St. Thomas to lay down his life for
the freedom of the Church, and which animates,
in like manner, the Vicar of Christ in his de-
fence of the independence of the Holy See
against the violence of an impious revolution.
The other pbint alluded to by Archbishop Man-
ning, we need only briefly refer to. It is his
courageous adherence to the fact which he has
so triumphantly vindicated against critics in-
numerable in the Protestant press, that St.
Thomas laid down his life in defence of reli-
gious liberty against the usurpations of the
Civil Power and the arbitrary acts of the King
done in violation of the law of England. Dr.
Manning shows also that the principle of the
independence of religion from the interference
of the State is a principle dear to-day to
the hearts of the Dissenters of England. St.
Thomas is also an exemplar whom Anglicans
ought to strive to follow, for no religionists
in England have lost so much of the spirit of
religious independence or fallen so much under
State control as the unfortunate members of

.the Anglican Church. The Royal Supremacy
in spiritual matters, which St. Thomas died
rather than submit to, has been abjectly ac-
cepted by Anglicans. If they wish to regain
Catholic liberty and Catholic truth they must
begin by imitating the spirit of St. Thomas
of Canterbury. They, beyond all others, ought
to be grateful to Dr. Manning for bringing the
name and conduct of our great English martyr
so prominently under public notice, and we
hope that not a few of them may have the
grace to take part in Catholic homage to St.
Thomas and his principles, by contributing to
the building of a Church in his honour at
Rome.—West»tinster Gazette.