pseudo-Reformation.[11] How is it that the present Church of England
has never canonised any saint? Those to whom I have referred represent
the best and truest of the Church in England before the "Reformation".
We still show them reverence. In many cases we even recite their
offices and Masses. How, then, can they be members of the same Church
as the Church of England of to-day, which we know to be a schismatical
body, cut off from the unity of Christendom some four hundred years
ago? There has been no saint canonised according to the rite of the
Church of England, but if there had been, we would not and could not
reverence them, for they would be to us outside the Church--aliens,
heretics, and, from that point of view at all events, unworthy of
imitation. Let us point out yet another "straw" which clearly
indicates the essential difference between the Church in England
before the "Reformation" and the Church of England after it. When the
young King Henry VIII. first came to the throne he, like all his
predecessors, both kings and queens, was a true Roman Catholic. So
much so, that when a doctrine of the Church was attacked he wrote a
book in its defence; in fact, the Pope was so pleased with his zeal
that he determined to reward him by conferring on him the title of
"Defender of the Faith". But, in the name of common-sense! Defender of
what Faith? Was it the Protestant faith? Was it the faith professed by
the present Church of England? Is it likely, is it possible, that any
Pope would confer such a title on any one who was not in union with
the Holy See, and who rejected Catholic doctrine? Such a thing is
unthinkable. Was the faith of Henry VIII. before the break with Rome
the same as that of Edward VII. who on his coronation day declared the
Mass to be false, Transubstantiation to be absurd, and Catholics to be
idolaters? If not, then what becomes of the continuity theory? The
fact is that between the Church in England before the sixteenth
century and the Church of England to-day there is no real connection,