This anti-papal prejudice crops up over and over again in the history of our own and earlier times. Hardly is it to be eradicated, for the roots of the disease’ are in many lands a national inheritance, and Catholics share with non-Catholics the responsibility for keeping the prejudice alive. (How much alive it is affairs in Malta have manifested.) Father Thurston, patiently investigating the falsehoods of the enemy, exposes masonic libels, the foul pornography of popular writers on Vatican scandals, the mistakes and misrepresentations of our incorrigible Dr. G. G. Coulton, the queer perversions of fact offered to the public by Dean Inge and other Anglicans. It is all done very thoroughly, this investigation, and a vast amount of research has been involved. A noble anxiety for historic truth and a willingness to expand to the uttermost a large capacity for taking pains have always distinguished Father Thurston’s work, and these things are, in this examination of the significance of the ‘No Popery !’ cry, as conspicuous as ever.

Has this prejudice its mainspring—as Father Thurston suggests, quoting from John Galsworthy in support of the suggestion—in the readiness of many to believe anything discreditable of public men?