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the whole British Empire to a type, not of the past, but of the future. The mother country has impressed its outlines upon the colonies; the colonies are now silently but surely transforming the mother country into their own likeness. But neither will ultimately prevail. Another image and likeness is returning upon both. The great principles, axioms, and maxims of our English law, derived from Catholic times and from the Catholic Church, lie imperishable at the foundation of our political order. They have been carried throughout our colonies, and have reproduced in all our dependencies a political and social life homogeneous to our own. This unity of first principles would seem to promise for the British Empire a future of solidity and endurance, if only the insular narrowness of England be wisely effaced. The Tudor legislation in religion, which for three hundred years has afflicted England and persecuted Ireland, has never been able to establish itself in our colonies. There, the Catholic Church has been always freer than it is even now in England and in Ireland. The abolition of the Tudor statutes is as certain as the rising of the sun to-morrow. In Ireland it is already done. In England it will not long tarry. A larger and more living spirit of justice and charity is bursting the bands which human violence imposed upon the liberty of divine faith. In this our colonies led the way, and the mother country must inevitably follow. We have seemed to be paradoxical and provoking when we say that S. Thomas of Canterbury is regaining his hold on the hearts of Englishmen. But it is emphatically true. He died for the liberties