Abstract
Christianity and Catholicity are, in the history of pre-Reformation England, as they are in their own nature, convertible terms. When England emerged from paganism into Gospel light, it was Catholicity which the young and vigorous stock embraced, and under whose guidance she throve for many centuries.After well-nigh a thousand years had passed, a change came over the land; worldly might fettered ministers and ministrations of the Mother Church; despotism, spoliation, torture, and iniquitous penal laws accomplished their work, and left at the beginning of the nineteenth century, only a remnant of the nation faithful to the fair religion which had saved them from paganism and had been the time-honored faith of their fathers for twelve hundred years.