Note 861 — Chapter VIII · THE BISHOP.

Every wise and powerful government has treated with deserved disregard the complaint that the “Spouse of Christ” was in bondage. In this respect our own country has generally been honourably distinguished. Boniface—himself an Englishman, papal beyond all his contemporaries—laments that no church is in greater bondage than the English,—a noble testimony to the nationality of the institution, the common sense of the people, and the vigour of the State.