Untitled - Rore Sanctifica

1636 and 1866. 121
Aldobraridini, afterwards Clement the Eighth,
having mourned over the separation of Eng
land from visible communion with the Holy
See, had expressed
a desire for a reversion of
the short-sighted policy adopted by some of his
predecessors which had wrought such mischief ;
while certain of his sentiments sanction the
notion that a Corporate Re-union would have
received his tacit support.*
Urban the Eighth, not only a clever politician,
O J u i
and a great prelate, but a man of highly culti
vated mincljf sound judgment and great fore
sight, taking a broad view of the losses
o
which
/ O
the Reformation had effected, looked with
affectionate interest to the isolation of England
-a standing witness to, perhaps, the greatest
loss of all that Rome had sustained. For, even
up to this period, the external changes in
matters ecclesiastical, had been comparatively
unimportant. Outwardly, nothing very ma
terial had been altered. Fast and feast, service
and solemnity came and went much as of old.
Long after Queen Elizabeth s time, several
generations were called to their fathers ere the
pious traditions of byegone years were al
together lost, or their thread broken .{ Even
* Letter of John Wilfred to Secretary "SVindebank.
+ He published the Breviary under a new form, corrected
the Hymns of the Church, and cultivated with success
Latin poetrj-.
\ The Churches were the same, the orders of the hier-