(This completes Knox's essay, "The No-Men")
THAT'S WHY I WANT TO appeal to you all, as you remember the English martyrs, to cultivate jealously and watchfully your own independence of mind ... You live in a frightful age of propaganda; books, newspapers, and above all the wireless are trying hard all the time to influence your mind; and a great deal of that propaganda is directed in a steady stream against the Catholic religion. Not openly, but in a insidious way; the worshippers of the State are always so selecting and so presenting the news that the Catholic Church always gets mixed up with what is unpopular at the moment, always appears as the enemy of liberty and of progress. It's a highly elaborate business and oh, it's boring! But you are going to live in a world which swallows all that sort of dope ... I don't say that you'll lose the faith, but you'll be a passenger; you'll be no use to the Church, when she wants you. Keep your independence of mind; only half believe what you hear; suspend judgement, think for yourself, learn for yourself. If I am privileged to meet any of you later on, I don't very much mind what else has happened to you ... if only you've preserved your independence of mind. God bless you all, and give you grace to do it.
- Ronald A. Knox
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