be, which, with the tenderest bonds, unites such an infinite variety; and this unimpeded by every obstacle, by rivers and mountains, deserts and seas, by languages, national manners, customs, and peculiarities of every kind, whose stubborn, unyielding nature defies the power of the mightiest conquerors? Her peace, which cometh down from Heaven, strikes deeper roots into the human breast, than the spirit of earthly contention. Out of all nations, often so deeply divided by political interests and temporal considerations, the Church builds up the house of God, in which all join in one hymn of praise; as, in the temple of the harmless village, all petty foes and adversaries gather round the one sanctuary with one mind. And as often here, on a small scale, the peace of God will bring about earthly peace, so there, on a larger scale, the same result will frequently ensue. But who can deem it a matter of astonishment, that Catholics should be filled with joy and hope, and, enraptured at the view of the beautiful construction of their Church, should contemplate with delight, that grand corporation which they form, since the philosophers of art declare, that the beautiful is only truth manifested and embodied? Christ, the eternal truth, hath built the Church: in the communion of the faithful, truth transformed by his spirit into love, is become living among men: how could then the Church fail in the highest degree of beauty? Hence, we can comprehend that indescribable joy, which hath ever filled the Church, when existing contests have been allayed, and schisms have been terminated. In the primitive ages, we may adduce the reunion of the Novatian communities with the Catholic Church, so movingly described by Dionysius of Alexandria, and Cyprian of Carthage; the termination of the Meletian

schism, and the rest. From a later period, we may cite the event of the reunion of the Western and Eastern Churches, which occurred at the Council of Florence. Pope Eugenius IV expresses what feelings then overflowed all hearts, when he says, "Rejoice ye heavens, and exult, O earth the wall of separation is pulled down, which divided the Eastern and the Western Churches; peace and concord have returned; for Christ, the cornerstone, who, out of two, hath made one, unites with the strongest bands of love both walls, and holds them together in the covenant of eternal unity; and so, after long and melancholy evils, after the dense, cloudy darkness of a protracted schism, the light of longdesired union beams once more upon all. Let our mother, the Church, rejoice, to whom it hath been granted to see her hitherto contending sons return to unity and peace: let her, who, during their division, shed such bitter tears, now thank Almighty God for their beautiful concord. All believers over the face of the earth, all who are called after Christ, may now congratulate their mother, the Catholic Church, and rejoice with her, &c."*

II. Yet it is not merely the imagination and the feelings of the Catholic which are contented by his idea of the Church, but his reason also is thereby satisfied, and, indeed, because the idea which he has conceived of the Church, alone corresponds to the notion of the Christian Church, and to the end of revelation. It

Eugenius spoke in the same princes and universities of At the same time, the Ar

* Hard. Acta Concil. tom. ix. fol. 985. strain, when he informed the Christian the reconciliation in question, fol. 1000. menians and Jacobins, as the documents style them, meaning the Jacobites and Copts, renounced their errors and united with the Latins. fol. 1015-1025.

corresponds, in the first place, to the notion of the Christian Church, as is clear from what follows. Truth we cannot conceive other than as one, and the same holds good of Christian truth. The Son of God, our Redeemer, is a distinct being: he is what he is, and none other, eternally like unto himself, constantly one and the same. Not in vain do the Holy Scriptures connect all with his person: the more they do this, the more important is it to conceive him exactly as he really was. Certain it is that every error, in relation to his person, exercises a more or less injurious influence on the piety and virtue of its possessors; whereas a right knowledge of his person forms the surest and most solid basis of a holy and happy life. In like manner will the pure appropriation of his work, by, and in our souls, produce the richest, most substantial, and fairest fruits; while any falsification of that work, in any one respect, is sure to be attended with injurious consequences to practical life. As Christ, therefore, is one, and his work is one in itself, as accordingly there is but one truth, and truth only maketh free, so he can have willed but one Church; for the Church rests on the basis of belief in him, and hath eternally to announce him and his work. On the other hand, the human mind is every where the same, and always, and in all places, created for truth and the one truth. Its essential spiritual wants, amid all the changing relations of time and place, amid all the distinctions of culture and education, remain eternally the same: we are all sinners, and stand in need of grace; and the faith which one has embraced in the filial simplicity of his heart, another cannot outgrow, though he be gifted with the subtlest intellect, and possess all the accumulated wisdom which the genius of man, in every zone,

and in every period of his history, may have produced. Thus, the oneness of the human spirit, as well as the oneness of truth, which is the food of spirits, justifies, in the view of the reflecting Catholic, the notion of the one visible Church.

But secondly, the end of revelation requires a Church, as the Catholic conceives it; that is, a Church one, and necessarily visible. The manifestation of the eternal Word in the flesh, had the acknowledged end to enable man (who by his own resources was capable neither of obtaining, with full assurance, a true knowledge of God and of his own nature, nor of mastering that knowledge even with the aid of old surviving traditions), to enable man, we say, to penetrate with undoubting certainty into religious truths. For those truths, as we stated above, will then only give a vigorous and lasting impulse to the will in an upward direction, when they have first taken strong hold of the reason, whence they can exert their effects. The words of Archimedes, dós μoι τov σтw, are here applicable, and in an especial degree. The divine truth, in one word, must be embodied in Christ Jesus, and thereby he bodied forth in an outward and living phenomenon, and accordingly become a deciding authority, in order to seize deeply on the whole man, and to put an end to pagan scepticism, that sinful uncertainty of the mind, which stands on as low a grade as ignorance.*

But this object of the divine revelation in Christ

* How beautiful are those words in the Preface for the Christmas mass,-"Vere dignum et justum est, æquum et salutare, nos tibi semper et ubique gratias agere, Domine Sancte, Pater omnipotens, æterne Deus. Quia per incarnati Verbi mysterium nova mentis nostræ oculis lux tuæ claritatis infulsit; ut dum visibiliter Deum cognoscimus, per hunc in invisibilium amorem rapiamur," &c. &c.

Jesus, would, according to the conviction of Catholics, either have wholly failed, or in any case have been very imperfectly attained, if this bodying forth of the divine truth had been only momentary, and the personal manifestation of the Word had not had sufficient force to give to its sounds the highest degree of intensive movement, and to impart to them the utmost efficacy, or in other words, to breathe into them the breath of life, and call into existence a society, which, in its turn, should be the living exposition of the truth, and remain unto all times a derivative, but adequate authority; that is, should represent Christ himself.

This sense Catholics give to the words of the Lord, "As the Father hath sent me, so I send you;" "whoso heareth me, heareth you;" "I shall remain with you all days, even to the consummation of the world;""I will send the Spirit of truth, who will lead you into all truth." Man is so much a creature of sense, that the interior world -the world of ideas-must be presented to him in the form of an image, to enable him to obtain a consciousness, or to gain a true and clear apprehension of it, and to hold by it firmly as the truth; and, indeed the image must be permanent, that, being present to every individual through the whole course of human history, it may constantly renew the prototype. Hence, the authority of the Church is necessary, if Christ is to be a true, determining authority for us. Christ wrought miracles; nay, his whole life was a miracle, not merely to establish the credibility of his words, but also immediately to represent and symbolize the most exalted truths; to wit, God's omnipotence, wisdom, love, and justice, the immortality of man, and his worth in the eyes of God. If we adopt the idea of an invisible Church, then neither the incarnation of the Son of