serve as a centre of
catholicity--a great rallying point or landmark--by which every citizen
might be guided homewards when he lost his way in the plain of Shinar.
It is a curious fact that in the "Pastor of Hermas," perhaps the first
work written in Rome after the establishment of Prelacy, the Church is
described under the similitude of a tower! [573:2] When Hyginus
"established the gradations," the hierarchy at once assumed that
appearance. And the see of Peter, the centre of Catholic unity, was now
to be the great spiritual landmark to guide the steps of all true
churchmen. The ecclesiastical builders prospered for a time, but when
Constantine had finished a new metropolis in the East, some symptoms of
disunion revealed themselves. When the Empire was afterwards divided,
jealousies increased; the builders could not well understand one
another's speech; and the Church at length witnessed the great schism of
the Greeks and the Latins. In due time the Reformation interfered still
more vexatiously with the building of the ecclesiastical Babel. But this
more recent schism has given a mighty impulse to the cause of freedom,
of civilization, and of truth; for the Protestants, scattered abroad
over the face of the whole earth, have been spreading far and wide the
light of the gospel. The builders of Babel still continue their work,
but their boasted unity is gone for ever; and now, with the exception of
their political manoeuvring, their highest achievements are literally in
the department of stone and mortar. They may found costly edifices, and
they may erect spires pointing, like the tower of Babel, to the skies,
but they can no longer reasonably hope to bind together the liberated
nations with the chains of a gigantic despotism, or to induce
worshippers of all kindreds and tongues to adopt the one dead language
of Latin superstition. The signs of the times indicate that the remnant
of the Catholic workmen must soon "leave off to build the city." The
final overthrow of the mystical Babylon will usher in the millennium of
the Church, and the present success of Protestant missions is
premonitory of the approaching doom of Romish ritualism. It is
written--"I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the
everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to
every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud
voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is
com