was relied upon: ten years ago there was a hope that wars would cease
for ever, under the influence of commercial enterprise and the reign
of the useful and fine arts; but will any one venture to say that
there is anything anywhere on this earth, which will afford a fulcrum
for us, whereby to keep the earth from moving onwards?

The judgment, which experience passes on establishments or education,
as a means of maintaining religious truth in this anarchical world,
must be extended even to Scripture, though Scripture be divine.
Experience proves surely that the Bible does not answer a purpose,
for which it was never intended. It may be accidentally the means of
the conversion of individuals; but a book, after all, cannot make a
stand against the wild living intellect of man, and in this day it
begins to testify, as regards its own structure and contents, to the
power of that universal solvent, which is so successfully acting upon
religious establishments.

Supposing then it to be the Will of the Creator to interfere in human
affairs, and to make provisions for retaining in the world a
knowledge of Himself, so definite and distinct as to be proof against
the energy of human scepticism, in such a case--I am far from saying
that there was no other way--but there is nothing to surprise the
mind, if He should think fit to introduce a power into the world,
invested with the prerogative of infallibility in religious matters.
Such a provision would be a direct, immediate, active, and prompt
means of withstanding the difficulty; it would be an instrument
suited to the need; and, when I find that this is the very claim of
the Catholic Church, not only do I feel no difficulty in admitting
the idea, but there is a fitness in it, which recommends it to my
mind. And thus I am brought to speak of the Church's infallibility,
as a provision, adapted by the mercy of the Creator, to preserve
religion in the world, and to restrain that freedom of thought, which
of course in itself is one of the greatest of our natural gifts, and
to rescue it from its own suicidal excesses. And let it be observed
that, neither here nor in what follows, shall I have occasion to
speak directly of the revealed body of truths, but only as they bear
upon the defence of natural religion. I say, that a power, possessed
of infallibility in religious teaching, is happily adapted to be
a working instrument, in the course of human affairs, for smiting
hard and throw