amid the illusions of the world. How many Catholics
have in their thoughts followed such men, many of them so good, so
true, so noble! how often has the wish risen in their hearts that
some one from among themselves should come forward as the champion of
revealed truth against its opponents! Various persons, Catholic and
Protestant, have asked me to do so myself; but I had several strong
difficulties in the way. One of the greatest is this, that at the
moment it is so difficult to say precisely what it is that is to be
encountered and overthrown. I am far from denying that scientific
knowledge is really growing, but it is by fits and starts; hypotheses
rise and fall; it is difficult to anticipate which will keep their
ground, and what the state of knowledge in relation to them will be
from year to year. In this condition of things, it has seemed to me
to be very undignified for a Catholic to commit himself to the work
of chasing what might turn out to be phantoms, and in behalf of some
special objections, to be ingenious in devising a theory, which,
before it was completed, might have to give place to some theory
newer still, from the fact that those former objections had already
come to nought under the uprising of others. It seemed to be a time
of all others, in which Christians had a call to be patient, in which
they had no other way of helping those who were alarmed, than that of
exhorting them to have a little faith and fortitude, and to "beware,"
as the poet says, "of dangerous steps." This seemed so clear to me,
the more I thought, as to make me surmise, that, if I attempted what
had so little promise in it, I should find that the highest Catholic
authority was against the attempt, and that I should have spent my
time and my thought, in doing what either it would be imprudent to
bring before the public at all, or what, did I do so, would only
complicate matters further which were already complicated more than
enough. And I interpret recent acts of that authority as fulfilling
my expectation; I interpret them as tying the hands of a
controversialist, such as I should be, and teaching us that true
wisdom, which Moses inculcated on his people, when the Egyptians were
pursuing them, "Fear ye not, stand still; the Lord shall fight for
you, and ye shall hold your peace." And so far from finding a
difficulty in obeying in this case, I have cause to be thankful and
to rejoice to have so clear a direction in a matter of d