f a virgin, in order
to make the same claim for Buddha: or denies the Christian Trinity in
order to affirm the Brahminic. There is but one alleged revelation that,
_as a revelation_, the progressive nations of the world are concerned
with, or whose supernatural claims are still worthy of being examined by
us: and that religion is the Christian. These claims, it is true, are
being fast discredited; but still, as yet they have not been silenced
wholly; and what I propose to ask now is, what chance is there of their
power again reviving.

Now considering the way in which I have just spoken of Protestantism, it
may seem to many that I have dismissed this question already. With the
'_enlightened_' English thinker such certainly will be the first
impression. But there is one point that such thinkers all forget:
Protestant Christianity is not the only form of it. They have still the
form to deal with which is the oldest, the most legitimate, and the most
coherent--the Church of Rome. They surely cannot forget the existence of
this Church or her magnitude. To suppose this would be to attribute to
them too insular, or rather too provincial, an ignorance. The cause,
however, certainly is ignorance, and an ignorance which, though less
surprising, is far deeper. In this country the popular conception of
Rome has been so distorted by our familiarity with Protestantism, that
the true conception of her is something quite strange to us. Our divines
have exhibited her to us as though she were a lapsed Protestant sect,
and they have attacked her for being false to doctrines that were never
really hers. They have failed to see that the first and essential
difference which separates her from them lies, primarily not in any
special dogma, but in the authority on which all her dogmas rest.
Protestants, basing their religion on the Bible solely, have conceived
that Catholics of course profess to do so likewise; and have covered
them with invective for being traitors to their supposed profession. But
the Church's primary doctrine is her own perpetual infallibility. She is
inspired, she declares, by the same Spirit that inspired the Bible; and
her voice is, equally with the Bible, the voice of God. This theory,
however, upon which really her whole fabric rests, popular
Protestantism either ignores altogether, or treats it as if it were a
modern superstition, which, so far from being essential to the Church's
system, is, on the contrary, inconsi