indeed be indefensible;
our challenge to investigation would be an insult; our appeal to the
Scriptures would be blasphemy. But to shake your conviction of this
assumed fact, to convince you if possible that the reverse is the fact,
is the object of the exposition of our opinions which we now present to
you, and of every effort to explain and defend our faith. It is because
we believe our religion to be primitive Christianity that we are
attached to it as other Christians are to theirs. It is because we feel
that we can carry back our opinions to a remoter antiquity than other
Churches, that we prefer them; and though they were completely hidden
under the unauthorized institutions of the middle ages, we find no
difficulty in establishing their identity with those which were diffused
by the messengers and under the sanction of God. He who sees a stream
gushing forth from the cave, and can trace it back no further than the
darkness whence it issues, may reasonably conclude that he stands near
its source; but there may be a wayfarer who by observation and
experience knows and can attest that this is no subsidiary spring, but
the reappearance of a hidden stream, whose source is hallowed and whose
current is inexhaustible. We only ask you to listen to our evidence of
this, and to admit it or not, as you shall be afterwards disposed.

We agree with you in your reverence for antiquity in respect of the
faith; and desire nothing more than that by their comparative claims to
antiquity our respective religions should be judged. We feel that grace
as well as authority is conferred by every evidence of long duration. We
can enter into your reverence for your doctrines, because they were held
by Saints in cloisters which have crumbled to dust, by heroes and
anchorites whose arms were the relics of centuries gone by, or whose
rocky abodes have retained their sanctity for a thousand years. We can
understand your emotions on receiving sacraments or witnessing
ceremonies which fostered the devotion of the saintly and the heroic of
the olden time, and which filled the Christian temples abroad with music
and fragrance, while in our land the smoke of Druidical sacrifices was
ascending offensively to Heaven. But we thus sympathise because we too
refer our worship to ancient days. Our hearts also thrill under the
impulses which are propagated from afar. We also delight in spiritual
exercises, because they are sanctified by long-tried efficacy