y must go hand in hand. The one cannot
exist without the other. There can be no faith in the hearer unless there
is unerring authority in the speaker--an authority founded upon such
certain knowledge as precludes the possibility of falling into error on
his part, and including such unquestioned veracity as to prevent his
deceiving him who accepts his word.

You admit infallible certainty in the physical sciences; why should you
deny it in the science of salvation? The astronomer can predict with
accuracy a hundred years beforehand an eclipse of the sun or moon. He can
tell what point in the heavens a planet will reach on a given day. The
mariner, guided by his compass, knows, amid the raging storm and the
darkness of the night, that he is steering his course directly to the city
of his destination; and is not an infallible guide as necessary to conduct
you to the city of God in heaven? Is it not, moreover, a blessing and a
consolation that, amid the ever-changing views of men, amid the conflict
of human opinion and the tumultuous waves of human passion, there is one
voice heard above the din and uproar, crying in clear, unerring tones:
"Thus saith the Lord?"

It is very strange that the Catholic Church must apologize to the world
for simply declaring that she speaks the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth.

The Roman Pantheon was dedicated to all the gods of the Empire, and their
name was legion. Formidable also in numbers are the Founders of the
religious sects existing in our country. A Pantheon as vast as Westminster
Abbey would hardly be spacious enough to contain life-sized statues for
their accommodation.

If you were to confront those figures, and to ask them, one by one, to
give an account of the faith they had professed, and if they were endowed
with the gift of speech, you would find that no two of them were in entire
accord, but that they all differed among themselves on some fundamental
principle of revelation.

Would you not be acting very unwisely and be hazarding your soul's
salvation in submitting to the teachings of so many discordant and
conflicting oracles.

Children of the Catholic Church, give thanks to God that you are members
of that Communion, which proclaims year after year the one same and
unalterable message of truth, peace and love, and that you are preserved
from all errors in faith, and from all illusion in the practice of virtue.
You are happily strangers to those inte