tism awakened by the flag of one's country.
So great is the charm attached to the name of Catholic that a portion of
the Episcopal body sometimes usurp the title of _Catholic_, though in
their official books they are named _Protestant Episcopalians_. If they
think that they have any just claim to the name of _Catholic_, why not
come out openly and write it on the title-pages of their Bibles and
Prayer-Books? Afraid of going so far, they gratify their vanity by
privately calling themselves Catholic. But the delusion is so transparent
that the attempt must provoke a smile even among themselves.
Should a stranger ask them to direct him to the Catholic Church they would
instinctively point out to him the Roman Catholic Church.
The sectarians of the fourth and fifth centuries, as St. Augustine tells
us, used to attempt the same pious fraud, but signally failed:
"We must hold fast to the Christian religion and to the communion of that
Church which is Catholic, and which is called Catholic not only by those
who belong to her, but also by all her enemies. Whether they will it or
not the very heretics themselves and followers of schism, when they
converse, not with their own but with outsiders, call that only Catholic
which is really Catholic. For they cannot be understood unless they
distinguish her by that name, by which she is known throughout the whole
earth."(65)
We possess not only the name, but also the reality. A single illustration
will suffice to exhibit in a strong light the widespread dominion of the
Catholic Church and her just claims to the title of _Catholic_. Take the
Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, opened in 1869 and presided over by
Pope Pius IX. Of the thousand Bishops and upwards now comprising the
hierarchy of the Catholic Church, nearly eight hundred attended the
opening session, the rest being unavoidably absent. All parts of the
habitable globe were represented at the Council.
The Bishops assembled from Great Britain, Ireland, France, Germany,
Switzerland and from almost every nation and principality in Europe. They
met from Canada, the United States, Mexico and South America, and from the
islands of the Atlantic and the Pacific. They were gathered together from
different parts of Africa and Oceanica. They went from the banks of the
Tigris and Euphrates, the cradle of the human race, and from the banks of
the Jordan, the cradle of Christianity. They traveled to Rome from Mossul,
built near a
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