ore neglect of wealth; at another, that it is false
to say that the Church does not promote temporal prosperity. If a great
point is made against persecution, it will be denied that she is
intolerant, whilst at another time it will be argued that heresy and
unbelief deserve to be punished.

We cannot be surprised that Protestants do not know the Church better
than we do ourselves, or that, while we allow no evil to be spoken of
her human elements, those who deem her altogether human should discover
in her the defects of human institutions. It is intensely difficult to
enter into the spirit of a system not our own. Particular principles and
doctrines are easily mastered; but a system answering all the spiritual
cravings, all the intellectual capabilities of man, demands more than a
mere mental effort,--a submission of the intellect, an act of faith, a
temporary suspension of the critical faculty. This applies not merely
to the Christian religion, with its unfathomable mysteries and its
inexhaustible fund of truth, but to the fruits of human speculation.
Nobody has ever succeeded in writing a history of philosophy without
incurring either the reproach that he is a mere historian, incapable of
entering into the genius of any system, or a mere metaphysician, who can
discern in all other philosophies only the relation they bear to his
own. In religion the difficulty is greater still, and greatest of all
with Catholicism. For the Church is to be seen, not in books, but in
life. No divine can put together the whole body of her doctrine; no
canonist the whole fabric of her law; no historian the infinite
vicissitudes of her career. The Protestant who wishes to be informed on
all these things can be advised to rely on no one manual, on no
encyclopaedia of her deeds and of her ideas; if he seeks to know what
these have been, he must be told to look around. And to one who surveys
her teaching and her fortunes through all ages and all lands, ignorant
or careless of that which is essential, changeless, and immortal in her,
it will not be easy to discern through so much outward change a regular
development, amid such variety of forms the unchanging substance, in so
many modifications fidelity to constant laws; or to recognise, in a
career so chequered with failure, disaster, and suffering, with the
apostasy of heroes, the weakness of rulers, and the errors of doctors,
the unfailing hand of a heavenly Guide.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 3