in the Church and
through her. Separation on account merely of abuses in ecclesiastical
life, when the doctrine is the same, is rejected as criminal by the
Protestants as well as by us. It is, therefore, for doctrine's sake
that the separation occurred; and the general discontent of the
people, the weakening of ecclesiastical authority by the existence of
abuses, only facilitated the adoption of the new doctrines. But now
on one side some of these defects and evils in the life of the Church
have disappeared; the others have greatly diminished since the
reforming movement; and on the other side, the principal doctrines
for which they separated, and on the truth of which, and their
necessity for salvation, the right and duty of secession was based,
are given up by Protestant science, deprived of their Scriptural
basis by exegesis, or at least made very uncertain by the opposition
of the most eminent Protestant divines. Meanwhile we live in hopes,
comforting ourselves with the conviction that history, or that
process of development in Europe which is being accomplished before
our eyes, as well in society and politics as in religion, is the
powerful ally of the friends of ecclesiastical union; and we hold out
our hands to Christians on the other side for a combined war of
resistance against the destructive movements of the age.

There are two circumstances which make us fear that the work will not be
received in the spirit in which it is written, and that its object will
not immediately be attained. The first of these is the extraordinary
effect which was produced by the declaration which the author made on
the occasion of the late assembly of the Catholic associations of
Germany at Munich. He stated simply, what is understood by every
Catholic out of Italy, and intelligible to every reasonable Protestant,
that the freedom of the Church imperatively requires that, in order to
protect the Pope from the perils which menace him, particularly in our
age, he should possess a sovereignty not merely nominal, and that his
right to his dominions is as good as that of all other legitimate
sovereigns. In point of fact, this expression of opinion, which occurs
even in the garbled reports of the lectures, leaves all those questions
on which it is possible for serious and dispassionate men to be divided
entirely open. It does not determine whether there was any excuse for
the di