n her own spirit,
without violence to its nature, and assimilating it to herself without
prejudice to the originality of its native character. Whilst she thus
transforms them, not by reducing them to a uniform type, but by raising
them towards a common elevation, she receives from them services in
return. Each healthy and vigorous nation that is converted is a dynamic
as well as a numerical increase in the resources of the Church, by
bringing an accession of new and peculiar qualities, as well as of
quantity and numbers. So far from seeking sameness, or flourishing only
in one atmosphere, she is enriched and strengthened by all the varieties
of national character and intellect. In the mission of the Catholic
Church, each nation has its function, which its own position and nature
indicate and enable it to fulfil. Thus the extinct nations of antiquity
survive in the beneficial action they continue to exert within her, and
she still feels and acknowledges the influence of the African or of the
Cappadocian mind.

The condition of this immunity from the predominant influence of
national and political divisions, and of this indifference to the
attachment of particular States and races,--the security of unity and
universality,--consists in the existence of a single, supreme,
independent head. The primacy is the bulwark, or rather the
corner-stone, of Catholicism; without it, there would be as many
churches as there are nations or States. Not one of those who have
denounced the Papacy as a usurpation has ever attempted to show that the
condition which its absence necessarily involves is theologically
desirable, or that it is the will of God. It remains the most radical
and conspicuous distinction between the Catholic Church and the sects.
Those who attempt to do without it are compelled to argue that there is
no earthly office divinely appointed for the government of the Church,
and that nobody has received the mission to conduct ecclesiastical
affairs, and to preserve the divine order in religion. The several local
churches may have an earthly ruler, but for the whole Church of Christ
there is no such protection. Christ, therefore, is the only head they
acknowledge, and they must necessarily declare separation, isolation,
and discord to be a principle and the normal condition of His Church.
The rejection of the primacy of St. Peter has driven men on to a
slippery course, where all the steps are downwards. The Greeks first
pro