its that orthodoxy cherishes, along with
them, 'fact-like historical pictures' which 'cannot be taken as
directly, simply factual.' He vindicates the orthodoxy of religious
toleration, and refuses to consign all non-Catholics to perdition,
lamenting the tendency to identify absolutely the visible and invisible
Church, which prevails among 'some of the (now dominant) Italian and
German Jesuit Canonists.' Lastly, he boldly recommends the frank
abandonment of the Papal claim to exercise temporal power in Italy. This
is not so much a critique of institutionalism as the plea of a Liberal
Catholic that the logic of institutionalism should not be allowed to
override all other considerations. The Baron is, indeed, himself a
mystic, though also a strong believer in the necessity of institutional
religion.

We have then a considerable body of very competent opinion, that a man
cannot be a Christian unless he is a Churchman. To the mystic pure and
simple, such a statement seems monstrous. Did not even Augustine say, 'I
want to know God and my own soul; these two things, and no third
whatever'? What intermediary can there be, he will ask, between the soul
and God? What sacredness is there in an organisation? Is it not a matter
of common experience that the morality of an institution, a society, a
state, is inferior to that of the individuals who compose it? And is
organised Catholicism an exception to this rule? And yet we must admit
the glamour of the idea of a divine society. It arouses that _esprit de
corps_ which is the strongest appeal that can be made to some noble
minds. It calls for self-sacrifice and devoted labour in a cause which
is higher than private interest. It demands discipline and co-operation,
through which alone great things can be done on the field of history. It
holds out a prospect of really influencing the course of events. And if
there has been a historical Incarnation, it follows that God has
actually intervened on the stage of history, and that it is His will to
carry out some great and divine purpose in and by means of the course of
history. With this object, as the Catholic believes, He established an
institutional Church, pledged to the highest of all causes; and what
greater privilege can there be than to take part in this work, as a
soldier in the army of God in His long campaign against the spiritual
powers of evil? The Christian institutionalist is the servant of a grand
idea.

There are, however