p of Mary; to a sacred Calendar of
Heroes, as well as of Saints.[98] It may terminate either in Infidelity
or in Superstition, according to the mental temperament of the
individual by whom it is adopted and applied. "An organ of
investigation being introduced, which may be employed for any purpose
indifferently, the tendency of such a theory of religious inquiry will
just tell according to the spirit in which it acts. A skeptic will
develop the principle into Infidelity, a believer into Superstition; but
the principle itself remains accurately the same in both."[99] The
connection between the theory of Ecclesiastical Development and the
infidel theory of Progress has not escaped the notice of many acute and
profound thinkers in recent times, nor the danger resulting from it to
the most fundamental articles of faith. "Modern Spiritualists tell us
that Christianity is a development, as the Papists also assert, and the
New Testament is its first and rudimentary product; only, unhappily, as
the development, it seems, may be things so different as Popery and
Infidelity, we are as far as ever from any criterium as to which, out of
the ten thousand possible developments, is the true; but it is a matter
of the less consequence, since it will, on such reasoning, be _always
something future_."[100] One of the most pernicious tenets of the
Neologists beyond the Rhine is thus expressed by themselves:
"Christianity renews itself in the human heart, and follows _the
development_ of the human mind, and invests itself with new forms of
thought and language, and adopts new systems of Church organization, to
which it gives expression and life." ... "But are these teachers the
_only_ destroyers of Faith and Morals? Are not _they_ also chargeable
with precisely the same offence who command us to submit implicitly to
the so-called divinely-inspired Spirit of '_one_ living Infallible
Judge' or 'Developing Power'? Can we have _fixed_ articles of faith and
morals in this system, any more than in the other? No. '_Unus utrisque
error, sed variis ill[=u]det partibus._' There is the same evil in both,
but it operates in different ways; in the former, every one develops
for himself; in the latter, the Pope develops for every one. You look
with fear on the progress of Rationalism; and what hope can any man
derive from that of Romanism?"[101]

* * * * *

We have examined, each on its own peculiar merits, the various fo