ng the enemy. Thirty years ago, education was
relied upon: ten years ago there was a hope that wars would cease for
ever, under the influence of commercial enterprise and the reign of the
useful and fine arts; but will any one venture to say that there is any
thing any where on this earth, which will afford a fulcrum for us,
whereby to keep the earth from moving onwards?

The judgment, which experience passes whether on establishments or on
education, as a means of maintaining religious truth in this anarchical
world, must be extended even to Scripture, though Scripture be divine.
Experience proves surely that the Bible does not answer a purpose for
which it was never intended. It may be accidentally the means of the
conversion of individuals; but a book, after all, cannot make a stand
against the wild living intellect of man, and in this day it begins to
testify, as regards its own structure and contents, to the power of that
universal solvent, which is so successfully acting upon religious
establishments.

Supposing then it to be the Will of the Creator to interfere in human
affairs, and to make provisions for retaining in the world a knowledge
of Himself, so definite and distinct as to be proof against the energy
of human scepticism, in such a case,--I am far from saying that there
was no other way,--but there is nothing to surprise the mind, if He
should think fit to introduce a power into the world, invested with the
prerogative of infallibility in religious matters. Such a provision
would be a direct, immediate, active, and prompt means of withstanding
the difficulty; it would be an instrument suited to the need; and, when
I find that this is the very claim of the Catholic Church, not only do I
feel no difficulty in admitting the idea, but there is a fitness in it,
which recommends it to my mind. And thus I am brought to speak of the
Church's infallibility, as a provision, adapted by the mercy of the
Creator, to preserve religion in the world, and to restrain that freedom
of thought, which of course in itself is one of the greatest of our
natural gifts, and to rescue it from its own suicidal excesses. And let
it be observed that, neither here nor in what follows, shall I have
occasion to speak directly of Revelation in its subject-matter, but in
reference to the sanction which it gives to truths which may be known
independently of it,--as it bears upon the defence of natural religion.
I say, that a power, possess