indulgent with
Berengarius:--by reason of the very power of the Popes they have
commonly been slow and moderate in their use of it.

And here again is a further shelter for the legitimate exercise of the
reason:--the multitude of nations which are within the fold of the
Church will be found to have acted for its protection, against any
narrowness, on the supposition of narrowness, in the various authorities
at Rome, with whom lies the practical decision of controverted
questions. How have the Greek traditions been respected and provided for
in the later Ecumenical Councils, in spite of the countries that held
them being in a state of schism! There are important points of doctrine
which have been (humanly speaking) exempted from the infallible
sentence, by the tenderness with which its instruments, in framing it,
have treated the opinions of particular places. Then, again, such
national influences have a providential effect in moderating the bias
which the local influences of Italy may exert upon the See of St. Peter.
It stands to reason that, as the Gallican Church has in it a French
element, so Rome must have in it an element of Italy; and it is no
prejudice to the zeal and devotion with which we submit ourselves to the
Holy See to admit this plainly. It seems to me, as I have been saying,
that Catholicity is not only one of the notes of the Church, but,
according to the divine purposes, one of its securities. I think it
would be a very serious evil, which Divine Mercy avert! that the Church
should be contracted in Europe within the range of particular
nationalities. It is a great idea to introduce Latin civilization into
America, and to improve the Catholics there by the energy of French
devotedness; but I trust that all European races will ever have a place
in the Church, and assuredly I think that the loss of the English, not
to say the German element, in its composition has been a most serious
misfortune. And certainly, if there is one consideration more than
another which should make us English grateful to Pius the Ninth, it is
that, by giving us a Church of our own, he has prepared the way for our
own habits of mind, our own manner of reasoning, our own tastes, and our
own virtues, finding a place and thereby a sanctification, in the
Catholic Church.

* * * * *

There is only one other subject, which I think it necessary to introduce
here, as bearing upon the vague suspicions wh