longed. And I do not
use that word "belonged" as it is employed in modern times among
protestants: I mean _more_ than that convenient, loosely-fitting
profession, which, like a garment, is thrown on and off, as the
exigencies of hypocrisy or cupidity may require. These men actually _did
belong_ to the church. They were hers, soul and body; hers, in life and
in death; hers to go whithersoever she might direct, to do whatsoever
she might appoint. They believed the doctrines they taught with an
abiding, _active_ faith; and they were willing to be spent in preaching
them to the heathen.

It has always been a leading principle in the policy of the Roman
church, to preserve her unity, and she has been enabled to do so,
principally by the ramified and elastic polity for which she has been
distinguished, to which she owes much of her extent and power, as well
as no small part of the reproach so liberally bestowed upon her in the
pages of history. There are many "arms" in her service: a man must be
impracticable indeed, when she can find no place in which to make him
useful, or to prevent his being mischievous. She never drives one from
the pale of the church who can benefit it as a communicant, or injure it
as a dissenter. If he became troublesome at home, she has, in all ages,
had enterprises on foot in which she might clothe him with authority,
and send him to the uttermost parts of the earth; thus ridding herself
of a dangerous member, and, by the same act, enlarging the sphere of her
own dominion. Does an enthusiast become noisy, or troublesome upon
unimportant points, the creed is flexible, and the mother will not
quarrel with her child, for his earnestness may convince and lead astray
more valuable sons and daughters. She will establish a new order, of
which the stubborn fanatic shall be founder; the new order is built into
the old church organization, and its founder becomes a dignitary of the
ecclesiastical establishment. Instead of becoming a dangerous heretic
and schismatic, he is attached to orthodoxy by cords stronger than
steel; henceforth all his earnest enthusiasm shall be directed to the
advancement of his order, and consequently of his church. Does one
exhibit inflexibility in some matter of conscience upon which the church
insists, there are many of God's children in the wilderness starving in
spirit for the bread of life; and to these, with that bread, shall the
refractory son be sent. He receives the commi