ough he is
unable to approve, that others should feel that power still.

Dr. Newman has stated, with his accustomed force and philosophical
refinement, what he considers the true idea of that infallibility,
which he looks upon as the only power in the world which can make head
against and balance Liberalism--which "can withstand and baffle the
fierce energy of passion, and the all-corroding, all-dissolving
scepticism of the intellect in religious inquiries;" which he considers
"as a provision, adapted by the mercy of the Creator, to preserve
religion in the world, and to restrain that freedom of thought which is
one of the greatest of our natural gifts, from its own suicidal
excesses." He says, as indeed is true, that it is "a tremendous power,"
though he argues that, in fact, its use is most wisely and beneficially
limited. And doubtless, whatever the difficulty of its proof may be,
and to us this proof seems simply beyond possibility, it is no mere
power upon paper. It acts and leaves its mark; it binds fast and
overthrows for good. But when, put at its highest, it is confronted
with the "giant evil" which it is supposed to be sent into the world to
repel, we can only say that, to a looker-on, its failure seems as
manifest as the existence of the claim to use it. It no more does its
work, in the sense of _succeeding_ and triumphing, than the less
magnificent "Establishments" do. It keeps _some_ check--it fails on a
large scale and against the real strain and pinch of the mischief; and
they, too, keep _some_ check, and are not more fairly beaten than it
is, in "making a stand against the wild living intellect of man."

Without infallibility, it is said, men will turn freethinkers and
heretics; but don't they, _with_ it? and what is the good of the engine
if it will not do its work? And if it is said that this is the fault of
human nature, which resists what provokes and checks it, still that
very thing, which infallibility was intended to counteract, goes on
equally, whether it comes into play or not. Meanwhile, truth does stay
in the world, the truth that there has been among us a Divine Person,
of whom the Church throughout Christendom is the representative,
memorial, and the repeater of His message; doubtless, the means of
knowledge are really guarded; yet we seem to receive that message as we
receive the witness of moral truth; and it would not be contrary to the
analogy of things here if we had often got to it at