Peace of a Beatific Vision, North American Religion with its
guesses at Sacramentalism, Savage Religion with its caricature of
a Bloody Sacrifice; all from various points; and presently heard
through the tumult the historical dogma of the Incarnation of
Christ, the dogma of Eternal Life, the Sacramental System and the
Sacrifice of the Cross--all proclaimed in one coherent and
perfectly philosophical Creed. Ideals of Social Reform met with
the same experiences. The Socialist with his dream of a Divine
Society, the Anarchist with his passionate nightmare of complete
individual liberty, both ran up together, in the heart of the
black darkness, against the vast outline of a Divine Family that
was a fact and not a far-off ambition--a Family that fell in Eden
and became a competitive State; a Holy Family that redeemed
Nazareth and all the world; a Catholic Family in whom was neither
Jew nor Greek, nor masters against men--in whom the doctrine of
Vocation secured the rights and the dignities of the Society on
one side and the Individual on the other. Finally Art, wandering
hither and thither in the mazes of Realism, saw light ahead, and
found in Catholic Art and Symbolism the secret of her life.

"This, then, was the result--that the Church was found to be
eternally right in every plane. In plane after plane she had
been condemned. Pilate--the Law of Separate Nations--had found
her guilty of sedition; Herod--the miracle-monger at one instant
and the sceptic at the next--the Scientist, in fact--had
declared her guilty of fraud; Caiaphas had condemned her in the
name of National Religion. Or, again, she had been thought the
enemy of Art by the Greek-spirited; the enemy of Law by the
Latins; the enemy of Religion by the Hebraic Pharisee. She had
borne her title written in Greek and Latin and Hebrew. She had