London
SANDS & CO.
15 KING STREET, COVENT GARDEN
EDINBURGH: 21 HANOVER STREET

ST. LOUIS, Mo., U.S.A.: B. HERDER

1910




INTRODUCTION.


It may seem an impertinence on the present writer's part to indite a
preface to the work of a brother Bishop; and it would be a still
greater one to pretend to introduce the Author of this little book to
the reading public, to whom he is so well and so favourably known by a
stately array of preceding volumes. Nevertheless Bishop Vaughan has
been so insistent on my contributing at least a few introductory
lines, that, for old friendship's sake, I can no longer refuse.

It is a remarkable and outstanding fact that never before in the
history of the Church has the Roman Papacy, though shorn of every
vestige of its once formidable temporal might, loomed greater in the
world, ruled over such vast multitudes of the faithful, or exercised
a greater moral power than at the present day. Never has the
_conscious_ unity of the whole world-wide Church with its Visible