In a world such as this, with the agents of evil ever active and
threatening, with error strewn as thorns about our path at every step,
and with polished and seductive voices whispering doubt and suggesting
rebellion and disobedience to men, already too prone to disloyalty,
and arguing as cunningly as Satan, of old, argued with Eve; in such a
world, who, we may well ask, does not see the pressing need as well as
the inestimable advantages and security afforded by a living,
vigilant, responsible and supreme authority, where all who seek, may
find an answer to their doubts, and a strength and a firm support in
their weakness?

And as surely as the need exists, so surely has God's watchful
providence supplied it, in the person of the Supreme Pontiff, the
venerable Vicar of Christ on earth. He is authorised and commissioned
by Christ Himself "to feed" with sound doctrine, both "the lambs and
the sheep"; and faithfully has he discharged that duty. "The Pope,"
writes Cardinal Newman, "is no recluse, no solitary student, no
dreamer about the past, no doter upon the dead and gone, no projector
of the visionary. He, for eighteen hundred years, has lived in the
world; he has seen all fortunes, he has encountered all adversaries,
he has shaped himself for all emergencies. If ever there was a power
on earth who had an eye for the times, who has confined himself to the
practicable, and has been happy in his anticipations, whose words have
been facts, and whose commands prophecies, such is he, in the history
of ages, who sits, from generation to generation, in the chair of the
Apostles, as the Vicar of Christ, and the Doctor of His Church."

"These are not the words of rhetoric," he continues, "but of history.
All who take part with the Apostle are on the winning side. He has
long since given warrants for the confidence which he claims. From the