spiritual asthenia? We can conceive a man rejecting all revelation. It
is possible even to conceive a man denying the Divinity of Christ. But
we know nothing that would ever enable us even to conceive that
Infinite Wisdom and Infinite Power had established a Church which
cannot teach, or had sent an ambassador utterly unable to deliver His
message. There is no use for such Church as that. Total silence is
better than incoherent speech. What is the consequence? The
consequence is that in the Anglican community endless variations and
differences exist and flourish side by side, not alone in matters
where differences are comparatively of little account, but in even the
most momentous and fundamental doctrines, such as the necessity of
Baptism, the power of Absolution, the nature of the Holy Eucharist,
the effects of the sacrament of Holy Orders, and so forth. Were it not
for the iron hand of the State, which grasps her firmly, and binds her
mutually repellent elements together, she must have fallen to pieces
long ago. Now, we must beg our readers to consider well, that from the
very terms of the institution such a deplorable state of things as we
have been contemplating is absolutely impossible and unthinkable in
the Church (1) which _God-incarnate_ founded, _for the express
purpose of handing down His doctrine_, pure and undefiled to the end
of time; and (2) with which He promised to abide for ever; and (3)
which the Holy Ghost Himself, speaking through St. Paul, declared to
be "the pillar and ground of truth" (1. Tim. iii. 15). Nevertheless,
if the Catholic Church, numbering over 250,000,000 of persons, is not
to fall into the sad plight that has overtaken all the small churches
that have gone out from her, she must not only desire unity, as, no
doubt, all the sects desire it, but she must have been provided by her
all-wise Founder with what none of them even profess to possess,
_viz._, some simple, workable, and effective means of securing it.
This means, as practical as it is simple, is no other than one supreme