without light for the blind), these facts are incontrovertible; and there is no mind so degraded that it cannot give the same reasons for its attachment to the Catholic Church, as the great Bishop of Hippo formerly gave. "If you wish to know," said he to his former fellow-believers, the Manicheans, "what attaches me to the Catholic Church, it is this: it is the unanimous submission of the people and the nations which she governs; it is the authority which she exercises, founded, without doubt, on miracles (for, if it were not, as he has said elsewhere, it would be the most astonishing of miracles), an authority strengthened by the hope and peace which she establishes in the soul-an authority propagated by charity, and cemented by a long prescription. What retains me in it, is the chain of pastors whom I see uninterruptedly succeeding each other in the see of Peter, from that apostle to whom our Lord, after his resurrection, confided the care of his sheep, even to the present Pontiff. Finally, what retains me in it, is the name itself of Catholic, so appropriate to this Church, in the midst of so many sects who envy it this name, that if a stranger asks where the Catholics assemble, no heretic will have the boldness to point to his own temple or house."

To the irresistible influence which the external and palpable fact of the predominance of Catholicity exerts over every judicious mind, may be added an interior fact, not less calculated to confirm the Catholic in his submission to the Church.

This fact is, the consciousness which every sensible man has of his incapacity to construct for himself a religion which may support him at the hour of death; the need universally felt of reposing on religion, as in other important affairs, upon the sweet and soothing pillow of authority. Let us listen to one who had not a weak mind.

Augustine, Contra Ep. fund., cap. iv. Item., De util. credendi, cap. vii., xiv., xvii.

"The ignorant man has no need, either of books or reasoning, in order to find the true Church. The more ignorant he is, the more his ignorance shows him the absurdity of the sects who would institute him judge of what he is incom. petent to examine. All the new sects say to him: Do not reason, do not decide; content yourself with being docile and humble: God has promised me his spirit to preserve you from error. Which should this ignorant person follow, those who demand impossibilities of him, or those who promise him what is in harmony with his incapacity and the goodness of God? Let us imagine a paralytic who wishes to leave his bed, because the house is on fire. He appeals to five men, who say to him: Rise, run, pierce the crowd, save yourself from the conflagration. At last, he finds a sixth man, who says to him: Depend on me, I will carry you in my arms. Will he trust to the five men, who advise him to do what he feels he cannot do? Will he not rather confide in him who alone promises him assistance proportioned to his weakness? He abandons himself, without reasoning, to this man, and only lies yielding and docile in his arms. Free yourself from æ evidently impracticable discussion, cast off foolish presumption, and you will be a Catholic." *

Thus, while everything within and without conspires to throw the reflecting Protestant into inextricable embarrassment, and condemns him to perpetual doubt on religious subjects, under pain of falling into absurdity,† everything, on the contrary, invites the Catholic to rest contented in the ample

*Fenelon, Lettres sur 'Existence de Dieu, le Christianisme, et la veritable Eglise, 3d part.

†The Protestant, who has a firm fixed belief in religion, must necessarily say I have a conviction that I understand Christianity better than the Catholics of all ages, victims of the most lamentable errors, than all my fellow-believers, who, for three centuries, have agreed on nothing. What more would be necessary to make this poor man a proper subject for a bed and a physician?

bark of Peter, which steers prosperously towards the eternal port, through shoals and tempests, bearing within it the innumerable family of the children of obedience and charity.*

Alas! in the general shipwreck of intellect, misguided by Protestantism and incredulity, where shall we find the divine. peace of the Savior, bequeathed by him to his disciples, if not in the vast ark of Catholicism?†

Every day we shall see approaching it in greater numbers, souls that are vigorous enough to escape the paralysis of an icy indifference, enlightened enough to despise the absurd mummery of Methodism, and strong enough to break the material ties which chain them to the standard of the Reformation.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

PARALLEL BETWEEN PROTESTANTS RETURNING TO CATHOLICISM AND CATHOLICS WHO BECOME PROTESTANTS. REMARKABLE FACT.

Ir has been said, that to judge of the two religious systems which have confronted each other for three centuries, it is sufficient to observe and listen to those who pass from one to the other.

Among the Protestants, who since the early times of the Reformation have returned to die in the religion of their grandfathers, we find, particularly in our age, a host of

* Filii sapientiæ, Ecclesia justorum; et natio illorum, obedientia et dilectio. (Eccles. iii. 1.)

↑ John xiv. 27.

A celebrated Protestant, Madame de Stael, hard pushed upon the religious question by a learned ecclesiastic, whom she herself had drawn into the subject, had recourse to this common defence: I wish to live

illustrious names, of superior men, whose irreproachable life, and noble use of the finest talents had won the esteem and affection of those around them, and the respect and admiration of the public. An exalted intellect, an honest and naturally religious heart, soon reveal to them the perfect nullity of a religion, which by the absence of doctrines and the meagerness of its worship, deprives the mind of its steadfastness, virtue of its foundation, and piety of its nourishment. Catholicism presents itself to them, often in the midst of studies which might appear foreign to the religious question. But, as we have said above, nothing is isolated in the intellectual and moral order, and truth, because it is objectively being, becomes necessarily the parent of all that is.

One, a celebrated professor of history, meets with Catholicism in the application of the principles of the science he is teaching; another a profound civilian, discovers it in the fundamental laws of the social order; † a third perceives it in the midst of the frightful and eminently anti-Catholic scenes of the French revolution. Some in their researches into the nature of the human mind, or the principles of political economy; others in their enlightened enthusiasm for the fine arts, have attained the conviction that Catholicism can alone answer to the moral wants of man, can establish by its pro

and die, sir, in the religion of my fathers. And I, Madam, in the religion of my grandfathers, answered her witty opponent. This is, in other terms, the same answer that a French Ambassador made to some English Courtiers, who seeing him recovering from a dangerous malady, asked him if he should not have regretted being buried in heretical ground?"No," answered he, I should only have ordered my grave to be dug a little deeper, and I should have found myself in the midst of Catholics." To however slight a depth the Protestant penetrates either the soil or history, he meets everywhere the ineffaceable inscription: Protestantism sprung up fifteen hundred years after Christianity.

* Doctor Philips.

† M. Haller.

Adam Müller.

found morality a basis for political economy, and that it exclusively possesses the principle of the beautiful in nature

and art.*

The first gleam of light makes a lively impression upon souls desirous of the truth. The thorough investigation which the importance of the subject demands, the conscientious comparison of the two systems, viewed as to their origin, essential principles and results; the attentive reading of what their defenders have written most strongly for or against; in a word, all the means necessary to form a deep conviction, have been put in use.

On the other side, the very lively prejudices of early education, the kind of ignominy which the numerous and influential family of foolish persons attach to the change of religion, the repugnance which the severe morality and certain practices of Catholicism excite in human nature, but more than all, the terrible tempest that every converted Protestant draws down on his own and the heads of all belonging to him, the mortal blow that he strikes at the heart of relatives and friends, the tears of a wife, of children, whose brilliant prospects he often ruins; in a word, everything which to ordinary minds makes truth in the wrong, presents itself again and again to the thoughts of these men, and cruelly assails their heart.

At length, after long-continued resistance grace has triumphed. The divine remedies which the heavenly physician has entrusted to his Church have been applied to the neophytes, and immediately a strength, a calmness and an inexpressible satisfaction succeed to the weaknesses of nature, and to the tortures of doubt.†

The first desire of a soul that has found God is to publish

De Soltberg, Frederic Schlegel, Veith, Molitor, Bautain, de Coux, le leçon d'écon polit.

+ Words of M. de Haller, Lettre à sa famille, &c. Geneva, 1821, p. 20.