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 central and living authority, enjoying full jurisdiction over all—­that is to say, the authority of Peter, ever living in his See, and speaking, now by the lips of Leo, and now by the lips of Pius, but always in the name, and with the authority, and under the guidance of Him who, in the plenitude of His divine power, made Peter the immovable rock, against which the gates of hell may indeed expend their fury, but against which they never have prevailed and never can prevail.  “The gates of hell shall not prevail against Thee.”  That any one can fail to understand the meaning of these inspired words; that any one can give them any application save that which they receive in the Catholic Church, is but another illustration of the extraordinary power of prejudice and pride to blind the reason and to darken the understanding.

Without this final Court of Appeal, set up by the wisdom of God, the Church would disintegrate and fall into pieces to-morrow.  To remove from the Church of Christ the infallibility of the Pope would be like removing the hub from the wheel, the key-stone from the arch, the trunk from the tree, the foundation from the house.  For, in each case the result must mean confusion.  If such a result could ever have been doubted in the past, it can surely be doubted no longer.  The sad experience of the past three hundred years speaks more eloquently than any words; and its verdict is conclusive.  It proves two things beyond dispute.  The first is, that even the largest and most heterogeneous body of men may be easily united and kept together, if they can all be brought to recognise and obey one supreme authority; and the second is, that, even a small and homogeneous body of men will soon divide and split up into sections, if they cannot be brought to recognise such an authority.

Further, any one looking out over the face of Christendom, with an unprejudiced eye, for the realisation of that unity which Christ promised to affix to his Church as an infallible sign of authenticity, will find it in the Catholic Communion, but certainly nowhere else—­least of all in the Church of England.