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
first, he has looked through the wide world, of which he has the
burden; and, according to the need of the day, and the inspirations of
his Lord, he has set himself, now to one thing, now to another; but to
all in season, and to nothing in vain.
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