... Ah! What grey hairs are on
the head of Judah, whose youth is renewed like the eagle's, whose feet
are like the feet of harts, and underneath the Everlasting Arms."
Would that our unfortunate countrymen, tossed about by every wind of
doctrine, and torn by endless divisions, could be persuaded to set
aside pride and prejudice, and to accept the true principle of
religious unity and peace established by God. Then England would
become again, what she was for over a thousand years, _viz._: "the
most faithful daughter of the Church of Rome, and of His Holiness, the
one Sovereign Pontiff and Vicar of Christ upon earth," as our Catholic
forefathers were wont to describe her.
CHAPTER IV.
THE CHURCH AND THE SECTS.
A natural tendency is apparent in all men to differ among themselves,
even concerning subjects which are simple and easily understood;
while, on more difficult and complicated issues, this tendency is, of
course, very much more pronounced. Hence, the well-known proverb:
"_Quot homines, tot sententiae_"--there are as many opinions as there
are men.
Now, if this is found to be the case in politics, literature, art,
music, and indeed in everything else, except perhaps pure mathematics,
it is found to be yet more universally the case in questions of
religion, since religion is a subject so much more sublime, abstruse,
and incomprehensible than others, and so full of supernatural and
mysterious truths, with which no merely human tribunal has any
competency to deal.
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