of Switzerland and elsewhere, the same phase of events has presented itself: the clergy tend either to lose all spiritual character, or take refuge in Unitarianism; the laity, in proportion to their cultivation, have been prone to entire unbelief." 1 Of the second authority for the Incarnation, i.e. the Church, I shall have to speak in another chapter; as evidence to the Incarnation it is not worth much, as evidence, that is, which is logically convincing, whatever may be its moral cogency to enchain belief. The narrative of the Gospels may carry conviction to some minds, the testimony of the Church may take hold of and satisfy others, but if so, what is it that really convinces ? It is the fact, or, if the expression be preferred, the idea of the Incarnation commending itself to the soul of man. That idea, looking upon the soul of man, bears its own guarantee with it, and thus, and thus only, through the head or through the heart, enchains consent. What then to every Christian is the evidence for the Incarnation? It is not Scripture, it is not the Church, it is not history, prophecy or miracle. It is his own nature crying out to see God face to face and live. By the evidence of man's own nature I mean this : If I find that such an union of Divinity with humanity is necessary to me, that my nature may find its complete religious satisfaction; If I find that such a dogma alone supplies an adequate basis for morals; That such a dogma alone establishes the rights of man on a secure foundation; That such a dogma alone enables man to distinguish between Authority and Force; 1 New Series, vol. xiii. p. 137. That such a dogma can alone conciliate my double nature, rational and sentimental, and my double duties, egoistic and altruistic; That such a dogma alone supplies an adequate incentive. to progress; Then the conviction to my mind becomes a certainty. These are points which cannot be crushed into one chapter, but will be worked out in the sequel. It is on points of this nature that conviction must be formed, and then a place for authority will be found. Conviction is never the correlative of authority, whether lodged in a book or a church. If the mind is to be convinced it must be by a process independent of all compulsion. As religion is personal, and not between man and man; it must spring up from a root within man's own breast; it is not like the bind-weed trailing over every plant, strangling all and rooted in none. "Trust the spirit, As sovran Nature does, to make the form; To outward." We believe on the testimony of authority after we have. assured ourselves of the trustworthiness of authority; measuring authority by the standard of our personal convictions. Our convictions are to us absolute truth; they are purely our own. Just as every man must see for himself, so every man must believe for himself. Acceptation of truth is a purely personal, individual act. Our convic tions are the facts assured to us on the testimony of our own nature, our own senses, or our own reason. We may believe that there are other facts of which we are not our selves cognizant, and these we believe on authority. But such K beliefs must succeed convictions; they are the stones laid upon the foundations. Consequently, those who attempt to make Bible or Church authority the starting-point of religion fail inevitably. Bible authority and Church authority may assist in universalizing our belief, but they cannot strike in us the spark of conviction. The Bible has its place and its authority, as we shall see presently; and in its place it is unassailable, and its authority is overpowering. As a vehicle for enlightenment and for enlargement of the sympathies, it has perhaps the highest place and is of the truest service. "Such a position and agency alike the constitution and requirements of man and its own nature assign to it. It claims an oracular character, no more than the freedom of our souls could admit such a claim. It nowhere assumes to be an infallible canon, but line upon line would teach us otherwise. It has neither the subject-matter, nor the tone and form of an inflexible standard and absolute guide. Much the greater portion of it could not by any exercise of ingenuity be represented, or misrepresented, as a fixed stereotyped pattern, after which to conform human life. A large portion is devoted to the history of a marvellously privileged, but withal a very wicked nation. It contains the narrative of the lives, the doings and sayings, the thoughts and utterances of men of like passions as ourselves; and of one LIFE in all things made like unto His brethren,' yet without sin;' but even this only as seen through the vision of men themselves sinful. It reveals a centre Life, the wonder and the joy of ages-One who spake, indeed, with authority, yet appealed ever to the latent life and suppressed law-of which He Himself was the hidden Head and Fountain-that yet lingered within the breasts of those about Him, making them still human. But these features, which as much disqualify it from being an infallible rule, as such a rule is unnecessary and undesirable, in nowise render it less adapted to the uses for which it is required and intended. Quite the contrary. The lifelaw, overborne and silenced, cannot be stimulated and roused to self-assertion by a mere rule, however perfect, but only by the pleadings of the same law, working freely in a corresponding sphere; and this is what the Bible, as being the words of 'holy men of old, who spake moved by the Holy Ghost,' displays to us." 1 So also has the Church its place and its authority. It is not the place or authority of Church or Bible to strangle reason, defy criticism, and fetter inquiry, for reason is a faculty given to man by God for the purpose of criticising, and thereby distinguishing error, so that he may reject it; and of inquiring, so that he may find truth under the veil which ignorance or error has cast over it. The place of the Church is to declare authoritatively to every man that his own partial view and individual judgment are not the whole truth, and the complete measure of truth, but that the whole truth is the syncretism of all partial aspects. 1 Westminster Review, N. S. vol. xvi. pp. 422, 423. CHAPTER X CATHOLICISM Ὁ τοῦ Θεοῦ γὰρ υἱὸς Ιησοῦς Χριστὸς ὁ ἐν ὑμῖν δι' ἡμῶν κηρυχθεὶς, οὐκ ἐγένετο Ναὶ καὶ Οὐ, ἀλλὰ Ναὶ ἐν αὐτῷ γέγονεν. —2 COR. i. 19. Catholicism the religion of inclusion-a consequence of the Incarnation— The conciliation of Reason and Faith—of Individualism and Solidarity -The conciliation of all philosophies-of all Religions-of Paganism— of Sectarianism-Catholicism demands universal toleration, its opposite is intolerance and persecution. CATHO ATHOLICISM is, as its name implies, that which is universal, inclusive (кaboλiкós), and is opposed to that which is particular and exclusive. A more appropriate name could not have been chosen for a religion which, recognizing an incarnate God as the universal conciliator, comprehends in itself, divested of their negations, all that is positive, and therefore true, in every religion, past, present and future. If the hypothesis of the Incarnation be granted, as I have already laid down, this universalization of all faiths and philosophies follows as a logical consequence. Catholicism is therefore necessarily the synthesis, in its universal and indivisible unity, of all fragmentary truths contained in every philosopheme and religion, theory and rite, hitherto opposed; of all the thoughts, wills, and sentiments of the |