and that we detest the separation of what Christ said should be "one fold and one shepherd" (John x. 16), into various bodies out of harmony with each other and with separate institutions and governments, as being a thing in itself wrong and displeasing to God; but not that we hate the individuals who have been unfortunately in this way alienated from the visible communion of Christ's Church.

I shall also now treat of the opening words or preamble of the profession which you remember I passed by at the natural place. Some part of what has been said in the course of our explanation seems to be properly required to understand this preamble fully; or at least we are now better prepared to understand it than we should have been then. It propounds a doctrine which gives difficulty to many; that is, that " no one can be saved without that faith which the Holy Catholic Apostolic Roman Church holds, believes, and teaches."

Now the question is, what precisely is meant by this? It certainly seems plainly contrary to what, as has been said before, we must admit as an evident fact; namely, that the holy patriarchs, prophets, and saints of the Old Testament have always been believed to have been saved, and probably many others also, who lived in those times, when they could not possibly have held this faith, for the very good

reason that it had not then been made known to the world. So that they do not come under the general statement made here.

But if we examine, we see at least that we need not concern ourselves with this seeming difficulty, for it is only said "no one can be saved," not no one ever could have been saved." It is, then, at any rate only a question of the way in which we can be saved at the present time.

But it has been already shown, in our discussion of the article of the profession concerning "everlasting life," that there can hardly be a difference between those who are now living entirely out of the reach of the Catholic Church, and those who lived before our Lord came down from heaven. For both the Catholic faith is equally impossible. And the same may be said for those (and there may be a good many such) who, though they have inIdeed heard that there is an institution called the Catholic or Roman (perhaps they have known it as the Romish) Church, still have no suspicion whatever that it can possibly be the true Church established by God on earth. All these people, whether the obstacle, so to speak, between them and the Church be time, space, or a prejudice for which they are in no way to blame, are said to be in "invincible ignorance of the true faith, and we believe that they may

be saved, if they are faithful to the light and the means of grace they have, even if these are not sufficient to bring them into the true Church before they die.

What is meant, therefore, by saying that no one can be saved without the faith of the Catholic Church, is not that an explicit knowledge of this faith is absolutely necessary, but that no one can presume to dispense with it, to take something else in its place, or to say, as so many do, that it makes no difference what a man believes, as long as his life is right. This last idea, plausible as it seems to many, is obviously absurd; for it assumes either that a man's life can be right when he is indifferent as to whether he knows or does God's will or not; or that it is impossible there can be any truth revealed from heaven to show us how to live, and that all the information needed on that subject is not only attainable by our reason but even actually now in the possession of every human being. One might as well say, "It makes no difference whether a sea-captain has a compass and sextant or not, as long as he makes a straight track for the port he wishes to reach." Very true, no doubt; but how is he going to lay his course correctly unless he has the instruments which enable him to do so? If he has lost his instruments, or is unable to procure anything of the kind, God may be merci

ful to him and bring him safe to port without them; but to say, "I don't care about instruments, I can get along all right without," is simply fool-hardiness. Just so it is fool-hardiness for any one to say, "I can save my soul without the faith of the Church, and I don't care whether it is true or not." If he, through the fault of his ancestors, has lost sight of the faith altogether, or if he has always lived in some remote part of the world to which it has not penetrated, he may be saved like the ignorant mariner, by a special mercy of God; but this special mercy cannot be expected if, when the faith is attainable, he neglects to avail himself of it. He is then like the captain who, passing through the city where instruments can be got, neglects to procure them, though he has the money in his pocket.

So you see that what is meant by saying that no one can be saved without the Catholic faith, is substantially the same as saying that no one can reach his port safely without instruments. No one can be saved without it; that is, no one can be saved who wilfully rejects or neglects it.

But it must also be said that salvation is difficult for those who, even without their own fault, are deprived of the faith, just as navigation is difficult for the seaman even without his fault, deprived of what he needs, or success improbable in any handiwork without the proper

tools. For one inculpably ignorant of the faith, though not punished for that, is yet necessarily deprived of the great aids which it furnishes for the forgiveness and the prevention of sin in general. He is, like other people, conceived and born in original sin; ordinarily this is only removed by baptism. Christ Himself says: "Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" John iii. 5). Still, the Church believes that those for whom baptism is practically impossible can be saved if they have sufficiently perfect dispositions, loving and turning to God with their whole heart. This we call the baptism of desire.

But even should original and actual sin be taken away in this manner, still the temptation to sin remains, and the weakness to resist which original sin, and perhaps actual sin also, has caused. This is the case with baptized Christians also, and with Catholics as well as others. A battle, it may be a long and a hard one, has to be fought with sin before the kingdom of heaven can be won. But the Catholic in this battle is helped and fortified by the Sacraments, to which the unbaptized have no access, and of which the Protestant is practically ignorant. For we believe, and facts which we cannot properly discuss in a book of