g on theological subjects, but that I have had no
variations to record, and have had no anxiety of heart whatever. I have
been in perfect peace; I never have had one doubt.

Nor had I any trouble about receiving those additional articles which
are not found in the Anglican creed. I am far from denying that every
article of the Christian creed is beset with difficulties, and it is
simple fact that I cannot answer those difficulties. But ten thousand
difficulties do not make one doubt. Of all points of faith, the being of
a God is encompassed with most difficulty, and yet borne in upon our
minds with most power.

Starting, then, with the being of a God, which is as certain to me as my
own existence, I look out of myself into the world of men, and there I
see a sight which fills me with unspeakable distress. The world seems
simply to give the lie to that great truth, of which my whole being is
so full; I look into this living, busy world, and see no reflection of
its Creator. To consider the world in its length and breadth, its
various history; the progress of things, as if from unreasoning
elements, not towards final causes; the greatness and littleness of man,
his far-reaching aims, his short duration, the curtain hung over his
futurity, the defeat of good, the prevalence and intensity of sin, the
dreary, hopeless irreligion--all this is a vision to dizzy and appal,
and inflicts upon the mind the sense of a profound mystery which is
absolutely beyond human solution. What shall be said to this
heart-piercing, reason-bewildering fact? I can only answer, that either
there is no Creator, or this living society of men is in a true sense
discarded from His presence.

And now, supposing it were the blessed will of the Creator to interfere
in this anarchical condition of things, what would be the methods which
might be necessarily or naturally involved in His purpose of mercy? What
must be the face-to-face antagonist, by which to withstand and baffle
the fierce energy and passion and the all-corroding, all-dissolving
scepticism of the intellect in religious inquiries? There is nothing to
surprise the mind, if He should think fit to introduce a power into the
world, invested with the prerogative of infallibility in religious
matters. Such a provision would be a direct, immediate, active, and
prompt means of withstanding the difficulty; and when I find that this
is the very claim of the Catholic Church, not only do I feel no
di