er His cradle in Bethlehem; it was the Gift of Peace which He Himself
promised to His disciples; it was the _Peace of God which passeth
knowledge_ to which the great Apostle commended his converts. This then,
we are told, is of the very essence of Christianity; this is the supreme
benediction on the peacemakers that _they shall be called the children
of God_.

Yet, when we turn to Catholicism, we are bidden to see in it not a
gatherer but a scatterer, not the daughter of peace but the mother of
disunion. Is there a single tormented country in Europe to-day, it is
rhetorically demanded, that does not owe at least part of its misery to
the claims of Catholicism? What is it but Catholicism that lies at the
heart of the divided allegiance of France, of the miseries of Portugal,
and of the dissensions of Italy? Look back through history and you will
find the same tale everywhere. What was it that disturbed the politics
of England so often from the twelfth to the fifteenth century, and tore
her in two in the sixteenth, but the determined resistance of an
adolescent nation to the tyranny of Rome? What lay behind the religious
wars of Europe, behind the fires of Smithfield, the rack of Elizabeth,
and the blood of St. Bartholomew's Day but this intolerant and
intolerable religion which would come to no terms even with the most
reasonable of its adversaries? It is impossible, of course, altogether
to apportion blame, to say that in each several instance it was the
Catholic that was the aggressor; but at least it is true to say that it
was Catholic principles that were the occasion and Catholic claims the
unhappy cause of all this incalculable flood of human misery.

How singularly unlike, then, we are told, is this religion of
dissension to the religion of Jesus Christ, of all these dogmatic and
disciplinary claims and assertions to the meekness of the Poor Man of
Nazareth! If true Christianity is anywhere in the world to-day it is not
among such as these that it lies hid; rather it must be sought among the
gentle humanitarians of our own and every country--men who strive for
peace at all cost, men whose principal virtues are those of toleration
and charity, men who, if any, have earned the beatitude of being _called
the children of God_.

II. We turn to the Life of Jesus Christ from the Life of Catholicism,
and at first indeed it does seem as if the contrast were justified. We
cannot deny our critic's charges; every one of his