ted,) cut off from the whole of the Christian world;
nay, far from denying that excommunication, in a certain sense we glory
in it, and that under a notion, that we are so very pure that it must
soil our fingers to touch any other Church whatever upon the earth, in
north, east, or south. How is this reconcilable with St. Paul's clear
announcement that there is but one body as well as one spirit? or with
our Lord's, that 'by this shall _all men know_,' as by a note obvious to
the intelligence even of the illiterate and unreasoning, 'that ye are My
disciples, if ye have love one to another'? or again, with His prayer
that His disciples might all be one, 'that the world may know that _Thou
hast sent Me_, and hast _loved them_ as Thou hast loved Me'? Visible
unity, then, would seem to be both the main evidence for Christianity,
and the sign of our own participation in its benefits; whereas we
English despise the Greeks and hate the Romans, turn our backs on the
Scotch Episcopalians, and do but smile distantly upon our American
cousins. We throw ourselves into the arms of the State, and in that
close embrace forget that the Church was meant to be Catholic; or we
call ourselves _the_ Catholics, and the mere Church of England _our_
Catholic Church; as if, forsooth, by thus confining it all to ourselves,
we did not _ipso facto_ all claim to be considered Catholics at all."

What increases the force of this argument is, that St. Augustine seems,
at least at first sight, virtually to urge it against us in his
controversy with the Donatists, whom he represents as condemned, simply
because separate from the "orbis terrarum," and styles the point in
question "quaestio facillima," and calls on individual Donatists to
decide it by their private judgment.[19]

Now this is an objection which we must honestly say is deeply felt by
many people, and not inconsiderable ones; and the more it is openly
avowed to be a difficulty the better; for then there is the chance of
its being acknowledged, and in the course of time obviated, as far as
may be, by those who have the power. Flagrant evils cure themselves by
being flagrant; and we are sanguine that the time is come when so great
an evil as this is, cannot stand its ground against the good feeling and
common-sense of religious persons. It is the very strength of Romanism
against us; and, unless the proper persons take it into their very
serious consideration, they may look for certain to unde