ek to escape
into a happier state by suicide.

6.

And in such a state of things, certain though it be that St. Austin
invites individual Donatists to the Church, on the simple ground that
the larger body must be the true one, he is not, he cannot be, a guide
of _our_ conduct here. The Fathers are our teachers, but not our
confessors or casuists; they are the prophets of great truths, not the
spiritual directors of individuals. How can they possibly be such,
considering the subject-matter of conduct? Who shall say that a point
of practice which is right in one man, is right even in his next-door
neighbor? Do not the Fathers differ with each other in matters of
teaching and action, yet what fair persons ever imputed inconsistency to
them in consequence? St. Augustine bids us stay in persecution, yet St.
Dionysius takes to flight; St. Cyprian at one time flees, at another
time stays. One bishop adorns churches with paintings, another tears
down a pictured veil; one demolishes the heathen temples, another
consecrates them to the true God. St. Augustine at one time speaks
against the use of force in proselytizing, at another time he speaks for
it. The Church at one time comes into General Council at the summons of
the Emperor; at another time she takes the initiative. St. Cyprian
re-baptizes heretics; St. Stephen accepts their baptism. The early ages
administer, the later deny, the Holy Eucharist to children.[22] Who
shall say that in such practical matters, and especially in points of
casuistry, points of the when, and the where, and the by whom, and the
how, words written in the fourth century are to be the rule of the
nineteenth?

We have not St. Austin to consult; we cannot go to him with his works in
our hand, and ask him whether they are to be taken to the letter under
our altered circumstances. We cannot explain to him that, as far as the
appearance of things goes, there are, besides our own, at least two
Churches, one Greek, the other Roman; and that they are both marked by a
certain peculiarity which does not appear in his own times, or in his
own writings, and which much resembles what Scripture condemns as
idolatry. Nor can we remind him, that the Donatists had a note of
disqualification upon them, which of itself would be sufficient to
negative their claims to Catholicity, in that they refused the name of
Catholic to the rest of Christendom; and, moreover, in their bitter
hatred and fanatical cruelty towar