ce of the Church towards error, the natural position of
One who is the custodian of truth, her only reasonable attitude, makes
her forbid her children to read, or listen to, heretical controversy,
or to endeavor to discover religious truth by examining both sides of
the question. This places the Catholic in a position whereby he must
stand aloof from all manner of doctrinal teaching other than that
delivered by his Church through her accredited ministers. And whatever
outsiders may think of the correctness of his belief and religious
principles, they cannot have two opinions as to the logic and
consistency of this stand he takes. They may hurl at him all the choice
epithets they choose for being a slave to superstition and erroneous
creeds; but they must give him credit for being consistent in his
belief; and consistency in religious matters is too rare a commodity
these days to be made light of.

The reason of this stand of his is that, for him, there can be no two
sides to a question which for him is settled; for him, there is no
seeking after the truth: he possesses it in its fulness, as far as God
and religion are concerned. His Church gives him all there is to be
had; all else is counterfeit. And if he believes, as he should and does
believe, that revealed truth comes, and can come, only by way of
external authority, and not by way of private judgment and
investigation, he must refuse to be liberal in the sense of reading all
sorts of Protestant controversial literature and listening to all kinds
of heretical sermons. If he does not this, he is false to his principles;
he contradicts himself by accepting and not accepting an infallible
Church; he knocks his religious props from under himself and stands--
nowhere. The attitude of the Catholic, therefore, is logical and
necessary. Holding to Catholic principles how can he do otherwise? How
can he consistently seek after truth when he is convinced that he holds
it? Who else can teach him religious truth when he believes that an
infallible Church gives him God's word and interprets it in the true
and only sense?

A Protestant may not assume this attitude or impose it upon those under
his charge. If he does so, he is out of harmony with his principles and
denies the basic rule of his belief. A Protestant believes in no
infallible authority; he is an authority unto himself, which authority
he does not claim to be infallible, if he is sober and sane. He is
after truth;