ture's laws. In like manner,
when Christ first planted His Church He nourished its infancy by
miraculous agency; but when it grew to be a tree of fair proportions He
left it to be governed by the general laws of His Providence.

From what I have said you can easily infer that the arguments in favor of
Peter's Primacy have equal weight in demonstrating the supremacy of the
Popes.

As the present question, however, is a subject of vast importance, I shall
endeavor to show, from incontestable historical evidence, that the Popes
have always, from the days of the Apostles, continued to exercise supreme
jurisdiction not only in the Western Church till the Reformation, but also
throughout the Eastern Church till the great schism of the ninth century.

First--Take the question of _appeals_. An appeal is never made from a
superior to an inferior court, nor even from one court to another of
co-ordinate jurisdiction. We do not appeal from Washington to Richmond,
but from Richmond to Washington. Now, if we find the See of Rome from the
foundation of Christianity entertaining and deciding cases of appeal from
the Oriental churches; if we find that her decision was final and
irrevocable, we must conclude that the supremacy of Rome over all the
churches is an undeniable fact.

Let me give you a few illustrations:

To begin with Pope St. Clement, who was the third successor of St. Peter,
and who is laudably mentioned by St. Paul in one of his Epistles. Some
dissension and scandal having occurred in the church of Corinth, the
matter is brought to the notice of Pope Clement. He at once exercises his
supreme authority by writing letters of remonstrance and admonition to the
Corinthians. And so great was the reverence entertained for these Epistles
by the faithful of Corinth that, for a century later, it was customary to
have them publicly read in their churches. Why did the Corinthians appeal
to Rome, far away in the West, and not to Ephesus, so near home in the
East, where the Apostle St. John still lived? Evidently because the
jurisdiction of Ephesus was local, while that of Rome was universal.

About the year 190 the question regarding the proper day for celebrating
Easter was agitated in the East, and referred to Pope St. Victor I. The
Eastern Church generally celebrated Easter on the day on which the Jews
kept the Passover, while in the West it was observed then, as it is now,
on the first Sunday after the full moon of the verna