y.

And if the Catholic Church stands thus alone, again we repeat, it is
because no other has received the promise of divine support, or even
cares to recognise that such a promise was ever made. The Catholic
Church has been the only Church not only to exercise, but even to
claim the prerogative of infallibility: but she has claimed this from
the beginning. Every child born into her fold has been taught to
profess and to believe, firstly, that the Catholic Church is the sole
official and God-appointed guardian of the sacred deposit of divine
truth, and, secondly, that she, and no other, enunciates to the entire
world--to all who have ears to hear--the full revelation of
Christ--_His truth_; the whole truth, and nothing but the truth;
fulfilling, to the letter, the command of her Divine Master, "Go into
the whole world, and preach the Gospel to every creature" (Mark xvi.
15).

How has this been possible? Simply and solely because God, Who
promised that "the Spirit of Truth" (_i.e._, the Holy Ghost) "should
abide with her for ever; and should guide her in all truth" (John xiv.
16, xvi. 12), keeps His promise. When our Lord promised to "_be with_"
the teaching Church, in the execution of the divine commission
assigned to it, "_always_" and "_to the end of the world_," that
promise clearly implied, and was a guarantee, first, that the teaching
authority should exist indefectibly to the end of the world; and
secondly, that throughout the whole course of its existence it should
be divinely guarded and assisted in fulfilling the commission given to
it, _viz._, in instructing the nations in "all things whatsoever
Christ has commanded," in other words, that it should be their
infallible Guide and Teacher.

Venerable Bede, speaking of the conversion of our own country by
Augustine and his monks, sent by Pope Gregory the Great, says: "And
whereas he [Pope Gregory] bore the Pontifical power _over all the
world_, and was placed over the Churches already reduced to the faith
of truth, he made our nation, till then given up to idols, the Church
of Christ" (_Hist. Eccl._ lib. ii. c. 1). If we will but listen to the
Pope now, he will make it once again "the Church of Christ," instead
of the Church of the "Reformation," and a true living branch, drawing
its life from the one vine, instead of a detached and fallen branch,
with heresy, like some deadly decay, eating into its very vitals.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 3: No Pope, no matter