ear.

The sects themselves have a half unavowed conviction that they cannot
subsist forever as sects, if unsupported by the civil authority. They
are free, but do not feel safe in the United States. They know the
real church is catholic, and that they themselves are none of them
catholic. The most daring among them even pretends to be no more than
a "branch" of the catholic church. They know that only the catholic
church can withstand the pressure of events and survive the shocks of
time, and hence everywhere their movements to get rid of their
sectarianism and to gain a catholic character. They hold conventions
of delegates from the whole sectarian world, form "unions,"
"alliances," and "associations;" but, unhappily for their success, the
catholic church does not originate in convention, but is founded by the
Word made flesh, and sustained by the indwelling Holy Ghost. The most
they can do, even with the best dispositions in the world, is to create
a confederation, and confederated sects are something very different
from a church inherently one and catholic. It is no more the catholic
church than the late Southern Confederacy was the American state. The
sectarian combinations may do some harm, may injure many souls, and
retard, for a time, the progress of civilization; but in a state
organized in accordance with catholic principles, and left to
themselves, they are powerless against the national destiny, and must
soon wither and die as branches severed from the vine.

Such being the case, no sensible Catholic can imagine that the church
needs any physical force against the sects, except to repel actual
violence, and protect her in that freedom of speech and possession
which is the right of all before the state. What are called religious
establishments are needed only where either the state is barbarous or
the religion is sectarian. Where the state, in its intrinsic
constitution, is in accordance with catholic principles, as in the
United States, the church has all she needs or can receive. The state
can add nothing more to her power or her security in her moral and
spiritual warfare with sectarianism, and any attempt to give her more
would only weaken her as against the sects, place her in a false light,
partially justify their hostility to her, render effective their
declamations against her, mix her up unnecessarily with political
changes, interests, and passions, and distract the attention of her
minis