of faith, when I speak of Catholicism, but I
am contemplating Catholicism chiefly as a system of pastoral instruction
and moral duty; and I have to do with its doctrines mainly as they are
subservient to its direction of the conscience and the conduct. I speak of
it, for instance, as teaching the ruined state of man; his utter inability
to gain Heaven by any thing he can do himself; the moral certainty of his
losing his soul if left to himself; the simple absence of all rights and
claims on the part of the creature in the presence of the Creator; the
illimitable claims of the Creator on the service of the creature; the
imperative and obligatory force of the voice of conscience; and the
inconceivable evil of sensuality. I speak of it as teaching, that no one
gains Heaven except by the free grace of God, or without a regeneration of
nature; that no one can please Him without faith; that the heart is the
seat both of sin and of obedience; that charity is the fulfilling of the
Law; and that incorporation into the Catholic Church is the ordinary
instrument of salvation. These are the lessons which distinguish
Catholicism as a popular religion, and these are the subjects to which the
cultivated intellect will practically be turned;--I have to compare and
contrast, not the doctrinal, but the moral and social teaching of
Philosophy on the one hand, and Catholicism on the other.

3.

Now, on opening the subject, we see at once a momentous benefit which the
philosopher is likely to confer on the pastors of the Church. It is
obvious that the first step which they have to effect in the conversion of
man and the renovation of his nature, is his rescue from that fearful
subjection to sense which is his ordinary state. To be able to break
through the meshes of that thraldom, and to disentangle and to disengage
its ten thousand holds upon the heart, is to bring it, I might almost say,
half way to Heaven. Here, even divine grace, to speak of things according
to their appearances, is ordinarily baffled, and retires, without
expedient or resource, before this giant fascination. Religion seems too
high and unearthly to be able to exert a continued influence upon us: its
effort to rouse the soul, and the soul's effort to co-operate, are too
violent to last. It is like holding out the arm at full length, or
supporting some great weight, which we manage to do for a time, but soon
are exhausted and succumb. Nothing can act beyond its own