Untitled - Rore Sanctifica

The Re-union of Christendom.
divine an -institution after all ? He-union
can it be donbted ? it is the bounden duty of
the Church to strive and pray for; not only for
the sake of those who call her Mother, but for
the whole human race for which the Redeemer
shed His Most Precious Blood.
But then steps in that noble element, common
sense. How can any man, asks that estimable
t/
quality, dream that the Church of England
could ever in any corporate or tangible shape
submit to any sort of Pope, be he at Home or at
Constantinople ? Well, it is difficult to imagine
when put in that way, I grant. But look at
the question in another light, and the difficulty
vanishes. I confess I, for one, would rather
have a Pope elected of the Church than a Pope
self- elected, or elected by a noisy few. I would
rather submit to a Patriarch of the West, or
even to such a Patriarch of the British Isles as
existed eiMit or nine hundred years aK), than to
o /
the secretarv of the Protestant Alliance or to those
V
self-constituted popes who rule at Manchester,
at Liverpool, at Birkenhead, and elsewhere.
The right of private judgment is somewhat
loudly claimed by the ordinary British Christian,
and I have no desire to interfere with him : but
I must claim
equally loudly if it must be a
like immunity for myself. Such gentlemen
are very fond of saying that it is the spirit of
it must
Anti-Christ to recognize a Pope ; surely