Untitled - Rore Sanctifica

110 The Difficulties of Re-union.
i\t the first, and under which she lived through
the persecutions of Jewish High Priests and
Roman Emperors ; under which she held the
faith against old philosophies and new heresies;
under which she resisted the blandishments of
prosperity, and remained calm and unshaken
while the fourth great empire of the world was
in all the anarchy of ruin and dissolution:
/
and under which she herself rose, as a still
greater empire, the greatest, the most far
spreading, and the most enduring of all the
powers upon earth.
Such, speaking generally,
are the difficulties
of the Re-union of Christendom. There may be
more ; political difficulties might arise, as well
as religions ; there may be more, there can
O t>
hardly be said to be fewer or less. What
e/
hope then can the most sanguine entertain,
whether they regard the unbending character
of the orthodox Eastern Church, or the Ultramontanism
of modern Rome, or the Protestant
ism of England O f In the East there are signs O
of life, and of a renewed longing o o for a closer
intercourse with the rest of Christendom ; such
as have not existed for generations past. But
what hope can we have of shaking off this dead
weight of a dull,
O
r
inert Protestantism? Y\ e
have this hope, that Protestantism is fast dying
out ; it is struck for death as an active, ener
gizing, spiritual power in the world. It has still