Untitled - Rore Sanctifica

Defects and their Remedy in Re-union. 155
although her teaching, like our own, will remain
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unchanged.
It would be foolish to speculate on what
might & have been the result had laxity > never
prevailed : but without defending the existence
of heretical teaching,
the Catholic movement
has practically been advantaged by the ante
cedent attachment of such a large proportion of
the educated classes to the Church of England,
even though they accommodated her words to
their own views of truth. Thev learnt real
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truth unconsciously in the Creeds and Catechism,
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and that teaching has proved a ground-work to
which fuller knowledge ~ has been gradually
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added. The people of England can never be
forced into the truth. It must commend itself
to the understandings of the upper classes,
and be taken on trust by the lower from thosi>
whom they respect and love.
There are advantages and disadvantages on
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both sides ; whether an upper crust of belief
keeps in control the seething mashes below, or
whether there should be a slowly consolidating
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formation, compact as far as it goes, but affecting
the surface last. It is better for us at all
events that we should be as we are, than that
there should be a faithful few, and the rest
driven to unbelief, ungodliness, and more
degraded forms of heresy. It rests now with a
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man s conscience alone whether he, professing