Untitled - Rore Sanctifica

198 Postscript on Catholic Unity.
heard in the world since the last great schism.
It may be that the stern ordeal of persecution
is the only adequate penance to cure our
proud self-seeking and teach us to understand
each other.
A word of
explanation may be fitly added
here. I have all
along assumed that over and
above its direct and immediate results many in
cidental advantages would accrue from the
re-union of Christendom. Not the least of
them, as has been elsewhere shown, would be
the revival of a healthier tone of sentiment
among
ourselves and the moderation of the
extravagance and bitterness of party spirit.
To say this is not to imply, as seems to have
been strangely imagined, that one particular
party, which happens just now to be a great
impediment to re-union, would be cast out of
the Church. GOD forbid ! Those who least
like its principles or its policy would be the last
to entertain so foolish and arbitrary a desire.
They may think it probable that some phases
of opinion exceptionally, not to say tyrannously,
dominant at this moment would under altered
circumstances gradually die out, as many
previous schools of thought equally popular in
their day have culminated, declined and passed
away. But, if death, not suffer
so, they would die a
a forcible extinction.
natural
What
ever is true in them would abide, what is narrow,