CHAPTER IV.

Find a neat Answer to the Manuscript.—The Answer falls to pieces in my own hands. Wish for more M. S. without knowing why.

I confess I was nettled by the cavalier manner in which the unknown writer treated me. But the question was one of reason not of passion. Of reason? Is it so? There is no denying it. Yet let me think (said I, under a glimmering of hope). What does the man say about sailing in search of a compass, without a compass? By the Mass, I have him on the hip; for if I sail without a compass as well as I can, and hit upon a compass-I should be a blockhead if I did not commit myself to its guidance." Overjoyed with this bright thought, I took a whole quire of foolscap, marked a good large margin by a crease, and holding my best steel pen in hand, sat down a good while, considering how I might by means of it, do up my adversary with one

master stab

Reason

Let me try."

"Compass-Infallibility

Sailing. These are the topics.—

AN ANSWER TO THE OBSERVATIONS,

&c. &c.

"The Author of the Observations on the Travels of an Irish Gentleman has been betrayed into a complete surrender of his principles, to those of the Catholic Church. His illustration of sailing in search of a compass, without a compass, casts him down helpless at the feet of the Pope. What he states as a triumphant objection, only recommends the self-evident process which has led all true Christians to the repose afforded by the stability of the Rock on which Christ built his Church. The weak and fallible human intellect commits itself to the tempestuous sea of opinion, whose mountain-high waves and gigantic monsters affright it, while the clouds of doubt gather over it, and envelope it in impenetrable

night. Ready to be swallowed up, and hopeless of reaching a friendly shore, it fixes its eye on an object which strikes it with wonder. It beholds a Church which, for eighteen hundred years, though assailed by every wind of doctrine, has never ceased to point to divine truth. As divine truth is the pole-star which all Christians seek, it is impossible to deny that the Church which thus uninterruptedly has turned towards it, is a supernatural magnet given to men, that under its guidance they may reach the harbour of salvation.”

Well, said I to myself, when I had proceeded so far I am rather pleased with this paragraph. It is well touched up. Can any flaw be found in this answer? If we find a Church always following the truth, should we not put ourselves under its guidance, though we had found that Church either by chance or by good luck? It was good luck that made men acquainted with the polarity of the magnet; but that property once being discovered,

it would be madness to reject the certainty of the magnet, because it was found by uncertain Bravo! bravo! I will turn this into

means.

a well rounded period to continue my answer. But stop. We are sure that all men do or may

know the pole-star ;-but can all men know theological truth in the same manner? We are certain that the magnet points to the north--but all that we are certain of in regard to Rome is that it has always pointed-its own way. The deuce take the objection! It is the necessity of finding Church infallibility, infallibly, that spoils every thing, in this argument. May not the whole of this eternal confusion about the Rule of Faith arise from our seeking a certainty which heaven has not allowed men to possess on any subject whatever?

But I will not disturb my happy trust in the Church of Rome for the present. That Church is a wonderful phenomenon in the Christian world-so ancient, so distinguished above all others, so consistent, so firm against opposi

tion! How did it rise to the eminence it held for so many centuries? Is there not something quite miraculous in this?

My mind found some rest on this view; and, as in its turn, it appeared to me one of the most strong and convincing, I determined to put it down in plain style, and send it to my unknown correspondent. I confess there was a something in the manuscript, and in the manner it came to me, which raised an unaccountable interest in my mind. I wished to know more about it; indeed, I took a pleasure in the hope of being opposed and contradicted again in the same manner, and yet I could not tell why.