It is here as everywhere. When Mr. Wells touches on the point of religion, even when he has recorded History to go upon, he at once begins to repeat the popular theories of the anti-Catholic world and to repeat them crudely and in a fashion convincing only to those who had already been told what he tells them. What is more interesting for the Catholic reader in this kind of thing is to remember out of what an atmosphere it arose. Put in a different dress, it is really nothing more than the old cry of “Priestcraft,” which the more provincial sort of anti-Catholicism perpetually repeated though with failing accents during the middle third of the nineteenth century. It is no safeguard against this for Mr. Wells to say—and he says it quite sincerely—that the Priests in some measure, some of them, believed what they taught. That is only part of the urbane tolerance which is used as a sort of oil to smooth the downward passage to destruction of such outworn things as the Faith. When they know our strength we shall have less of such courtesy. Of two things, one: either Priesthood being a normal function of religion, like Veneration, Sacrifice, Sacrament, Shrines, Ritual, and the rest, will be found present in a true religion and is no argument against the truth of that religion; or, there being no true religion, Priesthood began as a man-made cheat, like all the other functions of religion—since (by this theory)—all religion and all its attendant functions are wholly illusion. There cannot be in the nature of things any recorded evidence to decide between the two positions. Faith asserts that one religion is true, is of Divine origin, has authority to affirm the only things really worth man’s knowing. From that position it is rational to expect as a rule in all religions, vague or precise, amiable or detestable, the concomitants of what will also be found in the one true religion. The Catholic is not disturbed, but confirmed by the discovery of parallels to his own practice in contemporary or past Paganism. On the other hand, Un-faith affirms that all these things are shams; that Priesthood, along with the rest, is part of the sham and must be rejected. But there is this great difference between the two positions, and it is one to be particularly noted in the great quarrel of the modern world. The Catholic argues out his position, knows what his own first principles are, distinguishes between Faith and Science, does not pretend to prove that for which proof is not available, does not confound the possible with the probable, or the probable with the ascertained. Above all, he does not confound first principles which are beyond proof with things known by deduction or by observation. There was a time, not so long ago, when general intelligence was on a higher level; it was a time in which our opponents met us as equals.