I say _Christian Church_. It is, in effect, the whole Church of Christ, and not such or such a church that is in these days attacked, and vitally attacked. When men deny the Supernatural World, the Inspiration of the Scriptures, and the Divinity of Jesus Christ, they really assail the whole body of Christians--Romanists, Protestants or Greeks: they are virtually destroying the foundations of faith in all the belief of Christians, what ever their particular difference of religious opinion or forms of ecclesiastical government.. {xiv} It is by faith that all Christian Churches live; there is no form of government, monarchical or republican, concentrated or diffused, that suffices to maintain a church; there is no authority so strong, no liberty so broad, as to be able in a religious society to dispense with the necessity of faith. For what is it that unites in a church if it is not faith? Faith is the bond of souls. When then the foundations of their common faith are attacked, the differences existing between Christian Churches upon special questions, or the diversities of their organization or government, become secondary interests; it is from a common peril that they have to defend themselves; or they must reconcile themselves to see dried up the common source from which they all derive sustenance and life. I fear that the sentiment of this common peril is not, in all the Christian Churches, as clear and well defined, as deep and predominant, as their common safety requires. In presence of similar questions everywhere varied, of identical attacks everywhere directed against the vital facts and dogmas of Christianity, I dread Christians of the different communions not concentrating all their forces upon the mighty struggles in which they are, all, to engage. {xv} My dread, however, is unattended by astonishment. Although the danger is the same for all, the traditional opinions and habits, and consequently the actual dispositions, are very different. Many Romanists feel the persuasion that Faith would be saved were they only delivered from liberty of thought. Many Protestants believe that they are but employing their right of free examination, and do not lose their title to be regarded as Christians, when they are in effect abandoning the foundations and withdrawing from the source of Faith. Roman Catholicism has not sufficient reliance on its roots, and respects too much its branches; no tree exists that does not need culture and clearing in accordance with climate and season, if it is to be expected to continue to bear always good fruit; but the roots should be especially defended from every attack. Protestantism is too forgetful that it also has roots from which it cannot be separated without perishing, and that religion is not what an annual is in vegetation: a plant that men cultivate and renew at their pleasure. {xvi} Whilst the Romanists dread freedom of thought too much, the Protestants on their side have too great a fear of authority.