And here, I think, is to be found the real answer to a misconception of our principles so common among Protestants. It is very commonly said and believed that the Catholic Church wishes to keep the people in ignorance of the Scriptures. Now, this is not true. The Church does not wish to keep the Scriptures from the people. On the contrary, in all cases in which they are likely to prove beneficial she approves and encourages their use; but she does not regard the reading of the Scriptures as the necessary, or even as the ordinary mode of familiarizing the people with the Word of God. Thousands have gone to heaven who never read one page of the Bible. St. Irenæus instances whole nations who professed and practised Christianity in entire ignorance of the Divine Records. How many people in every generation are unable to read. Now, God has not made a twofold system of salvation; one for the ignorant and one for the educated. {373} No: according to the Catholic idea, for rich and poor, for learned and unlearned alike, there is one way of truth--the living voice of the preacher. This is God's way. This is the Voice of the Holy Ghost. This is the publication of the Word of God. This is the sword of the Spirit. The decree has never been revoked: "_The priest's lips shall keep knowledge; and the people shall seek the law at his mouth; because he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts_." [Footnote 119] [Footnote 119: Mal. ii. 7.] But an objection may be drawn against this high view of the ordinance of preaching, from the infirmities of the preacher himself. It may be said: You tell us that the Holy Ghost speaks by the voice of the preacher, yet the preacher is but a fallible man, ignorant of many things, liable to be deceived himself, not free from passions which may affect his judgment. May he not falsify his message? May He not dishonor it? I do not deny the fact on which this objection is founded. Undoubtedly, the preacher may be unfaithful in the delivery of his message. In the Catholic Church, however, the watchfulness of discipline, and the general acquaintance on the part of the people with the standards of faith and practice, will prevent any very serious error finding its way into the public teaching of the priest. Who supposes, for instance, that any Catholic congregation would tolerate from the pulpit a denial of Transubstantiation, or the true Divinity of our Lord, or the necessity of good works? But within a certain limit, no doubt, there may be much imperfection in the preacher, much that detracts from the purity, the majesty, and the dignity of the Word of God. What then? I affirm, nevertheless, that preaching is the great instrument of the Holy Ghost for the conversion of souls. Strange, that we should start back at every new manifestation of a law that goes all through Christianity, and even through all the arrangements of the natural world. {374} In every department of human life, God makes man His