Such I conceive to be a statement of the only view an Anglican can consistently take, unless he plants himself upon the common Protestant ground. According to this, it is ridiculous for him to abstain from going to Catholic services, reading Catholic books, and cultivating the acquaintance of Catholic clergymen and lay-people. The pretence of deposing or degrading clergymen, because they pass to the communion of Rome, is an absurd and impotent attempt at retaliation. What sin can there be in going from St. Paul's Church, where the Mass is in English, celebrated by a priest of the Anglican Rite, under the obedience of the Catholic Bishop Whittingham, to the Cathedral, where the Mass is in Latin, celebrated by a priest of the Latin Rite, under the obedience of the Catholic Archbishop Spalding? How can there be the guilt of apostasy involved in such an act? How can a person "abjure the Catholic Communion" at Rome, by joining that which is confessedly the principal branch of the Catholic Church? {63} A person who believes in this theory of branches may say it is inexpedient and unwise for individuals to leave their particular connection, that it perpetuates the estrangement, and that it is better to wait for the time when the "English Branch" will be reunited bodily to the parent tree. They cannot pretend, however, that this is any thing more than a matter of private opinion. The only legitimate means they have for keeping their adherents from leaving them are argument and persuasion. It avails nothing to say that if free access to Roman Catholic services and books, and, in general, free intercourse with us is permitted, and the charge of schism, violation of baptismal or ordination obligations, &c., is abandoned, we shall gain over a great number of their members. What of that? Those who adopt a theory are bound to adhere to it. If this Anglo-Catholic theory has any thing in it, it ought to be able to sustain the shock of a collision. We have nothing but argument and persuasion on our side. Why should their influence be dreaded? If Catholic principles, sympathies, and practices gravitate toward Rome, let them gravitate; it is a sign that the centre of gravity is there. That the Oxford movement did gravitate toward Rome by its original force is a plain fact, proved by the number, the character, and the acts of those who have become converts to the Catholic Church. Not that their testimony is a direct proof that the Catholic Church is divine and infallible. This rests on extrinsic, objective evidence. But it is a direct proof that the pretence of the Catholicity of the Anglican communion cannot furnish full and complete satisfaction to conscientious minds that have imbibed Catholic principles. It professed to do so; but it has failed. Those who still cling to it cannot deny that the dissemination of their views generally produces in those who embrace them, at some period of their mental history, a deep