The length of lime, and the number of preparatory acts requisite, before the mind of a child is fully capable of eliciting a perfect act of faith, cannot be accurately determined, and may vary indefinitely. It may require years, months, or only a few weeks, days, or hours. Whenever it does elicit this perfect act, the intelligible basis of the creditive act may be expressed by the formula, _Christus creat ecclesiam_, [Footnote 25] In the church, which is the work of Christ and his medium or instrument for manifesting himself, the person and the doctrine of Christ are disclosed. In the first term of the formula, _Christus_, is included another proposition, viz., _Christus est Filius Dei_. [Footnote 26] Finally, in the last term of the second proposition is included a third, _Deus est creator mundi_. [Footnote 27] The whole may be combined into one formula, which is only the first one explicated, _Christus, Filius Dei, qui est creator mundi, creat ecclesiam._[Footnote 28] [Footnote 25: Christ creates the Church.] [Footnote 26: Christ Is the Son of God.] [Footnote 27: God is the creator of the world.] [Footnote 28: Christ, the Son of God, who is the creator of the world, creates the Church.] In this formula we have the synthesis of reason and faith, of philosophy and theology, of nature and grace. It is the formula of the natural and supernatural worlds, or rather of the natural universe, elevated into a supernatural order and directed to a supernatural end. In the order of instruction, _Ecclesia_ comes first, as the medium of teaching correct conceptions concerning God, Christ, and the relations in which they stand toward the human race. These conceptions may be communicated in positive instruction in any order that is convenient. When they are arranged in their proper logical relation, the first in order is _Deus creat mundum_, including all our rational knowledge concerning God. The second is _Christus est Filius Dei_, which discloses God in a relation above our natural cognition, revealing himself in his Son, as the supernatural author and the term of final beatitude. Lastly comes _Christus creat ecclesiam_, in which the church, at first simply a medium for communicating the conceptions of God and Christ, is reflexively considered and explained, embracing all the means and institutions ordained by Christ for the instruction and sanctification of the human race, in order to the attainment of its final end. In the conception of God the Creator, we have the natural or intelligible order and the rational basis of revelation. In the conception of the Son, or Word, we have the super-intelligible order in its connection with the intelligible, in which alone we can apprehend it. God reveals himself and his purposes by his Word, and we believe on the sole ground of his veracity. The remaining conceptions are but the complement of the second.