different elements that will combine to form it. {114} Catholic dogma and discipline, which contains in itself all that is positive in every form of religion, will assimilate whatever is good in all it finds around it, integrating the noble fragments which have been rent from the great edifice of Christianity into a perfect unity with architectonic skill. The collision, intershock, abrasion, and melting together of these various intellectual and spiritual forces will result in the harmonizing of all into a unity in which the opposite tendencies counterbalance each other. Depth and simplicity of interior life with a rich and varied ritualism, moral strictness and self-abnegation with a noble magnificence, taste and sobriety with fervor of devotion, unwavering orthodoxy with a genuine rationalism, stability of forms with a genial variety, hierarchical order with a manly liberty of personal action, form the grand features of the type of Christianity destined to be realized in the future. This is merely _our_ opinion, and we do not expect that it will be generally received by those who will read these words at the present time. We are confident, however, that their truth and force will be recognized hereafter, long after we are numbered with the dead. We have no expectation that the schism among those who profess the Christian name will be healed in a summary manner, or as the simple result of discussion and conference. It must be the work of the Creative Spirit, and cannot be accomplished without an extraordinary communication of grace. It requires time, also, and a gradual process. We have no intention of making an arrogant claim of immediate submission to the authority of the Catholic Church upon those who are not reasonably and calmly convinced of its legitimate foundation. We are simply desirous of making a beginning in the explanation of our own belief, in order to promote a better mutual understanding of the question at issue between us. We ask simply, what we are willing to concede to fair and honorable opponents, a hearing and a candid consideration. The only weight we profess to give to the conversions out of which this discussion has arisen is a moral weight entitling the reasons and causes which have produced them to a serious examination. Dr. Bacon has placed in the opposite scale the notorious fact of the great losses the Catholic Church has sustained by the defection of her own members. We beg leave to suggest, however, that there is no parity between the two facts he endeavors to balance against each other. Those who lapse into infidelity have first extinguished their conscience. They are not seeking to draw near to God and to serve Jesus Christ, but to escape from the dominion of both. Those who have become Protestants have not been instructed and pious Catholics who were seeking for more light and grace, but the offspring of parents through whose negligence or misfortune they