"The restoration of the unity of the church" has been the subject of many thoughts, of many words, of earnest and devout prayer, of much and noble effort, and, when understood as referring to the reconciliation of those who have left the Catholic Church, or who are now out of it because their fathers left it, the phrase may pass without objection; but the phrase is greatly objectionable, even to the extent of expressing an untruth, when it is used to convey the idea that the unity of the church has ever been broken. This has not been, and could not be. The church, intended to be one, and to endure until the end of time, could not, in its organic structure, be really broken at any period of its history, without destroying its title as the one church of Christ. Individuals, communities, even nations, as such, have been broken off from it; but the essential church herself has remained one and unbroken through all vicissitudes. The theory that the Church of Rome, the Greek Church, and the Church of England are equal and co-ordinate branches of the one church of Christ has no foundation as an historical fact, and is as destructive of all true ideas of the unity of the church as the wildest vagaries of Protestantism. Is there on earth an institution which schism, heresy, and political ambition have tried to destroy and have tried in vain? There is; it is the Catholic Church. Is there an institution on earth which, leaving out of regard all its claims, has had the quality of historical continuity for eighteen centuries? There is; it is the Catholic Church. The charge, if not of bigotry, yet of most unreasonable arrogance, has been more or less directly made against the Catholic Church, because she has not received overtures of reconciliation from enthusiastic and earnest individuals claiming to represent national churches, as cordially as was expected. But how can she accept, or even consider, any such overtures, proceeding as they do from the assumption of equal position and authority, without disowning herself, without denying even those claims and prerogatives, the existence of which alone makes union with her desirable? If there is no institution on earth which has a valid title to be the continuous church of Christ, all efforts will be vain to supply the gap of centuries by an establishment now. A union of churches will not satisfy the design or promise of our Lord, when he founded the unity of his church. If the Christian church has really been broken into pieces, it will be in vain to gather up the fragments; for, on that supposition, the divine principle has long since departed, and the gates of hell have prevailed. Those men of strong Catholic predilections, who, nevertheless, have clung to the theory that the church of Christ has been really broken, and must be repaired by management, will yet thank God from their inmost souls for the immovable firmness with which that theory has been denied at Rome.