The church, then, instituted to teach the truth and to secure obedience to the law of God, directed always by her divine ideal, is forced to resist always and everywhere the age, that is, the world, instead of following its spirit, and to labor for its correction, not for its encouragement. Hence always is there more or less opposition between the church and what is called the spirit of the age, and their mutual concordance is never to be looked for so long as the world stands. Hence the church in this world is the church militant, and her normal life one of never-ending struggle with the world--spirit of the age, _der Welt-Geist_--the flesh, and the devil. It is only by this struggle that she makes conquests for heaven, and prevents civil governments from degenerating into intolerable tyrannies, and society from lapsing into pagan darkness and superstition. We have, we think, sufficiently disposed of the Protestant pretension, and if any of our readers think we have not fully done it, we refer them to the work before us. There is no doubt that the boldness, not to say impudence, with which the Protestant pretension is urged, and the support it receives from the rationalistic journalism and literature which form contemporary public opinion in Catholic nations, coupled with the general ignorance of history and the shortness of men's memories, accounts for the chief success of Protestant missions in unmaking Catholics, which, though very limited, is yet much greater than it is pleasant to think. Yet gradually the truth will find its way to the public; even Protestants themselves will by and by tell it, piece by piece, as they are now doing. They have already refuted many of the falsehoods and calumnies they began by inventing and publishing against the church, and in due time they will refute the rest. The abbé shows very clearly that the toleration now accepted and to some extent practised, and the liberty now allowed to the various sects, will most likely have a disastrous effect on the future of Protestantism. It must sooner or later, he thinks, lead to the demolition of the Protestant national establishments. National churches cannot coexist with unlimited freedom of dissent. The English Church must soon follow the fate of the Anglican Church in Ireland. Its disestablishment is only a question of time. So it will be before long in all Protestant nations that have a national church. The doctrine of toleration and freedom for all sects and opinions not only tends to produce indifference to dogmatic theology, but is itself a result of that indifference; and indifference to dogmatic truth is a more formidable enemy to deal with than out-and-out disbelief or positive infidelity. A soul breathing forth threatenings, and filled with rage against Christians, can be converted, and became Paul the apostle and doctor of the Gentiles; but the conversion of a Gallio, who cares for none of these things, is a rare event.