The Christian system, if we may so speak, is not an after-thought in creation, or something superinduced on the Creator's works. It has its ground and reason in the very constitution of things. All the mysteries taught or dogmas enjoined by the church are universal principles; they are truly catholic, the very principles according to which the universe, visible or invisible, is constructed, and not one of them can be denied without denying a first principle of life and of science. Mr. Emerson says, in a passage we have quoted, "All science has one aim, namely, to find a theory of nature," and seems to concede that it has not yet succeeded in finding it. The church goes beyond even the aim of science, and gives, at least professes to give, not a theory of truth, but the truth itself; she is not a method, but that to which the true method leads. She is the body of Him who is "the way, the truth, and the life;" she gives us, not as the philosophers, her views of the truth, but the truth itself, in its reality, its unity, its integrity, its universality, its immutability. At least such is her profession; for the faith she teaches is the substance--hypostasis--of the things to be hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen--_substantia sperandarum, argumentum non apparentium_. Such being her profession, made long before Protestantism was born, and continued to be made since with no stammering tongue or abatement of confidence, the pretence that judgment has gone against her is unfounded. Many have condemned her, as the Jewish Sanhedrim condemned our Lord, and called on the Roman Procurator to execute judgment against him; but she has no more staid condemned than he staid confined in the new tomb hewn from the rock in which his body was laid, and far more are they who admit her professions among the enlightened and civilized than they who deny them. No man has a right to be regarded as a philosopher or sage who has not at least thoroughly examined her titles, and made up his mind with a full knowledge of the cause.