In the very existence of the church through so many changes in the world around her, the rise and fall of states and empires, assailed as she has been on every hand, and by all sorts of enemies, is a standing miracle, and a sufficient proof of her divinity. She was assailed by the Jews, who crucified her Lord and stirred up, wherever they went, the hostility of the people against his holy apostles and missionaries; she was assailed by the relentless persecution of the Roman Empire, the strongest organization the world has ever seen, and the greatest political power of which history gives any hint--an empire which wielded the whole power of organized paganism; she was driven to the catacombs, and obliged to offer up the holy sacrifice under the earth, for there was no place for her altars on its surface. Yet she survived the empire; emerged from the catacombs and planted the cross on the Capitol of the pagan world. She had then to encounter a hardly less formidable enemy in the Arian heresy, sustained by the civil power; then came her struggle with the barbarian invaders and conquerors from the fifth to the tenth century--the revolt of the East, or the Greek schism; the great schism of the West; the Northern revolt, or the so-called Reformation of the sixteenth century; and the hostility since of the greatest and most powerful states of the modern world; yet she stands erect where she did nearly twenty centuries ago, maintaining herself against all opposition; against the power, wealth, learning, and refinement of this world; against Jew, pagan, barbarian, heretic, and schismatic, and preserving her identity and her faith unchanged through all the vicissitudes of the world in the midst of which she is placed. She never could have done it if she had been sustained only by human virtue, human wisdom, and human sagacity; she could not have survived unchanged if she had not been under the divine protection, and upheld by the arm of Almighty God. The fact that she has lived on and preserved her identity, especially if we add to the opposition from without the scandals that have occurred within, is conclusive proof that under her human form she lives a divine and supernatural life; therefore that she is the church of God, and is what she affirms herself to be.