Turning to view the present condition of Protestantism, we are struck by the contrast. The very word “Protestant” is without meaning when applied to two-thirds of the non-Catholics of Germany, England, and the United States. Their mental state is one of disbelief in, or indifference to, all forms of positive religion; and if occasionally they are roused to some feeling against the church, it is through an association of ideas, traditional with them, which places her in antagonism with their political theories and national prejudices. Among earnest and reflecting Protestants who are united with one or other of the sects, there are two opposite currents of religious thought of a strongly-marked and well-defined character. Those who are borne on the one are being carried farther and farther away from the historic teachings of Christ, and are busied in trying to dress out in Biblical phraseology some of the various cosmic or pantheistic philosophies of the day. They very generally assume that religion has nothing to do with theology, nor, consequently, with doctrines and dogmas. As its home is the heart, its realm is the world of sentiment; and so it matters not what we believe, provided only we feel good. Opposed to this current, which is bearing with it all the distinctive landmarks of the Christian religion, is another which is carrying men back to the church. In fact, all great minds among Protestants who have been strongly impressed by the objective character of Christian truth have been drawn towards the Catholic Church. Who can have failed to perceive, for instance—to mention only the three greatest who have occupied themselves with religious questions—how Leibnitz, Bacon, and Bishop Butler, in their intellectual apprehension of the Christian system, were, in spite of themselves, attracted to the church? Or who that is acquainted with the English Catholic literature of our own day is ignorant of the divine illumination which many of the most intellectual and reverent natures from the sects of Protestantism have found in the teachings of the one Catholic Church? In this way, by a process of supernatural or natural selection, the fragments of Protestantism are being assimilated to the church or are disappearing in the sea of unbelief in which even now they are seen only as barren islands in the wild waste of waters. These considerations must be borne in mind by whoever would take a comprehensive view of the question which we propose now to discuss. In the first place, by reflecting upon them we shall find no difficulty in accounting for the marked difference in tone and character between Catholic and Protestant controversy, by which no attentive observer can have failed to be struck. Taking for granted the existence of God and the divinity of Christ, as admitted by the earlier Protestant sects, the logical position of the church is unassailable, which, as we have already stated, is generally conceded by impartial non-Christian thinkers.