God created man in his own image and likeness, and supplied from the instant of his creation all the means required for man to become one with himself. This was the end for which God called man into existence. This commerce and union between God and man, with the means needed to elevate man to this intercourse and to perpetuate and perfect these relations in an organic form, constitutes the church of God. The great and unspeakable love of God for man led God, in the fulness of time, to become man, in order to make the elevation of man to union with himself easier and more perfect. To this end the God-Man, while upon earth, declared to his apostle Peter: “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” This places beyond all doubt or dispute the fact that Christ built a church, and therefore its institution was divine. Moreover, it is clear by these words, not that his church should be free from the attacks of every species of error and wickedness which lead to hell—they rather imply the contrary—but that these attacks should never prevail against her, corrupt, overcome, or destroy her. He added: “Lo! I am with you always, even to the consummation of the world!” This promise connects Christ’s presence with his church inseparably and perpetually. Hence once the church, always the church. The whole world may go to wreck and ruin sooner than Christ will desert his church. “Heaven and earth shall pass, but my words shall not pass.” Let, then, attacks come from any quarter, let revolutions shake the foundations of the world and conspirators overthrow human society, let anarchy reign and her foes fancy her destruction—the Catholic Church will stand with perfect faith upon this divine _Magna Charta_ of her Founder as upon an adamantine rock. Before Christ’s ascension he appointed the rulers in his church; he gave “some apostles, and some prophets, and other some evangelists, and other some pastors and doctors, for the perfecting of the saints, for the ministry, for the edifying the body of Christ.” He commanded them to tarry in Jerusalem until they should receive the Holy Ghost. When the days of Pentecost were accomplished, the Holy Ghost descended upon them visibly, “and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.” That was the moment when the divine institution of the church was completed, and then began her divine action upon men and society that never was to cease while the world lasts. The past dispensations of God were all fulfilled in Christ, and his church, which was to embrace all mankind in her fold and guide humanity to its divine destination, was divinely established.