The Unitarian Association did not go far enough and fast enough to suit the temper of a class of its more radical and ardent members; hence the existence of the separate organization of “The Free-Religious Association.” The movement of the free-religionists may be said to spring from a laudable desire to get rid in the speediest way possible of the spurious Christianity which was imposed upon them by their forefathers as genuine Christianity and pure religion. Suppose they have accomplished this laborious task of purification, what then? Have they found wherewith “to yield the religious sentiment reasonable satisfaction,” which Mr. Tyndall says “is the problem of problems at this hour”? By no means; this discovery is quite another affair. “Hic labor, Hoc opus est.” They have only reached its starting-point. Let them begin their search, and investigate every form or scheme of religion that has existed among men from the beginning of the human race; let them speculate on these to their hearts’ content, and indulge in the fancy that they have a mission to invent or construct a new religion—and what then? Why, they will find, at the end of all their earnest efforts, that there are, and especially for those who have been under the light and quickening influences of Christianity, but two possible movements, one a continuous curve and the other a tangent. One or the other of these lines they will be inevitably forced to take. If they pursue the first and push their premises to their logical consequences, they will, if intelligent and consistent, be led at some point into the circle of the Catholic Church; if they follow the latter, and have the courage of their opinions, they will declare themselves first infidels and then atheists. The fact is becoming daily more and more plain to intelligent and fearlessly honest men that there is no logical standing ground, we do not say between Catholicity and atheism—for atheism has no logical standing position whatever—but that there is no logical standing ground at all outside of Catholicity. For Catholicity professes to be, and has ever maintained that it is, the most perfect manifestation to men of the supreme divine Reason, and to reject the truths which it sets before human reason with the convincing evidence of their divine origin necessarily involves the denial of human reason itself; consequently, human reason inevitably falls, in the end, with the rejection of Catholicity. A man may reject Protestantism and claim human reason; nay, he is bound to repudiate Protestantism, if he holds to human reason, for the doctrine of “total depravity” taught by orthodox Protestant sects undermines altogether the value of human reason.[18] But Catholicity appeals confidently to human reason for its firm support, since its entire structure is based upon the infallibility of human reason in its sphere, and the irrefragable