the Priesthood, and the pure unbloody sacrifice, and the power to bind and to loose, remain undisputed among them: the Eastern mind cannot conceive a Church without them. They have received no reformation from those whose lives were a scandal to all Christian men: they are not mixed up with the Lutheran or Calvinistic heresy: nor has Erastianism eaten out their life. Yet, if we are schismatics, so are they, and on the same ground. Moreover the Roman Church has again and again treated with them as parts of the true Church. It is only in comparatively modern times, that as the hope of re-union became fainter, the line of denying their being members of the One Body has been taken up. I have seen even so late as the time of Clement the Eighth a letter of that Pope to the Czar, in which he treats him as already belonging to the Church. Moreover the Eastern Church has put forth the best and most convincing sign of Catholicity, _life_: to her, _since her separation from Rome_, and to this particular attention must be claimed, is due the most remarkable conversion of a great nation to the Faith which has taken place in the last eight hundred years--Russia with her Bishops, her clergy, her monasteries, her convents, her Christian people, her ancient discipline, her completely organised Church system, her whole country won from Paganism by the preaching of Monks and Missionary Bishops, is a witness to the Greek Church (which who shall gainsay?) that she is a true member of the One Body. The Patriarch of Constantinople exercised that charge which the Council of Chalcedon gave him, and ordained Bishops among the barbarians, and the Spirit of God blessed their labours, and the whole North became his spiritual offspring. Rome cannot show, since she has been divided from the East, a conversion on so large a scale, so complete, so permanent. And on that great mass she has hitherto made no impression. It is a complete refutation of her claim to be _by herself_ Catholic, that there exists out of her communion a Body of Apostolic descent and government, with the same doctrinal system as her own, with the ascetic principle as strongly developed, with the same claim to miracles,--with all, in fact, which characterises a Church; a Body, moreover, so large, that, supposing the non-existence of the Roman Communion, the promises of God in Scripture to His Church might be supposed to be fulfilled in that Body.[169] And this Body, like ourselves, denies that particular Roman claim, for which Rome would have us and them to be schismatic. And it has denied it not merely for three hundred years, but from the time that it has been advanced. Truly all that was deficient on our side seems made up by the Greek Church. And this living and continuous witness of a thousand years is to be added to that most decisive and unambiguous voice of the whole undivided ancient Church.