Where, then, shall we find this essential unity of faith and government? I answer, confidently, nowhere save in the Catholic Church. The number of Catholics in the world is computed at three hundred millions. They have all “one Lord, one faith, one baptism,” one creed. They receive the same sacraments, they worship at the same altar, and pay spiritual allegiance to one common Head. Should a Catholic be so unfortunate as contumaciously to deny a single article of faith, or withdraw from the communion of his legitimate pastors, he ceases to be a member of the Church, and is cut off like a withered branch. The Church had rather sever her right hand than allow any member to corrode her vitals. It was thus she excommunicated Henry VIII. because he persisted in violating the sacred law of marriage, although she foresaw that the lustful monarch would involve a nation in his spiritual ruin. She anathematized, more recently, Dr. Döllinger, though the prestige of his name threatened to engender a schism in Germany. She says to her children: “You may espouse any political party you choose; with this I have no concern.” But as soon as they trench on matters of faith she cries out: “Hitherto thou shalt come, and shalt go no farther; and here thou shalt break thy swelling waves”(27) of discord. The temple of faith is the asylum of peace, concord and unity. How sublime and consoling is the thought that whithersoever a Catholic goes over the broad world, whether he enters his Church in Pekin or in Melbourne, in London, or Dublin, or Paris, or Rome, or New York, or San Francisco, he is sure to hear the self-same doctrine preached, to assist at the same sacrifice, and to partake of the same sacraments. This is not all. Her Creed is now identical with what it was in past ages. The same Gospel of peace that Jesus Christ preached on the Mount; the same doctrine that St. Peter preached at Antioch and Rome; St. Paul at Ephesus; St. John Chrysostom at Constantinople; St. Augustine in Hippo; St. Ambrose in Milan; St. Remigius in France; St. Boniface in Germany; St. Athanasius in Alexandria; the same doctrine that St. Patrick introduced into Ireland; that St. Augustine brought into England, and St. Pelagius into Scotland, and that Columbus brought to this American Continent, and this is the doctrine that is ever preached in the Catholic Church throughout the globe, from January till December—“Jesus Christ yesterday, and today, and the same forever.”(28)