_Position of the Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches, Respectively, on the Question of Early Christian Apostasy:_ It should be said before making these quotations, however, that Protestant writers are interested in maintaining that the Christian religion was perpetuated, even through the ages of apostasy, and given back to mankind by the agency of the so-called "Reformation" of the' sixteenth century. Hence in their writings, when stating the corruptions of the early Church, they are especially guarded lest too strong a statement would lead to the belief that the Christian religion had been utterly subverted. Indeed, it is well known that Milner wrote his Church History--which should be regarded not so much as the history of the Church as the history of piety--to counteract the influence of Mosheim's "Institutes of Ecclesiastical History," which work Milner considered too frank in its statements of perversions and abuses of religion. The Protestant writers must need set forth the theory that the Christian religion survived all the abuses and corruptions of it through ages of apostasy, else they would have no logical ground for the sixteenth century "Reformation" to stand upon. They seem not oblivious to the fact, though never mentioning it, that if the Christian religion was displaced by a paganized religion--a false religion--as is fully predicted, as we shall see later, in the New Testament prophecies, and of which the works of Protestant writers go far toward proving--then the only possible way in which the true Christian religion and the Church of Christ could be restored would be by a reopening of the heavens and the giving forth of a new dispensation of the Gospel, together with a renewal of divine authority to preach it, and administer its ordinances of salvation. Catholics hold that there has been no great apostasy in the Church. Their theory is that there has been a constant, unbroken perpetuation of the Christian Church from the days of the Messiah and His Apostles until now; and that the Roman Catholic Church is that very Church so perpetuated through the ages. Catholic writers admit that there have been very corrupt periods in the Church, and many wicked prelates, and some vile popes; yet they hold that the Church has persisted, that the Christian religion has been preserved in the earth. _Declension of Excellence in Early Christian Writers:_ With these remarks on the position of the Protestant and Catholic churches respecting their attitude on the subject of the perpetuation of the Christian religion, I proceed with the quotations promised; and, first, a passage from Neander's History of the Christian Religion and Church, on the very great difference between the writings of the Apostles and the writings of the so-called Apostolic Fathers; and the suddenness of that transition, to the disparagement of the productions of the Fathers: