Page:The way of Martha and the way of Mary (1915).djvu/283

Rh cathedral of the way of Martha and the West balancing the cathedral of the way of Mary and the East.

Roman Catholicism was founded on the rock of apostolic succession. St. Peter's represents the House built upon a rock, the House that shall survive all storms and tempests. Eastern Christianity or Orthodoxy was founded on St. Sophia, the Holy Wisdom; and whereas Catholicism is a House built on the earth, Orthodoxy is a House vouchsafed from heaven, the new Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven. . . as a bride adorned for her husband.

The word is one and the same. But the Roman Catholic is the least free of individuals, religiously. The rock of apostolic succession is the rock of infallibility. And whereas a foundation of wisdom implies freedom of individual thought, a foundation of infallibility implies intellectual and religious servitude. A Roman Catholic who thinks for himself in religious matters has already begun to be a heretic and has a sin to confess to his father confessor.

The service in one of our London churches frequently ends on the antiphone:

I am the Living Bread,

Which came down from heaven.

Whoso eateth Me shall live for ever.