Page:Three introductory lectures on the study of ecclesiastical history.djvu/82

74 in Hildebrand; the austerities of Benedict, the intolerance of Dominic, will find their counterpart at Geneva and in Massachusetts; the missionary zeal of the Arian Ulfilas, of the Jesuit Xavier, and of the Protestant Schwarz will be seen to flow from the same source.—The judgment of history will thus far be able to anticipate the judgment of Heaven, and to supersede with no doubtful hand the superficial concords and the superficial discords which belong to things temporal, by the true separation and the true union which belong to things eternal.

But it is not only as a matter of wisdom and charity, but as a ground of Christian evidence, that a large view of ecclesiastical differences is specially useful. In the diversity of the Church will be found a more powerful argument for the divine origin of Christianity itself, than in the most perfect unity. It is not, humanly speaking, surprising that a religion should sustain itself from age to age in the same race and country. We argue truly that such a restriction was needed as a support, not for the strength, but for the infirmities of Judaism; we argue truly against the universal truth of Mahometanism, that it has never been able permanently to establish itself in any but an Eastern climate. But the distinguishing characteristic of the Christian Church has been, that it has assumed different forms, and yet not perished in the process; that the gulf, however wide, which separates Greek