Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 2.djvu/560

560 of each of us, and fidelity, and steady love of Catholic truth may be ascertained. And, in fact, on the bursting forth of each novelty in its turn, then forthwith is discerned the weight of the corn, and the emptiness of the chaff; and so, without much trouble, the threshing-floor is cleared of whatever rubbish was contained in it. Some fly off at the instant; others are driven a certain way, but are afraid of perdition while they are ashamed to recant; and so they continue wounded, half dead, half alive, with just so much of the poison within them as is neither fatal nor yet is thrown off; neither kills nor suffers to live. Ah, miserable state of feverish and agitating anxiety! At one time they are hurried aside as the wind drives them; at another they fall back again like ebbihg waves: now with rash presumption they assent to doctrines which are but doubtful, now again they have a superstitious dread of what is unquestionable; uncertain whither to go, whither to return; what to seek, to avoid, to maintain, to give up. Surely, this trouble of an unsettled heart is a medicine, if they are wise, sent to them by divine mercy. They are tossed, and beaten, and almost overwhelmed by the discordant currents of their own reasonings, while they remain out of the safe haven of the Catholic faith, in order that they may learn to gather in the sails of their pride, which are filled with the evil gales of novelty, and to betake themselves again to the secure station of their serene and loving mother, and to rid themselves of the bitter errors which they have swallowed, and so to drink, in future, the streams of living water. Let them unlearn worthily what they unworthily learned, mastering the Church's doctrine as far as it is level to the reason, submitting where it is above it.

[How accurate a description is the above of many amiable persons of the present day, who, instead of a single and noble maintenance of Catholic truth, try to unite in their creed things incompatible, and are ever spoiling their own excellences by timidity, weakness, or presumption! Nay, how true a description is it of our Church itself, not as it was intended to be, but as it actually has become in these dark and secular days! Do not we hover about our ancient