PREFATORY LETTER. XI 11 



me Tip." I ivmiiiu iaillil'ul to my Church ; l)iit I uni 

 none the less sensihle of the inteivst which will he taken 

 in other churches in ^vhat I may say or do within tlie 

 pale of Catholicism. And on the other hand, I have 

 never deemed that the Christian communions separated 

 from Rome were disinherited of the Holy Ghost, and 

 "without a part in the immense work of the preparation 

 of the kingdom of God. In my intercourse with some 

 of the most pious and learned of their members, I have 

 experienced, in those depths of the soul wiiere illusion 

 is impossible, the unutterable blessing of the communion 

 of saints. Whatever divides us externally in space and 

 time, A'anishes like a dream before that which unites us 

 within, — the grace of the same God, the blood of the same 

 Christ, the hopes of the same eternity. Whatever our 

 prejudices, our alienations, or our irritations, under the 

 eye of God, who seeth what we cannot see, — under his 

 hand, which leadeth us whither we would not go, — we 

 are all laboring in common for the upbuilding of that 

 Church of the Future which shall be the Church of the 

 Past in its original purity and beauty ; but shall have 

 gathered to itself, besides, the depth of its analyses, the 

 breadth of its syntheses, the experience of its toils, its 

 struggles, and its griefs through all these centuries. 



In the sad days of schism and captivity, the word of 

 the Lord came to the prophet Ezekiel, saying, '•' Thou 

 son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, * For 

 Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions;' 

 then take another stick, and write upon it, ' For Joseph, 



