Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

XÎVAUTII01t\s PREFACE.

service of eternal truth: such is not modern toleration. That creed of indifference which became, more than a century ago, the basis of the new theology, loses its hold upon the esteem of Christians in the proportion that it robs faith of its power: true toleration — toleration confined within the limits of piety — is not the normal state of the soul, it is the remedy which a charitable religion and a wise policy oppose to diseases of the mind.

What is meant by that lately invented appellation, Neo-catholicism ? Catholicism cannot become new without ceasing to exist. New converts, tired of being pushed about by every wind of doctrine, and seeking in the sanctuary a shelter from the torment of the ideas of the age, may be called Neo-catholics, but Nco-catholicism cannot be spoken of except through a misconception of the essence of religion, for the word implies contradiction.

Nothing is less ambiguous than our faith ; it is no system of philosophy, of which each one may take or reject what he pleases : an individual is altogether a Catholic or he is no Catholic at all; there can be no almost, nor yet any new mnaner in Catholicism, Neo-catholicism is a disguised sect which must soon abjure error to return into the bosom of the church, under penalty of being otherwise condemned by a church justly impressed with the necessity of preserving the purity of faith, much more than with the ambition of increasing the number of her doubtful and equivocal children. When the world shall adopt Christianity with sincerity, it will take it as it is. The essential point is that the sacred trust remain ¡mre from alloy.

Nevertheless the Catholic church may reform it-