The sects themselves have a half unavowed conviction that they
cannot subsist forever as sects, if unsupported by the civil
authority. They are free, but do not feel safe in the United
States. They know the real church is catholic, and that they
themselves are none of them catholic. The most daring among them
even pretends to be no more than a "branch" of the catholic
church. They know that only the catholic church can withstand
the pressure of events and survive the shocks of time, and hence
everywhere their movements to get rid of their sectarianism and
to gain a catholic character. They hold conventions of delegates
from the whole sectarian world, form "unions," "alliances," and
"associations;" but, unhappily for their success, the catholic
church does not originate in convention, but is founded by the
Word made flesh, and sustained by the indwelling Holy Ghost. The
most they can do, even with the best dispositions in the world,
is to create a confederation, and confederated sects are
something very different from a church inherently one and
catholic. It is no more the catholic church than the late
Southern Confederacy was the American state. The sectarian
combinations may do some harm, may injure many souls, and retard,
for a time, the progress of civilization; but in a state
organized in accordance with catholic principles, and left to
themselves, they are powerless against the national destiny, and
must soon wither and die as branches severed from the vine.
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