The Witness of the Saints: or The Saints and the Church

Let us consider this excerpt: "Let us consider first the world's teaching and that of the Saints concerning religious truth and error. The subject is important, for false teachers still abound, and the philosophers and the wise of this world lay down for us what they say is our only just mode of action. They say, then, and teach that since we are convinced we have the truth, we should not fear to meet our opponents and discuss our common differences, for that truth must prevail; or that if we both worship the same God, other points are unimportant; or that truth and falsehood in religion are but matters of opinion, that one doctrine is as good as another, that the Creator of the world does not intend that we should gain the truth; that there is no truth; that we are not more acceptable to God by believing this than by believing that; that no one is answerable for his opinions; that they are a matter of necessity or of accident, that it is enough if we sincerely hold what we profess; that religion is after all only a help to morality, and that if in any creed we succeed in leading good honest lives, there is no reason why we should change it. Such is the world's theory, and as such it is everywhere preached, and by most men accepted. The State proclaims it by its theories of government and by its educational laws; men of science by their teaching as to what knowledge is certain and what not, historians by the causes to which they attribute the rise and fall of nations, and by their standard for discerning the worth of great men; poets by the ideals they draw of love, courage, and sacrifice, and the meaning they give to life and death; every popular writer who knows how to express the faith and feelings of the multitude preaches the world's theory of religious truth. "Now in contrast with this consider the actions and teaching of the Saints. We have abundant evidence of their manner of dealing with heretics from the earliest times. For the first three centuries the Church in general conclave never met; such a large and public assemblage was impossible in those ages of persecution. The defence of the faith then was left in great measure to the individual testimony of the Saints. And their action in every age has been uniform, and will be found to be based on these first principles: that there is a truth, that truth is always and everywhere one and the same; that the denial of that truth or the profession of a false religion is of itself a gravely immoral act, one of the worst of sins; that man's first duty is to seek that truth with fear and humility as a child wishing to be taught; that it is not given as a prize to the smartest disputant but as the reward of an earnest desire to be saved at all cost; that to discuss the truth as to whether it be true is an insult to truth itself and to the Lord of truth; that its possession is a most sacred gift which may be forfeited by reading or hearing aught written or said against it; that the Christian therefore, who without a just reason voluntarily associates with heretics or unbelievers, imperils his soul and dishonours his faith."