The Church may be conceived of as a living organism, for ever and on all sides putting forth feelers and tentacles, that seize, try, and seem to dally with all kinds of nutriment.  A part of this she at length takes into herself.  A large part she at length puts down again.  Much that is thus rejected she seems for a long time on the point of choosing.  But however slow may be the final decision in coming, however reluctant or hesitating it may seem to be, when it is once made, it is claimed for it that it is infallible.  And this claim is one, as we shall see when we understand its nature, that no study of ecclesiastical history, no study of comparative mythology can invalidate now, or even promise to invalidate.  There is nothing rash in saying this.  The Church knows the difficulties that her past records present to us, especially that of the divine character of the Bible.  But she knows too that this divinity is at present protected by its vagueness; nor is she likely to expose it more openly to its enemies, till some sure plan of defence has been devised for it.  Rigid as were the opinions entertained as to Biblical inspiration, throughout the greater part of the Church’s history, the Church has never formally assumed them as articles of faith.  Had she done so, she might indeed have been convicted of error, for many of these opinions can be shown to be at variance with fact.  But though she lived and breathed for so many centuries amongst them, though for ages none of her members perhaps ever doubted their truth, she has not laid them on succeeding ages:  she has left them opinions still.  A Catholic might well adduce this as an instance, not indeed of her supernatural selection, but of its counterpart, her supernatural rejection.

And now, to turn from the past to the future, her possible future conduct in this matter will give us a very vivid illustration of her whole past procedure.  It may be that before the Church defines inspiration exactly (if she ever does so), she will wait till lay criticism has done all it can do.  She may then consider what views of the Bible are historically tenable, and what not; and may faithfully shape her teaching by the learning of this world, though it may have been gathered together for the express purpose of overthrowing her.  Atheistic scholars may be quoted in her councils; and supercilious and sceptical philologists, could they live another hundred years, might perhaps recognise their discoveries, even their words and phrases, embodied in an ecclesiastical definition.  To the outer world such a definition would seem to be a mere natural production.  But in the eyes of a Catholic it would be as truly supernatural, as truly the work of the Holy Spirit, as if it had come down ready-made out of heaven, with all the accompaniments of a rushing mighty wind, and of visible tongues of flame.  Sanguine critics might expose the inmost history of the council in which the definition was made; they might show the whole conduct of it, from