Page:Yeast. A Problem - Kingsley (1851).djvu/104

the Piedmontese . . . . . poor, simple, ill-used folk enough, but who certainly cannot be said to have exercised much influence on the destinies of mankind . . . . and all the rest was chaos and the pit. There never had been, never would be, a kingdom of God on earth, but only a few scattered individuals, each selfishly intent on the salvation of his own soul—without organization, without unity, without common purpose, without even a masonic sign whereby to know one another when they chanced to meet . . . . except Shibboleths which the hypocrite could ape, and virtues which the heathen have performed . . . . Would you have had me accept such a 'Philosophy of History?'

And then I went to another school . . . . or rather wandered up and down between those whom I have just described, and those who boast on their side prescriptive right, and apostolic succession . . . . and I found that their ancient charter went back—just three hundred years . . . . and there derived its transmitted virtue, it seemed to me, by something very like obtaining goods on false pretences, from the very church which it now anathematizes. Disheartened, but not hopeless, I asked how it was that the priesthood, whose hands bestowed the grace of ordination, could not withdraw it . . . . whether, at least, the schismatic did not forfeit it by the very act of schism . . . . and instead of any real answer to that fearful spiritual dilemma, they set me down to folios of Nag's head controversies . . . . and myths of