France, toward the close of the eighteenth century, and made it the chief aim of his life to carry into effect his well-known saying : Ecrasez l'infame, " extirpate the infamous thing!" Thus did he designate the holy Church of God. And surprising, indeed, it is to see what efforts this man made, and how persistently he endeavored by speech, writings, and actions, to give effect to his favorite saying, to extirpate this holy Church, to uproot it from the face of the earth.
But what did he gain by his proceedings? The outbreak of the most horrible, the most sanguinary revolution the world has ever seen, the slaughter of hundreds and thousands, the dissolution of all order and propriety, — but never the destruction of Holy Church.
And Voltaire does not stand alone in this respect; in all ages there have been enemies of the Church and of God, who, with similar fury and persistence, and with the like weapons, persecuted the Church of God, but never, never could they succeed in uprooting it. And why not? Because the Church is the work of God, because Christ founded it, because Christ reigns in the Church and through the Church.
2. Christ reigns; for (a) He founded a living, infallible authority (Church) commissioning and empowering her to propagate His religion pure and undefiled throughout the whole world; and (b) the Roman Catholic Church now represents this living authority in a legitimate manner
3. Christ founded a living, infallible authority. At the very outset He gathered together twelve disciples, designated apostles. To them He said, shortly before His death: "As the Father hath sent Me, I also send you." Thus we see that Christ entrusted to the apostles His own
