Calm when fiercest storms prevail.
See the Ship of Peter sail;
Still unharmed from age to age
Though wild winds and storms may rage.
Fashioned by a hand all-wise,
Hell's worst onslaught she defies.
X. A Rock in Mid-Ocean
I. HOW small and insignificant was the Church in its origin! Twelve poor fishermen and a handful of disciples, how should they convert the world? But protected and strengthened by their divine Master, the Christian community continually increased, in spite of the bloody persecutions, in the course of which the all-powerful rulers of the mighty Roman Empire caused hundreds and thousands of the Church's children to be slain. After the lapse of a few brief centuries the Roman Empire was shattered to pieces, but the Church had conquered the world.
Fresh enemies arose; heresiarchs appeared and strove, to rob the Church of the true faith, or at least to falsify it. They were often most learned and talented men, protected by princes, kings, and emperors. At first they counted a great number of adherents, they endeavored to found churches of their own; but the protection and blessing of the Saviour was not with them but with His own Church; hence their work came to nothing.
Thus has it ever been, down to the present day, and thus will it continue to be until time shall be no more; all who repudiate or attack the faith of. the Church, cast themselves headlong into the raging billows of a stormy ocean,
