"My mother does not wish to be aided," continued Campbell.
"Oh, how you talk! What shall I do? What can be done?" cried poor Bateman.
"Done! nothing," said Campbell; "is there no such thing as the desuetude of a law? Does not a law cease to be binding when it is not enforced? I appeal to Mr. Willis."
Willis, thus addressed, answered that he was no moral theologian, but he had attended some schools, and he believed it was the Catholic rule that when a law had been promulgated, and was not observed by the majority, if the legislator knew the state of the case, and yet kept silence, he was considered ipso facto to revoke it.
"What!" said Bateman to Campbell, "do you appeal to the Romish Church?"
"No," answered Campbell; "I appeal to the whole Catholic Church, of which the Church of Rome happens in this particular case to be the exponent. It is plain common sense, that, if a law is not enforced, at length it ceases to be binding. Else it would be quite a tyranny; we should not know where we were. The Church of Rome does but give expression to this common-sense view."
"Well, then," said Bateman, "I will appeal to the Church of Rome too. Rome is part of the Catholic Church as well as we: since, then, the Romish Church has ever kept up fastings the ordinance is not abolished; the 'greater part' of the Catholic Church has always observed it."
"But it has not," said Campbell; "it now dispenses with fasts, as you have heard."
Willis interposed to ask a question. "Do you mean then," he said to Bateman, "that the Church of England and the Church of Rome make one Church?"
"Most certainly," answered Bateman.