Men, therefore, will begin to compare their dreams together, and try to draw out of them the common element, so that the dream may come slowly to be the same for all; that, if it grows, it may grow by some recognizable laws; that it may, in other words, lose its character of a dream, and assume that of a reality.

We suppose, therefore, that our natural theists form themselves into a kind of parliament, in which they may compare, adjust, and give shape to the ideas that were before so wavering, and which shall contain some machinery for formulating such agreements as may be come to.

The common religious sense of the world is thus organized, and its conclusions registered.

We have no longer the wavering _dreams_ of men; we have instead of them the constant _vision_ of man.
Now in such a universal parliament we see what the Church of Rome essentially is, viewed from her natural side.

She is ideally, if not actually, the parliament of the believing world.