penal laws so wide and deep in their range, as to render impossible, in this age, the free exercise of the Catholic Religion. Such is the history of the recent legislation in Germany, in Switzerland, in Brazil, in Italy, and in other nations-a legislation based on principles inevitably tending to fling back society, which Christianity had made free, under the pagan bondage of brute force.

Against this revolutionary spirit, whether it speaks from high places by the lips of statesmen, or in the cries of a misguided mob, it is our imperative duty, dearly beloved brethren, to defend, by every lawful means, our rights and liberties as Catholic citizens. But we must frame our defence in accordance with the justice and moderation of the principles of the Holy Catholic Church. He who allows his indignation at the wrong done him to hurry him into unlawful resistance, is false to her teaching equally with him who sacrifices his conscience at the unjust bidding of those in power. The true Catholic is neither a rebel nor a slave: and while he cheerfully yields to authority the obedience which is its due, he refuses, with Christian manliness, to submit to claims, however specious, which invade the rights of God or of man.

Against one of these claims we desire here specially to warn you, dearly beloved brethren, both because it is the envenomed root whence the present persecution has issued, and because it is continually obtruded upon Catholics by the press as an indisputable proof that the motive of the present persecutions is political, and nowise religious. We allude to the claim put forward on behalf of the State to make laws that strike at the Church's very life, on the ground that to the State belongs the control of the whole external order of society. This claim, apparently so modest, expands, if once admitted without limitation, into a system of despotism the most crushing. It is such as

would justify the suppression of the Christian Religion itself; for that religion is not a religion of mere sentiment, but of positive doctrines and precepts, that must absolutely clothe themselves in external acts. It belongs essentially to the practical order; for it is the religion of a Redeemer, who came as a second Adam to undo the work of the first. There remains no portion of human life which He did not raise up, touch, cleanse, and repair by the efficacy of His restoring grace. The heart and the hands of man, his soul's life and his body's energy, his interior and exterior faculties, with their acts, have all their duties set forth in His law. Moreover, the second great Christian commandment absolutely imposes an external action so wide as to embrace all humanity. Is not the whole earth covered with monuments of Catholic charity, the magnificence and multitude of which attest that the Christian religion is impelled, by the very necessity of its nature, to give to its principles the practical expression of external acts? How, then, can it be that the Founder of Christianity has given power to the State to control the entire series of external acts, without which His religion cannot live? And not only to control them, but to determine what act belongs to religion and what to politics? And not only to determine the limits of the religious and the civil order, but to employ as the guiding principle of such determination, not the eternal interests of man, which the modern state affects to overlook, but the material interests of this world, corrupted as they are by the poison of the triple concupiscence that wars against the soul? And, above all, that this secular principle is to be, of preference, applied precisely to those subjects in which the Christian conscience claims the greatest part, such as marriage, which is the foundation of the Christian household; the education of children, which is one of its chief duties; charity towards the poor; and

M

the religious life, as well in its inner part, which are its vows, as in its outward maintenance and action. To admit such a system as this, even in theory, is to concede that the Christian religion, far from being, according to the Divine plan, the true Light of the world, has absolutely no right to exist as a society.

66

And be not deceived by those who say that this is mere exaggeration, and that no one dreams of extending to all the details of the Christian life the right of absolute control over the external order of society claimed for the civil power. We ought never forget the warning of our great countryman, Edmund Burke, that "doctrines, limited “in their present application, and wide in their general "principles, are never meant to be confined to what they at first pretend. A theory concerning govern"ment may become as much a cause of fanaticism "as a dogma in religion." And what but fanaticism of the darkest dye prompts those persistent efforts, made at home as well as abroad, to frame legislation so as to exclude religious influences from every social institution? And is not the fanaticism born of irreligion as aggressive, as narrow, and as cruel as the worst that has ever resulted from distorted religious feeling? Irish Catholics have too often had reason to complain that this fanaticism has interfered with the just settlement of questions in which their dearest interests were concerned; and you are absolutely within your right, dearly beloved, when you resent it, and combat it, whenever and wherever you may meet it, by every lawful means in your power. You have, indeed, no right to expect that the State will teach religion; nay, you should resist its assumption of such an office, should it attempt the task. But you have a right to demand that the State shall not teach irreligion; that it shall not, out of the public treasury, maintain unbelieving professors, whose 1 "Ed. Burke's Works,” vol. iii., page 98, Bohn's Ed.

work it is to sap belief in the great primary truths, without which society must break up and perish miserably. Such truths are the existence of God and of the soul; the moral distinction between right and wrong; the sanctity of marriage; the respect due to religion; the duty of obedience to parental authority. To establish a system of education which may be perverted into an organized attack upon these truths, or upon any of them, is inevitably to prepare the destruction of religion and of social order; and you have a right to demand that your children shall not be exposed to its pernicious influences. These rights, beloved brethren, and others kindred to them, you are bound to maintain. Compromise them you dare not, for they are not altogether yours; they are likewise the rights of immortal souls, and of the Catholic Church. They are interwoven with the gravest responsibilities devolving on you as citizens, as parents, and as Catholics. They form part of the sacred, inviolable domain of conscience, in defence of which the Holy Ghost commands you to strive for justice for your soul, and even unto death fight for justice, and God will overthrow your enemies for you.1

But, beloved brethren, in your struggles to prevent the passing of unjust laws, or to repeal or correct disadvantageous laws under which you smart, you must never throw off that reverence for authority itself which the Christian religion inculcates. God is the author of society; society cannot exist without authority; and the law is the voice of authority: whence the Apostle says: Let every soul be subject to the higher powers for there is no power but from God: and those that are, are ordained of God. Therefore, he that resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist purchase to themselves damnation.2 In whatever form of lawful government this authority resides, no matter

1 Eccl. iv. 33. 2 Rom. xiii. 1, 2,

how unworthy its holder may be, the Catholic Church. traces its origin back to God. There is no power but from God.1 "What say you," asks St. John Chrysostom, " is, then, every prince constituted by God? I do not say so,' he replies, "nor do I speak of any prince in particular, but of the thing in itself, that is, of the power itself: I affirm the existence of rulership to be the work of the Divine wisdom, and to it we owe that all things become not the sport of rash hazard. Hence the Apostle does not say there is no prince but from God: but he speaks of the thing itself: there is no power but from God." This Christian feeling of reverence for the divine element of human authority has well been styled by Tertullian, the Religion of second Majesty, for it is at once a religious obligation of the majesty imparted to human authority by the presence within it of the Divine power, which, through it, directs and governs men.

When the Emperor Valentinus decreed that one of their Basilicas should be taken from the Catholics of Milan and consigned to the Arians, the faithful people, although threatened with severe punishment for their disobedience, refused to execute a decree so entirely opposed to the dictates of their conscience and to the law of God. But, even under the passionate excitement into which the unjust law had plunged them, they listened to the counsels of their Bishop, the great St. Ambrose, who forbade them to defend their undoubted right by violence or bloodshed. "Let us bless God," cried the Saint, "who this day made you strong in faith and in patience. What reply could be more worthy of Christians than that which the Holy Spirit placed on your lips we are here, O Emperor, to pray, not to fight; we petition, but we fear you not! This," adds the Saint, "is the true Christian rule of conduct-first, to do every2 St. John Chrysost. Hom. 23 in Ep. ad. Romanos.

1 Rom. xiii. 1.